There I raised my Ebenezer

I just got back from spending a week as a counselor for the Burrito Brothers Flying Youth Camp in West Virginia with my home church's youth group. It was kind of like a reunion since several of the people who were counselors and campers five or six years ago when I used to go were still involved. It was an amazing week, full of rest and beautiful mountains, laughter and yes, tears.

The last night of camp, instead of the normal campfire time we had every night (a fun time with games and skits) we made a pile of rocks.
After a brief chapel service all 200ish of us walked up the mountain road in silence and sat around the campfire circle. Earlier, we counselors had spread rocks all around on the dusty ground. Now, as we walked in we were handed a bookmark with scripture references and phrases about our identity in Christ.
One of the Burrito Brothers/directors told us the story of Jacob, and how God renamed him. But that it wasn't until the second time that God told him, "your name isn't Jacob anymore; it's Israel" that it seemed to really sink in. At that time he went back to "bethel" (the house of God -- a rock in the wilderness) where he had propped up a rock years before and made it into a monument to the Lord.

I had asked God to name me. I think it has been almost a year ago now that I started asking that, but recently I had put it out of my mind a bit, assuming that He had already named me and I was just missing the obvious. But reading through that list of identity statements, I gasped when I whispered "I am a saint" just loud enough for me to hear.
As the campers started sifting down to the ground to pick up rocks and write their God-spoken identities in marker and pile them together on the far side of the firepit, I kept reading. When the kids were done, counselors were invited down as well.
I immediately went, chose a hefty stone, added it to our Ebenezer, and returned to my seat.
Where I stayed for probably 45 minutes more, just staring at that pile of rocks, at Beth-El, the house of God. Who knew? There in Cowen, WV in the middle of an ashy campfire circle.

From "striving" I have been renamed "Saint: bought with a price, annointed and sealed."
I am freed from anything but just to love!

Over the past month or so I've been bombarded by this divine message:
"It is more important to be loving than to be right."

I first read it in Sojourners magazine in May. It's been all over the pages of books I'm reading and sermons I hear. Almost it has seemed to float down on waves of pollen that overtake every surface and eventually are ground in and become part of the wood grain.

I love being right. I love having the best way to do something and the most knowledge on a subject, or at least some little tidbit of information that others did not possess before our interaction.
I also love being loving, but not when it costs my plans, my way, my will.


So I wrote it on my mirror. Then I have to look at it several times a day.
Then I really began to hear it and read it more and more. I really began to think about it a lot, and what it could mean for me in different situations.
Then I was presented with a specific, "rubber hits the road" case. The worst of me comes out when you have to live with me. Stubborn and stiff I resisted change and didn't want to budge when living with new roommates. "It is more important to be loving than to be right."
I finally submitted to the message. At least in one area of seemingly impassable lifestyle differences. Kingdom victory!

We HAVE to rejoice in the little things like that. Which, in fact, reminds me of the other divine message being engrained in me these days: My efficiency is not God's efficiency.
He decided that the best way to change the course of history was to spend three and a half years mostly hanging out with a motley crew of 12 dudes.
Human efficiency looks like super-structured, mass-produced programs that reach thousands for maximum result from minimum expenditure of time, energy, and money.
I need to have that taken apart and replaced with God's relational, individualized plan. Every day.

"listen to the tapes"

This is one of Doug Schaupp's suggestions in Being White. He's talking about the "tapes" that play in our minds all the time -- the little comments we think as we see other people. Usually the volume is turned waaaay down, so we hardly even notice them, if we hear these thoughts at all.
Turn it up.
Listen to what you're saying about people.
Ask yourself what those thoughts mean, and ask yourself why you have those thoughts.
...Especially about people from other races, cultures, or ethnicities.
Next step? "Embrace the conviction."

I've been listening to the tapes a lot more lately. It's shocking. It's horrifying. It's shameful.

Schaupp offers this encouragement, though: "the Spirit brings conviction when he is ready to bring tranformation."

Bring it on.

life as a series of short films

That's how I like to think of it sometimes. Single scenes, really. Shorter than Coffee and Cigarettes much of the time. This morning was a good one.

[Notes: There is no dialogue, except maybe a couple of lines to myself... but it would have to be done right. I guess it would need a song, but I don't know what yet. Wardrobe needs to be "young person trying to look professional but not to the extreme."
Background: I'm tired and a little bit sick, and I had a lot to do today. I was running very late for various reasons, one of which being I was trying to fix a bike tire instead of getting myself ready for work. I failed to make the repair, so I hopped in the Honda and raced to the depot, praying that the bus hadn't left yet. When I got there, I parked and ran up a hill, deciding to try to intercept the bus at the point where it exits the terminal instead of running around through the entrance and probably missing it. The movie probably starts as I'm running there, slinging my backpack on and fishing out my two dollars as I go.]

