Everyday Holy

On Turning 35

2010-08-15T22:40:00.006-04:00

In two weeks, I'm turning 35.

35.

I don't feel 35, but then, I guess I really have no idea what 35 ought to feel like. It feels a little crazy if I think about it too hard, a little bit dizzying, like three glasses of Prosecco on an empty stomach or too many rides on the Top Thrill Dragster.

I know it's probably cliche', but I keep starting to have that internal discussion with myself that goes something like, "Are you where you're supposed to be? Have you totally screwed up your life? Should you be someplace else?" This is ridiculous, of course, especially for someone who knows with every fiber of her being that God is in the driver's seat. Whenever this conversation starts, the down-to-earth, practical side of me kind of mentally slaps (gently) the other, emotionally-driven, worrier side of me, and she shuts up for a while.

Who am I at 35? I'm a girlfriend for the first time in about a decade. I'm a Managing Editor (a job title that would have sounded so glamorous to me two years ago. The truth is, I don't actually edit anything, unfortunately. What I do feels more like air-traffic control, except that it's in the publishing business). I'm a writer-who's-working-on-it. I'm a runner. I'm a Christian who feels like she's spiritually crawling on some days, leaping and dancing on others.

Who am I not at 35? I'm not a wife. I'm not a mother. Does it seem like these are things I should be? Well, yes. They do. They are things I want to be, in the deepest parts of my heart and soul. Do I struggle with this not being part of my present? Yes again. The season of wedding-after-wedding has ended, and I got through that in one piece. Now it's the season of baby-after-baby, and I'm getting through that. But there are random moments of panic when I wonder if my eggs will be all dried up by the time I get to attempt the pregnancy thing. I figure that's a normal fear for a 35-year-old woman, and yeah, I know there are "so many advances in fertility treatments, and more all the time," but thinking about that feels panicky, too. So when I feel panicky, I just tell God about it, and He always just says, "Trust ME," and I take a deep breath and let the panic out and let the peace in. Because I DO trust Him. He's earned it.

The wife/mother thing aside, there are great things about being 35, things I wouldn't trade in return for being younger. At 35, I know myself at a level that feels really good. I know what I need to be healthy - what I need emotionally, what I need in relationships and in my work, what I need to feel balanced, what I need in order to be able to feel connected to God, what I need in order to be restored when I'm worn out. It feels good knowing these things about myself because it means I can make sure these needs are met, and I can take care of myself on a deeper level than I could at 30, or 25, or 20.

I know, too, what I want to do with the rest of my life. Well, I always knew what I wanted to do, I just didn't know how to actually do it, how to make it happen, and so I kind of shelved it and ignored it for years and years until it became clear that it was going to be impossible to keep living that way, just plodding along, not doing the only thing I was made to do. It only took three careers to figure it out - but I guess that's not bad, compared to some people. Anyway, I have an actual plan now. I'm praying God endorses it.

At 35, I also know some things about my character, things that make me feel solid and grounded, because I know I can rely on these parts of myself to show up when needed. I know that I'm strong, that I'm resilient, that I have the ability to bounce back after crises and major transitions and deep, wrenching loss. I know that I have courage, guts, moxie, whatever name you want to give it. I know that I have passion and conviction and creativity and drive. Some portion of these traits developed thanks to my mother and her example, but I think God has refined them in me, made them more holy and Jesus-ish.

I'm more accepting of my flaws at 35. I have accepted that I will have selfish moments about which I will feel very bad, but which will happen anyway because I'm inherently selfish, as we all are. I have accepted that I will hurt people without intending to because I tend to be incredibly blunt, and that I will probably never stop having to apologize for the way I say things. I have accepted that I will always struggle with patience. And no, these aren't my only flaws, but they're some of the ones I deal with day to day.

I have accepted that my body will never be perfect, that I will probably always be fighting against 5 or 10 or 15 pounds that want to hang around. But I've also learned to be amazed by my body and its capabilities. It's a rather miraculous creation after all (not surprising, really, knowing God). It can run several miles without stopping. It can bend and flex and lift and move in rhythm to music. It can think and write and sing and laugh and take me anywhere I want to go.

My friends Ashley and George are working on a new design for this blog right now, and when they sent the prototype, I thought it was probably time for a fresh author photo to go with it. So my friend Michelle, who is a stellar photographer, designer, and all-around creative genius, took about a hundred photos of me in an alleyway in downtown Grand Rapids. She did a great job - there are shots of me laughing, looking pissed off, smiling seductively, gazing into the distance, and so on. There were almost too many to choose from. I chose the photo we all (Michelle, me, friends and family) seemed to like best, but the photo below is the one I keep coming back to, because it evokes how I feel right now. There's a sense of relaxed waiting in this shot, if that makes sense, like I'm watching something come towards me. I'm leaning against the wall, but it looks like I'm poised to casually push away from it at any moment and start moving towards whatever I'm looking at. There is motion behind the stillness - I'm not just doing nothing here.

This is what life feels like right now: a season of relaxed waiting and watching, with movement imminent. There is work to be done and there are moments to savor and enjoy, but there is change coming, and I'm watching it get closer, I'm getting ready for it, I'm waiting for my cue to move forward, but there's no tension in that. I feel relaxed about where I am, and relaxed about what's coming (except for the random moments of irrational panic about the viability of my eggs). I don't know if this is what 35 should feel like (can we really attach "should feel like" to any stage of life?), but for me, this is what it does feel like. It doesn't feel perfect, but it does feel right.

I know that most of the time we are all waiting for something to arrive, even if that something is just a change in ourselves. At five, I was waiting to start school. At twelve, I was waiting to be a teenager. At fourteen, I was waiting to be a high school student. At seventeen, I was waiting to start college. At 23, I was waiting to get a job. The list of things I have waited for goes on and on, and most of them are natural things, things we all wait for. I think, at 35, I have accepted that I will always be waiting for something, because that's just how life is, and that the key isn't to try to stop being in a place of waiting, but to really live in the waiting - to not let the waiting be a "pause" button that stops your life from moving, but a part of the thumping of your heart, a part of the energy that propels you to enjoy the place you're in as completely as you can, because eventually there will be another season, then another, and another.

I feel better having written this, because it's helped me realize that I am happier and more at peace at 35 than I have ever been. If 35 just means continuing to be me, continuing to live this life that's obviously so grace-filled and overflowing with God's blessings, continuing to work and dream and wait and be challenged and grow and enjoy, then 35 sounds pretty good. I think maybe I can handle it. :)

In the Company of Good Books

2010-06-11T15:44:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while, I read a book that acts like a mirror, reflecting myself back to me, forcing me to see things that maybe I wouldn't see on my own, or things that I avoid seeing most of the time because I just don't want to. Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist was like that, and A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, and Thin Places by Mary DeMuth. A few weeks ago, I gobbled up an advance copy of Shauna's new book, Bittersweet, and it made me feel like I was breathing better for a few days. It's been a while since I've read anything that makes me feel like I'm sinking into it, like I'm walking alongside someone else who knows the Jesus I know, and has been picked up and dusted off and cleaned up by him as many times as I have. Reading Bittersweet was like that.

There is something cathartic and immeasurably comforting about books like that - a sense of relief that comes from realizing that someone else is made up of the same kind of humanness, like maybe you're not the only one who goes around in public in yoga pants all the time wearing no makeup and a baseball cap over your unwashed hair, and who understands that sometimes it's freeing in its comfortableness, but other times it's a reflection of your internal state. You're suddenly aware, with stunning clarity, that you're not the only one who's spiritually "raggedy," as Mary would put it, and it's okay that inside, you've got the equivalent of skinned knees and scuffed-up shoes. It also makes me feel like there is someone who can see the skinned knees and scuffed-up shoes, even though they're on the inside. Of course, that someone is Jesus, and he does see.

These kinds of books are precious to me, and I return to them over and over when I need to feel known, when God feels far away and I am desperate to hear Him but the noise of my busy life has gotten to be too loud. These are the books that help me feel quieter inside, and more balanced, and like maybe there's a chance that I will get it together someday, but that it might not happen until Heaven, and if it doesn't, that's all right, because that's why Jesus died - so that I wouldn't have to get it together completely while I'm here on Earth. That's what grace is, and I love books that remind me about grace, because I forget pretty easily most of the time.

My book club, which is comprised of a revolving bunch of women who come when they can, just finished reading Thin Places, which was the first spiritual book we've read together. We took turns talking about the chapters that reminded us the most of ourselves, and did our best to explain why. Our discussion was more like a small group meeting than a book club, and everyone got teary-eyed at some point, because we all ended up sharing pieces of our own stories, and we all got a little bit closer to each other. I think we left feeling like we had gotten to a deeper place as a group, and I think maybe our discussions will be a little deeper from now on. That's the other thing I love about books - they have the ability to bring us together, to help us identify with each other. Books can help us establish common ground, and they can help us explore our differences. And I think when that happens, sometimes it's God.

This is also why I write, and why Mary writes, and why Shauna writes - because words have the ability to make people feel like someone really sees them. You write something and throw it out there on the printed page or on a blog like this one, and if just one person latches onto it and feels known because of what you wrote, then your words have done something. Nothing else feels quite like that.

Starting Fresh: Everyday Holy

2010-05-28T17:12:00.003-04:00

This blog has been a random entity in my life for a long time. I started it in 2004, when blogging was still kind of new, and I tried to be consistent for a while, but I inevitably fell off the wagon. And then got back on. And then fell off. I've been like a really bad friend, showing up when I suddenly feel the need to write something rather than committing to the relationship, which is not very good writer-behavior.

I've re-titled a couple of times, and I threw a new template on every once in a while, but I don't think I knew until recently what I was really trying to do with those surface-level changes. I knew it subconsciously, I think, but I wasn't able to truly wrap my brain around it until my friend Mary showed me what was missing, albeit unintentionally.

A few months ago, Mary, who is an award-winning novelist and with whom I share a few personality traits (admitted tendency to overcommit, too many passions), started seeking a sharper focus in her writer-life. She sent out an email asking some of the people who read and support her, "What should my focus be? Who is my tribe?" I was impressed by the frank, raw appeal of that email, and humbled to be on the receiving end.

I spent several days thinking about how to respond to her, and ultimately, I sent a rather lengthy note, because I knew she truly desired thoughtful input, and because I recognized the hunger underlying her words, a familiar hunger for a defined purpose. Her request made me realize that I have the same craving. I also saw in her my own battle against the tendency to spread myself thin - something that happens to those of us who can do many things well, and have a difficult time saying no when we know we can deliver. Mary does do everything writerly well - she has numerous blogs, all of which are helpful, inspiring, and well-written. She is a writing mentor and is involved in various writing-related groups, both online and in the flesh. She writes for magazines and other people's blogs, and speaks at events and conferences. She is multi-faceted, multi-genre, and multi-talented.

But all writers need purpose. We all need a "tribe" to whom we speak - we need to have a sense of why the heck we're writing, and for whom we're writing. And if we don't know what our focus should be, or who our tribe is, we need to figure that out. For Mary, that meant leaving behind some of her commitments, like our online writers' group and some of her blogs. And while "breaking up" with those things has been sad and difficult in some ways, there is a fresh excitement to Mary, a renewed sense of purpose and identity. She has a clearer picture of the path God has set before her as a writer.

Watching Mary going through this from afar, I realized that what was lacking in my ability to commit to this blog was my own lack of purpose. I wasn't clear on what this blog was supposed to do. I had no idea why I was writing here, or for whom I was trying to write.

In contrast, a year ago, I started a food blog called Beyond Toast, and committing to it has been easy, because the purpose is clear to me - I know why I write, and I know my audience. I've been a good, consistent friend to Beyond Toast. So I began to ask myself, "What do I have with Beyond Toast that I don't have with this blog?" Mary's journey has helped me begin to answer that question.

A few months ago, Zondervan approved a book proposal for a lovely writer named Ann Voskamp. As I sat through the acquisitions meeting, I googled Ann. Her blog, A Holy Experience, sparked something in me - something that resurfaced when I got Mary's email, and which helped me see myself more clearly. A Holy Experience is about attempting to live in God's presence every day, a la Brother Lawrence. It's about pursuing God not just in the moments when He seems near, but in all the mundane bits of the day as well, like making dinner or weeding the garden or hanging laundry on the clothesline.

For a long time, I've felt as though there just might be too many things I like to write about - cooking, reading, relationships, fitness, writing, running, travel - like anyone, I have a variety of interests, and they're linked together in that they're all formative parts of my story, my adventure on earth. But what I was doing here was writing about everything in a mostly disjointed way, and creating a mishmash. It's not bad to write about all these different things per se, but I was leaving out the connection between them, which is really a spiritual one.

Over the past few weeks, I've been reading an advance copy of Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist (ahh, advance reader copies - one of the side benefits of working for a publishing house), which reminded me that it's possible to be called to share your stories, and the stories of people you love or people you encounter along the way, and that those stories can be about anything from a flood in your basement to raising a toddler, and still have something significant to say to people about God's presence in our lives. By the time I finished Bittersweet, I had a notebook full of freshly scribbled inspiration.

It's God's presence in everything from flooding basements to laundry to my morning run that makes life extraordinary. I know that He's not just here for the miracles (although I've experienced plenty), but that He's here in all the little things, too. And when I spend my days looking around for Him, trying to see my world through the lens of God's presence, that world is a little brighter, a little sweeter, a little gentler, a little more magical - even the hard stuff. Who wouldn't want a world like that?

Everything I have, God gave me. Every trial I overcome is by His grace. He counts my tears and hears my cries and listens to me rant and rave when life feels unfair. He laughs when I laugh, and dances when I dance. The everyday is holy, because God is there, right in the midst of it all. Every moment can become a holy one if we can find Him in it. When I'm fully aware of that, my life is richer. When I prayed about this blog and what to do with it, He showed up in that moment, too, and answered me.

So here I am, starting fresh with a new purpose: to share with you how I find God in the midst of an occasionally extraordinary, but mostly ordinary life. If you're a person who wants to know how to see God in the everyday moments of your own life, then you might be part of my tribe. Welcome.

I'm grateful to Mary for showing me that I lacked purpose, and to A Holy Experience for being a sign along the road, pointing me toward that purpose, and to Shauna for serving up her stories in Bittersweet and reminding me that my own stories have something to say. Appropriately, this post itself is a story of how God shows up in the everyday, through the people we encounter, to help us figure ourselves out and to push us to take a few more tottering steps down the road of life.

A Good Reason to Keep Your Fat Pants

2010-01-21T12:40:00.009-05:00

I was a fat girl once. Not anymore, but I was. No, really, I was.

That was about eight years, 100 pounds, and five sizes ago, not to mention about 25 points on my cholesterol score.

In my closet, I have one remaining pair of size 20 jeans to prove it. I take them out from time to time, just to remind myself.

My journey from fat to fit is kind of a long, not-so-dramatic story. There's no gastric bypass surgery, or Alli, or Atkins Diet in it. There IS a lot of God and learning and label reading and food measuring and calorie counting. And a lot of miles. Walking miles at first, then biking miles and running miles.

I'll just say this bluntly: being fit is hard work. But I'll say this bluntly, too: it is 100 percent worth it. I wouldn't go back to my old body or lifestyle for a million dollars. Or ten million. Or, well, you get the idea.

Some days, though, I still feel fat. Okay, there are a lot of days when I still feel fat. Probably too many. I completely understand the eating disorder epidemic among teenage girls, who look in the mirror and see fat where there is none - I can't explain it rationally, but I understand the feeling. There are days when I feel like I haven't lost a pound (yes, eight years later), days when I want to cry over the little roll of pudge that's still hanging out around my waistline, and will probably never disappear. Never mind that in reality, I look amazingly better than I did eight years ago. I still feel like the same fat girl, some days.

I took off 105 pounds altogether over the course of four years. I kept it all off for two, and then, over the past two years, I've gained some back. Not a lot. Just some. I haven't needed to buy new clothes, but there is a pair of grey pants hanging in my closet that I can barely squeeze into. I'm not pleased about this.

I've taken a good, hard look at my habits, and it's clear that some little things have slipped along the way: I've skipped too many runs during the average week; measuring my portions has gone by the wayside here and there; I've given in to too many Treat Fridays at work; I've eaten out too carelessly. So I'm making changes to rectify the weight gain. And it's slow (after all, I'm eight years older than when I first started losing), but it's working.

When I feel that it's going too slow, when I am bitten by the Discouragement Bug, that's when I pull out my fat jeans.

Most weight loss books will tell you to get rid of your fat clothes and never look back. For the most part, that's good advice. If you lose weight successfully, buy new clothes, and don't have the old ones to fall back on, it can be a good motivator to maintain your weight loss. And for the most part, that's a good idea - I got rid of everything but that one pair of jeans.

They have served me well.

Whenever I'm having a "fat day," I pull out those jeans and put them on. They come all the way up to my bustline now, and I fit comfortably into them with my arms at my sides inside the waistband. They look ridiculous, and I love it. I look in the mirror and clearly see how far I've come, and the fat girl in my mental mirror shrinks to normal size.

Common Denominator

2009-09-19T12:36:00.011-04:00

Three weeks ago, I celebrated my birthday by camping in the rain. Really. We're talking the coldest, wettest, yuckiest birthday ever. The camping was intentional. The rain was not. But it was still great, because it ended with two of my favorite things: peanut butter cup ice cream and a little blue box tied with a white ribbon.

I didn't have time during that rainy day to reflect on the fact that another year has cruised by at top speed, but the need to process the massive transformation my life has undergone in the past 370-some days has been prodding at me ever since.

A year ago, I had just barely left behind a decade-long career as a high school English teacher for the unknown world of Christian publishing. Mind you, I didn't have a job yet. I was working part-time as a nanny in the Chicago suburbs and moonlighting at Borders, all while temporarily housed with the friends for whom I'd housesat all summer. I had no clue what was going to happen next. I was just doing my best to put one foot in front of the other, trusting God to provide for my needs and to open a door into the career to which I felt called. I was single for the eighth year running and feeling like meeting the right person was impossible.

It was a paradoxical season of gritting my teeth, sending out resumes, and counting pennies, juxtaposed with long hours of solitude, stints of working on my first novel (still unfinished) and reading good books, of long bike rides in my favorite forest preserve in Hoffman Estates, and delicious vegetarian meals at my friend Linda's house.

It's crazy how quickly things change. I know it's cliche to say this, but if someone had told me a year ago what my life would look like today, I would have laughed, mostly out of a lack of belief.

But here I am, almost ten months into a job in Christian publishing, and yesterday, I was offered a promotion to another position in my company, which is saying a lot considering I'm new to the industry. I've moved back to my home state. I live alone for the first time in five years. I own a cat (who clearly thinks she is a dog). To my surprise, I have a boyfriend - a sweet, thoughtful, almost-too-good-to-be-true-so-somebody-please-pinch-me boyfriend.

A year ago, I couldn't imagine leaving Chicago. Chicago was my great adventure - the city of my renaissance. I was captivated by the rattling El, the pizza, the city's heartbreaking history of racial tension, the skyscrapers and multi-level streets and flowing river, the traffic and noise and hordes of humanity. I never thought God would send me someplace else. I thought I was in Chicago to stay.

I was surprised to find that returning to Michigan was a sort of relief. I had been so fiercely in love with my urban life that I hadn't recognized the growing craving for quiet. I didn't anticipate falling in love with the rolling hills and pristine beaches that line Lake Michigan's eastern coastline.

All of this has been an adjustment, requiring redefinition of my external self. It's been a season of discovery, of exploring a new region and what it has to offer, of meeting new people and clicking immediately with a precious few.

I don't remember processing my transition to Chicago at the same level. Perhaps I was too caught up in the romance of it, in the constant adrenaline rush of adventure. Honestly, I was probably just too busy soaking up the fact that I was chasing a fast-moving dream and managing to catch it by the tail to do any real reflecting.

Moving, alone, to a city that moves at a slower pace, for a job rather than for adventure, has allowed me time and space to reassess what I want my life to look like. I spent the first six months asking myself questions. What do I want to read? What do I want to write? Does it matter where I live? Do I want to go back to school? How do I find the kind of authentic faith community that I crave? Am I going to be alone forever?

Slowly, I got some answers. I discovered food writing (not just cookbooks, but memoirs), and decided to try it myself (www.beyondtoast.blogspot.com). I found a few bookstores and coffee shops where I like to sit and write on Saturday afternoons (like now). I joined and left a small group. I continued working on my novel. I decided I'm not ready to go back to school, although I want to eventually. I got a cat so that there would be something alive to come home to at night. I met Eli, which was like the sun coming out at the end of winter - blissfully warm and almost painfully illuminating at the same time.

The best, most solid discovery, or rather re-discovery, has been that no matter where I am, no matter what job I'm doing, I am me and God is God and we are in this thing together. I have known that for years, but it's been good to be reminded - I need to reminded at times that this is the only real truth I can rely on. I could lose my job or Eli tomorrow (hopefully neither), and I will still be me and God will still be God and we will keep on keeping on, no matter what.

Other transitions will come, and there will probably be other birthdays on which I'll look back and think "What the heck?! How did all of that happen to me in just a year?!" and God will just go on being the common denominator, which is fine with me.

Anyway, I'm three weeks into being 34, and it's a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in fall. The sky is that clean shade of blue that I like best, the breeze is cool and the air is crisp, and the leaves are starting to turn. I'm sitting in Barnes & Noble writing this, because Eli has taken off for the day, and I have nothing more pressing to accomplish. In front of me are my laptop, a pile of books about cooking and food, and a pumpkin spice latte, and in this moment, that's all I want.

