cloud by day, fire by night

rocking my world

2009-07-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

Just listen.

good words*

2009-04-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

William Blake

a poem for good friday {2009}

2009-04-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

Good Friday

I remember.
Thick spikes,
wooden crossbeams.
A circle of thorns.
Agony. Blood.

I have nothing to add
that you have not heard;
my voice harmonizes
with the chorus of remembrance:

my sin
your love
my hate
your love
my pride
your love
my rejection
your love

And I forget.
My skin is too thick
and I over fond of my calluses,
numb and hard and yellow.

I pray:
like the heavy curtain,
rend my heart in two
let your blood flood the crevices,
and proclaim:
“It is finished.”

Enter
my holy of holies.

exposed

2008-11-19T22:21:00.000-08:00

I do not like who I see sometimes when I get a full look at her.

The person you see is fairly tame and in these online spaces is mostly well-behaved. She's rational about the things that trouble her deeply and though you hear her heart ache from time to time, she's mostly able to keep it together.

As these layers are burned away, I see someone else entirely. Skin and muscle peeled back, nerve endings exposed and raw, I have been coming to see who she really is -- the red and throbbing life underneath it all.

She knows trials and troubles are promised, and she knows she should endure these things as discipline. A move away from family, friends, and familiarity and mysterious health issues are refining her soul. She knows she's being taught to trust deeply in the Giver and not in the gifts themselves. She observes what she perceives to be the ease and happiness of others and thanks God for how He's blessing them.

Truth is, she loves the gifts more than the One who gives them. Trials, tedious and prolonged, have worn her down like water over a rock and make her doubt what she knows: not that He exists, but if He is good. She pouts and pines away in the hopes that she will somehow get her way. She wonders what she has done to get here (is it punishment? does she inhabit God's blind spot?) and what she could do to escape. She has considered that if it meant her circumstances would improve, she would turn her back, give it all up and try something new. She wonders what kind of God has the power to heal, but withholds it from her. She knows that He counts her tears, but protests that she'd rather not have a reason to cry them in the first place.

She is not as devoted and faith-filled as she thought she was. She is selfish and proud, desiring above all else her own comfort and happiness. She fears that this is all there is, that this is as good as it's going to get, and that she had just better get used to it.

Every time she thinks the last layer has been pulled away, He finds another, peeling it back easily as the skin of an onion. It seems to her that there is nothing left, no covering for her nakedness. And so her insides are turned out and her raw nerve-endings are exposed, unprotected. She is totally exposed, entirely vulnerable even to the most infinitesimal threat. She is afraid. He is, after all, the One who burned away her layers of protection. Will He protect her now?

She does not know what He will do next, or how He will be with her, but she knows for sure that she is something truer now than she was before. It burns and it stings, but it occurs to her: this is what changing feels like; this is the business of being made new.

repentance

2008-10-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

Many of you know that I'm in the process of picking up my life here in Bellingham in order to move to the Seattle area, roughly 100 miles south of my current home. This means a lot of things -- not only has this meant I'm away from the blogs while I get things ready for the big move, but I'm also in the process of preparing myself for my new home. Part of that is checking out new churches.

While I still intend to remain committed to Christ the King church in Bellingham, I am in the process of checking out churches in my new area. I am aware that the day will likely come when commuting to Bellingham no longer makes sense and God calls me to become more fully integrated into church life in my new community. I've been listening to sermons online from Mars Hill Church, which has several campuses in the greater Seattle area and have gotten hooked on the most recent sermon series on the Song of Songs.

While there's only so much you can tell about a church from a podcast, I can tell you that if this is the teaching I can count on every week, then I can count on teaching that is solid, biblical, and aims straight for the heart (and maybe sometimes the jugular). It's straight from the word of God and is as convicting as ... well, you know.

This is the most recent sermon in the series on the Song of Songs that talks about confession and repentance in the context of relationships (specifically the marriage relationship). I cannot begin to describe how this series has taught me, convicted me, dug to the bottom of my soul, and inspired me to check this place out in person soon.

Note: the video is about 70 minutes, but worth every bit of it.

reflections on job: part 5 {an answer, of sorts}

2008-10-05T21:36:00.000-07:00

The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power;
in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.
Elihu (37:23)

In the last chapter of Job, our hearts are eased as we see him restored: God tells the friends how wrong they were in their continued claims that God was punishing Job for a wrong commited. His wealth is restored. He has a new family and dies old and full of years. In my heart, I sigh relief not only to see his suffering end, but to see that he is able to enjoy the remaining years of his earthly life in peace and prosperity.

But something still niggles. Something is not quite right. In the school of knowing God, I sit in my desk and look around me shyly, tentatively. Should I just shrink back, fold my hands piously, nod and smile as the story draws to a close? I bend my elbow, drawing it in close toward my side. I raise my hand cautiously, simultaneously hoping for and dreading the prospect of the instructor calling my name. Yes? he asks, already knowing my question.

But ... um ... well ...

Yes? he asks again.

Well, I say, Job never really got an answer. I mean, he went through all this suffering. He lost everything, he got really sick, was in massive amounts of pain, and on top of that, he had to endure arguments with so called "friends" who supposedly came to comfort him, but only go eighty-seven rounds with him to tell him he's going through all this pain because he must have done something terribly wrong to offend God. I mean, he doesn't even get the assurance that it all had a purpose or meaning or anything. Everything is okay in the end, but still. He went through all that, and for what?

My instructor folds his arms, looks at the floor, and nods knowingly.

With the momentum of pent-up emotion finally being released, I continue: And what's all this business about a leviathan and the behemoth? What kind of good does that do for a man who has quite literally been through hell and has no one at all to comfort him?

My instructor stands silently, displaying a calm and collectedness that I find even more unsettling than the question I've just asked. I know that the only answer I'll receive is the same one Job received: an assertion of God as sovereign and eternal, as creator and sustainer of the universe, as master and tamer of massive beasts. He set the constellations in place and whispers to the birds when it's time to migrate. No, I was not there at creation. No, I can't tell a bird when it's time to move south. I get it.

But ... I know I have nothing to say. His answer, while not satisfying, puts me in my place. God does not answer to me. I have no case to make before him. The classroom is silent and I bow my head, looking at my folded hands through a stream of tears.

He looks me full in the face and extends a hand forward toward me, lifting a tear off my cheek with his finger.

And at once I know that His assertions of sovereignty, while they serve to show me my proper place in the scheme of things, are not to whip me into fright, nor are they a showy display of divine machismo, showing off how much bigger He is than I am. He is infinitely bigger and more powerful than I am, but every facet of his potency and his bigness is for me. He knows infinitely more than I know and sees infinitely more than I see. And even when everything I can see and feel causes me to call this relationship into question, He asks me to trust Him.

Yes, He will allow awful things to happen -- bad things, painful things, evil things, unjust things. When Satan enters the heavenly court and asks permission to have his way with us, God will permit him to afflict us. And perhaps we will never receive a satisying answer as to why. Maybe we will never see how God might redeem the pain and evil we experience, how He will work good out of something so terrible. We're asked not only to trust that He will -- we're asked to trust Him: to trust He is good and sovereign, to trust He is the first to defend our righteousness, to trust that His love for us is fierce, that He has not lost sight of us, and that we are safe in the palm of His hand. This is no small feat when the losses are compounding and there is no relief in sight.

Trust me, He says. Know me. I am good. I am for you. Look to me. I am in control of all of this. I am infinitely bigger than everything you're facing. You are safe. Even when all you can see and know and feel would tell you that it's crazy to believe it. Know me. I am good. I am for you. Look to me.

Trust me.

And that is the answer.

renewing my mind

2008-09-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

I'm not quite done with our friend Job just yet, but I wanted interrupt our regularly scheduled posting to share with you a class that Kaari and I are taking at our church right now called The Truth Project.

The Truth Project is a 13-week video/discussion series which looks at some of the biggest and most basic questions facing us as human beings living in a world of competing philosophies and worldviews, a world that is increasingly antagonistic to God. The course is led by Del Tackett, an engaging, intelligent, and gracious instructor.

This series asks some big questions: What is truth? What do I believe? How do I know that what I believe is really real?

Here's a teaser:

What I love about this course is that it's not about rote memorization or learning the answers to get a good grade on a test. It's about inviting the kind of inner transformation that can only come about by the renewing of the mind.

reflections on job: part 4 {the mystery of God in the shadows}

2008-09-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it: once upon a time, I thought Job just needed to suck it up. You know, why couldn't he basically pull himself up by his bootstraps and take it like a man? Yeah Job, I know it stinks, but it's temporary and you know this. Just trust God. I mean, how hard is that?

Add a few years, a dash of experience, a lot of tears and bake it all in the ovens of humility (fired by a few less-than-pleasant experiences of my own) and I think better of him now. Measuring sticks of suffering aside, he experienced several profound personal losses, one succeeding the other with scarcely a breath in between. After bearing the losses of his wealth, children, and property, after being afflicted with sores from his scalp to his heels, after bearing with the words of a wife who wants to see his suffering end even at the cost of rejecting God, he still offers praise. I don't know if I could do that. I think I could be pious about it all for maybe a minute, but when the reality of the loss and the pain set in, I am not sure that praise is what would rise to the surface of my soul.

In reading the text, we have the distinct advantage of having more of a bird's eye view than he did. We see God and Lucifer in conversation, the accuser bartering with God for how he might tempt Job to defy God altogether. We see and know the enemy. And we see that God really isn't at all worried about how it will turn out.

I'm no expert, but I'm guessing Job was knowledgeable about the stories of the creation and the fall of man. I'm fairly certain he knew about Adam and Eve, the deception and temptation, and how man was cut off from God with just one little bite of fruit. He must have known there was an enemy. But still, if Job's friends are any indicator, popular theology of the time sought to explain the dilemma of human suffering by stating that if you're good, God blesses you and if you sin, God punishes you. Therefore (conclude his friends), Job must have done something offensive of which he needs to repent. Nowhere in their explanation is the enemy mentioned.

It's amazing how quickly I forget what is true when my feet are to the fire. And maybe Job also lost sight of the fact that God is good and just and has our best in mind; that He is our defender and rescuer and redeemer and His eye is always upon us; that nothing that happens to us happens apart from His permission and that we are more protected and safe than we realize. And it also seems he lost sight of the fact that there's an enemy who takes the best possible advantage of the fact that we so easily forget about him.

The enemy operates in darkness and deception and trickery. He is good at averting our gazes from where they should be. He wants us to forget that there is something more true than anything else. The enemy wants us to call God into question and to place Him on the witness stand. He wants us to think God caused our pain and maybe even enjoys watching us suffer. He wants us to think that if God really loved us, He wouldn't let this happen. And if God really doesn't love us, then we may as well give up and go home. He wants us to direct our anger at God, to accuse Him of causing, allowing, and perpetuating our pain. He wants us to wonder if our lives of faith and devotion are an elaborate sham. He wants us to abandon our faith not in a quiet, unassuming way, but in a fist-shaking, screaming-match, throat-scraping, very public, broadcast-on-the-5-o'clock-news, there's-no-doubt-about-it way.

The enemy's design is to hem us in, to shorten the range of our vision until we cannot see beyond the boundaries of our own pain. In drawing our attention away from God, he takes us captive and makes us his hostages. It's like Stockholm syndrome in a way: we align ourselves with our captor, agreeing with the deceptions and doubts he drives into our hearts. Unable to retaliate in any other way, desiring to protect ourselves, we turn those doubts and deceptions into weapons and direct them at God. He's supposed to be our protector and rescuer, right? If He's so good and our pain is so bad, why does He not come and save us? And when God does not answer, our agreements with the enemy begin to take root even more deeply. It is a dark and lonely place to be and the questions and doubts continue to cut off our souls from the light of day.

I am certain that not even God would dare minimize or make light of anyone's pain. And while this may sound ridiculous at first, I believe that the only thing to do is the one thing the enemy doesn't want us to do and fix our gaze on the face of God, to know and affirm:

The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and loving toward all he has made.
The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.

Psalm 145:17-18

Without knowing why and without being trite or overly pious about it, without intending to be the least bit dismissive, I believe the greatest act of defiance against our enemy is to worship our God.

Even so, a number of weighty questions remain.

God is unbearably quiet in most of the text of Job. And as I sit in my own pile of ashes in a way, I'm wondering about what I can learn from Job by turning his story over and over in my heart. I wonder what He is doing in the shadows as He listens to Job's friends all but accuse him of some vile sin time and again. I wonder what was in His heart as He watched Job scrape at his sores with bits of broken pottery. I wonder what He was thinking as Job and asked why?, over and over again. I wonder how He held himself in silence when Job requested an audience with God so Job could make his case. I wonder how His heart felt as He counted and collected Job's tears.

But He is there. He is present, hidden by the shadows. And He is not done with Job ... not yet. Not even close.

reflections on job: part 3 {asking questions & making a case}

2008-09-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

Why is life given to a man

whose way is hidden,

whom God has hedged in?

For sighing comes to me instead of food;

my groans pour out like water.

What I feared has come upon me;

what I dreaded has happened to me.

I have no peace, no quietness;

I have no rest, but only turmoil.

Job 3:23-26

This is at the end of Job's first speech since the onslaught of his pain and loss. His friends have come to be with him and seeing how much he is suffering, sit with him on the ground in silence for seven days (2:13). Just sitting. Just being present with him. Seven whole days and nights (and we all know that when you're in the thick of it, the nights are the hardest).

These first words out of his mouth are heavy with sadness: he laments the day he was born, wondering why he did not perish at birth (3:11), or why he is given life when his days are so bitter (3:20-21). There is no rest, nor is there any escape for him in his waking or living hours; death seems to be the only way out.

His friends, being the good Jewish boys they are, seek to explain to Job his pain. A very simplistic way of summarizing their theology is that if you're good and obedient, God blesses you. If you offend God, he curses you. They tell Job that God is disciplining him and that he should evaluate himself closely and confess his sin to God, do his best to make amends and live a righteous life. Job maintains before his friends that he has not offended God, that he has not exacted any injustice. In fact, Job desires to "speak to the Almighty / and to argue my case with God" (13:3).

From chapters 3 through 31, Job and his friends go round and round with arguments and answers to arguments. Job maintains his integrity and his friends try to convince him that his suffering is God's chastisement for him. When Elihu shows up in chapter 32, he tries to put both Job and his friends in their places: his friends are unable to answer Job's arguments or prove him wrong. To Job, he says that God does no wrong or evil toward any man (34:10), but "those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; / he speaks to them in their affliction" (36:15).

If I were Job, I'd be asking: How? How is he delivering me in this suffering? From what is He delivering me? How is He speaking? God has not said a thing.

I'm struck by the fact that in this span of more than thirty chapters (and who knows how many days and nights), God is alarmingly silent. While the pain continues and while his friends argue and while Job wonders and asks and maintains his integrity, God is quiet. The suffering continues, and Job wants to make his case before God, who does not answer him. At least not yet.

This song is one that has stayed with me since I first heard it about ten years ago. There is some comfort in knowing that Christ did not spare himself from any aspect of our human lives, including suffering; in His last moments He knew what it was to feel like God had disappeared, extricated Himself from the scene completely. But even in light of this, the questions continue and we wonder why, and when it will stop. Job asked, and I think no matter what kind of suffering we face, his questions are representative of those we ask when we are hedged in, when the pain just won't stop.

Please, God. Please. Answer me.

This song has no answers. But I love that in it, the questions I'm sometimes too afraid to ask are said out loud. There's a certain not-aloneness in that, and an inherent permission to feel the same.

NOTE: For some reason, the music doesn't want to embed in the post. I've put the song over on the sidebar.

Rich Mullins
"Hard to Get"

reflections on job: part 2 {the unseen intruder}

2008-08-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

When I read Job this time around, I did something I don't usually do when I read my Bible: I read the commentary first. I have nothing against commentators and generally trust that they are well-trained in their field of study, knowing a good deal more than me about the historical context, the intended audience, and literary devices employed in a particular text. It's just that I don't want to be told how to think of the book I'm about to read. I don't want to approach the text with a particular bias before I've even encountered it. After all, it is the Scripture that is God-breathed, not the commentary preceding it.

But like I said, I read the commentary before approaching the story of Job this time around. I'm glad I did, because the commentator reminded me of something -- and it's something that I can read and notice and comprehend on my own, but something that's easy to forget when pain is pressing in hard against your soul, shrouding it in darkness and doubt. He reminded me that it's not just God and Job at play in this story. There is an enemy, the great anti-hero: Satan himself.

In the earliest chapters, he is ushered into the throne room of heaven with the angels and has a tête-à-tête with God. God asks Satan where he's been (as if He doesn't know).

Roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it, Satan replies (1:7).

Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil, God says (1:8).

Now hold the phone: Satan is in heaven having an audience with God. Satan tells God that he's been roaming the earth looking for someone to mess with and God in turn offers up Job. Hey Lucifer. Have you thought about Job? He's a great guy. He and I are pretty tight.

Wanna bet? Satan retorts. You've given him the sweet life: he's got it so easy. I bet you that if you took away all the good things you've given him, he'd spit in your face in a minute.

Alrighty, God says. Go for it. Everything I've given him is in your hands, but just don't touch him. Deal?

Satan agrees and in a matter of a few sentences, everything Job once possessed is gone: his livestock, his servants, and his children. All his wealth and his family are gone in a breath. Job still gives glory to God despite his grief. Satan comes back to God with a new challenge in chapter two, having new ideas of how he can get Job to slap God in the face. God offers up Job a second time:

Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason (2:3). Satan couldn't have liked hearing that.

And so God gives the enemy permission to strike Job's body. Satan thinks he has God here; he will surely curse you to your face. And so Job is afflicted with terrible sores from his scalp to the soles of his feet. He is left mourning in the ashes, scraping his skin with shards of broken pottery.

There are a few things that stick out to me about this exchange.

Aside from the initial surprise that Lucifer is making a return appearance in heaven, I'm struck by the fact that God is not the least bit threatened by Satan's presence or by the challenge he presents. Of course He's not; He is God, after all. But seriously, He's not worried about how Job will respond; He already knows what will happen. He is, after all, the one who suggests that Lucifer take on Job.

This brings me to my second point. God declares Job to be a righteous man: in the text God affirms that Job is blameless and upright. We all know that while no one in the history of the world but Christ has lived a truly blameless life, God still counts Job as a righteous man. Before there is even a chance for the shock of God's first assertion to wear off, He declares it a second time: He really means it when He proclaims that Job is a righteous man, and He knows that Job won't turn his back on Him.

I'm also struck by the fact that the enemy is on a leash. God holds the other end of it and determines its length. God determines the parameters within which Satan might wreak havoc on Job's life, and Satan cannot go beyond those lines. I know we would all prefer that he were chained tightly to a wall in hell, that he were given no permission to roam at all, but it is something, isn't it? Satan only moves and strikes within the allowance God Himself permits.

Examining the same thought from a different angle, I notice also that Job's suffering does not occur apart from God's permission. God does not instigate, nor does He cause it, but He does allow it to occur. The myriad of questions this thought alone raises aside, this truth makes me wildly uncomfortable, especially when I consider that Satan might be making a similar wager with God concerning me. And God answers him, have you considered my servant Kirsten?

