You Have to Know Their Name

After writing in my last post about words becoming flesh, and talking about Social Justice over at Sorta Crunchy for 40 Days of Community, I couldn't help but be reminded of how important our actions are when talking about social justice.

Wes and I are taking a group of 6 high school kids on a mission trip to Los Angeles this summer, and we have been meeting weekly with them to help prepare them for the trip. They have readings, reflections and bible memorization's due, all to help point them towards a better understanding of homelessness and our call to continue to work with God to bring His Kingdom to earth. We want to teach them that the Gospel is more than words, it is action (and even more than just action, it is hearing the stories of others). I thought I would research a little bit to see the demographics of the homeless in our town to share with the kids.

I decided to look up "homeless in (our town)" on google. And although I could not find any homeless shelters in my town, I did find a "Help for the Homeless Pets" here. "Wow" was all I could say. We have people sleeping in the riverbed every night and yet we have shelters for pets and not for PEOPLE.

Our town does not have a homeless shelter...and the closest one is at least a 30 minute drive. And yet we have so many homeless people living here, camped out under tarps in the riverbed.

To be honest, I'm not one to talk. I've never even been down in the riverbed. We have one place where the hungry can receive a meal, and it's only once a week and I've never served food there.

I have served the homeless before, though. I have talked with them, eaten with them, ridden the bus with them. I have. But it has been so long. In the 2 years I've lived in this town, I have only had conversations with one homeless man...and that's only because we knew him before he was homeless. I guess...it's just...that I've forgotten them. I've stopped seeing their faces, so it doesn't hurt as much anymore. I don't KNOW them anymore...so I don't think about them.

Needless to say, I'm not good at this yet. I'm really very good at articulating what needs to be done. And I know quite a bit about Social Justice..but it's the doing it that is the hardest. I'm not there yet...but I'm trying (And knowing the needs is the first step). I want to really help people, but it's hard to know where to start sometimes.

I love organizations like Compassion International, Toms Shoes and Operation Christmas Child...but where are we challenging people to be face to face with those in need? Am I challenged? These organizations are doing wonderful things...but...It is EASY to sponsor a child for 38 dollars a month. It is EASY to buy a pair of Toms. It is EASY to fill a shoebox once a year. It is not as easy to walk the riverbed where the homeless sleep on the ground. It is not as easy to eat a meal with the homeless at the soup kitchen. It is not as easy to give a sandwich to a child who has sores on her body because her family can't even afford to go to the clinic.

It is easy to give money. It is easy to separate us from the homeless. It's when you know their name that things get sticky. It's when you know that Bonnie has 3 children and lives on the street. It's when you know that Jessie can't get out of prostitution. It's when you know that Chuck can't get a job....it's then when your heart truly breaks...and its then that you see Jesus.

Here are some things to get us headed in the right direction...

• If you want a good song that reminds us of where we see Jesus, please listen to this song called "Jesus" by Shaun Groves.
• If you want a good book please read "The Social Justice Handbook" by Mae Elise Cannon.
• If you live in San Diego County please visit these places bringing heaven to earth: North County Solutions for Change, Fill-A-Belly, and Hidden Treasures.
• Please find local organizations and spend some time volunteering there!

May we know the stories of the weak. May we know the names of poor. And may we always see Jesus in their faces.

James 2: 15- 16 "If you know someone who doesn't have any clothes or food, you shouldn't just say, "I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat." What good is it to say this, unless you do something to help?"

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

Community Feels

For the past few days I was hit hard with a personal issue. It wasn't one I wanted to share with many...in fact only 3 people knew (besides my husband). When it happened, I just couldn't keep it inside of me. It scared me, it made me nervous...I couldn't do it alone. I told my 3 closest friends and their words flooded me with support. No matter what happened, no matter how it went, they were there for me. They FELT what I felt. They lavished me with good words. When I found that the outcome wasn't what I had expected, I was crushed. When I told them the results, they were sad too.

Community feels. In a true community, when one hurts, we all cry. When one feels joy, we all dance. Thank God for the love of friends.

When have you felt for others? When have others felt for you?