Which is to say, I suppose, that the verdict at the end of my year of transition is, as Eli would put it in his understated way, "not bad."

Bucket List

2009-03-20T22:32:00.006-04:00

This afternoon, in the cafe at Schuler Books on 28th Street, I ran into a colleague. He asked what I was doing there, and I held up the piece of paper in my hand - a registration form for my new Reading Group.

"I've always wanted to be in a book club," I told him. "It's on my list of 100 Things to Do Before I Die."

"Oh," my colleague said, "you mean your Bucket List."

"My what?" I asked.

"You know," he said, "a list of stuff you want to do before you kick the bucket."

Duh.

Bucket Lists aren't new to me; it's just that I never called mine a "Bucket List." I made my original list during college, and it was taped up on my dorm room wall for a long time. Looking at it regularly kept me from falling too deeply into daily routines and helped me keep dreaming about the amazing life I intended to live, intention being the key idea there.

I have no idea where that paper list has disappeared to, and I wish I did. These days, I'm down to a mental list.

Driving home from Schuler's, I tried to recall what was on my original Bucket List, circa 1997. I was surprised at how much I could remember - and at how many items I'm able to check off.

Coincidentally, I logged onto Facebook tonight and discovered that there is a riff of Bucket Lists going around disguised as "notes." And there's a movie - which I haven't seen yet (ouch).

This being a season of major transition for me, I figure maybe it's a also good time to revisit my Bucket List, do some reflecting and assessing.

Below is as much as I can generate at the moment - completed items as well as incomplete, reasonable goals as well as shoot-for-the-moon pipe dreams (completed items have an "X" next to them; items in the planning stage have notes in parentheses). Here goes.

Backpack Western Europe. X
Backpack Eastern Europe.
Learn French (via Rosetta Stone software, probably).
Learn to play the guitar (lessons currently in the works).
Learn to knit. X
Stand on the Great Wall of China.
Be a missionary.
Drive the Pacific Coast Highway.
Raft down the Colorado River.
Hang glide.
Study abroad in England for a semester.
Go to seminary.
Publish my currently-in-progress novel.
Write and publish some more novels after that.
Write and publish children's books.
Write and publish a cookbook.
Be an editor.
Go to culinary school.
Go camping in Maine.
Visit Prince Edward Island.
Learn to sail.
Travel around Africa, including South Africa, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, and Sierra Leone.
Vacation in the Greek Islands (Mykonos, Ios, Santorini).
Travel all over Ireland.
Help plant a church in England or France.
Have coffee with Lauren Winner.
Have dinner at the White House.
Own a VW Beetle.
Own a cottage on the water - either Lake Michigan or the ocean.
Visit Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.
Be a size 6.
Take ballet again, for the fun of it.
Have coffee at Laduree in Paris.
Own a dog named Wrigley.
Have a vegetable garden.
Have lilac bushes in my front yard.
Live in a house with a wide front porch and a red front door. Don't forget the porch swing.
Learn to swing dance.
Watch all of the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films.
Go to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.
Be a camp counselor for a summer.
Swim with dolphins.
Be part of a book club. X
Learn to parasail.
Learn to golf.
Own a motorcycle (I must be crazy).
Learn to waterski.
Have dinner at Chez Panisse in San Francisco.
Run a marathon.
Complete a triathlon.
Get a masters degree (in what, I have no idea at the moment).
Be a mother.
Be a freelance writer, and work for myself.

Obviously, I still have some work to do just to get to 100 items. Nevertheless, it's a good start. Writing it made me laugh, grit my teeth a little, and begin reevaluating the way I spend my time, and to what end.

And that's never a bad thing.

Goodbye, Sweet Home Chicago

2009-03-08T00:35:00.007-05:00

For the first time since moving to Grand Rapids, I woke up this morning missing Chicago with a gripping intensity that has stayed with me all day. It's almost spring, the temperature hovering around 50 degrees, rain coming in fits and starts, the snow melted down to just a patch here and there. In Chicago, it's the beginning of running season. And so, this morning, I wanted to put on my running clothes and head for the Lakeshore Trail.

I miss my Chicago, and I'm going to wax sentimental about it. Without apology.

I want to jump on the Blue Line and ride downtown, exit at the Clark and Lake station for a walk up Michigan Avenue, stop at the Starbucks just north of the Wrigley Building for a chai. I want to hear the wind rushing down between the buildings. I want to feel again the sense that I am a mere speck of humanity in a veritable sea of people. I want to take a day and amble through all the places I spent the last four years getting to know, all the places that, over time, became home.

One day in late August, I did just that. I woke up that morning with a sense of great urgency - I was housesitting in the 'burbs and hadn't been downtown in several weeks. I threw some things into a backpack and made for the city. Looking back, I think I knew I didn't have much time left.

I took things slowly that day, wandering at will, browsing through my favorite shops and stopping to eat at a couple of favorite places. I sat on the concrete steps next to Lakeshore Drive just north of Navy Pier, basking in the sun and listening to the swells hitting the concrete for a long time. I walked a lot of miles - down the Lakeshore Trail from the Lincoln Park Zoo to North Avenue Beach, then all the way to the Field Museum, and back again to Fullerton. I walked so much that the aching in my legs kept me awake all the next night.

My instinct turned out to be correct. That day ended up being the last I would spend exploring Chicago as a resident.

Not long afterward, I took on an extra part-time job at a bookstore in the West Suburbs to supplement my nannying income, began serving with the high school ministry at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, moved into temporary housing in Elgin, and in the free time I had left over, continued to pursue a job in Christian publishing. There was simply no time for trips downtown.

I'm incredibly thankful - joyful, in fact - to be in Grand Rapids, and I love my job. I love my new church. I am settling in and finding my way, making friends and building community. I know this is where I'm supposed to be, and I am completely content with the results of my leap of faith last May. It is clear to me that God himself orchestrated the past ten months of my life. There is no other explanation - it just defies logic, flat-out.

But I still miss Chicago.

Chicago was important. It was a step that, five years ago, I simply had to take. I had things to learn, things to figure out, and I couldn't do that where I was. My season in Chicago was a season of intense growth, self-realization, a lot of pain, and a lot of blessing.

In some ways, I am relieved that it's over. It was time. And by the end, there were some things I wanted to move on from, things I wanted to leave behind permanently, not the least of which was my teaching career. More than anything, I was ready to be done running my own life, choosing my own adventures. I was ready to really say to God, "Okay, show me what you have for me. Show me how the desires of my heart line up with your will. Show me where you want me to be," and mean it.

That meant being ready for Grand Rapids, and for Zondervan. It meant letting go of my big-city dreamlife and crossing the lake into a new and vastly different world. It meant letting my stubborn spirit feel the longing for woods and water that had been screaming underneath all along, while the rest of me was too busy drinking in steel and concrete to listen.

"Transitions are hard," my friend Amy asserts. I am thankful to have this affirmed out loud by someone, because it permits me to admit that this change, even though it's what I want, has been tough. No matter how large or small, transitions are difficult because they require adjustment and processing, and they usually require saying goodbye to someone or something. And so I love Grand Rapids, but I miss Chicago. I love publishing, but I miss teaching. I love Mars Hill, but I miss Willow. I love Marie Catrib's and Real Food Cafe, but I miss Ina's and Anne Sather. I love the West Michigan towns and sand dunes, but I miss Evanston and Foster Avenue Beach. I love Reeds Lake, but I miss the Lakeshore Trail. I love Schuler's bookstore, but I miss the Borders at Watertower Place. I love Christine and Becky, but I miss Amy and Laura.

I miss knowing Wrigley Field is right down the street. Period. (Nothing in Grand Rapids can make up for that, unfortunately.)

This is all perfectly okay. It's part of change, this conflicted, paradoxical embracing of the new while mourning the loss of the old.

I will, of course, go back to Chicago, but it won't be quite the same. I'll be a former resident, a tourist, even. It will certainly feel a little strange, but I'm hoping it will be exciting and euphoric rather than sad and depressing.

In the meantime, Chicago, this is my overdue, formal goodbye. I'll miss your buildings and streets, your art and history, your triumphs and tragedies, your music and noise, your broken people and the hard, slow work being done to make their lives better. I'm thankful I had four years to get to know you, to become part of you. They have changed me.

Shalom.

Doing the Hard Work

2009-03-07T14:40:00.019-05:00

Irish humor writer Marian Keyes (Sushi for Beginners, Watermelon) is generally someone whose prose throws me into fits of hilarity, as her m.o. is generally to recount her ongoing foibles through a lens of amiable self-deprecation.

So I was surprised to find myself pausing at the end of a sentence in an essay on feng shui this morning not in order to laugh, but rather because I was struck by the profundity of it.

"I love the idea that you can heal your life by doing something outside of yourself," Keyes writes.

Now, I am not interested in feng shui specifically, but I think Keyes is right in tagging it as one more way modern society has tried to heal itself of its ills (even though feng shui itself has been around since about 4000 BCE), all of which are actually internal issues and therefore can't be solved by rearranging the bedroom or painting the front door a different color.

Keyes continues, rather hyperbolically, "To that end, I have self-help tapes. I don't listen to them, mind, but I have them. I hold with aromatherapy. I know someone who had a chakra healing done, and I wanted one too. I've had my aura read and I have plenty of truck with horoscopes and tarot readers.

"But with feng shui," writes Keyes, "they've just pushed me too far. It's one worry too many in a world where they're always inventing new things for me to fret about, and I usually do my best to obey - I've stopped drinking tap water, I don't go out in the sun without being smothered in Factor Eighty, I feel guilty for drinking fizzy drinks because they allegedly cause cellulite, I don't take my makeup off with toilet paper because it has wood shavings in it, I rarely brush my hair when it's wet and I've stopped my daily asbestos rub."

Unfortunately, I have a few things in common with Marian Keyes. I buy organic, avoid trans fat and high fructose corn syrup like they're the plague, wear sunscreen, refrain from microwaving anything plastic, and so on. But I don't make these choices as a means of healing myself emotionally or psychologically by doing something external, either. They're just actions geared toward physical healthy living.

Healing oneself via external means - whether yoga, feng shui, having one's palm read, going on a diet, redecorating the house or buying new shoes - is, unfortunately, the modern way. Note that as a larger culture, the industrialized world has not had much success at being healed of its internal woundedness through any of these practices. And yet, collectively we keep trying. Just take a look at the magazine rack the next time you're in the checkout aisle at the grocery store.

I'm of the opinion that inner healing has to be done in partnership with God, and that it takes a lot of work. By work I mean time spent reflecting, processing, thinking, all with the goal being to figure out why we are the way we are, how we can become better versions of ourselves, and what we have to do to make that happen.

A close friend of mine went through a disastrous (for her) breakup about 16 months ago. She really, really liked the guy, and they appeared to be getting quite serious. He dumped her very suddenly, and she was left with a lot of unanswered questions, statements that didn't make sense to her, and virtually no closure.

A common assertion among my contemporaries is that however long you date someone, it takes twice as long after breaking up to get over it. This holds true in my friend's case, as 16 months later, she has at last entered a state of peace and contentment. She is over the breakup. But make no mistake - she didn't just wake up one morning 16 months later and say, "Wow, I'm finally over it. Cool." She did a lot of hard work to get there.

Most of us, upon being dumped, head for the hills for at least a little while. My friend, on the other hand, refused to abandon her community and stuck it out. Her ex-boyfriend, having just entered a leadership role in an organization in which she is heavily involved, was - unfortunately - everywhere she went. Week after week, she was compelled to see him in relatively close quarters. Her closest friends, me included, tried to talk her into going elsewhere, into taking a break from her commitments. But she was adamantly against it.

Leaving, she said, would be far more painful. She was invested too deeply in the organization and in its people. Were she to leave, she would then have the pain of losing community, on top of the pain of the breakup. she was determined to work through it without sacrificing

And so, rather than going on a shopping spree, rearranging her furniture or getting her hair done in order to make herself feel temporarily reinvented, she spent the next 16 months working to actually reinvent herself on the inside, hammering away steadily at why the breakup was so painful for her, trying to figure out what God wanted her to take away from the relationship and what he wanted her to learn about herself. It has paid off. She is stronger, has a healthier self-image, possesses greater self-awareness, has a clear picture of the mistakes she made, and plans not to repeat them nor to go back to being the girlfriend she was in her former relationship.

I'm not so sure about him, however.

He is the guy we used to tease about being a "serial dater," the man who managed to stay in a relationship just until things started to get serious, who bolted at the first sign of attachment from a girl, who moved from one relationship to the next with barely a breath in between (I don't know why we expected him to change all of a sudden, although, to his credit, he didn't move on to someone else after dumping our friend). I once heard him profess that when something is over for him, he focuses on moving forward. After all, he said, what's the point? When something is over, it's over. No use mooning about a broken relationship.

There is something to be said about not wallowing oneself into a depression, but the end of a relationship is due proper reflection. And proper reflection involves processing the how and why behind a breakup. It involves taking a good look at oneself and one's role in both the relationship dynamics, good as well as bad, and in the breakup itself.

Moving on too quickly, without pause enough to allow for true reflection, prevents authentic healing.

There are plenty of reasons people seek to move on at breakneck speed. They may not want to feel the pain of loss, and may think they can outrun it, figuratively speaking. They may not be ready to admit responsibility. They may not want to have to do the work of digging deep into themselves, their childhoods, their past relationships, to figure out how they contributed to their own dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and loss.

Of course, I have plenty of opinion about why my friend's ex-boyfriend dumped her, and about what deeper issues lie behind both his abandonment of their relationship, and his apparent ability to move on without missing a beat. But I won't try to psychoanalyze him here - that wouldn't be fair, and I could very well be completely off-base.

Suffice it to say that he looks okay from the outside, but something underneath just doesn't seem right to me.

Sixteen months after their breakup, it is my friend, the dump-ee, who can look at him, the dump-er, with a genuine smile. It is my friend who is able to be genuinely supportive of his leadership in their mutual organization, and to express that graciously in writing, while he can barely compose a friendly e-mail thanking her for her volunteer service. It is my friend who is able to open the door for communication about their mutual service to the organization, and he who is unable to walk through that door.

Perhaps he honestly just doesn't want to work alongside his ex-girlfriend, and therefore, he's going to avoid communication as much as possible. If that's the case, I want to say, "Oh, grow a pair. You're in leadership, buddy." If anyone has the right to be practicing avoidance, it's my friend.

My hypothesis is that he hasn't done the hard work, and thus, he is unable to meet her eyes without discomfort. He hasn't done the hard work, and thus, he is unable to speak to her with anything other than stilted politeness. He comes across as awkward and uncomfortable and even a bit fake, and to that, I say that he hasn't done the hard work. He may think he has, but if he had fully and authentically engaged in processing the deeper hows and whys behind his breakup with my friend, I think he would radiate peace and goodwill, the way she does.

I have another friend who has been through much worse - divorce after several years of marriage, and a child he only gets to see every other weekend. Those two things are enough in themselves to justify an angry, bitter view of life and relationships. But he, I think, has done the hard work of processing and reflecting. He radiates wisdom, self-confidence and spiritual peace, and expresses deep love for his child and for the joys of fatherhood. Being divorced myself, I can appreciate something of what it must have taken for him to get to that place. I have no idea how he accomplished it, but I doubt it was by avoidance, denial, or seeking external means of healing.

Granted, many of us have to try the external means before we understand that we have to go deeper in order to truly heal and move on from something painful. I am not saying that engaging in healthy lifestyle choices like making new friends and doing yoga aren't good for us - they just aren't going to heal us. After a difficult breakup of my own long ago, I looked for external means of making myself feel whole - partying, shopping, and so on - but nothing really helped. I had to confront what was inside me. And later, things like traveling, going back to school, losing a ton of weight, becoming a competitive runner, and the adventure of moving to Chicago increased my self-confidence and thus helped strengthen me as I did the hard work of dealing with my internal junk.

A decade later, I know why I got into an unhealthy relationship that ended badly, I can identify factors from my childhood that played into my decision to be there, and I am equipped to make different choices in the future. I have confidence and self-awareness, as well as a healthy level of self-love, and I am solid in my identity as a Child of God, all of which I lacked before doing the hard work of self-examination.

And while God wants us to self-examine, to reflect, to process, He doesn't want us to do it without Him, or without the help of community, whether that community be one Christian friend, a church small group, or a Christian counselor. We are called to do the hard work of knowing ourselves, identifying our weaknesses, and overcoming our struggles in community. Looking back, I can see that I had community all the way. The people changed as time went on, but often that change was a result of someone new entering my life because of geography, circumstance, or simply because God sent that person to help me through the next season of self-examination.

The reward for doing the hard work is this: God's grace. We do not find complete healing, peace, and contentment just because we engage in self-examination. The view when we dig deep into ourselves is sometimes ugly and often painful. But God is faithful in that He gives us the ability to both become more like Christ, and to see ourselves in a better light. It is by His grace alone that we achieve true peace.

So we can take one of the two modern culture-approved paths to healing - the path of yoga, feng shui, and shoe shopping, or the path of avoidance, denial, and "I'm over it." But we will not get far until we take that more difficult inner road, with God as our navigator.

Dealings with Death

2009-03-02T13:52:00.007-05:00

Someone I love died this morning.

The sky is blue and the sun is shining, and yet someone I love is dead. I feel like there should be rain sheeting down miserably outside my window. But no.

She was my mother's sister. She was feisty and full of life. She called me "Grits" (a pun on "hominy grits") which embarrassed me and endeared her to me by turns. She is someone with whom I walked the beaches of Anna Maria Island through the years, someone at whose table I heard countless stories of family foibles and scandals, someone who never ceased to surprise and delight me. She made the best Christmas cookies (haystacks - the kind made out of chow mein noodles and melted butterscotch chips). She was one of the few people who could call my mother out on something and get away with it.

I want to cry, to mourn, to weep, to lament the loss that I feel. At 33, I should know how to do this. Yet here I sit, with a pain in my belly and a lump in my throat, and hot, dry eyes.

Just yesterday I finished an essay on the lament, following a sermon by Rob Bell on lamentation. Rob mentioned funerals in his message - he pointed out how state funerals in America are somber, stoic affairs. No tears. By contrast, funerals in the Middle East are marked by unrestrained weeping and people throwing themselves upon the coffins of the dead. Public mourners, who usually did not even know the deceased, are hired to attend, weeping and singing. These practices are customary. They are expected.

My first experience with death was at age nine. My mother's second husband, who was only 26 years old, was injured in a rollover car accident on Thanksgiving Day. My mother, herself only 32, had to sign the papers to cut off life support when it became clear that his injuries had left him with no brain activity. I wasn't present for that, thank goodness, but I remember the aftermath clearly. The next three days were divided between my grandmother's house and the local funeral home, and everywhere, everyone was constantly crying.

Every adult in my nine-year-old world had lost all semblance of stability. I felt frightened and insecure. At the funeral home, I tried to stay out of sight or, at the very least, to stay as quiet as possible so that no one would notice me. Every time someone new caught sight of me, it would set off a fresh bout of weeping, and that person would feel compelled to squeeze me and pet me out of sympathy. To be frank, it was terrifying.

Because of that experience, I think, I have never grieved any loss openly. It generally takes months for a death to "hit" me. In the face of grief and loss, I am stoic, composed, unemotional. My mother and I have actually fought about this - she accuses me of suppression and denial, of not facing my feelings. She may be correct. But I don't seem to be able to do things differently. I wish it were otherwise.

I would like to cry and scream and lament the loss of my aunt. But I simply do not know how to make it happen. And I am not sure it is something that can be learned.

Lauren F. Winner, one of my favorite authors, writes in her book Mudhouse Sabbath, "[The Jewish] calendar of bereavement recognizes the slow way that mourning works, the long time it takes a grave to cool, slower and longer than our zip-zoom Internet-and-fast-food society can easily accommodate. Long after your friends and acquaintances have stopped paying attention, after they have forgotten to ask how you are and pray for you and hold your hand, you are still in a place of ebbing sadness."

"Church funerals," writes Winner, "preach the gospel--they proclaim that Jesus is risen, and insist that those who died in Him shall be risen too. What churches often do less well is grieve. We lack a ritual for the long and tiring process that is sorrow and loss."

The Jewish mourning process lasts about 72 days, and is divided into three cycles. Aninut is comprised of the days between death and burial, during which "mourners border on death themselves." Shiva are the seven days following burial, during which the bereaved do nothing but sit with their grief. Shloshim is the next 30 days, in which mourners edge their way back into daily living. There are many rituals that mark these three cycles, upon which I will not elaborate. Winner summarizes their function well when she writes, "Mourning plateaus gradually, and the diminishing of intensity is both recognized and nurtured by the different spaces the Jewish mourning rituals create."

I am not the kind of person who would find the aninut or shiva easy or natural to engage in publicly, but I deeply appreciate what they were designed to provide. Mourning for me is a slow burn. The rabbis would not approve--they would say I "sit sackcloth" for far too long. But grief for me is not constant, neither is it a full disruption of the activities that comprise daily living. I grieve in spaced-out moments. I return to a place I once visited with the person who is gone, and I find it difficult to breathe because the absence is so acute. I hear a song that reminds me of my loss, and I have to change the radio station. I grieve in moments when memory is triggered naturally.

Perhaps one point of the Jewish mourning cycle is to help us engage our memories, engage the fact that there will be no more memory-making, all at once and from the get-go, so that we get used to the idea right away and can move on without all the spaced-out grieving going on for years and years. Perhaps that is the better way.