What I can also see is that the enemy's tactics have not changed. This is where the commentary shed some light for me, reminding me that since he was cast out of heaven, he's been trying to drive a wedge between God and man; he's trying to disrupt and sever relationship. He causes all sorts of trouble and hopes we'll blame God, that we'll curse Him. Our enemy hopes that we'll forget him; that we'll blame God for our suffering. That we'll question Him and doubt Him. Lose faith in Him altogether. Think of Him as cruel, sadistic, or worse, apathetic. Shake our fists at Him and curse Him. Since first going after Adam and Eve in the garden, the enemy has applied to same tactic throughout the history of the church: divide and conquer.

Any one of these observations gives rise to a hundred questions, all of which I am sure have been asked since there have been people around to ask them. Job is the oldest book of the Bible and people much smarter than myself have studied and written about it over the thousands of years it's existed as a text; I don't expect to add anything new or profound to the discussion, but I do expect it will give me a new lens through which to view my current experience.

And for now it is good for me to remember these things: that there is an enemy who is against me and seeks to divide me from my God. As for my God, He is for me and declares me as righteous before enemy and angels alike.

{stay tuned for part 3}

reflections on job: part 1 {the measure of suffering}

2008-08-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, I read the book of Job in one sitting: the entire book, from start to finish. I've never read it that way prior to that day and now I'm convinced that it's a narrative that needs and begs to be read as such. Perhaps it's because I had eyes to see it and because I had the time to absorb it all in one sitting, but now I see things there that I've missed before.

I am always reluctant to draw any comparisons between myself and Job. It's a tough act to follow, isn't it? The man loses all his material wealth, property, his family, and his servants in a matter of sentences and barely a breath later, is afflicted from boils and sores from head to toe. His life is utterly devastated within the first two of forty-two chapters. And yet he famously praises God in the midst of his profound losses (The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised, 1:20). When his wife tells him to curse God and die, Job holds fast and replies, Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? (2:10). All this while scraping sores from his body with a piece of broken pottery.

Lord, have mercy.

Anything I relegate to the category of "suffering" in my life hardly measures up to what this man experienced in such a short amount of time. But maybe that's where I need to stop myself: the minute I start quantifying suffering and deem my experience smaller or less significant, I cut off a pathway by which the wisdom offered in those forty-two chapters might gain admittance to my heart. I risk missing the point entirely. I may put a roadblock on the path by which I might gain to insight or find a specific and fitting grace for my soul.

Suffering cannot be quantified or compared; I cannot measure with any objectivity the loss and grief I experience against that of another -- even Job. When I try to measure suffering, I make it less than it is. And we all know that when you're in the thick of it, weighted down by worries and grief and darkness and loss and impossible questions, there is no bottom to the grief. You can never find the end of it.

Perhaps it's a tool of the enemy to have us thinking that our suffering is worthless, or that we are simply too weak and that is why it's so hard for us. We're really not all that righteous, are we? Aren't we just getting what we deserve? If God really loved us, He would have stopped any of this from happening.

And so on, and so on.

Truth is, regardless of how much I'm going through or how bad it is, I'm asking some of the same questions Job did. Offering some of the same defenses. Wondering what God is up to when it seems like the losses are compounding and will never end. Hurting like crazy and finding no salve in sight. Wondering if this is my life forever, if this is what the faithful can expect from a loving God. Sitting in the ashes, picking at my wounds with broken things.

So I ignored the enemy's voice, and I opened the book of Job.

what kind of gospel

2008-07-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

... is this??

two illustrations in observing limits {crash & burn}

2008-07-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

The milieu.
The weekend before last was gorgeous here, a return of the quintessential perfect Northwest Washington summers I remember growing up: cloudless, mid-80s, a light breeze. And miracle of miracles, not only did this weather fall on the weekend (on a consecutive Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I tell you), but it happened before the fourth of July, which is almost unheard of (because, as all Pacific NW natives know, summer doesn't actually start here until July 5).

Some of you may be rolling your eyes by now thinking that girl just needs to get over this, but you'd have to be a native and have lived through the great disappointment that was June, July, and August of 2007 and the eight months of winter that followed to appreciate fully the sheer and miraculous beauty of such perfect summer weather arriving at all, let alone prior to July 4, and on a weekend.

Burn.
Needless to say, I couldn't wait to be outside under an expanse of a blue sky uncluttered by clouds. I was anxious enough on Saturday morning that after my morning routine was over at the gym, I rushed home to shower, put on a tank top and some shorts and ran out the door as quickly as I could manage.

Without sunscreen. Oops (she thinks sheepishly).

When I got to Boulevard Park, I got an iced soy latte from The Woods (note to Sarah and Christin and Christianne: we are soooo going here!!), spread out my blanket on the grass mere feet from the ocean water, pulled out my book, and cozied in for my afternoon. I marveled at the fact that the park wasn't more crowded, that I had no issues finding a parking space nearby. I giggled as U2's "Beautiful Day" blared on my iPod. As a light breeze came off the ocean and cooled my skin, I wondered if I was experiencing heaven.

Two and a half hours later, I was still reluctant to leave. This was perfect. But I already knew I was in for a world of hurt given my lack of sun protection. The mirror confirmed my suspicions when I got home. The skin on my back, arms, and legs was bright red. I moved the straps of my tanktop to reveal the pale skin underneath. It was especially apparent then just how burned I was.

Crash.
The next day I was making my way south to head to a friend's engagement party and the same perfect weather accompanied me on my drive. The particular friend I was driving to see has made her home abroad, so she isn't someone I get to see often.

I was cruising at a comfortable speed down the interstate when suddenly traffic came to a screeching halt. My car was stopped just before a left-turning curve in the freeway and I couldn't see what had happened. Traffic wasn't crawling; it was fully stopped. It was a matter of minutes later that I heard sirens and saw flashing red lights in the rearview mirror. All the drivers pulled to the shoulders of the freeway, parking on the shoulders and leaving the lanes perfectly clear. I whispered prayers for the driver and any passengers.

Ambulances and fire trucks squealed by. After waiting a few minutes and no movement, we all started getting out of our cars. Shirtless teenage boys were playing frisbee. People were walking their dogs on the shoulders, and a woman behind me asked if I had any water I could give her 6-week-old puppies. A few minutes later, another woman walked down the length of the freeway inviting us all to partake in leftovers from a family camping trip. I was thankful for the cool ripe mango and plump red strawberries.

The minutes ticked by, slow and sluggish in the heat of the day. A few people had walked in a southerly direction to see what they could see. The rumors made their way north. Jackknifed trailer. Car flipped over.

No one knew how much longer it would be.

After waiting for a long hour, there was no change in circumstances. I called my friend's family home and left a message. I didn't know how much longer it would be. Unable to make it. So sorry. I hung the phone up, disappointed. I was damp with sweat even in the shade and the burn was making it feel as though my skin would crack every time I moved. But I had to appreciate that despite the fact that people were missing their planes, that they were running late, that we were all uncomfortably damp with sweat, we were all making the best of it: conversing interestedly with perfect strangers, playing frisbee, sharing ripe fruit off the back of a trailer.

I was looking to the south when I noticed people running back to their cars. A chorus of engines turned over and slowly, we all inched back on to the freeway and started moving again.

Just a quarter of a mile south of where I had stopped, I saw the wreck and felt as though all the breath had been sucked from my chest: broken glass. a trailer that looked as though a bomb had been lit from the inside: blankets, camping gear, coolers thrown out like confetti. an SUV with its tires in the air, the front of the car flattened. i thought of a dead dog with its legs stiff and straight in the air. and then the tow truck tugging on the upside-down vehicle, the sound of metal and glass grating against the pavement.

I wondered how anyone could have survived. I wondered at the timing. Had I gotten to that spot even fifteen seconds earlier ... I couldn't finish the thought.

The next day I learned that the driver was towing a trailer far larger than his SUV was able to handle. That he was driving too fast, the trailer swinging so slightly from side to side until it swung wider and jackknifed, flipping him over. I learned that he lived, coming away with only minor injuries. I saw that SUV. That he survived at all is a miracle.

I didn't make it to my friend's party that day. I was too shaken to drive much further. And I started thinking about sunburns and peeling skin and jackknifed trailers and overturned vehicles and how sometimes the line around my limits, the line that divides what I can handle from what I cannot is so fuzzy that I don't know I've stepped over that line until something happens. Sometimes I know exactly where they are, the warning there in black and white or in the memory of previous experiences.

I am too humbled by what I saw to do much moralizing on the matter. But what I take away from that weekend is this: my limits are real and definite. Fair skin is burned when exposed to the sun for too long without protection and cars flip over when transgressing the appropriate limits of weight and size and speed. It is good for me to remember that the space between the place where I start and where I end is not at all long. While I am fond of playing God from time to time, I have my reddened, peeling skin and the sound of glass and metal reverberating in my mind, two reminders that nothing good waits for me when I get cocky or forgetful or dismissive or too smart for my own good, thinking I can handle it without detriment to myself and others.

I don't know where the boundary line is most of the time, the line between Him and me. I step over into His territory often enough, thinking it is mine, that I am more in myself than I really am: that I am capable, that I am strong, that there are no consequences that come from stepping outside the limits I pretend aren't there. Sometimes I know exactly where it is, but I step over it anyway.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say anymore, except if it's to acknowledge the truth that I think it's better for me to surrender it all to Him in the first place, not to operate from within my all-too-limited self. What if I live moment to moment, giving over my energy, my work, my cooking, my writing, my photography, my relationships ... what if I give up my power to Him completely in these places? In fact, what if I give it up to Him in all the places (not just the ones I deem as in need of help)?

I know what happens if I don't. I wonder what might happen if I do.

photos by kirsten.michelle

leaning. learning. letting go.

2008-06-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

I am feeling awake and alive these days; it is a return I've anticipated. I can taste, feel, smell, and enjoy again. I can appreciate beauty and move freely. I actually ran up the stairs today, skipping steps to retrieve my laundry. It was glorious!!

While I have no desire to go back to a place where I feel empty and drained and sluggish and heavy, I don't want to lose my grip on the truth of how truly bereft, how terribly empty I am without Christ to fill me. Things that I thought came from myself like the ability to extend basic kindnesses or to practice selflessness really don't originate anywhere within me. They start with Him.

It was never more clear than when I had nothing in myself to call upon: it starts with Him. I'm not sure how to say it in a way that doesn't sound trite or pithy. But after starting each day at the end of myself, I got a crash course on leaning into Him moment by moment.

I am already seeing the ways in which I am defaulting to old habits and ways of being. I find that when I can lean upon myself, I do. When I insist on being strong, it invariably limits the ways in which the power of God can be made perfect in my weakness. Leaning into Him more fully is a lesson I am learning and one I suspect that I will continue to learn and re-learn over the course of my life.

If anything, I'm perceiving with greater clarity how concurrently painful and beautiful it is to let go, and how ready He is to fill us when we finally do.

the psalms of david

2008-06-07T22:10:00.000-07:00

Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
I am worn out calling for help;
my throat is parched.
My eyes fail,
looking for my God.
[69:1-3]

I’ve been spending some time in the Psalms lately. David’s songs are potent, earthy, and raw; the words heavy-laden with anger and fear and sin and confession and blood and tears on the one hand, and ecstatic, elated with praise and joy and dancing on the other.

In his darker moments, I can imagine David on his hands and knees, digging up earth with his fingernails, chest heaving with sobs that threaten to make his sternum collapse, thick threads of spittle hanging from his mouth; he grips and tears at his hair; he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, he scratches at his face. His throat becomes raw, his lips gummy. His cries come from a depth he cannot plumb and are swallowed by the emptiness around him.

For troubles without number surround me;
my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
They are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails within me.
[40:12]

We all know the story of the boy-turned-king, the warrior, the one God had hand-picked. We know the story of how he slew the giant with a rock and sling; we are familiar with his dalliance with Bathsheba. We’ve read of his enemies and how madly they pursued him, thirsty for blood.

Too often I’ve lost the heart of the man in the stories I’ve heard a hundred times; the flesh and blood human being is reduced to a caricature, a mere stick-figure. Familiarity turns those words ripped from his chest and dripping with his tears and blood into dead things, dry and stale, scattered on the wind like dust. But seasoned with my own tears, I find his songs new and fresh with a kind of life. David’s songs give me permission to be desolate, weary, tired, and questioning. Even the man after God’s own heart found himself wading in mire, his heart failing. He found himself overtaken and drowning, shackled to his sins and failures, weighted with grief. There were times he couldn’t see God at all.

Yet from this same heart, he was also able to say:

I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
[145:1-2]

While the depths of his grief might seem to contrast sharply with his ecstatic exclamations of joy and praise, both were poured out of the same heart. David permitted himself to experience fully both bottomless despair and ecstatic, effusive rejoicing. He did not hide any of it from God or attempt to sanctify his experience, but allowed the truth of his heart gush forth whether it came out of a chest that was ready to cave in, or from one that felt weightless and winged.

And I find myself wondering if I can do the same: not simply to trust in his presence and goodness when my eyes are red and puffy, when my blood boils underneath my skin, when I’m clawing at the earth with my fingernails, but also to explode in praise, to commend His goodness when I feel as though I'm being crushed.

I do not know whether we need to experience the infinity of grief in order to know its counterpart in joy, but I do know this: David’s heart held the breadth of it and did not seek to contain it, this heart that was said to be like God’s own.

And that is truth I can grab onto.

silence

2008-05-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

I've had this CD for years, and historically it has not received much playtime. I've taken listening to Jars of Clay's Eleventh Hour album nearly every day. Each track contains something precious, and has resonated with me deeply in different ways over the last several weeks.

The CD was already in my car this morning when I started it and was on the sixth track, "Silence". It's not one I've paid much attention to until this morning. But as I find myself stripped, deeply exhausted, feeling quiet and defeated (we can be really honest here, right??), as I find myself in tears many times in the course of a day, this song gave words where I had none. It gave me permission to ask the question: where are You?

Though I know I can trust God is in this and hasn't gone away, my heart is sore and tired and just wants Him to be done with whatever He's doing.

I'm someone who believes the meaning of a song is inextricably tied to the music, so I'm posting both a video with the song and the lyrics.

Close your eyes and listen. Maybe it will speak to something in you, too.

Take
Take till there's nothing
Nothing to turn to
Nothing when you get through
Won't you break
Scattered pieces of all I've been
Bowing to all I've been
Running to
Where are you?
Where are you?

Did you leave me unbreakable?
You leave me frozen?
I've never felt so cold
I thought you were silent
And I thought you left me
For the wreckage and the waste
On an empty beach of faith
Was it true?

Cuz I ... I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?

Scream
Deeper I wanna scream
I want you to hear me
I want you to find me
Cuz I ... I want to believe
But all I pray is wrong
And all I claim is gone

And I ... I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Yeah....yeah
And where ... I ... I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?

becoming empty

2008-05-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

God cannot fill what is full. He can fill only emptiness -- deep poverty -- and your "Yes" is the beginning of being or becoming empty. It is not how much we really "have" to give -- but how empty we are -- so that we can receive fully in our life and let Him live His life in us.

Mother Teresa
qtd. from a letter in Come Be My Light

quietness & rest

2008-05-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

There are other souls who labour and weary themselves to a piteous extent, and yet go backward, seeking profit in that which is not profitable, but is rather a hindrance; and there are still others who, by remaining at rest and in quietness, continue to make great progress.

St John of the Cross ~ The Ascent of Mount Carmel

blossoms photo by kirsten.michelle

point vierge: being before doing

2008-05-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

From this weekend's sermon:
The biblical call of what we do is always superseded by the challenge of who we are.

Other notes:
Be like Jesus.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. [Psalm 103:8]

Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
In vain you rise early and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat--
for he grants sleep to those he loves.
[Psalm 127:1-2]

Maybe that's why I feel as though not much is going on. There's not a whole lot of doing as I find myself in the midst of my own point vierge, waiting in a place that is the cusp between sleeping and waking, between darkness and light. It is a threshold, a doorway between who I was and who God has designed me to be.

Doing is not the point. Perhaps right now, obedience means sitting still. Waiting.

And so I will sit and wait, hands open: surrendering the old, ready to receive the new.

darkness & dawn photo by kirsten.michelle

breathing into it

2008-04-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my friend Elyse drove up for a visit. On Saturday we worked out at the gym, went to coffee, and went to church. On Sunday, we were very intentional about observing the injunction to rest on the Sabbath: we got 90-minute Swedish massages at my favorite local spa.

And yes, it was as every bit as blissful as it sounds.

After allowing our pores to drink in the gauzy warmth of the eucalyptus steam room, we went out to the waiting area where our massage therapists would meet us. Wrapped in thick and heavy white spa robes, we each sat in the waiting area with windows overlooking the cold and quiet bay, fingers wrapped tightly around our steaming mugs of herbal tea, a fire crackling at our backs.

My massage began with me face down on the heated table in a barely lit room, my arms relaxed and resting on the table against my body. A pan flute’s hollow notes were playing softly through speakers I could not see. It wasn’t long before I felt myself melt into the table.

The therapist began working at my legs and feet, rotating my ankles and using her hands to encourage looseness in my tight calves. She rubbed out each toe, pulling gently on each one. My stiff neck gave way under her persistent manipulations and finally consented to unclenching. Arms and hands received special attention as she rotated each of my arms from the shoulder and my hands from the wrists. I felt myself teeter on the edge of oblivion when my scalp and face were the focus of her attention.

Every cell in my body tingled with delight. I pulled in breaths through my nostrils that reached down to the ends of my toes and finger tips. I was limp like a well-cooked noodle, feeling heady and light, suspended and floating in thick fluid.

I first started receiving massages as part of my therapy following a car accident in 1996. My soft tissue injuries were extensive enough that multiple doctors told me I would have had an easier recovery had I broken my back. Those sessions with Julie were helpful, but hardly enjoyable in the way most people think massages should be. My muscles were constantly clenched and pulsating, throbbing, clinging to pockets of lactic acid. This went on for several months.

Julie went away to Chicago for a few weeks to get married, but referred me to another LMP to provide my treatment in her absence. As I lay on the table on my back eyes wide open and staring intently at the ceiling, the new therapist observed, “Yeah, Julie said you had a hard time letting go.”

It was the first time I had heard that. It was the first time I began to understand that I was hanging onto my injury every bit as much as it was hanging onto me. I would stare at that ceiling above me and disconnect; I would count its dots, study its texture, get lost in a deep white sea of blankness. I would do anything but focus on my clenching muscles, those pained and injured soft tissues. This new therapist encouraged me to close my eyes, to breathe deeply, to feel everything in my body, and to let it go.

It was in yoga that I first learned about how to bring the mind and the body together. This, my instructor often repeated, was primarily about focusing on your breath: being deliberate about drawing each breath in, pulling it down to your heels and up through your scalp; drawing the breath in deeply so every cell is infused with its life. It was about letting it go slowly, being intentional in its release, pushing out waste from every cell.

I always think of this when I get a massage: about the injunction to breathe deeply, to be intentional and aware, mindfully engaged. I can choose to stare at the ceiling and make an expert study of its texture, or I can surrender to the touch of the professional: let her rub out the knots and coax the sore spots to release. I can feel those points that wince when touched, trusting that the future benefits of letting go and breathing into those places exceed the present pain as she pokes, pushes, pulls. I can resist the movement she imposes on my arms, legs, and joints, or I can surrender: allow her to be the one dictating the motion of my limbs. I can clench, hang on, resist. This is what comes naturally. Or I can release and surrender, participate in the work she is doing: feel each manipulation and invite it in with each inhale. Giving over this control is not natural to me and requires consistent and conscious effort.

