I'm sitting as we speak at the desk that my husband (yes. husband. weird.) built for us to have. After digging out a little space from the paperwork of name change papers, bills and a mish-mash of other things, I think I may have a nice little spot for writing. I need a better chair, but this one will work for a bit.
I've got the new home-recorded sneak peak versions of the next Over the Rhine album that has yet to be recorded and it has put me in a mood for chatting with myself and the pinkish-grey version of the sky this evening.
I've often thought recently about how weird it is to have this mid-summer weather in the middle of April. I guess that's the perk of moving to a tropical region (though I pay for it in July). But Over the Rhine and the kiss of a cool breeze after a hot day has always been one of my favorites of a Wisconsin summer--only now it is marred by the sound of angry men, police sirens and the view of deteriorating houses outside my window instead of the accent of the scent of peonies wafting in my windows and the sight of lighting bugs dancing across the front lawn.
I miss home...
As you can see, New Orleans has still not completely become "home" yet to me. Some days I resent it and other days I rest in its weary arms, but we have not built up a relationship enough yet for me to truly love it here. I feel pressure to love it. But you can't force love, can you?
Marriage is interesting. There are days that I love it and days that I feel completely baffled by every aspect of it--and some days that the bafflement is the exact reason why I love it. It is not at all what my idealistic imagination had envisioned it to be. It is more work than I have ever done. I don't know why no one talked to me about this before I got married. I mean, it had to be out there. Are people really so afraid to admit the bad with the good? Yes, marriage is beautiful. It has exposed things in me that diminish me everyday to be less of Rachel and (hopefully) more of Christ...though I know on most days, I am just a really ugly version of me and not anything like Christ.
But really, why do people not talk about this? Are we really so afraid to admit that our marriages are hard? That we communicate poorly? That sex is an odd thing and nothing like it is in the movies? That we hurt each other without even knowing it and are so self-involved to even notice? That some days we would find it easier to be single?
Because the reality is that this IS reality. Marriage is not pure bliss. It is hard. It is flippin' hard.
I do love him, though, so it makes the work worth it. He is the best man I have ever known. He is the most difficult-to-understand man I have ever know, but he is also the best man I have ever known. We all knew I'd end up with someone that was a puzzle.
Anyway, in more tangible news:
School is winding down. I will be teaching 1st grade next year and will have my own classroom. It should be hard, beautiful, insane, and amazing all at the same time. I am excited and nervous.
We got the paper work for our non profit.
We are officially urban farmers. We have 4 adorable little chickens and all sorts of vegetables and flowers growing in different spaces around the yard.
I think that about sums it up for now. Leave me a little message if you find the time. I miss you all greatly. :)
Love y'all!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
:)
And we're married :)
Thank you to everyone to came down, who sent cards and letters and emails, who made phone calls and who helped make our day incredibly special.
We're off to relax in Asheville, NC for a few days.
:)
I'll write a better update when we are back. Hopefully with some pictures!
Thank you to everyone to came down, who sent cards and letters and emails, who made phone calls and who helped make our day incredibly special.
We're off to relax in Asheville, NC for a few days.
:)
I'll write a better update when we are back. Hopefully with some pictures!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Just like the Hydrangeas
Hello friends,
Again, it's been a while. You will have to excuse my tardiness of my updates. As I'm sure you all can guess, life has been insane. Michael and I are officially down to 18 days until we will be Mr. and Mrs. Wong. Go ahead. Laugh. My name will be Rae Wong. Say it 4 times fast...bet you can't do it! We've gotten a good number of laughs out of that new name, but I am very excited to obtain it.
In the midst of wedding-madness, I got into a teaching certification program, so that's made life extra interesting. Life in the church plant business is picking up, as we prepare to do our hard launch as Harbor Community Church. Systems are taking form and teams are being built. It's a good thing and exhausting to know what work goes into building a healthy church. All of you who are in an established church, BE THANKFUL. You will never know how it happens until you see it happens. You can hear the stories and see the ramifications of early decisions, but you will never know the toil and work that goes into building it until you do it.
As for me personally, I am overwhelmed with transition. Seems to be the story of my life lately. While it's a good thing, I find that I lose hope easily, which is hard for me to admit. Tonight, I am discouraged (though somewhere deep in me knows that joy will come in the morning.)
Let me try to relate this...
A previous roommate and friend of Michael had a dog named Abita. This past Fall, excited for the ability to grow flowers in November and December, I purchased a bunch of pre-established flowers from a gardening organization in the city that was practically giving them away. I purchased 4 hydrangea plants, beautiful in color, and hurried home to plant them in bigger pots to get them started. Abita, though a wonderfully dog, did not know that she should not eat my lovely new hydrangeas. And ate she did. The barely formed new plants were snapped off here and there, gnarled from her teeth. I thought that they were done for, but Michael convinced me to hold onto them, as he thought they would bloom again.
So I waited for their inevitable death.
A few weeks later, I noticed buds starting to come off of their still mangled branches.
The next night, we had a hard freeze, which is pretty rare for the tropical climate of New Orleans.
Surely the brown, withered leaves were tell-tale signs that these plants were done for.
Again, Michael convinced me to hold on a bit longer.
And then, this past weekend, I walked past my hydrangeas... And they were full of new buds and leaves. Sprouts of color were popping out on even the mangled branches. A new hope filled me. Those branches would see beautiful blooms yet!
It wasn't until tonight that I realized the likeness between the hydrangeas and myself.
Since I have arrived in New Orleans, I have felt like it has been one thing after the next, making me give a bit of myself up. A snapping of a twig here, a bite off a leaf there. Little by little, I have given up my creativity. I have given up my time. I have given up the things that allowed me to worship fully.
The eaten hydrangea. The frozen hydrangea.
And then tonight, whilst in the middle of a breakdown that resulted in a discussion with Michael about the possibility of having to give up the one last thing that connects me to my old self, playing music, I realized how wrong I have been all along and the perspective that I have viewed the hydrangea from.
Since I have arrived in New Orleans, it has felt like a constant battle to not give up who I am. The transition to a full time job. The transition to a boyfriend to a fiance to a husband. The transition to a church plant. It has all left me with the remnants of what was once, sure, a lovely little flower. But through the work of the Gospel and the promise that He works for the good of those who love Him, we are assured that the eaten and frozen hydrangea will once again grow. But not only will it grow. It will flourish. Through the mystery of the resurrection and the promise that those who lose their life will gain it, I will live life more abundantly than anything I could have imagined.
Though I do not feel like myself right now, what good was myself? What good was what I knew of myself? What does it matter...when the life I lead is not my own, but the taking up of a cross.
Through the brokenness comes restoration and through that restoration comes the hope of a good and fruitful life that will be more than my creativity or ingenuity or time could have ever produced.
But that doesn't mean I won't suffer growing pains to get there. It just means that I will need to learn to be joyful in the affliction of the freeze and the pruning by the dog.
Again, it's been a while. You will have to excuse my tardiness of my updates. As I'm sure you all can guess, life has been insane. Michael and I are officially down to 18 days until we will be Mr. and Mrs. Wong. Go ahead. Laugh. My name will be Rae Wong. Say it 4 times fast...bet you can't do it! We've gotten a good number of laughs out of that new name, but I am very excited to obtain it.
In the midst of wedding-madness, I got into a teaching certification program, so that's made life extra interesting. Life in the church plant business is picking up, as we prepare to do our hard launch as Harbor Community Church. Systems are taking form and teams are being built. It's a good thing and exhausting to know what work goes into building a healthy church. All of you who are in an established church, BE THANKFUL. You will never know how it happens until you see it happens. You can hear the stories and see the ramifications of early decisions, but you will never know the toil and work that goes into building it until you do it.
As for me personally, I am overwhelmed with transition. Seems to be the story of my life lately. While it's a good thing, I find that I lose hope easily, which is hard for me to admit. Tonight, I am discouraged (though somewhere deep in me knows that joy will come in the morning.)
Let me try to relate this...