I think it is also better to balance the joy of eternal life with the truth that loss hurts, that loss is hard, that we do not welcome death as it comes to steal away someone we love. There is nothing wrong with grieving, with crying out to God that even though we know we will be reunited in heaven, we are crushed at the separation we are experiencing now. Throughout the Bible, people grieve when someone dies. It is part of being human, and Judaism seems to honor that a little more realistically than the Christian church. The whole "She's in a better place" thing makes me want to hurl. It is okay to lament the loss of a loved one.

At my grandmother's funeral seven years ago, I gave the eulogy. I chose a reading by Henry Scott Holland I'd found quoted in a Rosamunde Pilcher novel. Looking at it now, in the light of what Lauren F. Winner writes in Mudhouse Sabbath, the reading seems very Christian in its rather anti-mourning stance that hints at denial. And yet, there is a warmth in it, and a sense of continuity that is comforting.

Death is nothing at all.

It does not count.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.

I am I, and you are you,

and the old life that we lived so fondly together

is untouched, unchanged.

Whatever we were to each other,

that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.

Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference into your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it ever was.

Let it be spoken without an effort,

without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same that it ever was.

There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is this death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you, for an interval,

somewhere very near, just round the corner.

All is well.

I do not agree that death is a "negligible accident," or that there is "unbroken continuity," but something of this resonates with me: the idea of someone continuing to be a household word, of laughing at the same old jokes. Eventually, when the mourning period is over, that is the place where we hopefully end up.

I know that for the rest of my life, every time I visit Anna Maria Island, or eat haystack cookies, or wear the lavender beaded bracelet she bought me, I will think of my precocious, engaging aunt, and I will miss her. I will wish we could have one last walk on the beach, one last chat, one final meal together. And I will feel all over again that life has changed interminably.

Shedding the Shame of Desire and Reclaiming the Lament of Singleness

2009-03-01T15:47:00.013-05:00

The Lenten series at Mars Hill this year is a study of the book of Lamentations, and Rob Bell began this morning by explaining to the congregation just what it means, exactly, to lament.

To lament is to voice one's suffering, to grieve aloud, to express loss. Lamentation cleanses and heals us. It sets us free.

Lamenting is neither whining nor wallowing, mind you. It is an authentic expression of what Bell calls, "dangerous truths that we're inclined to suppress." Dangerous, perhaps, because freeing them empowers us, and when we are empowered, we become strong.

According to Bell, we live in "a culture of denial," in which we suppress our pain and stuff our grief deep down inside where we don't have to deal with it, adopting instead a stance of stoicism and apathy. He quoted Judith Lewis Herrmann, who said "The typical response to atrocity or trauma is to banish it from consciousness."

I can relate: the pain I do not lament is pain that weighs more heavily by way of its hiddenness.

A little over a year ago, two of the key women in my life experienced two of life's biggest milestones within just a few days of each other.

My best friend got married.

My sister gave birth to her first child.

The day of Amanda's wedding, I did her makeup and zipped up her white satin dress. I carried a bouquet of bright fall flowers as I preceded her down the aisle. At the reception, I gave a toast in which I jokingly took the credit for her marriage (her husband, Jeff, is a longtime friend of mine). And I thanked God that she was marrying a great Christian guy who would love and take care of her.

The night Jack was born, I talked to my sister on the phone as she rested between contractions in her hospital room in faraway Oklahoma City. I slept fitfully until seven a.m., when my brother-in-law called to say my nephew had arrived. And I thanked God that both Carla and her baby were safe and healthy.

And then, a few days later, after the excitement attached to these two monumental events had waned a little, I looked around at my own life and felt...well, a lot of things.

Sadness. Loneliness. Anger. Frustration.

I was certain that if anyone knew what I was feeling, they would think me...envious of the happiness of people I love? Dissatisfied with my single, childless state?

The former would not have been true. I never felt jealous of Amanda's marriage or of Carla's motherhood. I was happy to see my best friend married. I was filled with love for my baby nephew. My internal battle was not about covetousness.

The latter, however, would have been accurate. I was dissatisfied. And that dissatisfaction was closely followed by a sharp, cutting sense of guilt. The mantra "God is all you need, and if you feel like there's a hole in your life, it's because you're not as focused on God as you should be" has been drummed into my brain to the extent that the healthy human desire for marriage and children has been corrupted into something to feel bad about. I felt that my emotions were unacceptable.

On top of that, I didn't feel permission to express any of it - not to my friends, not to my small group. I did not feel free to lament my pain, my grief, my emptiness. Instead, I felt ashamed that I was longing for something at all. Looking back, I am angry about this, and about the church culture that encouraged me, albeit unintentionally, into a place of responding to my own vulnerability this way. I had been taught to suppress and even invalidate my suffering. I should have been taught, instead, to lament it.

"The power of the lament is to speak the pain our culture would have us suppress," Bell said.

And sometimes, being single is painful.

As a single Christian adult, I've spent years reading Christian books and listening to speakers who have exhorted me to "embrace my singleness," to view it as "an opportunity to serve God as no married person possibly can." I've had the apostle Paul held up before me like an icon, his single state something to aspire to, something far holier than marriage and motherhood.

A colleague and I recently discussed the upside and downside of Christian singleness. He asserted that single Christians have a choice: devotion or selfishness. Singleness can be self-serving, or it can be sacrificial. I exist somewhere in the middle (hopefully a few degrees nearer the sacrificial end of the spectrum).

I enjoy the benefits of my singleness. I come home at night to a peaceful apartment arranged to suit only my taste, devoid of the messes and hodgepodge of others. I go where I want when I want. I spend my earnings the way I see fit, without having to consult anyone else. I cook whatever I feel like eating. I take off for weekends whenever the urge hits me. I'm pretty spoiled, to be honest. Sometimes, it feels ugly. Daily, I would trade it in.

I'm also free to volunteer a lot of time at church and for charity. I have plenty of uninterrupted quiet available to pray and study Scripture. I am able to serve my housechurch by hosting our weekly gatherings, because I have my own place. I can invest in others to a degree my married friends cannot. These are all good things.

But marriage is also holy and God-honoring.

My colleague put it like this: "[In a marriage that is God-honoring,] people do give of themselves, but they also receive...marriage will not cost you freedom in an unpleasant way or make you less of a servant."

In Genesis 2:18, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone." God made Adam, and God was with Adam in the Garden of Eden. Adam had a relationship with God that was sounds like it was akin to the disciples hanging out with Jesus, going fishing and all that. And still, God decided Adam needed someone else - someone human, with an earthly body like his. And you know what? God didn't just go ahead and make another man, a pal, a hunting buddy for Adam to shoot the breeze with.

He made Eve. Not only that, he made her out of a part of Adam's body.

What, I ask you, is more holy than that? What is more reflective of God's desire for intimacy with us? What is more indicative of His vision for the church, for community? The first relationship was a marriage.

Jesus likened his own relationship with the church to a marriage.

We were created, from the first human to the last, with the desire for community, for intimacy, and for family. And that desire was first fulfilled by the provision of marriage.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not constantly miserable. I'm actually pretty happy and content. I trust God with my life and my future (He's proven Himself more than capable of handling it). But at the same time, I long for the man who will be my best friend and my spiritual partner. I long for a family of my own. It is a longing that is deeply rooted and acutely painful. And waiting for that longing to be fulfilled is very difficult sometimes.

And so I live in the "grace place." My friend Jen described to me a sermon she heard once on God giving us a "holy discontent," when we are about 85 percent content, because we've been given the grace to deal with a situation that is not the fulfillment of our heart's desire. We only get to 85 percent, Jen said, because God doesn't want us to "set up shop" in that partially contented place - He actually wants us to lament and cry out to Him for the desires of our heart because He has given them to us.

I believe the passage of Scripture that says God wants to give me the desires of my heart. And I don't believe that my longing means that God is not enough for me. I don't believe it means I am weak or needy or pathetic. I believe it means that I want something He designed, something that is holy and good.

I'm tired of hearing "Embrace your singleness" to the degree that it implies, "Your desire for marriage and family is selfish and weak."

Rob Bell said we, as a culture, need to reclaim the power of the lament. So, on behalf of myself and the others I know who will occasionally whisper their pain, but who have yet to feel permission to fully lament it, I am. Here, now, fearlessly and without apology.

I hereby lament the pain of my longing for this holy, holy thing, the deepest, most vulnerable desires of my heart and soul. I give myself permission to cry out to God, to the people who love me, to anyone who will listen.

Rob is right. It feels good, this act of lamenting. It feels free.

Becoming the Writer Within, Part 2

2008-10-14T21:32:00.007-04:00

In the midst of my nine years of teaching, the moment for which all writers long came for me. The writer and psychologist Mary Pipher refers to it as "the christening."

I was a graduate student in creative writing at Wayne State University at the time. Having begun to feel the stirrings of my own desire to pursue writing as my calling, I had scheduled a routine end-of-semester appointment with one of my professors, the poet Barrett Watten. I had given him a selection of my writing in various genres as my final project.

I had confided to him that teaching high school was not fulfilling me, that I deeply desired to be a writer myself. I had asked for his honest counsel. Did I have what it takes? Or should I resign myself to teaching kids what I myself longed to do?

I sat in a leather chair across the desk from him, one knee crossed over the other, seemingly at ease, although my heart was pounding. It was late afternoon on a grey day in early April, and the Detroit skyline outside his office appeared lifeless. My manuscripts lay scattered across the desk in front of him. He sat looking at them for several moments, the rustling of paper as he shifted the pages about the only sound in the room.

Finally, he raised his head and looked me in the eye.

"I think," he said, "you have a very publishable voice."

"I think," he said, "if you want to be a writer, you will be."

I came to life anew in that moment.

In her book Writing to Change the World, Pipher recounts her experience with a writing professor who provided her with the same kind of rebirth moment:

"After he read my first story, he said, 'You could be a writer,' and when I left his office, I wept. That day was my christening. Like almost all writers, I had been waiting a long time to hear those words. Until we receive some kind of external validation of our writing, some of us find it hard to believe in ourselves."

Pipher also talks about the writer as simply a person who sees the world differently. A writer has a sense of the interconnectedness of things, a desire to make that interconnectedness known through language. "Stories," Pipher says, "are the most basic tool for connecting us to one another."

A writer feels the pain of others, feels driven to make it known. A writer is fearless when it comes to her craft, the written word her battle sword against the injustice she sees. The injustices within the food industry, the lies of our culture that lead people astray, the industrialized world's disregard for those in poverty, the destruction of the earth, the misconceptions people have about Christ and the church - these things, among others, drive me to write.

Writers also feel their surroundings deeply and intensely.

I have always known that I am different, that I see the world through a lens that not everyone has access to (I've been teased about it plenty, but I don't mind anymore). I am the person who stops dead on her bike because there are deer grazing in the tall grass just twelve feet away. I am the person who finds she can breathe more deeply when her face is turned toward a setting sun. I am the person who smells her coffee before every sip.

I look down at my hands on the keyboard of my MacBook, and marvel at the way they move across it. I notice the way the lamplight turns the fine hairs on my forearm to gold as I sit here in its glow.

A single glance or kiss can stay with me for months.

I am a person of vision and sensation, finely attuned to sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. I find beauty in the ugliest, the grittiest parts of the city as easily as in the coolness of the sand on Montrose Beach at evening, as easily as in the rushing sound of the waves. And I always, always, hunger to translate my feelings into words.

These parts of my personality are what make me a writer.

A writer. Born, christened, growing. Joyful with each step.

Becoming the Writer Within, Part 1

2008-10-14T20:17:00.011-04:00

I always knew I would be a writer. Perhaps I have always been a writer. I have always been an observer, a storyteller, a lover of language, and those seem to be the parts of me in which my writer self is rooted.

An only child, necessity made my imagination my best friend. I spent my days making up stories in my head, acting them out on my own, with the occasional visiting friend, or with my dolls.

I learned to read early and quickly, the nuances of language coming to me as easily as breath. I read every book my mother gave me. I tried to take home more books than the library permitted, and spent every penny of my allowance in the bookstore.

I wrote my first story at age six, on that wide-ruled brownish paper that felt dry to the touch. I hated the feel of that paper, but it didn't stop me from writing. Throughout grade school, my teachers praised my stories, and their exhortation spurred me on.

I wrote my first poem in sixth grade, and it won second place in the district poetry contest. I still have the prize: three shiny Susan B. Anthony dollars. I remember looking at them and knowing that I wanted to do this forever. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I began to say, "A writer."

I think I fell in love with words early on, recognizing that they had a unique, vast power. As a child, I may not have realized the extent of this influence, but I knew the magic words held for me personally. I could be stirred by them, angered by them, driven to bouts of intense weeping by them. I could manipulate them, interweave them, create something completely original with them. If I chose to make them mine, they simply were.

In high school, I discovered journalism. I became editor of the op-ed page of the student newspaper and as a senior, took the job of editor in chief. After graduation, I studied literature and journalism at the local university, and wrote for the student newspaper. I took every creative writing course the university offered.

My senior year of college, I interned at a city magazine. I wrote a lot of fluff: restaurant and shopping reviews, entertainment and culture. It was fun, and I worked with an editorial staff who guided me, mentored me, praised me, and even invited my participation at editorial board meetings. When the internship was over, I was hired as an editorial assistant. But then the publisher shut down the magazine, claiming its revenues were too low.

I was in a city with no magazines and two newspapers for whom I didn't want to work. I was at a loss.

Deep down, I wanted to write. Deep down, I wanted to be a novelist and a poet. But I was afraid of risk. I was afraid of failure.

I went back to school and became a teacher. I spent the next nine years teaching kids how to do what I longed to do and no longer had time or energy to do. Initially, I thought I would spend summers writing. I couldn't have been more wrong. After teaching for ten months of the year, I had nothing left to pour into my own craft.

Not that I hated teaching. I loved a great many things about it, not least its potential impact. Teaching is an invaluable profession. The youth of this nation need dedicated teachers who will guide them, mentor them, love them, affirm them, challenge them, and open their eyes to their position in the wider world, beyond their back door. I don't regret teaching, because I gained priceless skills: the abilities to speak to any size or kind of audience and to teach can be used in countless venues for innumerable purposes. I learned diplomacy and negotiation.

During my nine years of teaching, I did far more than teach kids how to write. I taught them to think, to consider their place in the world, to wonder about the possibilities within their own lives. I did this through literature and writing and lots and lots of discussion of those things and their pertinence to my students' individual lives. I did everything I could to make an impact in my own unique way.

But all along, while I was loving my students and my connections with them in the classroom, loving seeing them grow and expand their visions of life and purpose, there was an emptiness in me that was growing. Some might call it a "holy discontent." I felt drained rather than energized, and something told me that living out one's passion should be energizing.

Quietly at first, as a whisper in the back of my mind, the idea of pursuing writing myself began to come alive again.

It took a solid four years for that idea to be birthed. And when it did, it was born rather violently, in a leap of faith. I knew it was time. I could not go any further on the path I had been traveling for nearly a decade. I considered being practical and remaining a teacher until I got some kind of a writing job, but I felt no peace about that option.

I took an afternoon and biked into a forest preserve near my church. I sat on top of a picnic table on the shore of a little lake, and asked God to tell me what to do.

Behind my closed eyelids, a picture formed. I was looking down at my bare feet, toes gripping the loose, black earth at the edge of a cliff. Below the edge, there was only fog. And then, in my mind, a voice said, firmly but gently, "Jump. Trust me." I felt only peace. No fear, no worry - just peace, deep and vast and steady. In my mind, I saw my feet spring from the edge, felt a near-physical sensation of free falling.

So I jumped. I resigned from my job the next day. I received outpourings of appreciation and sadness at my leaving from colleagues, administrators and students - almost enough to make me second-guess my decision, but not quite. Every time I felt unsure, I mentally returned to that moment by the lake, and felt again that bottomless sense of peace.

Four months later, I am jobless (well, almost - nannying a 20-month-old and working nights at a bookstore keep me from starving) but joyful. I interviewed for a job I didn't get, but was told by the editor that the company was "very impressed," and to keep pursuing writing. I haven't a cent to spare, but I have written several articles, 80 pages of my first novel, and the text of two children's books. I am learning how to freelance, learning how to network, and getting to know myself as a writer in this adult season of my life.

I am finding that there are stories in me that would not exist, were it not for the past nine years. I am finding that my writer's voice is different than it was when I was 15 or 21, and that it is more authentic. I feel free and unstressed, in spite of my self-induced state of near-poverty. I have more energy to read, to run, to think. And I have the presence of mind to look around me and truly see what's there.

There have been many surprises. I've found a Christian author to be my mentor. I've joined an online writers' group. And instead of finding myself in a classroom or at a desk, bent over a stack of papers, instead of finding myself drained at the end of every day, I find myself living every moment as a writer, conscious of the stories unfolding around me. I find myself feeling more alive than ever before.

The Un-gospel of Condemnation

2008-10-14T12:53:00.006-04:00

Last Saturday evening, a young woman came to the prayer room after the evening service at Willow Creek. She is a single mother with two special needs children. Raising two children with special needs on her own is obviously difficult, and as the church encourages believers to do, she turned to her small group for support. The response she received was heartbreaking, and led her to seek prayer. So we sat down together to pray.

She told me that her small group, a gathering of people she looks to for guidance and leadership, told her that her hardships are "punishment for sin." Or at least, that's how she translated whatever they said to her. At any rate, she was a mess - because she believed it.

Her story is one-sided, and I don't have any more information, so I'm not going to spend any time passing judgment here. I will say, however, that a Christian believing his or her struggles are punishment for sin is sad, whatever the situation.

I did my best to refute that belief of hers, gave her some Scriptures to read, prayed with her, and sent her on her way. She looked lighter as she went out the door.

As a result, I've been thinking about all the people I've encountered in my life who struggled with the idea that hardship is some kind of divine punishment.

The Bible clearly states in Romans 8:1, "There is no condemnation in Christ."

Translation: God is not about punishment.

True, this was not always the case. There was a lot of punishment going on in the Old Testament. The Israelites were a fickle bunch, and the Lord was hard pressed to keep them focused on Him. Frankly, I'm glad I didn't live pre-Jesus. I have enough trouble with my tendency to sin without worrying that God might decide He's had enough of my ups and downs and smite me with a blast of fire from Heaven. Thank goodness we live in the age of grace.

What I want to know is, how do Christians today who claim to be followers of Jesus, who profess to study Scripture and to understand the meaning of grace, believe that God likes to punish us? Maybe they've been reading the OT too much and neglecting the Gospels.

A gospel of condemnation is not a gospel of Christ. It is not what Jesus wants us to believe. After all, he died specifically to save us from eternal condemnation.

In John 9:1-41, Jesus heals a blind man. Afterward, people ask him whose sin caused the man's blindness. Jesus' response? He tells the questioners that no one's sin caused the man to be born blind. In fact, he says that the man was blind so that God's glory could be shown through his healing. Whoa, now. This is a pretty deep concept to take in. A man suffered so that God could end his suffering and thus show His power?

I wonder how different our struggles would look to us if we could view them through this lens. Granted, it isn't easy to stand up in the middle of a painful season and claim, "God is going to bring me through this, and when He does, I'm going to give Him all the credit. And because I know He will enable me to triumph over this struggle, I'm going to be joyful in that knowledge now!" With God, the end is always in sight, and it's a good end. A win.

Sign me up for that attitude.

Christianypocrisy

2008-09-07T21:41:00.010-04:00

I am no good at being a Christian.

Yep, you heard me correctly. I stink at this Jesus-following gig.

Only one thing keeps me from throwing my hands in the air and proclaiming, "I can't do this! I give up!"

Grace.

I know for a fact that there are at least a handful of people (non-Christians) in my life who are aware that I claim to be a Christ-follower and think I give my faith a bad name.

This essay is for them - those people who smell the stink of sin (read: hypocrisy) radiating from this self-proclaimed Jesus Freak.

The fact is that I don't live up to the tenets of my faith. I fail daily at the three greatest commandments: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself," Jesus instructed.

I'm not so great at loving God. Don't get me wrong - I love God. He is my creator, my friend, my perfect heavenly Father, my anchor in a world that is constantly topsy-turvy. I love Him with a passion and to a depth that can drive me to tears. But the act of loving Him - talking to Him, spending time with Him, praising Him, thanking Him, making Him my first priority - well, I fall down on that job an awful lot.

I'm not so great at loving people, either. The thing is, Jesus wasn't talking about loving the people we naturally love, like our closest friends and the family members we get along with, although of course, we should love them, too. He was talking about everyone. The guy who cut me off on Barrington Road en route to church this morning, for example (Oh, the irony - especially since I called him a fool pretty loudly and then walked into church three minutes later. How benevolent of me, right?). The friend who irritated me without meaning to. My mom, who frequently misunderstands me. I may not always treat people unlovingly, but I am guilty of being unloving in my heart on a daily basis.

The implied third command is that we are to love ourselves. And yes, I fail in this area as well. I look in the mirror and despise my fat spots. I reflect on my weaknesses and feel pathetic. I ponder my singleness and wonder what the heck is wrong with me. I mentally relive my darkest sins and feel completely unworthy of Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross...

And yet the cross is the key.

According to the Old Testament laws, I deserve to die because I constantly sin, failing to live up to God's standards. "The wages of sin is death," the Bible proclaims. However, instead of me dying for my sins, Jesus died in my place, nailed to a wooden cross on the hill of Golgotha outside Jerusalem, a little over 2000 years ago. The cross is what makes it possible for me to have confidence that, in spite of my inherent inability to live a holy, blameless life by my own efforts, I will spend eternity with God.