I am thinking of this these often days as memory reaches into my present, as God simultaneously puts his finger on sore and tender places, pressing and digging deeply with His fingers. I wince at His touch and my first inclination is to resist, to stare at the ceiling and disconnect, to bide my time until it is over. To be intentional only in forgetting. But I am especially mindful now that I must feel where He presses, trusting the work He does is good, knowing that He is working on rubbing out those toxic and tender things to which I unconsciously cling.

So I am doing my best to breathe into it, taking capacious and deliberate gulps of clear air and holding them in. And then slowly, slowly, I let them go, feeling each sinew and fiber relax its grip a little more with each cycle of breath. He continues to press and rub and pull, coaxing release from tissues accustomed to holding tight. He is doing most of the work, but it is I who am sore and light-headed and tired. I might stay here for awhile yet, resting and breathing and surrendering until I no longer feel that I might topple should I rise and walk.

compassion. laughter. holiness.

2008-04-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

Recently, both His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa Desmond Tutu were in Seattle for Seeds of Compassion, a 5-day event centering on working toward cross-cultural communication and addressing differences through collaborative problem-solving.

"All of us have this gift," said Tutu, facing the Dalai Lama. "We see here an incarnation of goodness. How can you be 50 years into exile and still maintain this bubbly joyousness?"

The message they brought with them to Seattle runs deep. Words like compassion and communication and understanding and collaboration are not just words with them. I think their lives and their friendship prove that.

There's something inspiring in their message and in their playful friendship. One man has been in exile for over fifty years. The other dealt first hand with the reality and the aftermath of apartheid. Neither has been dealt an easy hand.

And I guess what has me thinking on this and posting this here is that I think there's plenty I can learn from that. Though from very divergent spiritual beliefs, there is something potent and powerful about witnessing true respect for the dignity and humanity of another, about enduring hardship with joy, and about loving across political, cultural, and religious divides.

It's humbling. And it sounds like Jesus.

For a short (and funny) video clip of the two in action, click here. For a good article, click here.

Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu: AP Photo

holy defiance

2008-04-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

I am now officially obsessed with the virgin martyrs.

I have been making a meandering sort of progress through Kathleen Norris’s The Cloister Walk. It is my habit to pick up a chapter here and there, waiting sometimes days or even a week or two between readings.

Yesterday morning I picked up the text and found myself at a chapter about the virgin martyrs. I was madly underlining, bracketing, and starring the text, making copious notes in the margins with blue ink. I was so inspired and while I wasn't quite sure why at the time, I wanted to stand up and cheer in response to what I was reading. Norris’s narrative of the virgin martyrs and her own observations and conclusions about their choices and behavior gave shape to thoughts and feelings to which I have been utterly unable to encapsulate with my own words: thoughts about beauty and womanhood, thoughts about identity and purpose, thoughts about the world and God’s place for me in it, thoughts about death to self and surrender to Christ, not to mention all the feelings I have about this crazy and unexpected path I find myself walking.

Over the last several weeks, there has been a lot of internal juggling going on (hence the silence): this whole amazing business of claiming my identity as a writer and attending a writer’s conference, of writing a thorough confession to my body: it all happened after I came to God with an attitude of complete surrender. His work in me is not primarily about the writing and yet, that's how a lot of this is being made manifest right now. I wrote on one blog about how frustrated I was with my single status, and came to God in prayer. Instead of asking Him to satisfy me with someone else, I told Him, Okay. For now, your answer to my request for a partner is either ‘no’ or ‘not yet’. If you’re not going to fill this empty space with someone, what do you want to fill it with instead?

He wasted no time in responding.

That is when the most amazing things started happening. I prayed that prayer on February 15. Just eight days later, I woke up earlier than normal on a Saturday morning with the compelling directive in my heart and soul: I need to confess my sins toward my body. I couldn’t say for sure at the time that I knew it was God prompting me; I didn't know where the injunction was coming from. All I knew at the time was that piece of writing was not one I ever intended to write. It was not coming from me. But write it I did, and posted it with the smallest measure of faith that doing so was an act of obedience.

And now I'm watching all sorts of unimaginable blessings spring forth. One of those blessings is that I've found a substantive piece of God’s design for me, which is in short to bring forth this confession, to invite and give permission to others to do the same, to be witness to what God does in the wake of affirming these truths, taking them out of darkness and bringing them into the light, and to surrender this wholly unexpected place in my heart through which God desires to minister to others in a very particular way. Whew! I receive confirmation from Him almost daily (sometimes multiple times daily) that I’m on the right path, that he intends me for this particular and not wholly formed ministry. I don't have the opportunity to lose momentum, so often is He putting wind in my sails.

One of the many unexpected byproducts of this is that the space in my heart that felt so empty and dried out is no longer vacant, but bursting with fullness, lush and verdant and teeming with new life. God has filled it to overflowing; the heart He's given me in exchange for the one I surrendered to Him is one that has eyes only for Him. His design for my life in the context of His grander scheme is unfolding before me and I find myself utterly caught up in it, unwilling to allow that anything or anyone should take me away from it.

I am open to new friendships, but where relationships of the dating/courtship variety (or whatever you want to call it) are concerned, I feel a clear and resounding “no” rising up within me whenever it is offered. It feels incredibly empowering to declare truly and with utmost conviction that I’m just not all that interested in that right now, period. I cannot knowingly declare that this is the way it's always going to be; but I can affirm that this is the way it is now.

I make no apologies for this.

While I understand some women are in the habit of saying things they don’t really mean, it is irritating when I’m not taken at my word. Remember when Elizabeth in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice refuses Mr. Collins’s offer of marriage? He repeatedly attempts to counter her refusals of his proposal by accusing her of playing coy and of trying to incite greater passion from him. She keeps reaffirming her refusal with noticeable and increasing annoyance. While my circumstances are different than Elizabeth's, I can appreciate her frustration in that moment: her "no" is not being heard, but is being taken for something else entirely.

A couple months ago, I told a certain would-be pursuer three times over the course of two days quite explicitly that I wasn’t interested in dating him (I actually said three times: I don’t want to date you). Just seconds after I said this a fourth time, he accused me of being "unclear". I wish I was kidding.

I realize that this is one of those rare instances where my feelings and decisions are counter-cultural both in a popular sense and where the culture of the church is concerned as well. Most everyone desires companionship and to pair off with another. It is expected that single Christian adults are in pursuit of a marriage partner. It would not surprise me in the least to find that there might again be a time in my life where finding a spouse will be more important to me than it is at present. But it’s not now. I am satisfied and filled with contentment in the relationships with those I consider to be my community. I do not lack for human connection.

So what does any of this have to do with virgin martyrs? I'm so glad you asked!

Depending on the historical context from which they are being evaluated, virgin martyrs have been accused of being “unchristian” in their refusal to marry, and as an impossible ideal of Christian womanhood. It would seem then, that married Christian women and “those who do not suffer enough, would seem doomed to be imperfect models of Christian faith” (Norris, p. 187).

What makes the virgin martyrs such powerful examples is that they refused to marry pagan men or to worship idols and false gods as required by Roman law. It wasn’t merely popular culture they were defying: aligning themselves with Christ as they did was to openly resist the authorities and invite a vicious and brutal death. It was to blatantly defy every accepted standard of female behavior. They weren't going to marry pagan husbands in order to produce children who would also be required to worship false gods.

It wasn’t only in their behavior that they defied the laws of the time. Many virgin martyrs lucidly vocalized their dissent, which only incited more vehement responses from the prevailing male authorities. One such martyr, Mahya, after being publicly stripped naked at the command of the king declared, “‘It is to your shame … that you have done this; I am not ashamed of myself … for I am a woman – such as created by God.’ Had she finished her scriptural allusion,’ the authors note, ‘Mahya would have added, ‘created by God in his own image, male and female.’ Typically, such speech angers male rulers … the more the martyrs talk back, the more they mock those in power by their allegiance to Christ and his invincible power” (Norris, p. 194).

And what about their virginity? Typically, virginity is thought of as referring to someone who has not experienced sexual intercourse; in this sense, it is seen as a passive state of being, one that precedes knowing and experience. But the virginity that the martyrs embodied had more to do with embracing and affirming their identities in and alignment with Christ. One Benedictine sister described virginity as having its center in the heart, such that it could be named “singleness of heart”. The same sister continues, “Virginity is a state that returns to God in wholeness. This wholeness is not that of having experienced all experiences, but of something reserved, preserved, or reclaimed for what it was made for. Virginity is the ability to stay centered, with oneness of purpose” (qtd. in Norris, pp. 200-201).

Norris makes the point that physical virginity of the martyrs is not the issue, “and it never was. Reading between the lines of the tortures the virgin martyrs endured, it seems obvious that they were raped. Scholars of the early church now confirm this. The real issue is that these unprotected women dare to make an outrageous claim – that as Christians, they have been made in the image of God – and are thus greatly feared by governing authorities and punished to the full extent of the law.”

She continues, “In reclaiming our virginity, women can reclaim our first selves. We can allow the fierce, holy little girls we were to cast judgment on the ways our adult lives do and do not reflect what we were made for” (Norris, p. 203). In this sense, virginity is for the married woman or the single woman; it is available to all women. At these words I want to stand up, raise my arms, and cheer!!

For the first time in my life, I can affirm I am as single-hearted in my devotion to God as I’ve ever been. I don't know how else to say it: I am enamored of Him and desire in my depths to honor Him with my obedience by being true to that for which He has called me. Right now, in this moment, I’m doing what I was made for. At last, I can affirm without a doubt and know deeply without tangible proof that I am exactly where He wants me to be, that I am conforming exactly to that “fierce, holy little girl” He always intended me to be. Finally, after years of donning masks and acting a part, I am learning what it means to be me.

Though I really do understand when incredulity is the primary response to this declaration, that like Mr. Collins, some might think I’m just trying to put would-be pursuers in suspense, it is frustrating not to be taken at my word. I understand that it might seem ridiculous for me to be complaining that someone wants to pursue a relationship with me. What a terrible problem to have, some might say (and have said). I’m aware of how this sounds, which is why it’s difficult for me to articulate and why even now, I’m hesitating at posting this at all.

But I here affirm that I am a whole being, created in God’s image. Jesus Christ has filled me with Himself and I want only to be filled with Him. I am wholly at His disposal; I am caught up in Him. He is the only one on whom I set my sights. While declaring this publicly won't put me in any danger of suffering sadistic tortures or dying a brutal death, I understand that what I'm saying puts me in an overwhelming minority. But the testimony of the unswerving and undivided devotion of these virgin martyrs speaks volumes to me these thousands of years later; their stories aid me in understanding my own heart better: that theirs was a defiance not for the sake of defiance. Their defiance of the laws and accepted standards of the times in which they lived was a natural byproduct of the single-hearted love and devotion they bore toward their Creator.

It’s outrageous to claim this, I know. I can't claim that I understand it fully. But I’m not going to stop surrendering to Him now, not when I've opened my hands to Him and have begun to receive my true self from Him. This is not defiance for its own sake: it is just too wonderful finally to begin to understand and embody His design and purpose for me. I'm willing to fight for and defend this, even if it means turning aside from every accepted convention of faith and femininity.

Martyrdom of Saint Agatha

Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547)

did somebody say it was spring?

2008-03-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

Because I'm not convinced.

I suppose there are many areas of the country where it's normal to have snow this late in the year. Bellingham, Washington is not one of those places.

I suppose that strictly speaking, this is not about following Yahweh through the wilds of faith. But believe me, I was praying as I attempted to navigate my way home through the wild and wooly streets of Bellingham while simultaenously suppressing the urge to shake my fist and curse wildly at the heavens because I had to forgo my post-gym latte this morning. You just don't take chances with the snow around here, especially when you live at the top of a very large hill. And if you know me at all, I have all kinds of ire toward anything that would stand between me and my latte.

I was like a very cute, female version of Captain Ahab obsessed with his pursuit of the white whale: "Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

Yeah, it was something like that. So in some sense, it is a very spiritual matter indeed.

Enjoy the change of pace!! :o)

seasonal confusion photo by kirsten.michelle

walking on water

2008-03-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

Remember my dream -- that one in which I was getting bounced off the walls of my bedroom? It should hardly be surprising that I haven't forgotten it; it hovers very near the surface of my consciousness, especially as I'm going to bed.

Even in the midst of that dream, and especially in the day or two that followed, the word buffeted stuck out to me. I knew it was important that it was buffeted and not another word, and I wasn't immediately sure why. It's not a word that comprises a regular part of my vocabulary, nor is it one I normally think to use. So I did a search for it in Scripture; it is used just once in the Bible and only in one translation:

Matthew 14: 22-33 (NIV)

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."

"Come," he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

Whoa.

Having had some time to reflect on any number of possible implications, a few things stand out to me about this story:

Walking on water is impossible.
Peter walked out to Jesus from the boat on the water. Um yeah ... we can't do that. Have you ever tried? Peter got out of the boat in the middle of the frickin' lake! It strikes me that on the same night I had this dream, I voiced some concerns of mine to a friend about what I understood the Lord was asking of me; I confessed to her that I was overwhelmed and wondered aloud how any of it could be done. It seems impossible.

When Jesus shows up, the disciples are afraid.
The disciples' first response it is fear ("it's a ghost!") when they see Jesus out for a stroll on the choppy lake. He tells them, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Doing impossible things is scary and overwhelming and yet sometimes, that is precisely what obedience entails: to trust that the impossible is possible when Christ commands it and when our eyes are on Him. I know what Christ is asking of me; I asked Him to show up and He did. And it freaked me out; it continues to freak me out.

It is the boat that is buffeted.
If you've got to be out on a choppy lake and the wind is against you, my bet is that you'd prefer the boat to bobbing around the lake alone without a boat, a life preserver, or water wings. Between the two, the boat is safer and more certain. When you've told the Lord you will and then He says, "Come", you cannot unhear that word. You step out from scary to scarier in order to get closer to where He is.

I suppose I could shrink back into the distance and pretend none of this ever happened, pretend that I didn't know precisely what He's called me toward. Pretend that that howling wind and the slapping water against the boat drowned out His words, like He never said that word at all.

But I did ask and He did say it. So it's time to get out of the boat.

Peter sinks when he pays attention to those things that aren't Jesus.
This is the point I often hear when this particular passage is exegeted. When Peter pays attention to the wind and the waves, he starts to sink and cries out for rescue. And Jesus rescues Him, asking Peter why he ever doubted. Perhaps it sounds pithy and trite to say keep your eyes on Jesus, but that's what it boils down to at the end of the day, doesn't it? Don't pay attention to the distractions, the things that oppose you, or even the work itself; pay attention to Jesus: lock His gaze and keep walking toward Him.

I cannot let myself focus on the work or those things that would pull me away from it. He asked and He's waiting, not moving, a point of stillness and silence amidst the cacophony (what will you say? how will you say it? what gives you authority to speak to this? how will you ever get published?). It is I who must move toward Him. His eyes lock with mine and I walk toward the gaze I am beginning to know and trust while the wind blows against me and the waves crash around me; knowing that I can only walk this impossible ground because He said Come.

What truth do you see in this passage, friends? Anything in particular stand out to you?

meeting him here

2008-03-15T21:29:00.000-07:00

surrender

mount hermon cross photo by kirsten.michelle

buffeted

2008-03-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

I tend to have a rich and colorful dream life. Once the lights are out and I'm warm under the covers, a new life begins after I surrender to that deep and restful state of unconsciousness. I only occasionally remember what happens when I wake up. But I can't shake last night's dream. It was too real, still covering me like an invisible cloak.

Yesterday, I left work about halfway through my day because I was profoundly and deeply tired. My limbs were heavy and my head felt as though it was a bowling ball balancing precariously on a broomstick. I slumped in my chair, unable to concentrate. I was supposed to conduct a training session, but couldn't even contemplate how I was going to make it through the day feeling like this. I had consumed a latte already and was on my second cup of black tea. So deigning to practice what I preach, I decided to take myself home and rest.

I lay in bed for two hours, but didn't really sleep. It was restful though; I felt well as long as I was hidden from the shafts light penetrating my bedroom blinds, wrapped in the darkness and warmth of the bed coverings.

After about two hours, I went downstairs and did some work on my book project; the words are coming naturally and easily; even I am surprised with how much there is to tell. Later on, I had a healthy dinner and made my way to bed early.

I slipped into unconsciousness easily. And then came the dream.

In my dream I was in my bed, but unable to sleep. I was being tossed about, gusts of air pushing me, moving me from where I lay, enveloping me; they were lifting me inches off the bed, spinning me about in the air, tossing me back over and over again. I cried out for Jesus, over and over again. I screamed His name. I screamed until my throat was raw with it. The room was filled with a taunting and demonic laughter. Before long I felt a hand was clasped tightly over my mouth. Suddenly I was unable to breathe or scream. I continued to cry out in my spirit for Jesus.

In the name of Jesus!! I shouted in my spirit. In the name of Jesus!!

Inside this dream, I remembered another dream from several months ago. I was secretly pregnant, having managed to keep it hidden from everyone around me. For months, I carried the growing child with me secretly. I had taken myself to the hospital when the labor pains came on. As I lay in the hospital bed breathing, pushing, giving birth, a familiar face was beside me, holding my hand. The face was my mom's, but I knew in my soul it was Jesus. I looked away after the child was out of me, a squealing little girl who was the embodiment of my shame, something I had kept hidden and secret, now squealing and alive and outside of me. Not hidden anymore. I clenched my eyes and kept my face turned. I knew she was safe as she was carried away, though I did not know where she was taken.

In my dream, I couldn't remember if this had actually happened to me, or if I was remembering another dream inside this dream. I felt the shame as fresh as if it were yesterday, as real as if had actually happened, as if I had actually given birth to an infant, looking away from her, not giving her a name. I was unable to distinguish between the dream and my waking life.

As this dream came to the front of my memory, I was still tossed and thrown about as if I were no more than a leaf on the wind, being bounced off the four walls, the ceiling, and the floor. My muffled screaming was swallowed in the escalating and cackling laughter around me. Like a pinball, my body continued to bounce off the walls and back again as they pushed and threw me. I felt bruised and battered, I could feel myself going limp. I was suffocating, feeling the winds rush tightly around my body, closing in on me, unrelenting. My arms and legs were bound, I was frozen. A heavy weight rested on my chest like a boulder, pinning me to the bed.

I could not move, nor could I cry out.

Then in my dream, the door opened and light spilled in. The hand disappeared from my mouth and the cackling laughter was silenced. I lay still and the rushing around me slowed until all was still. In the guise of a face both intensely familiar and deeply comforting, Jesus came and sat beside me on my bed. He looked just like my mom again. My hand reached out for him, grabbing at his calf, the most reachable piece of him from where I lay.

What's wrong? he asked softly, his gentle gaze holding my own.

I am buffeted, I choked. I could barely speak, still gasping for air.

Let me help you breathe, he said.

And slowly I woke up, taking in slow, deep lungfulls of air. I looked at my clock, reasoning that it must be close to morning. I was surprised to learn it had not yet been an hour since I first went to bed.

I looked about the same dark room, seeing the faint outlines of the walls against which I had been tossed, as though to check for damage. The room was intact. No visible evidence existed of what I had experienced so vividly in my dream.

And I was breathing. In and out, in and out, deeply. With relief. Safe. Rescued. Breathing.

