Last Sunday I had the pleasure of celebrating with several friends from Common Table as they were baptized. This prayer, from Walter Brueggermann, really struck a chord in my heart:
Yes
Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth
You are the God who is simple, direct, clear with us and for us.
You have committed yourself to us.
You have said yes to us in creation
yes to us in birth,
yes to us in baptism,
yes to us in our awakening this day.
But we are of another kind,
more accustomed to "perhaps, maybe, we'll see,"
left in wonderment and ambiguity.
We live our lives not back to your yes,
but out of our endless "perhaps."
So we pray for your mercy this day that we may live yes back to you,
yes with our time,
yes with our money,
yes with our sexuality,
yes with our strength and with our weakness,
yes to our neighbor,
yes and no longer "perhaps."
In the name of your enfleshed yes to us,
even Jesus who is our yes into your future. Amen.
Walter Brueggemann, from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann
Friday, September 14, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Ghetto Rite Aid
I went to the ghetto Rite Aid drugstore in Arlington this morning. Outside, the building was a bit run down and a few shabbily dressed Hispanic immigrants hung around; inside an imposing figure wearing a badge marked “security” stood in the corner with his arms folded across his chest and a stern face that wouldn’t crack a smile. After returning my item, I left and got into my car to drive away. As I exited the parking lot, I noticed a number of Hispanic men standing around, sitting on crates, waiting for someone to come by and offer them cheap, under the table, day labor. I drove on, feeling uncertain and unable to offer any meaningful help. A few hundred yards away I noticed a church with a huge sign posted in its front yard broadcasting “English Lessons” at a certain time each week. This, I think, is what the gospel is all about. This, I think, is the kind of church activity at which Jesus must smile.
“ The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."
-Jesus, Luke 4:16-22
Perhaps I should go to the ghetto Rite Aid more often.
“ The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."
-Jesus, Luke 4:16-22
Perhaps I should go to the ghetto Rite Aid more often.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
My Latest Adventures
I’m loving this opportunity to live with my friends in N. VA. I feel like it’s preparing me for a smoother transition into life in Tanzania (where I’ll be living in a village and will spend much of my time with children and families).
A few days ago I took the kids to the library. I can understand why Dee likes to keep these trips as short as possible. 8 Library books, 2 videos and multiple reminders to “use our inside voices” later, we piled back into the Doan's classic soccer mom minivan and headed to Starbucks for a “surprise”. I had a blast showing off these adorable kids! The boys enjoyed “blueberry milkshakes” for a few minutes before Keenan loudly announced our departure, yelling “Bye! Bye!” to anyone who cared to listen.
Starbucks treats in hand (I rewarded myself for a successful library trip with a cup of coffee,) we headed to Office Depot to make a few quick purchases. We didn’t make it to the checkout before Ethan started doing his “I have to pee” dance (translation: “I have to pee NOW”). My first response was to silently wonder why he couldn’t have decided he needed to pee a few minutes earlier, when we were at Starbucks and had easy bathroom access. No matter. I dropped my shopping basket and flagged down an attendant to ask where we might be able to take care of this bathroom emergency. Thankfully, relief was to be found at the back of the store. As I guided Ethan along, Keenan seemed to be enjoying life at his own pace – he dawdled along behind us, blueberry milkshake held in both hands, clunking with each step in the yellow rain boots that he insists on wearing all the time. What a scene! We made it to the bathroom in time. Great success. :)
After taking care of our bathroom emergency, we reclaimed our basket of goods and headed to the check out. By this time the blueberry milkshakes were finished and the boys were getting finicky. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait long in line. As we headed out the door, Keenan once again loudly announced our departure, yelling “Bye! Bye!” to anyone who cared to listen.
We headed home. Two minutes after walking in the door, I found myself sub-consciously humming one of the kids’ songs we were listening to in the van as we traveled. I didn’t realize this until Dee remarked, “Catchy, isn’t it?” Yeah....I guess so. Two days later I still find myself humming the tune.
When we returned, I couldn’t help laughing as I recounted details of our afternoon excursion to Sam and Dee. These are my adventures of late. I’m loving it!