That, my friends, is grace.

I, the hypocrite, am going to heaven, along with all the other hypocritical Christians. And please note: all Christians are hypocrites. None of us have what it takes to live out God's commands without grace. Thank goodness the Lord sent Jesus to die for us. And thank goodness Jesus didn't say, "Man, these people are so not worth it," and bail. Because He died willingly, I am clean by proxy.

Does this excuse my hypocrisy, my sinfulness? No way. But it does "cover over a multitude of sins." If it didn't, then Jesus died a horrible death for nothing.

And the fact is, he didn't die for nothing. He died for all humanity. This is the cool part: this grace thing I've got going on, well, it's not exclusive. It's available to the whole flipping human race. The earth's entire population. You.

I must warn you, though: grace is life-altering. If you have any heart at all, you'll find yourself overwhelmed by the enormity of it. Once you have the guarantee of eternity before you, life here on earth starts looking a little different.

Inevitably, people who discover grace are hit hard by the impact of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, and their own unworthiness to receive the benefit of that sacrifice. Ideally, they are filled with love for the Lord in response to His generous gift, and they begin trying daily to live lives that honor what He did. That is the journey of "discipleship," as they say in Christianese, or of learning how to try to follow Jesus and become more like Him. I won't lie - it's not easy.

I try, though, because I truly love my savior. Unfortunately, I let Him down all the time (all Christ-followers do). But I keep on keeping on out of sheer faith and trust, and out of an overpowering desire not to let Him have died in vain. I accept His sacrifice gratefully, because if I don't, I'll have let Him down in a far bigger way.

I am a hypocrite. I am a sinner. I am messed-up. I am unclean in heart and mind.

But I am pursuing Christ in spite of my shortcomings.

And I am saved.

Respecting the Bride

2008-09-07T10:42:00.019-04:00

"I'd like to experience your church sometime," a friend said to me the other day.

Experience my church? Hmm.

Based on previous comments, I know what she meant.

What she meant is that she wants to see Bill Hybels teach so she can decide whether or not she thinks his teaching is acceptable to her. She wants to hear the Willow Creek worship band and decide whether or not the style appeals to her. She wants to sit in the biggest auditorium in the United States and decide whether or not she thinks a church should have a facility this large and whether what happens onstage is worthy of such a facility.

She wants to assess my church - my place of worship, my church family, my spiritual home on earth - and see if it meets with her approval. Whether any of it meets with God's approval, is pleasing to Him, serves Him, or honors Him, is apparently obsolete. Excuse the sarcasm, but I take issue with this. After all, she will be assessing a piece of my heart, a piece of me...or rather, something of which I am a piece.

I wonder sometimes how many of the people who enter Willow's doors for the first time are on a similar mission. I also wonder about their motivations. Willow, after all, has taken a lot of hits over the years, and will probably continue to do so. This is fine with me; it means that Willow is a church with the courage to pursue growth, to take risks to that end. And the last place I want to be is a stagnant church. But let's get back to my friend and her desire to "experience" my church.

She's "experienced" a lot of churches.

Please don't mistake me. I'm not waxing holier-than-thou here. I've been guilty of this kind of thing myself. I used to "visit" churches and do this same kind of "assessing" without intending to judge. But I was judging, nevertheless.

Until God showed me how He wants me to view His Church.

Scripture names the Church as the "Bride of Christ," and if we examine that notion in light of the Biblical model of marriage, then the Church is to be cherished by its people as Jesus cherished it. The Apostle Paul makes no designations in regard to denomination, location, size, influence. The Church is all churches - all denominations, all buildings, all believers in Christ. They are not separate in God's eyes, but part of the same body.

It is we, not God, who have separated the church, who have fragmented her in accordance with our own human preferences and prejudices, our varying interpretations of Scripture, our own perceived spiritual needs. It is humankind that has added "laws," or "rites" that were not commanded by Jesus in the New Testament, just as the pharisees added many decrees to God's laws to help the Jews live righteously in the Old Testament.

When I first fully realized this, I had a moment of breathlessness. I was grieved by the way we have departed from what Christ modeled for us, taking something so simple and making it so complicated. We took faith and made it back into religion. Centuries ago, the church turned upon itself, and it remains in battle. In the name of God, in the name of righteousness and truth and holiness, but falsely so in many ways.

At the same time, I was convicted by a sense of responsibility to model respect for the Church - all her denominations, all her people - from that day on.

This does not mean that I will not question church practices. This does not mean I will not examine doctrines with a critical eye. There are false teachings and doctrines that do not line up with Jesus' teachings out there. But we are called to fight for righteousness with love. Loving examination of the Church out of a desire to please God and serve Him is necessary. At the same time, the reality is that the Church is made up of people. Flawed, broken people. The Church is therefore imperfect. She will make mistakes. But she is still the Bride of Christ. We are commanded to respect her, to uphold her, to defend her. We are commanded to be part of her: to learn, to grow, to serve.

I was raised Lutheran, but today I consider myself non-denominational. My maternal grandparents were Presbyterian. My paternal grandparents are Methodist. My best friend from high school is Catholic. The differences in our churches do not bother me. We are all believers in Christ.

There are churches that would not agree with me. There is much bitterness and prejudice, much pride and envy. The Church has spent centuries attempting to tear its own limbs from its body. I'm resigned to that. But my heart tells me that God did not pursue the Gentiles so that He could establish a Church where some people were judged more righteous than others.

Now, when I visit a church that is not my own, but which is clearly pursuing the heart of God, I am awed by its very existence. I am thankful that its people have a place to worship our Lord, even thought they may do things a little differently. I consider that church a proof of God's love, of His power and might, and of His work in this world. Someday, the Lord will put everything right, and the Church will be one body again.

My church is not better than any other church. It is just a piece of the body of Christ trying to live out God's commands, imperfectly, it's true, but in the spirit of love and service, and for the glory of God.

Let my friend assess that and find it wanting, if she can.

Lifechurch v. Local Church?

2008-08-27T21:12:00.007-04:00

Church is not an unending series of sermons.

It is not worship songs or ancient hymns.

It is not liturgy. It is not sacraments.

It is, of course, all of these. But it is none of them in isolation, or even, for that matter, in the above combination.

Church is community.

I am concerned about church on TV, church online, church on the radio.

At the 2008 Willow Creek Leadership Summit, senior pastor Craig Groeschel of Lifechurch.tv, a multi-site church in the southwestern U.S. that has experienced rapid growth, gave an inspiring talk on what he refers to as "It," the indefinable something that lights people on fire, spiritually. But it was not Groeschel's talk that led me to this essay.

It was the notion of "church online."

Lifechurch.tv offers an online "campus," a website at which people can watch a church service live. Lifechurch claims that the experience is not "virtual," and it isn't, if by "virtual," the church means "artificial." It's a real church service, with real worship and real teaching. People can even get involved in small groups and take part in service projects in their local community.

Still, this makes me a little uncomfortable. I have a hard time imagining that this is what the church is supposed to look like.

I have a friend who often skips the weekend service at her local church. Instead, she listens to Erwin Lutzer, the senior pastor at Moody Bible Church in Chicago, on Moody's radio station. She claims that she gets more from Lutzer's radio teaching than she does from her local pastor's sermons.

I want to say to her, "The sermon is not the point." Not that quality teaching of the Scriptures is not important - indeed, it is vital to one's growth. Still, it's not the point of being part of the local church.

Some people think that a church is simply a building people meet in to hear teaching on Scripture, worship God, and take part in sacraments. But church is so much more than that. And while walking in the doors of my church does something for me - I have a sense of arriving home that I love - church isn't about the building. Willow has one of the most amazing facilities in the world, complete with a bookstore and a coffee shop (all not-for-profit ministries), and I appreciate those amenities, but Willow would still be Willow without them. The building is not the point.

So what is the point of church, then?

Community is the point.

Acts 2 describes the early church as being a body of believers who learned together, worshipped together, ate together, lived together, pooled their resources and took care of each other. Key word: together.

My dad used to get up on Sunday mornings and watch pastor John Hagee sermonize on TV and call it his church for the week. Then he started attending a little country church a few miles from his house, got involved in a small group, started playing basketball with kids in the Awana ministry, and went on a mission trip. He has no need for John Hagee these days. Why not? Because it's not about the sermon. It's about community.

Community, for me, is as critical as oxygen. Without it, I falter on my path. My growth becomes stagnant. While God fills me spiritually, I also need people "with skin on," as writer Suzie Eller puts it, to stand by me and support me - and to need the same from me. That is community. That is church.

It's walking into Willow on Sunday morning and being attack-hugged by the teenagers in my high school small group. It's worshipping next to my best friend. It's stopping by the coffee counter, knowing that Mary Ann will be there with a smile, ready to chat. It's praying for hurting people after the service. It's attending a weekend barbecue with a gang of other thirty-somethings from Willow to celebrate a graduation. It's filling Ziploc bags with emergency meals for kids in Zimbabwe alongside my friend Mimi and her family.

It's love and family and safety and warmth and compassion and service and worship and prayer and communion and learning and growing...together.

Not online. Not from the couch. Not over the radio.

Now, I listen to Rob Bell on CD on road trips, and I download podcasts of messages I miss when I'm out of town. I jam to K-Love radio and feel I've engaged in worship. I watch Nooma videos and feel challenged to grow. But none of these things replace the real community I engage in by being part of my local church.

I understand that the Great Commission is to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. I concede that there is value in utilizing technology to reach people to that end. But specifically, Jesus commanded His followers to "go and make disciples of all nations." He wasn't just talking conversion, here. Conversion is only the first step. A disciple is not just a convert. A disciple is a student - someone learning a way of life by following someone else's example.

Can discipleship truly happen by watching TV? By listening to the radio? Online?

I'm skeptical. If these vehicles were always just a doorway - if at the end of every sermon, John Hagee encouraged his listeners to get involved in their local churches - I'd feel better. Conversion may occur as a result of watching a sermon on TV or online, or by listening to one on the radio. But the local church is where discipleship happens.

This weekend, in the first installment of a series on "Influence," Bill Hybels described the two extremes of the church: redemption, or spreading the gospel, and restoration, or compassion ministry. He said the church has a habit of swinging back and forth between these two aims like a pendulum. He said the real goal is to be in the center, doing both. It seems to me that this "central" position is what Jesus meant by discipleship: sharing the gospel of Christ, while seeking to live as He lived (a life of compassion and service) and teaching others to do the same.

It just seems clear to me that true discipleship can only happen in community - real, authentic, face-to-face community. Jesus Himself did discipleship in community. His was the original model.

Lifechurch.tv may argue that their online community is real and authentic. And maybe it is. I hope it is. It appears that God is leading them; He certainly seems to be leading Craig Groeschel's heart. And if Lifechurch.tv can effect an online ministry that offers authentic community and authentic service that lasts, then God will have used man's technology on a new level. I'll be interested to watch things unfold.

Time Out

2008-08-25T18:21:00.009-04:00

Today has been a rare jewel of a day - the kind I would have liked to sip slowly but which seems instead to have disappeared in one big gulp - a Time Out Day.

I've been trying to include more of these in my life as part of my quest to implement spiritual disciplines in my life. But the Time Out Day should not be confused with the Spiritual Retreat Day. Let me explain.

The Spiritual Retreat is a time of solitude, when I get away from all things human and human-connected (including my MacBook and cell phone) and just spend time focusing on God. I escape the madness of my now-suburban life and go off to the beach or to my favorite forest preserve in Hoffman Estates and find a place to be (relatively) alone. I read my Bible, pray, sit in silence, listen to worship music on my iPod, and just generally be with God. Sometimes I retreat for the purpose of listening, when I'm seeking direction and I need space so I can hear God. I try to fit in a morning or afternoon retreat once a month or so. I find I come away re-centered and re-energized, and ready for whatever is next.

A Time Out Day differs from a Retreat Day, but serves up some of the same benefits. Time Out Days are not physical retreats, but retreats from routine. They are forages into pleasure and joy, into rest and relaxation. They have a feeling of Sabbath about them, even though they are far less spiritually-focused than Retreat Days. Sometimes, my Time Out Days are spent curled up on the couch, reading a book from cover to cover. Or watching an entire season of Gilmore Girls on DVD. Or taking a short road trip to Madison or South Haven and just ambling around town. The key to a Time Out Day is that it is unstructured. No grand plans. Nowhere to be by a certain time. No one to meet. No meal plans.

Today, I took along a backpack containing the three books I'm reading, my CTA card, my laptop, my iPod, some cash, a bottle of water, and my phone. I started out at Foster Avenue Beach as the morning sun rose, sparkling (whenever the clouds allowed it) on very choppy waters. I read a chapter of Desiring God by John Piper. When I felt satisfied with my time there, I decided I felt like walking downtown. I drove to Lincoln Park, left the car and took off on foot down the Lakeshore Trail. By the time I got downtown, I felt like going to the bookstore, so I walked over to the Borders on Michigan Avenue and browsed for a while. When I felt hungry, I walked over to Jamba Juice at the John Hancock Center and bought a smoothie. Then I headed back over to the lake.

I never looked at the time. I just...did whatever I felt like doing at the moment, at a leisurely, unpressured pace. These are the keys to a Time Out Day: spontaneity and pacing.

Normally, my time on the Lakeshore Trail is spent running - beating the pavement into mileage accrued and calories burned. Not today. Today, I turned circles in the sunshine, ran my hand along railings, hopped up onto a low concrete wall and walked toe-heel-toe-heel for a while, took off my running shoes at North Avenue Beach and and ran across the sand to wet my feet in the waves. It probably sounds childish. It was awesome.

When my sister called, I sat down on the edge of the water and chatted for half an hour instead of cutting her off after 15 minutes because I had arrived someplace where I couldn't talk any longer. I had unlimited time for her today.

Today, I looked up at the blue sky and the layers of clouds racing across at varying speeds, I looked out at Lake Michigan sparkling in the sun and marveled at God's creation. I had time, you see - time to look and listen and feel all the things that usually escape my notice. I felt blessed and thankful and close to God in my joy at having a day to be unstructured, to be beyond the demands of my daily routine.

I ambled south past Navy Pier and noticed that the trail has been re-paved since I last traveled it. I counted the sailboats within my range of vision. I jumped up and grabbed a handful of leaves off a tree. I decided to visit the Field Museum and spent two hours ambling around its floors, pausing at exhibits of interest and not feeling pressured to read every little sign and placard.

I've walked a lot today. My legs hurt. My feet hurt.

It's been wonderful.

Now I'm sitting in Panera Bread at the corner of State and Congress, writing this. Not because I feel guilty that I have six unfinished postings I haven't published yet, but because I feel like writing this.

I have no idea what I'm going to do after I click "Publish Post." I might go to the Apple Store and buy a sleeve for my laptop. I might go back down to the lake and read for awhile. I might go see a movie.

In our culture, we rarely have the privilege of "going with it." Ninety percent of my life is scheduled, out of necessity. The other ten percent is often spent responding to things I can neither predict nor control.

So now, I build in time to "go with it." I think this is a holy thing to do. I believe that allowing the mind a day off from structure and the pressure of time is a spiritual discipline. You don't have to engage in a full-on retreat to do that. As well, allowing oneself to engage in activities as they come to mind is spontaneous and fun. I think God smiles on this kind of activity - after all, He wants us to be joyful.

If we have to schedule time for joy, so be it.

The Burden of Representation

2008-05-30T22:46:00.004-04:00

During a class on relational evangelism at Willow Creek Community Church last Wednesday night, director of evangelism Garry Poole looked at his audience and asked, "What keeps people from reaching out to others and sharing the love of Christ?"

Hands shot up. Everyone's answer was the same:

"Fear."

"What scares you about evangelism?" asked Poole.

The responses were what I expected.

"Rejection."

"The possibility of getting into a debate."

"Being judged for being a Christian."

"Not being able to answer questions."

"Misrepresenting Jesus."

"Knowing how much to say."

These are all valid - and common - fears Christians come face to face with when they want to share the gospel with a non-believer. They are so valid, so common and so realistic, in fact, that they can scare a believer into silence.

I experience these same concerns. However, my most recent frustration is something altogether different.

Rather than a fear, when I consider evangelism these days, I feel the intensity of the burden that I will potentially have to defend the Western church. And the Western church, unfortunately, has something of a bad reputation.

A few weeks ago, Catholic priest Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina, an all-black church on Chicago's South Side, publicly mocked Senator Hillary Clinton during a visit to Trinity Church of Christ, the church attended by Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Pfleger, who is white, went so far as to suggest that Clinton believes she deserved the Democratic presidential nomination over Obama because she is white. Pfleger later claimed he was not mocking Clinton and that his remarks did not reflect his heart.

Unfortunately, I was watching the evening news when Pfleger's antics were broadcast for the entire nation. What I saw made me ill. I saw a man who was out of control disparaging one of his nation's leaders from the pulpit (the Bible clearly calls for Christians to respect those in governmental authority), setting an unbiblical example for that congregation, and above all, misrepresenting the church. Make that misrepresenting Christ.

When the segment was over, I sighed and said to my roommate, with more than a hint of sarcasm, "Well, he just made the church look really good."

Pfleger's bio is impressive - in the 33 years he's been at St. Sabina, he has increased attendance from 400 to over 1200; he has helped parishioners start a school and several community programs that have changed the neighborhood. He protests gun violence and works tirelessly to better the conditions of the people living in the St. Sabina neighborhood. All this has ended up doing nothing for him in the face of his recent conduct - Chicago's Cardinal George has reassigned Pfleger to another parish. I can't help wondering, What's the point? Taking Pfleger from the job where he's done so much good prevents him from continuing that good work. And let's face it: the damage to the church is already done.

I'm not saying Pfleger as an individual is what's wrong with the Western church, but he sure makes for a good example. His actions run along the same lines as Jerry Falwell blaming September 11 on the abortionists and homosexuals. Neither one of these situations sound much like Jesus to me.

The truth is that Jesus preached love, not judgment. He preached grace and forgiveness. He modeled ethics and integrity.

Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus said.

But why should non-believers want to explore a church that publicly disparages political figures, that blows up abortion clinics, that blames homosexuals for acts of terrorism, that supports the killing of children in Iraq, that molests children, that embezzles money?

Why should broken, hurting, lost people who are craving unconditional love, forgiveness, healing, community and truth think they will find what they need in the church?

The truth is that they can find all of this in the church. It just doesn't always look like it. As always, the bottom line in any American industry is the almighty dollar, and the media is no different. Sex sells. Scandal sells. Violence sells. (This is why I didn't go into professional journalism.)

I suppose the answer is that I have to be the church. In my relationships with non-believers, I have the opportunity to break down the image of the church as judgmental and unloving, and remake it in Christ's image, as it was meant to be, for the people I'm reaching out to. I must love as Christ commanded, teach as He taught, walk as He walked, to the best of my ability.

That's a lot of pressure for this very broken, very imperfect, often hypocritical disciple. Shoot, it's a lot of pressure for a church made up of very broken, very imperfect, often hypocritical disciples.

The truth is that in spite of the influence of the American media, in spite of research that shows people do not want to be part of the church because of its media image, there is hope. Father Michael Pfleger is not the church. Jerry Falwell was not the church. The anti-abortion extremist groups are not the church. It is ordinary people who love Jesus and want everyone they meet to know the boundless depths of God's grace through the cross who are the church, who must be the church.

Evangelism, says Willow Creek pastor Bill Hybels, happens best through relationships - through ordinary, genuine, committed friendships wherein ordinary, broken, imperfect Christians earn the trust and respect of non-believers in ordinary relational ways, and then, because they have earned genuine credibility, and because they want their friends to experience the love and grace they themselves know, share their faith in authentic ways.

Chuppah

2008-05-10T14:11:00.003-04:00

Last summer, while visiting relatives near Traverse City, Michigan, I spent an afternoon with my younger brother and sister at Memorial Park, a small, serene beach in the village of Elk Rapids on the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay. They romped in the uncustomarily warm water for hours as I lay in the sand, simultaneously warmed by the late June sun and chilled by the breeze off the bay. The images of that afternoon stand out in my memory. The sun sparkling on the water, waves crested with foam as they crashed onto the beach, made everything seem blue and gold and irridescent. And on the beach, a few hundred yards from where I lay, was an unusual sight. Alone at the end of a narrow peninsula of sand jutting out into the water, stood a chuppah.

It appeared to be a simple thing constructed of four poles, a white sheet of cloth stretched between them. The cloth fluttered in the wind, its whiteness rendered even brighter by the sunlight. It looked empty and abandoned, yet beautiful in its pristine simplicity, serene in its lonely setting. I was mystified by its presence, for there was no one around. My mind flooded with questions I could not answer. Was it there for a wedding? Had the wedding already occurred, or would it take place sometime that day or the next, perhaps? Who might be getting married under it? Were they Jewish?

Finally, unwilling to look from afar any longer, I got up and, calling to my siblings to stay where they could see me, walked down the beach and out onto the narrow peninsula to where the chuppah swayed in the wind.

It was exactly what it had appeared to be from a distance - a simple white cloth stretched above four wooden poles shoved deep into the sand. It was just large enough to shelter two people. I stood beneath it, contemplating its significance.

Not being Jewish, not having grown up around anyone who was Jewish, and never having attended a Jewish wedding, I first encountered a chuppah at some point during my college years in - of all things - an issue of Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. I remember the article pretty vividly - it was the profile of a young Jewish couple in New York City. I recall being charmed by the black-and-white photo of the couple standing beneath a simple white chuppah while a rabbi led them through their marriage vows. But I had no idea, at that time, what the chuppah represented.

