And the Wall Came Tumbling Down!

I have embarked on another major renovation project at my house.  This one I am doing mostly on my own.  This is by far the biggest project I've undertaken by myself.  So far I have painted (I know, whoop-dee-doo), attempted to pull up hideous vinyl tile from my hardwood floors (gave up on that after about 4 sq. ft.), installed a cheap laminate tile in my spare bathroom, and tore out my damaged dining room ceiling (I paid someone to install the new one).

So, this is going to be not only a much bigger project, but much more technical and involved as well.  I am tearing out a dividing wall between my dining room and kitchen, and then will be reconfiguring my kitchen.  I will have some assistance from a friend regarding wiring, etc., but the vast majority of the project will be in my, hopefully, capable hands.

I was reminded of my penchant for optimism as I got not too far into this effort when what I thought was only going to be one outlet in an otherwise "hollow" wall turned into THREE outlets and a heating duct for the second floor.  In my happy naivete, I thought this project would be "no big deal," just tearing down some plaster and lathe and then cutting out the studs!  Au Contraire!  My initial plan to remove the entire wall would require rewiring of all the outlets and rerouting of the heating duct.  Those skills are not in my bag of tricks and I'm not of the mind to learn any new tricks.  Even with help from my friend, it would make my "simple" job much more complex and possibly costly, so we devised a solution that I am actually really excited about.

The new plan is to drywall over the right-hand portion of the wall--closing up the current doorway--just enough to cover one of the outlets and the ductwork.  This will create a small divider between the rooms (approx. 32'') that will give an aestheticly pleasing look of separation but still allow for alot of openness.  I also plan to leave an open space of several feet between the high ceilings and the top of this small divider.  That will create more openness and be a great place to sit trailing plants!  Yea for unexpected ductwork!

At least the major clean-up effort of this project has been made SO MUCH easier by my bright idea to dump the materials in the lot of the half-collapsed tenement next to me.  This was decided upon as I realized that I had no contractor bags to use for disposal and I am making every effort to keep this job as cost-free as possible (contractor bags run $30 for a box).  I have been lurking around on craigslist, scavenging for free, used cabinets, countertops and any other materials I may need.  I don't think people are giving away contractor bags--especially not used!  This house is scheduled to be torn down by the city anyway, so I don't think my few piles on top of the existing rubble will cause too much attention.  I'm very possessed by seeing how little I can accomplish this project for.  Any guesses anyone?  Complete kitchen remodel for under $200?  $100?  It's truly amazing the things people give away for free on craigslist!  We'll see what happens!

If only this job were as easy as walking around the wall seven times and it falling to the ground. Where's Joshua when you need him!

Thesis Process Outline

For those who are interested in what I am doing for my Master's Thesis, here is a basic outline I wrote up of what I need to accomplish over the next ten months.  In the original document, I have dates for each item posted in the comments bar, but I didn't bother including those here.  My basic research question is this:  Is there a trend of white women from middle-class backgrounds going to work with low-income, urban minorities and what is the profile of these women (including what factors cause them to make this decision)?

I.  Proposal Process

1.  Complete Proposal and send to Dr. Corbitt and Jerry for review.

2.  Complete and send all materials for IRB review.

3.  Create detailed outline of thesis research plan.

II.  Research

PHASE I

1.  Create detailed list of all Philadelphia agencies to include in Phase I of study.

2.  Gathered information from each Philadelphia agency included in Phase I for employee demographics including getting permission / contact information from subjects for Phase I surveys.

3.  Data compilation complete for Phase I employee demographics.

4.  Create Phase I surveys.

5.  Contact 100 potential subjects for Phase I surveys (via email, hopefully).

6.  Received 75 completed surveys.

PHASE II

7.  I complete a survey and have someone interview me for answers to Phase II research.

8.  Contact and set up appointments with potential interview subjects based upon survey

     results (appointments to be scheduled between 10/10 and 11/6).

9.  Completed 20 in-depth interviews. 

III.  Data Analysis

1.  Data analysis tools completed for both portions of Phase I research.

2.  Phase I data entered into analysis tools.

3.  Detailed notes/outline or other organizational model created for results of Phase I research.

4.  Data analysis tool created for Phase II research

5.  Phase II research entered into analysis tool.

6.  Detailed notes, outline or other organizational model created for results of Phase II

     research.

IV.  Writing (working outline)

1.  INTRODUCTION

Detailed explanation of my personal background leading to an interest in this research. 

Comparison on my personal results with overall research findings.

Introduction to several prominent figures in the study.