A previous roommate and friend of Michael had a dog named Abita. This past Fall, excited for the ability to grow flowers in November and December, I purchased a bunch of pre-established flowers from a gardening organization in the city that was practically giving them away. I purchased 4 hydrangea plants, beautiful in color, and hurried home to plant them in bigger pots to get them started. Abita, though a wonderfully dog, did not know that she should not eat my lovely new hydrangeas. And ate she did. The barely formed new plants were snapped off here and there, gnarled from her teeth. I thought that they were done for, but Michael convinced me to hold onto them, as he thought they would bloom again.
So I waited for their inevitable death.
A few weeks later, I noticed buds starting to come off of their still mangled branches.
The next night, we had a hard freeze, which is pretty rare for the tropical climate of New Orleans.
Surely the brown, withered leaves were tell-tale signs that these plants were done for.
Again, Michael convinced me to hold on a bit longer.
And then, this past weekend, I walked past my hydrangeas... And they were full of new buds and leaves. Sprouts of color were popping out on even the mangled branches. A new hope filled me. Those branches would see beautiful blooms yet!
It wasn't until tonight that I realized the likeness between the hydrangeas and myself.
Since I have arrived in New Orleans, I have felt like it has been one thing after the next, making me give a bit of myself up. A snapping of a twig here, a bite off a leaf there. Little by little, I have given up my creativity. I have given up my time. I have given up the things that allowed me to worship fully.
The eaten hydrangea. The frozen hydrangea.
And then tonight, whilst in the middle of a breakdown that resulted in a discussion with Michael about the possibility of having to give up the one last thing that connects me to my old self, playing music, I realized how wrong I have been all along and the perspective that I have viewed the hydrangea from.
Since I have arrived in New Orleans, it has felt like a constant battle to not give up who I am. The transition to a full time job. The transition to a boyfriend to a fiance to a husband. The transition to a church plant. It has all left me with the remnants of what was once, sure, a lovely little flower. But through the work of the Gospel and the promise that He works for the good of those who love Him, we are assured that the eaten and frozen hydrangea will once again grow. But not only will it grow. It will flourish. Through the mystery of the resurrection and the promise that those who lose their life will gain it, I will live life more abundantly than anything I could have imagined.
Though I do not feel like myself right now, what good was myself? What good was what I knew of myself? What does it matter...when the life I lead is not my own, but the taking up of a cross.
Through the brokenness comes restoration and through that restoration comes the hope of a good and fruitful life that will be more than my creativity or ingenuity or time could have ever produced.
But that doesn't mean I won't suffer growing pains to get there. It just means that I will need to learn to be joyful in the affliction of the freeze and the pruning by the dog.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
WHO DAT NATION!!
Hello, Old friends!
It's been an incredibly long time since I was able to write. Here is a newsletter that I just wrote for RefugeNOLA. More to come soon. And pictures!
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is In Her, and our land, Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. Isaiah 62:1-4
Hours before the Saints won the division championship game, sealing their spot in the Superbowl, I was able to participate in my first Second Line. (For those of you who don’t know, a “Second Line is a tradition in brass band parades. The "main line" is the main section of the parade, or the members of the actual club with the parading permit; those who follow the band just to enjoy the music are called the "second line."—Thank you Wikipedia!)
The experience left Michael, Dan and I with a newfound love for this city. All of the elements of New Orleans culture combined into one migrating city block—dancing, brass bands, gold and black, and apparently, Heineken beer. For me, being there FINALLY gave me a glimpse of my capacity to love this city. Prior to this experience, I had a hard time really finding anything good about this city that was worth fighting for, aside from a very non-personal conviction to be here. But something struck a chord deep within me while I marveled at the smells of bbq’ed chicken, saw the incredible dancing, and watched grown men climb up stop lights on one of the busiest streets in the city. I felt like the Grinch when his heart grows 3 sizes too big. Where else would one ever find this kind of celebration (for something that hadn’t even happened yet…)
I knew that this was not something to be taken lightly. After 8 months of living in this foreignness, I finally felt a draw to the city I am living in now. I finally felt the desire to fight for it and not just nonchalantly care for it. I had been praying for this desire for months, and now it stared me in the face.
destruction and devastation. In what other city do people dance in the street and celebrate for any given reason. No where in the world is like New Orleans in this respect—and the way that Scripture describes what our heaven on earth will be like is very similar to the way people celebrate here; it will just be without all of the bad.
My heart explodes with excitement to see God work in this city. My joy is overwhelming when I see one of my kindergarteners truly grasp a concept at school that makes them proud of their ability to learn, despite a failing school system that tells them that they will never amount to anything. My happiness is indescribable when I see Michael take a couple of kids fishing, which leads to their uncle coming by to talk to us one day, opening up other opportunities in the neighborhood to have an impact.
This life that we live is not our own. And this City that we want to see built on our Earth is within reach. We are hopeful and we know that day is coming when He will return and we will all be second lining in the street.
It's been an incredibly long time since I was able to write. Here is a newsletter that I just wrote for RefugeNOLA. More to come soon. And pictures!
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is In Her, and our land, Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. Isaiah 62:1-4
Hours before the Saints won the division championship game, sealing their spot in the Superbowl, I was able to participate in my first Second Line. (For those of you who don’t know, a “Second Line is a tradition in brass band parades. The "main line" is the main section of the parade, or the members of the actual club with the parading permit; those who follow the band just to enjoy the music are called the "second line."—Thank you Wikipedia!)
The experience left Michael, Dan and I with a newfound love for this city. All of the elements of New Orleans culture combined into one migrating city block—dancing, brass bands, gold and black, and apparently, Heineken beer. For me, being there FINALLY gave me a glimpse of my capacity to love this city. Prior to this experience, I had a hard time really finding anything good about this city that was worth fighting for, aside from a very non-personal conviction to be here. But something struck a chord deep within me while I marveled at the smells of bbq’ed chicken, saw the incredible dancing, and watched grown men climb up stop lights on one of the busiest streets in the city. I felt like the Grinch when his heart grows 3 sizes too big. Where else would one ever find this kind of celebration (for something that hadn’t even happened yet…)
I knew that this was not something to be taken lightly. After 8 months of living in this foreignness, I finally felt a draw to the city I am living in now. I finally felt the desire to fight for it and not just nonchalantly care for it. I had been praying for this desire for months, and now it stared me in the face.
destruction and devastation. In what other city do people dance in the street and celebrate for any given reason. No where in the world is like New Orleans in this respect—and the way that Scripture describes what our heaven on earth will be like is very similar to the way people celebrate here; it will just be without all of the bad.
My heart explodes with excitement to see God work in this city. My joy is overwhelming when I see one of my kindergarteners truly grasp a concept at school that makes them proud of their ability to learn, despite a failing school system that tells them that they will never amount to anything. My happiness is indescribable when I see Michael take a couple of kids fishing, which leads to their uncle coming by to talk to us one day, opening up other opportunities in the neighborhood to have an impact.
This life that we live is not our own. And this City that we want to see built on our Earth is within reach. We are hopeful and we know that day is coming when He will return and we will all be second lining in the street.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Redefining Beauty
Update Sprint
In case you haven't yet heard, Michael Wong has asked me to be his wife and I have accepted. We will be married on March 20, 2010 and are busy planning the wedding!
Michael started a new full time position at a bank as a special projects manager, as well as a few other things there, that no one else knows how to do. (I have somehow found someone to marry who is even more inquisitive than I am...)
School is going ok for me. The kindergartners are learning a ton and it's amazing to see these little people forming! It has been very tough the last few weeks, but I am constantly growing and refining and am very fortunate to work on the staff that I do. I will soon be applying for teaching programs so that I can get certified.
I have been working to help develop new and effective systems at our church with my roommate and maid of honor, Lori. We are very excited about starting to implement and I have discovered that I have a real passion for healthy church systems! (Wait for the phone call, Nancy Lindroth!)
RefugeNOLA, the non-profit (501-C3) that we are trying to give legs helped to pull off a rather large event in Central City for Halloween. (More in this update following, as well as a newsletter that will come soon to all of you!)
Please pray for...
Please pray for me, as I am feeling stretched especially thin lately. Pray that I would learn to set good boundaries for myself and for my future husband (whoa, that sounds weird!) Also, please pray that the people that are feeling snubbed by me would no feel hurt and that I would be able to find the time to make them feel loved and appreciated.
Pray for all of the things I mentioned above!