In Chapter Seven of his book Sex God, entitled "Under the Chuppah," Rob Bell explains that the practice of using a chuppah as part of Jewish weddings can be traced back to the Book of Exodus, when God hovered over His people in a cloud, leading the Israelites out of Egypt and across the desert of Sinai. Most significantly, the chuppah is reminiscent of the giving of the Ten Commandments through Moses, when God promises the Israelites, "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possessions" (Exodus 19:5). The Hebrew word for God's presence is shekinah, and the chuppah, suspended over a couple during the pronouncement of their marriage vows, is a reminder of the cloud shekinah of God, of the vows He made to Israel. Later, Jews began to use a prayer shawl stretched between four poles as a symbol of the seriousness of the marriage covenant.

The chuppah is a sacred thing. It creates a sacred space, a space for just two people, who have chosen each other out of all the other people in the world. The chuppah represents commitment. It represents the sacredness of intimacy in marriage. It represents faith and trust and the submission of our autonomy in exchange for something God designed to be infinitely better. It represents all the reasons for which God created Eve. It represents the end of Adam's loneliness.

Even more striking, the chuppah could perhaps be seen as a representation of the greatest of all unions - humanity's with Jesus Christ. After all, Jesus claimed to have come to fulfill the Law of Moses. The chuppah is a representation of the convenant between God and Israel through that Law. The progression and connection seem clear.

On top of that, Jesus frequently compared his relationship with his church to a marriage.

There was something sacred about standing under the chuppah on that lonely beach, Lake Michigan's waters sparkling in the sun, the laughter of children echoing on the breeze. I remember looking up at the white cloth over my head and feeling sheltered in some way I couldn't explain at the time. Now that I know a little more about the significance of the chuppah, that feeling makes sense.

Bell writes, "It's a chuppah, but maybe it's more than a chuppah."

I say there's no maybe about it. The chuppah is far more than a piece of cloth suspended between two poles.

It is God's promise to love us, a promise made milleniums ago and fulfilled milleniums later when Jesus died on the cross for the world. For me. For you.

When I get married, it will be because I've found a man who gets this truth as deeply as I do, and who considers marriage to be a covenant that mirrors God's promise to us. Eternal. Unbreakable. Sacrificial. Nothing less is acceptable. Nothing less is truly holy.

And perhaps, at our wedding, we might stand under a chuppah.

Going Green for God

2008-05-05T11:32:00.002-04:00

A fellow Christian recently asked me why I'm an environmentalist if I truly believe Jesus is going to come back and remake the world. My friend shares the view of many Christians - the mindframe that attempting to save the Earth is futile (and maybe it is), that the world will be destroyed no matter what we do (according to the book of Revelation), that caring for the world is secondary to the Great Commission (I agree - sharing the gospel is the most fundamental of pursuits).

The "We won't be here forever, so why does it matter?" point of view is widespread. However, it seems to be losing prevalence, as the bookshelves in the Christian Spirituality section at Barnes & Noble attest. J. Matthew Sleeth's Serve God, Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action is just one recently published testament to the call believers are feeling to wake up the church and get it to take a look our treatment of the Earth as part of our spiritual responsibility.

After all, this is God's Creation we're abusing. And He made it for us. Talk about misuse of a gift. Talk about taking generosity for granted. It awes me that the Lord of the universe made all of this for us.

We are called to steward our resources well, and to value the gifts we have been given by a loving Heavenly Father. For me, that clearly includes this planet I live on. We are its caretakers until the return of Jesus (and personally, I have no idea when that is scheduled to occur, so I figure we need to make the planet last).

My initial steps into environmentalism included the decision to become a vegetarian and to stop consuming conventionally grown produce and foods that are genetically engineered, or bear the labels of corporations that abuse the Earth, abuse workers both in the U.S. and abroad, or abuse the communities in which they operate. It was, indeed, a spiritual decision in large part, in spite of the catalyst, which wasn't a Christian source. It also had a strong social justice component. After reading Eric Schlosser's vivid descriptions of the practices of industrial agriculture in Fast Food Nation, I couldn't stop thinking about the depth of man's capacity to abuse everything from soil to animals to other people in his quest to satsify his unquenchable materialistic desires, or what the Bible refers to as "serving Mammon," the false god of money.

Now, I realize that I can purchase organic, grass-fed, free-range meat, so vegetarianism was not necessarily the only available road. Eating meat is biblically permissible. However, I personally needed to take a step back from the consumption of animal products in order to gain a bit of perspective. Not everyone may feel the same need. Regardless, the practices of industrial agriculture when viewed through the lens of stewardship are highly questionable.

I find it difficult to believe that the Lord I serve intended for us to pack thousands of cows into crowded feedlots and make them stand around all day in their own excrement. I find it hard to believe He meant for us to keep hens in cages so small they can't stand up or turn around, or to subject them to more hours of artificial light than the sun would provide so they will produce more eggs. I find it hard to believe He meant for us to overfeed turkeys until their legs can't hold up their bodies and they can't even get to their water troughs. I find it hard to believe God is okay with us feeding animals grains they wouldn't naturally eat and that are hard on their tummies so that they will get fat quickly and end up on our dinner tables sooner, and so that they will have digestive troubles that make it necessary for them to be on antibiotics.

Neither can I believe God wants us to consume pesticides, growth hormones and antibiotics by proxy, or genetically modified plants and animal products. I firmly believe He put everything on this Earth in an already perfect state, and therefore adequate to meet our nutritional needs. The problem is that man has to mess with everything the Creator made. Man always seems to think he can improve on the Lord's work. Go figure.

Unfortunately, most people don't like hearing about the agriculture industry's practices, because then they have to think about them. And then they have to make lifestyle decisions that are challenging, inconvenient, costly, or uncomfortable.

One response I often hear is, "Organic food is so expensive. I can't afford it." I get that. A secondary reason I went veg was because organic meat is so pricey. Eliminating meat altogether was cheaper. However, the laws of economics suggest that if demand for humanely produced organic foods increases, suppliers will be forced to comply and start running their businesses differently. And if all companies go organic, competition should drive prices down. However, this kind of transition takes time.

But I digress. While food was where I started, going green involves so much more. Fuel consumption. Energy use. Waste. Recycling. There are a hundred fabulous, user-friendly manuals out there for going green. Barnes & Noble has a whole section on it.

Yes, that skeptical Christian who wondered aloud why we should bother being concerned about the environment had a point. We probably won't ever be able to fully "save" the planet. But does this mean we should not try?

Much of the Bible suggests that a holy life is about living in the tipping point - that delicate place of awareness that we do things for the sake of the ethics and meaning in them, not for guaranteed results, for indeed, there may not be any results. But it is not effort for effort's sake that I am talking about here. It's more than that.

It is about who we become through our efforts.

We are to love others because Christ commanded it - not because we are guaranteed something in return. We are to fight sin with the full knowledge that we will fall again and again as a result of our innate brokenness. We are to spread the gospel, knowing that we will not always see the fruits of our efforts, and that some people will undoubtedly remain lost.

There are no guarantees, except our own growth and the increased depth of our connection to God.

Going green works the same way. In being environmentally-minded, I find myself more aware of God's Creation. I am more inclined to see everything, from my weekly bike ride through the forest preserve to the organic dinner on my plate, as a beautiful gift, as proof of God's love for humankind.

And I am closer to understanding His character because of it.

Beans and Rice, Rice and Beans

2008-04-26T14:11:00.004-04:00

I just finished a week of subsisting on beans and rice. Or was that rice and beans I was eating? Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. However you choose to word it, I don't want to see it again for a long, long time.

My choice to forego my usual vegetarian diet of fresh, organic (read: expensive) foods was part of an act of solidarity with my church congregation (several thousand people all over Chicagoland eating nothing but rice and beans for five days - whoa). The point of the rice and beans was to spend five days eating as the Third World eats, to come alongside the poorest third of the earth's population and understand their forcibly limited diet. The point was to understand what famine feels like.

I didn't think five days of rice and beans would be that bad, and it wasn't, really. I wasn't suffering in any way, after all. As a vegetarian, the lack of meat didn't impact me the way I'm sure it did all the carnivores in the congregation. But I did feel hungry. Portions were small - about one cup of food at each meal. That's not a lot - our stomachs can hold about a pint, which is twice that much, and most of us (this is America) eat to an overfull state at meals. My tummy grumbled quite often. And I definitely felt reduced energy - I managed only one run all week, and it was a short one.

Besides being hungry, I was quickly tired of the lack of variety. I'm a fruit lover, and I eat three or more fresh fruits a day. I have never been as glad to see a banana as I was the morning after the famine ended. But one thing in particular stuck in my mind: all throughout those five days, I was aware that there was an end to my famine, and that it was not far off. I had a goal to reach - a place to get to in order for the hunger and the monotony to stop. The poor don't have that opportunity. There are no bananas waiting for them on Saturday morning.

As members of the top 10% wealthiest population, we have so many choices. We choose where to live, what to wear, what to watch on TV (for that matter, we are able to choose to watch TV in the first place), what to listen to on our iPods, whose calls to answer, whether or not to respond to that email. And we choose what to eat.

Every morning, I open cupboards and fridge and decide what to have for breakfast. The Third World eats rice and beans. I choose what to put in my lunch bag. The Third World eats rice and beans. I choose to cook dinner or to go out to dinner. The Third World eats rice and beans.

I have a balanced diet of protein and whole grains, fruits and vegetables and healthy fats. I am able to take vitamins and drink at least 64 ounces of safe, clean water every day. I have access to organic produce and every kind of ethnic food I could possibly want. I am so blessed.

The poor feel blessed just to get three small meals a day. I am annoyed if I forget my afternoon snack. The poor feel blessed to have their rice and beans. Eating the same thing for five days made me crazy.

What does this say about me?

It says that I am privileged and used to it. It says I am spoiled. It says I am conditioned to expect things to be a certain way, and to feel irritated when my expectations are not met. It says I am, unfortunately, a product of my culture whether I like it or not. It says I have a long way to go to shed my very American entitlement issues.

It also says that I need to remember to appreciate the abundant variety of foods to which I have access daily. It says I need to remember to be grateful every time I feel full.

A Year of Need Versus Want

2008-04-14T20:17:00.034-04:00

I've made a rather monumental decision in the interests of financial freedom and self-discipline. For one calendar year, I'm committing to not purchase anything I don't need. This means no new clothes, more than likely (with the exception of a new pair of running shoes when my current pair has accumulated 500 miles). It means no more kitsch for my apartment. It means no DVDs, no CDs, no books that are not purely educational. It means not going crazy at the grocery store and buying way more than I can possibly consume in a week's time, but establishing a budget and sticking to it. It means downsizing the amount I spend on socializing - foregoing dinner out in favor of coffee, for example.

It means no recreational shopping. Argh. This is not going to be easy.

My decision was prompted by a few things. For one, my budget has been a little tight lately, and I know it's possible to ease that. I need to be taking better stock of my resources and paying more attention to my cash flow. I'd really like to be saving more money than I currently do. With my income tax return due to arrive in my bank account any day, I will be in good shape - that money will enable me to get some things in order that have been out of order. But I'd like to be in even better shape. The Bible counsels against debt, and I'd like to get rid of mine, student loans included. It would feel so great to be debt-free. If I had no debt, I could do anything, go anywhere. Nothing would hold me back. I like that idea. I also like the idea of having more savings set aside, so that in the case of an emergency, I don't have to go into debt again, to anyone, even my family.

I've struggled to fully surrender my finances to God for a long time, but haven't been able to do it. I don't know why, but I woke up the other day suddenly ready for the free fall into reckless trust with my money - maybe it's the intensity of my recent journey back to Christ and the sense that it is time to surrender all the areas of my life I never have before; maybe it's the desire for total freedom from control. After all, if I give my money over to God's care and start thinking of myself as just the recipient of a gift, or a simple steward and not the "owner" of my financial resources, then I am responsible in a much different capacity. I have to answer to God, rather than to my broken self (and my broken self is very good at making flawed decisions, especially about money). Anyway, it's funny how we can resist God's call for years sometimes and then we just wake up one day convicted and everything looks different, and there's no rational explanation for it. I think that is often how we know it's Him working in our lives.

Last Saturday morning, the day I awoke feeling so charged up, I went to Target to pick up a few household items. Target can be dangerous for me. I tend to fill the cart with all kinds of stuff I don't need - clothes, accessories, shoes, DVDs, books, CDS, you name it. This week, though, I stuck to my list. I left the store with nothing more than what I'd come to buy - some toothpaste, a bottle of hairspray, shower gel, a pack of toilet paper and some gum. It felt good. I felt self-disciplined and in control (in a surrendered way, if that makes any sense), rather than controlled by the urge to buy, buy, buy. I want to have that feeling more often. The Bible advises us not to store up treasures on earth, but to keep all our treasures in heaven. I get it. Heaven lasts forever. Manolo Blahniks, iPods and Xboxes don't.

I was explaining my decision to a friend, and she challenged me on it, saying I was trying to be too in control and didn't I think that was unhealthy? She just didn't get it. I'm reading Rob Bell's second book, Sex God, and he sums it up well, writing, "Freedom isn't being able to have whatever we crave. Freedom is going without whatever we crave and being fine with it."

I think this kind of freedom is why God doesn't want us to be in debt - He doesn't want us to be controlled by something as earthly and as corruptible/corrupting as money. Financial freedom gives Him freedom to do amazing things in our lives. Financial debt not only hinders us, it hinders Him and His ability to send us to new places, to give us new callings.

I also want to be in a position to be more generous. I want to give more freely to ministries and charities I view as worthwhile and as making a positive impact in the world. I want to increase my pitiful tithe to a full 10% of my gross income, and then give on top of that when the opportunity arises. God calls us to care for the poor, the sick, and the oppressed. There was nothing Christ emphasized more, other than loving God.

The other day when I was driving home from work (just a few days after my pivotal shopping experience at Target), I was thinking about my car and how many miles it has accumulated in the short three years that I've owned it, and I found myself wishing I had a new car. Then, out of the blue, it hit me how selfish, materialistic, and unreasonable that desire was - and how much a product of my culture. As Rob Bell writes in Sex God, craving what we don't have is lust. "Lust often starts with a thought somewhere in our head or heart: 'If I had that/him/her/it, I'd be...'" We are constantly confronted with the message that we need to have the latest new "thing," that we need to keep things new, and that buying will keep us young, beautiful and happy, that acquiring what we don't have will fulfill us, complete us. I know this cultural mentality is a lie, but it's difficult to resist. I buy in sometimes without even realizing it's happening - it just seeps in. This time, I gave myself a mental slap on the hand. Your car is fine, I told myself. Besides, it's not even your car - it's the car God has provided for you, and it's more than good enough.

Good enough. Enough. That word raised a question for me: what is enough? Most residents of the U.S. are among the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the world. I am in that category. I have a nice apartment. I get three very good, usually organic, meals a day. I have nice stuff - way more than I need. I have a college education and a job that enables me to feed, clothe and shelter myself without anyone's help. That's pretty profound, considering the state of most of the rest of the world.

So what is enough? For some people, one bowl of food a day is enough. For others, a safe place to sleep at night is enough. In light of this, having my needs met is more than enough, and restraining myself from indulging my frivolous material wants looks like a good practice to put in place.

Coincidentally, my church is launching an event this weekend called "Celebration of Hope." For the next several weeks, we are being challenged to actively raise our own awareness and understanding of world hunger and take action to help alleviate it. Events include reducing consumption (translation = spend less $$) and contributing the money we might have spent to help starving people, helping pack 3.5 million meals to feed 10,000 children in Zimbabwe for a year, a fair trade market weekend to encourage increased understanding of fair trade and microenterprise and the difference they make in Third World communites, and a five-day famine during which participants consume a limited diet in order to understand what most people in the world live on. After all, as Atticus Finch says in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, "You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them." I'm going to participate in all the Celebration of Hope activities, but when it's over, I'm going to keep on limiting my consumption. Celebration of Hope is just a good jumping-off point.

It's going to take some practice, I admit. I'm going to have to be mindful everywhere I go, from restaurants to the grocery store, Target and the mall. I'm certain to falter at some point, and I know there are going to be occasions, like my annual girls' shopping weekend in July, that are going to stretch me. Maybe I need to process what to do in those times, and make some kind of reasonable provision for them. It definitely warrants more consideration. I do know that I am going to need to be able to give myself grace from time to time, but not to allow grace to encourage me to lose ground, as with any challenge. No permission to fail just because permission is available, so-to-speak.

A year of need versus want. I wonder what my life, my soul, and my bank account will look like a year from now. I wonder if I will have made a greater contribution to the world. I will say this: I already feel a greater sense of freedom. And that alone is enough for me.

*Side note: a GREAT book to read to learn more about hunger, poverty, and solutions like fair trade and microenterprise is Hope's Edge: the Next Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe. Also check out The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs.

Brickianity v. Trampolinianity

2008-04-13T13:09:00.005-04:00

I love Rob Bell. Well, I don't mean I actually love Rob Bell, but I, you know, "love" Rob Bell, or rather, I love his writing. Who is Rob Bell? Some people seem to think he's the greatest reformer of the Christian faith since Martin Luther (although I doubt Rob would call himself that). Some people seem to think he's a threat to traditional Christianity and the "established" church (and he just might be, but that just might be a good thing). I think he's cool because he's not afraid to ask tough questions, and because he makes me think outside the theological box.

Bell is the enigmatic pastor (I can label him "enigmatic" because I've seen him teach, and I am therefore allowed the use of such adjectives) of Mars Hill Church in Grandville, Michigan. He's also the creator of a series of superhip video shorts on the Christian life called NOOMA, and the author of a couple of books.

I read Rob Bell because he makes me think hard. He causes me to question my existance, to seek clarity about the tenets of my faith, to humger for greater understanding of the character of God. Right now, I'm reading his first book, Velvet Elvis. And let me just say, it is so velvet, and so Elvis, if that makes any sense.

Velvet Elvis is like drinking a pitcher of red Kool-Aid on a really hot, humid day - you want to gulp and gulp and gulp because you are just that darn thirsty and now you want to go jump in the neighbor's swimming pool, or off the end of Navy Pier into Lake Michigan, fully clothed, because it's so hot out and you drank all the Kool-Aid, and there really wasn't enough of it to satiate you. Yeah, that pretty much sums up how I feel about Rob Bell and Velvet Elvis. Except that since I'm only on the fourth chapter, I still have a lot of Kool-Aid left to drink. But enough of the Kool-Aid metaphor. Let's move on to brick walls and trampoline springs...

Rob theorizes that some people's faith is built like a brick wall, with each piece of doctrine a hard, angular brick fitting into its exact space in the structure of the wall. These people believe in what he refers to as "Brickianity" (nice play on "Christianity," don't you think?). If a piece of a brick wall believer's doctrine is removed, or comes into question, then the integrity of the whole wall is threatened. The problem with Brickianity is that it's hard to invite other people to share in your wall. You're asking them to agree with the scope and placement of every individual brick in order to be vested in the wall at all. And if they don't - if they see things just a little differently from you, which is bound to happen - then the wall doesn't work for them. The people you meet who are seeking to encounter Christ are not looking for a faith that functions like a brick wall.

Rob basically says that Brickianity isn't effective, and I'm inclined to agree. Jesus isn't a brick wall, for one thing. For another, the church can't thrive as a brick wall - the need for interpretation and application of the scriptures, the history of the church and theologians' disagreements about these things, the subsequent fragmentation of the church (if not for the need for flexibility, we would all still be one church, and not divided into denominations), all support this. I won't get any deeper into a refutation of Brickianity - Rob does a much better job than I possibly could, and anyway, he's already covered it in Velvet Elvis. So get the book if you want to know more of what he says about it. Now, let's consider his other idea: trampoline springs.

According to Rob, faith needs to be more like the springs on a trampoline (refer to Velvet Elvis for a full explanation). Our beliefs should be flexible in some ways. Obviously, there are some things that should be beyond question - the basics, like God's existence - but the interpretation and application of the scriptures need to be flexible in order to be viable in our culture. Our faith should be like a trampoline on which we bounce - and on which we can invite others to jump with us, with the realization that each jump is unique unto itself, and each person's experience on the trampoline will have its own nuances. This makes more sense to me - Jesus meets people where they're at, after all, and invites each one of us to take our own journey with him. Jesus is far more like a trampoline than a brick wall, I think.

I really like the trampoline idea. I like it because I like jumping on trampolines (my little sister has one, and when I go home, we jump. It's one of my favorite things to do with her) and I like the idea that my faith should feel the way jumping on a trampoline feels - exhilarating and fun and sometimes breathless and sometimes just a little scary when you jump really high or lose your footing for a second. I also like the idea because it's friendly. While inviting someone to sit on a brick wall with you doesn't sound like much fun, inviting someone to jump on your trampoline does.

I definitely don't want to drag around a brick wall. I'd rather spend my life jumping. So I'm at a point of consensus with Rob Bell on this. But I'm left with a very important question:

How do I invite people to jump on my trampoline? For that matter, how do I present my trampoline? Does it really look like a trampoline, or does it look more like a brick wall? Do I make people want to jump with me, or would they rather not? Do I look like I'm loving every minute on my trampoline?

I don't think I'm very good at this part. I'm better at interacting with people who are already on the trampoline. But that's easy - they're already there. And yes, interacting with other jumpers is important - it helps us refine our own jumping techniques. But inviting new jumpers into the adventure is equally important.

