I guarantee either you, or one you lead, struggles with body, image, or body image problems. It’s unarguably one of the most pertinent topics for modern ministry.  So pertinent, and expansive, really, that I’ll not pretend one chunk of thoughts suffices for conclusions.  But as I’ve said before, blogging is fun cause random chunks and admitted inconclusions are okay.  So here goes...
 
I’ve been struggling with my own image issues lately, so decided to put a blanket over my full-length mirror.  It’s been great. Has forced me to ponder “seeing myself” and “what I look like,” from a different angle.  And oddly enough, drawn me back to an afternoon in northern Uganda last summer.  Walking with a local through random bush villages, at one point he warned, “Now most of these people have never seen a white person, so there’s no telling how they’ll react.” What he didn’t tell me, however, was that “most of these people” were children—most of this village was under age fifteen, so young in years, maybe, but severely aged in what they’d seen. For the brunt of the afternoon, I spent time playing with kids of a different generation, different language and different worldview.  Statistically speaking, I’ll live to 78.  They’ll be lucky to make next year.  I have a set of parents, plus godparents and a handful of random parents, who could further parent me should something happen to my own.  These kids are their own.
 
Most of my time was spent with a family of nine.  Both parents had died, leaving their oldest at 11’ish and youngest less than six months.  Not only had none of them seen a white person, but neither had any of them seen themselves. The closest they’d come was the reflection from a shallow puddle, or shiny knife.  So suffice it to say, introductions to a digital camera were pure magic.  At first they seemed to think it was a gun, scared to death and wanting nothing to do with this black weapon.  But eventually, they realized the little tool could produce some pretty unbelievable shrapnel. It delivered a picture that was bright, detailed and somehow familiar.  Upon seeing one of the images, the eleven-year-old “mom” of the family ran away crying.  I wonder what she saw? Before long, dots were connected and reflections on the screen quickly yielded into mimics of our scene. And soon after that, logic caught pace with imagination, or imagination with logic, and it was realized they, then, must be in those reflections too? For the first time, these people saw what they looked like.  And yet somehow, it was still evident to me that they knew better than me what their true imaged entailed.
 
To fathom a world without mirrors…a world without measuring panes of size, shape and beauty, or seasoned sightings of how one looks…is unfathomable.  So I’ve been wondering if maybe seeing and sight has a more expansive definition than I’ve been sold—or “reflection” a less holistic answer to my “image”?  Maybe “seeing ourselves,” as we know it, isn’t the end, or beginning, it’s cracked-up to?  Though black boxes and glass are unarguably cool, maybe they don’t see all reality, or show all of ones self?  Furthermore, maybe there are other ways to learn what I look like, than a mirror, screen, or Facebook photo.  It seems that since I am inside of me, I am incapable of fully seeing me.  So maybe like these children, God permits other ways of learning to see—like seeing inwardly, as a means to my outward?  
 
How is it that I surrender something unseen (myself), to Someone unseen (God), in belief that doing so will allow me to see (faith, as described in Hebrews 11:1)?  
 
Maybe our ability to see is somehow rooted in our ability to know?  So that in learning to know ones self, we actually learn what we look like?
 
Let me get back to you.

Airplane

Airplanes are one of the more perplexing things in life to me.  They’re intimate and communal, yet detached and individual. Unfaithful in offering a detailed view, yet immeasurable in light of granting “the big picture.”

I’m flying right now.  En route home from the Orange Conference in Atlanta, which collected thousands of leaders aiming to rethink our thoughtful (and sometimes not so thoughtful) attempts at “Church.”  It was encouraging on many fronts, but overwhelming on many others—revealing a naked and yet overdressed, vow-less and yet overly complex, modern Bride.

The man behind me is speaking German and has ordered three “vodka and tonics.”  The woman in front of me is holding a baby.  She seems sad and tired.  The man beside me snores in intervals of three and hasn’t moved since take-off.  The guy across the way looks about forty, with a young daughter.  Going by their head-gear, they’re Jewish and look to have a tender relationship.  And these are but the inside faces.  My window keeps changing its visage, from cloud, to mountains and soon to be ocean.

Imagine all the stories on just this plane, let alone the faces of atmosphere airing its frame.  Where do they come from?  And where are they going?  Which can’t help but make me think about leaving this conference and wondering where we’re all going—and if the airtime we experienced was enough to change where we’ll choose to go?

I believe the distance between the Church Body is shrinking.  Mileage between denominations and destinations seems to be lessening.  Masses are colliding and ministries collaborating toward new (and newly old) attempts at the Commission.  But I’m still can’t help but realize we’re gonna land in 46 minutes…and all these people are gonna go their own way and reenter their own story.  And I have to wonder if all of us from the conference will do the same?  If all of us in the Church will continue doing the same?  Will we choose to keep colliding on certain fronts, sharing airtime and elevation, but then isolate again when the rubber hits the runway?

Not sure what I’m meaning to say here, exactly, or if there’s every anything conclusive to say after all—heck, I’m thousands of feet in the air, so far from conclusive statements of precision.  I guess I just want us, and me, to be aware of the Churches full process in attempting to fly—the take-off and landing points, as much as the airtime in-between.  That we’d be grounds in our points of departure and destination, but risky in our willingness to head upwards.  I guess I just want our generation of disciples to be with the Bride in all parts of Her aisle—porch and alter, as well as airtime in between.  Flying high with lofty ideas and innovation is good, but its most important and challenging task is “landing well.”  Integrating successfully.  

The bad news is, I have no idea what this looks like.  For me.  For you.  For us.

But the good news is, the pilot just announced a grace period.  Seventeen minutes till landing.

This is a more exposing spread of paragraphs than my norm, so bear with me if I’ve moved into a realm too vulnerable for your tastes.  

So it was my birthday a couple weeks ago.  I’ve never been a big birthday person, but this year really wasn’t.  Birthdays weren’t grand celebrations for me growing-up (conversation/issue for another day), which takes my view of these (birth) days to a benchmark of sorts, but not much more.  (Although my mom does sing a pretty awful, and thus decently hysterical, yearly rendition of “Happy Birthday” to my answering machine.)  All mediocrage aside though, twenty-seven marked the first “bad birthday” I’ve ever had.