A few days ago I took the kids to the library. I can understand why Dee likes to keep these trips as short as possible. 8 Library books, 2 videos and multiple reminders to “use our inside voices” later, we piled back into the Doan's classic soccer mom minivan and headed to Starbucks for a “surprise”. I had a blast showing off these adorable kids! The boys enjoyed “blueberry milkshakes” for a few minutes before Keenan loudly announced our departure, yelling “Bye! Bye!” to anyone who cared to listen.
Starbucks treats in hand (I rewarded myself for a successful library trip with a cup of coffee,) we headed to Office Depot to make a few quick purchases. We didn’t make it to the checkout before Ethan started doing his “I have to pee” dance (translation: “I have to pee NOW”). My first response was to silently wonder why he couldn’t have decided he needed to pee a few minutes earlier, when we were at Starbucks and had easy bathroom access. No matter. I dropped my shopping basket and flagged down an attendant to ask where we might be able to take care of this bathroom emergency. Thankfully, relief was to be found at the back of the store. As I guided Ethan along, Keenan seemed to be enjoying life at his own pace – he dawdled along behind us, blueberry milkshake held in both hands, clunking with each step in the yellow rain boots that he insists on wearing all the time. What a scene! We made it to the bathroom in time. Great success. :)
After taking care of our bathroom emergency, we reclaimed our basket of goods and headed to the check out. By this time the blueberry milkshakes were finished and the boys were getting finicky. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait long in line. As we headed out the door, Keenan once again loudly announced our departure, yelling “Bye! Bye!” to anyone who cared to listen.
We headed home. Two minutes after walking in the door, I found myself sub-consciously humming one of the kids’ songs we were listening to in the van as we traveled. I didn’t realize this until Dee remarked, “Catchy, isn’t it?” Yeah....I guess so. Two days later I still find myself humming the tune.
When we returned, I couldn’t help laughing as I recounted details of our afternoon excursion to Sam and Dee. These are my adventures of late. I’m loving it!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Mr. Iditarod
“So, you’re going to Africa. What are you going to do?”
The question seemed simple enough. “Education - I’m going to teach,” I replied. “What are you going to do?” the older man sitting across the table from me questioned again. “I’m going to teach kids in villages,” I responded, hoping this time my explanation would make sense. No such luck. He threw the question at me once more, this time with greater force. “No, what are you going to do?” By this point I was starting to get a little frustrated, as were some of the other residents sitting around the dinner table at Crossroads House. I had joined my friends from the Intervarsity Graduate Group at UNH to serve a meal at Crossroads, a transitional homeless shelter in Portsmouth, NH. As I sat down and chatted with the residents over dinner, Mr. Iditarod (I call him that b/c he was wearing a teal blue Alaska Iditarod t-shirt and he never offered his name) seemed to enjoy questioning and challenging me.
I responded to his question a third time, offering more details, hoping this seemingly educated man would be satisfied with my response: “Education – I’m going to teach in outskirts villages in Tanzania with an organization called Village Schools International.” One of the residents sitting next to him piped in “She’s going to do general education,” trying to help me out by offering Mr. Iditarod her own explanation of my response.
“No. You’re not going to teach,” he asserted with an air of authority, “You’re going to learn.” This brisk, 65 year old, salt and pepper bearded, dogmatic man continued, “Too many people go over to Africa to teach – thinking they know it all...they don’t know anything. You’re going to learn.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. I expressed some words of agreement that didn’t appease his need to expound. Mr. Iditarod proceeded to tell me – and everyone else at the dinner table who cared to listen – that I was young and naive, and an idealist. And he’s right. He’s right about a lot of things.
If 25 is young, Mr. Iditarod is right.
If being a naive idealist means, as my friend Ken says, “believing/doing the impossible in spite of ourselves,” Mr. Iditarod is right.
If teaching in Africa is more about learning (and I would argue that it is), Mr. Iditarod is right.
