Thank you, Lord, for the signs that confirm you are indeed sovereign and your kingdom will always prevail. May these signs encourage us to persevere in working toward justice for all who have reason to question its possibility in this world. Amen.
-Common Prayer

Thankfulness

More and more I'm practicing and seeing the necessity of thankfulness- especially in lean times. And since Thanksgiving was just last week, its a pertinent topic. It's not my natural bent- thankfulness- but sometimes lately I've surprised myself by the times my mind just wanders towards thankfulness. That is truly God's grace, people, because (as I mentioned) it is not my natural bent. I'm still working on it though!

Here is what I'm thankful for right now:
-good friends that take time to invest in me
-God's continued mercy in dad's health
-a healthy body
-uplifting music
-the fact that I have life options
-my brothers
-the spiritual leaders and directors God has put in my life
-tea
-watching sports and the fact that they are not filled with drama
-soup

Thats just what I can think of right now. There's definitely more!

What are you thankful for? Share in the comments of this post!

Self Awareness

"There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self, and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God."
- John Calvin

Lately (as in the last couple years) I have been learning A LOT about self awareness. Before I thought I was self aware, but now I realize I really had only scratched the surface.
So much of what I have been reading and hearing has been how self awareness precedes God awareness (even from John Calvin, which I wouldn't really anticipate coming from him). I even gave a talk on it at a conference last February, but I'm still on the journey and I definitely have not mastered it.
Here's some of what I've learned:
I'm learning that you can't really love well without self-awareness.
That you can't really have compassion on others without seeing how God sees you.
That suppressing negative emotions or parts of yourself ends up suppressing the good parts of yourself as well. Apparently God wants the real me, not the idealized or "should be" me. And it definitely hurts my human relationships as well.
That self awareness is hard work, but worth it. You also begin to see those around you who are not self aware, and the negative affect it has.
That self awareness is both humbling and empowering.
That I both enjoy being different from others, but am fatigued by too much difference.
That I am both unique but also a part of a variety of collectives- and am growing to very much dislike seeing only through the lens of individualism.
That I am an EXTREMELY high feeler.
That I am full of contradictions, and I am learning to see the world beyond black and white- and live in the gray areas.

There is much more, but thats what comes up first for me. I'm still on the journey!

Words to Build a Life On

I heard this song for the first time this past weekend at Convergence church in west Oakland, and I really loved it. It challenges me and inspires me to really take Jesus' words to heart, and how that can radically change how I look at the people and the world around me.

"Words to Build a Life On"
by Mike Crawford

These are words to build a life on
These are Your words how can they be mine
These are words to build a life on
These are Your words I want them to be mine

Blessed are the poor
Blessed are the weak
Blessed are the ones
Who can barely speak

Blessed in your hurt
Blessed in your pain
Blessed when your teardrops
Are falling down like rain

Blessed when you’re broken
Blessed when you’re blind
Blessed when you’re fragile
When you have lost your mind

Blessed when you’re desperate
Blessed when you’re scared
Blessed when you’re lonely
Blessed when you’ve failed

Blessed when you’re beat up
Blessed when you’re bruised
Blessed when you’re tore down
Blessed when you’re used

These are words to build a life on
These are Your words how can they be mine
These are words to build a life on
These are Your words I want them to be mine

Blessed when you’re heartbroke
Blessed when you’re fired
Blessed when you’re choked up
Blessed when you’re tired

Blessed when the plans
That you so carefully laid
End up in the junkyard
With all the trash you made

Blessed when you feel like
Giving up the ghost
Blessed when your loved ones
Are the ones who hurt you most

Blessed when you lose your
Own identity
Then blessed when you find it
And it has been redeemed

Blessed when you see what
Your friends can never be
Blessed with your eyes closed
Then blessed you see Me

These are words to build a life on
These are Your words how can they be mine
These are words to build a life on
These are Your words I want them to be mine

Blessed when you’re hungry
Blessed when you thirst
Cause that’s when you will eat of
The bread that matters most

Blessed when you’re put down
Because of me you’re dissed
Because of me you’re kicked out
They take you off their list

You know you’re on the mark
You know you’ve got it right
You are to be my salt
You are to be my light

So bring out all the flavor
In the feast of this My world
And light up all the colors
Let the banner be unfurled

Shout it from the rooftops
Let the trumpets ring
Sing your freaking lungs out
Jesus Christ is King!