Suffice it to say I’ve never been “the typical girl.”  And certainly never the typical “Christian girl.”  I knew I held dreams of marriage and mothering (mothering and marriage is probably the more suitable order).  And I knew I had expectations and assumptions of “right passages.”  But I didn’t know to what extent.

In summary, my 27th birthday woke to an I am single soliloquy spanning Vogue’s entire archive.  Again, rare to my typical form, or at least conscious and shared form (meaning I think this has all been subconsciously around for as long as my birthday has), I hit the girly’est, lonliest, love-craving place I can remember.  No matter how shallow and ungodly it seemed, all I wanted was a man to tell me I was beautiful, and if he had a ring in hand, or was named Ben and/or Jerry, we could’ve just gone straight to the vows.   

These feelings were shocking and depressing enough, but they weren’t even the most pervasive.  I told you this was vulnerable.  The feelings I felt most strongly that sunny 27th morning were sadness and guilt.  Sigmund Freud says depression is repressed anger.   I would agree.  My sadness felt very, very sad, but more honestly, it felt very, very angry. Angry at myself.  Angry at my circumstances—or lack there of.  And angry at my anger.  Furthermore, I felt guilty, apologizing to God for being where I was/am that day/today.  “I’m sorry I’m not married.  I’m sorry I don’t have children. I’m sorry I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.  I’m sorry God…so sorry…”  As phrases hit the page, and further inwardness came out, it felt like I was listening to someone else, and yet something of the lands felt recognizably real, too.

One of the things I appreciate about blogging is that you can click “post” without necessarily finishing a thought process.  And that’s what I’m about to do.  Life is hard.  Believing God has you where you are, on purpose, is hard.  And feels really bad at times.  If the Bible is true though, and the Cross really happened, Something is unfolding that wants you and me to be exactly where we are today.  Even if that means having a bad birthday.  

makes it easier to believe God can handle the whole world in His hands today, but struggles to handle just mine?

How much can the heart take? 
When one man’s battle is another man’s breeze, where is the level to which one can hurt?  Or what is the liberty to which one should help?  Where is the level to which one can guard
his “wellspring of life?”
Or what is the end to which one should unguard
his journey of life?

If you put yourself out there, you put yourself out there. 
   You put yourself in the space.  
                             The space between known and unknown.  
                             The space between seen and unseen.  
When
   you put yourself out there,
   you put yourself into nakedness.  
                       Into the space where shame hides.     Or hollers. 
                                             Where freedom hides.  Or hollers.

Love wants to be one-sided. 
But it’s two. 
You can have my glory,
but there’s a cost at stake, too.  
Love wants to be easy.        
But it’s hard.
You can have my romance,
but there’s a journey standing guard.  

How much can the heart take?

I was walking with friend in Hermosa Beach this weekend.  We decided sipping coffee while watching surfers would be fun (it’s a tough life in southern California), so ascended a hill toward the best java-joint of choice, i.e. Peets, as a family on bikes was noticed as coming toward us.  At first glance they looked like the happy little clan, out for a morning ride.  But in closer observance, the youngest boy had a stench of fear in his eyes, as well as increasingly velocity in his wheels.  He’d lost control and was going downhill fast—literally.  His training wheels were tottering back and forth, swinging his fragile body to dangerous degrees.  “Daaaddddy, I can’t stop,” he screamed, as my friend and I went breathlessly numb.  Mom and Dad were on bikes, too, so were of no help but terrifying stares of horror.  He had about ten yards till he crashed through us, and then about another ten before he hit a big intersection.  In what seemed like an hour-long pass of seconds though, his out-of-control wheels spun him into safety.  Spun him into a cinderblock wall.  Into a cement savior who’d come to his rescue.

Though the entrance wasn’t pretty, and rather quite abrupt, painful and bruising, little-boy-biker was alive.  His life had been spared.  By a wall.  By a boundary.  By a brick bordering otherwise known as hard and heartless.  This morning, however, these arms were soft and incredibly heartfelt.

They saw.  They protected.  They saved.

Maybe roadblocks are good.  Maybe walls aren’t always the worst of our predicament.

Stoic bricks on the outside, but sensitive points of saving when I scream, “Daddy, I can’t stop.”

It’s easier when you know the whole story.  Makes more sense when all the pieces have fallen.  But that’s not where I am.  And per request, that’s not what I’m posting.  My latest thoughts have been unfinished. Unfinished starts, and unstarted ends.  It’s like they’re soaking the middle.  Steeped in the tension.  And I’m realizing that to dismiss this space—to discard this mess—is to lose the story.  To minimize the whole.  So here I am. Maybe these starts will further your finish, or maybe these midpoints resurface your start.  Or maybe we’ll just stay here and revel in the middle.