2.  LITERATURE REVIEW

History:  American Settlement Movement

  Suffrage Movement

International Perspectives

Field Specific Literature:  Education

        Social Work

Relevant Areas Lacking Research and Writing

3.  EXPLANATION OF METHODOLOGY

      Also, importance of the research, why it’s needed, it’s contribution to the field.

4.  DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

A.  Profile of White Women working among Urban Minorities

          Discussion of the following potential markers:    -Demographics

-Family Background

-Other background experiences

  -Socio-economic Status

  -Religious Views

-Political Views

-Perception of Self

-Perception of Minorities

-Efficacy of their work

-Worldview

B.  Causation

Discussion of the following potential factors: -Gender-based

occupational segregation

-Concept of social obligations

-Psychological (power, domination, need to be needed)

-White Guilt

-Religious Convictions

-Childhood exposure to injustice

-Personal experiences of suffering

-Connecting oppression of women with other types of  oppression

-Women as nurturers

5.  CONCLUSION

      Is this a phenomenon?

      Why is it happening?

      What are the general results (is it a good thing or a bad thing--or most likely somewhere in

      between)?

      Recommendations based upon findings.

Health & Wealth and Friendly Disagreement

Just had a really infuriating conversation with a friend.  A Christian friend, who just doesn't see theology the way I do.  That is the "infuriating" part about it-I've never been much of a fan of the whole "agree to disagree" thing.  I just can't understand how two people can look at the same two things and see something so radically different.  We are both Christians, both believers in God's sacred and holy scriptures, yet we come to different conclusions.  I am NOT satisfied with that!

We were discussing the concept of the "health and wealth gospel."  A concept which infuriates me much more than "agreeing to disagree."  To be more accurate, what we were really discussing is what God's blessings look like and the reality of suffering in our lives.  To best sum it up, my friend was arguing that God does not want us to suffer and blesses us for our faithfulness.  I had to part with him from the gate.  Christ suffered immensely--and not just on the cross, through the act of redemption, but throughout his life.   I would argue that, 1.  Suffering can come to us unprovoked.  In other words, it sometimes has nothing to do with our faithfulness, or the lack thereof.  2.  That God specifically calls us to share in the sufferings of Jesus.  In other words, sometimes, as a direct result of the choices we make to live according to God's Kingdom, as opposed to the kingdom of this earthly realm, we will indeed suffer.  For some reason completely beyond my comprehension, my friend had to part with me on those points.  I see them as nothing other than wholly Biblical.

He kept saying, "you're pointing out all the extreme cases" (responding to me speaking of children who die of diseases, women who are raped, people who die in totally random car accidents--uh, how about women who are happily jogging one minute and dead from a fallen tree branch the next).  Of course those are all "extreme," however, they are also all very common (except for the tree branch thing) and have nothing to do with our level of faithfulness, or our "naming and claiming" blessings for our lives.

Next I brought up Job.  This seemed to be pretty cut and dry to me.  Scripture clearly tells us that Job was blameless before God and that the entire course of "unfortunate" events was completely outside of his understanding.  "For my ways are higher than your ways" declared God.   "Did you put the stars in the sky?  Did you place the behemoth in the sea?"  The point being, you don't always need to know and fully understand why suffering happens--sometimes we just can't.  My friend said that Job was the richest man of his day, God was getting his attention because "where our treasure is, there is our heart."  I wanted to bang my head against a wall.

So, there really is no conclusion to this posting.  We didn't agree, and after two hours on the phone, I had to use the facilities and just couldn't continue any longer.

One Minute

Perendinate: to put off until the day after tomorrow.

Ahhh, someone out there speaks my language! I am NO procrastinator. I am a perendinator!

This posting was inspired by my perendinating tendencies and recent realization that some of the tasks I put off repeatedly really don't take that long at all. Somehow in my peahen brain I just manage to make the tiniest of molehills into giant mountains when it comes to getting things done. It all started with coffee. I love to drink coffee morning, noon, and night, although I usually sip it rather slowly so I'm heating it up repeatedly throughout the day. As anyone who knows me can attest to, I do not like to wait for anything. Standing around in my kitchen waiting for my coffee to re-heat for one minute in the microwave was becoming a loathsome burden. So I would run off and try to do something and make it back before the bell would ding. Thus, began my silly little experiment; seeing all the different little things I could accomplish during that one minute. Here are the findings of my highly official research. Disclaimer: These findings are based on the household of a single woman. Dirty bachelors and families with children may disagree.