Pray that true community would develop with our church, that we would be able to come together to bring impact to other parts of the city--God is doing something at Sojourn Lakeview Baptist Church (soon to be Harbor Community Church) and we are very excited about it. Pray that the leadership would continue to seek after the heart of God in all matters and that they would make decisions that will bring about community and love.
Sit down and rest a while
Well, the weather in New Orleans has finally taken a turn for the better. October brought us some still humid temperatures, but for the most part, the season of "Fall" settled in about halfway through the month, and there was a sigh of relief that was heard around the whole city.
I heard birds chirp for the first time since I'd been down here.
I thought I saw a tree near my school start to change colors. (Ironically, I was then informed that it was actually a flower that blooms in the tree in the Fall...)
It has been no Wisconsin Fall, but nonetheless, I have found some amount of Beauty in it.
The beginning of October was hard. As the month set, tension just seemed to build. My disdain and selfishness against this city kicked in and I began to become discontented in regards to the physical location that I now found myself. I have spent the last month trying to figure out why and I believe that my questions have finally been answered:
Solitude.
In this city, there seems to be no solitude. Sure, there are times that I find myself alone, but never times when I feel really alone. You know, that feeling when you are standing in the middle of the woods at down on a rock, feeling the sun warm your face as it shows itself at the dawn. The feeling of walking down a train with all of the colored leaves of the Wisconsin Fall around you, crunching under your feet. Standing on a hill that looks out over a lake.
In New Orleans, there are no woods. There are no large rocks. There is no Fall. There are no crunching leaves. And there definitely isn't a hill that looks over a lake unless you go to the levees, which are brown and dull looking.
Solitude is where I find beauty. Because solitude is when I commune with God best. It is my respite. Believe it or not, I think I have become more of an introvert since I've been down here. I hear that is what working in a school will do to you.
Either way, there is a deep connection between God, solitude and my ability to see beauty.
But I'm coming to realize that I may have something backwards. Since solitude is so hard to come by now, perhaps I need to redefine beauty, if that is when I commune with God best. Or maybe when I commune with God best, I see beauty more.
I guess I don't have it all figured out yet.
But something tells me that I need to redefine beauty.
Sure, there is something to be said for the typical beauty of the Wisconsin Fall. For the solitude of the trails. For the hills and the trees. It is creation...How do you not find God in that?
But I'm guessing that He wants me to start being a bit more creative like He is... Being a bit more imaginative, if you will.
Plato said in Symposium:
"Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may."
Or, rather...
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
This past weekend, we (RefugeNOLA.org) and a slew of other partners hosted a block party-type event for Halloween in Central City and were floored by what God did with it. In a neighborhood full of broken homes and broken relationships, teenage parents and rampant drug use, we saw a community come together. The event was just a simple block party that enabled kids in the neighborhood to trick-or-treat with the reassurance of safety, as we organized houses and games, even giving houses candy that couldn't afford to buy it.
We expected to see kids out and about, running around, getting candy, but as 5pm came and went, we got a little worried that they weren't going to come. And then, as the sun slowly went down, they came out...but not just the kids. Their parents, with strollers and trick-or-treat bags in tow, were out with them. Teenage fathers with their kids on their shoulders bobbed for apples.
My favorite story of the night:
A mother was trying to do our reverse bobbing for apples game (reverse bobbing for apples is when you hang an apple from a string and you have to try to bite off the apple in the air). She was having a heck of a time and her kids were all joking with her about it. Her cellphone rang and the typical language that you hear in the neighborhood came out as she described to her friend across the phoneline what she was doing: "I'm trying to get the damn apple off the stick!!" I can only imagine what her friend thought, but I laughed so hard at that, I didn't know what to do with it! Even more, striking, though, was that the mother kept trying and soon, her daughter chided that she could do it better. So teenage daughter gave the apple a go...and still failed. Soon, mother and daughter were attacking the apple together, one on each side, and were, eventually, successful!
It was such a normal thing to see...if you weren't in Central City. It was something my mom and I would do.
I have yet to figure out whether that fact reminds me of my own brokenness or whether it reminds me that these broken relationships still have a way to be redeemed. I'm sure that it's both.
But isn't that the real reality of beauty? Something that reminds us of how small we are, but at the same time, gives us hope?
And so, I am being made to be more creative. I am being made to be more imaginative.
I am being made to be more like Christ--finding the ability to see value and beauty in everything that He has created.
In case you haven't yet heard, Michael Wong has asked me to be his wife and I have accepted. We will be married on March 20, 2010 and are busy planning the wedding!
Michael started a new full time position at a bank as a special projects manager, as well as a few other things there, that no one else knows how to do. (I have somehow found someone to marry who is even more inquisitive than I am...)
School is going ok for me. The kindergartners are learning a ton and it's amazing to see these little people forming! It has been very tough the last few weeks, but I am constantly growing and refining and am very fortunate to work on the staff that I do. I will soon be applying for teaching programs so that I can get certified.
I have been working to help develop new and effective systems at our church with my roommate and maid of honor, Lori. We are very excited about starting to implement and I have discovered that I have a real passion for healthy church systems! (Wait for the phone call, Nancy Lindroth!)
RefugeNOLA, the non-profit (501-C3) that we are trying to give legs helped to pull off a rather large event in Central City for Halloween. (More in this update following, as well as a newsletter that will come soon to all of you!)
Please pray for...
Please pray for me, as I am feeling stretched especially thin lately. Pray that I would learn to set good boundaries for myself and for my future husband (whoa, that sounds weird!) Also, please pray that the people that are feeling snubbed by me would no feel hurt and that I would be able to find the time to make them feel loved and appreciated.
Pray for all of the things I mentioned above!
Pray that true community would develop with our church, that we would be able to come together to bring impact to other parts of the city--God is doing something at Sojourn Lakeview Baptist Church (soon to be Harbor Community Church) and we are very excited about it. Pray that the leadership would continue to seek after the heart of God in all matters and that they would make decisions that will bring about community and love.
Sit down and rest a while
Well, the weather in New Orleans has finally taken a turn for the better. October brought us some still humid temperatures, but for the most part, the season of "Fall" settled in about halfway through the month, and there was a sigh of relief that was heard around the whole city.
I heard birds chirp for the first time since I'd been down here.
I thought I saw a tree near my school start to change colors. (Ironically, I was then informed that it was actually a flower that blooms in the tree in the Fall...)
It has been no Wisconsin Fall, but nonetheless, I have found some amount of Beauty in it.
The beginning of October was hard. As the month set, tension just seemed to build. My disdain and selfishness against this city kicked in and I began to become discontented in regards to the physical location that I now found myself. I have spent the last month trying to figure out why and I believe that my questions have finally been answered:
Solitude.
In this city, there seems to be no solitude. Sure, there are times that I find myself alone, but never times when I feel really alone. You know, that feeling when you are standing in the middle of the woods at down on a rock, feeling the sun warm your face as it shows itself at the dawn. The feeling of walking down a train with all of the colored leaves of the Wisconsin Fall around you, crunching under your feet. Standing on a hill that looks out over a lake.
In New Orleans, there are no woods. There are no large rocks. There is no Fall. There are no crunching leaves. And there definitely isn't a hill that looks over a lake unless you go to the levees, which are brown and dull looking.
Solitude is where I find beauty. Because solitude is when I commune with God best. It is my respite. Believe it or not, I think I have become more of an introvert since I've been down here. I hear that is what working in a school will do to you.
Either way, there is a deep connection between God, solitude and my ability to see beauty.
But I'm coming to realize that I may have something backwards. Since solitude is so hard to come by now, perhaps I need to redefine beauty, if that is when I commune with God best. Or maybe when I commune with God best, I see beauty more.
I guess I don't have it all figured out yet.
But something tells me that I need to redefine beauty.
Sure, there is something to be said for the typical beauty of the Wisconsin Fall. For the solitude of the trails. For the hills and the trees. It is creation...How do you not find God in that?
But I'm guessing that He wants me to start being a bit more creative like He is... Being a bit more imaginative, if you will.
Plato said in Symposium:
"Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may."
Or, rather...