I returned to sleep easily, sleeping deeply and soundly the remainder of the night. In my body today, I am still deeply tired; I am keenly aware I will need to be deliberate about getting enough sleep over the next few days. But inside that fatigue, deep inside my body rests a bone-deep knowledge that this pervading tiredness comes from having fought hard, from being rescued from an enemy; my body was battered and tossed, but I am alive and well and breathing, having been carried to the right side of victory by Jehovah, the God who rescues.

a heart more his

2008-03-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

Here I am, God; I sit before you again with open hands. Sometimes they are all I have to offer you when the words just don't come, when they bubble out of my heart and get stuck in my throat. I've been choking on them again. I know you know these words even when my mouth is unable to put a shape around them, to put air behind them and let them out. So here I sit, cross-legged on the bedroom floor, Indian style. Open hands resting on my knees. Tears come freely.

This is all I have sometimes.

Just a few weeks ago, I brought you my heart and held it in these same open hands, feeling as though it was something tattered and dripping, not a little bit shredded. I wondered aloud what you might have for this place that has been empty so long, this place I have prayed so many times to be filled. You always told me no, not now and I confess I felt punished at times, wondered if you were playing a joke. I had grown weary of your no, at the stratum of your no's over the years and I found myself unable to pretend with you. I wondered if you always intended it to feel this dry and empty, if you intended for my heart to collapse in upon itself. And then for the first time, I asked you: what might you have instead?

You wasted no time in answering.

And poetry happened, and then the writer's conference; every day was something new. I won't forget when I woke up with your words in me and I let them come, feeling possessed by you, being overcome in mind and in body; you infused yourself in my fingers and the confession poured out. You are inviting me to step out into the open air daily: nothing around me or under me, just your voice whispering: go. And so I go, stepping out into the air. I can't comprehend the adventure before me.

And then something flitted before my eyes that I thought I wanted; I extended my hand and let it rest on my finger. I turned my hand and contemplated it from different angles. And then the most amazing thing happened: I said no. And I was able to say it with clarity and conviction as your yes takes root in me, but not without some tears. I am new at this. Unexpected. That word is on my lips frequently these days.

So I let it go and let the wind carry it away, my heart too entirely full of you for regret, unfolding and letting you in. Old things are dying and new things sprouting to life, blooming and fluorishing, deeply rooted in a freshly churned soil. Vibrant, alive; unexpected. Doubt is edged out, water is flowing through the desert.

Open hands, resting on my knees. The tears still come. But there is joy too, effervescent and bubbling up uncontainable. There is some death in this becoming: things familiar and comfortable are lifted from these open hands, things deeply molded to the shape of my grip. I turn over this new thing you've placed in my palms, wondering. Marvelling, receiving myself from you.

This heart is more yours.

tulip photo by kirsten.michelle

a song for the weary traveler

2008-02-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

Many of us are in a place these days where we walk a dark, mysterious road. We know God brought us there, we know He's with us there. But we don't want to be there because it's dark and we're not the ones directing our own paths.

God is raising things to the surface in me that I really don't want to confront. It's going to hurt, it's going to require releasing some things I've wrapped myself around tightly for the last several years.

It's easy to want to shake my fist at Him, to envy Him in His heaven, fancying Him far removed from this all-too-real and painful path.

And then I remember ... He gets it. He's been there too. He's shared in our earthly existence, He's felt what it feels like to be us. He's felt what it's like to want another, less painful way only to find that the path of obedience is a painful and sacrificing one.

This song is one of the last ever recorded by Rich Mullins; Rich was killed in a car accident in September 1997 shortly after this crummy cassette-tape recording was made. But I prefer this version over the studio version by his band; there's something so raw and imperfect about it; unpolished and real. Kind of like me; kind of like all of us.

Something that reminds me ... He gets it.

See the lyrics to "Hard to Get" here.

penetrating layers of memory

2008-02-20T21:07:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I shouldn't be, but I'm continually surprised at how God is leading me down this new path: the things He points out, the places at which He has me pause and look and take in the landscape before me, the detail He points out, the stones He turns over. I'm closely examining places I've become accustomed to overlooking, finding myself drawn to examine memories of myself that were on dusty shelves of forgetting: memories that at first glance, have no apparent connection to what drove me to this path in the first place.

I'm studying memories of myself that I haven't thought of since I passed through them. I find myself curious in my remembering: not quite afraid, often tenatively comprehending the view. Making notes of what I observe there.

I'm surprised at what reveals itself when pen passes over paper, at the truth once buried so deeply in my consciousness coming so easily to the surface now. One memory leads to another, and to one before that. And so the layers of memory peel back like an onion, revealing the truth beneath. I hand each layer to God, sometimes tentatively, sometimes with eyes squeezed tight and face turned away. But each time His hand comes to my face, and I open my eyes. He gaze locks with mine and peers deeply into to the heart I am still coming to know. There is no reason to be afraid. There is no shame. Just grace and understanding. Love. And so I open my hands and hand these things over to His care.

Really? You want this? You can redeem even this?

I can trust Him with these things.

I can trust Him to lead to the next layer and the next, knowing that only He understands what needs to be uncovered and recovered, acknowledged and surrendered.

As I'm drawn deeper, I wonder what I'll find when the next layer peels away, and where all of this might lead: this journey deeper into knowing myself, this pulling off the white sheets that have been covering and hiding these spaces in my heart.

One day, it will be important for me to share what these things are with you; I know this. I can trust you with these things, too. But for now this path is sacred, the time for revelations still in the realm of not yet.

journal photo by kirsten.michelle

kingdom math

2008-02-17T21:55:00.000-08:00

God and I have been at work in those heartspaces I mentioned in my previous post. he is good to me: gentle and precise, just like the Master Surgeon He is.

as i've braved the journey into my heart's inner recesses, to those dark and hidden places, i've called them out as precisely as i'm able: here is the lie i've held onto so tightly, that has held on to me. offer me your truth. rip out the lie by the roots without removing chunks of my heart if You can, allow your truth to take root in that place. bind up the wound.

to be sure, it is a gasping, choking, sobbing business and there is more work ahead of me. but He has met and continues to meet me in those places. he meets me with tender grace, and i can already see evidences of His truth taking root there.

i was talking to christianne tonight, trying to tell her about these things. trying to put words around the movements of God in my heart. i was telling her how it seemed to me that the heights of joy seem higher, the freedom of our hearts more unbounded when we are willing to go into the darkness and the depths of ourselves, letting God meet us in those places. when we do this, we come out on the other side and see that it is good and new and better than anything we've had before. the heights are higher, the joy more joyful, the freedom even freer.

i mentioned once how i dance at church now. how i can't help it. how those are the most unselfconscious moments of my week. my dancing, my arms raised and extended, my singing at the top of my lungs, are the most natural and uncontained outpourings my heart has to offer. how i dance because my heart does. how i dance because my shackles are gone.

and so when i went to church today, it was much the same: having known God was meeting me in my dark and hurting places this week, i danced wildly for joy when the music started. i really couldn't contain it. i sang, i raise my hands, i moved in union with the music. and He met me there too: in this dancing, joyful place.

with the music was over and the sermon about to start, we were invited to turn around and shake hands with people. turning around, i noticed a man behind me. he was sobbing, his hair shaggy and unkempt. he cried into his hands uncontrollably; i could not see his face. a woman in the row behind him kept her hand on his shoulder, comforting him.

we all sat into our seats and i could hear one of the ushers speaking to the man behind me. he said yes, i'm okay. it's been so many years since i've been in church. many years. the usher handed him a box of tissue, asked if he wanted to speak to someone. the man replied, i will talk to you after the service, i just need to sit here and be here now.

when the sermon was over, we sang a closing song, one that had lyrics about heart singing to God, a heart that cannot help but sing. i thought about how appropriate and fitting the lyrics were, how well it expressed where my heart was at not only that day, but where it was at over the last few months as well. i thought of the man behind me and wondered at his story: why he had left church and why he was back today, what it was that moved him to such deep tears. what had him so broken and hurting so deeply.

when i turned around, the man was looking up. he wasn't sobbing anymore, but obviously transfixed and moved. eyes and cheeks still wet. he stayed in his seat as everyone else cleared the aisles.

compelled, i turned to him and reached for his hand, grabbing his with both of my own, meeting his gaze intently. bless you for being here, i said. bless you.

he began to choke again, and the tears began to flow. you're so beautiful, he told me [said in a way that i knew it had nothing to do with my appearance]. your worship ... the way you worshipped ... so, so beautiful. and he began to weep freely again.

i have been set free of so many things, i replied.

i tightened my grip around his hands and let him be in that space, still and transfixed and in awe of the God who met him there: exactly as he was, in whatever brokenness he carried in his heart.

i wondered of all the places a hurting man could have seated himself that day in that great big church building, the most likely place would be in the corner at the back. but today he sat in a row toward the front and at the center, right behind where i was sitting. and part of how God met him and moved in him that day had something to do with the crazy dancing arm-waving girl in front of him, singing at the top of her lungs [and probably off-key half the time].

i thought back to the sermon i heard. how it struck me about what our pastor said about giving: giving back to God in an act of trust a portion of what He's given us. how God multiplies what we offer him, however small, oftentimes in ways we never see: loaves and fishes, and all that.

i thought of the worship i offered up this day, how i really didn't understand what had transpired in the heart of the man in the row behind me. but how i knew that God took what i gave him this morning and multiplied it. somehow it was offered as food to a soul hungry and starving.

kingdom math at work, multiplication that doesn't make sense on any human scale.

how blessed i was to see God meet him there. and it hit me: the worship he witnessed would not have been possible unless God had walked with me through the darkness of many prior months, met me in the thick of mystery, carried me through the fire, and met me on the other side in a place that was boundless, joyful, and completely free. how it would not have happened at all unless i invited Him, unless i let myself learn to trust Him in the dark.

it struck me that as blessed as i am to know the joy of being set free, none of it is for me. none of it. which i've always known, but the knowledge today came in the way of a human soul, real and raw in his need, tears and sobs and wet crumpled tissues.

beyond our journeys and our pain and our trials and the times where darkness presses in around us is God's intent that those things will serve a greater purpose. our lives are meant to bear testimony to the truth of God's faithfulness, of His crazy deep reckless raging love for us, of how that love can heal a broken soul, set a prisoner free, and give us unimaginable, uncontained joy.

i told christianne that having so fresh a memory of God meeting me in the darkness has given me the faith that He would do the same here, meet me in the dark and mysterious place that i walk through now. and today was added inspiration, fuel to invite Him to continue the work He's about in me, knowing that if my pain remains my own, if i don't allow God to redeem it, it is pointless.

but when i ask Him to come along, when i allow Him to meet me there, God will show up. brilliantly and unexpectedly. in the dark in hurting places within me and in the row behind me, in the dark and hurting places of another.

that thursday

2008-02-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting here quietly, staring down those words she said, holding them at arm's length. I circle them suspiciously. I simultaneously dread them and long for them. I put them in my mouth, wanting both to spit them out and to ingest them. In truth, they scare me.

So here I am. Sitting across from the truth, holding the raw shredded heart tissue that found its way out of me that day. It had been in hiding so long, protected behind thick steel doors, secured with locks that had long been rusted over.

But now it is here in the light of day, demanding a reckoning. I hold it in my hands, and it's a terrible mess. It's pulpy and tattered and dripping. I can't put it back together. I can't bring any sense or semblance of meaning out of it. There's a reason it remained hidden for so long.

By now most of you have a sense of something happening for both Christianne and I on a day we've both come to call "that Thursday". On that Thursday we were together, we were both startled to the core. For completely different reasons, we saw separate truths emerge that had been hidden and stuffed within us, crammed into dusty corners of forgetting without any conscious knowledge on our parts that they were about to make themselves known.

Christianne has written about beginning the journey deeper into what God revealed to her that day; and now I am doing the same.

I don't want to go there.

Going there means revisiting old wounds, splitting open old scar tissue and permitting God to poke about my insides.

It means resurrecting the memories of relationships long past, bringing to the surface that which I had gagged, bound, weighted with lead, and made to drown. It means not merely being present for the autopsy, but wielding the knife that will open these dead things.

It means looking at the past fifteen years of my life and relationships through a microscope. It means identifying where and how the seedlings of lies were planted, watered, and permitted to grow.

It means putting my finger on sore oozing places and letting God do the same.

It means identifying the lies that have tangled their long, sinewy roots around and throughout my insides, roots that have firmly embedded themselves in my flesh. It means acknowledging that I have held on to them as much as they have held on to me. It means asking God to pull these out by the roots.

It will mean learning to believe the truth.

The truth: the truth of those words that she prayed over me. The words that I keep at a distance, staring them down and eyeing surreptitiously. The words that I walk circles around to examine from every angle, looking for leaks, cracks, flaws, exceptions. Words that are foreign to my heart, that feel like rocks in my mouth. These words I must learn to believe.

And so I fear what is being asked of me: of being called again to walk a path that is dark, where my feet are the only ones that can do the walking.

loving god is like ...

2008-02-04T00:34:00.000-08:00

Tidal

I grew up on the ocean,
so the ocean did not hold the same romance
for me as it did for, say

a farmer's daughter in Iowa who grew up
playing hide and seek in rows of corn,
or someone who had always lived in

and never left the big city
skyscraperssmogandtrafficjams.
At age nine, I knew the ocean

as what tossed me
in a little boat in forty knot winds
like a beach ball; I sweated

and my tiny white body trembled
as I clutched the handles of a soup pot
for just in case I should vomit.

I know that a wind coming off the ocean
can blow right through you,
move clean through the pores of your skin

on one side, go through your body
and exit through the pores on the other side,
that there is not always

sandy beaches good for hand-holding, that sometimes
there is just the black ogre rocks
barnacles and limpets cling to,

good for scraping knees and elbow on.
I know the ocean smell and feel--
the sticky-salty damp and cleanness,

the sand underneath your feet evaporating
as waves crowd in ripples around your ankles
and pull it away. The breaths you breathe are deeper

when you're there. This same ocean
has turned us over in boats and swallowed us
ever since there have been boats and people to swallow.

I remember first hearing about
my Scandinavian heritage and taking pride
in the fact that my ancestry

was made up of explorers:
people of wanderlust and restlessness
who would spend months at a time

out of the sight of land,
no longer in love with what was tame.
The people I came from lived

on the ocean, and I still like to think about
how their bodies produced children
and their children had children

who made more children, and so on
until me, who would not have been made
unless men and women who lived

on the ocean (and in between times
on land) had continued in the making
that also made them. I like to think

that had they not slept on the swells and tides,
their bodies not learned to roll with a sometimes savage motion--
had they not allowed the wind to cut through them

I would not be me: I could not say this
and I would be docile as a nun, content
with what had already been leashed and tamed.

I would not lust for the ocean
which I know can swallow me whole.

kirsten, 1999

just sayin' ...

2008-01-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

NOTE: For those of you that may be new to this space, this blog started out as a way for me to process and journal through my exploration of the Traditional Catholic faith. Ultimately, it's a path I chose not to go down, but found much in my exploration that I continue to value and treasure that has changed for the better the way I engage with God in prayer and in worship. I recently had to communicate to the priest who was leading me through the catechism that I would not be returning for further instruction, nor did I have the intent to convert.

This is something I had some measure of fear to declare, knowing what his thoughts would be when he became aware of my decision. It was Terri (love her!!) who first asked me the question I had not yet asked myself: what is it that you fear from this conversation? I realized that it boiled down to being afraid of what they'd think or what would be said of me to others. Like many people, I prefer that everyone who knows me would think well of me. Writing this forced me to embrace the truth that no matter what anyone else might think, my soul is firmly in the grip of my Heavenly Father.

The letter was mailed last week.

Dear Father,

I am sorry that I missed your call the other day. I succumbed to the flu over the weekend and had little in the way of a voice that day. I hope you will forgive me for not calling back, but at present, I think it best to express myself in writing.

First of all, I wish to thank you for taking time in your instruction with me and for our conversations on the phone as well. I have learned much over the past several months and have come to hold an increasingly deep appreciation for the Catholic Church: for its historical roots, for the profound and deeply-rooted beauty of the liturgy, for learning about the lives of saints I never knew before, and for so much more. The family at Holy Redeemer is such a precious, beautiful, and generous one.

That being said, I wanted to let you know that I will not be coming back. This is not a decision I made lightly, but I am certain it is the right one. While I respect that your convictions are to the contrary, I rest securely in the knowledge that my heart and soul are safe in the hands of God.

I could launch into pages of testimony regarding all the reasons as to the whys and the hows of my decision. I could go into detail about my prayers, my tears, and the nights of heartache. But I realize that even if I wrote some fifty pages more and laid out the best constructed arguments, it would be to no profitable end for either of us. I am reasonably certain my testimony would do nothing to convince you that I am not in error, that my faith is not as one-dimensional as a cartoon drawing.

Let it be said that I came to God with open hands and after a few months of stifling and suffocating it, an open heart. What freedom came when I remembered that my heart and my intellect need not be in such opposition to one another, that I need not be caught at the center of this self-imposed tug-of-war. As Solomon wrote, I learned and am continuing to learn to trust in the Lord with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding. I am utterly content to be His child, to know this perfect Love that casts out all fear, to abandon myself to Him wholly with all that I have, to know that I can neither contain nor define Him or subject Him to any limitations. I have trusted and am continuing to trust Him to lead me and am overwhelmed by the blessings He pours out on me. I know that I am at the center of His heart, and that He is evermore in the center of mine; I am swept up in the story He is telling.

I do mean it most sincerely when I say that I am thankful for the instruction I received and for the welcome I received at the parish; I was delighted to be included in that close-knit community for a time. And so I respectfully request that you accept my decision not to join the Catholic faith. I do respect your convictions, but cannot adopt them as my own.

stuck in my head

2008-01-18T14:29:00.000-08:00

This is one of the first songs I remember singing after returning to my home church and has long been a favorite of mine. I can't stop singing it around the house this week ...

gratitude, refreshed

2008-01-15T13:14:00.000-08:00

At last, I am emerging from the flu that has had a hold on me since Saturday. It is easier to get up and move, to stand in the shower, to make my way up the stairs. I am remembering what my home looks like from vantage points other than my couch. Today I am wearing something other than pajamas (which by all accounts have seen better days after being worn for 72 hours straight); today I washed my hair, put on mascara, made my bed. My movements are slow and deliberate, and I am grateful for the simple movement.

In a way, I am actually thankful I got sick; I am amazed at how resilient my body is and how much it has put up with over the last six months (over the past two years really, if all the gastrointestinal drama is factored in). I was overdue for a concentrated period of rest.

Though this illness spanned a mere two or three days, it felt like an eternity. My head throbbed and pounded, felt like it was going to split open like a ripe melon. Every bone in my body ached. My sinuses were staging their own protest and more than once, I was fairly certain my lungs were making an attempt to jump ship. My appetite for food had all but disappeared; every attempt to get up from the couch required that I concentrate on suppressing the overwhelming waves of nausea.

Today, I woke to a world where I could breathe through both nostrils and stand upright without visceral protest. My lungs have calmed down and it no longer feels as though someone is taking hammer and awl to my head. I just managed to enjoy a cup of steaming split pea soup. I folded laundry today and put it away, I caught up on some long-overdue ironing. Quite rightly, the sun is shining out my window. Does it get more glorious than this?

Some might express a difference of opinion, but few things give me as stark an appreciation for wellness as illness does. When accustomed to good health, it becomes easy to take it for granted, to forget what extraordinary gift is is to move, to breathe, to consume a meal. Likewise, few things make me fall to my knees with gratitude like remembering I have been set free of my chains and now reside safely in the shadow of His wing.