Things You Can Do in One Minute or Less

Empty one shelf of the dishwasher
Load all dinner dishes, including pans, etc., into the dishwasher after cooking and eating.
Return to the fridge and pantry various fixings for whatever meal you're cooking
Make a sandwich
Make a burrito (minus actual cooking time)
Close all the windows in a small-medium sized house (unless they're crotchety old things) or all the windows on one floor of a large house
Wash your face
Make the bed
Wipe down kitchen counters
Clean the bathtub (unless you haven't done so in ages)
Take out a bag of trash and recyclables
Collect trash from bathrooms and bedrooms
Put your phone on the charger (8 seconds!)
Start a pot of coffee
Clean out your coffee pot when it's grimy
Start a load of laundry
Fold half a load of laundry
Put clean laundry away
Check on something in the oven or on the stove that may be burning or spilling over
Check your voicemail (again--unless you haven't done so in days)
Open and sort mail (if you already have an organized filing system)
Send one loved one an email just to keep in contact and say "I Love You!"
Pay a bill online
Water plants (unless you have an arboretum)

Feel free to conduct your own experiment and add to my list!

Hanging by the pool

It is officially HOT out, and me without air conditioning.  All the usual bothers of the heat--my face covered in grease and breaking out like a pre-pubescent schoolboy, skin sticky within three minutes after a shower, shirt wet with sweat at the slightest stir of activity--ah, the lazy days of summer.  I'm definitely not a fan.

Yesterday, I engaged in my usual morning routine, my beloved morning routine, of sitting on my front steps with a really good book, a cup of strong coffee and a cigarette.  My favorite neighbor and her friend were all abuzz with activity setting up a yard sale.  Since none of us have yards, it is actually more of a sidewalk sale.  We chatted for a while, and I wondered to myself if they would mind me sitting out some of my jewelry that I still have sitting around from over a year ago.  I didn't know if I felt like dealing with it, so I sat tight for a bit reading my book.  The more they set up and happily chatted, though, I too caught some of their excitement.

Upon asking, they welcomed my "stuff," so I quickly went inside and began gathering a few things.  Turns out, even as a single woman only owning her home just shy of three years, I have accumulated quite a conglomeration of junk.  Thank you family for sending all your unwanted goods to me all the time!  It took me two hours to collect it all, haul it outside, set it up and price everything.  Then commenced the long, hot--SWELTERING--day in the sun waiting for customers.

For those of you who aren't familiar with my house, it is a row with only a set of four concrete steps up to the front door and no sheltering overhang or awning--a very traditional, turn-of-the-century Philadelphia rowhouse.  99.9% of the world thinks I'm crazy, but I love it.  So, when it comes to sitting outside all day, there are the steps, and there is the sun.  After a miserable first hour or so, I decided to make things a bit more comfortable.  I brought out an old, thick chair pad to sit on, my sleeping bag, stuffed in its sack, to place between me and the door for cushiony lounging, and a bucket of ice water to stick my feet it and splash myself with.  At 4:00 the radio came out too for the Phillies game.  It was hot, it was miserable, it was long, it was exhausting, it was a WONDERFUL day!  The fact that I net $71 off of old junk was great, but much more-so was the laughter and camaraderie with my neighbors.  Not just the ones next door, either, many others came over and chatted for a while and I was able to build on old relationships and discover some new ones among these crazy and fantastic neighbors of mine.

In this neighborhood, I stick out just a bit, and yesterday presented an opportunity to share in our humanity.  What is more American the a good ol' fashioned yard sale? (ok, apple pie, blah, blah, blah)  I've learned through my years here not to oversimplify race relations with nice sounding epithets of color-blindness.  I've learned that denying differences denies who we are as a product of different cultures and different experiences.  The reality is, they are black and I'm white.  They come from poverty, and I come from plenty.  They have inferiority complexes, and I have a superiority complex.  Because I know and love them, I am able to accept and live in this tension--difference, but unity.  I realize I don't have to make us all the same, declaring foolishly, "I don't see color!"  In America, "not seeing color" inevitably becomes "everyone is white," for it comes from our perspective, our privileged perspective.  You will rarely, if ever, hear a black person declare that there is no difference, that they are colorblind--they don't have that luxury for they see and feel it all the time.  Not seeing color is a "privilege" of the majority with the insidious side effect of denying the minority their unique personhood.

I do see color and I do see difference, and it is quite beautiful. 

  

Oh, how far I've come!