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
This past weekend, we (RefugeNOLA.org) and a slew of other partners hosted a block party-type event for Halloween in Central City and were floored by what God did with it. In a neighborhood full of broken homes and broken relationships, teenage parents and rampant drug use, we saw a community come together. The event was just a simple block party that enabled kids in the neighborhood to trick-or-treat with the reassurance of safety, as we organized houses and games, even giving houses candy that couldn't afford to buy it.
We expected to see kids out and about, running around, getting candy, but as 5pm came and went, we got a little worried that they weren't going to come. And then, as the sun slowly went down, they came out...but not just the kids. Their parents, with strollers and trick-or-treat bags in tow, were out with them. Teenage fathers with their kids on their shoulders bobbed for apples.
My favorite story of the night:
A mother was trying to do our reverse bobbing for apples game (reverse bobbing for apples is when you hang an apple from a string and you have to try to bite off the apple in the air). She was having a heck of a time and her kids were all joking with her about it. Her cellphone rang and the typical language that you hear in the neighborhood came out as she described to her friend across the phoneline what she was doing: "I'm trying to get the damn apple off the stick!!" I can only imagine what her friend thought, but I laughed so hard at that, I didn't know what to do with it! Even more, striking, though, was that the mother kept trying and soon, her daughter chided that she could do it better. So teenage daughter gave the apple a go...and still failed. Soon, mother and daughter were attacking the apple together, one on each side, and were, eventually, successful!
It was such a normal thing to see...if you weren't in Central City. It was something my mom and I would do.
I have yet to figure out whether that fact reminds me of my own brokenness or whether it reminds me that these broken relationships still have a way to be redeemed. I'm sure that it's both.
But isn't that the real reality of beauty? Something that reminds us of how small we are, but at the same time, gives us hope?
And so, I am being made to be more creative. I am being made to be more imaginative.
I am being made to be more like Christ--finding the ability to see value and beauty in everything that He has created.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Everywhere Person
Drive-thru Update:
School is in full swing! The kindergartners are settling in nicely, though I still feel rather awkward in my teaching. Though I am still learning boatloads and loving it!
I have started helping to lead worship at Sojourn-Lakeview church and am VERY happy to have music back in my life. Leading worship is one of my favorite things that I have done in life to date, so to have this back is a wonderful gift. On the topic of church, our little church plant has exploded over the last few weeks!! And having come from a church with a lot of great ideas on connecting people and hospitality, I have been given the ability at Lakeview Sojourn to help spearhead this! It is a need and I am very excited to be on the team and helping out!
The non-profit that we are working on starting is getting a bit more shape. I think the legs are starting to form and more people are interested in helping out every week! We are currently working on fixing up a house across the street to turn into intern housing and a sort of community center. If you are in the area and want to help, please let us know!!
Sit-Down Update:
In Madison, it's a widely known fact that everyone has an Everywhere Person, if not more than 1. In college at UW-Madison, one of the things I looked forward to every year was walking to my first week of classes and figuring out who my everywhere people were. Some of them spanned the 5 years I was in school, while others were more short-lived, but there was not a time in Madison that I did not have one. And there is something about them that has always struck something inside of me--something deep and unexplained. I think it made me stop to look at the deeper complexities of life, and to wonder about this person; to think about their life and what was happening to them that made me cross their path the times that I did. Surely, these run-ins were not just coincidence.
When I moved to New Orleans, I thought I had left my everywhere people behind. I thought that a city the size of New Orleans would never allow me the opportunity again of seeing the same red coat or checkered hat again. But on the city bus one day about a month and a half ago, an older man got on the bus. He had puffs of white hair that stuck out under his straw hat with the faded fabric around the brim. His sweat-stained bandana was wrapped around his neck and his tshirt clung to him in the Louisiana heat. His thin, long leg that faced me as he dropped his coins into the ticket dispenser looked as if it had never felt brush of his twin leg. He laughed out loud to himself, revealing a mouth full of missing teeth, as he sat down and pulled out a can of beer in a paper bag. I sat and watched him until he got off the bus, not sure what to do with what I had just seen. I chalked it up to the odd personalities that live in the neighborhood in which I work and went about my day.
But a few days later, he got on my bus again. Same story. Same white puffs of hair. Same long legs. Same beer in a paper bag. Coincidence.
And then I didn't see him again.
Until I was biking home from work the other day and a pickup truck with an old busted refrigerator turned the corner right in front of me and who else was in the back of the truck, holding the refrigerator but the old man. I almost waved, I was so excited.
And then sadness came over me. The reality of my Everywhere Man is that he has probably lived in this city, uneducated, and unable to get out of the cycles of this city, for his entire life. It reminded me of the betrayal that this city leads you into. You are overcome with the history, with the beauty, with the culture of New Orleans when you first visit it. But soon, the true colors come out... Broken relationships. Broken systems. Broken cultures.
And yet, there is so much beauty in the possibilities of redemption for this city...and for the world. The days that I see parents give their kids hugs and show excitement to see them after school...the days that I see affordable decent apartments going into low income neighborhoods...simply, flowers in a pot outside of a house in the hood...lets me know that our God is sovereign and good and will have His way with the people that He loves.
I still feel small here. I still feel like I can't make a bit of difference in the deep, penetrating problems within these lives. But i serve a big God who will bring justice in the end. I serve a God who loves all. And all people have dignity and value because of this. My only role is to live a life that looks more and more like the life that Christ lived, because it is only through that life that Paradise Restored is possible.
Please Pray For:
-An ability to see the glories of God. I am struggling to see beauty in the mess of the world, but I know it is me that is blind to them and not that they are not being revealed to me.
-Stamina to keep trucking forward and to continue to keep God in the forefront of my mind and heart as I try to care for some of the people of this city
-Wisdom as we move forward with various projects
-RefugeNOLA (nonprofit) in Central City with Michael Wong
-We need volunteers and funding to finish off the house we are remodeling for kids in the neighborhood to be
able to hang out at, as well as housing for interns who want to learn more about serving in Central City.
-Sojourn Lakeview Church
-As more of the Lakeview neighborhood returns to New Orleans, our church is growing rapidly. Please pray for
wisdom and and ability to discern what God would be having us do (or not do)
-I am doing better with missing home and people so much, but I still have moments of sorrow (but not regret). I miss everyone and everything still and long to see everyone and to feel the cooler Wisconsin night breezes. (For some reason, my big thing recently is not hearing birds ever.)
-Continued learning about what it means to love sacrificially and to give of myself until there is nothing of myself left.
School is in full swing! The kindergartners are settling in nicely, though I still feel rather awkward in my teaching. Though I am still learning boatloads and loving it!
I have started helping to lead worship at Sojourn-Lakeview church and am VERY happy to have music back in my life. Leading worship is one of my favorite things that I have done in life to date, so to have this back is a wonderful gift. On the topic of church, our little church plant has exploded over the last few weeks!! And having come from a church with a lot of great ideas on connecting people and hospitality, I have been given the ability at Lakeview Sojourn to help spearhead this! It is a need and I am very excited to be on the team and helping out!
The non-profit that we are working on starting is getting a bit more shape. I think the legs are starting to form and more people are interested in helping out every week! We are currently working on fixing up a house across the street to turn into intern housing and a sort of community center. If you are in the area and want to help, please let us know!!
Sit-Down Update:
In Madison, it's a widely known fact that everyone has an Everywhere Person, if not more than 1. In college at UW-Madison, one of the things I looked forward to every year was walking to my first week of classes and figuring out who my everywhere people were. Some of them spanned the 5 years I was in school, while others were more short-lived, but there was not a time in Madison that I did not have one. And there is something about them that has always struck something inside of me--something deep and unexplained. I think it made me stop to look at the deeper complexities of life, and to wonder about this person; to think about their life and what was happening to them that made me cross their path the times that I did. Surely, these run-ins were not just coincidence.
When I moved to New Orleans, I thought I had left my everywhere people behind. I thought that a city the size of New Orleans would never allow me the opportunity again of seeing the same red coat or checkered hat again. But on the city bus one day about a month and a half ago, an older man got on the bus. He had puffs of white hair that stuck out under his straw hat with the faded fabric around the brim. His sweat-stained bandana was wrapped around his neck and his tshirt clung to him in the Louisiana heat. His thin, long leg that faced me as he dropped his coins into the ticket dispenser looked as if it had never felt brush of his twin leg. He laughed out loud to himself, revealing a mouth full of missing teeth, as he sat down and pulled out a can of beer in a paper bag. I sat and watched him until he got off the bus, not sure what to do with what I had just seen. I chalked it up to the odd personalities that live in the neighborhood in which I work and went about my day.