My chains are gone

I've been set free

My God, my Savior has ransomed me

And like a flood His mercy reigns

Unending love, amazing grace

~Chris Tomlin, Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)

Language will always fall short where expressions of gratitude toward God are concerned; knowing that, this is my small way of remembering and saying thank you.

in medias res

2008-01-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about the whole concept of story lately, both in terms of its power to move us beyond what the mere acquisition of information does, and as a way of understanding our roles in the grander scheme of all that God has planned in a very broad and eternal sense. Drilling down into the finer points of individual stories is vital; I think it could be said that the entire point of the gospel is compassion: both God's compassion toward us as manifested in the life of Christ and our compassion for other people regardless of any category or judgment we could assign them.

Compassion and story go hand in hand; unlike sympathy or even empathy, compassion means to suffer with someone (com- being a prefix meaning "with" or "together" , and the word pathos meaning "suffering"). Compassion requires the one who extends it to suffer alongside. And how are we to suffer with others unless we know the particulars of their stories: to know their wounds as we know our own, and to bear a burden of desire to relieve it? It's not a far stretch to conclude that Christ embodies this definition of suffering with in all its particulars, not only in His final and ultimate act of suffering, but also in the mundane: leaving the unimaginable splendor of heaven for the filth and stink and flesh of earth. God took on flesh and dirt under the fingernails, stomachaches and splinters, hunger and fatigue.

As someone who has only recently snapped the tether that held her heart, I can hardly be considered an authority in this regard. There is no soapbox for me to stand on or pulpit behind which I will posture myself. Perhaps it's because I'm feeling things so keenly and seeing them so freshly now that I've been blinded by the truth of it. The stone walls I hid behind are crumbled and still crumbling. As I walk through the ruins and kick these stones over, I consider how they performed a function I never consciously intended. No doubt they protected me from pain. But they also prevented me from being present for the pain of others. They walled me in, distant from joy and from full engagement in my own life. As a new friend recently stated, I was safe but ultimately unsatisfied. I was hedged in, protected against that which was bad or hurtful and also that which was good and joyful.

Relatively little is written about Christ's everyday life on earth, but I can imagine that not every day was one in which tables were turned, masses were fed from a sacklunch, or men were raised from the dead. Especially in the thirty years that preceded the advent of His active ministry, we can likely infer that there had to have been plenty of the mundane: meals around a shared table, stomachaches and headcolds, building tables and chairs, thatching rooves. Jesus came for that, too: He left heaven and emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, subjecting Himself to our everyday -- in fact, to what is sometimes our mundane, mediocre, and quotidian existence.

It occurs to me that exercising compassion does not require that we go out of our way to seek out the person who is hurting the most, or that we attempt to insert ourselves into the stories unfolding in hospital rooms, prisons, or on the five o'clock news (though for some, it may very well include this). We are called, I believe, to come alongside those whose paths intersect with ours daily: co-workers, baristas, roommates, siblings, and spouses; to walk beside, to hold a hand, offer a shoulder, to be open arms. To listen, to ask, to laugh with. To offer what we have: an open door, a car, a shower, a bed; to get out of the way so the love of God can flow through us, inserting itself into our everydays and the everydays of those around us.

When we lock ourselves in that dragon-guarded castle, walling ourselves in as a spontaneous response to our own pain, we cut ourselves off not only from unwanted intrusions, but from love and goodness and laughter as well. We cut off the means by which we can offer ourselves to those who may be moving through the very pain we've reacted against. This is a response I know well. But now I've lowered the drawbridge, crossed the moat, and circle the stronghold I once called home. Looking away from my pile of stones, I discover a lush landscape teeming with life, a horizon that extends into eternity. This is where life is.

But as long as this remains a pretty philosophy, as long as my day-to-day interactions fail to mirror these words, they are only words hanging in space. Like the apostle Paul said:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

It does not matter what I know or what I write; it does not matter if I can wow a reader or impress a publisher or have a hundred by-lines to my credit. God cares more about me serving my roommates, listening to and assisting my co-workers, celebrating with my friends in their successes and crying with them in their heartaches. In short, He wants me to be a vessel for His compassion, to be the fitting word that agrees with the story He is telling.

Our stories matter individually, but more as threads woven into the great fabric of compassion and redemption that He has been weaving since time began. Our own stories begin in medias res in relation to His own, and we have the opportunity to echo this when we walk alongside others every day. Will I be the stray thread, or will I allow myself to be inserted into the fabric of a story He began so long ago?

inexorable trust

2008-01-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

I have had such deep and abiding joy since I surrendered both my heart and my mind to God over the past few weeks. In some ways it feels strange not to be in a continual state of struggle, to have prayers composed of tears and beating fists. In many of my prayers over the last several weeks and months, I have asked to be brought to a place of peace and rest. Now that I am there, it feels somewhat strange and foreign. I am by no means inactive, but I am resting. It is a sweet and blessed place to be.

I am continually in awe at how God can use whatever choices we make, whatever we offer to Him in order to mold and shape us into the fullness of who He created us to be. I have no idea whether or not He intended me to explore a traditional and ancient mode of faith, or whether that direction was one of my own choosing. But I really don't think it matters, nor do I feel a compelling or pressing need to figure it out. No matter the choice, Yahweh can bring about blessed and beautiful fruits from it.

He knew my heart was not fully His, nor was it ever fully mine. I was so selective about engaging my heart not only in my faith, but in my relationships with others and with myself as well. I can see the beginnings of my stoic tendencies back to my earliest days, denying forgiveness for playground offenses, steeling myself against the pain of childhood betrayals. When teased and taunted in middle school, I drew inward, becoming cold and numb. This carried through to high school and eventually to college where, in a moment of despair, I told a friend maybe some of us just aren't meant to be loved. It was my way of numbing myself against the pain of rejection and betrayal; what I did not realize is that I was likewise numbing myself to goodness and joy. How this must have grieved the heart of God!

There were times throughout my personal history where I allowed myself to receive and to feel, to experience both joy and grief in all their fullness. But I was so selective. My heart was on a leash and the moment I sensed the slightest risk, I called for a retreat, stuffing it quickly behind a thick and prickly armor.

As I walked through the catechism and experienced the traditional Catholic mode of worship, it appealed to that very stoic and guarded part of me. There was something that was intellectually appealing about prescribed prayers and proper forms, of calculated motions and genuflections, of consistency and historical rooting. But the more I began to intellectually assent to these things, the more stifled and distant my heart became. I felt the chasm deepen and widen; I started to feel as though I was choking.

Anyone who has followed here knows the rest of the story: how I struggled and faltered, how I cried and plead and beat my fists on the floor; how I eventually leaned away from my own understanding and threw myself heart first into the arms of Jehovah-Shalom; how in that moment of surrender I began to trust without a doubt that I have been, am now, and will be sheltered safely in His arms and in the center of His heart; how in that place of childlike abandon and utter trust, two parallel lines intersected inside me; how I returned to a church home ready to welcome me back; how my heart and I danced and still dance in worship, singing, shouting, raising hands to heaven without even a twinge of self-consciousness. My body, my voice, and my mind are responding to a faith that is heart-first. I dance like a prisoner set free of her chains, sing like someone who has long been denied her own voice. If I could, I would defy the laws of gravity and fly; and it is so very good that it does. My heart's tethers have disappeared altogether.

I would have not chosen on my own to struggle, fight, and suffer as I did, but neither would I trade any of it for what I have now. I am more His than I ever was; I am more the child as an adult than I was on the playground. I am His, and it is good, it is true, it is so indescribably beautiful.

I know the day will come when I will talk to the priest, when he will ask me why I have not returned to the parish. And I know by what he taught me that when he learns of my return to my church home, of how I will not be converting, that he will think I have fallen out of God's good graces, that I am apostate, that I will most certainly not be welcome in heaven. Even now I pray for the grace to respond in truth and with love, to explain that I belong to Yahweh; that my return to my faith home came as an act of complete and utter childlike surrender to God; that I am at the center of Jehovah's heart, and that He is at the center of mine.

Blessings and peace.

playing with light photo by kirsten.michelle

new year, new look

2007-12-31T16:48:00.001-08:00

Because things have been transforming in me and in this space as of late, I'm going to be tinkering and toying around with how this little space looks. Don't be surprised if it looks differently from one day to the next.

Let the sun shine again, and ... let the commenting begin!

a new kind of clarity

2007-12-30T00:35:00.000-08:00

Words are stirring inside me and have been for some time now, but they are spoken in a heavenly language for which the translation I offer will be woefully inadequate. Perhaps my understanding of them and their significance will improve with time and perspective, but I know that however poor my rendering, this point in my journey should be marked. Like the ancients often did, these words are my way of stopping to set up an altar in recognition of Yahweh's faithfulness and tender mercies. These words are my pile of stones in the wilderness.

Unable to bear with my intellectual pretenses any longer (not having realized until recently that that is what they were), I finally unlocked my heart. I allowed myself to feel, to trust beyond reason, and to take a step back from the intellectual and rational explanations I've absorbed and reiterated here. While studying the Catholic faith, I unconsciously put my heart on a very short leash, allowing my intellect to leap at new information and giving it precedence. It was an easy habit to relearn, having only journeyed deeper into my heart's territory over the past year or so; it is a tender and tenuous path to walk, being less than certain or defined. I admit that I have been overfond of leaning on my own understanding.

It is tempting at times to think that we can define and understand God, how He works and moves in His people. When offered definites and explanations and formulas, I was eager to clutch them and hold them close, to have mysteries demystified, to have God and faith more neatly packaged for my use. Most of these explanations and arguments seemed perfectly rational to me; since much of it was so in line with what I thought to be logical, it was hard to dispute even though my heart quietly protested. I barrelled forward, and the chasm between my mind and heart deepened and grew wider. I intuitively recognized the disconnect, but continued to move forward in spite of it, believing that is what I needed to do.

One of the lessons of the catechism is about and how human beings were designed by God. Human beings, I was told, are comprised of intellect and will, spirit and soul. There was such an emphasis on the intellect and the will. Our intellect teaches us what is true and it is by our wills that we follow it. No mention at all of the heart. It was only a week ago that its omission drew my notice.

I suppose some would hear "heart" and equate it with emotion. In my understanding, it includes emotion but is so much more. It is where belief abides. Solomon cautioned that as "the wellspring of life", it should be guarded above all else. Christ advises that the law will be written on our hearts, which I take to mean that it is not simply our compliance with the law that matters, but the heart from which our obedience springs. He is not after our performance: He wants our hearts, a reformation from the inside out.

[I think it's important to emphasize here that I speak only from my own experience; I was only a catechumen where the Catholic faith was concerned and it is a path on which I did not cover much distance. From those I've met, I know it is a mode of faith in which many are engaged with their whole selves. It would be categorically unfair and untrue to extrapolate from my experience that the Catholic faithful do not engage their hearts.]

As I continued in my lessons with the priest, a few things struck me as completely foreign. There seems to be a continual fear and concern about making it into heaven. Even the most pious and faithful followers seem to have no small measure of trepidation when it comes to "getting in". This was a foreign concept to me, having been raised to believe that once covered with the blood of Christ, always covered. The passage in 1 John came to mind more than once: ... love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. But the explanation I was offered about dying with mortal sin on your soul depriving you of heaven seemed to make some kind of sense at the time.

Another piece that did not resonate with me was the matter of strict adherence to prescribed modes of acting and speaking. This first drew my attention when I discussed baptism with the priest. I was baptized at the age of fourteen and intially, was happy to learn that though not a Catholic baptism, it was still considered valid. But then I was asked what were the exact words of baptism that were spoken. I recalled them to the best of my knowledge, and then was advised that it would be best to perform a conditional baptism in case the correct words were not spoken those many years ago. It was better not to risk the loss of heaven based on an invalid baptism.

This was so alien to my way of thinking. The Christ I have come to know is One who weighs the heart, who looks beyond the exterior and beyond our formulas. I have a hard time believing that our Yahweh is One who would deny mercy to a soul earnest in pursuit of Him because a very specific set of words were not spoken or because prescribed prayers were not prayed. This is not to say that I do not value liturgy or find it beautiful, reverent, and inspired; oftentimes, it has moved me to tears and given words when I have none. I would never say that our obedience is not important, or that God is a cosmic teddy bear who will condone our aberrant behaviors. But God knows our hearts: He is best in a position to weigh our intentions and actions, our contrition for a sin, our desire for holiness and for union with Him. He knows whether or not we trust Him. I am more certain than ever that my salvation and sanctification rest not on following prescribed words or actions, but in God alone: in inviting Him to have His way with me, to follow His lead even when it seems to defy logic, to trust His goodness and bless His name even in the midst of profound ambiguity and pain.

These words fall short of what I mean to convey, but I'll trust that anyone reading this knows my heart well enough to look to the deeper meaning of what is written here.

I have come full circle; I am hardly the same as when I embarked upon this path, but somehow I find myself where I started. And it's not because what I found along the way is anything I necessarily thought to be blatantly incorrect. I have a greater appreciation for how my sin grieves the God I love. I understand better now that the Christian faith is logical, ordered, and rational. I have a better understanding of how spiritual disciplines teach us to deny ourselves and choose Christ. These things have added to my understanding of God and deepened my faith.

These things are right and good and important, but are no substitute for a faith that is lived from the heart. It was only when I tried to edge out my heart completely that I was most driven to hearken to her voice and heed her wisdom. It was only when the chasm between my heart and my mind widened beyond bearing that I learned to trust beyond reason and beyond logical explanation and to place my heart in His hands, to trust that I know Him, that I belong to Him, period.

My understanding is a gift from God, but ultimately is insufficient to lead me down this path of faith. I am more certain that I worship best in spirit and in truth when heart, mind, body, and soul are united in the worship of the Yahweh I know and love. I do not understand Him, but I know Him in my depths. I am His, in all this complex and mysterious comingling of mind, heart, body, soul. I trust in the truth He has revealed. Having known the tension of a mind and heart divided, I know the deep pain that can cause. Had I continued so insistently that I follow my head in spite of my heart, I am fairly certain I would find myself resentful and disillusioned later on. Once I began to know that they were not at odds with one another, doors were unlocked and flung open. And that is where God has a chance to step in, roll up His sleeves and really get to work.

So I abandon my dichotomies, offering myself to Christ again as wholly as I ever have. I return with joy to the Church body I've called home and for the first time in months, raise my hands and sing at the top of my lungs, dance and shout for joy to God in heaven above. It is the same, but somehow different, as He has made me new. He has set me free. He has brought me home.

There is so much more I could say, but even were I to write a thousand more words, I don't know that I could explain this any better. I bring back much with me and know that this is only the beginning of more adventures in faith to come. He has prepared me and is preparing me to live as one who trusts Him ruthlessly, who walks in mystery, who flings herself into His arms, knowing my heart is already His.

The Heart of the Matter

2007-12-21T18:35:00.000-08:00

Oh, how my heart loves to breathe! No longer requiring her to be silent, I am enjoying her presence and voice through my days. She is not as shy or tentative as I might have thought.

Last week's revelations have meant that I've encountered this week peacefully. My body is still tired and I still walk amidst ambiguity and mystery. I still have many questions and doubts continue to rise to the surface. But I know my heart is playing catch up, having not been invited until now to join me on this journey. I don't need to have a list of the answers neatly tucked away, and I don't have to be in possession of perfect clarity.

And so I find that this is a good time to pause on my path, remove the rucksack and stop for sustenance and rest. All journeys require rest along the way, a warm, hearty meal and a night at an inn under warm covers. Without it, the wayfarer becomes exhausted and depleted, her bones cold and her muscles stiff. Without rest, she is more likely to be disillusioned with her path and give up altogether.

I am less certain than ever about where this exploration will lead. My intellect continues to trust the knowledge it has obtained, but my heart is less certain about embracing this strange new thing. I need time to know if this is because her lack of engagement in this process means she needs time to catch up, or if she has her own reasons for holding back. I'm pausing to listen to her and honor her wisdom, knowing she is not opposed to my intellect, but just operates differently.

So I feel my chest rise with deep breathing, stretching and flexing this muscle that has gone too long without use. Don't hurry. Rest. Take in your surroundings.

I am typically someone who is more interested in destinations than in journeys, more invested in answers than the questions that lead to them. I will pay lip service to the process, but am really after the result. It could be argued that the result is the point, after all.

After this week I say, maybe not. Maybe the journey is just as much the point as the destination is. Even should you end where you started, you come back an explorer. You come back having seen new lands, experienced new things. You come home changed.

I don't know if that's what will happen. The truest thing I can say right now is that I just don't know. Put up your feet awhile dear heart, and unlace your boots. Stay awhile under this roof and get your bearings. Take in a good meal and sleep as long as you need.

Breathe.

That is my heart speaking. It's good to have her with me again.

Surrender

2007-12-16T13:07:00.000-08:00

I've been so exhausted this week; I'm certain at least some of it has to do with the consecutive weeks of overtime I've been working. Those long weeks cannot help, but really, I've known all along the root of my fatigue goes much deeper.

I've written on both blogs now about my exhaustion and anger at God. About how much I don't want to be in this place right now. About how I feel like God pulled a fast one on me: I go looking for love, but God has other plans. So I waltz along happy to have found it, then that rug gets pulled out from under me. In the process, my convictions get turned upside-down and inside-out and I'm on a path I was never looking for.

Perhaps my response to all this was delayed; but I've written about that too. I was so busy arguing with my heart that I never heard its cries. Shhh, shhh, I would tell my heart. You shouldn't be feeling this way. But then those cries pressed up against the walls of my heart; I was both pricked and squeezed. Then at last that most tender and wounded organ saw the light of day and was permitted to breathe.

As much as I didn't want to be angry at God, my denial of that reality inhibited my ability to approach Him with any integrity. So I let the anger out. Perhaps it was because of being denied expression for so long, but once the anger was unleashed, I fixated on it. My prayers became about nothing else besides what I had most wanted but been denied; what I had sought and God had used to turn my faith upside-down. I won't lie: I felt tricked, duped, and deceived. Sometimes I even felt like the butt of His joke. So I beat my fists on God's chest, feeling myself to be a victim of divine trickery. I wanted desperately to abandon this whole process, to return to the old way of doing things. To surround myself in a warm blanket of familiarity, to be comforted and unchallenged. To find what I had set out for in the first place. To be in the midst of the known.

I lay in bed this morning, wide awake but still utterly exhausted. I've shared with others that the words "tired" or "exhausted" are woefully inadequate for describing whatever this state is. Adding hours to sleep could not and did not meet my need.

It was still so early. Not wanting to be awake but unable to return to sleep, I poured my limp body out of bed and as I often do, gazed at my bookshelves. I fixated on the thin green spine of one I had started several months ago, but put down. Not understanding but obeying the impulse, I picked it up and took it to the living room with me. The Critical Journey is about faith and faith journeys, it's about encountering walls and crises. It's about feeling stuck and cultivating an awareness that will help us both to become unstuck and to hedge ourselves against getting caught in the mire again. It compared the stages in a life of faith to a spiral "and we experience more depth each time we recycle through the stages at a higher place in the sprial" (p. 9). Where I was unmotivated to continue my reading before, I couldn't stop turning the pages now.

