December 2009
24 posts
“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—...”
– I Corinthians 15:51-59
I love the way Paul’s excitement builds in this text. I can see him talking faster with each breath, waving his hands, standing up in the middle of a sentence. It reads like a speech on the eve of battle, Paul pacing in front of his men, stirring their souls.
Reminds...
Predictable Stories
I recently overheard a heated discussion of the movie Avatar. Half the group really liked it. The other half didn’t. Biggest complaint? Predictability.
Depending on what you go to the theater expecting to find, this can be a totally legitimate complaint. Especially if you like to figure things out, and you like a challenge.
But I was thinking in the car today about the best stories: Romeo...
Deconstruction: Don't Stop There
My friend and I spent the night talking about her recent foray into deconstruction. She spent the last few years tearing down all of the institutions, assumptions, go-to’s, absolutes, and assurances in her life. If she’d previously believed it, she knocked down the wall. If she’d grown up being taught about it, give her a sledgehammer.
But lately she’s taken a step back to...
Indulgence: It's Fattening
Sometimes, when I’m feeling really frustrated about not having lost all my pregnancy fat, I’ll eat a Mcdouble to make myself feel better.
Other times, when I’m working on the budget and I realize I’m running out of cash, I think, “Shopping would make me feel so much better.”
And when I’m totally stressed out because I have a million things to do, I do...
Jesus is coming. But He's not here yet.
I was thinking last night about the Israelites waiting for the Messiah, about the years and years and generations even who lived under the heavy burden of God’s silence. I was thinking about how hard that must of been, how frustrating and painful and lonely.
And then I thought about God’s arrival, about how quiet and almost clandestine it was. GOD lived on earth for somewhere close to...
Justice, a Gift
Just got this AWESOME Christmas present from a friend. He’ll be mad that I opened it up before Christmas, but we needed coffee and I saw the coffee bean box and I couldn’t help myself. And I was right, COFFEE! But something lots better, too.
Here’s the note we found at the bottom of the box (edited from it’s original version for length—you don’t have all day):
...
Pretending to be Happy on Christmas--It's a Good...
So, as a countdown to the big dance, I’m going to blog a Christmas memory each day of Christmas week. Today’s will be sad. Tomorrow’s will be funny.
Do I open the presents?
I remember sitting on the couch of my parents’ house, looking at the Christmas tree, and wondering what kind of a person opens Christmas presents five days after her brother’s funeral. One part...
“All novels are sequels; influence is bliss.”
– Michael Chabon describing all fiction as a form of fan fiction in his book of essays, Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
I get this—this idea that everything we write is repetitive—that all new ideas grow out of old ideas, that my life is in some way a reliving...
Singing with My Family
My parents left for Florida today. I stayed here in Henderson.
This is the first time in my life I won’t be celebrating Christmas with my parents, my aunts and uncles, my grandfather. And I’m sad.
Got me to reminiscing…
On Thanksgiving night this year we gathered around a fire in my cousin’s front yard out in the middle of nowhere. The sky was ink black and the stars...
Jonah's Fish Saves the Day
We talked about Jonah in Bible class Wednesday night. About how every time I heard that story growing up I remember being told that because Jonah was bad a big fish ate him.
Cause: being bad.
Effect: eaten by a fish.
But then when I read the book of Jonah I realized that the fish wasn’t the punishment at all. It was the salvation. Check out Jonah chapter 2, a prayer of thanksgiving to...
“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have...”
– Francis Bacon
I’m not one hundred percent positive this is Bacon (other sources cite Marie Beyon Ray), so don’t hold me to it.
I like it because it’s true and it’s false. In one way, like James says, life’s like a vapor. In another way, we’re already living a...
Do Something Outrageous--At Church
Read the book of Ezekiel recently. That book is crazy—full of totally weird performance art meets sermon illustration. We find Ezekiel eating a scroll (literally), lying on his side next to a battle diorama for 390 days, shaving with a sword, clapping his hands, stamping his feet, digging a hole through the side of his house and carrying his baggage through the street. Then, in chapter 24...