***
The Fall—how did it feel?  What did it sound like?  How was it to experience the birth of fear?  Like in the garden…like when Eve consciously chose the apple…  Do you think her appearance changed?  Do you think her stomach flooded with anxiety, or maybe “falling” was more subtle?  And Adam—how was the experience for him?  What were his thoughts?  What did he say at his lover’s choice?  Did creation scream?  Or maybe it went numb?
*
Who would I want to trust that has the power to take everything away?  
But who else would I want to trust?
*
Jesus died on the cross to restore perfect relationship with our Heavenly Father.  What does this mean?  What does it mean that at the base of Roman nails, a soul finds nourishment in the cleansing blood of Christ?  Or that at the cross, we are rescued from ourselves, rescued from the death of this world, and most profoundly, rescued into the loving arms of our purposed chase—a Lord who, “Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, has chosen you to be his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 14:2)?
*
The call to marriage and God's sovereign plan for finding the “one” seems most about a sovereign plan for one's heart and heart's mutual readiness for find that one.
*
Do you ever feel like you give and give and give…and you’ve given so much that you’re done...out...at the end of your rope?  Hurt, tired and empty….saying to God, Lord, how do I do this?  How much am I suppose to give?  How much did you give?  How far does your grace go?  How far did your grace go?...”  I wonder how God would respond?  Wonder if He might say something like this, "I know child…I hear you.  My grace goes as far as it needs to.  My grace goes farther than it can fathom.  My grace goes back to the cross.  Always.  My grace always goes back to the cross.  Back to the point of death.  To the point of killing me.  Grace killed me.  Killed me for life.  For your life.  I died because my deepest longing was your birth.  
*
He knew who he was.
He knew whose he was.
He knew what he wanted.
He knew what he had.
*
I long for him tonight.  I long for the knight in shining armor.  I long for the smell, for the touch, for the silent gaze that speaks a novel.  What is that Lord?  What true longings found these thoughts?  What true desires sweep away my longings?  The blindfold on my heart is tired today.  But the raw strands of desire are exhausted too.  I can't run from it anymore, but my tears running toward it have cried their last.  The chase has found me beat.  The chasing has found me beaten.  How long must I wait, O Lord?  How long must I wait?  What is love, Father and who defines it?  What is not love, Lord, and who can so discern?  Is it the discrepancies that blind?  Or are blind?
*
Doing is so much easier than not doing
*
I saw a girl chasing a butterfly today.  It was glorious—the innocence, the artistry, the creation.  What is she really wanting though?  Is it the completion of the the caught fly?  Or the journey of actually chasing it?  Confusion seems to awaken when we chase an end without knowing its really for another.  Or when we chase another, unable to embrace its already found end.
*
Ever feel like your faith is frozen?  Wanting to move anywhere, but feeling stuck, to some degree, everywhere?  You know it has the potential to ebb and flow and mist and make, but right now it’s hard as a rock.  You’ve seen it soak and fill, and you’ve experienced its taste and filling, but its current state is dull, dark and fixed.  Frozen, cold and scared.
*
Mindful: "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet." Hebrews 2:6-7
I love the word, "mindful."  I love how philosophical it sounds, how introspective it reads and even how intellecutally it speaks.  What I don't love about mindfulness, is how hard it is.  Based on sheer semantic breakdown, mindful connotes carrying a full mind of, toward, to, or from something.  So the obvious challenge falls in the fact that to be full of anything, we must be emptied of something else.  In other words, in order for my mind to be filled completely, I must attempt an emptying of what’s already there.  Consider mindful listening.  If I want to be mindful in hearing you speak, my mind must attempt to be “full” of you—and thus to some degree, intentionally “less full” of me.  
*
Prodigal Freedom: I was always the perfect one, so didn’t relate to the story, or circumstance, or strayings of “the prodigal son.”  I was clean, innocent and didn’t need forgiveness.  I was the brother.  But now I’m angry.  Now I have done all the deeds and delivered the good life, but am still empty.  Am still longing.  Still lusting after the life I don’t have and freedom I don’t experience.  To get there though, I’m thinking part of me might have to embrace my stance as the prodigal—unveil my masked states of rebellion.  Not because of the rebellion itself, but because of what lies beneath.  Because of its instant gratification and then let-down.  Because of its turning, and then returning, to the porch I was made for.  The Home I was Freed for.  The hell I was Freed from.  But doing so means I let go of control.  I let go of my guard.  And resultingly, I follow and let Someone else in.  And that scares the hell out me.
*
Home: Something in me longs for home today.  But what, I must ask, is home—be it a home, my home, or the home?  It’s not as simple as grieving my church home, or residential home.  And it’s not as complicated, or far-off, as my spiritual home.  It’s a space between—a tension unscripted.  
I long to be at home in my body today, but I also long to be at home in my surroundings.  I long to taste the familiarity of peace, but I long to bring comfort to the confines of injustice.  I long to rest, and I long to play.  I long to be with and I long to be without.  I long to be whole and I long to be empty.  I long to live and I long to die.  
For in without, I am with.
In being empty, I become whole.
In coming to die, I choose to live.
Something in me longs for home today.
*
I’ve heard myself pray for opened or closed doors, believing such doing insists that, "God's will is being done."  Recent musing, however, has found me realizing it’s not just a matter of an open, or closed door.  My willingness to walk, or not walk through, is equally crucial.  "Yes, there you are God, but yes, here I am, too."
*
Loving: I asked my mom if she loved God.  She responded, “Yes.”  Then I asked her if she was in love with God.  She said, “No.”
*
Her tattoo caught my eye.  First impression was from across the bar, so I couldn’t make-out more than a caliedescope of colorful, Chinese script.  Moving closer, though, the shape morphed into a cross, coupled with a subscript that read: “RUINED FOR LESS.”  I loved it.
*
I learned what I don’t want to be when I grow-up.  A truck-driver.  See, I always thought leadership meant leading forward.  I thought it meant you lead and I’ll follow.  And it does, in some ways.  But it also doesn’t, in maybe a lot more ways.  That's what the truck driver taught me.
*
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think we tote deepest impression when we are least like the world.  Which seems to leave us in the most capable state to actually change the world?  And thus, maybe find ourselves most relevant to it?
*
Have you ever considered that a Savior was born to die?

It was broken.  And dirty.  And gross.  And I was able to be with them.  There were feces on the sidewalk and urine puddles rinsing our sandals.  It was drug-infested and prostitute-infected—and all in my own backyard.  

I spent yesterday in Skid Roe, touring the grounds and serving alongside a friend who works with Union Rescue Mission, as well as two ex-Tweakers (meth-addicts), ripe with memories grafting hellish days in this fifty block range.  The past couple weeks have found me itching to be back in the broken realities of Africa, often harder to recognize here.  A few collisions have scratched pretty clearly though, providing a brokennes, and reality, that would've been hard to miss.

Yesterday I was able to be with Andy, six months into his recovery program and convinced, “This is the time, because it’s finally me that wants it (recovery), versus God, or someone else, wanting it for me.”  Last weekend I was able to share dinner with a homeless woman named Nancy.  She comes from an educated and lucrative background and spoke of fond memories living on a farm and “breathing the airs of freshness” (I loved that she spoke of air in a plural sense…how did something so robust and uncontainable gain such a confined, singular phraseology?).  And I’m not sure if you remember the story of Barbara (see February posts), but she’s been a special player in bridging my gaps to brokenness, and has ironically resurfaced this week.  Barbara called at midnight on Saturday, ecstatic to apologize for her silence, but more ecstatic to brag that she’d been in a strict rehab program and as of that morning (at 12:01am), had been sober from meth, pot and alcohol for ninety days.  This Friday we will get to share a meal and afternoon of hiking.  If I were gonna die on Saturday, this is exactly how I’d schedule it—truly being with a person and doing so in the unshackled confines of airs.

