Faith, Hope, Love, Music [and the Santa Generation]

[I wrote & first published this on December 18, 2006. I wanted to give everyone more time to read it this year, as it is for the coming holiday].

If I were to tell you now that I haven't slept lately, you might think "oh, college kid. It happens." It does, but finals week has finished for me, officially signaling the end of the semester and the beginning of a well-deserved, highly-anticipated three-week vacation. No, the sleep deprivation is because it is my favorite time of year....the season of Christmas is upon us. I have helped decorate cookies, I have shopped, I have spent--oh, how I have spent--and I have wrapped and wrapped. [I'm a very meticulous wrapper]. Really it's the cookie decoration and beautification of boxes that has led me to lose the z's that become so elusive towards the end of each year.

It's an interesting point in the Western calendar. I think that we simultaneously see the best and worst of humanity during the holiday season; we want so badly to give and give and give unto others that we will cut exponentially more people off in the parking lot, and maul through the stores to ensure an efficient gift-buying process. Families reunite, another two-edged sword. You see your family, but.....you see your family...and somehow that produces greater stress than otherwise. [Do you REALLY want to be told again how you could be better? No.] And you drink away the knowledge of the bills that will arrive shortly after the new year begins [which is just a tragic aside to the beginning of a new year, really]. Or you drink away the experiences you have with your family, whatever. Some people stress out too easily, and relax least effectively. It's not healthy.

Nor is this notion of Christmas...and I have to think there's some merit to our traditions despite that. I love Christmas decorations [I don't like that they go on sale in July or that they rarely acknowledge Christ] but the warm glow of multi-colored lights reminds my heart of joy. I love Christmas cookies and other baked goods made seasonal. They're so good. I hate when they go bad because you couldn't possibly eat it all before it goes stale. I love my family. I hate that we aren't united more andthat we live so far away from each other & that to see them I'll have to leave Oakleaf on Jesus' birthday. I love giving gifts [I don't like not having a plethora of George Washingtons]. It's just a solid holiday, this Christmas. There's so much to it. So much to take in, absorb, and respond to. It can easily be so overwhelming.

I feel like that's the catch-22 of Christmas. It's a celebration....and we find so much to celebrate; so many people, relationships, opportunities afforded us....Christmas helps us wrap us the last year of our lives, evaluate what we've done and whom to, how to do the same or better or never again in the coming year. Which I think is just a product of having such a momentous occasion at the end of the year, not necessarily Christmas. But here it is, it is Christmas, the day of the Christ, and it's lost on a generation writing to Santa for Tickle Me Elmo [TMX--the new generation], remote controlled cars, Barbies, XBOX 360s, Wiis, iPods, guitars, cars, clothes, jewelry, better jobs, healthier marriages, marriage in general, happier parents, more money, more of this, more of that........

I don't think any of these things are bad. Obviously. I just got a new guitar [and I grin inside as I type that]. But I wonder if they really are what we are looking for, if they offer what is needed to speak to the depths of a broken heart. And while many of them have the capacity to aid in doing so [being out of poverty, having healthy relationships, guitars...] I think they are just a means to an end. God doesn't want to see the world's hungry to go a bed made from a pile of grass each night cold and without a substantial meal. God doesn't want to see His beloved detached from the spouse they have, affirmation not being spoken over them, needs left unmet, love not being had. So we have these things like money and marriage. And God gave us guitars because God gave us music and music is the best thing. It's #4 on the royal list....faith, hope, love [the greatest of these being love] and music. That part's not in the Bible though. It got left out.

So like I said, and I feel like it should be reiterated, none of these things are bad; I think they're great. But I think they are only a means to an end. But they are pled to Santa [mythical figure metaphorically standing for talking to a wall] to obtain them, to be happier, to live better. But what if this Santa generation [this era in particular....25' blowups of Santa and Frosty in the front yard are kind of excessive] found hope? [I often wonder what if we didn't create new characters to mark the birth of Christ to be politically correct, but that's another blog, another day.]

Because I think all these material things we've invented, while they speak for creativity, will never satisfy. You do not still play with the toys you threw a tantrum over when you were four [I got the Batcave playset when I was 4 for Christmas; I remember that glorious morning. Lexie, my German Shepherd, enjoyed her stocking of biscuits beside me as I played]. Years from now, you will not listen to your iPod because years back you were listening to a WalkMan and that's just the way things are. But I don't think we're all so materialistic. I don't. I think that Christmas has become a holiday of family and giving, both of which are good things, relationships and selflessness. I read a Christmas card the other day that read inside something to the extent of "wishing you all the magic and wonder that is Christmas." But Christmas is not magic and wonder. Christmas is a celebration of truth, grace, hope, faith...and love. To be so fortunate, to be so privileged, to be so redeemed. That the King of the Mighty Angel Armies [plural] was born so gentle, so humbly to come to know and save and hold the hearts of His beloved.

