Just for Fun

Your Scholastic Strength Is Deep Thinking

You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal. You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk. You should major in: Philosophy Music Theology Art History Foreign language

What Should You Major In?

You Are a Prophet Soul

You are a gentle soul, with good intentions toward everyone. Selfless and kind, you have great faith in people. Sometimes this faith can lead to disappoinment in the long run. No matter what, you deal with everything in a calm and balanced way. You are a good interpreter, very sensitive, intuitive, caring, and gentle. Concerned about the world, you are good at predicting people's feelings. A seeker of wisdom, you are a life long learner looking for purpose and meaning. You are a great thinker and communicator, but not necessarily a doer. Souls you are most compatible with: Bright Star Soul and Dreaming Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

Who Should Paint You: Salvador Dali

You're a complex, intense creature who displays many layers. There's no way a traditional portrait could ever capture you!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

Thirsty

At work on Sunday, as I once again sought to remember worship songs to hum along to while I worked away on brainless and mundane tasks on my own, God brought to mind a song that had a great deal of significance in my life a couple of years ago.

Looking back, it is a song that very closely and carefully describes a whole variety of times in my faith journey. Initially, it was significant because it spoke of my longings for God, the struggle I had in deciding if I would accept and make my own the God of my parents, and eventually, as the song ends, reached the point of deciding to pursue God and faith. That was about six years ago, near the beginning of my last year of high school.

As I came back to the song again on Sunday morning, I was surprised by how closely the same lyrics apply to the journey of the last two or three years, and even of the last six months. As I've struggled to understand and accept the role of the Holy Spirit I've wrestled, felt so very alone, and finally plunged in with abandon to the life God is leading me towards.

The song, you ask? It's titled simply "Thirsty" and is written by Chris Rice.

I'm so thirsty, I can feel it

Burnin' through the furthest corners of my soul. Deep desire, can describe this

nameless urge that drives me somewhere

though I don't know where to go

Seems I've heard about a river from someone who's been

And they tell me once you reach it, oh you'll never thirst again

So I have to find the river, somehow my life depends on the river

Holy River, I'm so thirsty.

Other waters I've been drinkin'

But they always leave me empty like before

Satisfaction - all I'm askin'

Could I really be this thirsty if there weren't something more?

I'm so thirsty, I can feel it

Burnin' through the furthest corners of my soul. Deep desire, can't describe this

nameless urge that drives me somewhere

though I don't know where to go

I'm on the shore now of the wildest river

And I kneel and beg for mercy from the skies

But no one answers - gotta take my chances

'Cause somethin' deep inside me's cryin'

"This is why you are alive."

So I plunge into the river with all that I am

Prayin' this will be the river where I'll never thirst again

I'm abandoned to the river and now my life depends on the river

Holy River.

I'm so thirsty.

Dangerous Da Vinci?

The whole world seems to be talking about the Da Vinci Code at the moment. I don't know if this is a particularly good or bad thing. It frustrates me that Christians get so up in arms about something that is really rather harmless - a fictional tale - and the key word is fictional. And honestly, I'm going to keep this short, because I don't care all that much, and I don't particularly want to add to the mess of stuff already out there about this topic.

I actually didn't have any idea what the book was about, so I borrowed the copy my brother bought to read on the planes on his recent trip to Ukraine, and I read it over the last couple of days. I'd heard it was an amusing read in a "you have to check your brain out" kind of way. I enjoyed the read. Brown is a good writer. He crafts supsense well, if somewhat predictably at times.

But here's what got me. His writing seems so true - all the legends and mythology surrounding the Christian faith - with just enough truth thrown in for it to be confusing. I have a four year degree in church history. I've never heard any of the stuff Brown writes about the grail before. And I assure you that I had professors who love controversy - if the kind of thing Brown was writing about was recognized by anything more than fringe scholars, I'd have heard about it.

As to the whole bit about reclaiming the sacred feminine, I honestly thought that Brown made some good points. He took it to a bit of an extreme that was perhaps unneccesary, but extreme seems to be stock in trade these days. As to the whole sacred feminine thing, I refer you to past posts I've written about feminist theology for some of my thoughts on the matter. I also recommend that you truly study Moravian theology during what is occasionally referred to as their "radical" period - Zinzendorf and his followers had a strong understanding of the sacred feminine that earned them much criticism, but seems to be a somewhat scriptural and inspired thought, if again a bit extreme at times.