But a few days later, he got on my bus again. Same story. Same white puffs of hair. Same long legs. Same beer in a paper bag. Coincidence.
And then I didn't see him again.
Until I was biking home from work the other day and a pickup truck with an old busted refrigerator turned the corner right in front of me and who else was in the back of the truck, holding the refrigerator but the old man. I almost waved, I was so excited.
And then sadness came over me. The reality of my Everywhere Man is that he has probably lived in this city, uneducated, and unable to get out of the cycles of this city, for his entire life. It reminded me of the betrayal that this city leads you into. You are overcome with the history, with the beauty, with the culture of New Orleans when you first visit it. But soon, the true colors come out... Broken relationships. Broken systems. Broken cultures.
And yet, there is so much beauty in the possibilities of redemption for this city...and for the world. The days that I see parents give their kids hugs and show excitement to see them after school...the days that I see affordable decent apartments going into low income neighborhoods...simply, flowers in a pot outside of a house in the hood...lets me know that our God is sovereign and good and will have His way with the people that He loves.
I still feel small here. I still feel like I can't make a bit of difference in the deep, penetrating problems within these lives. But i serve a big God who will bring justice in the end. I serve a God who loves all. And all people have dignity and value because of this. My only role is to live a life that looks more and more like the life that Christ lived, because it is only through that life that Paradise Restored is possible.
Please Pray For:
-An ability to see the glories of God. I am struggling to see beauty in the mess of the world, but I know it is me that is blind to them and not that they are not being revealed to me.
-Stamina to keep trucking forward and to continue to keep God in the forefront of my mind and heart as I try to care for some of the people of this city
-Wisdom as we move forward with various projects
-RefugeNOLA (nonprofit) in Central City with Michael Wong
-We need volunteers and funding to finish off the house we are remodeling for kids in the neighborhood to be
able to hang out at, as well as housing for interns who want to learn more about serving in Central City.
-Sojourn Lakeview Church
-As more of the Lakeview neighborhood returns to New Orleans, our church is growing rapidly. Please pray for
wisdom and and ability to discern what God would be having us do (or not do)
-I am doing better with missing home and people so much, but I still have moments of sorrow (but not regret). I miss everyone and everything still and long to see everyone and to feel the cooler Wisconsin night breezes. (For some reason, my big thing recently is not hearing birds ever.)
-Continued learning about what it means to love sacrificially and to give of myself until there is nothing of myself left.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Changes Come
Part 1:
I began work on July 20 at a school called ARISE Academy. It's a wonderful school that works in the Bywater/Ninth Ward area. This is the first year it is open (That's right...I'm helping to start a school! How cool is that?!). Our student population is 199 black students and 1 white girl, ranging from Pre-K to 2nd grade. Every year after this year, we will add a grade until we get to 8th grade. I love the team I work on. Everyone is incredibly social justice minded, despite whatever the deeper source of that mindset is. The kids are great and we are implimenting teaching techniques that are proven to work in areas such as these to bring these children up in an atmosphere of scholarly learning. We have a very rigorous curriculum, and though that freaks me out because I do not have a teaching degree, I am co-teaching with a girl about my age who is a first year Teach for America hire (so we are both freaking out a bit right now!)
Please pray for stamina. The days are long and exhausting, but I love that my LIFE has become a ministry. This is why I moved here. I wanted this. I asked for this. And my prayers have been answered. But it means giving up a lot of things for myself (most days I don't even have time to run. Please also pray that I would continue to learn to love sacrificially and to learn more how to love the unloved.
Part 2:
I have been in New Orleans for two and a half months now.
Within that time, I've had no job...one job and then another job.
I've lived in one apartment...and then moved to another.
I've made friends...said goodbye to friends...and made more friends.
I've gained 5 pounds...and then lost 10.
I turned 25.
And in those two and a half months, I have become a new person. Those in Madison would see the difference. Those in New Orleans might. I definitely do. My experiences in New Orleans have forced me to grow, kicking and screaming, and change. I have come to understand the Gospel in a way that never even dawned on me previous to this placement change. I understand so much more brokenness and grace and hope and love. And I am grateful for these lessons, though I am homesick for comfort.
It's amazing how much you take fore granted when you are in the position to have it. Michael and I were driving me home, past all of the dilapidated and condemned homes of Central City and I almost broke into tears. Driving through that neighborhood (and really the whole city in general) I was blindsided by yet another reality:
The people who "have" never quite realize all that they do have, yet the "have nots" can not escape the fact that they don't have. They are constantly reminded by their discomfort. To alleviate that pain, they turn to things that will reduce that pain. They turn to alcohol (bars are open 24 hours a day here), drugs (one of the worst crime issues in this city, robbery (a huge issue in this city), and murder (the news doesn't even report on murders here because the rate of them is the highest in the nation).
Our comfort blinds us. It numbs us. It separates us from the world.
Life down here has made me realize how much I never appreciate what I have. The kids I work with make me realize that I have an education that I didn't work hard enough for. They make me realize that I have a family that loves me and would do anything for me. They make me realize that, during the times that it was important, my life was stable (which, coincidentally is what now gives me the ability to not have stability). For whatever reason, I was given things easy--and I still am. But the blinders are being taken off.
I see the some of the depth of the pain in this city and my heart aches for redemption and for restoration. I was biking to work this morning as the sun was coming up. It was beautiful and peaceful and calm still. The day had not yet started for most and there was a cool breeze. I breathed a sigh of relief. I prayed as I biked for patience to deal with my students and work well on my team and to bring salt and light to the people around me. And then I saw the same homeless man that I see every morning sleeping on a different stoop and cried out for it all to be over. When will that day come when the world will be restored? When will the hurt of people stop? My hands feel so small here.
The dichotomy of it all is that I still ache for my own comforts. I feel so removed. Life goes on in the rest of the world without me. Friends get married. Friends have babies. Nieces have birthdays and so do Dads. The warm nights of summer in Wisconsin pass with the cool breezes and live music and fireflies. All of the things that I miss so much keep spinning on without me.
I feel torn between two selves.
"The biggest lies are the little ones.
Angel or demon? You know that they could share the same bed.
I've laid awake so long, I've got them both inside my head." ~OTR
And yet...
I feel cooler breezes in the afternoons. They say that it starts to cool down in September. Hope and redemption are around the corner. I can feel it coming.
I began work on July 20 at a school called ARISE Academy. It's a wonderful school that works in the Bywater/Ninth Ward area. This is the first year it is open (That's right...I'm helping to start a school! How cool is that?!). Our student population is 199 black students and 1 white girl, ranging from Pre-K to 2nd grade. Every year after this year, we will add a grade until we get to 8th grade. I love the team I work on. Everyone is incredibly social justice minded, despite whatever the deeper source of that mindset is. The kids are great and we are implimenting teaching techniques that are proven to work in areas such as these to bring these children up in an atmosphere of scholarly learning. We have a very rigorous curriculum, and though that freaks me out because I do not have a teaching degree, I am co-teaching with a girl about my age who is a first year Teach for America hire (so we are both freaking out a bit right now!)
Please pray for stamina. The days are long and exhausting, but I love that my LIFE has become a ministry. This is why I moved here. I wanted this. I asked for this. And my prayers have been answered. But it means giving up a lot of things for myself (most days I don't even have time to run. Please also pray that I would continue to learn to love sacrificially and to learn more how to love the unloved.
Part 2:
I have been in New Orleans for two and a half months now.
Within that time, I've had no job...one job and then another job.
I've lived in one apartment...and then moved to another.
I've made friends...said goodbye to friends...and made more friends.
I've gained 5 pounds...and then lost 10.
I turned 25.
And in those two and a half months, I have become a new person. Those in Madison would see the difference. Those in New Orleans might. I definitely do. My experiences in New Orleans have forced me to grow, kicking and screaming, and change. I have come to understand the Gospel in a way that never even dawned on me previous to this placement change. I understand so much more brokenness and grace and hope and love. And I am grateful for these lessons, though I am homesick for comfort.