As I ponder these stories, each seems to pose a bridge.  A bridge to the broken.  A bridge to my brokenness.  A bridge to complexities of the past, concerns for the future and realities of the present.  Each receives me as a bridge to poverty—my poverty and theirs, my wealth and theirs, my story and theirs.  Each presents a bridge to humanity—humanities heart and the heart of humanities longing.

Can it be quantified this simply though?  Life—as a web of bridges—connecting me to you and you to me—or me to me—or me back to them—and all back to Thee?  Could it be—not to fix, or force, or finalize, or face, but to bridge and to be bridged and to be with bridging gaps?

Is this all just a bridge?

I was broken.  And dirty.  And gross.  And you were able to be with me.

I thought it was gone.
I thought we were done with this.
Will you ever leave me fully?  
We you ever leave me in full?

Sometimes this is the conversation that goes with my sin.  Or sometimes it’s what goes with my circumstance.  Today it's my summer.  I can't get rid of it.  Fall is edging toward Winter, and I'm still stuck in a season well past.  

Some call what I'm experiencing "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome."  I call it…I don’t know what I call it.  Hard.  Exhilerating.  Awful.  Real.  Right. …  It depends on the hour.

Tip-toe'ing on the gates of hell scared me to a point where death and danger are no longer what happens to old people, or hurts only on the movie screen.  Death is real and danger is present.  The question is, am I willing to feel that?  In a culture that’s convenient and “full of life,” am I willing to feel that no matter how it’s spun, it still carries death.  Sometimes at face value, and sometimes as an undercurrent, but at the end of the day, I’m still a dying person.  We’re still a dying people, and we still live on a dying planet.  

So in a world that facades reality and a body that runs from pain, do I have the courage to engage with death’s sentence?  And if so, do I have the courage to engage with the one that claims Life?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaXXdF_tKPM

Granted, I was in Boston last weekend, but it’s something more.  More unrefined, but complex.  Permeating, yet freeing.  It feels like a window.  An escape.  A journey.  A beginning.

I like it.

I knew this would be a hard transition.

I didn’t know it would this hard. I’d lived overseas before and had no expectation that two months abroad could wreak such havoc on my soul. But it has. This summer marked and married me in ways like nothing I’ve experienced to this point. It’s been a little over a month since the ground touched me at Dulles, most of which has felt dressed in a stranger’s skin, wrestling to reconnect with a distant land, while attempting connection to this foreign land called home—and this ambiguous being called me.

The first time I sat down to write this, I was in the peaceful confines of my home, cooled by the window’s clean breeze and comforted by plush furniture and the scent of a cinnamon candle. I had woken to a hot shower and feasted on a slow, Saturday morning breakfast. This afternoon finds me in a lighted coffee shop, with a floor, a ceiling and even background music to enchant my writing. It’s still perplexing to me that the machine at my fingertips can have me sending, buying, or surfing instantaneously. Or if that feels cumbersome, I can do so with the plastic card in my pocket. People are driving on a road in front of me, laughing at a table beside me, and an elderly man just skateboarded down the sidewalk behind me (granted, this scene might be unique to LA). It’s sunny outside. It’s safe, colorful and progressive. For the most part it seems controllable, such that needing a God today will not make a natural crossing of my mind. I can do, plan, prevent and predict, almost to a tee. The idea of surviving this day is the farthest thing from my attention. A homeless man just walked in. He probably hasn’t showered all week, and maybe hasn’t eaten all day, but chances are, by nightfall, he’ll be covered by a meal and comforted by a roof. Memories reel quite the contrary in Africa, where food, shelter and even survival are never an expectation.

The jury is still out as to whether our life is “better” necessarily, but in terms of ease, life in a first-world country wins without question. My rationales to poverty were shattered this summer. Living with poverty, versus visiting it, has forced me to engaged with some entirely new subjects. I no longer believe, “They don’t know what we have,” and therefore, “are content with what they don’t.” And I no longer assume that one kid’s smile means the whole country must be okay—let alone that kid. There are a few launch pads here, but I’ll make it brief by saying they do know what we have, or at least enough to give them a more desirous and intrinsically covetous spirit than anyone I’ve ever met on this side of the ocean. Furthermore, what kid wouldn’t smile when you ride in on a shiny bus, or even running automobile, carrying candy, polaroids, or presents?

There is no good reason why Africa is seeing, feeling and tasting depravity and death at this very moment. And this one. Most mornings wake me with tears—tears of nostalgia and confusion, tears of conformity and consternation, limitation, inadequacy, intolerability, tolerability, memory, reality, superficiality, sadness, separation, and the list goes on. There’s no telling what my next minutes will unravel, but as I continue to process through these past few months, I continue to grow in belief that there are approximately, and maybe only, two options that make any consoling, and yet logical, sense. Either, the concept of God is an historically massive crux that has killed, marred and masked mankind as a mechanism of power, justifying the true state of humanities depravity and depraved desire—all at the sick cost of “saving” souls. Or, there is a living God who is intrinsically and extrinsically aware and untraceably empathetic toward the cause and causation of what we know as “evil.” Though still impossible to perceive, or conceive, from the limitations of a mind, this God speaks and spoke in such a way that claims His personhood as enough—more than enough—to answer into life’s richest high and poorest low. Furthermore, as one who is gently and justly piecing together a mysterious mosaic that restores, rectifies and saves lost souls.

I’m hoping in the latter.

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I’ve not cried too much this summer, but this afternoon found me swayed by hesitant tears, wondering if I could bear, or wanted to bear, last goodbyes at the baby home. As it turned-out, my final hours were far less dramatic, or climatic, than I might’ve imagined. Mama Lucy and I shared some special time together, and then Mama Claire was running late, which left me alone with the babies between shifts. Everyone was quite antsy for dinner, but still kind enough to humor my necessary discourse.