The question seemed simple enough. “Education - I’m going to teach,” I replied. “What are you going to do?” the older man sitting across the table from me questioned again. “I’m going to teach kids in villages,” I responded, hoping this time my explanation would make sense. No such luck. He threw the question at me once more, this time with greater force. “No, what are you going to do?” By this point I was starting to get a little frustrated, as were some of the other residents sitting around the dinner table at Crossroads House. I had joined my friends from the Intervarsity Graduate Group at UNH to serve a meal at Crossroads, a transitional homeless shelter in Portsmouth, NH. As I sat down and chatted with the residents over dinner, Mr. Iditarod (I call him that b/c he was wearing a teal blue Alaska Iditarod t-shirt and he never offered his name) seemed to enjoy questioning and challenging me.
I responded to his question a third time, offering more details, hoping this seemingly educated man would be satisfied with my response: “Education – I’m going to teach in outskirts villages in Tanzania with an organization called Village Schools International.” One of the residents sitting next to him piped in “She’s going to do general education,” trying to help me out by offering Mr. Iditarod her own explanation of my response.
“No. You’re not going to teach,” he asserted with an air of authority, “You’re going to learn.” This brisk, 65 year old, salt and pepper bearded, dogmatic man continued, “Too many people go over to Africa to teach – thinking they know it all...they don’t know anything. You’re going to learn.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. I expressed some words of agreement that didn’t appease his need to expound. Mr. Iditarod proceeded to tell me – and everyone else at the dinner table who cared to listen – that I was young and naive, and an idealist. And he’s right. He’s right about a lot of things.
If 25 is young, Mr. Iditarod is right.
If being a naive idealist means, as my friend Ken says, “believing/doing the impossible in spite of ourselves,” Mr. Iditarod is right.
If teaching in Africa is more about learning (and I would argue that it is), Mr. Iditarod is right.
"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time,
but if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine,
then let us work together."
- Lilla Watson, Aboriginal Educator and Activist, Brisbane
- Lilla Watson, Aboriginal Educator and Activist, Brisbane
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Jesus Experiments
I'm really enjoying the opportunity to connect with a small group of friends from Common Table in a gathering we have titled "64". This group, loosely based on the Beatle's song, "When I'm 64", is focused on examining our lives through the lens of these questions: "What will my life look like when I'm 64? What will I be known for? In what (or whom) will I have invested my time and resources?"
We kicked things off last month by reading through a gospel of our choosing as we walked through a cemetary. There's something about noting the brevity of human life while reading the words of Jesus... Then we got together to discuss our first experiment.
Mike wrote an excellent summary of our time together:
We had a nice time cooking together and catching up on life, and talking about our impressions from the graveyard walking and gospel-reading we've been doing. As we did so, a theme seemed to emerge: we've all been struck by just how engaged Jesus was with so many people. Sometimes superficially, and sometimes substantially, but seemingly quite intentionally at every turn. Too, we noted that though he certainly spent most of his time with the powerless and the poor, he also hung with some rich and powerful folks, and we spent some time pondering his enigmatic parable of the Shrewd Manager, and trying to see how we fit into this alternately wealthy and poor culture in Northern Virginia.
As we continued to talk, we noted how we tend to notice roles, rather than people. To not know our neighbors, or our co-workers, or the people with whom we interact and live among every day. We talked about our tendency to objectify the people whose job it is to serve us, and to objectify those who we are tasked to serve. To gloss over people, rather than to really connect with them. So our experiment is this: once a day, to pause to see a person, and then to find a way to show them mercy. We plan to write down at least three of these encounters over the next two weeks, so that we can share them when we get together.
I wasn't as regular with my experiments as I should have been, but I found myself surprised by the way some people responded to my humble attempts at "showing mercy". Here's one thing I'm realizing: most people in service-related fields don't expect you to notice them and they rarely expect empathy and mercy. In our consumer oriented culture, many people seem to expect to be treated as a commodity.
For me, much of this first experiment can be summed up in the African concept of ubuntu (a word that has it's origins in the Bantu languages of Southern Africa.) South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes the concept of Ubuntu in this way:
"Ubuntu is the essence of being human. And in our language a person is ubuntu and unbuntu is a noun to speak about what it means to be human. In essence, it is something that you find especially in the Old Testament... We say a person is a person through other persons. You can't be human in isolation. You are human only in relationships..." (Vanity Fair, 2007)
We kicked things off last month by reading through a gospel of our choosing as we walked through a cemetary. There's something about noting the brevity of human life while reading the words of Jesus... Then we got together to discuss our first experiment.