“A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons." - Bishop Desmond Tutu

Words and Birds

My neighbors in the apartment next to me have this big beautiful parrot. I usually don't hear it very often but today the bird is out of the balcony while they are doing some cleaning inside.

I've always enjoyed birds. I've had love birds, cockatiels, and the last bird I had was a nanday conure named Jazz. He looked just like this:

I loved that bird but had to give him away when I went off to college. Jazz used to sing and whistle all the time, but he never talked. My neighbors parrot on the other hand...can't stop talking. It laughs, and says a new phrase every couple of minutes...I actually thought my neighbor was on the porch it imitates so well!

I could hear the bird say "Quit it!" "What is it now?!" "Get to bed!" several times...mostly "quit it" (Which I've heard the mom actually say to her kids quite frequently). It seemed very telling to me. What if you had something repeating the most common, most used phrases in your house? What would they be? What are the words you choose to say?

I'm sure if I had a talking bird in my house it would probably say at least these two common phrases (I'll let you guess which is the one my husband says and which one I say)

"Clean up the house!"
"Could you please get off the xbox?!"

What words are resonating in our home? What is our focus? How do our words reflect us?

I realized last night that my husband and I both have one of the same mechanisms in conflict: we say mean things. We both do it. And we both can say heart breaking things to one another. Not prime "building others up" kind of material here. At the end of a fight we say we don't mean what we said...but that damage has been done.

Last night I felt guilty about those words I had been saying. If you say things long enough, people believe they are true about themselves. I went up to my husband and grabbed his face (btw I have no concept of personal space so this happens a lot haha!) and said "I know I've said some hurtful things to you. I want you to know that I'm moving forward and I don't want to say those things to you anymore."I can't guarantee that I will suddenly stop this pattern we've gotten ourselves into, but at least I can try. And at least we can focus on other words.

I'd hope that if I had a bird in my home, it's most common phrase would be "I love you."

A Meal With Theologians (and their wives)

This weekend my husband and I went to a potluck. For the past 6 months Wes has been meeting monthly with a group of youth pastors who all work at churches (from all kinds of denominations) about half an hour from our town. They decided last month that it would be fun to get their families all together to meet each other and share a meal.

To be honest I was kind of dreading it at first. I LOVE being with people but lately I've been so busy with church, work, youth group, marriage etc that all I want to do at the end of the day is be alone. This was a very important time for Wes so I bucked up and went along.

We arrived to meet with about 5 different youth pastors and their families and I couldn't have had a better night. We may all come from different theological backgrounds, different family types, but we were all youth pastors and youth pastors' wives, and there's no one who can understand you more than someone going through the same thing.

Wes and I live in a small town where there aren't many young couples or families and there are even less people who have a similar perspectives and passions. Most of the time we feel very alone. We have a small group at our church that we love, but there is a little something missing.

At first I just stayed next to Wes listening to the guys talk about ministry and theology and life. Then one of the kids came outside and wanted me to play with her (comfort zone!) so we walked upstairs and I found all the kids and their mom's. Now, I'm not a mom (been married just under a year) but with my background working with children and my love for people, it's pretty easy for me to join the group. We started by introducing ourselves but it quickly went to some real issues that resonated with all of us as wives of those in ministry. We talked about, time management, painful ministry hierarchy, marriage, about opening up our home for someone to live in, or humbling yourself to live with someone else...it was just so good to be around a whole group of people that feel the same feelings and think the same things. We clicked.

It's funny...earlier that night one Youth Pastor was talking about how parents in his church were upset that there were "clicks" in the youth group....but you can't force people to be friends. Those "clicks" are a solid group of friends dedicated to each other. You can teach people to love each other and be kind to your enemies...but that doesn't mean they will always connect.

An important part of community is CONNECTION. Common interest. Similar personalities. You can't force people to connect. You can't force community. (But you can have meals together to discover those connections!)

I picked my best friends - the ones I share my heart with. I don't share that with everyone...and that's okay! At the end of the night our group had asked if we wanted to do this more regularly, hosting at differnet homes (and the possibility of starting a small group bible study). YES. YES PLEASE! We need a community of people dedicated to each other. Feeling along side us.

Let's just say...

I can't wait for our next meal together.

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."