The never-ending camp

If you have been a faithful blog reader since I began, you know that I always do a rearview post the last day of each month. It is a lame attempt to remember what happened over the course of 30 days.

RIGHT NOW, however, I have no creativity left and cannot think of anything but FRIDAY. Why not? Here are today’s horrorific highlights:

1. Took the kids to the lake. There was an incident involving a child (not one of ours) and soon we had an ambulance and fire truck and state police helicopter on the scene. Yep.

2. I think Noah has a camp girlfriend.

3. Breakfast was a biscuit with sausage gravy and dinner was country fried steak with the same gravy. If you can fry it, we are eating it.

4. After finally convincing the girls they needed to bathe, all the showers stopped while we were attempting to complete the task. Yes, all the toilets are now stopped up too.

5. We decided to switch some beds around so I could be closer to the floor because some of the girls need to go to the bathroom during the night and I was having to climb up and down multiple times. I was glad to be out of the cramped upper bunk, until THE ENTIRE bed frame broke and I was on the bottom. No kidding.

The one thing I am pleased about is that I ran into an old friend here named Melissa. She and I were in each other’s weddings, but miles and families have made it hard to stay close. We have had long talks and remembered funny things and just hung out.

I guess I kind of have a camp girlfriend too.

Camp Day 2

Ok, today was slightly better. The girls are getting into routine and feeling less homesick. The spiders and I have decided to give each other space, so we are cohabiting in peace. We had Salisbury steak for lunch and riblets for dinner (funny, huh?) and there is no shortage of dessert items. Tomorrow we head to Crystal Lake for a water slide and picnic.

I wish I could say the teaching was better, and let me preface my comments by saying that there are wonderful people here who truly love kids and want them to grow and learn.

BUT….

Today I heard that “chapel was the most important part of the day because it’s where we get to spend time with God.” I also heard, “When we sing our songs we are worshipping.” Both comments made me nuts.

I refuse to be party to raising another generation of people who think that the church is a building and that worship is going to that building and singing. It drives me crazy when I drive by churches with signs that say, “Worship service 9:30 am” as if God is hanging around in the empty pews waiting for us to arrive on Sunday.

God was on our walk to the bonfire tonight. God was in the line for the dining hall. God is even in the crappola bathrooms. When Jesus walked on earth, He chose to hang around with some questionable characters, and I suspect that’s where God still is, waiting for us to join in and help Him restore the world. THAT is an act of worship.

In the 1960s, Hans Hoekendijk declared:

“The church cannot be more than a sign. She points away from herself to the Kingdom; she lets herself be used for and through the Kingdom in the oikoumene [the whole inhabited earth]. There is nothing that the church can demand for herself and can possess for herself (not an ecclesiology either). God has placed her in a living relationship to the Kingdom and to the oikoumene. The church exists only in actu, in the execution of the apostolate, i.e., in the proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom to the world.”

Some may find that extreme, but I suspect that the pendulum has swung so far the other way, that a little dose of the extreme might be a good thing.

Of course, we may not have time to think through these things (let alone BE them). We just may be too busy in church.

Ghost stories et al

Yesterday I promised you ghost stories from camp. Well, no campfires yet, but some other things are actually more scary.

First, the bathrooms. I have been to Tibet, where I had nothing but a hole in the ground to go in, and I am actually wondering if that wouldn’t be better than what I am experiencing. My husband as my witness, I am no weenie – I can live in a lot of chaos and discomfort – but these bathrooms are a TRIP. I’d post a picture, but remember the fate of my camera??

Secondly, the cabins. When you lay your head upon your pillow tonight, think of me on the top bunk in an A frame cabin on a mattress meant for an 8 year old. Besides the mold, the spiders have claimed complete ownership and my face is about 2 feet from the wood ceiling and all their webs. I have to shimmy onto my bunk, because there is NO WAY I can sit up. I have eleven first and second grade girls in my charge, all with a variety of temperaments and levels of homesickness.

Lastly, the theology. THEOS = God, LOGOS = words. Words about God or the study of God. My three kids and three of their friends are here with me. Last night, I met with them briefly to straighten out the some of the questionable ideas that they learned in chapel and during the “missionary moment.” Why would we teach children that deciding to be a Christian is primarily about “getting to go to heaven”??? I did not choose to cooperate with God to avoid death, I did it to embrace life, and I believe that my eternal life has already begun. Forget embodying the Gospel, just make sure you stay out of hell!! (ok, it wasn’t that bad, but I imagined it was).

One day down, four to go. I wonder when I will start to ask questions – out loud. Any wagers?

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to camp I go

Quite unexpectedly, I have found myself going to be a counselor at a Children's Camp this week - yes, the whole week, and, yes, my children are campers. Being SUCH a kid person, this ought to be either a blast or the last time they ask me.

I will try to blog daily, but I'm not even sure there is an Internet signal where I am going, so if the blog falls silent until Friday afternoon - no need to call the National Guard.

Oh, but if I can acquire a signal, I'm sure there will be a good ghost story or two to share. I promise.

The church is the new post office

Another shooting at a church. Hmmm…

As of today, the police do not yet have a motive for why a 58 year old man, with a rifle in his hand, would enter a church during a children’s program and kill at least two people and injure several others.

It’s been nuts lately with reports of church shootings. School shootings we can understand, right? At least we understand the concept of bullies and victims and somebody losing it in a school environment – no matter how sad and scathing it is every time it happens – we kind of get it.

But church shootings?

As I have opportunity to talk with people, I learn that there are a lot of people ticked off at the church. They’re not ticked enough to walk in with a gun, but they are ticked enough to never walk in again. The reasons vary, but the results are the same, and the church loses more and more members and credibility.