These days, I am often reminded of how far I have come in my struggle with body image.  Just today, I had on a beautiful sundress and found myself thinking how sexy and beautiful I looked in it.  I have been at a healthy weight for several years now and am no longer enslaved to hatred of my body and a need to loose weight.  What an absolute joy it is to see the work God has done in my heart and mind!  Only five or six years ago, I was walking on a thin line between life and death, cycling between anorexia and bulimia, filled with self-hatred, and almost succeeded in killing myself on one occasion.  My life today could not be further from that nightmare.

I was recently looking back through one of my old journals from the height of my eating disorder, and I was filled with sadness at the depth of pain and despair I lived through, but I was also filled with complete joy at the way God has used this struggle to develop me into the woman I am today.  I wanted to share an entry that highlights how deep my internal conflict was and just how difficult an eating disorder can be, but also shows the hope of a woman who was embracing the fight.  This entry was written about a year after my second hospitalization, a time when I was beginning to really fight the disease and not just give in to it.  In this entry, I mention a friend who was not doing as well as me and I have changed her name.

January 23, 2005

I am really discouraged today by the changes in my body.  I know God has called me to healing and He is working amazing miracles in my life to make that happen, but living every day feeling utterly disgusted with yourself is draining.  My prayer, everyday Father, has been that You would change me.  Help me to accept my body.  Help me to see it as something other than my enemy. 

There's hardly ever a day that I don't wake up and, before anything else enters my consciousness, I think and feel that I am fat and disgusting.  In those moments, I hate my body and my heart sinks as I awaken and realize, once again, I have to get up and endure the horribleness and the hatred and there's nothing else I can do about it but just live with it.  I don't want to wake up and feel good about my body.  I just want to wake up and not think about it at all.

Eve is loosing her battle.  She is not able to live with these feelings and so she acts on them every moment of every day.  While she still has some life in her body, it has all slipped away from her spirit.  Her words, her face, her eyes are slow, sad, and empty.  I fear for her.  I ache for her.  I hate this eating disorder that has done this to her.  I clench my fist, shake it at the sky and yell to satan, "You cannot have her!"  But I am helpless when it comes to Eve.  The tears, grief, and the anger that are with me now for Eve must, tomorrow, be for Jessica when I wake with fresh disgust and hatred for myself and my body.  My mornings, my days, my nights DO NOT belong to this eating disorder.  They do not belong to satan, and indeed they do not even belong to me.  I am the Lord's--I have been bought at a very high price--and tomorrow morning, when I am so disgusted with myself that I can hardly stand to be one more moment in my skin, I will clench my fist and my teeth and I will echo what God has been declaring on my behalf since day one of this battle, "YOU CAN NOT HAVE HER!"

Invisibilty: The Cloak of the White

"He strapped the rifle to his back and, still holding the statue head, leaped out from the grove.  As he sprinted across the field again, the Americans across the creek gave covering fire.  But their attempt at protection didn't matter.  It came on him again.  True and real. Invisibility.  He could've walked over there with an ice cream cone like it was Sunday morning after church.  Nothing would touch him. He could see better, hear better, smell better.  There was no noise, no pain, no fear.  He felt the rush of fresh Tuscan morning air on his face, heard every bush, every tree, every rock, which seemed to speak to him, shake his hand, saying, Hello, Sam Train.  Good morning, Sam Train.  We love you, Sam Train.  What can we do to help you out today, Mr. Sam Train?

This, he thought as he leaped over rocks and gullies, is what it must feel like to be white."

The first time I read this passage, taken from James McBride's novel, Miracle at St. Anna (pp 27-28), I was stopped dead in my tracks--or, at least, would have been were I walking.  I was actually sitting comfortably in a cozy chair at a coffee shop, so I was stopped dead in my chair.  Or, to be wholly true to the reality of the scene, I was stopped dead in all aspects of my thinking and feeling.  I sat motionless.  I sensed nothing around me.  I felt utterly stunned, stilled, and silenced in thought and speech.  There was nothing in my mind but those words and an awakening.  I cannot ever know what it is to walk in the skin, mind, and psyche of a person of color, yet in those moments when I was stopped dead in the tracks of this white woman's daily life, I had an awaking.  I gained a completely new understanding of what it was to be white and what it was to be not white.

