Word Becoming Flesh

My birthday was last week. I love birthdays...I mean, I LOVE THEM. Needless to say when I realized that my birthday fell during lent and I had already resolved to delete my facebook, I was devastated. NO ONE WILL REMEMBER MY BIRTHDAY!

For my birthday I ended up getting 3 cards, 1 email, 2 phone calls (This does not include immediate family which added a few more) and 10 text messages.

This is not to say that I had a bad birthday, it was very nice and those who contacted me made it very special, but I wanted to break that down because my last birthday I got 40+ birthday message on my facebook wall (with minimal phone calls no cards and no texts). This year, without facebook, there were 15 people who wished me a happy birthday and 75% of them still resorted to a text based communication. I find this so fascinating! And I also relate to it so well.

I used facebook as my primary means of communication. And now that I have given it up, I have to actually WORK in my relationships now. I have to make time to cultivate my friendships. Before lent I was completely satisfied with reading others facebook posts and commenting on them, almost as my sole means of communicating with them. See, I am a very busy person. I work 3 jobs and my husband is a youth pastor and I am highly involved with his ministry as well. It was easier and more efficient to send a text and a comment. But at what cost? I have lost the value of sitting together, sharing our hearts and lives with one another.

It really makes me think about how we choose to communicate and how that can impact the message of what we are saying (and how that communication deepens or widens our personal relationships).

The other night I was watching a video series at a Bible study and we heard the story about a man who had a hard time expressing his feelings of love to his son, so he wrote them in a letter. The commentator called this act "word becoming flesh" they did not just stay inside someone's head or heart, they were spoken. And the farther we get from internet/text based "words" the more precious those words are. The closer we get to real face to face communication, the more vulnerable we are, and the more vulnerable we are, the better we can be God's love to those around us, and receive that love back.

Note on my wall at facebook - Text message - Phone call - Letter in the mail - Going out for coffee.......I'd much rather give/receive the last 3 means of communication...but it seems like they have become an obsolete means of communication.

Shane Hipps, author of "Flickering Pixels" and teaching Pastor at Mars Hill Church says this about relationships and facebook:

"The narcissism created by these technologies [facebook] is unique. It encourages not just self-absorption, but, more accurately, self-consumption. We become creators and consumers of our own brand. We become enamored by a particular kind of self, a pseudo-self.....This heavily edited and carefully controlled self easily hides certain parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see. This is hardly new, of course. In any social situation, we seek to control the impression we give. The problem is that in real social settings, there are limits to what we can hide. At a certain point, people intuitively see through us. Eventually they get a sense of who we really are. And in this way, real friendships can function as a healthy mirror. They become an honest mirror that loves but doesn’t flatter us."

This kind of real face to face communication is so vital for us to grow and feel and live. So vitally important for us to become deeper followers of Jesus Christ.

Let us remember: God did not shout from the heavens "I love you my children, you are free from the curse." No, God sent Jesus. A real live man who loved his enemies, ate with the poor, physically died for us, and then miraculously rose from the dead. It's as real flesh and blood as you can get. God did not just speak it. He loved us too much for that. This is what we are celebrating on Easter: God became flesh and blood and died a flesh and blood kind of death and then defeated that death so that we could be face to face with God and His kingdom.

So as we continue through lent, may we act out our relationships in the fleshiest kind of ways.

John 1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Reflections on Community (2)

Focusing on community through the 40 days of community challenge has been a real blessing to me and a compliment to what I gave up for lent: facebook. It's funny really...the first few days without facebook were HORRIBLE. I felt disconnected from everyone, I felt left out of certain information (because no one remembers to tell you in person if they already put it on facebook!)...it was hard. But I decided to continue on.

I started calling people (most of my family and close friends don't live near me anymore so this is the communication I have right now) to see how things were going...and one conversation in particular stands out to me. I called my youngest brother Chris (I'm the oldest of 4 kids) who turned 18 not too long ago. We ended up talking for about an hour and a half. We talked about transitions, jobs, money, housing, music and relationships. I got to really open up about my hopes surrounding future employment and moving soon (oddly enough we are in the same boat with these two topics!)

By the end of our conversation, it felt so good to SHARE LIFE with him. To support each other and know that we would be there in the good and the bad. Before we hung up I said to him "Yeah I just called you to see what's going on now that I can't read it on facebook anymore" and he said "You know...all the things we talked about I haven't really shared with anyone, especially on facebook." I'm not missing anything on facebook, really. Sure I'm missing status' like "Out to dinner" or "Watching Tommy boy!" but I'd have to actually talk to people to share in the stories of their heart anyway. You know...I just might never go back to facebook...it might have sufficed before lent to just read my brothers mundane status' and never call him...but boy...