Why do you think this is?

And the Weekend Word winner is...

Whew! It was exhausting reading all these entries. I sure hope that not so many people participate next week. The winner, despite my questions about Tom Cruise, is:

Anonymous: "He needed no philter to woo me. As someone once said, he had me at hello."

Thanks for playing. Next week I'll use a philter on my readers. One sniff, and you'll be sentence making machines.

Weekend Word 12

I don't know about you, but I've had one heck of a week. Talk about tripping! I have managed to offend people I care about with my blog, rattle off an impulsive email that dinged my credibility, stood on the ledge of self-doubt to the point where I needed to be coaxed off before I took a potentially damaging dive and just felt generally out of control. I am tempted to make the Weekend Word "menstruation" but I suspect we all know what that means already.

So, as I sit on the curb with no pride or shame left - no friends, no hope - (can you tell I spent time in the theatre?) and multiple apologies scheduled for next week, I have picked an easy word, or perhaps one I long for.

Grab your thinking caps, get out the rod and reel, mourn Estelle Getty and click on the word below. After uttering it to your neighbors, use it in a winning sentence and type it in the comments section below.

philter

Come dire che amate?

This crazy book

“Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor being severely tested.”

- Paolo Coelho

SO

SO, it may be time for me to find a rock and crawl underneath it. You know, when in doubt, avoid.

SO, I got a request from my agent yesterday that put me in a tailspin. The gory details would interest you, I’m sure, but suffice it to say that she had to talk me off the ledge. I am crazy about her, and she asked a perfectly legitimate question, but you try making sense of your innermost thoughts and feelings – simply brutal.

SO, while I am battling those inner writing demons that we’ve discussed before, I get an email that is not very nice from someone else. I promptly hit the reply button, without counting to ten, and needless to say I found myself sending TWO emails – the second apologizing for the first.

SO, I decide to take a deep breath and stop being dramatic. I don’t want to be my agent’s project, I want to be her client – and I want to be a low maintenance one – not one that she is speeding to bridges to repeatedly rescue with words of affirmation. I decide to see the issue clearly. Hmmmm. This may take some time.

SO, I admit the impossibility of how things feel versus how they really are and I recognize that my impulsivity is the best/worst thing about me. You know, that aspect of one’s personality that in some situations is stellar, and in others, humiliating? Impulsivity is the thing that compels me to feed strangers and listen to the lonely and show grace to the fallen without hesitation. Impulsivity is also the thing that produces spontaneous tears in public arenas, paralyzing moments of self-doubt and less-than-encouraging email replies.

SO, where’s that rock?

“SO, if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.” Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message).

SO, maybe I should stand on it, not hide underneath.

From the book I'm skimming

"In short, whenever one would expect an exercise of power from a classical hero, Jesus displays the stunning power of powerlessness - of nonviolence, nonresistance, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, generosity. The divinity that shows through Jesus consists not in a demonstration of might but in a complete reversal of our expectations culminating in the most stunning reversal of all. It is the centerpiece of all the madness, the one that makes as little sense as possible from the point of view of worldly common sense, the most divine madness of all: love your enemies. The key to the kingdom is to love those who do not love you, who hate you, and whom you, by worldly standards, should also hate."

from What Would Jesus Deconstruct? by John D. Caputo

Night vision

For many years, I struggled with insomnia – from 1989 to 2004, to be exact. I was not an unhappy insomniac. On the contrary, I had a dark, quiet world that was all my own and I used my time quite productively, rarely feeling tired the day after. I never had difficulty getting up when my children were infants and was often already by their cribs when they started to stir. One day, in March of 2004, I slept through the whole night and have been able to ever since. No big emotional event or resolved inner conflict happened that day that I can recall. I suspect I just finally felt tired.

The night before last, we had thunderstorms here. They were the loud, crashing, right-over-the-house kinds and I found myself awake once again. I listened to my husband breathe for awhile and thought of how much I love him. Noah woke up and we had a brief, but funny, conversation before he drifted back off. I unloaded the dishwasher, wrote a few words, folded some laundry and read parts of a book that I’ve been skimming. It felt like old times.

But yesterday afternoon was an entirely different story. I WAS TIRED! If I hadn't had a house full of kids, I probably could have slept all afternoon. In my groggy state, I smiled to think of how different I am.

It’s funny how people change. Some changes are subtle, others are enormous and obvious. Change is so important, so necessary. I have a friend whose husband, after 20 years of marriage, was upset because she had changed. Well, yeah, of course she had – in twenty years, God teaches you a lot of stuff. Over time, we begin to understand what is important, what we want to cling to and what is superfluous – and we change as a result.

I am trying to provide others with a wide berth for growth. It is tempting to categorize or hold each other to the past, but creating a space for others to change creates a space for me to be different too. A freeing space that, for today, I'd like to curl up and have a nap in.

Diamonds are not a girl's best friend

I am ready for little league to end. The travel teams that our sons’ play for are wrapping up their seasons, and I couldn’t be happier about it. The boys have been playing since March. We are all in need of a little break before the fall season begins.

My urgency to get out is two-fold. It is often hard to be a parent and it is often hard to be a coach. On one team, I’m just a parent. On the other, I am the coach’s wife.

People are fairly crazy when issues of children and competition are combined. I include myself in “people.” But this year has been particularly troubling for me as I have sought to understand my own feelings/responses and the feelings/responses of others.

