Job Hunting

I'm back at it - looking for full-time, hopefully non-retail employment. Can I just say that I hate the job hunting process?

Preaching for my ears to hear

I had a kind of funny moment last night. Funny odd, not funny ha ha, although I guess it was a bit funny ha ha too.

I went out for the evening with friends, hung out in a pub with a bunch of old friends and a group of new ones too. It was good, but quite a few people left rather early, and an old friend and I decided to follow suit. I was driving her home, and we began once again to talk through a tense situation in which we are both presently involved. We wrestled verbally with the issue for a while, and when we got to her house, I simply parked and we kept talking.

Somewhere along the line I began to share with her what I could remember from the Dan Haseltine article I quoted in my last post. And something began to gel. Before I knew it I was preaching an impassioned sermon - speaking at length about redemption, about the value of scars, about acknowledging woundededness, about a gospel that is only complete if the suffering, the evil, the wounds are acknowledged, because without these things there is no story of redemption and we negate the greatest message of the cross. I spoke about living in the tension of being both the "walking wounded and the perpetually healed."

And then, I was done. All I could do was ask the question, "what was that?" My car, after an evening in a pub seems an odd location for a sermon of that passionate nature to come pouring out of me. My friend talked about the fact that she wished others involved in our present tense situation could have heard the words I'd spoken. But they didn't , and the moment isn't one likely to be repeated. And then it hit me. As these unfamiliar words were pouring out of my mouth, it was the gelling of concepts I have wrestled with all week. It was the beginning of the answer of how I need to address our tense situation - for God had told me while in Mexico that I was the one who needed to speak out about this situation. I was preaching to myself. God knows that I am auditory - that I need to hear something in order for it to become truly clear in my mind and ingrained in my heart. So He poured words out of my mouth. My "sermon" wasn't so much for my friend (although she was grateful) - it was for me.

And God, in His grace brought clarity to the message I have been trying to find words for all week. I spent a couple hours in the prayer room on Thursday, pouring out my heart in prayers in my journal, begging God to intercede - to make clear the way this situation a number of us have found ourselves in needs to be handled. To clarify in my mind and heart the message that needs to be communicated as I give voice to some things that have been long silenced in myself and in some dear friends. It is the difference between an impotent gospel, and a Gospel of Redemption. And God let me preach it, sitting in my car last night, so that my own ears would hear, and my own heart would understand.

Keep the Weight On

I read a brilliant article by Dan Haseltine, the lead singer for Jars of Clay in the latest issue of Relevant Magazine. I lay in bed on Tuesday morning, beginning to contemplate the intersection of the things God placed in me while I was away with the things God had been speaking and placing within me before I left, and the words of this article grabbed me. Everything within my being cried out, "YES!"

So, I've decided to share a bit of the article with you, and you should definitely run out and purchase the March/April 2006 issue of Relevant Magazine. Haseltine's article is titled "Your Whole Self." (Incidentally, there is also a very good article by John Fischer in this issue, as well as the usual mix of quality material that makes Relevant one of the only print magazines I subscribe to.) I have put my favorite bit in bold print for you, but am amazed by the echo of my own heart and soul in Haseltine's words.

Haseltine writes:
"There is a weight to the Gospel. There is a mass connected to the story of redemption. It is in the dark places - the addictions to pornography, alcohol, drugs, power and control. It is in our propensity to blame and abuse each other, our greed and our depravity. It is the substance of these things that gives us a place to speak about the slow road to recovery.

When we find the Gospel to be true and start to wrestle with the implications, it eventually brings us to a place where we must confront our humanity and know ourselves as both the walking wounded and the perpetually healed.

Because we have chose to speak only about the victory from these things, we are left to promote a gospel that is feeble and moveable at best, rather than one made of stone - one strong enough to withstand the weight of the world and the depravity that is balanced upon its surface. Our gospel is unbelievable because it is only half of a gospel. It is the resurrection without any signs of the crucifixion. I believe there are profound reasons why Jesus still carried the scars from the nails on His hands when He appeared to His friends. He was bringing the entire Gospel to His disciples.

All individuals have things in their lives that make them unique. Most often this part of their story is connected to abuse, addiction, fear or pain. I have come to believe that the things that make us unique are the ways joy enters into our secrets, the ways light exposes our darkness. This is why we choose not to open these parts of our story up to others. Ultimately, it is our redemption that looks unique - it is the way healing comes, how long it takes, who is involved that makes us different.

What I see in the Christian music community and in church culture at large is that we have not been given permission to be ourselves completely. We are not allowed to bring the full weight of who we are into our music conversations, our movies, our pulpits or our church halls. And as I see our church culture striving to take the weight off, I have decided that perhaps it is best to keep the weight on."

Amen.

Home

I got home just over 48 hours ago. It was good. Really good. God worked in my life, but it will take me a lot more time than I originally thought to begin processing the things He did. I've been counselled by some very wise friends to take the time to let these things sit in my life, to absorb them, to be led by God into these new things. Some of you will probably be hearing from me in the next few days - I am seeking counsel in some areas that I believe that God is leading me into as a result of this trip. The rest of you will just have to wait a bit, or ask me in person to share parts of this with you. It's not ready to be written for public consumption yet, but I'd love to share the stories with you, and the things in my heart.