I saw myself in these introductory paragraphs and I let the words pour over me:

"Faith is a verb, action, the dynamic that drives or gives life to the relationship between us and God. Our response called faith is the human recognition, on the one hand, that God is God, and, on the other hand, that each of us is special. It is the recognition that we are most fully human when we acknowledge and accept God is God in or lives. ... Therefore, faith as a verb is neither static, an object to be dissected, nor a qualifier that either puts us on God's side or distinguishes us religiously from one another. Faith with reference to the journey is simply the process by which we let God direct our lives or let God be God." (p. 4)

"Getting stuck occurs sometimes from our fear of facing the unknown. Other times it results from personal or work crises that we cannot control. ... It may even be that we are simply afraid to face the fact that we are loved unconditionally by God. Accepting that means admitting we cannot control God or our destiny. Whatever the cause, becoming caged at a stage is real. If we are aware of it, we will have less likelihood of staying stuck." (p. 10)

"A crisis can knock us off balance, making us afraid, vulnerable, and ripe for change. This also happens in our spiritual journey. We have a crisis in our faith that causes us to reconsider. It might frighten us, at least make us vulnerable. If we become bitter or too resistant, we can get very stuck. But if we let the change or crisis touch us, if we live with it and embrace it as difficult as that is, we are more likely to grown and to move eventually to another stage or spiral in our journey. When we are most vulnerable, we have the best chance to learn and move along the way. In the midst of pain there is promise." (p. 13)

I saw myself so clearly. I was letting myself be caged, protesting the loss of a control that was strictly illusory to begin with. I resisted walking into the endless stretch of unknown before me. I fought the crisis instead of pressing my weight against God in the midst of it. And worst of all, I was dissecting myself in two: my head and my heart were at war with one another. It is no wonder my reserves were depleted.

Closing the book, I cloistered myself in my room. Sitting on the floor, I picked up the rosary beads for the first time in a week. They still feel foreign and strange to me, the words still come awkwardly, like marbles out of my mouth. As I moved through the decades of Our Fathers and Hail Marys and contemplated the joyful mysteries, I wept. I no longer suppressed the tears that rose to the surface: I let myself feel loss for the warmth and comfort I leave behind for a way of faith that is alien to me. I let myself feel the pain of a love that slipped through my fingers. And then I thought of Christ who left the comfort and warmth of heaven for an earth that must have been a cold, dank, and uncomfortable place for Him. I let my mind turn to Mary at the moment of the Annunciation, who neither resisted nor protested, who did not rationalize or justify, who took the words of the angel and let them be. I am the Lord's handmaiden. Let it be to me as you have said. And so I let the rosary and its mysteries wash over me.

Once those five decades were completed, I continued to let the tears come. I raised up my palms and held them open, quietly. I said little to God and if He spoke to me, I'm not sure I could provide an adequate translation. But if I had to try to articulate His message, I think He wants me to be more gracious with myself, to allow Him to carry me along this difficult path. He understands my anger and He understands that I'm hurting right now in a way no words can describe. He knows me and my frustration with the ambiguity in this process better than I do myself. He knows that it the midst of all this hurt and confusion, it is tempting to revert to what I've been called to leave behind.

Before today, I understood that He's been there too. But this morning, it was wholly different. Today I stopped fighting Him, coming instead with open hands. I unclenched my fists and opened my palms to the sky. I held them to heaven silently. The tears still came, but a heaven-sent peace and calm washed over me as I gave up on my idea of how this all should be. I breathed in and out more deeply and without trying to understand or explain it, simply let the peace He offered permeate the most hidden and unvisited corners of my soul. The war between my mind and heart slowed and ceased in those minutes, the wall I erected between the two dissolved. I don't feel so exhausted now.

It was not so much an answer He provided or a promise the path ahead would be smooth. It was simple surrender; it was a step toward resigning the control I was fighting to maintain. It was me moving toward God, allowing Him to be God. It was giving Him the things that are wholly inadequate in themselves to propel me forward in my journey. My own efforts at digging out of my stuckness were only putting me deeper in the mire that hindered me; today I rested my weary arms and put down the shovel.

He met me in this place of my giving up. The fighting now over, I bury my head in His chest and wrap my arms around His neck, letting Him carry me. Sometimes I think that's the most difficult thing: to stop our legs from walking, carrying ourselves down what paths we will and instead like a small child, to stretch forth our arms in a simple gesture that says, carry me. And then to let Him bear our weight and do the walking.

Down & Dirty With God

2007-12-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

Dear God,

It's no great secret now that I've spent the better part of the last couple of weeks and months desperately trying not to be angry. I can't figure out if I'm angrier at You, at M, at myself, or whom. Or what. I've tried intellectualizing and rationalizing my way out of this place, but in vain. It's not working. Right or wrong, this anger/frustration/doubt is what it is, and I cannot convince myself otherwise.

I went looking for love, God. That's no great secret either. I'm fast approaching the age of thirty -- not that it's some kind of dead end or drop-off or anything -- and I'm still single. I don't want to be; that's why I went looking. I've spent the overwhelming majority of my adult life as unattached and have had few complaints in that regard. I've worked hard, traveled, spent quality time with my friends, and pursued those things that interest me. I've been able to do many things that would be difficult to do were I married or otherwise attached. That's not lost on me and I think You know that. I've enjoyed doing them on my own, but I really do want to find someone to share this life with, to build a home and a family with.

I guess I always thought that if I was meant to find it, it would have happened by now. And here I am, alone again in that single-woman way. And again, not that my preconception of when it "should" have happened limits You in any way, but the further along I get in life, the more I wonder if it will ever happen at all. I'll be honest; right now, I hate it. I absolutely hate it. Sometimes I feel so close to it, but then the hope of it is yanked away again. I feel taunted sometimes. Part of what makes me angry is that You used that desire to bring me to this place I was not looking for -- and now here I am, leaving behind what's familiar, feeling like I'm wandering in a foreign land. You've given me no map and I've been fumbling as I try to find my way toward You. I've tried to refrain from asking why, knowing that even if I had an answer, it would not make this any easier, would not make this any less painful than it is. I guess I've learned by now that understanding the why of any kind of suffering or unpleasantness doesn't make it any easier to bear; it still must be lived through. I can have faith that You can see and know things that I cannot -- You can see the whole spectrum of time, of which my life is only the tiniest sliver. I can have faith that You know better than I what is best for me. I can even have faith that this is all moved by Your love for me. What I lack, I think, is trust. If I read the Scriptures, if I hear Your words, I'm not getting anything I haven't bargained for. That is a hard pill to swallow.

But is it so wrong that I should want to be happy? I'm not talking about happiness in a selfish or hedonistic kind of way, but the kind of happiness that most people desire in their innermost beings: to love and to be loved, to feel connected to another human being on this planet. I know this is a good thing because You created it to be this way; but sometimes in my darkest moments I question why You'd plant a good desire and then deny me the means of fulfilling it. I'm more than willing to assent to the fact that this feeling has more to do with my limited perspective; I just wish I could get my heart to see it that way. I can't help but notice the many friends for whom You've made this dream a reality and here I am: an outsider looking in, feeling as though I'm completely remedial, denied a spot at the grown-up's table. I know I shouldn't (and it hurts me desperately even to acknowledge this), but in my darker moments I feel like the butt of a great cosmic joke: look at her, the woman who just doesn't get it! I feel so eminently unwantable as a woman and often wonder if it really is as entirely preposterous as it feels that there would be someone "out there" (how I loathe those words!) that should find me a desirable girlfriend, let alone partner in marriage.

I look at these words as I write them and I want to say that it's a matter of my limited perspective (and at the end of the day, maybe it really is just that). But here comes the temptation again to try and suppress my heart with my intellect, but I can't do it anymore. I can't suffocate this feeling anymore than I can will my heart to stop beating. I believe I have to move through these feelings to get beyond them, and I can't do that unless I acknowledge that they are there. Ugh. Here are my feelings, messy as they may be, as uncomfortable as it makes me to bring them out of hiding.

God, I just don't know what to do with any of this. Many times in the last several months I have thrown up my hands and said, You take it. I so clearly don't know what I'm doing! Never has that been more true. I've been so busy intellectualizing my way through this that I've entirely neglected my heart in the process. I don't want to leave my heart behind, God. If I am going to commit to this big of a life change, I want my heart to come with me. That's why I'm here now, acknowledging these ugly truths. I wish it could be different, I wish I could convince myself of the merits of following my intellect, and I wish my heart would be as eager to follow. But it's not. I'm still as human as You made me, I still have those desires You've implanted in me. And now it seems less and less likely that it will ever be a reality. It seems so cruel sometimes!! I know my perception of things doesn't limit You, nor should it limit what I know You can do ... but still my heart doesn't follow. I'm still licking my wounds in a way and maybe I should be gracious enough with myself to allow for that. Maybe that's what a lot of this anger boils down to: not having had time to allow my heart to recover from falling from a height. Maybe the wound was deep enough that it is unfair to expect my heart to have recovered this quickly. I don't know; even as I write this I want to say it is a bunch of fluff: my tendency is to be stoic and move forward in spite of pain or unpleasantness. The life of someone following Christ isn't supposed to be a primrose-lined path, but at the same time, something in my heart is preventing me from moving forward in the way my intellect knows I should move. I just don't know. That's the only thing of which I am completely certain right now: the not-knowing, and the inconvenient reality that this part of me is looming about, a question with no apparent answer except WAIT.

I know this is nothing new; I know I'm not the only unattached woman out there who has been faced with heartache, who has trusted and been disappointed, who has cried out to You, who has been bouncing off the walls of faith, knowledge, hope, and the unpleasant present reality. But I can only bring my heart to You, point out that gaping emptiness, and hope and wait. And wait and wait.

I'm accustomed to my writing help me come to some conclusion, to tying things up all neatly at the end. I'm definitely not there now. There are no answers today; just some raw and painful honesty, some tears I'd rather not cry. But I think that's okay; this is big enough (as far as I'm concerned) that I cannot expect to find resolution so easily. I hate saying these things out loud to You; it seems so contrary to how I should be, so opposite of the righteousness You desire from me. But I know You saw this reality before I did, that You knew it well long before I acknowledged it. And I know that the end of all this will be to conform myself to Your will and not the other way around. But I need time to get there, and I think You are more willing to give me that time than I am to give it to myself.

Sometimes I wish I could shut off that part of my heart that desires what it does; it is a thorn in my side to walk through my days with it, to drag this deferred hope around with me like a dead weight wondering if and how it will ever find its fulfillment. Wondering if the hope is ultimately a vain one. Others try and encourage me, but they can no more see the future than I can (can they??). Some days are far easier to bear than others and sometimes it doesn't take much to trigger me in such a way that I am in the throes of heartache again.

Last night, it was that dream I had that triggered my angry prayer this morning. You know the dream I had, God. I didn't want to wake up; I wanted to stay embedded in that dream with the apparition: the one who took me as I was, who loved me, who made those feelings of being eminently unwantable evaporate. How much I wanted to go back to sleep! I can see why You'd desire my holiness more than my happiness, but in that dream state, I was so happy. Because it was right, because it was good. Because I was not feeing this awful, chest-sucking feeling. Because I didn't feel so alone anymore. And maybe You have a means of fulfilling that or satisfying this that is entirely other than I can conceive. It's not as though I expect my desire for this love to solve all my problems or fulfill all my needs. But it's there all the same, feeling like a gaping hole, proclaiming its emptiness to me emphatically.

So for now I pause in this journey, needing this time to be still and to heal. I'll probably never understand the why behind any of this; maybe I am meant only to move through it.

No answers today. Only this ugly prayer, this pitiful cry from me to You. I know You're no genie, God; it's not as if I look to You as the Fulfiller of my wishlist. I don't know what I ask of You, really; I can only acknowledge my present state to You, tell you the truth from my heart and my mind, to have faith that You'll do with it what You will, and that it will be good. To know that despite my feeling an utter mess, that You know, that You love and You hear, even when it feels as though my words bounce off the ceiling only to fall again in my lap with a heavy thud.

So take it. Take it all. Take my tears and store them up. Take my words and gather them in. Here they are in all my not-knowing. Please make this something good.

Mysteries

2007-12-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

photos by kirsten.michelle

The Unknown

2007-12-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

... never doubt in the dark what God has told you in the light.

Victoria Christopher Murray

I must confess that I'm not as certain and sure-footed as what I write here might indicate. I have my fair share of questions and doubts, moments where it seems like the most prudent thing would be to turn my back on the whole endeavor and return to what I know best.

I talked to the priest about this earlier this week; I was telling him how when I am there in the thick of my learning, surrounded by the faithful, I am so very certain. My intellect readily assents and my will is eager to follow. When I come home, I am no longer surrounded in the same way, I am no longer engaged in dialogue about the faith. I am in relationships where boundaries have been necessarily drawn so I may protect this infant thing that is so precious and still taking root in me.

He told me with sadness of how he's known many who have turned back from embracing the Catholic faith to keep the peace in relationships with family and friends. I told him that given the strain I've experienced in many of my relationships, I could understand the sentiment and empathize with those who were forced to forsake one for the other, but that I had no intention of abandoning what was so clear in front of me (while there is some relational strain and a gap in understanding where one did not exist before, I am not -- thank God -- in the unfortunate position of entirely forsaking one for the other). As I noted in a previous post, Christ made it clear that we have to love Him more, that we cannot allow even family relationships to be a cause of hesitation or of turning back. I've never before had to make that distinction; I've always had my family and many friends along the way with me. The fact that there is a measure of difficulty in making the separation does not give me a pass where obedience is concerned. The truth is that I'm scared to obey. But I'm more scared not to.

... to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

James 4:17

No exceptions. No caveats.

I can't reverse this process, I can't unknow what I've learned. There are times where this would be a tempting option were it a viable one. And I know that it won't be a giving up just for the present; I know there will be sacrifices to be made down the road. It's no great secret I would love to get married; by embracing the traditional Catholic faith, I'm effectually cutting myself off from the overwhelming majority of single men who call themselves "Christian". Am I forfeiting this dream? I cannot know; I only know I must love Christ more and love Him first. I must deposit at the altar all those things I have now and all those things I dream of having (even those dreams God Himself has given), trusting that like Abraham received Isaac back from the dead, so may I receive back those things I sacrifice.

I know what I need to do, I know the direction in which I must continue. But so often in my heart there is a pulling back. This is really all I have to offer up to Him: obedience in spite of my feelings, moving forward when I feel most like staying put.

Miles for My Soul

2007-11-26T20:33:00.000-08:00

By now, just about everyone at Holy Redeemer knows me and my story, even if I have not met them personally. They know what musical instruments I play, they know about my commute, where I work, and that I'm in the process of converting. Word travels fast in a little chapel!

Doug and Linda are a couple about my parents' age who befriended me in my earliest days at Holy Redeemer. Especially when it became clear I would be heading down this path on my own, establishing new person-to-person connections at the chapel became of vital importance to me. I was instantly drawn by Linda's warm, open smile and her easy and friendly manner. Her husband Doug is at first blush a very serious and reserved man. He acts as altar server every other Sunday and on those Sundays he's not serving at the altar, he leads the congregation in praying the rosary prior to Mass. His voice is deep and calm, mesmerizing at times.

Without reserve, I remember telling Linda how I came to be there, about my family, and even my fears and reservations about this whole process. She listened attentively, taking in everything I said. When I spoke with her last week, she said that she had a grey wool suit about my size that she could no longer wear but didn't want to give away to Goodwill. She wondered if I would like it. I was blessed by her generosity and told her I would be grateful to have it. This last weekend she shared with me that her husband converted after twenty-five years of marriage. Her own openness so encourages me.

Yesterday her husband Doug asked me if he could bring the suit to my car for me.

"You're from Bellingham?" he asked. I replied that yes, I was and he asked how long a drive it was.

"About 110 miles," I replied.

"An impressive distance. I admire that kind of dedication," he said (this from a man who must first take a ferry from a neighboring island to get there).

He's not the first one to make this kind of comment. Honestly, it is one that makes me squirm a bit, even though I do appreciate and value what is being said. It's really not any form of modesty that makes me want to say, it's not a big deal (regretably, I have never been very good where modesty is concerned). Despite having had similar conversations with other parishioners, I feel unpracticed as to how to reply except to say that the drive is a relatively quick one on Sunday mornings (especially in the unusually beautiful weather we've been enjoying) and that every mile is worth it. I have yet to find the fitting words to say that I am blessed beyond the miles I drive or the money I spend putting gas in my car. I don't know quite how to sum up that I what I am receiving in exchange for miles and hours on Sundays is a complete steal when measured against what I am receiving in return.

... for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1 Peter 1:9

It's as if I've given a quarter in exchange for a library, or a ten dollar bill for a luxury yacht. It's like I gave Starbucks a dollar in exchange for unlimited lattes for life (only so much better).

I guess that's it. I will drive the miles and give the hours because I'm receiving Jesus. My soul is hungrier for Him than ever before, and here I am filled.

And I leave wanting Him more.

A History Lesson: Protestant Roots

2007-11-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I stayed after Mass to listen to one of Father C's doctrine classes that he typically offers every other week (this is in addition to the catechism I discussed in my previous post). Most parishioners stay and attend the lectures which cover a variety of topics, delving into specific Catholic doctrine and dogma, as well as providing an education on other religions.

This most recent class was on Protestantism. Deep breath.

Before I discuss this class and any specifics of what I learned, allow me this caveat: there is no way I can adequately discuss the Protestant Revolt here. Veritable volumes have been written on the subject over the last five hundred years and anything I could put here would be such a highly diluted version of much better writings that it would be useless to attempt.

So. Deep breath. Again.

I inwardly cringed when I heard what the day's topic would be, but was simultaneously curious what the Catholic point of view on the whole matter would be. History is composed of facts and events, but how those facts and events are interpreted may vary greatly. I had always held a very high-level view of the Revolt (or, "Reformation" as it is often called): a few men saw some abuses in the Church and sought to eliminate those abuses. So far, so good. They disagreed with several practices and traditions of the Catholic Church including the authority of the Pope, devotion to Mary and the saints, the requirement of celibacy for ordained clergy, and several of the sacraments. This is about the time when the whole concept of sola scriptura came about, and with that the idea that history and tradition (both oral and written) were not reliable guides in matters of faith. Calvin came out with his writings on predestination, Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the wall.

That was (again, on a high level) the sum of my knowledge. I never questioned what had been passed down to me. What could be wrong with seeking to amend abuses and make Jesus more accessible to the people?

It was this day I learned some pieces that weren't included in my previous education on the matter: the Reformers were strongly influenced by humanist patterns of thought emerging from the Renaissance. They promulgated an essentially individualist theology spawned from the secular humanist philosophies popular at the time. They rejected the authority of the Church, rejected the previous 1,500 years of history and tradition (both oral and written), and rejected Sacraments that had been in place since the first century Church. Erasmus (who preceeded Luther) emphasized that true religion was primarily a matter of inward, individual devotion rather than outward expressions of ceremony, ritual, and the like. A concept Luther popularized was that each believer can be his own priest; this is not to negate the Scriptural concept of the priesthood of all believers (found in 1 Peter), but rather to eliminate the idea that priests and other ordained clergy possess the power to forgive sins and exercise a measure of spiritual authority over believers.

None of this is to say that no abuses were taking place within the Church; there were abuses of tradition and authority taking place that were in grave need of reform. But does it necessarily follow that because a thing is abused, the thing itself is inherently wrong? Take parental discipline as an example. I think we can all agree that it is a good thing for parents to discipline their children when they disobey. We know all too well how that can be abused: there are horrific stories of parents beating their children (sometimes to death), handcuffing them to radiators, locking them in closets and depriving them of basic necessities. We could throw up our hands and cite those examples as reasons why it's a bad idea for parents to discipline their children. See what an awful thing discipline is? See how harmful it is to children?