On one hand, I experience overly competitive urges and worry that my child won’t get the opportunities to be his best. On the other hand, I feel my husband’s stress as he decides who gets to play and at what position and who has to sit and wait. I feel badly for parents whose children consistently sit on the bench, all while I feel like parents should see their children's abilities realistically (knowing I can barely see myself realistically). I can quickly feel defensive when my husband is criticized and equally tense when my sons do not play well. And all this tension is about a baseball game that will never, ever change the world.

I am messed up.

In our small community, there are teams and splinter teams and gossip and hard feelings between. There are grudges and people upset over slander and statistics being tallied about player commitment (these are 10 year olds!) and coaches who take themselves far too seriously. Kids are hearing things at the dinner table that they shouldn’t be and withholding/critical spirits are being nurtured inside their young minds. Everybody keeps forming opinions, and everybody thinks their perspective is the right perspective.

I watched a documentary last week entitled Darfur Now. Click here to learn more. The suffering of these people, the abuse suffered by children, the physical and emotional voids left by violence, was startling to observe. While I took in the alarming stories, my shallowness raged in my gut. I felt like I had eaten spoiled seafood – the feelings of embarrassment and shame churned within me and I quite literally wanted to vomit them up.

Oh, how silly I can be, how self-aggrandizing. Oh, how my tiny little problems are allowed to become huge. Oh, how we forget that we really do need each other, and that we all long for grace.

I would rather be righteous than right but, @#*!, it is hard. Love is patient, it is kind, it keeps no record of wrongs. Being a follower of Jesus means considering others better than myself, even my enemies, but how quickly I focus on my own feelings and perceived needs.

Forgive me, Lord, and remind me of how small I really am. I'm glad that Your mercies are new every morning, because right now I could use a fresh day.

Mercy Me

an image from the video I am working on right now -

more great graphic work by Liam.

God vs. Superman

So, my family has taken to watching a network called G4. Not every show, mind you, just the one from Japan that features people navigating an obstacle course while on pogo sticks or running barefoot across foam columns. The show is called Unbeatable Banzuke. Check your local listings.

Since the whole show is in Japanese, I suspect that we miss some of the subtleties – or perhaps there are no subtleties to miss. I cannot seem to ascertain why these people are doing these things on TV, but why does anybody do what they do, right? Rarely does a competitor beat the foam columns, and most people just look silly while they try to do the impossible.

I can remember a similar reality show a couple of years ago where people (speaking English) pitted themselves against impossible feats of athleticism and daring. They were asking their bodies to do things that, if successful, would cause permanent damage. Although I can’t remember the specifics, I can remember one contestant chanting, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me…” before attempting the impossible.

That oh-so-misunderstood verse is found in the book of Philippians, chapter 4. For some crazy reason, we have pulled it out of context and decided that the Apostle Paul was telling us that everything we attempt would turn out great if God is on our side. Thus we have bizarre movies like Facing the Giants or any other sports movie where they pray in the locker room and then win by divine intervention.

Let’s have a look in context: Paul writes, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.”

Perhaps the translators would have served us all better if they had written, “I can ENDURE all things…” because Paul is clearly talking about how he responds to trouble, not about being empowered to eat cow testicles on Fear Factor.

Yet, when I read it again, I do not feel disappointment at being limited, but I get a real thrill. God chooses to work within the framework of life – and even though I believe miracles are a reality – why would He glorify Himself by performing one that turns me into a superhero?? No, He chooses miraculous activities that bring about healing and restoration when our hearts are broken, when the economy is making us unsure, when someone we love dies, when life is unfair.

I used to wish I could fly. Now, I just do. No matter the weather.

Shameless friend advertising

My friend, John Vano, (yes, the guy I once had a radio show with) did a funny bit called, "You'll be Smitten with Your Slanket" on his blog. Click here to check it out.

He makes me laugh.

July 20, 1996

There are a bijillion things to talk about today (not the least of which is James Dobson’s big announcement – maybe tomorrow?) but yesterday was Noah’s 12th birthday. His baseball team (the one my husband coaches) competed in the Cal Ripken PA State Tournament this weekend, one of 10 teams.

They ended up 2-2, which may not seem like success to you, but to those of us who have been following the 11 year-old Titans, 2-2 is sweet victory.

Every year, on their birthdays, I sit and tell my kids the stories of their births. I teased Noah yesterday that he was not really 12 until 6:36 pm, at which moment he found himself on the pitcher’s mound. I was tempted to ask the plate umpire to call time and sit in the announcer’s booth and tell EVERYONE how it all transpired, but I didn’t want to interrupt Noah’s pitching rhythm (nor publicly admit how much weight I’d gained in that pregnancy). He ended up hitting a homerun the next time he was up, and the whole crowd sang, “Happy Birthday” as he rounded the bases.

It is hard for me to believe how quickly my children are growing. Noah was 12lbs. 4oz. at birth (no, that is not a typo) and as I watched my son play baseball yesterday, I remembered the first time he was placed in my arms. The doctor said, “Kowabunga!” when she saw his size and the staff all made a big deal over him. Yesterday, people (his Mom included) made a big deal about his hit.

On the ride home, I felt checked. On his 12th birthday, I wanted to be sure that Noah knows that he is valuable just because he is. His value has nothing to do with how big and strong he is, how well he plays something or how quick witted he is – even though all of those things are true. He is intrinsically valuable, a child of the God of the Universe, and each breath he takes (and I was there for the first) is proof of the grace God has lavished on him.

It is incredibly difficult not to measure one another based on performance. People cannot really provide love without condition because we are all imperfect. But everyday, because of the way He loves me, God gives me a little taste of how I ought to love others. The more I let His love roll around on my tongue and digest it into my system, the more I discover the joy of loving others just because. Even when they strike out.

And the Weekend Word winner is...

