self-care fail.

Right now, I'm seated in a quiet corner of the library.  I'm working on a chapel service for tomorrow, contemplating the annotated bibliography that's due next week, attempting to work on my Holy Spirit and Christian Worship project due in less than a week, and sneezing all over the place.

Yes, I've caught the cold that seems to be everywhere. 

That's what happens, apparently, when you consume very little real food over the course of a week and drink coffee instead.

This is by far my worst self-care fail since starting seminary.

I am not a college student anymore.  I cannot avoid sleep to work on homework, I cannot consume more caffeine than food, and I must make grocery lists that include vegetables.

Lesson learned.

Worship and life

If you regularly attend a religious service or gathering of any sort (Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, whatever), I have a question for you.

How does what you do there shape what you do elsewhere?  Do you find that you think differently about the world than those who don't share that experience? How so?

God is faithful and good...

...even when I'm not.

"The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair."

falling in love with worship again

Worship planning is what brought me to seminary in the first place--it's where I found my sense of call. This is how I best tell God's story.

I'm not one for much in-your-face evangelism. Although when done well, it can be a really good thing in someone's life, it's just not me.  I'm more of a behind-the-scenes, planning and organizing, covert-messages type of person.

I particularly enjoy worship planning because in the absence of any formal training in theology, Bible, or Greek, this is how we learn who God is and what God's doing in the world.  Worship is not an obligation to add to our weekly schedules, but a gift. 

And this week, as I help to lead chapel for Advent at the seminary and work on end-of-semester projects, is all about falling in love with worship all over again.

Tuesday funnies

This is what happens when two brain-friend seminarians think it's a good idea to do a Google Images search for Jesus' second coming:

"I think Jesus is riding a unicorn!  And look, there's a bald eagle right there!"

on being broken

My life feels like one giant blob of ugh right now.  My emotions are running here, there and everywhere, and I can't seem to pluck up the energy to get anything done. (This is especially unhelpful for the last three weeks of the semester, I might add.)

There are many things in my life that are simply not appropriate to describe in such a public forum, but suffice it to say that it feels like everything I've ever run from has caught up with me in a very sudden and very overwhelming fashion.

But what do I do with all of this lament, this fear, this insecurity--this brokenness?  A therapist would be nice right about now, but those are expensive and I'm a graduate student.

So instead, I try to write poetry.  I fail, but I try.  I find solace in good music, and some less-than-inspired music.  I pray.  Sometimes, I scream at God.  Sometimes, I really want to scream at people.  Sometimes, I cry at my peer group at 8 am.  I bake. I sleep far too much.  I curl up in a ball on the floor for a while. 

I know I'm not alone in any of this.  I know this for a fact, because I've watched lots of people try to make the pain go away in not-so-healthy ways.  Some of them have died, emotionally or physically, in the process. 

My question, then, is where does the Church fit in to all of this?  How does the Church deal with lament, and real brokenness in its midst?

Too often, we simply ignore it. I've been guilty of showing up to church on the verge of a complete emotional breakdown, but still smiling and saying things like "my week was great! How was yours?"  We lie for one of two reasons: we don't want anyone to know that we're not okay, or we think that we should be able to handle this on our own. And that assumes that we show up in the first place.

If we do bring it up at church, we do so quickly and then move on.  It might be a short prayer offered during the Prayers of the People, or the congregational prayer.  It might take the form of a bulletin announcement.  But how often on Sunday morning is there prolonged attention paid to this brokenness? 

This is one thing that I find interesting in my life.  Many of my friends are outright atheists, and not afraid to say so. Some have never entered a church building in their lives.  But to be completely honest, they are so much better at listening than many of my super-devout Christian friends.  They don't feel the need to fix things right away, be it through prayer or some other means.  Many times, they are content to sit and listen to me complain, empathize with me, and perhaps offer some advice.  But more often than not, they just sit with me in whatever I'm feeling. 

And let me tell you, I appreciate that more than anything else in the world.

Prayer is great, don't get me wrong.  Paul tells us to pray about everything. Do that.