To someone who's never jumped on a trampoline, the experience can look risky, even scary. How do I make it look non-threatening? How do I make it look like the amazing thing it is?

I'm going to keep working on the answer to this question. And while I'm working on it, I'm going to keep jumping, and I'm going to focus on keeping my trampoline a trampoline, so that I don't wake up one morning and find it's turned into a brick wall.

Jack-Jack and What He Taught Me

2008-04-10T16:29:00.003-04:00

I spent the past week at my sister's house in Oklahoma City. It's the second time I've visited Carla since she and her husband, Mike, moved there two years ago. Mike is in the Air Force and is stationed at Tinker Air Force Base. Anyway, they relocated as newlyweds (after spending three of their first five months of marriage apart while Mike was in boot camp - gah!) and bought a little house (probably for about 1/3 what such a place would cost in the suburbs of Chicagoland) and just settled right in to Oklahoma life. My sis is a nurse at a local hospital, and the Right to Life is one of her greatest passions, so she also volunteers at a nearby pregnancy center, providing free ultrasounds to pregnant women who are struggling to decide whether or not to keep their babies. Her life is pretty busy with public service. Soon after she and Mike settled in and found a church to call home, my sister became pregnant (something she'd been dreaming of for most of her post-pubescent existence, I think - she is the ultimate babylover). Anyway, these days they're like a couple of nesting ducks and their house has changed considerably since the arrival of their small offspring, Jackson, more commonly known as Jack, or if you are Mommy, Daddy or Auntie Harmony, "Jack-Jack."

I could have been in New York City seeing some theatre for Spring Break. I could have been on Anna Maria Island's pristine beaches, enjoying the sun and the sound of crashing waves. But no, I decided to forego that and spend the week chatting with my sister and playing with my nephew instead. It was priceless time, because the next time I see him, sometime in July, he will be a different baby. He'll be crawling, probably, and babbling more, and he won't look quite the same. I'm glad I got to know him as his six-month-old self. New York and the beach can't compete with that.

I flew home to Chicago missing him already - his cheerful chatter, his desire to be involved in everything that is going on in his house, the way he snuggles against my shoulder when he's sleepy. As I reflected on my week with Jack, it occurred to me that we should pay more attention to babies and what they have to teach us about priorities.

Jack reminded me that we need to focus on the simple things in life that bring us joy. Watching him, I marveled at the things that made him smile: the sound of someone who loves him crooning his name, the taste of his favorite food, being sung to, being tickled, snuggling, being held in the arms of his mother as she dances around the kitchen, accomplishing something new (for him, it was rolling over from his back to his stomach), the feel of the sun on his face, bouncing in his Jumparoo...

All these are things that can give me joy as well (okay, so they don't make Jumparoos for adults, but maybe someone should start - hey, I'd like a Jumparoo), but I allow my life to get so hectic and so task-oriented that I forget to make time for small pleasures. I eat my meals in the car or while grading a stack of papers, which means I don't really enjoy them. I allow myself to get stuck inside the house or my workplace all day long and don't get out into the sunshine. I don't sing enough, dance enough, hug enough.

I'm making a commitment to do more of these things; to eat my meals more slowly, to read more, to take walks on the lakeshore and write and dance (even if it's around my house when I'm home alone) and try new things and seek adventure and laugh and hug the people I love and pray more. I need to stop being in so much of a hurry to get things done that I don't get anything important done.

I am generally a reflective person, and I'm surrounded by intelligent, educated adults. We should know what we need most; we should be smart enough to make time for it, seek it out. The odd thing is, we don't. Instead, we work too hard, we overcommit, we burn ourselves out. How ironic that no adult in my life ever tells me to slow down or take a break or seek to be joyful. Instead, it took my six-month-old nephew to remind me what's really important in this life. No wonder Jesus told us to become more like children.

The Jell-O Factor

2008-04-06T11:28:00.005-04:00

Being disconnected from God feels like drowning in Jell-O.

It's more than feeling like I can't breathe. It's feeling like I'm suspended, limbs pretty much immobilized, in something that allows me to wiggle a tiny, tiny bit, but won't let me really move.

I've spent a year feeling like I'm drowning in Jell-O. But it crept up on me, so I didn't really notice what was happening until it was too late. I started out swimming in something liquid, something that colored my vision and muffled my hearing and had a distinct, attractive flavor. I didn't mind diving deeper into it. And then, all of a sudden, it solidified, and I was trapped beneath the surface. (This Jell-O metaphor is really working for me.)

My Jell-O year began almost exactly 12 calendar months prior to when it ended, which is sort of eerie (but hey, at least it hasn't been the biblical 40 years). I'm glad it's over, but now I'm struggling to feel like it wasn't wasted time. A lot of good has come out of it, a la Romans 8:28 ("God uses all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose"). Not that I'm recommending a year of spiritual disconnection. I'm thinking hell could look like a swimming pool full of Jell-O when you first arrive. I don't intend to find out.

If I've re-learned one thing from my Jell-O, it's that God has impeccable timing. He allows us free will, but He is there beside us all the way, and He will stick his nose in when we become dangerous to ourselves. The week before Easter, I made a rock-bottom choice that could have been really, really destructive. At that point, I think God just got sick of my defection and said, "Enough. You're done." God reached down into the Jell-O and pulled me out. He sent a stranger my way who shared with me how he came to know Christ, and it struck a chord in me - his story was incredibly like mine. I was suddenly overcome with longing for re-connection with my heavenly father. I went home, got down on my knees, and asked God to let me come home. I think I cried for a couple of hours. For the first time, I could see the past year with clarity. I could see just how far I had strayed from God's purpose for me. Of course God was merciful. Of course He was generous with His grace.

It was time to go back to church. But where? Coincidentally, a friend invited me to Saturday night service at Willow Creek. I didn't expect one service to be the beginning of something (especially not after I'd failed to find a church on my own during two years of searching), but God is funny that way. Walking into Willow felt like...well, sort of like coming home, cheesy as that sounds.

At Willow, Bill Hybels talked about how, sometimes, growing Christians encounter pain and then disconnect from God. Bill didn't use my Jell-O metaphor, though - he used a car metaphor instead. He described how a believer can be driving along with everyone else, then have a crisis and stall out on the side of the road. He also described the progression of what happens next pretty accurately in relation to my experience - that after a crisis, we can question where God was, feel abandoned, lose faith, and then gradually stop praying, stop serving, stop attending small group, and stop going to church. (Listening to Bill talk about all this, I started feeling like God must have called him up and told him about me.) Granted, I was out of the Jell-O at this point, but I was still standing on the side of the road. I needed to know God was right there with me.

How did I end up on the side of the road in the first place? Like Bill said, all it takes sometimes to stall someone out is a little bit of pain and confusion. A year ago, one of my best friends abruptly stopped being my friend. At the same time, my spiritual community dissolved and I no longer had a place to turn to. I was at the end of two years of church-seeking, and was in between churches, so I wasn't attending anywhere on a regular basis. This was not a good combination of circumstances. Crisis. No church in place. I did exactly what Bill described: I floundered. I wondered why God had allowed me to be wronged. I felt let down. I stopped believing I could hear Him accurately, so I stopped praying regularly and with any real spirit. I stopped reading His Word. I stopped going to small group. I stopped trying to find a church that felt like the right place for me. I just...stopped. Stalled out on the side of the road. This is where the Jell-O came in.

Since I felt like I couldn't reach God, I filled my days with more tangible things - family, friends, work, running, dating. These are all good things, sure, but without God, they are nowhere near as amazing they could be with Him involved. And so my dreams started to dissolve. I can look back, and see myself starting to let go of my dreams for my calling, for my future. I started to believe they weren't viable. I started to look at the earthly alternatives. And the earthly alternatives looked pretty good (read: liquid Jell-O). But then, I wasn't comparing them to the Godly versions, because I no longer believed those were possible. Before I knew it, the Jell-O hardened, and I was stuck. I was motionless, airless, unable to cry out for help.

Bill's messages offered me exactly what I needed: the reassurance that God IS present; that He IS good; that He loves me; that He is FOR me (read Romans 8 for more), that He understands what happened.

I think it's pretty common for believers to think that their faith will be okay without church, without community, without reading the Bible regularly, without prayer. This couldn't be farther from the truth. In my year of disconnection, I never refuted God's existence. I never stopped believing Christ died for me. But I stopped growing. I would even say I took a big step backward. Believing is just the beginning of faith, after all. It's just the first step. If all we do is believe, we will never know what it truly is to know God intimately. We come to know Him through being part of His church body, through reading His Word, through communing with Him in prayer, through worship.

Paul pushes these "spiritual disciplines" for a reason - we need them. We can't do life effectively without them - we weren't designed to, and if we try, we will gradually stall out, or become suspended in Jell-O. In Looking for God, Nancy Ortberg asserts that the spiritual disciplines play out a little differently for everyone, and I agree with her. But whatever they look like, they are still necessary. Without them, we just have Jell-O. And God wants our lives to be so much more than a resemblance of a cheap dessert that comes in a box and just needs water to take shape. God is more of a creme brulee kind of guy if you ask me. Or maybe tiramisu...

Personally, I'm relieved to be done with Jell-O.

Running 101

2008-03-31T18:15:00.003-04:00

I've heard it so many times. That self-defeating phrase. "I could never be a runner."

My friend Merigan said it. My friend Amy said it. My friend Mike said it. My friend Amanda said it. My friend Katy said it.

Guess what? They're all runners.

I used to think I could never be a runner. I am not an athlete, at least not in any organized team sport kind of way. I possess a pitiable lack of grace (seriously - I have fallen down more than one set of stairs in my life. God save me from broken hips in my old age). I can't handle any sort of ball with my hands, feet, or other apparatus intended to come in contact with a ball. I also spent most of my life being inactive, and thus in a cardiovascularly substandard state. The thought of huffing and puffing my way along any kind of street or trail without a knife-bearing serial killer spurring me on sounded like plain old self-torture.

I stand corrected. And when I stop to think about it, I'm amazed. I am a runner.

Six years ago, I decided I was going to become fit. I started out walking. My first encounter with a treadmill lasted all of 15 minutes. I trundled along at a pace of 3 mph and was sweating bullets by the time it was all over. I hated it, but I was too determined to give up. The next day, I went back. And the day after that, I went back again. In seven days, I added five minutes to my walk. By the time a month had gone by, I was walking for 30 minutes. After that, I started adding speed. In a year, I was "powerwalking" for 45 minutes a day at a pace of 4 mph.

So when did running come into the picture? When walking got too easy. When I couldn't get my heart rate up. When I stopped breaking a sweat. When I thought, "Hey, I wonder if I should start running." Talk about foreign thoughts.

Anyone can become a runner. Yep, anyone. I'm proof. As well, I've helped transform more than ten self-proclaimed non-runners into 5K race addicts with just a little bit of coaching. After the initial tips, the running sells itself. Nothing feels as great as finishing a 3-mile run when a month ago, you were just a couch potato. There are just a few things you need to know to get started.

Breathing. Before you do anything else, you need to learn to breathe properly. As I say to anyone I coach, "It's all in the breathing. The rest is easy." They always look at me like I'm nuts when recite this mantra, but it's true. If you can learn to breathe, the rest will come. The key is to be aware of your breathing, almost like during a yoga posture. Breathing should be slow and deep, the oxygen drawn fully into the lungs. If a beginner experiences difficulty, it's usually because they're not breathing the right way. If you need a trick to help you with your breathing, just count steps. Four steps to an inhalation, four steps to an exhalation. Eventually, you'll just breathe slowly naturally and you won't need to count anymore.

Intervals. Once you're set on a two-mile route, or you've gained access to a treadmill, you should consider starting with run/walk intervals. Running in intervals gives you walk breaks, which will enable you to complete your full two miles with no problem, and will help build endurance. You can choose to run/walk intervals that are charted by distance or by time. Some people run five minutes and walk five minutes, or run a block and walk a block, for example. Treadmill runners can start with quarter-mile intervals.

Pace. As far as speed is concerned, you should begin by running at a pace that gets your heart rate up but is neither painful nor exhausting. Don't push too hard. Listen to your body, take it easy, and enjoy the scenery. If you're indoors, get an iPod and jog along to your favorite tunes. The key goals are to be aware of your breathing, and keep your body relatively relaxed. Take steps that are a natural length. Your stride is your stride - don't force it to be longer, or you will eventually have problems.

Progressing. As running becomes easier, you can increase your run intervals and shorten your walk intervals until you are running the whole two miles. When you get to that point, you can start increasing your overall distance a quarter mile a week, or whatever feels doable. At this point, you can also begin working on your pace. The treadmill is helpful for this, as you can control the speed of the belt and increase or decrease your speed with precision. If you're getting serious about speed and you're running outside, a running computer or GPS can monitor your pace. These are available at running stores.

Stretching. Many people believe that you need to stretch before a run. I say no. Stretching when your muscles are "cold" can cause tears. My advice is to start out slow to warm up, and stretch at the end of a run. You can visit any fitness magazine's website or search about.com for good post-run stretches. Do stretch well. Do stretch after every run. Stretching keeps your muscles loose and releases built-up lactic acid (which causes burning and soreness). Don't ever skip out on stretching, or you will pay for it later.

Hydration. Hydrate well, both before and after a run. This means water. Plenty of it.

Shoes. Before you hit the road or the treadmill for that first run, however, there is one big must: the right shoes. Do not think it's okay to just lace up your worn-out cross trainers or your pink Converse All-Stars and hit the sidewalk. No way. Get thee to a running store for a fitting. The right shoes make all the difference as far as comfort level, injury prevention, and efficiency. I won't get into all the logistics behind running shoes here, but I can't emphasize enough the importance of visiting a running store (no, not Dick's or The Sports Authority or even Footlocker) to be fitted for your shoes. Expect to spend around $100 for a quality pair, and don't even think about turning up your nose. They will be worth every cent. A good pair of running shoes lasts about 500 miles, which can be a whole year for a beginner. I run 20-25 miles a week, so I end up buying a new pair every six months or so.

Gear. Additional gear is optional, but can make a world of difference to your comfort level. Anti-friction running socks, dri-fit and temperature-specific fabric clothing are great items to try. Just be warned: runners easily become addicted to quality gear. And quality gear can be pricey. Other must-haves for me personally are a baseball hat (traps my layered hair and keeps the sun out of my eyes and off my precious face), sunblock (not just for summer!), lip balm, and chewing gum (keeps my mouth from drying out). And of course, I can't get along without my iPod.

Safety. Be safe. Don't trust cars. Don't trust bicyclists. Don't run before dawn (the time of day most runners are attacked) or after dark if you can help it. Do vary your routes and times, unless you live in a very safe area. If you do run in the dark, wear reflective clothing. Carry your cell phone and ID. Last spring, I didn't take my phone with me one afternoon, and I had a bad fall. I tore up my knee and had a lovely road rash all along my left side. I ended up limping two miles home because I had no way to call anyone for a ride. It sucked. My sock was soaked with blood from my knee by the time I got home.

Motivation. If you need motivation or accountability, consider finding a running partner or joining a running group - your local running store will most likely have information on such groups, as well as local running events, such as weekly "fun runs." Running is an individual sport, but it can also be a community sport. You don't have to go it alone. Eventually, you may even want to consider a 5K race (don't worry - it's okay to just race against yourself, or set a goal of completing the course, even if you walk part of it). 5Ks are a blast - tons of people of all ages and ability levels, all running and walking to raise money for a good cause, usually. Nothing beats race day adrenaline, either.

If you take on the challenge of becoming a runner, you'll probably never look back. And being a runner doesn't mean you have to set your sights on a marathon, although that's an excellent goal. A runner is simply someone who runs regularly, for whatever distance, at whatever speed. And if you keep at it, it gets easier and easier, and you will start loving the energy it gives you, the adrenaline that hits midway through a run, the sense of oneness with your body and breath.

One of the best moments of my life was the first time I told someone, "I'm a runner." I'm so proud of my runner identity that I even have a Christmas tree ornament with a little running stick figure on it that says "Runner Girl." Tres cool.

Kitchen Therapy

2008-03-26T11:33:00.030-04:00

When I'm stressed out, I like to chop vegetables. I have this big kitchen knife, the kind that looks like it could take off someone's arm. My cutting board is less exciting - it's starting to split at the seams, and for months I've been lusting after those smooth, golden-brown, expensive bamboo cutting boards on display at Whole Foods Market. I've also been lusting after a red enamel colander and some white china napkins rings shaped like rabbits at Sur La Table, but those are another issue altogether.

Anyway, vegetables. I wish there were an onomatopoeic word for the sound of my kitchen knife's blade slicing through an onion, that crisp sound, slightly airy, for which there is no comparison. In her book, Looking for God, Nancy Ortberg describes her own realization that food is a gift - that God could have decided to just provide manna and water to merely meet our nutritional needs, but that instead, he created food that has an amazing variety of colors, scents, tastes and textures. Food is spiritual, proof of God's love for us and proof that He wants us to enjoy life on this earth of His. I like the idea of seeing the majesty of God in something like a tomato or the smell of fresh bread.

Food is spiritual to me in more than its variety. Chopping vegetables soothes me, for example. There are some things I don't love to wrestle with - peeling the skin from jicama, getting all the flesh off the pit of a mango in uniform pieces, grating softer cheeses without smashing them - but mostly, the culinary actions of chopping, slicing, measuring, sifting, stirring, pouring and so on relax me. I am not totally clear on why this is so. It may be that such things are rhythmic and repetitious. It may be that cooking is something I can control (well, for the most part). It may be that the culinary arts are skill-based rather than intellectual, and I get to use my hands, which differs greatly from what I do in my chosen profession. Sometimes, I think about quitting teaching and going to culinary school instead. Watching Sookie St. James on Gilmore Girls always gives me a yen to go off and be a chef at an inn somewhere in New England. After a stint at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, of course.

Food is something I approach as an adventure. I've been on a mission for the past year or so to try new foods - new fresh foods, I should say, by way of clarification. Some of the things that have entered my kitchen over the past several months include leeks, Belgian endives, kalamata olives, kumquats, pomegranates, jicama and parsnips. Trying a new food or a new recipe is like traveling to a new destination - there is mystery involved, because you can't be totally sure what it's going to feel like at the end of the trip. Whenever a new food catches my eye in the market, or I hear someone talking about one, I pull out my copy of The Joy of Cooking - a venerable, glossy white tome of authoritative information on every food imaginable, with descriptions of every vegetable, fruit, cut of meat, and seasoning, including how to prepare them and basic methods for using them - and thus, I find a way to use my newfound food item. Joy is one of those rare cookbooks that contains no photographs of finished dishes, which bothers some people, but not me. Instead, it has finely drawn illustrations. But I digress...

Last fall, I spent a weekend with my aunt, who lives in Michigan, and on Saturday evening we headed off to Blockbuster Video to rent a movie. It turned out that we both wanted to see Disney's Ratatouille. My aunt and I are lovers of all things French, so perhaps this is what prompted two not-really-fans of Disney to go for something like Ratatouille.

Watching Ratatouille made me want to try my hand at making it - the actual French dish, mind you, not my own version of the film. When I arrived back in Chicago a few days later, I went straight for my copy of Joy. And sure enough, there it was in the vegetable chapter, waiting for me.

Ratatouille is a simple yet stunning dish. I love it for its precise process. It unites a series of ordinary vegetables - eggplant, zucchini, red bell peppers, sweet onion - which are chopped, then cooked by turns in the same pan, with fresh garlic, diced tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. Fresh basil and chopped black olives are added at the end. The flavors, melded together by the sharing of the pan and the addition of seasoning at integral moments so that they cook for just the right amount of time in just the right combination, are phenomenal. Nothing is more divine, more provincially French, than ratatouille. Nothing is a better example of the variety of God's provision, a la Nancy Ortberg.

There are other dishes I make with just as much pleasure - crepes, for which the thin batter has to be swirled around in the bottom of a hot skillet until bubbles rise and they can be flipped without splitting; omelettes, for which the eggs must be beaten just the right way, so that they don't cook with too many air bubbles; lasagna, whose ingredients must be layered in exactly the right proportions and for which the cheese mixture must be just so (no cottage cheese in my lasagna, thank you very much); apple pie, for which the crust has to be kneaded and rolled out to the right thickness, the apples seasoned with the perfect amount of cinnamon and sugar.

These days, I cook less than I would like. But with only myself to feed (and occasionally my roommate), I find myself eating the same thing for days on end if I get too ambitious in the kitchen. I subsist instead on Trader Joe's Three-Layer Hummus and pita chips, on homemade yogurt with granola and frozen berries, on salads with roasted beets and asparagus, on simple foods that would be considered snacks by most people. But at the close of any difficult week, Saturday morning generally finds me seated at the vintage red formica kitchen table, sipping coffee and thumbing through The Joy of Cooking with the beginnings of a shopping list on the table beside me, looking for something therapeutic to make that afternoon.

As God is My Woobie

2008-03-24T15:31:00.027-04:00

When I first went to Paris, in 2001, I didn't know whether my favorite museum would be the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay or the Pompidou Center, but I expected it to be one of the three. What I did not expect was to find my heart captured by the sculptures of Auguste Rodin at the museum bearing his name. The Musee Rodin is housed in the Hotel Biron, which was Rodin's home from 1908 on. The house and its grounds display sculpture after sculpture of Rodin's, as well as many by his famed mistress, Camille Claudel.