You.

And it's this time of the year that I begin to wonder what it would have been like, the Savior of mankind born to us after years and years and years of waiting and prophesy and waiting and hope and....waiting. To arrive at the barn, to lean over the manger, to see hope in human form. To look into the eyes of God on earth, to hear His mother singing Him a lullaby. To see light glisten in His eyes and hear Him coo and all those cute things babies do even when they aren't the Only Begotten Son of God Almighty come to save the world from the enemy. Nevermind the coming years in which He will grow and teach and minister and heal and save. That moment, that night in the barn, when grace was given a name....Jesus, "God saves." God saves. He rescues. Love now existed on earth in its purest form, against the forces of Hell that rose to destroy it. The stars shining brighter than they ever had and ever will for a very long time, angels singing as they always have and always will but this time in a vocal symphony audible to human ears. The miles traveled to see Him and bow and weep and laugh and embrace by the anonymous shepherds with the thankless job, cast to the sidelines by the religious right. The anticipation they must have endured, eager breaths containing their excitement as they crossed the fields and searched the town and followed the star and met their God. How privileged. Who were they, but shepherds and men? Who were they but broken-hearted sinners waiting for rescue and redemption? It must have been beautiful.

O come, all ye faithful, joyful & triumphant
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem
Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels,
O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.

Merry Christmas, everyone. May you awake Christmas morning to hope in your hearts, for joy and love are ours to have forever.

Antique Cars and Ice Cream Sandwiches [on being a refuge].

Give it a few decades, and I’ll probably resemble my dad and grandfather in the ways they reminisce about the cars they had when they were my age. But if I have my way, my Jetta will last forever if it means I have to gut and rebuild the engine every 225,000 miles. Whatever. It’s pretty and they don’t make them like that any more. It’s tragic.

I was driving to Orlando from Jacksonville last night, and for those unaware that includes a drive on I-4, the Road of Death. I was in a hurry so I broke my no-extreme-speeding rule for a moment and began to fly. It’s been a while, and I forgot how good it feels. So my fancy modern six cylinder was flying by most of the cars and keeping up with the others, and I began to notice how many vintage cars were sharing the road with me at a much slower pace. There were several, and it has led me to conclude that if I looked into it a little, I’d learn there was an antique car show of some sort that night in Orlando. But I don’t care so I haven’t investigated and I continued to fly to my destination, which was a show. So once hours pass and the show and post-show dinner concluded themselves and faded into yet another fond memory, I drove home. Another journey on the Road of Death.

To be completely honest I was more tired than I should have been as a driver, so I’m a little fuzzy on specific details but I do remember seeing several cars on the sides of I-4 and I-95 alike. One in particular stood out to me on the way home: yet another antique car, returning home from this vintage car extravaganza. Its sleek lines glimmered even in the headlights of my car and the moonlight, washed and waxed to be gazed upon and admired in its utmost pristine condition, fingers run across its design. Except this time, the hands were those of the tow truck man, his eyes investigating the best method to get this car off of the side of the interstate and to the nearest mechanic qualified to be trusted with such a treasure.

The irony of the moment is what struck me most; a car that not only is admired just as it drives down the road but was just at an event where car collectors and fans gathered to discuss and share their passions, to brag about their babies. This car probably got a few compliments, “This sure is a nice looking car, I had one just like it years ago….” And the owner probably pretended to be more humble about it than he is, “Aw shucks….well I’ve done this-and-this and such-and-such work on it, since my kids moved out and I’ve retired, I’ve had more time.” He probably didn’t mention that there was a chance the car wasn’t going to get itself back to its protective garage that night. That’s my guess on how it all played out anyway. And it occurs to me that this is probably how many of us seem, how I seem to so many. I am so well-put together, that girl who goes to college and church and doesn’t do drugs. Like I have nothing wrong on the inside, like I am not plagued by a curse thirsty for my veins. Hide your sins from the righteous, for they will judge you. When in fact I think it is so important for us to invest in community, to have relationships facilitating freedom so I can pull up my sleeve and show you my scars without shame, to reach for victory and be caught when I fall. We don’t have that community. We go to the show, brag, and die on the way back to our self-fashioned homes, our comfort zones. We go to work and class and church and the beach and the movies and out to dinner and the bowling alley and say we’re “fine,” we’re “good.”