But the buck can't stop at praying.  I say that it's time that Christians focused a little more on being the answer to prayer.  And so often, that means sitting with our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and yes--even our enemies, in their laments. Don't fix. Don't give advice. We don't hear you anyway over the sound of our own internal panic. 

I'm not sure what a true service of lament would look like, to be honest.  Maybe it would just be a silent vigil, a show of support, with hugs and prayer and a shoulder to cry on at the ready. Maybe it would involve writing out messages to groups or individuals that we know.  Maybe it would be a service of prayer, with all of the laying on hands and hugs that we can imagine. 

It's nights like these that I miss the simplicity of InterVarsity.  I miss having such free reign over worship gatherings.  In seminary, there are all sorts of rules that apply to this or that, and you can't mix those two things, and you can't do this, this, or this.  I fully realize that we're all simply trying to be faithful to what God has entrusted us with, but really, guys?  Just let the people worship God in the best way that they know how. 

Sometimes, there are tears involved--and those are the best worship gatherings ever.

Getting into You

"When I made up my mind, and my heart along with that, to live not for myself but yet for God somebody said: 'do you know what you are getting yourself into?'

When I finally ironed out all of my priorities, and asked God to remove the doubt that makes me so unsure of these things I ask myself, I asked myself: 'do you know what you are getting yourself into?'

I'm getting into you, because you got to me in a way words can't describe.  I'm getting into you because I've got to be--you're essential to survive. I'm going to love you with my life."

These lyrics have never been more true to my life. So I'm sharing them with you.

Getting Into You, by Relient K.

Thought for the day: what is family?

There are hundreds of people, scattered throughout the world, that I would be happy to call my family.  I would claim them in a heartbeat. 

(I will also claim my biological family, even though we make each other crazy a lot.  Like, a lot a lot.)

But today, I was reminded that not everyone has that luxury.  Not everyone can say that they have somewhere to celebrate, and people to celebrate with this week. 

I caved and got a haircut tonight, and my stylist was a lovely and enthusiastic woman from Thailand.  Her entire family is back there, so she's spending Thanksgiving at work.  It's not a holiday she's used to celebrating, but it's hard, she said, to be without any family when everyone else is with theirs. 

I wish that I could seek these people out and bring them together, somehow, for a real Thanksgiving dinner. Someday I'll do that, I think.  Borrow a church basement, perhaps, and have a giant potluck on Thanksgiving day.  Watch some football.  Come back for round two. Play ridiculous games. Why not extend my family for a day or two?

I've always been a firm believer that family has very little to do with blood.  Family is whoever happens to be at dinner.  Family is whoever wakes up on your couch that morning.  Family is people that you care about, and that care about you.  It might be temporary, like the kids that sleep on the couch for a couple of weeks at a time.  Or it might be permanent, like the child that you legally adopt.

But maybe this will be the push that you need to do what I can't this year: to add someone to your family for a day.  Or a lifetime.  Your choice.

Seminary is....

an exercise in humility.

I've never before fallen flat on my face in so many ways, daily, in the same place.  Making a fool of oneself is great when you never really have to interact with those people again.  I love that--it's so freeing.

Sounding off your ignorance in a classroom full of people?  Not so fabulous.  It's rather embarrassing, actually.

I won't detail all of the ways that I've done this in the past week, nevertheless the entire semester.  That would take hours. 

Rather, I simply beg for the grace of my colleagues and professors as I try to navigate all of this.  I screw it up a lot, I know.  It's pretty obvious that I'm pretty oblivious to most things.  But I can promise you that I'm trying.  I might be failing in a lot of ways, but at least I'm trying.

That has to count for something, right?

Poetry

 I wish I could write poetry.

I used to say that I didn't understand poetry. Therefore, I didn't like it. Simple excuse for a simple mind, right?

But in the last few years, I've come to have a deep appreciation for and love of poetry--all sorts of poetry--as powerful and expressive in the exact way that words should be.  Good poetry is like therapy, like an opening of old, gross wounds that begins the healing process. 

My problem, though, is that I don't know where to find good poetry.  I just keep stumbling across things (mostly thanks to Facebook,) that I really love.

So today, my question for you is this:

If you were to have one book of poetry with you for the rest of your life, wherever you went, what would it be?