...There's nothing better than the love of a brother.

Circa 1992 My sister Thea, My brother Jon, and myself holding my brother Chris

Reflections on Community (1)

I am joining in on a journey through lent over at Sorta Crunchy. Each day we are reading a devotion from "Common Prayer" (a book available online at commonprayer.net ). I can't remember the last time I was doing consistent daily devotions...so this has been such a good thing for me! Each week during the "4o Days of Community" I'm going to reflect on my readings from "Common Prayer". This first week was...convicting to say the least! Especially my reading on Wednesday. There was a quote from Basil of Caesarea that said this:

Are you not a robber, you who consider your own that which as been given you solely to distribute to others? This bread which you have set aside is the bread of the hungry; this garment you have locked away is the clothing of the naked; those shoes which you let rot are the shoes of him who is barefoot; those riches you have hoarded are the riches of the poor.

Wow. So straight forward. If you have excess, that excess is for the poor...by hoarding it, you have let the poor continue to be naked and hungry.

Now...a little back story on why this has hit me so hard. My husband and I are hoping to move into a place on our family's land in the next 6 months. This is a better choice all around for us...except for one thing: it's smaller than our 2 bedroom apartment...it's 400 sq ft. And to be honest, we're a little freaked out sometimes when we talk about it...and it's not even for a good reason! We're freaked out because "How will we fit all our stuff in it?" I've talked about this before, but I come from a long line of family hoarders! We love to save any thing that has even a little meaning or that could maybe be used later. THIS IS GOING TO BE HARD.

I found a mom who lives in a small place too that has simplified her life. I LOVE THE WEBSITE! It has tips on how to do exactly what I desperately want to do....I have a lot of things to go through...but how can I not be compelled. It is only excess...it is only "stuff". What really matters in this life is how we love God and others.

Matthew 25:41-45 "I was hungry, but you did not give me anything to eat, and I was thirsty, but you did not give me anything to drink. I was a stranger, but you did not welcome me, and I was naked, but you did not give me any clothes to wear. I was sick and in jail, but you did not take care of me." Then the people will ask, "Lord, when did we fail to help you when you were hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in jail?"

The king will say to them, "Whenever you failed to help any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you failed to do it for me."

Lent - Making Room for God

I realized today that this will be my first real participation in the season of lent. Growing up in an evangelical church, we were more interested in Good Friday and Easter than Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. And I'd never practiced the discipline of lent - never given or taken something up for those 40 days before Easter.

Now that Wes and I have been involved with a more traditional church for the past few years, I am learning more about this wonderful season. And with us being more theologically minded, I really wanted to take lent seriously. There's no giving up "candy" or "soda" for me. This needed to mean something. It needed to be something that makes room for God.

I was trying to explain lent to some 1st and 2nd grade kids in our church. Eventually I ended up saying "Lent is giving up (or taking up) something that you like to do, but if done too much, could be bad for you, and by giving it up it will bring you closer to God." And our kids actually came up with some cute ideas like, "I will stop shopping at "Justice"" , "I will stop riding in the car and walk more", "I will give up my video games" and "I will stop fighting with my sister" etc.

So I have been thinking long and hard about what to do for lent. Wes and I are following this guideline to help us:

1. What kind of person do you want to be?
2. What keeps you from being who you want to be?
3. How does giving this up, strengthen your relationship with God and others?

After thinking about it for some time, I finally realized this:

I want to be present in the lives of those around me. Instead, I feel myself very disconnected from those around me, even though I am connected to hundreds of people through social networks like facebook and twitter. In fact, those social network sites are hindering my ability to focus on those around me. I can know everything my cousin is doing everyday because of status updates...but when was the last time I actually talked to my cousin? Ate with my cousin? Laughed with my cousin? Facebook gives me (us?) a false sense of closeness - not to mention I spend an average of 4 hours a day on it. Giving up facebook will give me space to make room for God and others. It will force me to watch a movie with my husband, instead of sit on the computer while he plays video games. It will force me to call up a friend for coffee (because I've suddenly opened up a couple hours of my evening!). It will give me time to read, write and pray.

I recently discovered a blog that I totally dig called Sorta Crunchy written by a mom who's passions seem to be very similar to mine. She is starting a Lenten practice called "40 days of community". This community of bloggers and readers will be participating in a few "challenges" but one of my favorites is this: Once a week, share a meal with someone you've never shared a meal with before.

WOW.

What a vulnerable but life-nourishing challenge! It is hard to eat with those you don't know well. It can be awkward! But what a great compliment to what I am desperately trying to do: spend quality time with those around me. We are also reading a book together called "Common Prayer" by Shane Claiborn (who I love tremendously) and we will be writing reflections on what we are reading. Please check out that post specially here.