Amusing entries this week that made me smile. One, however, made me giggle out loud. The Weekend Winner is:

militia207: Anything feng-shui puts me in a sang-froid mood.

Are you checking out the pronounciations each week? They are almost as good as the meanings. Thanks for playing. Acceptance speech expected.

Weekend Word 11

ELEVEN weekend words!?!?! Just think how your vocabulary is expanding with each passing moment. No, really, think about it, don't go all hugger-mugger on me.

Grab a lemonade, fall into a hammock, and click on the word below. Fall asleep and dream of a sentence that will make us all feel cool and calm. Write that sentence in the comments section below and go back to sleep until 10 p.m. est, at which time the winner will be announced.

sang-froid

Wordsmiths.....

Home again, home again, lickety split

Mia and I are going back home later today. We’ve only been gone a week, but it’s time.

I was amazed how hungry I was for news from home. Not that I was looking for any grand tales, it was the everyday stuff I wondered about. The boys would call and report baseball scores and Noah even gave me play by play of last week’s games. Steve told me what he was mustering up to feed everybody and how the boys were falling into bed dead tired each night after baseball camp.

While talking to my mother, she double checked our flight number and arrival time several times, eager to pick us up asap. She told me about her garden and some of the shenanigans my father got into this week.

My friend Diana sent me daily emails, updating me on all the Colbert Reports I was missing. She assured me that she laughed for me, so all is not lost.

And I smiled as I read Bob’s emails. Addressed to lots of people, they were reminders of game times and tournament schedules for this weekend and I knew I would be sitting with my buddies on the bleachers soon – laughing and cheering (or groaning) and doing life together.

Last night, as Mia talked on the phone to her brother, JJ, he ended his conversation with her by saying, “I love you, Mia.” After she hung up, she looked at me with an enormous smile and said, “JJ told me he loves me.” I smiled too.

It is wonderful to belong to someone.

No joke

A Christian, a Jew and Barack Obama are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. Barack Obama says, "This joke isn't going to work because there's no Muslim in this boat."

via list of jokes approved by Barack Obama. Click to read the others.

God Cogs - did you hear something?

Confession: this is not the original post that I wrote for today. As a matter of fact, there was another one up for almost 4 ½ hours before I took it down. Perhaps you read it.

There was nothing wrong with the first post, except for the fact that it kept haunting me. There was something I was missing or not communicating correctly and I had this nagging feeling like I had jumped the gun and need to think the issue through some more.

The internal restlessness produced another God Cog. If you’re new to the blog, every once in a while I get inspired to write about God’s ways, how He brings about relationship and transformation in my life.

Have you ever heard someone say, “God told me to…” or “When God spoke to me…” or “I felt prompted to…” or some variation of those phrases? I am often asked how it is I hear God or how does He speak to me, and last night’s twang of conscience reminded me of a few truths.

First of all, I have heard stories of people having WOW moments where lightning struck and a booming voice came out of the sky and gave them a clear message or instruction. I have never had a moment like that, but God has communicated with me, in my spirit, so plainly that it has been just as WOW.

If you want to hear God plainly, one of the best places to start is the Bible. It is the Story of God. We can get into a huge debate about its inerrancy if you want, but I believe it contains everything I need for the working out of my life with God. When I read the words of Jesus, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,” He is telling me about His purposes and what He dreams for me – full life! If you’ve never read the Bible before, open it up to 1 John. John, the disciple that Jesus loved, starts by saying that he wrote all of these words simply because he knew Jesus personally and he wants to tell us what he experienced. It is very cool.

Once I chose to cooperate with God, I began to know Him. I began to see and hear everything differently. It became impossible to walk away from someone in need. I learned to listen beneath what people were saying, past their words right to their fears and hopes and hearts. Many times, throughout my life, God has directly spoken to me. It’s like an undeniable prompting or a thought I would not have had on my own, urging me to attend to something or someone. Often God just tells me how much He loves me (God is crazy about me, by the way) and I sense His pleasure and the deep peace of belonging to Him and having a life full of meaning. But I hear Him, in part, because I’m listening.

One more way that God speaks is through other people. Just this week, a beautiful woman that I met here in AZ, told me that I wasn’t really here to work on a video. Now, of course I am here to work on a video, but I have also talked with countless people about what they are feeling and how they are processing life around them while I’ve worked. When I was told that I was here to do more, I became alert to the possibility that someone may need my help AND that I may be here to be helped as well. God opened my mind through her words.

Communication with God is possible. God knows where you’ve been, accepts who you are, yet still, gently, invites you to grow. Step into grace and listen. I’ll bet He says something. He's crazy about you too.

Telling a story

I am storyboarding a video for the church I am working for this week. The video is about the value of MERCY and it takes a look at everything from hunger to loneliness to immigration.

While I have spent time in and out of the church office, I have been meeting some beautiful people and hearing their stories as well. There’s Chad who watched “Darfur Now” with me and grew up in Oregon. He is sincere and very bright. I love Heidi who, I learned today, is married to a full-blooded Navajo (isn't that cool?). She is capable and creative and has a ready smile. Jan, a woman who has God’s love coming out of her pores, sat and prayed with me as I began to work on the video. Her story of real loss and real life left me weeping. Mike, my much younger partner in crime, is the editor and a photographer extraordinaire. He has a way of seeing story through a lens in an incredible way.

All of these stories mix together to form the story of them – each life a chapter that forms a whole - and now I am a paragraph, too. Our time together has created more story, some of it very funny, some of it rather sad, some of it unsure – all the elements of a good story.