I am fairly well-read when it comes to racism, including the history, our current context, white perspectives, non-white perspectives, overt racism, covert racism, institutionalized racism, cultural hegemony, white privilege, internalized inferiority, and internalized superiority. Yet all this knowledge was suddenly brought into a painfully bright light through the words of this passage and I saw and felt in a profoundly real way what racism meant for those who live under its shadow.  And yes, O Yes, the shadow of racism still reaches all across America, the world, and over our (white folks) own hearts.  This is what it is to be white: Invisible.  As a person with skin lacking in melanin, a person whose history has happened to be on the side of might due to the chance of my birth, I have the opportunity to be invisible if I so choose.  I can blend in, go unnoticed, fly beneath the radar, or to put it in today's vernacular, shop without being followed, drive without being pulled over, enter any neighborhood without being questioned, and be given the benefit of any doubt at all times. Apparently, the only time I'm not invisible, is when I'm hailing a taxi.

Can I possibly understand what it is to not be invisible?  To have the tone of my skin draw attention, skepticism, criticism, and pre-judgement at all moments?  Even among my own people, to have the level of my skin tone--dark or light--to invoke meaning about who I am.  In a world where so many people cry out to be noticed, I imagine that many of my non-white brothers and sisters may dream of simply being overlooked.  Overlooked, that is, on the basis of first glance, and truly noticed for the impression they make simply as a human being.

Thoughts of a lonely day

These have been long and difficult days for me.  Days marked by loss.  Loss of a job, health insurance, electricity, my belongings, the loss of dear friends who moved away, my singing voice, and now, possibly my house.  The one thing I know is sealed and secure is God as my father and friend, and this, out of the faithfulness of His heart, and not my own.  A heart marked by more loss than gain is a whole dug into the earth, growing bigger and  deeper as more is taken away.  A heart marked by loss is, I have begun to understand, a heart able to connect with God, for He has always been on the loosing end of His relationship with us.  And so, God too experiences great loss.

Two Poems

A Love Poem

Whispers fall around my hair while

Memories beat uncompared.

Your taste and touch I feel again

Upon my lips, along my skin.

You are everywhere I am

My hair, my face, my soul, my hands.

Our lives are woven, intertwined

With long, long years whose pain combined

To lovers blind and love's fire paled

By tears of two hearts' ailed.

The hills and wooded cliffs will carry

The echo sung throughout the valley

Verdant, growing, thick with life.

My heart has held this lovers' song

When years were dark and nights were long.

I'll sing again its murmur sweet

To one who knows and can repeat.

Then mountains standing years untold,

A playground for her children,

Will watch us run and laugh and sing

The trees and rocks will be our friends

With waters cool to bathe our souls

And milky skies for dreaming.

Sweetest embers, smolder still.

Drink in our breath to burn your flame

And warm two lovers home again.

By mountains still under stars from heaven

And freshest air and water given.

With God's own earth to be our bed

Behold, dancing flames of love resurrected.

Little Girl

Little girl in a world so beyond her years

They can't hold the weight of knowledge

A forty seasoned soul endures.

Left alone by people worshipping their own demise

Vociferating high ideals, we look so good in our own eyes.

Touting banner words like freedom while sacrificing innocence,

Little girl needs an angel, cause grown folk prefer politics.

Fight for power, fight for glory,

Fight for rights we've reified.

While words we speak, philosophizing,

Little girl, she broke and died.

Early Fathers spoke this nation

Into being, "under God"

Debating meaning, screw the children

Little girl, she broke and died.

A History of Grace

I have been very reflective lately and deeply cherish this time, knowing God's Hand is moving--though, to be truthful, it is ever moving.  Throughout the last two years of my Master's program, I have been marveling at how God maneuvered my thoughts and circumstances to bring me to a place where I chose to live among the urban poor, connect with their suffering, and fight for justice.  For the last several days, I have been marveling at how God has been at work in my heart and mind shaping my theology.  I truly have a radical theology compared with what I grew up with and also with the vast majority of believers in America.  But I am convinced I am growing more and more Christ-like, I am getting closer and closer to living the Heart of God.

Just now I wanted to post a few poems of mine from the past several years and began looking through a journal of mine from a particularly prolific period of my life (a time marked by great suffering and reflection).  Re-reading these things shows me anew how powerfully deep suffering affects and builds a true Christ-like theology when that suffering is experienced and reflected upon in the light of God's hand of grace (for it is true that some allow suffering to turn them to anger against God instead).  Coming now to a fuller understanding of my theology and of who I believe God has revealed Himself to be, I find the evolution of my theology amazing, crazy, and most infinitely beautiful.  Here are some fairly random quotes that I feel characterize some of this evolution (taken from the time period between Jan 2004 - Mar 2005. I would have been here for a week had I sorted through all 12-15 of my journals!).  Some are my own, some are from others who have affected me deeply with their thoughts. Credit is given where thoughts are not my own.