In the meantime, I just finished writing a follow-up letter to the people who supported me with prayer and financially. I thought I'd stick that in this post, and you'd at least have a bit of a snapshot of the experience tied to the last two weeks or so of my life.

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Dear Friends and Family,

I’ve been back in Calgary for nearly 48 hours, and have spent many of the waking moments in that time trying to decide how I would communicate to you the experiences of the last two weeks. There are so many things I could tell you about, and none of them seem adequate to describe the impact of this trip on my life.

I have been counselled by some friends to process this time slowly. To wait patiently for the results of the trip to become clear in my life. I think these friends have offered good advice, and I ask your patience as I spend time contemplating, absorbing, understanding, and implementing the outcome of this trip in my life.

So, instead of profound life lessons, let me offer you a series of verbal snapshots of the trip:

-Picture yourself in a western style dorm bathroom. Only there are signs stating in large print in both English and Spanish how important it is to not flush the toilet paper after using it. You need to put it in the garbage can that is in every stall for that purpose. Seems easy right? Now picture yourself in that same bathroom at 6:00am after five hours of sleep. Your brain is not functional, and you are fishing for toilet paper that you have accidentally dropped in the toilet instead of in the garbage can.

-I spent most of my week mixing concrete and mortar for the wall our team was building. Mostly this means that I spent my week using a shovel – shovelling gravel, sand, cement powder, and mortar powder, and then hauling buckets of water to combine these ingredients into a useful product. The organization we were partnered with has recently acquired 4 acres of land in the colonia in which they are working, and the first step to developing the land is to build a wall around the property to show ownership, prevent land claims by squatters, and create greater security. To be honest, it felt like very little progress was made, but two sides of the wall are nearly completed, and our team laid nearly 1000 cinder blocks a day over four and a half days. We were challenged to think of the project not as simply “building a wall,” but rather as “building a mansion in God’s kingdom.” The long-term dream is for the area inside the fence to include a mission training school, a medical centre, and dorms to house visiting mission teams among other things.

-You haven’t had a true work experience until you’ve been shovelling sand, cement, and mortar all day, standing in a sandy Mexican desert during a wind and sandstorm. I’m not sure I’ve ever been that dirty in my life. After my five-minute shower (time limits to make sure that everyone gets warm water) I glanced in the mirror and realized that my face was STILL filthy! I cleaned sand out of my ears, my teeth, and every other imaginable location! My hair was kind of crispy and stiff – caked with the sand that had been blown into my ponytail over the course of the afternoon.

-On the last afternoon we visited the tourist market in Juarez for a few hours of shopping. I shopped for a while with friends, but we ended up sitting in the outdoor café in front of the market for quite some time. As I sat there, and watched the mariachi band play for whichever table would pay, as we said “No gracias” to dozens of people hawking merchandise I realized there was something beautiful and vital about simply sitting in the midst of dozens of Mexican young people, watching them interact with each other, absorbing the sights and sounds and colours of the culture that surrounded us. It was a powerful moment for me.

I hope these brief snapshots give you some idea of what this trip was about. God has planted many things deeply in my heart over the course of the eleven days I was away from Calgary, and I believe they will continue to spring out of my life in new and exciting ways over the next days and weeks and months.

I was privileged to build relationships with a number of people on our team, and look forward to maintaining those relationships now that we are all back in Calgary. This is one of the things that most excites me. These are people whose hearts meshed with mine in powerful ways, and I am eager to spend time hearing their stories, sharing hearts and dreams with each other.

Thank you so much for your financial support, and for your prayers. God blessed your gifts. He provided safety and health (other than a 24 hour stomach bug that about 80% of our team caught). He worked in the colonia, and in the lives of our team members. This was an experience to be treasured – to be stored in my heart and not forgotten, and you helped make this possible. I am so grateful for your support, your love, and your encouraging words. God has created a harvest in my life, and in the lives of many on our team because of your financial support and prayers. Thank you.

With love,

Lisa

Leaving.... SOON

This is it, what is probably my last post for a couple of weeks. I'll miss the blog world, but only kind of, cause I'm going to hang out in the real world, with a bunch of my favorite people in the world, hopefully encountering God.

I leave tomorrow morning. Early. Like 6am early. Which is kind of gross, but I'm hoping I'll sleep a bit on the bus. Mexico. YES!

I'm excited. Still pretty apprehensive, but excited. God keeps reminding me of his faithfulness, and I'm working to rest in that.

If you're interested in what we're doing, you can check out this blog. I'm not responsible for it, but supposedly it's going to be updated regularly while we're gone.

I'll be back sometime on April 3rd. And then I'll be thrown into job-hunting, as my hours have been completely eliminated from April's schedule due to problems within the company. I was going to job-hunt anyway, but I was kind of hoping that I would have the cushion of some hours at my present job to pay the bills until I find a new one. Oh, well... can't do anything about it for the next couple weeks, except pray, and I'll do that anyway!

See you April 3rd!