It's amazing how much you take fore granted when you are in the position to have it. Michael and I were driving me home, past all of the dilapidated and condemned homes of Central City and I almost broke into tears. Driving through that neighborhood (and really the whole city in general) I was blindsided by yet another reality:
The people who "have" never quite realize all that they do have, yet the "have nots" can not escape the fact that they don't have. They are constantly reminded by their discomfort. To alleviate that pain, they turn to things that will reduce that pain. They turn to alcohol (bars are open 24 hours a day here), drugs (one of the worst crime issues in this city, robbery (a huge issue in this city), and murder (the news doesn't even report on murders here because the rate of them is the highest in the nation).
Our comfort blinds us. It numbs us. It separates us from the world.
Life down here has made me realize how much I never appreciate what I have. The kids I work with make me realize that I have an education that I didn't work hard enough for. They make me realize that I have a family that loves me and would do anything for me. They make me realize that, during the times that it was important, my life was stable (which, coincidentally is what now gives me the ability to not have stability). For whatever reason, I was given things easy--and I still am. But the blinders are being taken off.
I see the some of the depth of the pain in this city and my heart aches for redemption and for restoration. I was biking to work this morning as the sun was coming up. It was beautiful and peaceful and calm still. The day had not yet started for most and there was a cool breeze. I breathed a sigh of relief. I prayed as I biked for patience to deal with my students and work well on my team and to bring salt and light to the people around me. And then I saw the same homeless man that I see every morning sleeping on a different stoop and cried out for it all to be over. When will that day come when the world will be restored? When will the hurt of people stop? My hands feel so small here.
The dichotomy of it all is that I still ache for my own comforts. I feel so removed. Life goes on in the rest of the world without me. Friends get married. Friends have babies. Nieces have birthdays and so do Dads. The warm nights of summer in Wisconsin pass with the cool breezes and live music and fireflies. All of the things that I miss so much keep spinning on without me.
I feel torn between two selves.
"The biggest lies are the little ones.
Angel or demon? You know that they could share the same bed.
I've laid awake so long, I've got them both inside my head." ~OTR
And yet...
I feel cooler breezes in the afternoons. They say that it starts to cool down in September. Hope and redemption are around the corner. I can feel it coming.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Vagaries and Vantage Points
I have been in New Orleans for just over a month now and I believe that I have learned more [painful] lessons in this time than I have in the last year combined. James 1 is ever a comfort to me and never fails to remind me that, yes, this sucks, but it is good and I am growing and becoming more like Christ because of it...
In my last post, I talked about letting go of my notions of community. Not only have these thoughts gone deeper, but the chasm has opened wide and I now see a bigger picture that not only entails my community, but my life as a whole.
I sat down at a coffee shop yesterday for a while and listed all of the things that I feel that I "need" to feel like Rae. My list wasn't as superficial as I thought it would be--or so I thought.
My list:
Community
To be utilized well
Mental stimulation (ie. good conversation/music/art/etc)
Not bad, right? Well, then I went through the realizations from the last post--These are never promised to me. I have promises for good and joy and peace. But never a promise for the things listed above.
Anyway, so through this, I realized that He is bringing me to a place where all I need is Him. Well, that seems simple enough, right? Sure, all I need is God. That's what I thought before I embarked into this craziness, anyhow.
Now I am realizing that the stripping away of everything in which I once found comfort is the most ridiculous painful thing that I have ever experienced. My friends and family-a major source of comfort-are all 1,000 miles away. The internship that utilized me well and engaged me is no more. Even the ability to connect with God in nature has been taken from me, as it's incredibly difficult to see God in nature in the middle of a cement Island that is 8 feet below sea level.
So the question remains:
Where do I seek comfort? Because the fact that I feel that I am not me because of a lack of these things would reveal that it is not God from whom I seek my comfort. I heard a sermon today that shook me up a little bit. He talked about our short-sightedness. We desire things and He longs to give us SO MUCH MORE (If I could somehow relay the Southern Baptist accent in writing, it would make it so much more effective!). Everything in us wants our comforts and our routines, but Jesus has called us to GO (Matt. 28). We are not meant to be comfortable in this world, but only through Him.
The Holy Spirit should create in us a ripple affect--it should wake us up to desire that our hearts and our wills and our desires be crushed and that His replace them.
This then begs a question, though. I have the desire for my will to be crushed, so why doesn't it happen? Why do I constantly have to fight against myself to move anywhere?
Up north, I was often told that I had a servant's heart. The reality that this is nonsense has never been truer than what I see now in myself. A servant's heart does not just entail picking up the hymnals after the meeting or serving a meal at the shelter once a month. If that were a servant's heart, NONE of us would have any ability to live the life in Christ that we do now. A servant's heart cares for other people sacrificially. But what does it mean to live sacrificially? Here is the true message of the Gospel! A sacrificial heart lays down itself so that others may flourish. A sacrificial heart dies to its desire and its will and its need for the sake of the other.
This is the desire of my heart. I long to learn to love people sacrificially the way that Christ did. I long to learn how to die to my own will and desire for the sake of other's comfort and assurance that they are loved and cared for. And I realize that by asking for this that it will be granted to me because Psalm 37:4 reminds us that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart. (Funny how the reality of that verse is that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, HE becomes our desire. Sneaky Sneaky, eh? It's the Catch-22 of falling in love with this God.)
The desire is there in me; the implementation is weak.
So the reality is this:
I long for comfort, but comfort cannot be found because He is teaching me about what it actually means to love the way that He loves us. He is teaching me what it means to love sacrificially. And that lesson begets no comfort unless comfort is Christ because everything that was once comfortable has been stripped away.
But in the lesson, the beauty of Paradise Restored resounds just a little bit more in this world.
It's all so beautifully interconnected.
Play by Play
-The job is going well at the Seminary's preschool, although it is, I hope, a stepping stone. I have an interview with a charter school this coming Wednesday for an Associate Teaching position, which would be wonderful. If you would pray for that, I would really appreciate it!
-I am now a member of Sojourn-Lakeview Baptist Church--I have never been a member of a church before, so this is an interesting experience and really only a couple of hours old.
-I got to visit with a great friend Andy Camann this weekend when he came in to town from Houston!
Growing Curves
Please also pray for these things that I am discovering or being shown to me:
I need to learn to be a better listener and to truly learn to show care for the people talking to me. I may intake what people are saying, but I do a poor job of relaying that. There is usually so much happening in my head that I sometimes zone out or shut down. This absolutely needs to change.
I also need to learn to slow down under pressure and make better decisions in that pressure.
Both of these things are not new discoveries, but down here in this context, if I do not learn to do them, major things are affected.
Please join me in praying for a change in me to be more like Christ in these areas--I appreciate it.
In my last post, I talked about letting go of my notions of community. Not only have these thoughts gone deeper, but the chasm has opened wide and I now see a bigger picture that not only entails my community, but my life as a whole.
I sat down at a coffee shop yesterday for a while and listed all of the things that I feel that I "need" to feel like Rae. My list wasn't as superficial as I thought it would be--or so I thought.
My list:
Community
To be utilized well
Mental stimulation (ie. good conversation/music/art/etc)
Not bad, right? Well, then I went through the realizations from the last post--These are never promised to me. I have promises for good and joy and peace. But never a promise for the things listed above.
Anyway, so through this, I realized that He is bringing me to a place where all I need is Him. Well, that seems simple enough, right? Sure, all I need is God. That's what I thought before I embarked into this craziness, anyhow.
Now I am realizing that the stripping away of everything in which I once found comfort is the most ridiculous painful thing that I have ever experienced. My friends and family-a major source of comfort-are all 1,000 miles away. The internship that utilized me well and engaged me is no more. Even the ability to connect with God in nature has been taken from me, as it's incredibly difficult to see God in nature in the middle of a cement Island that is 8 feet below sea level.