I explained how much I loved them, and how proud I was of who they were becoming. I thanked them for their gentle spirits, and for their willingness to teach and be taught. I petitioned for the health of their hearts, minds, souls and strength and for an increased openness to God’s unfailing love. I prayed for their families and the generations they would influence. And I promised to stand as their ambassadors from this day forward. My little angels were speechless. All ten of them offered undivided attention, until at some point Ryan screamed and the room gained a stench saying someone’s bowels had lost control. I was touched. And kindly prompted toward the end of my talk. Things went a bit downhill from there, which honestly made a night that could’ve been surreal far less so. Ten cranky babies have an exceptional way of ruining a sensuous moment.

The remainder of the evening proceeded as normal, with bottles, baths, diapers and PJ’s, and then off to cribs for a final kiss. These moments marked a delicate mix, not unlike every preceding nights spent with this adieu. I was overwhelmed by the gift of handling life for this day, but more overwhelmed by the gift of handing it back to that which it came. To love in one’s presence, and yet to release to one’s greater Presence, must be the richest miracle I have ever held, or imparted.

May you rest in peace, child. May you rest in Peace.

In the short span of walking home from dinner, I practically tripped on a young boy curled-up to sleep, and witnessed the crash of a motorcycle with three people on it, one being a little girl not more than five, or six. She was thrown-off the bike and then skid across the ground, yet didn’t bat an eye, or shed a tear. That’s not normal. Or it’s not “our normal,” at least. The risk, fear and pain factors of this continent travel in a different wavelength than we do. Infants here could win “Survivor” with their eyes closed. Adults would just laugh at its concept. Or lustfully cry. Extremes of a TV show for us, are samplings of normality for an African. Does one ever get numb to these horrific exposures? For me at least, I think I would say I’ve become numb to the element of surprise, but am still pained by the elements of the stories. And to be honest, I hope it stays that way.

I don’t think there’s a story you could tell me, on that soil or this one, which would surprise me. I don’t think there’s a height of depravity, or depth of humanity, which would overwhelm me. It’d be tough to catch me off-guard, given the hidden heart, motivation, or manipulation of an individual. But at the same time, I seem to remain aware and feeling of the effects and affects of a given story. I think it would be easier, however, and certainly more efficient and less emotionally draining, to ‘not’ hold this awareness, but I also think that would be death—death to living, or the sign of a dying life.

To be numb seems to negate a felt sense of the senses, to hibernate silence and stillness of one’s Spirit. He, or she, is masked by busyness, or idle noise. Being still and silent, however, is what reveals a need beyond ourselves—a knowledge of feelings beyond our comprehension. When I am numb, I have convinced myself that I do not need…, and they do not need… “We’re all okay,” I say. “Such is life…it’ll work-out in the long-run…just a temporary bout between the ying and the yang…etc.” Numbness is like a justifying optimism, a state of consciousness that dissolves reality into nothing more than selfish permissibility. This reminds me of when Jesus attempts to explain the danger of not realizing our need for forgiveness.

“Then one of the Pharisees invited Him (Jesus) to eat with him. He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. And a woman in the town who was a sinner found out that Jesus was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house. She brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood behind Him at His feet, weeping, and began to wash His feet with her tears. She wiped His feet with the hair of her head, kissing them and anointing them with the fragrant oil. When the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what kind of woman this is who is touching Him—she’s a sinner! Jesus replied to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he said, “say it.” “A creditor had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii’s, and the other 50. Since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave them both. So, which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one he forgave more.” “You have judged correctly,” He told him. Turning to the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she, with her tears, has washed My feet and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss, but she hasn’t stopped kissing My feet since I came in. You didn’t anoint My head with oil, but she has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; that’s why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little, loves little.” Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Those who were at the table with Him began to say among themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?” And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” (Luke 7.36-50)

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think numbness is a refusal, or at least minimizing, of our need for forgiveness. And the worst, or craziest, addendum to that is that I think it’s natural. I think we are more susceptible, and comfortable, to live hidden from our true state and thus, that of another. Human nature avoids emptiness, brokenness and shameless feeling at all costs. And numbness is its greatest defender, whereby we find ourselves content in a realm of mediocre, functioning well maybe, but failing to experience the actualities of life, those of elation and those of desperation.

I sometimes volunteer at a hospital with kids born, developed, or damaged by long-term head-injuries. Dakota is one of my favorite little girls here. She’s a chatty, little ray of sunshine, but silenced by a cage, helmet and hand-coverings. Dakota was born numb to pain. If she is burned, bleeding, or beaten, she doesn’t have the capacity to feel the situation. What a tragedy, and what a greater tragedy that we are apt to choose. “God, help us. Help us never be overwhelmed by states and stories of humanity, but also help us never go numb to the feelings we find in Your presence. Amen.”

Bill Hybels is coined as saying, “The local church is the hope of the world.” Having lived in American for twenty-six years though, the majority of that in the “Bible-belt,” I’ve never found this statement too convincing. Being here, on top of some healthy church experiences in LA, is slowly dissuading my lack of convince. I’ve been to eight different church services in Uganda, each providing a unique location, denomination, structure and size, and each sharing a rich, and I believe representative, canvas of a Trinitarian, Gospel-oriented Church.

America has found me visiting a lot more than eight churches, also of various location, denomination, structure and size (none of which is difficult to pinpoint in a matter of minutes). For whatever reason though—no, that’s not true—for a lot reasons I think, I’m often more partial to the international brand. Maybe it’s just travel adrenaline, or cultural intrigue, but I love worshipping overseas. My two closest engagements with the Acts 2 Church were in the Dominican Republic, where I was baptized actually, and a diverse Body in Cape Town, South Africa, with the lovely Cons family. But now I’d have to add eight more to that list. And eight more reasons to believe in the power, Love and possibility of the local Church at large.

***

The Poor.