The Reformers adopted a similar line of thought in separating themselves from the Catholic church. Some might make a case for the Reformers being moved by a desire to do away with those practices and traditions that were entirely without basis. If they were only attempting to correct abuses, that would be one thing (and a thing that was already being addressed by Rome). But essentially what they were doing is saying: the Church has been doing it wrong for the past 1,500 years. Here's the right way to do it. And so the Reformers rejected the authority of the Church and replaced it with the authority of the individual believer: no priests were necessary for forgiving sins, no Church necessary to instruct believers since each individual may use Scripture to determine what he or she believes (these were not the only traditions and practices that were done away with, but for the purposes of not turning this post into another volume on the subject, is the aspect to which I am limiting myself here).

I never understood before what a big deal the Revolt was. I initially understood it to be a reformation of abuses or an elimination of the practices that were unsound, unbiblical, or without any real basis. But now I see it very differently: the Revolt served to reject and turn its back upon the traditions and practices that the Church had held since its inception and proclaimed that the way they prescribed was not only an improvement, but the way Christ intended it to be. One of the more popular notions in line with this Reformist way of thinking was that of sola scriptura: the idea that Scripture is sufficient unto itself to be the final authority on Christian doctrine (this differs with the Catholic view that doctrine is legitimately taught by the teaching authority of the Church, drawing on the Deposit of Faith which consists of Sacred Tradition, of which Sacred Scripture is a part). At first blush, sola scriptura may appear to be essentially sound, but in reality is born of individualistic patterns of thought.

Though the concept of sola scriptura does not appear in Scripture and despite the fact that Scripture had not been widely available in its written form to believers for the 1,500 years of Christianity, the Reformers disseminated the concept of Scripture as the sole authority for faith. Mediation through anyone but Christ alone was seen as unbiblical. To a Protesant way of thinking, there is probably nothing much that appears to be amiss here. It's only when I started taking a step back from this way of thinking and trying on this point of view that I began to see what might be especially spurious about this mode of thought.

For one, the Church managed to grow and thrive in its first 1,500 years without sacred Scripture being available to the masses. This is not to say it's not important or that it should not be available on an individual basis; but if we're going to adopt a sola scriptura perspective where faith and its practice is concerned, what is the implication for the believers in the first 1,500 years of the Church? Even Protesants cannot divorce themselves from this history; I don't know a single Protestant that would say that Christianity did not have its true beginning until the 95 Theses were nailed to the door at Wittenburg, nor one yet who would say that the churches founded by the likes of Sts. Peter, Paul, and Timothy were somehow deficient due to the fact they did not possess Scripture in its written form.

The potential implications of this are astounding: Scripture did not exist when Christ ascended into heaven. If we assume the Reformers were correct in their assessments that Scripture is the sole inspired rule of faith and that the authority and tradition of the Church holds little to no sway over the believer, then Christ essentially left the Church without much of a plan for executing the Great Commission and without any solid support for its teachings. If Scripture is the sole inspired rule of faith, it would seem that it wasn't until the printing press came to be that individual believers had any reliable rule of faith to follow. So where does this leave the Church for the first 1,500 years of its existence if the Sacred Tradition born of the Deposit of Faith was basically bunk?

Think of it: Christ passed His authority on to the disciples and commanded them to go make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and to teach them everything He had commanded them (without the benefit of written Scripture, just the teachings of the Word made flesh). There we see Christ conferring His authority to those He's designated, commanding them to baptize and teach. Since Scripture did not then exist in its written form, we must assume that these teachings were passed on orally and promulgated throughout the ancient Churches the same way: those given the authority to do so taught other believers; so the Church grew and thrived through tradition, through the faithful stewarding of the authority handed down by Christ Himself.

This is one place where my thinking has taken a dramatically different course. Being raised within the Protestant tradition, I had no reason to doubt the soundness of sola scriptura, nor did I question any of its implications (or even pause to consider what those implications might be). Perhaps it comes in part from our protesting, reactionary roots; from its very beginnings, the Protesant Church has made a point of renouncing ecclesiastical authority (I speak of authority in a spiritual sense here, as opposed to an administrative sense). Initially I squirmed at the thought that another human being might have the power to forgive my sins, or that my beliefs should be subjected to the authority of the Church. And then a friend pointed out to me: is it more likely that I am in error, or two thousand years of teaching and tradition? Put that way, my squirming seemed very arrogant indeed.

But then I began to see that this was Christ's design: there's no getting around that he conferred upon the disciples the power to forgive sins, nor that it is the Church that is the pillar and foundation of truth. I have to believe that these things hold true not just for first century Christians, but for twenty-first century ones as well. If we're supposed to be behaving as a Body, how is it that we are essentially making churches of ourselves, interpreting and deciding on an individual basis what is and what is not correct, making ourselves "the pillar and foundation of truth"? This goes against the very grain of Christ's teachings. Some abnegation needs to take place, or the Body will be impotent (severely compromised, at best) where the Great Commission is concerned. Just imagine how potent the Church would be at accomplishing its purpose if we were wholly unified in our faith and its practice!!

I cannot begin to describe what a comfort this is to me. I once believed that it was just Jesus and me, and thank goodness there is the church where I can worship and learn with other like-minded believers who will pray for and help one another when in need. But the Church is so much more than that! Christ said that the Church is His body, the earthly extension of Himself. It's not just Christ in heaven then that has authority; His authority extends to His Body on earth, to those whom He has specifically appointed. The Church may instruct and mediate for the same reasons: the Church is an extension of Christ, the earthly manifestation of our True Head in heaven. He has entrusted our souls to its care, not to ourselves alone. In entrusting our souls to the Church then, we are entrusting them to Christ.

And so when I convert, I see now that I will not be confessing my sins just to another human being; I will be confessing them to Christ. There will be a man there, a flesh-and-blood being like me, but endowed with authority by Christ Himself to forgive sins. And I know they will be forgiven, because that's what Christ promised. And I will know that the Church is not just a conglomerate of individuals, but a Body tightly bound together in purpose, in faith, and in practice.

For Those I Love

2007-11-15T19:32:00.000-08:00

Dear Family & Beloved Friends,

I wish I could make all of this make sense to you. I wish I could ameliorate your fears, amend your anxieties about all of this. I wish I could convince you of what I see, lend you my mind's eye. I wish I could make your apprehension for me evaporate with explanations.

I wish I could pour out my heart to you, tell you everything I'm learning, tell you everything. It was with difficulty I learned that such openness did us all more harm than good. My excitement was quashed by concerns and critiques, by the cautious reserve you displayed when I told you. You feared for me and questioned my motives. I can't say I wouldn't do the same were our roles reversed.

I've learned to draw strict boundaries around this, my journey. Perhaps you see them as walls. But I've learned to trust myself and the God who leads me down this path, learning to trust that if He's leading me away from one thing, He is drawing me toward something better; it's that something better that I long to protect. It is not easy to hold all this back from you; I am accustomed to transparency. I feel like the blind man in Scripture who given fresh sight, is warned by Christ not to tell anyone. I revel in being given new eyes, eyes that see a faith that it wider, deeper, higher, richer, broader than I have ever known. But my sharing so clearly hurts you. It causes you to question and doubt me to some degree; it makes me feel defensive when I have no cause to be. And so I limit what I disclose, not wanting to compromise in any way what I've found by carving this path.

We follow a Savior who commanded of His followers: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. This is the Christ who said to let the dead bury their dead; who, when one promised to follow Him anywhere but first wanted to bid his family farewell replied, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. This is the Messiah who commanded His followers to be perfect, the One who proclaimed He came not to bring peace, but a sword and in the same breath that he who loves his father or mother ... son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Ouch. Sounds harsh, I know. Were I the author of this faith, I wouldn't do it this way. But I'm not. It is not up to me to decide how it should be done. And while I have no intent of turning my back on any relationship, Christ so clearly demands that I not allow even the love of my family to restrict me from following Him without reserve and without condition. I wish I could convey the depth to which this pains me; I have always been privileged to be surrounded by like-minded wayfarers in matters of faith. And now that I've found another way of embodying my faith: a way to which my intellect, heart, and spirit assent, a way that draws me with its fullness and reverence, a way entrenched in history and tradition, a way so deeply rooted in the words of our Lord, I find that I am pulled in this new direction. I am leaving behind the way of familiarity and comfort, embracing something wholly new to me. In a relatively short amount of time, I've seen my heart expand, my faith deepen, my trust challenged. I've seen my heart place its dependence more upon God than ever before.

I cannot and will not let this go.

I do feel so alone in this sometimes. But I cannot allow discomfort or lack of familiarity sway me. Onlookers may be skeptical, they may have their critiques. Comforts have been stripped and He asks of me: will you follow me? He demands unadulterated motives, He requires I follow Him no matter the cost. When He takes away a relationship, when others think I'm crazy, when those closest to me disapprove: will you follow me? If anything or anyone is worth the sacrifice, He is. He so clearly is. And so I lay it all down before Him (again, again, and again), fumbling as I try to place my trust in Him, awkwardly pressing my weight into Him.

There is so much more I could and want to say. But this is not the time or place to offer proofs, to cite texts, or to lay out convincing arguments. This is about my heart and yours.

Know that I am in the most secure place in the world; my heart is safe in the hands of God. Know that I am not abandoning myself. I am only beginning to step into the fullness of faith, the fullness of who God made me to be.

grace & peace,
kirsten

The Catechumen

2007-11-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

Catechumen: In ecclesiology, a catechumen; from Latin catechumenus, Greek κατηχουμενος , instructed) is one receiving instruction in the principles of the Christian religion with a view to baptism.
[definition courtesy of Wikipedia]

Last week, I formally began instruction with Fr. C in the faith. Having professed Christianity as my religion for the greater part of my life, it initially (and very briefly) seemed odd to require formal instruction. But when making this kind of leap, it is crucial to know exactly what I'm getting into and precisely what is expected of me. By receiving formal instruction, not only am I moving forward with eyes wide open, but I am moving into a unity of belief with what the Church teaches.

Like all good instruction does, my own has started with some fairly foundational principles: creation, original sin, original innocence, definition of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity as well as their respective excesses and defects. Nothing so far is brand new or especially surprising, but what I love about going through all this is is that I am learning: this is what the Church teaches. This is what we profess to believe. Period.

We see the command for converts to be instructed in the faith when Christ issued the Great Commission:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."
Matthew 28:19-20 (emphasis mine)

Christ clearly expected believers to receive instruction; it was never His intent that we should be in any way ignorant where our faith and its practice is concerned. There will always be mysteries, there will always be room to increase our knowledge. But part of what Christ commissioned His disciples with was instruction -- a faith education, as it were.

I know that practice amongst the various Protestant denominations varies, but growing up, I received no formal instruction as far as church doctrine and dogma were concerned. I participated in Five-Day Clubs, listened to the Bible stories played out by Sunday school teacher's hands with static feltboard figures, recited memory verses, and learned the requisite songs. I suppose in my young mind, I assumed that as far as professing Christians were concerned, everyone else's experience was the same.

As I grew up, I couldn't help but notice the wide variety of Protestant denominations: Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Covenant, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, Nazarene, non-denominational, and so on. Wikipedia lists several hundred Protestant denominations and within those, several more sub-denominations. Each has its own set of doctrine and beliefs that makes it different than another. Some have governing bodies, though many are self-governing.

So what do Protestants believe? I suppose the easiest way to answer that would begin with it depends: it depends on what church you go to, who the pastor is, what the denomination is, etc. No wonder belief can be so confusing at times.

Coming from an entirely Protestant background (raised from birth in a non-denominational church), I never thought of it that way before. I always just thought, we're all Christians and we believe different things about doctrine, dogma, and practice of faith, but we all claim Christ as Savior. Many Protestants will profess unity despite the wide variance and range of beliefs present under the heading of those who call themselves "Christian". I am coming to think that unity is reduced to a muddy abstraction as opposed to a concrete nitty-gritty way of living our faith when we claim "one church" but act as though we are churches unto ourselves, deciding on our own what we do and do not believe. I am so very guilty of paying lip service to unity as a concept while simultaneously failing to embody it. This is so very troubling to me; I am certain this disparity of belief and practice is not part of Christ's design, and it saddens me deeply. Have mercy, Lord.

One of the things that is drawing me toward the Catholic faith is the continuity and unity of teaching on every point of faith you can imagine. I'm not going to make the claim that there is never disagreement amongst believers in the Catholic church; they have experienced their fair share of division also. But regardless of this, the teaching of the Church stays the same. This is is the purpose of my going through the catechism; I am receiving the same instruction that has been given to other believers regardless of locale, the priest who is teaching it, or historical period. It should not be surprising that given the number of denominations out there, there is no uniform Protestant instruction. And really, many Protestant believers I know (myself included, at one time) seem perfectly okay with it being that way. We may disagree on just about anything: baptism, predestination, original sin, the roles women in the church, eternal security, what is necessary for salvation, you name it. And we all claim Christ as the head, naming many of these things non-essentials.

Do I dare to ask the question I asked myself when I started this learning process?:

What if?

What if I'm wrong, lacking, incorrect, deficient in my belief or in its practice? I am human and prone to error; that is a given. What if I'm wrong about what is and what is not essential where faith is concerned? Is this not a question worth examining? If I'm honest, the answer is an emphatic yes. That's really what this process is about for me: challenging myself, going through my beliefs with a fine-toothed comb, weeding out those things that when examined closely, simply don't make sense anymore or do not belong.

The Baltimore Catechism spells out quite clearly the dogmas and doctrines of the Church and explains what they mean. There is something comforting about having it all spelled out in black and white, knowing that this is what Catholics profess to believe. This is the teaching of the Church, this is the truth to which you submit yourself. It's not conditional on geography, on the instructor, on whether it's the year 1885 or 2007. I think it's fantastic that as someone seriously considering conversion, I must be instructed on these points of faith before I can be baptized or partake in the Eucharist. It's not simply a matter of walking in the door and goes beyond taking a membership class. It's an education that takes months to complete.

Something I have bumped up against with other believers as I've undertaken my study is resistance to the idea of Church authority (which began with the Reformation). Many believers take issue with the idea that they can be told what they can and cannot believe. It seems the prevailing opinion amongst Protestant believers is that each should be permitted to interpret Scripture and abide by it according to individual interpretation. While not even Catholics would disagree that each individual believer's mind and intellect should be fully engaged in the life of faith, and that each believer is individually responsible to study that faith, there is a clear understanding that the Church is the ultimate authority on doctrine, dogma, and the practice of faith -- not the individual believer. Whether or not I like, agree with, or am comfortable with a teaching of the Church, I must submit to that. As a member of the Church, I accept that it is more likely that I am in error than the Church fathers from whom the essentials of the faith were passed down.

If there is an authority in place, it is my duty as a believer in Christ to submit to that authority (Romans 13:1-3; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 2:13). I do not want to debate the finer points of this particular topic since that is not the purpose of this particular post, but assuming Christ instituted a specific plan and structure of authority in order that the Church might accomplish its purpose of baptizing and making disciples, is it not my role to submit to Christ's plan? Since Christ was specific about submitting to the authorities He has set in place, I have to believe that this includes not just governments, not just employers, but the Church also. Or do we think He ascended into Heaven, gave the disciples a thumbs up, and said, good luck with the mission, guys! Quite simply said, I don't think the idea that Christ delegated His authority is up for debate (this is another topic for another post, perhaps), nor do I believe He left earth for heaven without implementing a specific plan by which the Church would fulfill the task of making disciples. And if I believe that, then the natural end of that belief is that I must be the one to bend myself to what Christ has already established.

In speaking of the requirements and appropriate behaviors for deacons of the Church, St. Paul writes to Timothy,

"...if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."
1 Timothy 3:15

Paul himself calls the Church the pillar and foundation of the truth. The Church is the final authority on the truth, not the individual believer. The more I allow my mind and soul to marinate in Paul's words, the more I see how wrong I have been. Yes, the Lord wants me to know, to be instructed, to be fully engaging my faith with heart, soul, and intellect. But ultimately, the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. If there is disagreement between me and what the Church teaches, it's up to me to submit. I'm not saying I like it, but I am saying that I believe this is what Christ wants of me. Of all believers, really.

There is so much more I could say, so many things where I barely scratched the surface that I could expound upon; perhaps in future posts I will. For now, this catechumen moves forward with full conviction, basking in God's goodness. It has seemed dark to me lately, but I trust these are the moments when He is hardest at work in me, making a stubborn heart tender, teaching humility by degrees to my prideful will. He's created a plan, provided a way. He's given us the Church to instruct and guide each us in order that we may please our Heavenly Father and join Him one day in heaven.

So with David, the prayer of my heart is, Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. - Psalm 86:11

When He Hides

2007-11-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote on my main blog of the darkness through which I walk right now. Though I cannot see down the length of the path down which our Lord leads me, I must trust His leading and trust that this is all from His goodness. I must see my circumstances in light of of Him, not the other way around.

A friend sent Psalm 13 my way. I share it here. I love the way The Message puts this psalm, especially the last line.

Have your way with me, Lord. I trust in you and your goodness.

Psalm 13
of David

Long enough, God— you've ignored me long enough. I've looked at the back of your head long enough. Long enough I've carried this ton of trouble, lived with a stomach full of pain. Long enough my arrogant enemies have looked down their noses at me.

Take a good look at me, God, my God; I want to look life in the eye, So no enemy can get the best of me or laugh when I fall on my face.

I've thrown myself headlong into your arms— I'm celebrating your rescue. I'm singing at the top of my lungs, I'm so full of answered prayers.

The Novena

2007-10-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

In the course of my studying the Faith, I've been introduced to a wide variety of practices and traditions that were foreign to me in my Protestant background. One of these practices was praying to Mary and the saints. Before I learned about the foundations of this practice, I expected to find it a difficult pill to swallow. Surprisingly, once I learned where the practice has its origins, it was relatively easy to attest to its truth.

I know this is a practice with which many Protestants object, pointing out Christ's sole mediatorship, skepticism as to whether the saints in heaven can actually hear those of us on earth, and the obvious argument that the believer may go directly to Jesus. My purpose here is not to delve deeply into the topic or to defend/debate the practice, but for the purpose of creating a general understanding, I will summarize some of the foundations for it (for a fuller description of the practice, click here):

In Revelation 5, the saints are described as interceding for believers on earth: they fall on their faces before the Lamb "holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints" (v. 8). In Revelation 8, there is another description of angels offering the prayers of the saints up to God. These passages show that the saints in heaven are aware of our prayers and actively interceding on our behalf (vv 3-4).
Believers in the Catholic church are actively encouraged to bring their petitions and concerns directly to Christ. So why bother offering prayers to the saints in heaven? Simply because a saint is in heaven does not mean he/she ceases to be a part of the Body of Christ. If we can petition Christ directly (as we should), then why do we ask our friends in the flesh to pray for us? In the same way, we can petition the saints in heaven to offer up prayers to God on our behalf. Christ is not offended or maligned when we ask fellow believers to intercede for us; in fact, intercessory prayer is encouraged (1 Tim 2:1 and James 5:13-16 are just a couple examples). In the same way, we may ask those saints in heaven to bring our prayers before the throne of Christ.

The word novena comes from the Latin word novenus meaning "nine"; a Roman Catholic Prayers site defines a novena as "a devotion consisting of prayer for nine straight days, in which the faithful ask God for special graces." The practice originates from the church in Acts 1 where the apostles, Virgin Mary, and other believers were "together constantly in prayer"; it was after these nine days of committed prayer that Matthias was chosen to replace Judas amongst the apostles, and the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost.

A simple Google search will yield novenas for almost any purpose imaginable, or to any saint you've heard of (and probably some you haven't). Not long ago, I mentioned to M my continued stomach troubles. After a few months of only mild symptoms since my diet change, I had a sudden and unexpected relapse. My old pain was back with a vengeance and it lasted for days on end. He suggested a novena. I had seen the word before, but really didn't know what it meant or how it was intended to work.