Nearly four years ago, my grandma was quite literally fading away on the death bed Hospice had rolled in for her. My mom, brother and I moved up to Arkansas to be with her until the end. It did not take long for me to settle back into the home of my childhood, the den that saw my finest Lego creations and the kitchen walls that saw my watermelon fight with my brother, the bedroom that saw my slumbers and the acre of pine trees that saw my young explorations and games. My grandma and I didn’t talk every day and we kept in touch through my mother, but it was with my grandma that I felt least condemned as a child; I usually got in trouble with everyone else. So I never felt like a guest in that house. If it was her house, it was my house and that’s just the way it went. Her car became my car, actually, and I loved that boat simply because she had driven it.

So that May, my aunt and her kids came to bid my grandma farewell. Family politics had separated them for years, and no doubt my cousins had no idea what to expect and I am sure the dying woman hardly able to simultaneously breathe and keep her head up straight threw them off guard. My brother and I were present during their visit, stretching out all over the leather couch in ways my mom would probably reprimand me for, eating every treat under their roof because those ice cream sandwiches were purchased for us and we knew it. My mom probably would have reprimanded me for my 2^nd or 3^rd ice cream sandwich, but it was Grandma & Grandpa’s house so I could pretty much have as many as I wanted, sixteen years old going on seven, forever young in their eyes.

One of the things I remember most about that night was the lack of seating during the reunion, which was probably only exaggerated by the amount of space my brother and I were taking up without hesitation. As comfortable as we were, my cousins were not as it had been nearly a decade since the last time they had seen those walls. We had pulled in the dining room chairs for them, and I remember seeing them sitting on the edges of them, clearly not at ease and hardly speaking. I probably would have reacted the same way. It was a very awkward situation. My grandma passed away four days later.

This is what I know: I know that if you want to find Jesus, He is with the dying, the nearly dead. He is with the strippers and prostitutes on their way home, whispering in their ear that they are worth and meant for something so much more than they sell themselves for. He is with the homeless and the hungry, giving them reason and hope to draw their next breath when hope is a stranger and hot food is a forgotten luxury. He is with the wealthy, coaxing them out of their bank accounts to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and cold. He is with the weary, those resigned to the mundane and pathetic, those who have lost themselves to “the way things are.” He is with the Church, telling her to be a refuge for the beaten and battered souls seeking asylum. And this is what I know: the Church, at least in America, is no refuge. I’ve talked to homeless folks who were denied pastoral advice until a background check was run. I’ve been on the payroll at a church that locks the doors that bear the name of Jesus Christ, because no one wants those homeless people inside. They might want help and then we’d have to give it. I’ve seen false prophets scream lies and judgment at college students.

And let me tell you, Jesus Christ has no part in any of those things.

What needs to happen is this: we need to look in the mirror and examine the reflection. I am tired of lies and well-to-dos. There is no room nor time for false premises, and Sunday bests are hard to maintain and yet hard to shed. The shiniest cars break down. Hearts will fall and stagger in this fragile life. I want community. I want the Church to step it up so my friends will stop seeing a false impression of Jesus and decide they want nothing to do with the God they see in America, the God who hates the gays and abortionists.

That God does not exist.

We are all poverty-stricken, even if our bank accounts are fine. I want the poor and broken-hearted, the contrite spirits to know that when they walk in the houses of the Church—they are only walls, by the way—that they can lay all over the couches and eat every last bite of ice cream in the freezer. I want the lost to know they can walk into the Church, the body and fellowship of Jesus Christ, and be neither judged nor condemned. A refuge is a stronghold, and love is shelter from the storm. I want the hands of Jesus Christ on earth to be the best vintage car mechanics the world has ever seen.

I want a refuge.

James 3:1-2

Leadership is not a hobby. It is not temporary. Its intensity comes in waves, but the influence never dies.

Live it.

It's just simple economics, really.

I have made a friend recently without knowing it or trying so much. To be completely honest, I was just doing my job. I was handing coffee out of the window with a smile on my face. I do that with most people, most cups of coffee. I am paid to stand at that hole in the wall that unites me to you, the customer, for those anticipated three minutes or less, and talk to you. I will ask you about your day. If you won’t tell me, I will tell you about my day. I am generally prohibited from abandoning people at the window. Other than the particularly awkward, skeevy & flirtatious, and clinically anti-social, I have no choice but to talk to you. Talk we shall.

