Everest

"from the depth of the pacific
to the height of everest
and still the world is smoother
than a shiny ball-bearing
so i take a few steps back
and put on a wider lens
and it changes your skin,
your sex, and what your wearing
distance shows your *silhouette*
to be a lot like mine
like a sphere is a sphere
and all of us here
have been here all the time
yeah, we've been here all the time*

you brought me to church
cinder blocks, flourescent light
you brought me to church
at seven o'clock on a sunday night
and the band was rockin'
and the floors were scrubbed clean
and everybody had a tambourine

so i took a deep breath and became
the white girl with the hair
and you sat right beside me
while everybody stared
and through the open window
i think the singing went outside
and floated up to tell
all the stars not to hide
'cuz by the time church let out
the sky was much clearer
and the moon was so beautiful
that the ocean held up a mirror

as we walked home we spoke slowly
we spoke slow
and we spoke lowly
like it was taking more time
than usual to choose
the words to go
with your squeaky sandal shoes
like time is not a thing
thats ours to lose

from the height of the pacific
to the depths of the everest..."

I love this song by Ani DiFranco. I realize more and more the privilege it is to be part of God's redemptive plan. The joy it is to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those around us. The grace behind my small part in the story.

Sometimes I think that God will be so disappointed in me that God will stop using me. I have this ridiculously human fear that God's grace will shrivel up and die and I will be left alone in the squalor of my sinful choices. And yet, I am continually surprised by God's grace. I am reminded that God has a redemptive plan and I am part of it. With all of my wrong God still uses me. God still has a plan for me - God can and does still use even me for the great good.

Merciful Heavenly Father, thank you for using me in small ways to affect others. Thank you for forgiving me of my sins although they are numerous. God, when I fail - and I will - I want to have no fear, but rather to live in the knowledge of your grace. Thank you for including me, Lord.

I think there's this part of me that is learning to love again. Like I've just been so bitter that I couldn't love. And for a long time I just wanted to feel love. I mean, I love my friends and all ... and I have ... but I feel that I'm a lot more open to loving now. I realize that I can love without being loved in return and that its OK. It's not the end of the world if those I love don't love me with the same tenacity. I'm a lot more OK with that now.

I'm allowed to be happy. I give myself permission to love. I give myself permission to fail.

There’s this great scene in Family Guy. Baby Stewie marries Olivia, a child actress. They live in a cardboard home and have pasta spaghetti for dinner. Olivia asks Stewie how his day went and he replies, “Well, it was a long one. First I was an astronaut, then I was a cowboy, and then I was a fireman.” It’s a great montage of children pretending to live in a grown up world. At one point, a few days after the wedding, they have a conversation.

Stewie: We are in a sexless relationship. We have yet to have sex.
Olivia: Do you even know what sex is?
Stewie: Of course I do … is it some kind of cake? That’s beside the point.

As I think more and more about God’s relationship with humans, I just can’t help think that we’ve understood something terribly wrong. That at this point in our theology we have achieved little more than a disconnect. Stewie doesn’t know what sex is, but he knows he isn’t getting any. Maybe we have no concept of love. Maybe we have no concept of grace.

I realize more and more that my theology is too small. My theology is just large enough for my current life situation. My theology isn’t big enough for the Holocaust. My theology isn’t big enough for the crack whore’s crack addicted baby. My theology isn’t big enough for the bulimic, lesbian middle schooler trying desperately to fit in at youth group. My theology is simply too small.

But, as I look to Jesus I realize that somehow His theology is big enough. His understanding of God and how God interacts with us is big enough. Jesus held to a theology that was big enough for tax collectors, whores, rapists, murderers, gossipers, and lying 12 year olds.

The Bible says that God’s grace is sufficient. And I have to believe that. I have to believe that when nothing makes sense, that God’s grace is sufficient. I have to believe that whether God “has everything planned out” or whether God “doesn’t know if I’ll choose Subway or McDonalds” that God’s grace is still sufficient. I have to believe that my understanding of God and humankind’s interaction with God doesn’t change God.

That my inability to understand love or grace or forgiveness doesn’t hinder God’s ability to love or show grace or forgive.

That when my understanding of God amounts to little more than a total disconnect that God’s grace is still sufficient.

God, I just don’t understand. I don’t understand how you created me or how you still manage to love me. Your grace is sufficient, your love is tremendous, your forgiveness undeniable. May my simple life help one person understand your nature just a little bit better than I can.

Rebecca has missed my blogging, and quite frankly, so have I. I have missed the cathartic excercise.

I'm working on the application process for the General Board of Global Ministries. It makes me feel so vulnerable to know that my entire life (hyperbole?) is in their hands! All they see of me is a few slips of paper. It's so weird. I know that this is just the first step, but it still feels inadequate.

I had friends over to watch Son of Rambow. You must rent it. It is one of the best moveis I've ever seen.

I'm wrestling with the whole "view of God" dialogue. It's weird, because more than anything else I agree with the ideas behind openness. Openness says that God doesn't know the future. God is still omniscient ... he knows everything there is to know ... but that doesn't include the future.

That really jives with me. Take the holocaust: Openness says that God knew Hitler was a really bad man and that he put it in the hearts of man to stop him, but that people failed. With a Calvinist perspective, God caused the Holocaust. With an Arminian view, God knew the Holocaust was coming and did nothing to stop it.

Or, take the idea of where people go who have never heard the good news. Heaven or Hell? A strict Calvinist view is that they are not of the elect and will burn in Hell. A strict Arminian view is that God knows these people will die without hearing the word and there is nothing God can do about it. A Universalist says that they all go to Heaven. Openness could believe that God has a plan to save all of those who haven't heard, but that because we are free creatures there are a lot of us who are choosing not to follow God's plan and because of that all of those people will go to Hell. God has decided to leave their salvation in our hands, and we are screwing up ... but God holds out hope.

It's an interesting proposition, really. I'll need to think more about it.

I love reading missionary biographies. David Livingstone, Amy Carmichael, Mother Teresa, Hudson Taylor; I love their stories. It's interesting to note the things the biographer conveniently leaves out. I wonder why they never recall the dark nights of lonely passion. I wonder why the don't record the frustration of doubt: "I'm such a hypocrite, and yet I am to take Your precious good news to the ends of the earth?" I wonder why they record the numerous salvation experiences but leave out the times the missionary found himself or herself in the most unglamorous places; because the missionary call is just as significantly to the party where they're passing out cocaince as it is to Africa and grass huts. They will never write a book about the cocaine party. There isn't a market for records of massive failures in the lives of your favorite spiritual guides.