Mike wrote an excellent summary of our time together:
We had a nice time cooking together and catching up on life, and talking about our impressions from the graveyard walking and gospel-reading we've been doing. As we did so, a theme seemed to emerge: we've all been struck by just how engaged Jesus was with so many people. Sometimes superficially, and sometimes substantially, but seemingly quite intentionally at every turn. Too, we noted that though he certainly spent most of his time with the powerless and the poor, he also hung with some rich and powerful folks, and we spent some time pondering his enigmatic parable of the Shrewd Manager, and trying to see how we fit into this alternately wealthy and poor culture in Northern Virginia.
As we continued to talk, we noted how we tend to notice roles, rather than people. To not know our neighbors, or our co-workers, or the people with whom we interact and live among every day. We talked about our tendency to objectify the people whose job it is to serve us, and to objectify those who we are tasked to serve. To gloss over people, rather than to really connect with them. So our experiment is this: once a day, to pause to see a person, and then to find a way to show them mercy. We plan to write down at least three of these encounters over the next two weeks, so that we can share them when we get together.
I wasn't as regular with my experiments as I should have been, but I found myself surprised by the way some people responded to my humble attempts at "showing mercy". Here's one thing I'm realizing: most people in service-related fields don't expect you to notice them and they rarely expect empathy and mercy. In our consumer oriented culture, many people seem to expect to be treated as a commodity.
For me, much of this first experiment can be summed up in the African concept of ubuntu (a word that has it's origins in the Bantu languages of Southern Africa.) South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes the concept of Ubuntu in this way:
"Ubuntu is the essence of being human. And in our language a person is ubuntu and unbuntu is a noun to speak about what it means to be human. In essence, it is something that you find especially in the Old Testament... We say a person is a person through other persons. You can't be human in isolation. You are human only in relationships..." (Vanity Fair, 2007)
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Security is Mostly a Superstition
My friend, Steph, has this great quote on her facebook site that I've decided I really like:
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. -- Helen Keller
The other night I opened my door, sat in the entry way and watched a magnificent thunder and lightening storm. Thunder and lighting storms evoke a sense of awe in me; they make me feel pretty small, powerless and somewhat insignificant in the grand scheme of things; they shatter my illusions of control. I think I need this every once in a while.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. -- Helen Keller
The other night I opened my door, sat in the entry way and watched a magnificent thunder and lightening storm. Thunder and lighting storms evoke a sense of awe in me; they make me feel pretty small, powerless and somewhat insignificant in the grand scheme of things; they shatter my illusions of control. I think I need this every once in a while.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
I Don't Really Care for this Surrender Thing
I've decided I don't really care for this surrender thing; I much prefer control. Surrender is such a process of letting go again and again. Ugh. I suck at it.
Last Sunday we incorporated a body prayer (compliments of my talented friend, Stacy) into the service at Common Table. Here’s an excerpt of the posture we were directed to assume as we prayed:
Stand up. Strong legs. Your feet grounded by the strength of the earth below. Your back and neck and head stretched toward the heavens. Look at your hands. Hold them up in front of your face—palms up. Open. Open to God and God’s nature. Open to whatever you are to receive. Open to give away that which you shall no longer hold on to.
As I assumed this posture, I was really struck by the seeming dichotomy of my actions – holding my hands open to receive from God, while also being open to give away that which I shouldn’t hold on to. Both elements resonate. I think much of life, or at least much of the Christian life, is lived within this tension.
Last Sunday we incorporated a body prayer (compliments of my talented friend, Stacy) into the service at Common Table. Here’s an excerpt of the posture we were directed to assume as we prayed:
Stand up. Strong legs. Your feet grounded by the strength of the earth below. Your back and neck and head stretched toward the heavens. Look at your hands. Hold them up in front of your face—palms up. Open. Open to God and God’s nature. Open to whatever you are to receive. Open to give away that which you shall no longer hold on to.
As I assumed this posture, I was really struck by the seeming dichotomy of my actions – holding my hands open to receive from God, while also being open to give away that which I shouldn’t hold on to. Both elements resonate. I think much of life, or at least much of the Christian life, is lived within this tension.
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