We have talked about her day many times, and she is not afraid of telling me all about it. Recently more personal details have come to surface, and I have invited her to my community of faith that we call “OakLeaf Christian Fellowship.” We have talked about tears at night, vacations and marriages, parenthood. We’ve talked about school. We’ve talked about books. Tonight, we talked about grace. She loves God because He’s God, and as much as she believes in the new covenant, this blood that saves us from works, she’s caught up in them. She is caught up in her list of things she can do to show God she loves Him. Self-admittedly, she cannot just be in love with God.

Today, a hurricane came to Florida. I don’t really care that it wasn’t in the news and no meteorologist deemed it to even qualify as a tropical storm, but the contents of the Atlantic ocean were dumped on Jacksonville today. Particularly on the campus of the University of North Florida, and particularly from 11:45 A.M. to noon, when I walked across campus to make it to my psychobiology class for our first exam. I was drenched. I give my dogs a bath and laugh at them for looking like drowned rats. I think today I gave them a run for their money, if they could only see me now. But it felt so good to walk in the falling water. It was the perfect day for it.

I am not one to understand grace. It’s not in our economy, wreckless unmerited favor. I cannot make sense of it, and I have yet to meet anyone who can. Other than Jesus. Jesus Christ is grace incarnate. As soon as I went to school, God made sure grace was the first word to drip from Heaven to my heart. It still makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. In the economy of divinity, my place in the royal dining hall is outside, on the corner with the other whores. With the liars and the cheats and the scoundrels. With the Pharisees. But not with Jesus.

You can’t blanket entire populations, but I generally think most people regard God in this way. If in fact there is a God, then you can’t be around Him. Because you don’t want to be or He doesn’t want you to be, which will ultimately make you not want anything to do with Him.

None of that is Truth. All of that is false. A lie from the pit of lies, a pit ruled by bitterness and resentment and hatred and evil of the worst kind. The pit my blood runs from.

A lot of people had umbrellas today. They were smart. I have an umbrella, and to my defense it is in my friend’s car, but even if I had it on hand I probably would not have used it. For some reason I think they’re unnecessary. Color me a lunatic.

So I’m holding my flip flops, with my jeans rolled up, bolting across the green. Eventually I got to the point where I just didn’t care anymore and had a stroll thing going on to get to the test I was running late for. Eventually, I came to a dead stop behind a wall of girls afraid of the puddle they circumstantially had to cross [stairs on one side and construction on the other left them few other options].

Dead. Stop.

I like to think that I’m charging right through the puddles, that I’m enjoying being soaked. That I will dance in the rain if it means that my heart is, for even just that moment, synchronized with the heartbeat of Heaven. But I was told long ago that I cannot dance.

They were probably right, let’s face it.

I do not think that I am new or fresh or exciting half the time, but Heaven disagrees. I do not think I’m accomplishing much, but Heaven disagrees. I do not think that I have anything to say that anyone else will want or need to hear, but Heaven disagrees. I do not think that I have a heart worth pure and true love, but Heaven disagrees.

What I’ve found, then, is this God that I generally try to distance myself from pursues me like white on rye, like peanut butter on jelly. It will make me uncomfortable, walking around all wet afterwards. It might force me to alter my living habits, having to let my clothes dry instead of putting them away all nice and neat-like. But it also might remind me of bigger things, better things. A better economy than my own. Adam and Eve messed up, screwed me over [I would have eaten the entire apple], God is the only one who could fix it, and He did fix it. I take or I refuse. No more, no less. That is the economy at stake.

Friend, I am sorry you don’t love God just for the sake of love. To respond to romance in the ways we dream of. Just to love in the name of love. My heart cries for that to change, but I know that as I write this, I still try to pull my umbrella out sometimes. But something in me tells me to hold off, to let the water fall from Heaven and drench me. Soak me. To leave no room for air. To know that grace exists, it’s just not in my economy. Grace and love and peace exist, and exist for me.

I feel a rain a’comin.’

the heart of the woman on the wall.

I have taken on a thousand names, playing each and any part that was asked of me; demanded of me. I have given myself away for less than I am worth. I have taken little in return. I have walked by the disapproving eyes. I have spent my life sitting on the wall, partially in but mostly outside. I have begged you to leave me there.

I have felt the weight of an empty heart as often as I have scanned the bare cabinets of an empty kitchen. I have tasted dirt and gold for my sins. I have taken the beatings that come as often as the jewelry.

