Trash or Treasure

Dude, I have been a moody individual of late - have vacillated between March madness and menopause as possible explanations.  Seriously.

It's Lent and that's been a whole thing.  Possibly, that explains it.

I've found myself stirring up trouble, speaking out of turn, or against my inner compass at times - each time feeling very nearly out of control.

Then I saw Why am I not further along in my Christian walk? and decided to just take a walk.

I took some pictures.

These are not the high-quality, super appeal-to-the-masses kind of photos that generally accompany photo blogs.  These are, however, places that I see beauty and blessings.  I do, in fact, see it all around me and nearly all of the time when I'm making good choices about where I turn my gaze.

A friend just posted a picture where she sees the same.  It's a picture of her daughter, wearing a pink princess dress, hair all a'yonder, and holding a garden slug as if it were the tiniest, sweetest baby bird.  My friend says that when her girl realized she would get to hold the thing, she exclaimed ~ with much fervor ~ that she had waited her "WHOLE LIFE" for a garden slug.

I pray that young'un never loses her heart or her enthusiasm or her desire or her ability to see the beauty and blessing that God does deliver all around us.

I pray that you may see the same.

Tap Out

I am finding fewer and fewer sound-seeming reasons for showing up, but it’s not for lack of looking, I promise.

It’s been a whole thing, this searching out, this attempting to reach the end of certain sentences.  Would that I could even start one of those here and now, but time ~ or lack of it ~ that’s a whole other thing.

So I’ll just tell you about the day that one of my favorite bloggers sinned in public.

See, she posted this video that was one of those horrible “you really shoulda known better” kind of things, set to music.  And she shared it with a note about how she'd watched it over and over again, and how she'd laughed so hard, and also how much she obviously needed Jesus because of it.  Folks, I made some time for that.  I watched it over and over again.  I laughed really hard.  I downloaded it.  Re-mastered it with better music.

Then I went back and started reading the comments on her post.

Folks, let me just say...

There were others like me (as I’m finding more and more to be true).  People who saw the humor.  People who needed a laugh.  A break, for durn sake.

But there were other people who tore this girl a new one.

“You are a Christian.”
“You are a leader.”
“You are a dignitary for Jesus.”₁

In other words, your a** had durn sure better never make a mistake, or laugh, or let loose for a second, or fail to live precisely the life that Jesus led or you will have failed in front of all of us to do what we durn sure knew you couldn’t do anyway.  Which is to be perfect.

Now please, for all of our sakes, don’t think that I think that lets the leaders off the hook - this knowing that none of us will ever be perfect.  The leaders have a high call and a greater responsibility to do like they oughta.  I know that painfully well as one who serves in various leadership roles with my church.  I regularly review my own actions, and, often enough, I have regret.  Often enough, I know that were I to have the kind of attention that some of my favorite bloggers do, maybe regret would be an understatement.

So ever since that day, since the day that girl put herself out there to such chagrin (if mine), I've been asking myself if the public arena is someplace I even want to be.  Yeah, no, I'm not even in the ring yet...

So as I said, it's been a whole thing, and the thing that comes to mind now is this:

"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”" Luke 18:9-14 (NIV)

Oh, God help me to be humble ~ at all times, in all situations, including those times that someone is calling me to a higher standard.  God, forgive me when I screw up and remind me to be merciful to others when they do the same, or worse, or even just meh.  God, thank you for getting me this far, for helping me to see as much as I do, and for all that I know you'll help me to eventually grasp.  Thank you, especially, that whatever I've done or will do tomorrow or the next day or the next, I don't have to hang my head in shame because I have Jesus.  I pray I never stand apart from that confidence.



1 Obviously, these are hardly new-one-tearing kinds of statements.  I'm totally summarizing the discussion that called her entire character into question.

Simple Sally Said

I’ve recently started realizing that I’m a little leftward-leaning toward the simple side of thinking.

Like, what I mean is that I don’t exactly have the deep thoughts I’ve been thinking myself to have all these years.  Or maybe I’m, like, halfway between here and there, but I don’t have the skill set and vernacular that enables other folks to 1)complete that journey; and/or,  2)take others along for the ride, journalistically speaking.

And sometimes, even, it’s not just that I can’t have, complete, or convey a thought.  Sometimes I really just don’t know what the heck is going on.

Here’s an example:

I read something the other day that referenced the “evangelical Christian” versus the “mainline Christian,”₁ and I was like, what does that even mean?  I mean, I know what "evangelical" means because I just looked it up.  Seriously, just last week. Because simple, like I said.  And I was, like, oh, wow, I believe all of that so I guess it turns out I’m one of those!

But in order to say anything about any of this to any of you, I had to explore the "mainline" definition as well.  Well, let me tell you!  I definitely don’t know what the heck is going on.

And I could have spent some more time. I could have read some more stuff, referenced some more stuff.  And then I could have given you here an extrapolation based entirely on my own sagacity.  However, some of the first material that I read, well, it was sufficient for my intendment.

Let’s just say that guy #2₂ puts me in the mainline.

So I am essentially at odds with myself.

But I already knew that.

Daily now I’m struggling with things both inward and outward.  There are days when, honest-to-God, I wonder and wish that I should just go.  There are other days when I have no question about my place and means of service.  I’d be alright if somebody would just tell me plainly what to do.  I like the narration feature!

(I know, I know.  I oughta be off the narration by now.  Anyhow.)

This struggle ~ it’s breaking off bits of my heart, making me jaggedy, mean and difficult to be around sometimes.  I don’t like change, but I like even less the idea of staying the same.

This morning, Andy Stanley asked me, “What if we didn't...”  I don’t remember the rest of the question, but it wasn't lost on me.₃

I wonder what kind of Christian he is.

This Christian versus that Christian thing...
What if we don’t get it together, come together, overcome?

What if we do?  What if we drop the versus and just be God’s people?
God, help us that it could be that simple!₄

***

Here’s another example.  A friend recently told me that I can grow garlic from the cloves I buy at the grocery store.  I spent nearly one whole minute trying to figure out how on earth they’d grow after soaking in that jar of whatever that stuff is.

***

On the matter of Lent and the subject of quitting ... this article just kept coming up, and so I finally gave in, and as far as I could comprehend, I should just quit writing.  But I just quit reading the article instead.


1 Benediction By Katherine Willis Pershey; I quite like this piece.
2 Can't reference this material because, while it was helpful, it was quite biased, and some of it in ways that I'm not sure would offend more one way or the other.
3 Especially since I heard this at my own church two days ago.  To note, my church has recently changed its name.
4 To be as honest as I can muster, there's a voice in my head right now saying that some Christians need to be shaken or pinched.  I'm not sure if that makes me evangelical, mainline, or human. God, help us indeed.