And though I sleep, eat and breathe the video right now, I suspect that what I will take home with me is the bigger story. God has a way of connecting people, of creating ties that bind, of writing people on each other's hearts. In a couple of more days, I will fly home. My plot will change and one character will be missing from their ongoing tale.

Still, they have given me so many new and beautiful words.

Mid-afternoon

Sometimes I do not recognize my age until I try to do something that I used to do and can’t, like stay up all night. The days of procrastinating college term papers are long gone.

Picturing Grace

The day before my father left for Bulgaria, he came over to my house in order to borrow our camera. We have a SONY that takes both video and stills, not too mention how compact and portable it is. It was perfect for his needs.

I am alarmingly like my father, and I had the faintest notion as I kissed him goodbye that I would never see my camera again, but it didn’t really matter as long as I saw him again. I was wrong. About the camera.

Dad had a great time and he worked on a church construction site alongside lovely Bulgarian people. They hung drywall together and taught one another hymns in their respective languages. One afternoon, after recording the construction progress with my camera, Dad put it down on a table and continued working (and singing, I’m sure). He and his new friends worked long hours, and later that day as they began to clean up, Dad noticed that the camera was gone. They all searched, but to no avail. After all the tools and equipment were put away, and Dad was doing a final check, the camera was discovered at the bottom of a bucket - a bucket full of water.

First, he took a hairdryer to it, which he had to borrow, having no actual hair himself. Second, he just “let it dry out” for the remainder of his trip, hoping that over time things would improve. He was still hopeful last week at his house, but I don’t think it will live to take another blog photo.

I am not the least bit aggravated about the camera. In fact, I find the whole thing very amusing. Being the over analytical mess that I am, I began to wonder why I wasn’t even a little bit put out about the whole thing. After all, it was a great camera.

You know what I discovered? Well, two things really. Isn’t it somehow easier to have grace for people who 1) do beautiful and sacrificial things for others and 2) have the same issues you have?

My Dad has given his life to serve other people - including me. As I grew up, he traveled all over the world to build and love. We had teenagers and young adults with drug and family problems live in our home. And he patiently and painstakingly raised two high maintenance girls (sorry, sister) and always had time to listen and counsel.

Of course, lest you think him perfect, he is NEVER on time, he ALWAYS loses anything that is important, he FORGETS appointments and anniversaries and daughters that are stranded at school waiting for a ride home because he is lost in a opera he is listening to on his stereo. You know, the very things I do.

Without doubt, it is far more difficult to extend grace to people we do not understand - who are not like us. I was thinking today about who I have difficulty loving, and not surprisingly, I have the most trouble with church people who refuse to see that the church exists for the world - not for choir parties, potlucks and rummage sales (although, who doesn’t love a good potluck?). They make me rethink my position on gun control.

So, today, I honor all those who have OCD’s (what I call people who value time) and care about wearing clothes that match and actually like Rush Limbaugh.

You must want to shoot me.

What I am feeling right now

The desert in July

I am in perpetually sunny Phoenix. People who enjoy dirty streets, elitist attitudes and the depression of the northeast, should not move here. Neither should anyone who likes colorful autumns, reading books on rainy days and/or buildings full of history.

I will be here all week as I work on a project for Crossroads Church. Great place, great people. They warmly received me in their pulpit yesterday.

My daughter came on this trip with me and I had five whole uninterrupted hours with her on the airplane. Mia is the most giving child you will ever meet – kind, compassionate, helpful, compromising. It may be because she has two older brothers and has had to learn to get along. My daughter also has auditory dyslexia, which means that her right brain hemisphere doesn’t decode sound in the same way yours and mine does. She is crazy creative, though, and most brains don’t work like that either.

On the plane, she shared some of the insecurities she feels at school. Sometimes, when she is watching something with friends, they all know what’s going on right away and she doesn’t. I sat and listened with an exploding feeling in my chest – that feeling of sadness, helplessness and jaw-setting determination to fix something – as I listened to my favorite girl’s struggle.

Almost harder to swallow is the realization that Mia’s battle is part of what makes her wonderful. Nothing comes easy for Mia, so she quickly recognizes and empathizes with the struggles of others. Her imperfections have produced a wide berth for others inside her tiny heart. I think it's called grace.

So, this morning I prayed once again for her to know that God gives her value and that I will be the mother she needs. Then I thanked God for the things inside me that don’t work.

And the Weekend Word winner is...

Well, OVERWHELMING participation this week, but without a doubt, the winner is:

Kristopher Dean: "N'ere has there been such an entertaining and diverting deipnosophist as the ornate Oscar Wilde."

Although I was slightly unsure about the use of "ornate" and the spelling of "N'ere" in this instance, I'll bet he's quite the deipnosophist. Well done! Love my Oscar Wilde.

Feel free to post a teary acceptance speech in the comments section. Or not.

Weekend Word 10

Feelin' hot, hot, hot. It's blazing here in Philly, but I've decided it's not quite hot enough so I am leaving for Phoenix today. July in the desert...could be a song.

So, grab one of those little portable fans - you know, the ones you fill with water that have a little propeller in the front - fill it with fish oil and spray it on your brain. (If you're new to WW click here). Deny aging, and click on the word below. Practice it on strangers in toll booths, then use it in a sentence and post it in the comments section. On Sunday, at 10 p.m. est (if I can get the time change right) I will post a winner.

deipnosophist

If you have guests for dinner this weekend, you can tell them about the Weekend Word over the table.

I'm taking my daughter to Phoenix with me

"Holy Days of Our Lives!"

Today marks 16 whole years that Steve and Wendy Melchior have been married (yes, yes, we got married on 7-11. It's even nuttier that my birthday is "10-4, good buddy"). Even though we had a soap opera wedding, complete with a big headpiece and poofy sleeves, we have managed to have a sitcom life.