I remember being in the impoverished ghetto of Soweto, South Africa, wrestling through thoughts about showing-up in the slums in on our shiny, chartered bus that would serve for the day and then leave that same afternoon. What message would this leave the village? What miscommunications would it lift from our lives? I entered these thoughts again when a large group showed-up at the baby home. In some ways it’s great to have extra hands holding and hugging the kids, but in other ways it’s like giving a lick of a lollipop and then abruptly pulling it away—for probably the hundreth time in these children’s lives. Finally, babysitters are always more lenient and the Mamas loose a lot of leverage on days and weeks when vans arrive. So is it better to not arrive at all?

Being here this summer, alongside a little work with the poor, homeless, and addict-related in LA, I’ve realized these questions, and more so lacking answers, are universal. Furthermore, African questions of poverty and its treatment are not immeasurably different from those we’re accustomed to at home. Granted, the scopes here are immeasurable and unimaginable, whether sex, drug, or slave trades, street kids, poverty enabling disease, or disease enabling poverty and so on, whereas at home it’s far more calculatable. But in terms of broader questions that arrive with ongoing trends of poverty, much is the same. The homeless man in Chicago, or the heroine addict in Tucson, isn’t that far excluded from the one here. And the AIDS patient in Texas is just as scared and shamed and devastated as the one hear. And it’s the same question(s) here that wonders if my $1 donation will buy the next piece of bread, or pave the next path to destruction. (Actually buying the next piece of bread, or more committingly, dining with the person, always seems the best option. But such a thought provides a series of new ones: “I’m too busy today…But if I give them a little, they’ll just want more…What if they kidnap, rob, or kill me?” Believe me, I have these thoughts, too, but I still think it’s the best and most Biblical option.)

Who are “the poor” anyway, and how do the non-poor best serve them? Furthermore, how do the non-poor know that their service isn’t in vain, and should that even matter? The Bible has more than three hundred passages relaying God’s concern for the poor, so it’s clearly something of His interest. Jesus’ brother, James, explains looking after orphans and widows as undefiled religion (1.27). But Jesus himself says there will always be a population of the poor, needy, lost and broken. How do we reconcile this tension, or more tricky, how do we stand on it? It seems that if our goal is to “fix” these lines, we’ve lost before the start. But if our goal is to avoid them, we’re avoiding any movement toward to the finish. And maybe the idea that there’s no finish is just a cop-out, or justifier toward a comfortable life without guilt? Or maybe Jesus was exaggerating, or just had too much to drink?

I’ll always prefer living in questions, rather than ducking in answers, but leaving this one unanswered is tough to swallow.

***

Random.

*On days I want an extra long nap, I’ll pull the Malaria-card, but otherwise, the parasite has departed my system. Dangers of relapse remain, so I’ll continue with spray, mosquito nets and anti-malarials, but otherwise, I’ve been good to go.

*Holly looks like an average twenty-four-year old from Oklahoma. But if you dig a little deeper, she has dreams and ambition far exceeding average. As of yesterday, she was approved as an NGO and will start moving herself, and village kids, into her new orphanage this weekend. Constraints are that kids must be five or older and have AIDS. This limitation, let alone family environment, is unheard of in AIDS treatment. Despite rising cases and awareness, victims are outcasts, here and elsewhere. Anyway, I passed Holly on the road, as she was heading for her first viewing and visit to the inside of the home. We joined for an evening of painting, measurements and dreamed-of stories to soon take residence within those walls. It might’ve been the best “Extreme Home Makeover” I’ll ever be a part of.

“Desperado…you better let somebody love you, you better let somebody love you before it’s too late.” –The Eagles

Daniel arrived this morning. He was dropped-off by two women from an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization…same as a Non-Profit) who took him from a village. They said the mom looked about fourteen and as if she’d gone mad, clearly with no ability, let alone intention, to care for her son. Daniel is between ten and twelve months old, but weighs just eight pounds. He has sores all over his body and when he arrived, it seemed doubtful he’d make it another hour. His chest and face protrude with bones, and his stomach is hard and swollen. Mama Lucy and I named and bathed him. Caressing ribs never gets easier. We attempted to feed him, but Daniel was so weak and unknowing of touch that his miniature body shrieked mightily when anything neared his flesh. It was as though his corpse was all he had left, with his only defense being a death-cry that screamed bloody-murder and hoped someone would hear. I took him to the clinic for blood tests and a physical. He cried most of the time. When they pierced his finger, he didn’t even flinch. It was obvious Daniel’s life had endured far more pain than a needle. I was his caretaker for the day and it was required that he be held around the clock and given nutrition every two hours. The Mamas rarely spoil a baby to such measures, but in his case it was life-or-death. He alternated between my lap, shoulder and the incubator. Though his tests miraculously showed-up free of “the biggies” (HIV, TB and Malaria), new babies are always kept incubated for a few days, in case of obscure disease or infection.

I sat quietly over Daniel’s rest, watching the glucose-enhanced formula slowly enliven his corpse. His mouth was unfamiliar with the bottle and too weak to suck without assistance, but it was astonishing to see the rate of improvement and change in just a matter of hours. The short, unfamiliar verse, which I’d probably read ten times, but just noticed this morning, was all I could think about. In a tender exchange relaying the promise of the Holy Spirit once he departed, Jesus explained, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you” (John 14.4). It was as if these very words were being whispered into Daniel’s spirit. The slightest of grins matured into a most magical of smiles, which Mama Suzanne calls, “the ugliest thing she’s ever seen.” The problem is, his face is quite bony and small and his toothless smile is abnormally large, so it’s as though this enormous hole just takes over his face. I still think it’s adorable. Anyway, what remains of Daniel’s limp-less neck and body has at least started to move. By dinnertime, after seeing him through a slow, but successful run at mashed pumpkin, I was convinced this child was going to be okay.