There I stood, waiting as the buses filed out. I waved to my friendly Tuesday and Thursday morning chauffeur but he mouthed that he couldn't let me on at this point. I was ready to give up and resign myself to driving all the way to High Point, with gas at $4 a gallon, but then he gestured toward a bus stop a block away. Hope!
I started jogging toward that stop, my sore throat already burning within ten paces. I waited for my chance to cross the road, and then made a dash for it. Half-way across, however, I realized that something was awry. My bookbag was coming unzipped! In the middle of the lanes my tupperware tumbled to the ground, spilling cookies and crackers and a bag of cheese on the pavement. My notebook, folder, and "Initial Consonants Bingo" game followed shortly thereafter.
Explitives erupted and I quickly kneeled down for my books, tupperware, and cheese (kept safe in the bag!) as the bus went by me. (at this point, the camera angle is from inside the bus, as all those who arrived in time watch the saga of a twenty-something part-time ESOL instructor make a public spectacle of herself)
A real gentleman, he waited at the bus stop for a couple of seconds, but I waved my appreciation and that he should just go.
A few tears roll down my cheeks as I get my things together and the shot fades out.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my life! I decided if I view in this format I can take myself out of the embarrassment a bit and be able to face everyone who saw me when next Tuesday rolls around and I get there on time!

summer loner

I've been spending a lot of time alone lately.
Or at least, it feels that way. If I compare time with people to time by myself, I guess I'm still getting a fair amount of face-time with other human beings, but... Maybe it's because I'm no longer living with really good friends. Maybe it's because my schedule has changed a little bit. Maybe it's because I come home from work in the afternoon and make lunch alone and eat it alone and read or do whatever i'm going to do for my few hours of free time alone and then I go to work again and when I come home a lot of times I'm in the house alone again and I have to get up early the next day so I go to bed alone.
I have had some really good hang-out times this week, but the number of good conversations has taken a nose-dive since M and A moved out.

Vignette from the life of EmilyAlone this evening:

I am sitting on the porch, reading in the comfort of the 7:30 heavy-blanket-heat, half-watching to see if the kittens who live in the factory yard across the street are going to come through the fence to eat the food I put out for them.
A man rides slowly by on a red road bike. He has long dreds and is holding a styrofoam cup in his mouth as he goes. I raise my hand in a wave. He nods. I keep reading.
A moment later, I realize he has looped around and stopped by the sidewalk. I look up from my book as he says,
"Hey, White Woman, Let me ask you something. Are you afraid of black people?"

I pause, searching for the answer inside of me.
"Not as a general rule."

"...not in general..." he repeats to himself.
Looking back on it, I want him to know that I mean that I don't feel afraid of him right now. That this moment is a "general" moment. That I only feel cautious, as I do whenever anyone approaches me and I feel the pressure of a request coming on.

He keeps talking to me, but we're a little too far from each other to have a conversation, so we move a bit closer to each other, but are still at a distance of about 15 feet.
He asks me for five dollars.
I tell him I don't like to give money out like that; that I prefer to give through an organization. That I know times are tough lately. That I can't give him money but I could go into my apartment and bring him some food.

He seems angry. Or maybe it's just frustration and a genuine question, "I don't understand why people wanna give their money to an organization instead of helping a person out who has a need right then."

"Well, I don't give to just any organization; I make sure they're using the money responsibly... Like Greensboro Urban Ministry over there. They're doing good work."

I think he listens to my response. I'm trying to be transparent, genuine, human.
He doesn't say anything about the food offer.
We say goodbye and he bikes around the bend.

A few minutes later, one of the kittens slinks out to eat. I talk to it. That's the last of the little box of food I bought at the corner store. And the question that comes to me is,
Should I spend money on a big bag of cat food when there are people who need so much help in my community?

I ain't no angel...

...in the sense of Rob Bell's chapter (in Sex God) about being neither angels nor animals in our sexuality. I really get pissed off when men say or yell things while I'm walking or biking by, reducing me to an animal or less, an object, to be appraised. "I like them legs!"
This, on top of what seems to be a semester-ly occurence: the student who wants to date the teacher.
If I were a man, how many of my female students would try to flirt with me, "get to know me", or ask me out? None, is the most likely answer. Perhaps an occasional, slightly emotionally imbalanced woman, but that's it.
Is this based on instinctive gender differences? (in other words: Are men in general more likely to pursue a mate, without regard for the perceived barriers?) Or is it a lack of respect for women as equals and as professionals?

Whatever it is, it's brought me back to trying to reconcile the fact of my sexuality as a good thing and a God-designed blessing in light of the negative or unwanted attention it can bring.
I can start dressing like a puritan, or a fundamental muslim, in hopes of de-sexualizing myself, but that doesn't get to the root of my struggle.
I'm asking God (and anyone who's been through these kind of situations) for guidance through this. Do I somehow encourage these advances?


_________________________________________________________________
On a completely different note, I just heard from a friend who is still in Colombia that the shantytown area where most of the program's kids live is being shut down today. I wish I were there right now.
The government is supposed to have allotted each family a plot of land and a little house on the outskirts of the city. When I was there, just under a month ago, I was told that the houses had not been constructed and the g'ment was back-pedaling on their word of what they'd provide. These families, if they go, will not have any homes, nor employment to help them keep up and improve their homes. If they do not go, they will literally be on the streets. Many of the children may end up in institutions.
Come, Lord Jesus! I want an end to this misery! Until then, we have to figure out what to do next to help ease the world's pains and injustices, one step at a time.