Where is God?
I heard someone describe this question as an expression of doubt recently. I can see that. But for me, this question demonstrates the opposite of doubt. It says, “I know God is. But I don’t know where He is. I know He’s somewhere. I don’t think He’s here.”
I’ve felt that way before. I believe in God. I believe God will do what He’s said He’ll...
Gems and Junk: Nora Gallagher's The Sacred Meal
Just finished Nora Gallagher’s The Sacred Meal. I have friends who LOVE it; so, I plan on stepping carefully.
As backstory, I should say that I am a huge fan of communion. My love affair with it started about five years ago when I read F. Lagard Smith’s Radical Restoration and then John Mark Hicks’s Come to the Table. I’m big on the Sunday meal being a shared celebration,...
WatchHere’s the video from last year’s project. Awesome. People cry. :)
Act Like Jesus--Fix What's Broken
Big weekend this weekend. Justin’s up to his eyes in Home for the Holidays—a project he started last year with his friend Bill. It’s one of my favorite ways he serves God.
Over three days, a handful of people will completely change the lives of a needy Henderson family—a family without resources and a family without God. They’ll pull up moldy carpet, paint walls, lay...
“I have almost no idea what God’s going to do in my life”
– Me (Mistaken Me)
I was re-reading my post from yesterday and I came across this sentence and now that I’ve thought about it, I don’t think it’s true.
No, I don’t know what job I’ll have or where I’ll live or whether or not I’ll have more kids in ten years,...
What is God Doing?
So, yesterday I spent the day thinking I might be pregnant—no, sure I was pregnant. We women do that occasionally. We become obsessed with some hunch and in minutes it’s an undeniable truth. Yesterday, I was convinced, with very little evidence, that I was having another baby. And I was terrified.
Another baby right now would be so hard—sooooooo hard.
And I kept thinking,...
“Arrange whatever pieces come your way.”
– —Virginia Woolf
This is writing for me. It’s arranging my pieces, sorting the life-notes jotted on post-its and old receipts and worship bulletins, and making sense of my experiences.
I think Woolf’s making two strong suggestions here:
1. “Arrange.” Don’t live...
Advent: Waiting for Jesus and Toy Dogs
If I understand Advent correctly, it is, at its core, about waiting. It’s this cool merger of remembering the time when the world waited excitedly for a Messiah and embracing the right-now-waiting for that Messiah’s second coming. We’re reminded that today could be our Christmas Eve.
I find that the hardest people to buy presents for are the people who never have to wait. Like my parents or...
The Delightful Law
Talked about Psalm 119 in girls’ class last night. I didn’t realize we don’t know who wrote it. Among the possibilities: David (of course) and Ezra. My ears perked up at Ezra.
Mary Phillips taught, and she pointed out that the writer of 119 is infatuated with law—not the stories of the Bible or the poetry—the law. This seems weird to us. I mean, how do you say stuff...
On Christmas... (Your Comments)
Just wanted to post some of the cool things you guys said about today’s post and celebrating Christmas. Josh: I never understood a few things about that. First, we all agree to celebrate/remember his death and resurrection; didn’t he have to be born for that to happen? His birth was full of amazing things… Born into poverty, total humility, a virgin birth, and I could go on....
Is Christmas really so bad?
I don’t want to be controversial, but I’ve gotta say a little something about Christmas.
I grew up in a church tradition that taught that celebrating Christmas as the birth of Christ was misguided at best and a sin that would send you to hell at worst. Can’t get much worse, I know. Most of my preachers, friends, etc fell somewhere along this continuum.
When I was in high...
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You Can't Appreciate Christianity Like I Can (and...
On Fire
Today Justin did something awesome. He sat down with a guy who’s repenting, full-on Apostle Paul style. After years of addiction and deceit and rebellion, he’s finally decided to come back to God—the God he fell in love with as an eight year old, the God he spent the last seven years fleeing. And he’s on fire.
All he wants to do is be with and learn from and serve...