Mama Grace, on the other hand, might not. She got fired last night. Unknown to us, she was caught stealing 2 kilos of sugar the day before we left for Gulu. It would’ve been a disgrace to come home without a gift and she had no money at that point, so at least wanted to bring sugar. Unfortunately, she was caught red-handed when a hole in the sugar bag shined a straight path to her cookie jar purse. Ashamed and shocked, I guess, she lied about it and tried to deny her attempt. There is a lot of pardoning done around here, and a confession of stealing probably would’ve sufficed, but when someone lies, and then keeps lying, there’s only so much pardoning to do. I’m heartbroken for Mama Grace tonight, for many reasons. The Baby Home is an incredible job, paying 90,000 shillings a month (equivalent to about $100) and providing incredible community, safety and opportunity, which are all unheard of around here. I’m also heartbroken that I couldn’t tell her goodbye. All I want to do is put my arms around her and tell her I forgive her and love her. And that God does, too. I can’t imagine the shame she must be feeling right now.

When I put these stories side-by-side, I realize how hard it is to receive. One could say Daniel’s life was saved because he was open to receiving grace (one could also say he didn’t have the strength, or intellect, to prevent it, but maybe that’s what “faith like a child” looks like). And one could say much of Mama Grace’s life was lost because she wasn’t. Daniel let himself be loved, and Grace didn’t. She couldn’t believe God would provide. She couldn’t believe had she waited mere hours, four Muzungoo friends would ask her on a bus-ride home what would most bless her family. She could’ve answered, “Ten kilos of sugar,” and we wouldn’t have batted an eye. When it came down to it, Grace couldn’t resist the indulgence of something that seemed so necessary and would be so instantly gratifying. She couldn’t believe Someone knew of her orphan feelings and would come to her rescue. And I usually don’t either.

How can we believe God wants to feed, hold and handle this day for us? How can we believe He’ll not abandon us, but rather, takes every extreme, including death on a Roman Cross, to rescue us from ongoing villages of despair? How can we trust God’s love? If I had two wishes tonight, they’d be: 1) Realization that letting myself ‘be loved’ by the person of God is my greatest calling. “Love consists of this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4.10). This, then, is likewise my greatest capability toward ‘loving.’ 2) I wish my faith would mature to that of Daniel's. “The disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” “I assure you,” he said, “unless you are converted and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child—this one is the greatest” (Matthew 18.1-4).

She’s my little Ugandan Wikepedia. Hasn’t seen an iPod, driven in a car, or traveled much beyond her orphanage in Luwero, but Stella’s eighteen years have matured a most incredible woman. We’ve had the chance to spend more time together lately, feasting on issues of faith, culture and curiosities of her story. A most surprising part has been Stella’s openness, knowing it’s extremely uncommon, and uncomfortable usually, for Ugandans to open-up about personal information, pasts, or emotions. Stella has given me loads of each.

As a nursing student, she loves hearing about my Graduate program, which in very basic terms mixes theology (study of God) and psychology (study of self). A lot of our reading this past semester covered parental influence and how that affects one’s view of God. In other words, how the way you were disciplined, loved, reacted toward, listened to, etc., is practically identical to the way you’ll perceive being done so by God. Thus, your reaction(s), opinions, prayer approaches, fears, mistrusts, and so on, will similarly correlate to that of your mother and father. An obvious example might be that you grew-up with a strict dad who lashed-out at the smallest of mistakes. Your view of God, then, will struggle to trust unconditional love, as you’re constantly up against an innate fear that if you mess-up, God will lash-out at you. Through time, prayer, awareness, counseling and usually a good bit of re-objectification (experiencing people who provide “healthy” responses to your mistakes), I think it is of God’s highest priorities to tear-down and rebuild our views of (His) perfect parenting.

Anyway, I was curious about this from the perspective of an orphan. Namely, how had Stella’s view of God been challenged, provided a lacking mom (died in childbirth) and absent dad from the start? The mom side was easy, she said, given that a woman from the orphanage had stepped-in and “re-objectified” (she liked this word J) her views of a silent mother figure. In view of God, then, she felt comfortable turning to His more feminine traits of nurture, care, gentleness and counsel. It was the masculine ones, she explained, that have taken years to rely on. “Believing God as my Father has been the biggest challenge to my faith. I could call Him any other name, but spent years fighting His title, or role, as Father.”

When I asked Stella about thoughts on marriage and if she foresaw herself getting married, she smiled and said she dreams of it, but, “It’ll have to be a miracle of God. I don’t know how to trust men and am only starting to learn what it means to trust Him. I picture myself with a Ugandan, but even in the church, men here talk the talk, but it’s rare to find one who really lives it. To be honest, a lot of me is scared of marriage and although I’d give anything to be a mother, cannot get past the hurdle of the husband element.” “Mock families” are created at her orphanage, so that she spends a good chunk of days working, studying, going to church, eating meals, etc., with 8-10 other “family members,” including a “father and mother figure” (who are staff at the orphanage, but have their own families, too). Unfortunately, Stella watched her “father figure” cheat, abuse and misuse women, namely his wife. Therefore, she said, yet another wall went up between her ability to healthily view a male figure and thus, to healthily view God.

The conversation closed with me explaining how one of our biggest struggles in America is against a lot of jacked-up family lives and therefore, a lot of jacked-up views of God. It was refreshing for her to realize she wasn’t alone in these conversations, and refreshing for me to realize what I’m studying is really poignant material. Arriving at the house, there were three Danish people sitting at the table chatting. Stella looked at my with a grin and said, “I don’t know why I never realized this, but I assumed all white people spoke the same language.” I smiled back, realizing in some ways, it’s a very small world, carrying the same needs and questions of God. But in other ways, it’s really big and carries quite different ones.

***

Random.

Christina (3) and Sharon (2) spent the night last night. Christina entertained herself painting my fingers ‘and’ nails, making banana pancakes and laughing as the adults played Catch-Phrase. Sharon was a little under the weather, so crashed earlier, actually catching-on to the phrase, “slumber party.” Christiana was apparently more keen on an “awake-party.” Between crying, laughing and wiggling, I think she REM’ed for about 30 minutes.

How is it that glue doesn’t stick together when it’s in the bottle?

I think we’ve all realized at times how much we ‘don’t’ mean, “how are you,” when we ask, or are asked. If we really took that greeting seriously, we’d be processing with people all day long. What’s crazy is that Ugandans often knock the greeting up a notch, ‘and’ really mean it. They ask, “How is your life?” And expect an honest answer. No wonder nothing runs remotely close to on time here.