My favorite piece is "The Kiss," crafted by Rodin from white marble and depicting a man and woman entwined in a passionate embrace. It is breathtaking. But there is a second sculpture whose image has stayed with me over the years. It is titled "The Hand of God." The idea behind it so captured Rodin's imagination that he made several versions of various sizes, some from marble and some from bronze. The version at the Musee Rodin is hewn from white marble and depicts a pair of giant hands with two small human figures, one male and one female, curled around each other like yin and yang, cupped in one of the hands. The sculpture reposes alone on a circular table in a room on the ground floor of the Hotel Biron, a light and airy room with old windows whose panes are rippled so that the landscape takes on waves it doesn't really possess. I remember that day at the Musee Rodin, how I circled the table several times, captivated by the image of Adam and Eve cradled in the palm of God's hand.

The image of God's hand curled around two of His children, small and fragile and fetus-like, remains with me. It is the image I conjure when the painful moments of my life make breathing difficult, when I want to close blinds and lock doors and shut the world away. In these moments, I curl up on my bed in a fetal position and imagine that I am the one resting, warm and safe, in the palm of my holy father's hand, except that God's hand is not hard, cold white marble, but soft, warm Technicolor skin. This act of visualization comforts me, and if I meditate on it, letting the vision fill my mind until everything else is forced out, peace inevitably flows in, if only for a little while. After all, God longs to hold us like that, cradled in His giant, loving hand, larger than the universe. If only we would let Him do it more often.

***

For Christmas this year, my mother bought me the softest, warmest throw blanket I have ever owned. It is made from some kind of synthetic fabric that looks like chenille but weighs next to nothing. It also possesses the unique ability to generate warmth, almost like an electric blanket. I have spent this winter curled up under it, or wrapped in it.

A few weeks ago, on a frigid Sunday afternoon in February, my friend Scott came over to watch a movie. It was cold in my living room, which has hardwood floors and large windows that let in a bit of a draft. Five minutes into the movie, I paused the DVD player and ran to my room to get my blanket.

Scott laughed at me when I reappeared with it. "Is that your woobie?" he asked. In the 1983 comedy "Mr. Mom," starring Michael Keaton as stay-at-home dad Jack Butler, one of the Butler children calls his baby blanket his "woobie."

"Something like that," I told Scott, curling up under my blankie and making a sassy face at him, "and when I was little, I did have a woobie."

My childhood woobie was sewn from pink cotton gingham and soft flannel. My nana, my mom's mom, made it for me when I was born. It started out with a white eyelet ruffle and little yarn bows scattered across it. By the time I was in pre-school, the eyelet ruffle had worn off, and there was a big hole in one corner...the corner I wrapped around my hand...the hand of the thumb I sucked. Yep, I was a thumb sucker. Linus has nothing on me.

My "woobie" disappeared the same fall that I started kindergarten, during a weekend trip to Pennsylvania with my stepgrandparents. It was there when we packed everything to come home, but when we arrived back in Michigan, it was nowhere to be found. Like any five year old would be, I was devastated. I cried a lot, and I didn't sleep well for a few days. But like all children, I was resilient, and I quickly learned to rely on other things for comfort and security.

Years later, some time during high school, I helped my mother clean out the attic. We went up to the musty little room under the eaves of our house and were soon covered in dust. She had me sorting through some random, unlabeled boxes, opening them to see what was inside. Nestled inside one of them, I found my woobie. I remember throwing a bit of a fit at my mother, demanding to know how it came to be there. She confessed that it had been my disapproving stepgrandmother, who thought a five year old was too big to suck her thumb and drag around a baby blanket, who had engineered the deception. She said she had figured it was time for me to give it up, and that she might as well go along with it, but that she had been irritated that she had been undermined as a parent.

I took my woobie downstairs to my room, put it with the laundry to be washed, and generally reclaimed it. But no matter how much Tide or Downy I poured into the washing machine, it failed to relinquish the musty smell it had acquired over ten years in the attic. But I still have it. I could never throw it away.

My woobie is a symbol of safety and peace. It is synonymous with other comforting childhood trivialities - the feeling of my thumb in my mouth, the pink teddy bear that lost his eyes long ago, the swaying motion of a swing in a tree, the smell of my mother's perfume. But I have had to replace it with other things, like chai lattes and chopping vegetables, like worship music and Shauna Niequist's book Cold Tangerines, like walks on the lakeshore and brief respites in my friend Linda Gross's cheerful little office at work, like the mental image of myself curled up in the hand of God.

It doesn't matter how old we are; we all need safety and security, comfort and peace. It would be nice if those things came simply and easily, the way they did when they came in the form of a childhood woobie. Then again, if they did, perhaps we wouldn't value them quite as much. We might even take them for granted.

***

My life has been fraught with pain and tension lately, with circumstances that are beyond my control and harsh words that I can't seem to forget. Cold Tangerines has reminded me that it is times like this, times of desperation and helplessness, that drive us back toward God when we have gotten too independent, too apt to take control of our own lives. Desperation leads us to pray, even if all we do is repeat Please God, please God, please God because that is the best we can do at the moment.

Cold Tangerines has also reminded me that in times of desperation, we think we will never be grateful for what we have suffered; we think we will never look back at the bad times with thanksgiving. We just long for whatever it is to be over so we can forget about it and move on. But the truth is that weeks later, maybe months or even years later, we will eventually find a way to look back and feel gratitude for what we've experienced, as terrible as it was while we were going through it. After all, this is God's way. He lets us curl up in His hand, safe and protected, with Him as our woobie, and then, when we've had a little rest, He stands us up on our feet again, a little stronger and a little wiser than we were before, and gives us a gentle push forward as if to say, See? See what I've made of your pain? Now go on, get back to your life and all the things I have for you to do. And we take a few tottering steps forward, then walk a bit, and then we're off and running. And every so often, we can look back and marvel at how far we've come.

In Defense of the Single Dad

2008-03-23T22:17:00.012-04:00

I have this friend - he's 30, single, a Christian, smart, funny, good-looking, athletic, a hard worker. He's also divorced with two kids who spend every other weekend with him. As he was filling me in on his life the other day, a question kept rolling around on my tongue. Finally, I asked him outright, "Why are you still single? Why hasn't some woman snapped you up by now? I don't get it." He answered me bluntly, with a shrug of his shoulders, and without emotion.

"It's the divorce and the kids," he said. "Women see me as damaged goods."

Damaged goods? This awesome guy is in no way damaged goods. He's responsible, mature, and has his act together. He's dedicated to his family and has his priorities in the right order. I didn't know what to say. I just felt...bad.

Divorced dads are a special bunch. I know, of course, that there are going to be exceptions to what I'm about to argue. This is no unshakeable theory I'm citing here. But I do have a few words in defense of the single dad.

While the divorce rate has dropped 30 percent since 1970, the number of women who leave their husbands and initiate divorce is rising annually. There are a lot of men out there who have been abandoned by their wives, many who are thus forced to take on single fatherhood, at least every other weekend or during school vacations.

I guess if a woman chooses to, she could look at these men as "damaged goods." They've failed to stay married (although divorce may not have been their choice, mind you). They've already had babies with someone else. But I'm friends with some of these guys. I've dated a couple of them. I have a few of them in my family. And I have to say, they have a lot to offer. In many ways, they have more to offer than the perpetual bachelor. Like what, you ask?

The single dads I know take responsibility for their part in their failed marriages; they recognize their mistakes and they have learned from them. They are intent on not repeating those mistakes a second time. They usually want to get married again, and are prepared to work harder at a second marriage than they did at the first one, because they now know what divorce is like, and they don't want to experience it again. They recognize that a successful marriage takes a lot of work, and they aren't afraid of it. They are also dedicated dads and put their kids first. Most of the time, they have greater financial responsibilities than other single men (child support, for example), and they work hard to live up to those responsibilities. They don't allow anything to interfere with dad time. They don't date lightly, and they don't introduce every woman who comes along to their kids. Overall, I find these guys to be more mature, more responsible, more together than their never-been-married counterparts. Impressively so.

A word of caution, however. If you can't handle the idea that a man was married before he met you, or that he had kids with another woman, stay away from the single dad. He deserves someone who will meet him where he's at, respect his experiences, and not punish him for his mistakes by acting jealous of his kids or his ex. Frankly, he's already suffered enough. So only embark on a relationship with a single dad if you're the right kind of woman. And if you think you are, ask yourself the following questions, just to be sure:

Am I okay with having a boyfriend I don't see every other weekend, or whenever he has his kids?

Can I handle it if I don't hear from him, or hear from him very limitedly, when his kids are with him?

Am I okay with not meeting his children until our relationship is serious (keeping in mind that you could totally fall for the man without meeting his kids, which doesn't give you the full picture, but is best for them)?

Am I okay with not being the center of his attention when his kids are around? Can I give them my attention, too?

Can I partner with him in taking care of his kids when he wants and/or needs me to?

Am I okay with the fact that, if we get serious or get married, his kids will always need one-on-one time with him, and can I accept that without being jealous?

Can I accept the fact that, were I to marry this guy, I would be responsible for acting like a mature, caring adult and building a positive relationship with his children? Can I love them even though they're not biologically mine? (After all, they're kids - they need all the love they can get from all the adults in their lives.)

Can I handle the idea of having to deal with his ex-wife? (As long as the kids are part of his life, the ex is going to be around in some fashion. You can't totally ignore her existence.)

Can I guarantee that, were I to marry this guy and we were to have kids of our own, I would not expect my children to take precedence over my stepchildren? Can I do everything in my power to make them all feel equally loved in our home?

If you answered "No" to any of the above questions, then the single dad is not your man. He, and his children, deserve someone who can say "Yes" to every one of those questions. Granted, they're tough questions. They may take some mulling over. If you're not sure, you need to give it some serious thought before you decide "Maybe" means "Yes."

Being a stepparent is not easy. Being a good stepparent is even harder. And it's best if you can remove the "step" from the word and just go with "parent." Make that "unconditionally loving parent." And dating a single dad means you need to consider this - a single dad is not a lone entity. He's part of a package; a package you have to be willing to embrace. Should you have answered "Yes" to the questions above, you're probably a pretty unique woman. You might even be remarkable.

At the same time, you should beware of the single dad who doesn't put his kids first, or who complains about his ex too much. You don't want a man who cheated on his first wife. You don't want a man who fails to pay his child support. You don't want a man who bails on his kids for you. These are not signs of good character. You want a man who demonstrates responsibility and who shows he will do everything he can to get along amicably with his ex for the sake of his kids. You see, anything a man demonstrates in his current family relationships, he will also bring to a relationship with you down the road. So evaluate carefully.

As a child, I endured (yes, endured) relationships with three stepparents. None of them were easy. As an adult, I have great relationships with both my stepmom and my stepdad, whom I now just call "Mom" and "Dad." But it wasn't always so. Healing the wounds of childhood wrought by divorce, remarriage and stepparenting has taken years. And I've always said that, well, were I ever to be somebody's stepmom, I know what not to do. I know what I needed as a child, and what I didn't get. Stepparenting is somethingnot to take lightly, should the necessity arise. Or should I call it an opportunity, rather than a necessity? Maybe even a privilege? After all, knowing, caring for, nurturing, and loving children is a privilege - a gift. It's also a responsibility, however, and a big one at that.

O Mighty Pen!

2008-02-06T11:30:00.006-05:00

In 1839, Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined an adage that has lasted through the ages: "The pen is mightier than the sword." It is not often that I am faced with the truth of this now immortal line from Bulwer's play, Richelieu, but when I am, it happens with a vengeance. My pen, I often forget, has immeasurable power. Power to exalt, to encourage, to persuade, to entertain. Power to draw laughter from others (which is probably the most attractive gift, and what drives much of my bent toward sarcasm). It can have the power to heal, to resolve conflict, to right a wrong. Unfortunately, it also has the power to offend, and the power to cause pain. The power of the pen for good is something I take for granted. I use my pen productively most of the time, in the business of lifting people up, of celebrating, of loving. It is the occasional hour when my pen spews sarcasm, cynicism, judgement, that I find comes back to bite me later. My only comfort in this is that I am in good company. For what writer has not borne the repercussions of a well-turned phrase used injuriously, whether deliberate or unintentional? While I might cite literary giants (Swift, for example), allow me to pick a pop culture moment instead.

In Season 4 of the hit TV show Gilmore Girls, college freshman Rory Gilmore is trying out for a coveted spot as a reporter on the Yale Daily News. She is assigned to write a review, but can't seem to shed her innate niceness and become the quintessential tough critic. Her lukewarm review of a string quartet gets her only the scorn of her editor, who tells her to get some guts (he uses a different word in reference to the male genitalia, which I'll eschew). Finally, determined to conquer her gallantry, Rory attends a ballet, writes a scathing review of the lead ballerina (if I recall correctly, she uses the term "hippopotamus"), and is rewarded in two ways: resounding praise from her editor, and a sign on her dorm room door proclaiming "Die jerk." Later on, in the dining hall, the enraged ballerina turns on her in a fit of righteous fury, identifying herself as the signwriter. Rory has never felt so despised, and she agonizes over the injuries wrought by her review. Finally, however, she concedes that being a writer, a journalist, a chronicler of life, means that she has to make a choice between gilding the truth for the sake of kindness and being willing to occasionally wound with her pen in the interest of candor. She chooses the latter. But let's move on from Rory's fictitious escapade as a critic...

It is difficult for anyone who does not write to understand the mindset of the writer in mid-composition. The subtle nuances of wordplay, the satisfaction of a good metaphor or a razor-sharp description - these things are so incredibly enigmatic that all else fades away. It is nearly impossible for a writer to explain to a non-writer how it feels to write, at least to the non-writer's satisfaction. The writer becomes one with the words, interested only in how the mind, heart, and soul are translated into language.

For one attempt at an explanation, consider the following passage from Emily of New Moon by Canadian author L.M. Montgomery, in which the main character is defending her penchant for the literary to her unsympathetic aunt:

"Oh, I must write, Aunt Elizabeth," said Emily gravely, folding her slender, beautiful hands on the table and looking straight into Aunt Elizabeth's angry face with the steady, unblinking gaze which Aunt Ruth called unchildlike. "You see, it's this way. It is in me. I can't help it. And Father said I was always to keep on writing. He said I would be famous some day. Wouldn't you like to have a famous niece, Aunt Elizabeth?"
"I am not going to argue the matter," said Aunt Elizabeth.
"I'm not arguing--only explaining." Emily was exasperatingly respectful. "I just want you to understand how it is that I have to go on writing stories, even though I am so very sorry you don't approve."

This is true of any real writer - the craft is not academic, it is art - it is creation. It is the birthing of something out of oneself that has never been born before. It is magic. It is unstoppable. As the diarist Anais Nin asserted, the writer who attempts to stop writing or is forced to stop simply stops being. To write is to live. To the non-writer, this sounds like mere sentiment. It is not. A writer, even a fiction writer, feels that he is imparting truth - and he is. His own truth.

This, of course, does not absolve a writer from responsibility. If one is writing nonfiction, the truth should never be sacrificed in favor of the sensational or dramatic. A writer must be his own toughest critic and his own best editor. This is not easy.

At the same time, it must be said that the observation of life, of social mores, of people, is never objective. A writer must have license to write from his own vantage point. He must be free to embrace his own perceptions, to see the world through his own particular lens, and impart it onto the page without fear.

I have hurt with my pen. Drawn some blood, figuratively speaking. Unintentionally, but still. Nothing feels worse. And so I have edited, made apologies, rebuilt relationships. It's never simple. It's never without remorse. And yet I keep on writing. Like Emily, I can't help it. I just suffer for it occasionally.

Such is the writer's pay dirt.

The Allure of Mr. Darcy

2008-02-01T10:13:00.002-05:00

Jane Austen's most popular hero has inspired the daydreams of single women for over a century. Young women even gather together in groups for "Girls' Night" to "marathon" the viewing of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth. Six hours watching a British made-for-TV movie obviously means something by way of devotion. But just what is it about Mr. Darcy that makes women swoon, albeit figuratively? I'm going to hazard a few guesses.

First, Darcy is commendable in that he places happiness before status. He is willing to consider love of more import than logic. This romantic sensibility alone is enough to make a woman sigh.

As well, Darcy reveres Elizabeth Bennett for the things we like best about her - her wit, intelligence, candor, and grace. Most women would like to be thought of as having such virtues. In essence, we'd all like to be Elizabeth Bennett, with her strength of character and critical nature (as opposed to her sister, Jane, who "likes everyone too easily" and is something of a pushover). Moreover, we'd like to be admired (by a Mr. Darcy) for those same qualities, and not in spite of them.

It is not only how Darcy views Elizabeth that draws our approval, however, but the way he treats her. He demonstrates great respect for her, defends her character to others, is completely honest with her about his feelings and does not play games with her, and makes personal sacrifices for her benefit and that of her family (without being asked).

Finally, Darcy exhibits character traits that modern stereotypes claim men lack. He is willing to admit when he is wrong, and to take steps to correct his errors. He seeks justice without seeking to claim recognition for himself at the same time. He is humble without being the slightest bit weak. He is kind to all, regardless of economy or social standing, and demonstrates compassion without sentimentality. This enmeshing of dignity and humility personified by Darcy is awe-inspiring.

Darcy is all things - loyal friend, caring brother, fierce protector, ardent lover. He is the Full Monty.

Men ought to be required to read Pride and Prejudice, if only to receive an education in the virutes of the highly desirable man. A man wishing to be proactive in developing his character ought to seek out the novel of his own accord. Women who are unfamiliar with Pride and Prejudice (I hope there are very few of them) may do the same in order to receive some guidance about what their standards ought to be. At the very least, watch the movie. And if you can't handle six hours of the BBC, try the Keira Knightley version.

Good luck, guys.

Wearing the Game Face

2007-03-29T17:47:00.002-04:00

My friend Matt called me up last Friday on his way home from work.

"What are you doing tonight?" he asked. Nothing surprising there. After all, it was Friday. Usually, I have plans on Friday night. It was my answer that caught him off guard.

"Nothing," I replied.

"Nothing?" he was incredulous. "You're kidding. Why not? I thought you said you were invited to some party tonight."

"I was," I said. "I'm not going."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

Matt considers me ultra-social. In fact, he generally considers me too social. He is always telling me to slow down, relax, take some time off from my hectic life. So his surprise at my Friday night defection from the social scene was not unexpected.

After the moment of shock had passed, Matt finally said, "Okay...so why are you staying home?"

"Because I don't want to wear my Game Face all night," I said.

"Game Face?" he said. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm not in the mood for a party," I explained. "I'm not happy right now. I don't want to pretend I want to be around people. So I'm not going to. I'm staying home."

"Hmmm...yeeaaahh..." He was obviously pondering the idea. "You should never have to do that."

He's right, I thought. I shouldn't have to feel like I need to be fake for other people. Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't feel that way?

"Well, sometimes we all do it," I said.

"But it's basically lying," he countered.

"Well, sure," I said. "In a way. But I don't always feel I can be honest about the way I'm feeling. Parties call for certain expected behavior. If I can't deliver genuinely, I feel like I have to wear the Game Face. And the Game Face takes a lot of effort. It can be exhausting. So I'm not doing it tonight."

"So be real," he said.

A dazzling concept.

He went on to make an interesting accusation.

"People think you are so open and out there," he said, "but there's a lot you keep hidden. You have this whole deception thing going on - people think they're seeing all of you, but they're really not. It's quite an act."

He's half right. I do have this sort of "I am who I am, take it or leave it," attitude - a little bit of a tough girl act that covers up the broken bits of me, the parts of myself that I want to protect. It's not an all-out deception, though. It's part of who I am - it's just not all of who I am. And I think that's okay. I think we are allowed to choose who we want to share our deeper, more fragile selves with.

The conversation ended at an impasse. I didn't go to the party. I haven't been out much since then, either, which has been fine with me. But my best friend's birthday party is this weekend, and I can't bow out of it. I can't see myself feeling any differently by then. So the question is, do I wear the Game Face, or hang it up and just be real?

Larry Crabb, Christian psychologist and author of The Safest Place on Earth, which I've referenced before, claims that we all need a solid spiritual community in which we can be real. A community that sees the potential in us, the Christ in us. A community that, even when we are at our worst, looks beyond the sin and the brokenness and encourages us, uplifts us, loves us. A community in which we can expose our struggles without fear of being misunderstood, judged, or shamed.

My social community is mainly Christian. But I don't feel safe in it. The trouble with building a spiritual community like the one Crabb envisions is that everyone has to buy in. Everyone has to be intentional toward everyone else. And well, as a larger community, we're simply not there.

I'd say that there are small pockets of safe community - people's small groups, our mini-circles. In my own little neighborhood community, consisting of my best friend/roommate and her boyfriend, I feel 100% safe. I feel safe within the context of a few other individual friendships. Maybe someday I'll feel confident enough, or safe enough, to leave the Game Face at home during times like this. But I'm thinking safe community on a larger scale isn't going to happen until Heaven.

In this life, no way am I okay with showing up at a large event and looking vulnerable. Someone might speculate to someone else about why I'm out of sorts. Worse, I might get questioned. Then I'd have to choose between a truth I won't want to reveal, a put-off, or lying. Yeah, I experience fear. Yeah, I experience insecurity. We all do. Those are raw, real, valid human emotions. I'm not going to deny them here.

Getting ready to go out for my roomie's birthday Saturday will involve some serious preparation. An outfit that makes me feel good (I hope it won't be a Fat Day). The right makeup. Good hair. The perfect shoes (probably heels, which always make me feel tougher). And my Game Face, with its perfect smile.