Jesus is my Savior
Jesus is divine
Jesus is my answer
Jesus is my life

These are words to build a life on
These are Your words how can they be mine
These are words to build a life on
These are Your words I want them to be mine

Give us ears that we may hear them
voice that we may sing them
life that we may live them
hope that we may give them
hearts that we can feel them
eyes that we can see them
thoughts that we may think them
tongues that we may speak Your words

How to Care for Introverts

My friend Mattie sent this to me, and it is a little bit true...

On Being OK with Going with the Flow

Something you learn quickly when engaging in the inner city: time runs differently here than in corporate and suburban America. Things like quick changes of plan, lack of plan, lateness, and waiting and uncertainty are commonplace- and that is not the world that most of the students here at FUI and myself interact with in our normal lives.
My personality (I'm borderline P & J on the Myers Briggs, so I don't usually freak out about no plans- although I do from time to time) as well as being accustomed to things like CP Time (people of color time- dad always loved to talk about that :) makes me a little less likely to freak out at the way things are here, but it has made me a little nervous from time to time. But you just gotta learn to go with it.

One of my favorite things about this summer has been going to the every other Saturday gatherings of On Ramps Covenant Church in Dickie Park. Pastors Phil and Rici Skei started this church in the Lowell Neighborhood where they live in October, and they have been having church in the park on every other Saturday night since then. Rici said "We don't have a building, and we aren't planning on getting one anytime soon." There is worship at the beginning with fun music and flags for the kids, and people just stop by because its fun and loud and intriguing. Every time I walk in I can just feel the Holy Spirit there in the park, and it makes me tear up. People of all ages and all walks of life are there, and you kind of never know what people will do, but Phil and Rici know how to go with the flow.

Worship in the park (led by Rici)

Pastor Phil administering baptisms in a blow up pool

Last Saturday 7 people from the church were baptized, and they are always open to adding more to the list of people they meet in the park or anywhere else in the neighborhood. There is always a short teaching by someone from the leadership team while the kids play on a blow up waterslide, and I was blown away by how powerful and relevant the teaching was for the people listening- and for me too! Pray is available for anyone anytime throughout the evening, and they always give food to anyone who wants it. It has been so good for me and the FUI students to see, we are so blessed each time we go. You never know what will happen- but God always moves.

The past 2 days I have been helping with Vacation Bible School that is a partnership between First Presbyterian (whose facilities and curriculum we use- well, a modified curriculum), On Ramps, and Bethany Inner City Churches. We basically canvased the neighborhood and invited any one and everyone to come, because at this VBS there is a class for moms, which is so incredible I can barely stand it. I got to go out and knock on doors and invite people to come last week with Angie, a member of On Ramps, and also is the teacher for the 7th and 8th grade girls, the group myself and FUI staff Lauren are helping with. 

Angie, Lauren and me

Angie is a perfect example of what it looks like to go with the flow here. She has quite the testimony and background which she is always free to share about her gang affiliated and drug use past, and how God has saved her from all that. Lauren and I went to a couple of the planning meetings the past couple weeks (which definitely were examples of culture clash- very interesting) and last week we talked about meeting up with Angie to plan for what we would teach. Angie didn't seem too worried, and she didn't show up the day we planned to meet. She said "I'm not really the planning type person, we'll just see what comes up". I thought this was kind of funny actually, and Lauren was freaking out a little bit, but we just were gonna try to go with the flow.

And go with the flow it has been! We're supposed to be following a schedule about when to go to games and skits and snacks. Angie's not too worried about following it. There are supposed to be memory verses that the lessons are based on, but Angie has mostly been sharing her testimony and having an opportunity for the girls to share. She'll decide to change something in the moment, and say whatever comes up for her, but it is totally just who she is. Me and Lauren were a little nervous because we felt like there was some missed opportunity with not focusing on the lesson more, but we're learning to give up control. And anyways, the girls can totally relate to her story, as most of them have heartbreaking stories of their own. God is doing work I believe, and none of it has come from a planned curriculum. And I love working with Angie too- being around her and her speaking her mind and her quirks and genuine-ness, she's hard not to love.