A bird shat on me yesterday. I looked-up to find no tree, no overhang, no nothin’. It had the whole sky to fill and instead chose the 2mm crevice behind my left ear.

The power has been out the past couple days, malaria has reeked havoc on my system, faucet drips have been cold and slight, and bats have been stormed our house like it’s their job. For whatever reason though, I’ve felt like I wanted to stay in Africa more so this week, than ever before. I’m realizing, then, that there must be something bigger than comfortability, desire, or circumstance, moving someone to go a given direction in life.

I think most of relief-work, or missionary living, is far more glamorous from afar. And having spent a decent amount of time around these individuals, it’s probably not surprising that most of them are quite subdued and I think stabilized in their initial passion. It’s as though it has yielded into a more matured consistency of steadiness, or calm. Not that their passion has faded, per se, but I think the buoyancies of adventure and undying effort are only natural to find a leveling ground, lest burnout, sickness, or death becomes them (which I’m not denying as often the case). This has further reminded me that any sort of work, relationship, or commitment, hoping to offer long-term effectiveness, must be laced by a passion, but undergirded by something deeper. Something more rooted, like a vision, or mission, I guess. Too many of our days are forced to question if we should come, stay, go, or why we came in the first place, so that I think unless we have a tangible “call beyond ourselves,” be it a loved one we’re wanting to honor, a God we’re wanting to serve, or a cause we’re willing to die for, I can’t see a life of service lasting.

How do you know though? How do you know when to go, or when to stay, or when to take a stand? I’m not sure the full answer, but am getting more sure of a partial one. And for me, at least, a lot of it relates to times I’ve gotten it “wrong.” I feared ____ and settled, or faked okayness and pressed-on—both unhealthily. But the astonishing thing to realize is that in God’s economy, there’s a transcendence of right/wrong, good/bad, black/white, etc., called sovereignty.

Most of this has been learned the hard way, but God’s will is God’s will and as much as He created me with vast wills of choice, being and depth, ‘His will’ will always prevail over mine. I have the freedom to dream and dive and rise and fall, knowing that in honest pursuit of Him (key), I can be “wrong,” or “right,” and His will can’t help but catch me. This doesn’t hand me the lackadaisical leeway to say, “I can do whatever I want and God will take care of me.” No—it’s a call with far more dignity than that. It’s a call that designates me as someone Hand-designed and potentialed for a unique life of peace, adventure, intimacy and glorification. John Piper’s books usually boil down to one truth: “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.” In other words, if you feel called to serve in Africa, I increasingly believe that, in order for your passion to stay present with your leading, it must be supremely based in an enjoyment of the call(er), rather than Africa. Or if you feel led (could be synonymn’ed by stirred, desirous, moved, stimulated towards, etc.) to be a student, dentist, or Mom in America, doing so with a consistence of vigor, purpose and motivation must be lined with a derivative deeper than studies, teeth, or minivans.

To quell any worried audiences, I am not staying in Africa and I am not confiscating any babies into my suitcase. Although a lot of me would love to do both. Thank God, my passion has consistently been trumped by His whisper. Although I don’t doubt I’ll be back on this continent one-day soon, I know the time is not now. An objective “how do you know” is beyond me to explain, but in decisions past, whether related to marrying a person, moving across the country, or knowing I was to be in Uganda for the summer, God’s will has always found a way to speak. Sometimes it’s been through my mistakes, while other times through combinations of Scripture, prayer, counsel, or circumstance. Slowly but surely though, I am coming to trust and discern His voice, which is sometimes loud, usually quiet, and often silent. It is always there though, trumping my temporal, top-able passions saying yes, no, or everything in-between.

***

For God So Loved The World.

I’ve always found John 3.16 kind-of annoying. It’s like the catch-phrase salvation verse and shows-up on anything from t-shirts and bumper stickers, to sermon bases and stupid breath mints. Being over here has helped me free up a little cynicism. I’ve been floored in actual sightings of God’s widespread love for nations, people groups and personalized hairs on each head. Maybe He really did love the world so much, that He gave His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, that none should perish, but all who followed Him would have eternal life. That’s unbelievable.

This synopsis from an email summarizes my trip quite well. And succinctly. "it's been so hard, so raw, so lonely, so stretching, so tiring, so enriching, so restful, so eye-opening, so dream-producing, so freeing, so long, so short, so overwhelming, so real, so needed, so wanted, so disturbing, so hunger-producing, so draining, so moving, so scary, so Life-giving, so sensory, so exciting, so boring, so adverturous, so me, so unfathomable to me...with so many so's."

It's what I need. It's what I long for this morning.

Am I being outlandish? Completely. Counterintuitive to my daily pursuits? Utterly. But the truth of it is, I need to be weak. The Word of God is flooded with people, stories and examples of weakness. Endured weakness, failed weakness, transformed weakness and transforming weakness. And I’m going to make a bold statement here, but at the crux of Christianity lies a willing surrender to confess weakness.

I heard an incredible statement lately that won’t loose itself. “People will admire you for being strong, but they’ll love you for being weak.” That’s it! This is where my soul longs to rest. I have tried for so long to be strong. In fact, when I look at my life and my standard of living today, I strive for strength on a day-to-day basis. I covet admiration and affirmation from others. I long for people to see me as unshakable. Even from a spiritual standpoint, I long to be described with rock-solid faith. And although I say I dislike being the center of attention, something in me still craves being a source of attention. Bottom line, I fear failure. I fear being weak.

Man strives toward perfection, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve yet to meet any such source. God knows, I still fighting tooth and nail to see its fruition though. Being weak is my ticket to strength. It’s that willingness and that willing surrender, that draw me toward love—my deepest need. The love I crave is satisfied in realizing my neediness for it. And a man named Jesus Christ stepped-out of heaven to personify that need.

Our greatest understanding of Love rises from our greatest understandings of weakness apart from it. And our greatest strength toward knowing Jesus must be prefaced by a great willingness to know our weakness. “For when I am weak, then I am strong” 2 Corinthians 12:10.