Before we leave, I'll stand in front of the bathroom mirror, look myself in the eyes, and convince myself that I can do it. That no one will look at me and be able to see that I am less than thrilled with my life. And as long as no one at the party has read this, maybe it will work.

I'll Have It My Way

2007-03-26T21:00:00.005-04:00

Whoever said ignorance is bliss was an idiot. Ignorance is dangerous, especially when it comes to eating in America. It doesn't matter if you're chowing down at McDonald's, the local diner, a five-star restaurant, or in your own kitchen. If you don't know what you're eating or where it came from, you could be risking your life, according to Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.

Don't be fooled by the title of Schlosser's bestseller. While he gives the fast food industry a much-deserved razing, like Morgan Spurlock in the documentary Supersize Me, Schlosser's expose' is about more than fast food. On a grander scale, it's about the ugly side of corporate America, and the ugly way the U.S. government has allowed the food industry to deceive, exploit and endanger the public.

As with so many things in this country, we feel safe when we shouldn't. Go figure.

Eric Schlosser has changed the way I grocery shop. He's changed the way I read a restaurant menu. I will never look at food the same way again.

If you read only one book in 2007, make it Fast Food Nation.

It would be impossible to encapsulate the wealth of invaluable information in Schlosser's book in a single blog entry. It would be impossible to do justice to the stories of Alex Donley, whose six-year-old brain was liquefied by the E. coli. toxin; of Hank, a rancher in Colorado who committed suicide because of the pressure of competing with the cattle industry giants; of Kenny Dobbins, whose 46-year-old body can no longer work after 16 years of backbreaking (literally) labor for the Monfort meatpacking company.

Every page of Fast Food Nation shocked me, angered me or nauseated me. But I have never been more grateful for the work of a journalist.

I want to eat a hamburger and know it came from one cow, not 200. I want to know there are no shards of glass or metal shavings in my ground beef. I want to be certain I'm not in danger from dying (yes, dying) of E. coli, salmonella or vCJD, the human strain of mad cow disease.

The best line in Fast Food Nation? "There is shit in the meat." Enough said, don't you think?

I could go on about the USDA, the FDA, OSHA and a handful of other acronyms that, for me, are now synonymous with "Do not trust." But I'll let Schlosser's book speak for me.

Which it does. Fast Food Nation speaks for me, for you, for immigrant workers who have no voice in this country, for schoolchildren who innocently consume the most dangerous meat in America in their school cafeterias.

They should give Eric Schlosser a Pulitzer.

The last chapter is titled "Have it Your Way." The concept is simple: the American people are more numerous, more powerful than any corporation, fast food chain, or body of legislators. As in all things, if we stand together, we can demand change. And change will come if we do. But before we can act, we have to know the danger we're in. We have to be educated consumers.

Have it your way? Great. No E. coli for me, thank you very much. No salmonella or mad cow. No glass or metal in my burger. No pesticides, no growth hormones, no steroids or antibiotics. I don't want my meals at the expense of someone's safety. I don't want to support any company that exploits immigrants, endangers its employees for the sake of higher profits, or lies to me through falsified inspection reports or deliberately mislabeled products.

Can't do it my way? Fine. I'll keep my money for those who can.

What Racing is About

2007-03-25T19:35:00.002-04:00

Today I added one more descriptor to my ever-expanding list of What Makes Me a Real Chicagoan: I ran the Shamrock Shuffle.

LaSalle Bank, locally-headquartered financial giant and sponsor of the Chicago Distance Classic half marathon and the Chicago Marathon, puts on the Shuffle every year around St. Patrick's Day. And just as St. Patty's Day is no little deal in this town, the Shamrock Shuffle is no little deal.

The Shuffle is Chicago's most popular race, with about 25,000 participants annually, most of them locals. It makes sense. Eight kilometers, or five miles, is an attainable goal for the average person who works out fairly regularly. It's no wimpy 5K, but it's not the killer marathon, either. Plus, you get a coupon for a free beer if you complete the race, and we all know how Chicagoans feel about beer, especially Northsiders, and especially around St. Patrick's Day.

Some Chicagoans have been running the Shuffle for 30 years or more. But until this morning, I don't think I truly understood why the Shamrock Shuffle is a rite of passage for so many.

My friend Laura, an aspiring runner, broached the subject a couple of months ago. We were running at our neighborhood Y, side by side on a pair of treadmills.

"I'm thinking I'm going to do the Shuffle this year," she said out of nowhere. I hit pause on my iPod.

"Are you?" I asked. "Awesome! I'll do it with you." At the time, Laura had just begun to run again after a long stint of battling strained shoulder muscles that continually threw her back out of alignment. She had begun to train again slowly, determined not to sustain any more injuries.

As for me, I'd been running for three years, but had pretty much kept my runs around 5K. The Shuffle would be a challenge I'd have to train for, but challenge sounded good to me - I was ready for something new. Also, I considered myself Laura's self-appointed cheerleader and running coach, so I couldn't let her embark on the road to an 8K without me.

The training was pretty easy - I added a little distance to my runs every week, and while I felt pushed, it wasn't grueling. By the time March 1 rolled around, I was running 5 miles every other day or so. I felt good. Laura was increasing her distance as well, and the week before the Shuffle, she was nearing the 8K mark.

In the month leading up to the race, I began to get pumped. I was in good form, and running at an increasingly speedier pace. A couple of visits to the nutritionist had led me to amp up my intake of protein, healthy fats, and overall calories, resulting in a revved-up metabolism and tons of energy. I was sleeping well.

"This will be easy," I thought. Then the final week of training hit.

The weekend before the Shuffle, I fell during my daily run, my momentum sending me skidding several feet along the sidewalk. The wipeout left me with a deep gash on my right knee, road rash on my left shoulder, and a plethora of colorful bruises.

Then, I found myself in the middle of a misunderstanding with one of my best friends, who didn't seem to be speaking to me, which threw my emotions out of whack and left me feeling antisocial. I just wasn't myself.

When my alarm went off at 7 a.m. on race day, the last thing I wanted to do was run 5 miles with 24,999 other people. I wanted to stay at home under the covers. The simple fact that I'd paid good money to register for the race drove me from my bed and into my running clothes. I inhaled some granola with soy milk and a banana, and left the house.

It was beautiful outside, a true spring morning, but it didn't have much of an effect on my mood. I dutifully headed over to Laura's and together we hopped on the El. My stomach was in knots. Laura started voicing her own doubts.

"I don't know if I can do this," she kept saying. "I must be crazy." But in spite of her words, she looked energized. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes sparkled. She kept laughing at herself and her self-proclaimed ineptitude. Her mom had sent her a package of scrapbooking stickers inscribed with inspirational sayings about running and achieving your goals, and Laura had cheerfully stuck one to her forehead. It read "I can do it!" I was wishing I had half her energy.

"God," I prayed, "I don't feel like doing this. Please carry me. I want to run like the wind, to feel strong and powerful. I need this today Lord..."

When we got to Grant Park, I was overwhelmed by the hordes of people, all in different forms of running gear. The novices were in cotton shorts and t-shirts, the die-hards in various forms of Dri-fit. We lined up in the 11-minute-mile corral, a little faster than Laura's pace, and a little slower than mine.

It took forever to get to the starting line. Ten minutes after the first runners had taken off, we found ourselves approaching the yellow banner that had been strung over Columbus Drive.

"Okay," I thought. "Let's do this."

I headed north on Columbus, swallowed up by a sea of people, quickly getting separated from Laura in the crowd. I cranked up the volume on my iPod, letting the worship music coming from it swell inside me. As I approached the steel-panelled BP pedestrian bridge, I looked up to see onlookers waving and cheering.

When the horde passed under Randolph and into cool darkness, the runners around me started to cheer, deliberately creating an echo that bounced against the steel and concrete.

I emerged into the sunlight, facing a downward slope. All I could see in front of me for hundreds of meters was a sea of heads bobbing. The stream of running bodies was like a ribbon of color rippling in a breeze. I suddenly felt one with this mass of moving humanity, all of us focused on the same goal.

We ran over a bridge, and I looked down through the metal grating to see the green waters of the Chicago River swirling below. We turned west on Grand Avenue, and I smiled up at the John Hancock Center to my right.

I breathed in deeply and thought, as I had so many times during the past two years, "Wow. I love Chicago. I can't believe I live here." The blue sky, the sun on my face, the breeze wafting inland off the lake were working their magic on me. Nothing makes me feel as good as being downtown amidst those towering buildings.

I was amazed to find myself sailing along effortlessly, passing people left and right. During my training runs, I'd felt capable and strong, but slow. Now, I was stunned to see that I had truly improved since the last time I'd run a race. My pace was smooth, my breathing easy, and yet I was constantly moving up in the stream of bodies. My legs seemed to be moving of their own accord.

I noticed that there were all kinds of people running this race: old, young, slow, fast. Some were jogging laboriously, others were walking. Some appeared to be sprinting at intervals. But regardless of the differences, everyone seemed purposeful, driven, determined to finish.

All along the race course, people were lining the sidewalks, cheering on runners both familiar and strange, holding up posters emblazoned with words of encouragement. I knew there were no familiar faces in the cheering audience, but I reveled in the encouragement anyway, knowing that it was making success possible for people who were struggling to keep going.

"God," I whispered internally, "This is awesome."

The running throng wound through the Loop, past the Chicago Theater and the Marshall Fields building, west to Union Station, south to Van Buren and back towards the lake. The mile markers came and went quickly. As I rounded a corner onto South Michigan Avenue, the Field Museum came into view and I realized we had to be nearing the end.

"Already?" I thought.

I turned left with the crowd onto Roosevelt, ran up a bridge over the Metra tracks, and turned left again onto Columbus. The yellow finish line banner was just ahead, maybe a quarter of a mile away. I suddenly recalled the urgings of my friend Mark, a marathon runner, during a run on the Lakeshore Trail two weeks prior:

"Always sprint the final leg of a race," he'd advised me. "Nothing feels better than finishing at a sprint." I could see the time clock, milliseconds flashing. I mentally did the math and saw that I was going to set a personal best time of 50 minutes - no great feat, but for someone who couldn't run a block three years ago, it's a big deal. A surge of adrenalin welled up inside me, and I broke into an all-out sprint, legs pumping hard, stride as long as I could make it.

As I leapt across the finish with a single stride, I threw my arms up in triumph, knowing it was incredibly cliche' and totally cheesy, but understanding for the first time why runners cross the finish with their hands in the air. I hadn't done anything extraordinary. I had probably come in somewhere in the middle of the pack time-wise, but I had accomplished something. I had proven something to myself, however small in the grander scheme of things.
Fifteen minutes later, I'd managed to escape the crush of people attacking the water and snack stations and made my way back to the statue of Abe Lincoln in Grant Park, where Laura and I had planned to meet if we got separated. I was stretching my legs when, hearing my name, I looked up to see her barrelling towards me, arms waving, beaming from ear to ear.

"I diiiiiiiid iiiiiiiit!" she hollered as she hurled herself at me. We threw our arms around each other, jumping up and down like kids with the excitement of our success.

That final picture from the day, Laura's face suffused with the joy and pride of her accomplishment, is the image that will stay with me. Because that is what racing is about.

Runner's Feet

2007-02-23T20:56:00.001-05:00

My feet used to be soft. Beach worthy. Flip-flop worthy. Bright pink toenail polish worthy. Not so now. Not since I became a runner.

I have calluses.

The first time I went to my chiropractor, Kris, she looked me over from head to foot. When she got to my size 8's, she stopped short.

"Oh honey," she said. "Wow. You're a supinator."

"Huh?" I said.

"You have really high arches," Kris explained. "Under-pronation."

"Pronation is how much of the sole of your foot touches the ground when you walk," she went on. "Most people have flat feet, which is called over-pronation, but you're the opposite. In fact, I think you might have the highest arches I've ever seen. High arches are under-pronation, but extreme under-pronation is called supination. And you, my dear, are a supinator."

Great, I thought. Thank the genetics.

Being a supinator, as Kris termed it, means that when I run, a lot of extra pressure is put on the heels and balls of my feet. It means I get calluses. Massive ones. Ugly ones.

I tried lotion. I tried pedicures. I tried soaking my feet until I could literally scrape the calluses off with my fingernails. But it's a losing battle. No matter how much I fight the calluses, with every mile I add to my endurance training, they grow. If I get rid of them, they simply come back within a few runs. So I've given up.

I am, you see, a runner for life. Running is what centers me. It revives me, makes me feel alive in a way nothing else can. When I run, I feel strong, powerful, whole. I'm not willing to give it up for anything. Certainly not for better-looking feet.

My calluses, unattractive though they are, have become for me a badge of honor - a symbol of my commitment to running, to strength, to fitness, to my body. I wear them proudly.

The Girlfriend Rule

2006-12-13T18:13:00.001-05:00

My roommate and I went to Cafe' Lula in Logan Square this past Saturday morning for breakfast. We were enjoying our respective gourmet fare (her, a fritatta, and me, brioche mascarpone-stuffed french toast) when a couple, our age-ish and obviously enamored with each other, walked in and requested a table. They were put on the waiting list and, thus, sat down at the bar adjacent to us.

Mid-bite, I glanced their way just as they were removing their coats. I nearly choked on my mascarpone at the sight of the girl's very cute hand-crocheted sweater. But I didn't choke on the cuteness of it. It was the price tag hanging out of her collar that got me.

She was close enough that I could read it: $188. Ouch. My paltry high school teacher's salary does not allow for such extravagance. However, it wasn't the extraordinary price that caught in my throat, either. It was the outright tackiness of the tag's presence. And I, Ms. Cool-in-a-Crisis, had no clue how to react in this odd Dilemma of Manners. Was the tag a fashion faux pas, or had she left it there on purpose as some sort of upper-echelon identifier? The latter seemed ridiculous, but people have done worse.

As for the girl, she seemed blissfully unaware. She and her boyfriend/husband/whatever were laughing quietly, plainly delighting in each other's company.

I had to do something.

"Amy," I whispered, "Turn around and look at that girl. But do it slowly. Check out her sweater."

Amy turned her head slowly to look over one shoulder. When she saw what I was looking at, her hand flew to her mouth. She whipped back around, wide-eyed.

"Do you think she knows it's there?" she asked me, caught between horror and a fit of giggles.

"I have no idea," I said, "But I wish her boyfriend would notice it."

"Should we say something?" Amy asked.

"I'm trying to decide that. I mean, how do you go up to a stranger and tell her her price tag is hanging out of her collar? And what if she knows?"

"You mean, what if it's intentional?" Amy giggled again. "I don't know, Harm - you don't think that's really possible, do you?"

"Nooooo...not really." I was trying to decide what to do. I stared at the couple, willing him to see the tag. But they were gazing into each other's eyes, deep in conversation.

What would I want someone to do if they saw me with a tag hanging out of my clothes? I asked myself. That was it. I put down my fork and began to rise.

As I did, she leaned closer to her companion, and the tag swung forward on its thread, coming to rest on her shoulder. It caught his eye, and laughing, he reached out and grabbed it, holding it up for her to see. With a gasp, she snatched it from his fingers and stuffed it down the back of her sweater. Then she laughed. And caught my stare.

"Did you see that?" she asked me, laughing outright.

"Yeah," I admitted. "We were trying to decide whether or not we should say something."

"If you had," she said, "I'd have bought your breakfast."

Just then, the hostess arrived to tell them their table was ready. Giving me a cute little wave, she bounced away, her man in tow.

I didn't save her from embarassment, but at least I know I would have. And to her, it was worth the cost of my breakfast (no little thing at Cafe' Lula). That fact alone cemented something for me: women need to know other women have their backs. Thus, the Girlfriend Rule. If you're a woman reading this, take note.

More than one safe stop on the Green Line

2006-11-27T18:09:00.002-05:00

I was at a party in Lincoln Park. The room was crowded with bodies, the air vibrating with voices that ricocheted off the hardwood floor and high ceilings. In spite of the noise and my own conversation, I overheard someone say:

"There's only one safe stop on the Green Line."

The speaker was someone I didn't know well. But I did know a few things that didn't give him much credibility within the context of his comment. He's 24. He's white. He's not a native Chicagoan (neither am I, but I should be). He's a North Side resident. He rarely rides the Green Line.

There's more than one safe stop on the Green Line, and I'm not just thinking of the Oak Park stops, or the Loop stops. In fact, if you're not a fool, every stop on the Green Line is a "safe" stop. Maybe it's not smart to get off at some stops after dark, or to walk those neighborhoods alone, but it is always safe to use the El, provided you use some common sense.

I'm a 31-year-old white woman, and I ride the El alone. I ride fearlessly, but I ride smart. If it's late, I ride in the first car, where the driver sits, and leave my pricey electronics (read: iPod) buried in my bag. If someone approaches me and I don't want to be bothered, I make a call from my cell phone. When I depart, I make a call to my roomie to say where I am.

"Safe" is all relative.

Yes, crazy things happen in Chicago. But rarely do they happen on the El to people who have their wits about them. They happen in South Side alleyways, where men are found decapitated and rolled up in old carpet (like the account I read in the Tribune this morning). They happen in West Side apartments where women are attacked by gangbangers high on their own stash.

They happen to people hemmed in by the unending cycle of injustice that lies beyond the West and South boundaries of the Loop - a facade of magnificent architecture and wrought iron bridge railings, fountains that shoot above the trees and stunning flower gardens that line the Magnificent Mile.

Most atrocities happen in the unseen Chicago, to the unknown Chicagoans.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, maybe you should read Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here.

I'm making a lot out of one comment.

I resented the judgment about the El because it sounded shallow, pompous and borderline racist. (I wanted to ask him to "unpack" his remark, to reveal his motivation. I didn't. I should have). I wanted to say, "Ok, buddy, let's talk about why parts of Chicago aren't safe. Let's talk about politics and corruption and racism and the repeating cycle of poverty. Let's talk about who caused that."

I don't think the guy meant to bring out the Social Justice beast within me, or anyone else who happened to hear him. I'm not even sure he was really being a bigot. So I kept my reaction to myself, which was probably the Christlike thing to do. Had I spoken, I probably would not have represented Jesus very well. It would have been more like the scene where he tears up the temple courts, screaming at the moneylenders. Ugly.

Yeah, it's a good thing I didn't do that. He wouldn't have "got" it.

We All Need Our Own Damen Courts

2006-11-21T22:46:00.001-05:00

My 11th graders and I just finished reading Alex Kotlowitz's phenomenal book, There Are No Children Here, about two boys growing up in the Chicago projects in the late 80's. In one chapter, the younger of the two boys, Pharoah Rivers, finds that he can sneak away from the hellish high rise he calls home to a quiet, serene condominium complex nearby called Damen Courts. At Damen Courts, no one bothers him, there are no gunshots, and he can clear his mind and get some peace.

As my students and I were talking about Pharoah's need for escape and the amazing fact that he was able to find solace in something as unlikely as a bunch of condos, I found myself suddenly asking the class a question that wasn't part of the study guide: "What is your Damen Courts?" I wondered aloud.

The room fell silent. Slowly, hands went up. "My room," said one girl. "My best friend's house," said another. Other voices started to chime in. "The park." "The beach." "My lake house in Wisconsin." Everyone had his or her own version of Pharoah's Damen Courts.

I left class with the issue on my mind. What, I thought to myself, is my Damen Courts? Where do I go to get peace, to gather myself together in a time of crisis, to hear God speak away from the clang and clamor of daily life, to just relax and regroup at the end of a crazy day? I am blessed to have several places that offer such solace.

The bookstore, where I can wander uninterrupted and lose myself in the rows upon rows of colorful volumes, the smell of new paper and ink. Any Starbucks (cliche' though it is, I must be honest), where I inevitably walk up to the counter and rattle off the following as though it might be a mantra: "tall nonfat chai extra-hot please." Foster Avenue Beach on the North Side when the weather is good, where I spread a sleeping bag underneath a tree and lie in the sun, watching leaves trace patterns against blue sky.

These are places, but I think the concept of a Damen Courts can stretch beyond locales. I find my own Damen Courts in other things as well: in composing a poem or an essay like this one, in going for a long run in the fresh air, in conversations that take place on a friend's couch with a view of the Field Museum through the window behind me, in a day spent at Wrigley Field.

I find my own Damen Courts in prayer, too. In fact, the moments I spend alone with God, seeking his voice, reaching to feel his actual presence, are probably the best version of Damen Courts I can think of. They are the most peaceful, fulfilling moments of my life. And I have far too little time for them. Correction: I make far too little time for them.

My small group (the mainstream Christian name for Bible Study) is reading a book called The Safest Place on Earth by Larry Crabb. It's about spiritual community - something we all long for, Christian or not. Crabb suggests that we all have two rooms (metaphorically, of course). The Lower Room contains the stuff of our non-spiritual lives, the earthly parts of us that are hard to escape or deny (and to which we are undeniably way too attached). The Upper Room is where we get close to God. It is where we are at peace. Crabb asserts we all need to get better at spending time in our Upper Rooms.We need to hang out there as much as possible, he says.

Maybe Pharoah's Damen Courts is a simpler version of Larry Crabb's Upper Room. I'm not suggesting that my more earthly versions of Damen Courts (Starbucks, for example) meet the requirements of a spiritual Upper Room of the kind Crabb describes. However, I also believe that you can connect with God anywhere, if you are willing to open your soul to him. And often, it takes a moment of peace for us to do that. If that moment occurs in Starbucks, or Barnes & Noble, or at a baseball game, so be it. God, after all, meets us wherever we are.

Thank goodness for that.