Though I grasped in a cognitive sense that saints in heaven are not only aware of, but can hear our prayers and intercede on our behalf, I still felt weirded out by the idea. I've only ever prayed directly to God and I have to admit, it seemed like a bit of a betrayal at first. But then I reasoned that I was asking for a fellow member of the Body of Christ -- a member who was in a glorified state, no less -- for assistance. Because intercessory prayer is encouraged both explicitly and implicitly in Scripture (just count how many times Paul asks the churches for prayer!), I know that God is not the least bit offended when I ask my friends to pray for me. If I'm reading the passages in Revelation correctly, the saints, elders, and angels in heaven bring our prayers to the throne of God. It couldn't hurt to ask, could it?

A common misconception is that prayer to a saint is worship. Think of the last person you asked to pray for you: were you displacing God's authority by asking him/her to pray for you? After all, we can go directly to Christ, right? But He gives us the Body, both mystical (in heaven) and corporeal (on earth) for our benefit. In the same way, asking for the intercession of a saint in heaven is not worship anymore than asking for the intercession of a friend in the flesh (a saint on earth) is; by asking for intercession from a saint in heaven, I'm asking for another member of the Body of Christ -- one who has been cleansed of the effects of sin -- to bring my request before God. These, our "cloud of witnesses", are not idle where the Body of Christ on earth is concerned. They have run the race before us and continue to assist believers on earth in their own journeys heavenward. And ultimately, any saint or angel in heaven is not seeking any glory for themselves. At the end of the day, they all point to God.

As part of my reasoning process, I arrived at the realization that this practice has been around since the inception of the Church. Assuming there is truth in the practice, even my feeling weird about it wouldn't make it any less true. If it were entirely without merit, would it still be a practice that the Church would maintain for so long? Would not the practice of praying novenas have died ages ago if it were completely bogus? I also realized that if saints and angels do have any power where our prayers and supplications are concerned, this power comes only from God and is bestowed by Him for our use and our benefit.

Yes, we can and should pray to God directly. Absolutely! But we may also ask those glorified members of the Body of Christ to put our pleas before Him in a language we cannot yet know. Much like we might employ a lawyer to present a compelling case for our requests before a judge, we can ask the saints in heaven to intercede and help us when we especially require the help.

I did some research a found this Novena to Saint Raphael. I was looking for someone who was known for intercession with physical illness. Appropriately enough, the name Raphael means "God heals". So I printed out the novena and kept it by my bed.

The first night, I knelt beside my bed, still feeling weird about the whole process; rationally, it made sense but I still had that internal knee-jerk response that made me feel uncomfortable about the whole process. I breathed in and out slowly, asking for the smallest shred of faith to pray this prayer.

And so I did -- for that night and the eight nights that followed.

I suppose it could be rationalized or explained in other ways. I expect that medical tests could be ordered to confirm what I already suspect to be true. But I don't need any blood work or doctor's chart to tell me that I feel the best I've felt in two years. I have managed to gain back a healthy amount of weight; this is no small feat considering I have only lost weight over the past two years. Even the mildest of symptoms have disappeared. I have even more energy than before and not the slightest twinge of pain. My body -- as far as I can tell -- is functioning in a completely normal, healthy way.

I praise God for the healing, and offer humblest thanks to the archangel Saint Raphael for interceding for me!

Taking a Leap

2007-10-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

I sat up in my room on Monday night, staring at it. I held my mobile phone in my hands and just stared at the number I had selected. Breathe in. Breathe out. I continued to stare, knowing I should call. I needed to call it. I wanted to call it. At least I think I wanted to. So why was this so difficult? Why the clammy palms, the racing pulse? Breathe in. Breathe out.

The phone wasn't going to dial the number on its own. Clearly, I had to be the one to press the button -- which I couldn't seem to get myself to do.

I tried to reason with myself: I knew my trepidation over this phone call was unduly exaggerated.

I had had Father C's phone number stored in my mobile phone for several days already. I knew that he knew who I was, and I knew that he knew about this faith journey I was on. He had to have seen me at the several Masses I had attended. But I had never spoken to him before. And I think I realized that calling him now was indicative of an internal commitment I had made to which I had not yet given any external expression.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The path before me was clear. Given what I had learned, what God had revealed, what He had convicted me of all pointed to the same place: conversion. A scary word, at least for me. But not when I considered that what I was committing to was fully embracing the truth as I now understood it. When I considered that I was committing to living in the fullness of faith, the correct decision was clear, no matter how overwhelming my trepidation might be.

And I knew I had to do this alone, independent of any other person.

In fact, whether I wanted to or not, I was going to be doing this alone. I feel anything but brave about it; in fact, I am altogether lacking where bravery is concerned.

After calling and talking to one of the two Catholic people I know and giving air to my insecurities, I was encouraged to call Father C. She assured me of his friendliness, and the ease with which she spoke with him when they first met. After hanging up with her, I called him right away.

After introducing myself, he knew exactly who I was. So, you're interested in the faith?

Yes, absolutely. I replied.

I grew more and more at ease as the conversation progressed; I discussed what I had learned and prayed through so far, and what some of my initial hesitations had been. I spoke of my family and my friends, and how I knew they were supportive, but could not really understand what I was doing. I told him about how I was learning to trust God with them. I am fully convinced this is the next step for me, I told him.

And before I knew it, we had arranged for me to receive instruction in the faith in order to be prepared to take the Blessed Sacrament. We discussed being conditionally re-baptized to ensure the correct words were spoken. We said our good-byes and I hung up the phone, relieved to have finally made the phone call.

And then it hit me: I am becoming Catholic.

Faith. Reason. Feeling. Hope.

2007-10-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

This week has been a difficult one. My work has demanded much of me, both in terms of the number of hours I've worked and what has been required of me while there. I had a considerable relapse in terms of my stomach condition and also experienced other increased physical discomforts that are part and parcel with being a woman. Parts of my life feel as though they are in limbo, and I know that I cannot force or expedite a resolution.

But I am more committed to this journey than ever.

I've been reading through the recently published private writings of Mother Teresa which reveal the deep interior darkness she lived with for the bulk of her life as a Missionary of Charity. Come Be My Light describes a woman who, though she felt completely deprived of and abandoned by God, remained faithful to the work He had called her to in the slums of Calcutta to the poorest of the poor. In letters to her confessors, she describes the feeling as one of "terrible torture" and being "empty -- excluded -- just not wanted" (p. 222).

Her confessors, the only ones familiar with her deep spiritual pain, knew she was living through the dark night of the soul as described by St. John of the Cross. The spiritual dark night (as described in Come Be My Light) consists of a night of the senses and a night of the spirit. The night of the senses is where "one is freed from attachment to sensory satisfactions and drawn into the prayer of contemplation. While God communicates His light and love, the soul, imperfect as it is, is incapable of receiving them, and experiences them as darkness, pain, dryness, and emptiness. Although the emptiness and absence of God are only apparent, they are a great source of suffering" (p. 22).

While I really don't think I'm experiencing any profound kind of dark night, I do know that at the very least, I'm in a valley. A dimly lit and thickly wooded one. When I began walking this path, it was new and exciting in both an intellectual and a spiritual sense. Despite facing challenges and encountering the occasional obstacles, I felt as I was being carried to new heights in my faith. I was stimulated, excited, my cup filled to overflowing.

The past week or two has been different for many reasons. I see my faith as I know it expanding in a way I could not have imagined possible, and now it is being put to the test. This is nothing new or unexpected where spiritual matters are concerned, but difficult to traverse nonetheless. My prayers are dry; my heart feels little. My obedience comes without any or with little joy. God promises His presence, but I do not sense it.

It is easy to assent intellectually that faith and emotion, while not mutually exclusive, do not depend upon one another. It is a blessed experience to taste, see, feel, and hear God. Who among the faithful does not crave it? But when for a time our senses are deprived of experiencing God, what happens to our faith? I know that in the past, once I no longer "felt" God to be near, my faith and its practice waned. Prayer became a few mumbled lines of obligation at bedtime. I wouldn't go to church unless I felt like it. I rationalized my way out of obedience; since God felt so distant, what did it matter anyway? I would not have articulated it this way at the time, but I understand better now my response to God's silence then.

Reading of Mother Teresa's profound dark night is encouraging to me. Her darkness was infinitely darker and more abiding than what I currently experience, this woman who is easily recognized worldwide not only as a saint, but a woman of deep faith. She never waned in her obedience, trusting in God's closeness rather than relying upon a sensation of it. This was not achieved by cold intellectual assent, but a deep and abiding trust in Him who called her to leave the comfort of the familiar to identify with the poorest of the world's poor in the dark holes and slums of Calcutta. Had she relied more upon a sensed presence of God rather than upon God Himself, we would not know her as we do today; the poor of Calcutta might have been much less loved; none of us would have heard of the Missionaries of Charity. No one would know her name (which, I am sure, is exactly as she would want it), nor would they know her reputation for loving the poor, the diseased, the marginalized, the unlovable.

So while God is decidedly silent with me, I choose to know that He is not absent. I do not feel Him near, but I trust that He is. I did not feel anything particular or profound in attendance at Mass today, but I believe He was present. I feel this week like no one is at the listening end of my prayers, but I rely upon the promise that He hears. Where reason and truth are concerned, I have no reason to doubt Him. I need look no further than my past to see demonstrated evidence of His faithfulness. He has led me to this place and being deprived of a sensory experience of Him does not mean He is any less present and active.

I trust that Christ does not ask of us anything He did not give of Himself. His life on earth was thirty-three years of fleshbound kenosis, a continual emptying out, of learning obedience (Heb. 5), the fullness of which was accomplished on the cross. It struck me recently that Jesus did not feel like being here. In Hebrews, the writer tells us that during Christ's life, "he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears" (Heb. 5:8). His sacrifice on our behalf was not limited to His crucifixion and the torture that preceded it. His sacrifice for us began the moment He entered the womb of one of His created. He continually emptied Himself for our sakes. He not only took on our sins, but our stomachaches, our splinters, the dirt under our fingernails. And when He took on our sin, God turned His face away; so Jesus too knew what it was for God to be absent. I am deeply humbled to think of it -- I who feel at a loss as He begins the work of stripping me of my old self, I who have barely begun to learn what it means to be emptied.

And come to think of it, isn't that the point? If, after all, I am to be like Him, I must step aside. There must be less of me to make way for Him. Perhaps this is part of what this privation of the senses is meant to accomplish. It is all well and good to feel warm and gooey about God (and I certainly don't think it wrong to be emotional where God is concerned), but I think sometimes it gets in the way of what He really wants to accomplish in and through me. He wants my obedience. He wants my faithfulness. And based on His life, I have to believe that it is never dependent upon my comfort, my convenience, or my feeling like doing it. He has called the faithful to take up crosses daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23), not bread baskets or bouquets.

So I thank God the Father that in His wisdom, He has given us the Church as our Mother to instruct us toward obedience, even when we least feel like being faithful. I am thankful for priests, the rosary, prayers, and liturgy. I am thankful for fasting days, for confession and penance, for kneeling in worship. Already I am beginning to see how following the Church's commandments are for my benefit, and for the benefit of the entire Body. Through the Church, God is pouring into my soul sanctifying grace; He is purging me of old ways that I've held onto for far too long. I still feel my flesh rise up in resistance to what is required of me, but find that Christ has begun the work of excavation, tearing out the dead and decaying remnants of self so that He may expand His residence in me little by little.

And so my continual prayer is, grant me the grace to do Your will, Lord.

In every Catholic church, the fourteen Stations of the Cross are depicted. Today, I attended Mass alone and took my seat at the outside end of a pew near the back. Directly to my left was the tenth station with the description: Jesus is stripped of His garments. How appropriate this was today as He begins to strip layers off of me, as He begins to purge me of the terribly selfish, fleshy me-ness that stands in His way. I'm certainly not enjoying it. But because God is in it, I trust something more wonderful and substantial than I can know is waiting for me on the other side.

Looking Back & Looking Ahead

2007-10-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

If you had told me two months ago that I'd be spending Sunday mornings attending a traditional Latin Mass, wearing a skirt, head covered, I probably would have laughed (or at least would have asked to take your temperature to ensure you weren't delusional from fever).

The church I've called home for nearly the past four years is held in a large warehouse-type building; the pastor often wears jeans, members of the motorcycle ministry come dressed in full leathers, and the seats come equipped with coffee-cup holders. To call the worship upbeat is an understatement; even at the end of an exhausting day, it would have me jumping and dancing where I stood, hands extended heavenward. I've never doubted that the teaching was solid and that the hearts of every person there were sincerely and unwaveringly seeking Christ alone. I had no reason to think -- I never even remotely suspected -- that I would find a fuller expression of faith. Not a chance!

When I was challenged with learning about the Catholic faith, I did so knowing one thing: if what I believed to be true was in fact true, I would end up where I started. And if it wasn't, it was time to comply with the truth God would reveal to me through this process. It was a chance to flex those dogma muscles and to see if they would support the weight of this challenge.

Not that I didn't give some serious pause to this whole process -- I remember a day with spurts of tears and fervent prayers, questioning myself and my motives for agreeing to engage in this challenge, doubting my sanity and myself. I was frequently on my knees this day, begging God to hold me up, to check my motives, to show me the next step, to lend me clarity of thought.

Over the last several weeks, I have been gently and lovingly led. I have been challenged, but never pushed. My daily prayer has been enlighten my intellect Lord, and lead me into the fullness of Your truth. Grant me the grace and strength of will to obey. It's far from easy to see where I've been deficient in my faith and its practice, or where I have been in error. But if I am going to ask the question, I must accept the answer God gives. How else am I to grow in my faith if not willing to follow where Christ leads (even if some friends and family think I'm crazy)?

To be sure, I have resisted and rebelled, I have wanted to spew out some lessons I've learned as soon as I taste them. But the Christian faith is not a smorgasbord buffet where we can pick and choose what we like and disregard what we'd rather not have on our plate. And so when I feel the resistance, I ask myself: do I resist because it goes against the character of God? is it unbiblical? is it untrue? does it pull me away from Christ? or, do I just not like it? In those moments, I stop and pray for the gift of humility and for Christ to conform my stubborn will to His own. Throughout this whole process, I have often repeated to myself:

If I am lacking or in error, it is I who must change -- not God.

I know that some continue to believe that I'm headed in a thousand miles in the wrong direction. There is nothing I can say that will convince you otherwise. But from where I stand, I see that I have given up nothing, but gained much. I am leaving nothing behind, but receiving more from the Lord than I knew was possible. I find myself clinging to Christ more fervently than ever before, drawn deeper into His heart, and -- I believe -- seeing His will more clearly. Who would dare give that up if they found it? Certainly not me.

Dear friends, you are such a blessing to me! I pray for you. Please continue to pray for me.

Beginnings

2007-09-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

I used to think on Mary only around Christmas time. To be sure, when it comes to the arrival of our Lord on earth, she is impossible to ignore. But I have thought of her lately for other reasons altogether.

I suppose it's only natural I should think of Mary as I've undertaken my study of the Catholic faith. Even before I began to understand what her special significance was in the Catholic church, I began to look to her example.

And then I let my imagination do a little wandering.

Nothing is said of how the community around her responded to her pregnancy. Imagine if you will a teenage girl, a betrothed virgin, belly swelling with pregnancy. Oh sure, some would say. An angelic visitor? The Son of God? Pshaw! Did some think her the ancient middle-eastern equivalent of Hester Prynne, an adulterous woman unwilling to call out the true father of the child within her?

What did the neighbors think? What were the temple priests saying? People would be incredulous, naturally. They were expecting a political hero, a conquering king for a Messiah. Not a squealing infant. Who besides Elizabeth and Zechariah, I wonder, believed the story of her angelic visitation?

Imagine the secret whispers, the sideways glances of those around her. Imagine the consequences a woman believed guilty of adultery would face. And still she was able to say, my soul doth magnify the LORD (Luke 1:46). I imagine she knew the manifold social and religious implications her mysterious pregnancy held. I imagine she came to know only too well the cost of obedience.

While I may in no way compare myself to the Blessed Mother, I look to her as an example. Though the text is not explicit, I have to believe that her obedience cost her more than we know. When the story of the Immaculate Conception circulated, I can only hypothesize as to what people thought of her, what they whispered about her as she walked past them. I imagine some thought her a liar, or just plain crazy, concocting stories of angelic visitations and the whole Holy-Spirit-coming-upon-you and power-of-the-Most-High-overshadowing-you thing (Luke 1:35). I imagine some were compelled to collect stones.

But she remained obedient in spite of what was likely a prevailing sense of disbelief and outright obstinacy that God would choose such humble and entirely unexpected means to redeem His people.

So I endeavor to adopt the same attitude here, if even in its smallest portion. I know some will think I've gone off the deep end. I know not everyone will approve or understand. But obedience comes with a cost; that much is promised us. And so I find myself compelled by the truth God has revealed, pulled to a new place in my journey of faith. I certainly did not expect it.

But isn't it just like God to do that?

[if you're just getting started, click here, here, and here to see where the journey began ...]

Rules of the Playground

2007-09-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

The way this blog is going to function is going to be different than most if that wasn't already evident from the statements on the sidebar describing "What This Blog Is" and "What This Blog Is Not".

I want to be very clear about the boundaries of this space so you can decide if this is a place you want to visit, or not.

Rule #1: No Comments

I have disabled the comments feature on this blog, the reason being that the primary purpose of having this blog is for me to externalize my thought process (part of my extroverted tendencies, what can I say?). Why not just do this in a Word document? Well, I suppose I could. My reason for doing it in the blogosphere is twofold:

Accountability for me to sort through and organize my own thoughts. As a writer and as an extrovert, there is immense value for me in putting my thoughts & reflections into writing. Putting them in a "public" space (whether or not anyone besides me reads them) creates accountability for me to accomplish this. It will be a way for me to map this journey, set up markers of remembrance along the way, and to have a clear and concise testimony as to what God was and is up to where my path of faith is concerned.
Some have asked to be guided through my learning & thought process while I'm on this journey. Honestly, this reason is not as important for me as the first and I must be utterly clear on this point: I invite others to view this on the sole condition that this blog be restricted to my thoughts alone. If genuinely interested, you are welcome to be privy to my reflections as they are expressed here. But without exception, I am disallowing comments in this space.

**When it comes right down to it, restricting readers from commenting is all about guarding my heart. This is something I've learned the hard way. I really need to externalize this journey somehow, but because this is both something precious and something in its infancy, I am bound to protect it; I must be vigilant about guarding the wellspring of life within me.**

Rule #2: You don't have to read it if you don't want to

As previously stated, one of the reasons I'm putting this out there so that those who are genuinely interested may follow along. It's quite simple, really: if you don't like what I'm saying, how I'm saying it, or that you cannot comment, you are also welcome not to read. And I am totally okay with that! Even if I'm the only one who looks at this blog, there is still value for me in keeping it.

Rule #3: A note on "personal thoughts and reflections"

Please keep in mind that this is not a place where I am attempting to sway or otherwise alter anyone's own beliefs and convictions; it is a place to share where my own patterns of thought, conviction, belief, and practice of faith are shifting and changing as a result of what I am learning and observing. As a result, you can expect there will be references to external sources. My own thoughts and reflections should not be mistaken for the sources referenced or for any dogma or other declarative statement of the Catholic faith.

All that being said, thanks for joining me on my journey of faith! I hope you are blessed.