I heard someone say once that children are due two things: the assurance that Mom and Dad will always love them and the guarantee that Mom and Dad will always love each other. We are pleased to offer our children both.

These boots were made for talkin'

I'm working on my sermon for this weekend.

On becoming Woody Allen

I am, sort of, in "rewrites." My book is over 80% complete but I have hit a little road block inside my summer vacationing mind (thankfully, I write nonfiction so it does not need to be complete for publishers just yet). SO, instead of doing nothing, I am editing. My agent is a former editor who has a keen eye for critique, which I appreciate. I am fully aware that I am a grammatical nightmare (and was distressed to discover that a regular blog reader is an English teacher!) but that doesn't bother me too much. Grammar can be fixed by someone who does good at it. The rest of the process, however, creates painful and severe self-indulgent neurosis.

My friend, Susan Isaacs, just completed her first book, "Angry Conversations with God" and wrote this post on her blog about her current state of mind. While reading her most depressing thoughts, I found myself envying the writer adrenaline she refers to and wondering, "Where the heck is mine?" Sick.

Then I stumbled upon this quote by British novelist, Zadie Smith:

"When you finish your novel, if money is not a desperate priority, if you do not need to sell it at once or be published that very second -- put it in a drawer. For as long as you can manage. A year of more is ideal -- but even three months will do. Step away from the vehicle. The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer. I can't tell you how many times I've sat backstage with a line of novelists at some festival, all of us with red pens in hand, frantically editing our published novels into fit form so that we might go on stage and read from them. It's an unfortunate thing, but it turns out that the perfect state of mind to edit your novel is two years after it's published, ten minutes before you go on stage at a literary festival. At that moment every redundant phrase, each show-off, pointless metaphor, all of the pieces of dead wood, stupidity, vanity, and tedium are distressingly obvious to you."

I began writing this crazy group of words last October in the midst of a most trying moment. The book didn't start out to revolve around that struggle, and it still doesn't revolve around any one moment, but the journey back to sanity found its way into my work and became a dominant theme. In other words, I did not set out to write the book that I have written, which I suspect may be a good thing because the original idea is still there to be nurtured. Unless this first one kills me.

Inviting God into this fray is proving interesting. Even though the book is essentially about Him, and certainly for Him, I am tempted to believe that I need to cling to all this angst in order to write at all. Does that make sense? So, God and I are currently in "faith/trust/Who defines you?" negotiations.

But today, I will dive right back in and trip over my insecurities and self-doubt - all to look at Chapter One once again.

BOOK trailers?

Did you know there are book trailers - just like movie trailers? YouTube has tons of them. Here's one (I haven't read the book, so I'm not necessarily recommending it) that I saw yesterday. I have a buddy named Dave who is a video genius. Maybe we'll produce one for my book.

Here's my question: What makes you buy or want to buy a book? Cover? Trailer? Genre? Author? Do you still go to bookstores or buy online? All feedback appreciated.

Big Adele

When I was a little girl, I loved to play “house” and “school.” Like most little girls, I had a pretend name that I used for both imaginary worlds. I wanted my playmates to call me ADELE. I’m not really sure where I heard the name, or why I liked it so much, but it was my favorite for a long time.

We lived next door to three boys - Michael, Daniel and Patrick. Daniel was only a year older than me and we were the best of friends. I had a creek next to my house and he had a wooded area at the back of his. These became the worlds where we invented, imagined and even kissed once! We spent hours renovating forts and creating adventures.

My family moved away when I was twelve and I had not been near the neighborhood in well over twenty years, but had the occasion to go near it while visiting a friend recently. So, on the way home, I drove past the house where I lived as a child.

The home was clean and well groomed, and there was macadam on the driveway where only stones used to be, but I was amazed at how small it all seemed. In my mind's eye, it was a vast yard, a sprawling lawn where endless games had been played and countless small animals discovered. My adult eyes saw the fence, calculated the acreage, and decided that the one car garage probably hindered its resale value.

I parked my car and stared.

I’m not sure what I felt much beyond the feeling of being big. Try as I did, I could not seem to see the house the way I used to only the day before. I wanted the childhood picture back in my brain and, for a second, I was sorry I had stopped.

On the drive back home, I wondered what else I insist on seeing as bigger than it really is. And in the next moment, or twenty years, I pondered what I perceive as small and bordered simply because I am all grown up.

Way beyond acrobatic ball girls

What do you think of this article?

God Cogs - proof of alien life

I have two friends who have told me about their experiences growing up in Catholicism. Now, I love to go to mass even though I am not Catholic. The language and ritual fascinate me and I find it to be beautiful and engaging, even though I can never figure out when to sit, stand or kneel.

One thing that my friends have told me is that they never read the Bible growing up. Their homes had the family show Bible on the shelf, but it was not a book that was opened. My family opened our Bibles, but far too often the evangelical church emphasized an adherence to rules, not an embracing of life.

Through the ages, Christians have labored their way through spiritual formation, almost as if becoming like Christ was a mysterious or hard to grasp process - one that was so above our heads that we either abandoned the notion or we made our way through with great difficulty - almost as if life was like constantly solving a puzzle that was too hard for us. Spiritual formation, the process of becoming like Jesus, is not random or magically conferred upon us in the midst of rituals AND it is not an adherence to rules.

So, why does it seem so hard and/or mysterious? Did God make it that way? Do we?