So the question remains:
Where do I seek comfort? Because the fact that I feel that I am not me because of a lack of these things would reveal that it is not God from whom I seek my comfort. I heard a sermon today that shook me up a little bit. He talked about our short-sightedness. We desire things and He longs to give us SO MUCH MORE (If I could somehow relay the Southern Baptist accent in writing, it would make it so much more effective!). Everything in us wants our comforts and our routines, but Jesus has called us to GO (Matt. 28). We are not meant to be comfortable in this world, but only through Him.
The Holy Spirit should create in us a ripple affect--it should wake us up to desire that our hearts and our wills and our desires be crushed and that His replace them.
This then begs a question, though. I have the desire for my will to be crushed, so why doesn't it happen? Why do I constantly have to fight against myself to move anywhere?
Up north, I was often told that I had a servant's heart. The reality that this is nonsense has never been truer than what I see now in myself. A servant's heart does not just entail picking up the hymnals after the meeting or serving a meal at the shelter once a month. If that were a servant's heart, NONE of us would have any ability to live the life in Christ that we do now. A servant's heart cares for other people sacrificially. But what does it mean to live sacrificially? Here is the true message of the Gospel! A sacrificial heart lays down itself so that others may flourish. A sacrificial heart dies to its desire and its will and its need for the sake of the other.
This is the desire of my heart. I long to learn to love people sacrificially the way that Christ did. I long to learn how to die to my own will and desire for the sake of other's comfort and assurance that they are loved and cared for. And I realize that by asking for this that it will be granted to me because Psalm 37:4 reminds us that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart. (Funny how the reality of that verse is that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, HE becomes our desire. Sneaky Sneaky, eh? It's the Catch-22 of falling in love with this God.)
The desire is there in me; the implementation is weak.
So the reality is this:
I long for comfort, but comfort cannot be found because He is teaching me about what it actually means to love the way that He loves us. He is teaching me what it means to love sacrificially. And that lesson begets no comfort unless comfort is Christ because everything that was once comfortable has been stripped away.
But in the lesson, the beauty of Paradise Restored resounds just a little bit more in this world.
It's all so beautifully interconnected.
Play by Play
-The job is going well at the Seminary's preschool, although it is, I hope, a stepping stone. I have an interview with a charter school this coming Wednesday for an Associate Teaching position, which would be wonderful. If you would pray for that, I would really appreciate it!
-I am now a member of Sojourn-Lakeview Baptist Church--I have never been a member of a church before, so this is an interesting experience and really only a couple of hours old.
-I got to visit with a great friend Andy Camann this weekend when he came in to town from Houston!
Growing Curves
Please also pray for these things that I am discovering or being shown to me:
I need to learn to be a better listener and to truly learn to show care for the people talking to me. I may intake what people are saying, but I do a poor job of relaying that. There is usually so much happening in my head that I sometimes zone out or shut down. This absolutely needs to change.
I also need to learn to slow down under pressure and make better decisions in that pressure.
Both of these things are not new discoveries, but down here in this context, if I do not learn to do them, major things are affected.
Please join me in praying for a change in me to be more like Christ in these areas--I appreciate it.
Friday, June 12, 2009
An Attempt at Standing Up
2 Part Update!
I decided to do this one as 2 parts: The first part is just the basics of what is going on. The second is bigger things there are going on in my head. I figure that not everyone wants to read the second part (oven people vs. microwave people :P )
Part 1:
I have a meeting with a woman tomorrow about a possible job. We will see how that goes.
I am also the midst of still digging through jobs and sending out resumes. I am feeling slightly unmotivated it in, so please pray for stamina and perseverance.
We are also looking for an apartment for August 1 that will be cheap and in a good location, but I am currently the only one around, but I do seem to have at least 3 roommates to live with now.
I am melting in the this heat and can't eat enough popsicles! :P
Part 2:
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
- Henry David Thoreau
I read this quote today and it hit me pretty hard. I function in writing. The way I write and the amount that I write is a good indication of where I am at in life. The times that I am learning the most and processing the most are the times when I am writing the most. So I can relate pretty well to Henry up there. I don't have anything to write about unless I've bothered to pay attention to the world around me.
But to be honest, I've been in survival mode for the last bit of time here. This move has been the hardest thing I've ever done. And like the already oppressive heat of New Orleans that I have experienced thus far--this has not been the worst of it.
The first 5 days here were distracted, with my parents being down here. The next few were just fine because Michael and I were spending quite a bit of time together, so I wasn't really lonely. Piece of cake.
And then yesterday and today happened: Too hot for me to really want to leave the house but desperate to not feel lonely.
It has got me thinking quite a bit though. And in conjunction with the sermon that I heard at the church I attended on Sunday as well as with the community group that I went to based off of that sermon, I believe my world might be turning on its head.
For the last 3.5 years, I have been surrounded by amazing fellowship and community. Let's face it, I have been spoiled, like the youngest child that I am. I loved every minute of it and miss it terribly. But I think that it might have crippled me a bit. The sermon and small group tonight focused on sin and we talked for a bit about idols. This was a challenging topic for me because I began to be more convicted (I had already started thinking about it a little bit) because I believe the good community that I had up there became an idol to me--I found worth in it. I found comfort in it. It fulfilled me. While God has such joy in community for us, there is a line we can cross, as with any good and perfect gift that comes from Him, where it becomes a crutch to replace instead of a gift to receive. Sad, huh?
Community is nothing unless it is fulfilling the will of God by inviting other people in to share in His goodness. But what does that mean? Something I recently realized is that we have such a tendency to trick ourselves into believing that we are doing His will with community when really we are not. We invite people into our community if they are like us--we have an application that needs to be filled out, screen tests that need to be run, and background checks that need to be gone through. God's purpose for community is that EVERYONE should experience Himself through it. But we, as consumers, have infiltrated the true calling for community. Instead, we make community fit to what we need, not to what He needs to be accomplished.
We make it our idol.
We are fulfilled by it, so long as it fulfills what we need.
Tonight, I felt a little bit like I understood God more.
In a conversation about spending time with people and the motivation for doing that, I got blindsided by a reality.
I am an extrovert to the core. I get fed off of being around people. But this can easily trick me into believing that I need people. But it's not the case. If my relationship were right with God, all I would need was Him.
And aside from that, the bigger thing that I understood Him more in is this:
The situation has occurred where I have been lonely and people have wanted to be there for me, so despite knowing that they need alone time, they hang out with me because they know that I need it. It is out of care for me and a genuine desire to be there for me--but I can always tell when they are doing it out of duty and when they are doing it because they really want to.
And then I realized that this is what God must go through all of the time with us. Our constant knowledge that we should hang out with Him, as opposed to a real desire to spend time with Him.
There is a sadness that comes along with the former situation and it made me remorse over all of the times that I have spent time with God out of duty, rather than spending time with Him because I actually care about the relationship and want it to grow. And it stems from a deeper issue than I care to write about tonight, so I will have to come back to it later.
I decided to do this one as 2 parts: The first part is just the basics of what is going on. The second is bigger things there are going on in my head. I figure that not everyone wants to read the second part (oven people vs. microwave people :P )
Part 1:
I have a meeting with a woman tomorrow about a possible job. We will see how that goes.
I am also the midst of still digging through jobs and sending out resumes. I am feeling slightly unmotivated it in, so please pray for stamina and perseverance.
We are also looking for an apartment for August 1 that will be cheap and in a good location, but I am currently the only one around, but I do seem to have at least 3 roommates to live with now.
I am melting in the this heat and can't eat enough popsicles! :P
Part 2:
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
- Henry David Thoreau
I read this quote today and it hit me pretty hard. I function in writing. The way I write and the amount that I write is a good indication of where I am at in life. The times that I am learning the most and processing the most are the times when I am writing the most. So I can relate pretty well to Henry up there. I don't have anything to write about unless I've bothered to pay attention to the world around me.
But to be honest, I've been in survival mode for the last bit of time here. This move has been the hardest thing I've ever done. And like the already oppressive heat of New Orleans that I have experienced thus far--this has not been the worst of it.
The first 5 days here were distracted, with my parents being down here. The next few were just fine because Michael and I were spending quite a bit of time together, so I wasn't really lonely. Piece of cake.
And then yesterday and today happened: Too hot for me to really want to leave the house but desperate to not feel lonely.