I have also loved getting to know the girls better as we make duct tape wallets (why, I'm not sure, Angie wanted to- and the girls love it) and talk about whatever.

Angie sharing as we make duct tape wallets

Lauren and I with most of the 7th and 8th grade girls

FUI interns Danielle and David are working with 5th and 6th graders and with crafts at VBS this week, and they are definitely learning about going with the flow as well, and it has been fun to process it all with them. There are over 100 kids from the neighborhood and about 25 moms (today the moms class did hair and facials and makeovers, and then they talked about caring for your body as a temple on the inside and on the outside- so fantastic), being loved on and hearing God's word together- and it is definitely an inner city, go with the flow VBS. Its a beautiful thing.

kids at VBS (YFC staff Gabe is in the foreground,
Danielle and I have loved working with him this summer)

Dissonance

Being in the inner city brings up all kinds of things in my soul- and in the souls of the students. The most prominent experience that I've had at FUI is DISSONANCE. Especially this summer- or maybe I'm just more self aware of when I'm feeling it now than I have in the past.

DISSONANCE: any feeling of discomfort, or basically any kind of negative internal reaction

The realities of the inner city as well as the reality of living in a house with 21 other broken-but-made-in-God's-image people brings up many, many opportunities for dissonance. And add in that we are all taking Urban Ministry classes twice a week that are designed to press into the realities and needs of the inner city. And another big one for me is that we read this crazy little book called Theirs is the Kingdom that stirs up all kinds of internal struggles, because the author is speaking truth not only about the connection between the Gospel and the needs of inner cities, but really about what it means to truly follow Jesus, and not just believe in Him. All of these things combined together means that God stirs up things that are hidden deep in my soul that tend to stay buried when I live in the comforts of non-urban life in the privacy of my own world. And God is definitely doing the same among the students. I am always blown away by how much God stirs up in students when they come to FUI.

But it's good. We need it.

Here's some of my dissonance:

I'm working with junior high and high school age youth (mostly boys) at Youth for Christ, and I feel frustrated and unsure of how to respond when they don't listen or are rude to each other or to me. I know there is chaos for them at home, and responding this way to others is the only way they know how, but I often feel like I'm powerless to both be their friend and be authoritative. DISSONANCE.

My process group went out to lunch after church one week at Lola's, the greatest place for us to eat on our $35 a week budget (2 tacos for $1.50!). A homeless man who clearly had a mental handicap forcefully asked us for money, and after we got our food and sat down, asked Nathan if he could have a bite of his torta. Then he asked me for my food. I responded in a way that basically was an attempt to meet his need and get him to stop bothering us. DISSONANCE. But we had just read in Theirs is the Kingdom so many vignettes about how Jesus calls us to connect with "the least of these" and to even give reckless without thinking about whether or not those we are giving to are "truly worthy poor".

A woman who looked like she may have had some drug issues came in with about 5 kids to YFC one very hot day when we were watching a movie to escape the heat. Gabe, the YFC staff, had to tell them the woman and her kids couldn't come back, because the YFC higher-ups said kids under 10 were a liability. But I knew they were going home to a home with partying and drugs, and it didn't sit right with me that an organization had to make calls like that, even though I knew there were valid reasons why. DISSONANCE.

I've got my own insecurities, but I'm called to love the students first and I know I can't put my own social needs or preferences first. I'm staff and not a student, but this summer I have felt the separation and distance between myself and the students more than before. Hanging out takes more effort and initiative on my part. DISSONANCE.

Issues of race and ethnicity always come up a lot for me- especially being biracial. An African-American man who I met at a church service came to hang out at the Pink House, and after a short interaction, he had to ask me what my ethnicity was. Then up came my biracial insecurities and frustration with feeling I have to prove my blackness. DISSONANCE.

There are more, but I know that Jesus is right there in every feeling of dissonance, and has things that He wants to show me through them. I continue to see God use me even in the midst of my dissonance to help pastor students through their own dissonance. I'm always learning.