All in all, I think the Da Vinci Code is far less of a big deal than we are making it out to be. I don't think it is particularly dangerous - yes, it goes too far, and yes, Brown's claims of historical accuracy are ridiculous, but dangerous? I don't think so...

A Father's Heart

So, I struggle with the concept of God as Father. You see, the word, Father, or Daddy, or Dad, is so tied up in my relationship with my earthly father. And my relationship with my earthly father is surface level at best, and tense at worst.

There are rather deep wounds, and the distance between us seems to have grown over the last years as I've moved away from the church he pastors, the church I grew up in, and settled into the church I presently attend.

When I think of a Father I don't think of a person I come running to with every wound. I think of a person that I need to be kind of together to come in front of. I don't think of a person who wants to know the intimate details of my life. I think about a person who wants to know the surface level stuff - the intellectual stuff. I don't think about someone who celebrates with me when I'm excited about something new that I've learned. I think about someone who plays devil's advocate even when he agrees with me, someone who will challenge every statement that comes out of my mouth, someone who is always pushing me to think harder, more deeply.

(just reading that last sentence makes me laugh. no wonder I've had trouble with the experiential aspects of faith!)

But, over the last while God has been subtly beginning to reveal His Father's heart to me. Never directly - I don't know that I've been ready to receive it, but always in ways that show me what His love is like.

There was the time I had my arm around a hurting friend, praying for her, and I was suddenly completely overwhelmed with a sense of God's love for her. The depth and intensity of it astonished me as I realized that this was his fathering heart for this hurting woman.

And then there was an experience this week. A group of us were praying together, ranging over a variety of issues, when another young woman began to share. The wounds in her life from her father are deep, and my own heart resonated and understood many parts of what she shared. As we began to pray over her and minister to her, I kept asking God what He would say to her. I paced a bit around the room, needing to move, wrestling to determine if what I was hearing was really the voice of God. And finally, I began to speak. God was telling her that He was not like her earthly father. That He wanted her to run to Him, to be held by Him. That He didn't want to create a spirit that says I must be independent, but rather a spirit that fosters this woman running into His arms with each and every need, each and every moment of joy, with every breath turning to Him. That He wanted to celebrate her because she was His beloved child.

Those words have stuck with me this week. I don't know if they resonated deeply with her or not, but they've bounced around my heart. Slowly, and ever so gently, through the words He's asked me to speak to others, God is revealing His heart for me.

A few weeks ago, as I was laying on the floor at the conference I attended, sobbing, and being prayed for, one of the things I remember Kari saying was that she felt like God was going to heal some more of my Father wounds. A few weeks prior to that, she sent me a note telling me that she was praying a Jason Upton song over me that day. I've written about that song, about the ongoing theme of our interconnectedness in Christ over the last while. I've listened to the song over and over, and every time it impacts me with the truth that I am not alone. What never caught me until tonight, as I began to write this post, is that the song is actually a lullaby that Upton wrote for his daughter, that developed into a love song from God to his children. Part of my father wound seems to have been a driving independence. But that independence was lonely. God is speaking to me through Upton's words... look at the first couple lines of the song:

Don't be afraid baby, don't you cry
Daddy's here it will be all right
You're not alone, you're not alone....

I love the subtle ways that God is working! Thank you, Abba, for continuing to reveal your heart for me.

To Do List

I have often admitted here that I am one of those people who really likes lists. I am not particularly driven by them. In fact, if something spontaneous comes up, I happily chuck the list in favor of the more interesting spontaneity. But lists are helpful in organizing my thoughts, and today, on my day off, I need to make a list of the things I'm hoping to accomplish today and tomorrow. I derive an odd sense of satisfaction from checking things off a list, therefore, I list everything, no matter how mundane, that must be accomplished in a particular day.

• Write a blog or journal entry that does not entail discussing how busy I am, or what I have planned for the next few days - preferably one that talks about some of the spiritual stuff I've been thinking about this week.
• Job interview - 1pm. Make sure I've read the website for the office I'm interviewing at.
• Shower.
• Laundry.
• Change the sheets on my bed.
• Wash the dirty sheets.
• Spend at least thirty minutes outside in the sun. Remember to wear sunscreen this time in order to avoid the thirty minute burn that has made it difficult to sleep on my shoulders all week.
• Clean my desk so there is room for scrapbooking or cardmaking projects.
• Do something creative.
• Watch a movie or read a novel - something that is not work related and will let me escape my brain and simply relax for a while.
• Read some more of the Mike Pilavachi book that I'm enjoying so much.
• Do some writing on some of the scriptural insights I've been discovering lately.
• Email some more resumes out.