Father, I invite you to break my will, even if it brings suffering.

Real maturity isn't living by emotion.

The Christian life is not about striving to do what is right.  It is simply to be and to become, cooperating with God's work in your life.

~ Pastor Wendy Melchoir ~

Does scripture focus on what to do, or how you do it?

With a cold sense of superiority, we write people off when God has never written us off.  I'm a flawed person.  You're a flawed person.  I would like to do life together with you.        ~ Pastor David Sharpes ~

Fight for Truth.  Always retain the feeling, the sense of horror and outrage at sin.  Never assimilate and don't be seduced.

Father, teach my heart to break again at my own sin.

I know it is raining today, but above that rain, the sun is still there.

~ 8 thoothed woman at a store-front church ~

Church never saved anyone's soul.

Despite the mess I've made of my life, there is one thing I know to be true. There is a God and He cares an awful lot about me, and I need Him.  I think that's the least bull-shitty thing I've said in a long time. When Earnest Hemmingway would get really stuck with writer's block, he would tell himself, "start with the truest thing you know." Well, that is the truest thing I know.

I still panic sometimes and forget to breathe.  Then I remember . . . there's a beauty in all my imperfections and he holds it up for me to see.

                                               ~ the movie Crazy/Beautiful ~

I believed I was starting all over, leaving everything behind.  This time, I know such a thing is impossible.  My history is not erased by a change of venue, memories will not fade with the miles, and who I am will remain the same until I do something to change it.

God absolutely accepts us where we are . . . but he doesn't leave us there.

     ~ Ward Keller, founder of Remuda Ranch ~

Take notes along the way (it's all a learning experience)! 

~ Lauren Cirillo, a good friend ~

I feel like a caged animal that someone is trying to domesticate.  I was rescued from the wild, bandaged, and taught how to "live."  But I'll never be truly happy or alive until I return.  This is what the church does to us.

Christians, who have seen and tasted God's grace, are the worst at giving it to others and themselves.

You cannot find freedom from that which you cling to.

Letting go will be very painful and bring many tears and probably moments of loneliness and despair.  But we can walk through that with God.  We can walk that valley, and we will walk that valley for it is what we must do.

What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be.

~ Over The Rhine ~

The Greek word, passion, means "to suffer."  When I am passionate about something, my heart and spirit do suffer indeed.  They suffer the longing of wanting something deeply, of relentlessly pursuing it, and the difference between how things should be and how they really are.  Christ suffered in His passion for us, and if we truly love, we will suffer in our passion for others.  I could avoid the suffering of a passionate heart, but it would come at the great cost of deadening it to love.  Christ chose to love passionately and it cost Him great suffering.  Those who dare follow Him are called to do the same.

Spiritual disciplines are not a formula for a relationship with God, but they are a pathway to God.  They help us move past the superficialities in life.

Father, I embrace my need for you.  I embrace my complete and utter inability to deal with things on my own.  I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that's the only place I will be free and at peace.  Freedom comes only in raising the white flag of surrender and turning myself in to you.

When you feel the need to make a judgement about someone, stop yourself and remember: You don't need to make a decision about that person.  All you need to do is love them.         ~ Pastor Wendy Melchoir ~

God is always calling us to repentance through every aspect of our lives.  He is constantly calling us back to Himself.

I didn't know the power and extent of the Light until I'd walked in the depth of darkness.

Though we love to numb the pain

we come to learn that it's in vain.

Pain is our Mother

she helps us recognize each other. 

~ Over The Rhine ~

American Christianity

Who is this God that we serve?  If we do not know Him, if we are not intimately connected with who He is, how can we hope to serve Him?  To serve someone is to do for them the things they would want us to do, not that which we, of ourselves, desire or decide we ought to do.  American Christianity has become a brand synonymous with American flags, republicanism, and conservative morality.  They have become intrinsically entwined to the extent that a socially accepted understanding in both mainstream culture and our recent invention of American Christian culture views them as one.  The unique evolution of Christian thought and theology in the Church of the United States has developed a specific strain of moralism which has transformed into a means of serving the appeasement of our consciences based upon centuries old stigmas, prejudices, and quarantining of the other rather than upon affirming the true God of the scriptures and serving Him.  The current product of this evolution has been branded with identifying symbols such as the American flag for duty and fealty, the wedding ring for appropriate expressions of love and sexuality, the gun for cutting off our enemies, and the dollar for prosperity.  The sacredness of these symbols has become preeminent to the mysteriousness of our God and His most basic tenet of love.  My question, then is how can we serve our God when American Christianity is serving her own reified symbols?