It has got me thinking quite a bit though. And in conjunction with the sermon that I heard at the church I attended on Sunday as well as with the community group that I went to based off of that sermon, I believe my world might be turning on its head.
For the last 3.5 years, I have been surrounded by amazing fellowship and community. Let's face it, I have been spoiled, like the youngest child that I am. I loved every minute of it and miss it terribly. But I think that it might have crippled me a bit. The sermon and small group tonight focused on sin and we talked for a bit about idols. This was a challenging topic for me because I began to be more convicted (I had already started thinking about it a little bit) because I believe the good community that I had up there became an idol to me--I found worth in it. I found comfort in it. It fulfilled me. While God has such joy in community for us, there is a line we can cross, as with any good and perfect gift that comes from Him, where it becomes a crutch to replace instead of a gift to receive. Sad, huh?
Community is nothing unless it is fulfilling the will of God by inviting other people in to share in His goodness. But what does that mean? Something I recently realized is that we have such a tendency to trick ourselves into believing that we are doing His will with community when really we are not. We invite people into our community if they are like us--we have an application that needs to be filled out, screen tests that need to be run, and background checks that need to be gone through. God's purpose for community is that EVERYONE should experience Himself through it. But we, as consumers, have infiltrated the true calling for community. Instead, we make community fit to what we need, not to what He needs to be accomplished.
We make it our idol.
We are fulfilled by it, so long as it fulfills what we need.
Tonight, I felt a little bit like I understood God more.
In a conversation about spending time with people and the motivation for doing that, I got blindsided by a reality.
I am an extrovert to the core. I get fed off of being around people. But this can easily trick me into believing that I need people. But it's not the case. If my relationship were right with God, all I would need was Him.
And aside from that, the bigger thing that I understood Him more in is this:
The situation has occurred where I have been lonely and people have wanted to be there for me, so despite knowing that they need alone time, they hang out with me because they know that I need it. It is out of care for me and a genuine desire to be there for me--but I can always tell when they are doing it out of duty and when they are doing it because they really want to.
And then I realized that this is what God must go through all of the time with us. Our constant knowledge that we should hang out with Him, as opposed to a real desire to spend time with Him.
There is a sadness that comes along with the former situation and it made me remorse over all of the times that I have spent time with God out of duty, rather than spending time with Him because I actually care about the relationship and want it to grow. And it stems from a deeper issue than I care to write about tonight, so I will have to come back to it later.
Friday, June 5, 2009
A place to call home?
Well, I have now been a New Orleans resident for 4 days.
I settled into the sublet that I have through July. By settled, I mean, got the boxes arranged along the wall so that I can walk around the room without tripping every 5 seconds. No point in unpacking completely if I am only going to be in this apartment for 2 months, right?
Since we arrived, I have basically just been doing the tourist thing with my parents, which has been good, but draining at the same time. My legs are tired from walking around, but it's great to be able to spend time with my parents as they experience my new city for the first time.
I am almost starting to learn my way around. The Mississippi River curves around in New Orleans about 3 times, making it difficult to tell which direction is where, not to mention, everything down here is just wacky. Uptown is actually down river while Downtown is up river. At least there is some semblance of a grid system that actually makes some logical sense, as opposed to everything working it's way out from the capital building... :P
I was talking to a man at a concert in Lafayette Square yesterday (they have a version of Concert on the Square down here too. But get this! They do theirs in the spring and fall because the summer months are actually the icky ones! (Have fun, suckers! I get double the amount of concerts than you do now! :P) Anyway... Felix runs a job center down here and we got to chatting after an introduction. His center focuses more on jobs for people with not as much education as I have, but he was helping me come up with ideas, nonetheless. He asked me why I was in New Orleans--A question many of you (and I) have asked myself. But then he asked a really interesting question--How long will I give myself before I pack it in if this doesn't feel like home? I didn't really have an answer to this question. I have focused this whole time on getting down here and have known for a while that I would probably be down here for a long haul. But the idea of "home" really got me thinking. How long will it take for New Orleans to feel like home?
Certainly, sitting here in my room, surrounded by everything I own that is packed up in boxes currently makes me doubt that this will ever happen. And after checking the Blackhawk website a few minutes ago just to see what was going on and seeing a picture up on the main page of me and a group of girls from Study Day, that reality cut a little deeper. Will anything feel as much like home as Madison, Wisconsin does?
I don't know the answer to this. But I know that when I got out of the car in the neighborhood of Central City the other day and a woman named Tess yelled across the street to me, ran over and gave me a hug, it felt like this could be home. And sitting on a blanket in Lafayette Square, listening to jazz music in the Louisiana sunshine, a little bit of my heart opened up more to the idea of it. Joking with the cop and the clerk at the counter at the local Winn Dixie grocery store certainly made big New Orleans feel a little smaller.
Will New Orleans ever feel like Madison did? Probably not. But do I believe that God is going to bless me with a feeling of home and community within this community? You can bet your parking spot at the 10:45 service on it.
As for the coming days, I will say a sobbing goodbye to my parents tomorrow night. This is the goodbye that I have tried to put off the longest, even making them drive me down here and stay for a week with me. :P It will be awful and I am not looking forward to it.
I will start really diving in and looking for a job when my parents leave. Please pray that God will teach me the things he needs to teach me in this time of uncertainty. I look forward to the challenge of a new job, but am also just anxious to secure something.
Thank you again for all of your prayers and words of encouragement!
I settled into the sublet that I have through July. By settled, I mean, got the boxes arranged along the wall so that I can walk around the room without tripping every 5 seconds. No point in unpacking completely if I am only going to be in this apartment for 2 months, right?
Since we arrived, I have basically just been doing the tourist thing with my parents, which has been good, but draining at the same time. My legs are tired from walking around, but it's great to be able to spend time with my parents as they experience my new city for the first time.
I am almost starting to learn my way around. The Mississippi River curves around in New Orleans about 3 times, making it difficult to tell which direction is where, not to mention, everything down here is just wacky. Uptown is actually down river while Downtown is up river. At least there is some semblance of a grid system that actually makes some logical sense, as opposed to everything working it's way out from the capital building... :P
I was talking to a man at a concert in Lafayette Square yesterday (they have a version of Concert on the Square down here too. But get this! They do theirs in the spring and fall because the summer months are actually the icky ones! (Have fun, suckers! I get double the amount of concerts than you do now! :P) Anyway... Felix runs a job center down here and we got to chatting after an introduction. His center focuses more on jobs for people with not as much education as I have, but he was helping me come up with ideas, nonetheless. He asked me why I was in New Orleans--A question many of you (and I) have asked myself. But then he asked a really interesting question--How long will I give myself before I pack it in if this doesn't feel like home? I didn't really have an answer to this question. I have focused this whole time on getting down here and have known for a while that I would probably be down here for a long haul. But the idea of "home" really got me thinking. How long will it take for New Orleans to feel like home?
Certainly, sitting here in my room, surrounded by everything I own that is packed up in boxes currently makes me doubt that this will ever happen. And after checking the Blackhawk website a few minutes ago just to see what was going on and seeing a picture up on the main page of me and a group of girls from Study Day, that reality cut a little deeper. Will anything feel as much like home as Madison, Wisconsin does?
I don't know the answer to this. But I know that when I got out of the car in the neighborhood of Central City the other day and a woman named Tess yelled across the street to me, ran over and gave me a hug, it felt like this could be home. And sitting on a blanket in Lafayette Square, listening to jazz music in the Louisiana sunshine, a little bit of my heart opened up more to the idea of it. Joking with the cop and the clerk at the counter at the local Winn Dixie grocery store certainly made big New Orleans feel a little smaller.
Will New Orleans ever feel like Madison did? Probably not. But do I believe that God is going to bless me with a feeling of home and community within this community? You can bet your parking spot at the 10:45 service on it.
As for the coming days, I will say a sobbing goodbye to my parents tomorrow night. This is the goodbye that I have tried to put off the longest, even making them drive me down here and stay for a week with me. :P It will be awful and I am not looking forward to it.
I will start really diving in and looking for a job when my parents leave. Please pray that God will teach me the things he needs to teach me in this time of uncertainty. I look forward to the challenge of a new job, but am also just anxious to secure something.
Thank you again for all of your prayers and words of encouragement!
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