The kingdom life that we talked about in our last God Cog is possible, but when we read the New Testament, the kingdom life that we find there is so unlike our own experience. One of the biggest obstacles is our understanding of how to enter in - we just don‘t get it. In other words, I want to cooperate, but how? There is one particular Bible verse that I repeat inside my mind and heart a lot. It quotes Jesus and says:

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:39

What feels like life, leads to death and what feels like death leads to life. Understanding this to be true, opens up a huge avenue to spiritual formation for us! For instance, when I have been intentionally hurt by someone, my gut reaction is to defend myself or lash out in anger, isn’t it? I want to discredit the person and tell others why his/her behavior is so bad so that I will not be misunderstood. It just feels right. It feels like the way to solve the problem. Jesus is saying to us that what feels right, the things that are our gut reactions, the logical courses of action that we embrace as human beings are distorted because of sin. Spend a day observing your children, your coworkers, your neighbors, your local news and tell me that it’s not true.

The completely non-mysterious, yet radical remedy, is believing that what initially feels like death, leads to real life. When I choose to LOVE the person who has harmed me, when I try to understand the hurt in his/her heart that has resulted in bad behavior, and when I forgive freely and without request - THAT IS SOME CRAZY AGAINST MY NATURE STUFF ("man, this is killing me")- but it leads me to real life and transformation. It leads me to the kingdom - peace, mutual love, joy. It also explains why the Apostle Peter said we were aliens and strangers in the world. To live like this is sort of paranormal.

Seem impossible? Next God Cog we will talk about the often quoted, but so untrue, cliché, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” Absolutely false. Until then, ask God to show you His ways, the kingdom ways, that are contrary to your impulses. Life will be different today - almost like living in a flying saucer.

Because I'm in baseball withdrawal AND I love it when GIRLS do their thing

Soup to nuts

For the past weeks, the kids and I (and a bunch of their friends) have been volunteering once a week at a homeless shelter. Our job is to date and sort the cans and dry goods that arrived since the local post office sponsored a food drive. When we began, the back room was full of boxes and you could hardly walk around, but I'm pleased to report that the kids are making a real dent in the work.

I love how they are discussing the issue of homelessness while we work. They ask great questions about whose "fault" homelessness is. We discuss drug addictions and economics and welfare and social/individual responsibility and mental illness and compassion. And we date cans with magic markers. Lots and lots of cans.

One of the more intriguing things the kids discuss is not the folks that are sitting in the shelter (shabbily dressed, drinking coffee and reading Help Wanted ads) but rather the donations themselves. We are not finished the project yet, but the oldest can we have discovered so far is from 1984.

1984!!!

Someone actually donated a can of soup from 1984. Big Brother was apparently not watching.

The kids are keeping a mental tally of all the cans that were dated before the year they were born (the oldest kid is 14, the youngest is 8). We've seen 1990, 1994, 2001 and a box of opened, but unfinished vitamins from 2002. We, to-date, have filled two large boxes with expired food.

Many of the cans are filthy and rusted. It's pretty obvious that they have been sitting in someone's basement pantry for a long time because Johnny just doesn't like Cream of Mushroom. Hey, I have an idea! Let's get rid of some salmonella ridden stuff and give it to homeless people! We can clean out our cabinets and feel good about ourselves at the same time.

My kids and their friends keep asking me why people would give their junk instead of their best. I just shrug and say, "I don't know." What I'm really thinking is.... no, I can't type what I'm really thinking.

And the Weekend Word winner is...

I hope your holiday was sparkling! This week's Weekend Word winner is:

Steve: "The annual peregrination of Americans from their Barcalounger to the fridge on the Fourth of July is nothing more than the human version of the swallows of San Juan Capistrano in their annual migration home to the cliffs."

LOVE it! Incidentally, this is not MY Steve (my husband). My Steve is still firmly planted in his Barcalounger since he has one more day off. The winning Steve has a blog and so does his wife. Never met them, but really like them already.

THANKS for participating

Weekend Word 9

It's harder than you think to pick a Weekend Word for a holiday weekend. Since I've done the patriotic thing to death, how about something a little more relaxed??

Put on your swimsuit and click on the word below to discover its meaning. Amaze all your picnic friends by using it in casual conversation, then put it in a sentence that will create fireworks in my mind. Put your sentence in the comments section below, then eat more watermelon until Sunday at 10 p.m. est - at which time I will put down my own hotdog (I take mustard and relish) to declare a winner.

Unless, of course, you all have traveled out of town and are not near a computer. Then I will win with an entry at 9:59 pm.

peregrination

Enjoy your lemonade.

In case you need picnic conversation starters...

"Alexander, Charlemagne and myself all tried to found an empire on force and we failed. Jesus Christ is building an empire on love, and today there are millions of people who would gladly die for His sake."

Napoleon

God Bless America

The words of Jesus, found in Matthew 5:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.


Know what you sing about today.

Things Philadelphians say

"Do you feel free?"

Phoebe Gloeckner
cartoonist, writer

Suck it up

So, I received a pointed email yesterday that said I was being irresponsible on my blog - "not enough talk about sin and God's expectations." Apparently, I am letting people suck on the pacifier of grace too long.

While feedback is always welcome, and I gave the comments considerable thought, this is my blog so defending my perspective seems, well, allowed. So, here's how I see it:

Even as Christians, we do not have a deep understanding of grace. We talk about it. Boy, do we sing about it (and get teary-eyed while doing so). But living in it is a whole different deal. I preached a sermon a couple of years ago entitled, "Livin' Forgiven" (catchy, huh?) and I was not surprised by the number of people that the message resonated with. We have a lot of difficulty giving and receiving grace, like we do not really believe it's true.