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man who had to reexamine the will of God in the light of injustices in his socio-political context.  His theological struggle was not based on theoretical questions of the mind, but rooted completely in the praxis of living.  In a letter to his closest friend, he writes, "The Church is the Church only when it exists for others.  It must share in the secular problems of ordinary life and it must tell men of every calling what it means to live in Christ."  The evolution of his theology became a necessary response to living in Christ in the particulars of his time and place.  I find Bonhoeffer's struggle a profound lesson in practical theology, for what is our study of God if not for the purpose of fulfilling His will which can only be carried out in the particulars of each individual's time and place?

Things are in a sordid state in the American Church.  I fear that a great many Christians are lost in a labyrinth of the Enemy's deceptions.  I too was lost, but I sincerely believe, in my search for the heart of God, I am being led out.  Many of my Christian brothers and sisters as well as many family and friends would not agree with me in these things.  However, as God impresses upon me more and more profoundly His deepest longing and call to action, I am more and more convinced of this Truth:  Our Triune God is working to build His Kingdom of beggar servants, entrance into which is predicated only upon one's desire to beg for His unconditional love, mercy, and grace, and to then serve these unconditionally to others.  Dare I embrace such a simplistic view of thousands of pages of scripture and thousands of years of theological discourse?

In answer, what is the summation of the law?  To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind (beggar), and to love your neighbor as yourself (servant).  The prophet Micah says, He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you.  To do justice and to love mercy (servant) and to walk humbly with your God (beggar).

Ahh, here's the rub!  What are the particularities of our ordinary lives here in the United States?  May I propose a prominent issue in our nation and Church?  Homosexuality.  Can a gay man or woman live in Christ?  Carry out the will of God?  Can they be a beggar servant?  Profoundly, YES!  One may ask, Are they not living according to the desires of their flesh, rather than according to a desire for God?  I say, no more than a heterosexual man or woman!  Does a heterosexual man's love and desire for his wife preempt his love and desire for God?  It can, but it is not intrinsic.  So it is with a homosexual man.  If the heart of a gay man or woman is wholly with and for God how can it be any different than the heart of a straight man or woman?  If God is concerned with the heart, then how can we consider these people sinners who are separated from God?

So, what then is this labyrinth of the Enemy's deceptions I spoke of earlier?  It is a winding, twisting path lined with hedges of shame and fear where we are condemned to wander and search fruitlessly till we achieve our own invented and perverse form of morality.  This perverse morality is marked by the symbols I mentioned earlier: the flag, wedding ring, gun, and dollar, and shame and fear are heaped upon those who struggle against these symbols.  Our endless journey through this labyrinth keeps us in slavery to these perverse symbols rather than in slavery to God.  I exhort us all to explore the possibility that we are wrong and to remember the horrific ways in which we have been wrong before.  The consequence of our perverted understanding of the will of God is keeping the American Church from fulfilling God's highest calling:  loving Him and loving each other.  While we seek the glory of personal morality, we tragically miss God's true mark as Micah and Jesus have proclaimed it to be.  We are truly a Church lacking in love for others and our time spent in the Enemy's labyrinth develops in us only the desire to condemn.  Even Jesus declared He did not come to condemn.  He came to save us from our sin.  Why do we insist on taking up this savage tool of destruction?  If God's highest calling for our lives, the epitome of His will, is to become beggar servants, then the greatest of sins is to deny our love to God and to deny our love to fellow people.  If living out God's highest calling can only be done in the particulars of our ordinary lives, and our ordinary lives include groups of people whom we currently marginalize because they refuse to seek after our symbols of morality, then we are the ones Jesus needs to save from sin.

The American Church is the one who has woefully missed the mark of what it means to live in Christ.  Our deep need to find the comfort of certainty has fueled within us an attempt to organize humanity according to behavioral standards of right and wrong.  Within this flawed thinking is the reality that we lack the faith necessary to believe that God's ways are higher than our own and unknowable to us in their fullness.  Bonhoeffer was forced to this realization as he struggled with his decision to join a plot to kill Hitler.  His faith was placed solely upon God and not in the fragile reasoning of the human mind.  For Bonhoeffer, accepting this conflict between the traditional understanding of sin and his course of action, which he believed to be unreservedly good and right, was a tremendous act of faith.  Has the Church in America such faith?