Time has left me nameless, my resignation bearing my defeat. I have heard of you; your pursuit. The stories of you have melted my heart, making me aware of what stopped beating long ago. Those stories claimed my courage, taking hostage the false bravery I muster every morning just to get out of this stained bed. I see only the fear of you…at the moment of my last breath, please let the flames come quick. I, more than anyone, am aware of this economy of gracelessness, knowing where I stand and how little I have to offer. Surely they reflect your judgment—and my own—that I do not deserve you. Just leave me there.

—Rahab. Gomer. The Church. Me.

I like this.

"Eyes speak before the lips move."

- Arshile Gorky

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaature! [I was asked to write about a tree].

My dad and I were driving around Jacksonville at some point while I’ve been here for school, and he said to me something about how he appreciated the scenery. Jacksonville, for those that don’t know, is very woodsy. Tampa, on the other hand, is where my dad lives and it is almost entirely conquered by concrete and skyscrapers. It’s depressing. It feels skeevy to me when I’m there. It’s part of why I didn’t go to USF.

I once had to study the field of environmental psychology for a class presentation and referred back to some studies I’d learned in my Stress Management course sophomore year; cities with high crime rates have implemented what they call “green spots” consisting of trees and patches of grass to break the cement scene and have seen drastic reductions in crime. Apartment buildings in similar inner-city areas have hosted balcony beautification projects, which united the apartment residents in community and experienced less crime, theoretically as a result of the endeavor. Hospital patients with views of nature have better chances for smoother recoveries; those with pictures of nature to compensate for the lack of sparkling mountains and lakes in their windows experience similar effects. Those with neither have lower rates of recovery, and typically recovery is slower. Office workers with a view enjoy their jobs more than those without views; cubicles with pictures of nature are daytime homes to more productive employees.

In short, nature makes people happy.

God once told Paul to write some words [I believe they’re in the book of Romans, but my internet is broken as I write this and I’m not prepared to read the entire book looking for it right now] about nature, about this power trees have over us. They say something to the effect that creation exists to point to the Creator, so no man [or woman] will be left without accountability when they meet God. No one can say they didn’t know He existed, because He’s going to say “that’s most certainly not true. I set eternity in your heart. I created you to think of me. I’ve pursued and loved you desperately since before you took your first breath. And if all else failed, I made the trees.”

I was in church this morning and I was standing in the aisle with some people near the back, and the woman standing in front of me was in one of those positions so that the small boy who was trying to get through our group and to the other side couldn’t quite get around her. He certainly didn’t want to go through her. And then she shifted, which only made his situation more difficult. This is all happening in seconds, and I’m watching the whole thing. I stood there watching, and could have helped him walk in the clear path I could see from my towering view nearly five and a half feet in the air, but I chose not to. I figured he’d get it on his own and I didn’t feel like crossing any social boundaries at the time. Call it keeping to myself. In any event, in seconds the two of them figured things out [once she saw him] and she moved and smiled and he went on his merry way. None of this is of eternal consequence, but I feel like God used the moment to tell me that there will be times when I will see the way out for other people. At those times, I’ll probably need to tell them if I want to call myself a fair person. That might mean you’re an alcoholic and won’t admit to it. That might mean you’re in a significantly unhealthy relationship and cling to it for redemption. That might mean you’re simply looking for the way. It’s only fair that if I see it, I tell you. I can’t say I’m loving if I stand back and let people wallow in their own self-destruction, dying to old wounds.

For this reason, I want you to be exposed to the fact that Jesus Christ loves you. Desperately. And now you’re read it. You can’t say you didn’t know. Maybe we all go to Heaven around the same time so we stand in line. I don’t think so, but let’s say that’s the case for a second. We’re all in a line outside the gates as the book with the names of those covered in the blood of the Lamb are found. If you get to the front of the line and find with crushing dismay that your name is not in this book, you can’t pass me on the way out and say I never told you about it. You can’t blame me for an eternity of dying without death, knowing no finality or conclusion. Hell is going to suck. Forever.

Forever.

If you don’t believe me about this Jesus-rescues-everyone thing, you have to wonder why the trees reach upwards [weeping willows being an exception to my metaphor, though they are pretty and you still have to wonder how they got here in the first place]. You have to wonder why it’s trees that make the exact elemental conversion we need to trade off of for our oxygen supply. There it is, conveniently built into our environment.

Next time you see a tree, look up.