The evangelical pendulum has swung so far into recognizing sin and teaching behavior modification, that others who belong to differing sub-cultures (you know, the ones that think grace is the prayer you say at the dinner table) have no idea what grace means either. If Christians (those who confess Christ) aren't sucking on it, then how will anyone have a taste of it?

GRACE is the unmerited favor of God. He offers it. I cannot earn it with good behavior or trying harder. It is offered to me in my sin and it is offered to me when I refuse to receive it. It is offered to me in the midst of both good and bad behavior. Frankly, it's what allowed me to wake up and take another breath today. It is even offered to me when I am wrong on my blog (which, although hard to believe, will probably be a frequent occurrence).

You know the phrase, "You are what you eat?" See, here's the thing about sucking on grace. What I take in is what will come out. The inner transformation that results in changed behaviors - genuine love, mutual kindness, caring for the things God cares about, holiness - is a response to grace. The two are not separate experiences or stand alones. Do not hear me denying the reality of sin, but what I have discovered over and over and over is that people have a far keener understanding of sin than we think. You need only glance at the state of the world to know something is very wrong. "Enough already, I get it. What the heck is the remedy?"

Perhaps if we received grace we would give grace. If people tasted grace when they were around us, would they feel less motivated to defend their bad choices and be more open to Truth? And you know, it really isn't us and them. It's just us.

And who knows? If we all start sucking on a little grace, our mouths would be full, which would hinder our ability to TALK. We'd have to stop singing the remedy and actually live it.

O Ye Tight One

via david & goliath

Can You hear me now?

I have a terrible cell phone. Not only is it old and lacking in almost all bells and/or whistles, I have dropped it so many times that it no longer rings. It still vibrates - intermittently - so sometimes I know I have a call, but mostly I don't.

It is the perfect cell phone for me. I do not always want to be found. There are lots of people worried about missing calls or communications, but I am not one of them. I have moments when I stand in the park and pretend that I am lost in the wilderness and it seems okay - until I need toilet paper or pizza or something. In college, I studied Communications. That seems funny now.

I was reading someone's blog yesterday, and the writer was lamenting her relationship with God. She was fretting about how intermittent it felt, how at times she felt so close to Him and at other times she wondered if He was even real, and she was wondering how to find the utopia that life with God is supposed to be. I can honestly say that I no longer have these struggles, although I used to until I saw my relationship with God for what it is - a relationship.

As crazy as I am about God, I am also just generally crazy. Since I am a real human being and I am in a real relationship, even if it is with the God of the Universe, it is bound to be imperfect on my part. It's a lot like writing. Some days I feel like I could write forever and words come easily, and some days I stare at the computer for hours, fiddling with the margins. But I still get up and write. Every day.

David - poet, musician, king, adulterer, defeater of Goliath - knew the same thing and he wrote tons of Psalms about the intermittent nature of people. In Psalm 3 we hear him say:

I lie down and sleep;

I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.
I will not fear the tens of thousands

drawn up against me on every side.

David is sleeping soundly because he and God are pretty tight.

Later, in Psalm 6, David says:

My soul is in anguish.

How long, O LORD, how long?

I am worn out from groaning;

all night long I flood my bed with weeping

and drench my couch with tears.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow;

they fail because of all my foes.

A very different type of night for David.

See life with God for what it is - life with God. Enjoy just knowing Him. Communicate honestly. Admit when you feel lost or want to be. Enjoy the deep peaceful sleeps, fiddle with the margins, and invite Him to sit on your couch when it's drenched with tears. He's already there anyway, you might as well admit it.

He is eager to be known by you. He told me so. We're pretty tight.

Yellow balloons and picket signs

Why are Christians so mean?

With everyone excited about the new Batman movie, it is interesting to see Heath Ledger in the news again. His death was certainly unexpected and the way we mourn a public figure reveals our tendency to feel like we know a person that we've never actually met.

I've never actually met the group that attend the Westboro Baptist Church. Their website is http://www.godhatesfags.com/ and they picketed Heath Ledger's funeral because he played a gay man in Brokeback Mountain. These are the fine Christians that protest at fallen soldier's funerals too, calling out hate filled phrases during services while families bury their sons. I went to their site this morning and, rotating in the corner next to a sign that says "God hates you," are three things to be thankful for 1) Thank God for wildfires. God hates California 2) Thank God for dead Iowa teens 3) Thank God for muskrats (a reference to the levees that broke creating the terrible flooding along the Mississippi River). According to these dear Baptists, God apparently has favorites, and they're it.

Okay, okay, they are an extreme case, I agree. But so often Christians are unkind and it is thought to be justified because we are RIGHT. Again, that nagging little idea that it's better to be right than righteous. One of the problems seems to be our individual interpretations of the Bible. Westboro Baptist calls it "where we have rightly divided the word of truth in our generation" and they support their bad behavior with Bible quotes. It is the same thing that James Dobson claimed when he called Obama a fruitcake last week for his comments about Scripture (well, "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution") and we all know that NOBODY likes fruitcake.

What Obama said, and I'm not necessarily on his side in this, was very interesting, though. Talking about leading a Christian nation, he said, "Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?" Yeah, who's right?

Now, in order to become a pastor, I had to study the Bible. I have had so many discussions - theological and otherwise - about Scripture that I cannot even recall them all. I have debated very bright people who I respect immensely. I have Bible commentaries and multiple copies of The Book itself, and after all this time there is one thing I know for sure. The word "Christian" contains the word Christ. Did you notice that?

One of the biggest mistakes that the conservative Christian church has made is that its basic goal has been to get people into heaven instead of heaven into people. This creates a group of people who are really ready to die, but not even close to ready to live. And many of them are a pain in the rear, too.

I know these are incomplete thoughts. What are yours?