The will of God is not a system of rules established from the outset.  It is something new and different in each different situation in life.  And for this reason, a man must forever reexamine what the will of God may be.  The will of God may lie deeply concealed beneath a great number of possibilities.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

My new love: Theologians who broke with tradition

Ahh, is there anything I love more than breaking with tradition!  To hell with it!  Yes, it can serve a purpose and I love it when it comes to holidays, but in the Church, it more often hinders and handcuffs than leads us to God's calling.  I watched Valkyrie two nights ago and became very interested in the idea of plots to kill Hitler.  Then I remembered that Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been involved in one.  So, now I've been doing some research into his life and theology and am so blown away by the things he wrote and decisions he made in light of the Nazi regime and his faith.  Here are two quotes of his that I found very powerful:

"The Church has three possible ways it can act against the state.  First, it can ask the state if its actions are legitimate.  Second, it can aid the victims of the state actions.  The Church has the unconditional obligation to the victims of any order in society even if they do not belong to the Christian society.  The third possibility is not just bandage the victims' under the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself."

"The will of God is not a system of rules established from the outset.  It is something new and different in each different situation in life.  And for this reason a man must forever reexamine what the will of God may be.  The will of God may lie deeply concealed beneath a great number of possibilities."

When Bonhoeffer faced the decision to join the resistance and, ultimately, the plot to kill Hitler, he faced a tremendous conflict, a crisis of theology.  He knew by joining the resistance he would have to lie and commit serious deceptions, commit treason against the authority of his own government, and participate in the murder of another human being. (Not to mention that Bonhoeffer was a pacifist who did not believe in violence to begin with!)  He knew all this, yet he also knew, even in his deeply spiritual heart and mind, that it was unconditionally the right thing to do.  How, then could he reconcile this theologically, morally?  Bonhoeffer had to come to a new understanding of God's will, God's commands, of right and wrong and all the gray areas in between.  The American Church today, incorrectly, refuses to admit any gray areas, and so, continues to hideously miss the Holy will and call of God.

Contemplating Death

I assure you, I realize this is quite a morose topic, particularly since I haven't written on here in months and this is my return . . . well, it is something that has been brought to mind by a recent series of events.  First, let me add that I am not in a deep depression or even a "funk" over this, I am just processing--always processing.

So, about two months ago, my voice began acting strangely.  I tell it like that since I didn't completely lose my voice, but it certainly doesn't sound as it should.  I first called my doc who suggested some meds for acid reflux, to no avail.  I next went to a free clinic since I am a (and have been for some time) unemployed with no insurance.  My doc there made referrals for a CT scan and to see an ear/nose/throat specialist.  The CT scan showed enlarged lymph nodes which is often indicative of leukemia or lymphoma.  Ok, time to be officially concerned, I'm thinking.  Better make haste to the ENT doc.  Thank goodness I have a good friend who is a doctor who was able to pull some strings and get me an appointment before armageddon.  So now I will be waiting for a bit--waiting for the appointment (next Wed.) and then waiting for test results.  Waiting happens to leave room for a good deal of pondering, hence the title of this post.

Not that I'm dying or even have cancer, but I'm just thinking about it and how I will handle it if I do.  I find the "bad" things in life much easier to handle if I pose a worst-case scenario to myself and then process how I'd walk that path if I have to.  So, I've had several thoughts.  One:  if I were to die of lymphoma, I do not want people to donate money or make a big deal about the lymphoma foundation.  I always found that concept somewhat silly.  I would much rather people donate or make a big deal of something that was important to me while I was alive and healthy.  I was talking with a friend today and told her I would very much like for people to do work in my name regarding research and prevention into violence against women.  And, as per typical Jessica style, whatever is done must be done in a very progressive, out-of-the-box fashion.  And please, no "in lieu of flowers."  I love flowers, have always loved flowers and would want my family and friends to be surrounded by as many sweet, fragrant ones as possible!  And not the typical funeral flowers--why do all funeral flowers have to be so obviously funeralish?  I want gorgeous ones.  Beautiful, fragrant blooms--like a wedding or celebration, not a dirge.

Two:  If I am laid up for a long time with an illness like cancer--you know, chemo, radiation, etc.--then I will finally, finally, finally, write a book.  I know this sounds nuts, but, well, it is me we're dealing with here.  I've always wanted to write a book.  I've always wanted to make a permanent, lasting imprint for all history.  At the very least, please loved ones, publish my journals.

Three: Hmm . . . I guess that's as far as I've gotten so far.  But, I still have lots of waiting to do, so I know there will be more pondering.