Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 45

Today's Daily 5:

1. Perusing the library and finding one of the books I added to my list yesterday
2. a new vocabulary word (inchoate: only partly in existence)
3. sitting and reading in the sun
4. New York Fries
5. people watching
6. coffee/lunch with a new friend
7. a hug from a long time friend
8. the fun of seeing a newly pregnant friend
9. sharing honestly
10. sitting and laughing and catching up in the sun at Olympic Plaza

A Really Good Response

I've been living in a hole, and avoiding news lately, so I haven't heard yet about whatever the latest church scandal that spurred this post at Stuff Christians Like, but I really appreciated the perspective it offered.

I had a conversation just the other day about how frustrated I get by Christians who can only see the bad in the church (or in the sphere of church that happens to exist outside their particular theological worldview.)  It almost physically pains me to hear that (though I've certainly been guilty of that and a certain cynicism as well.  In any case, I really appreciated the gracious challenge to the tendency to gossip about another high profile church scandal that Jon Acuff presented, and I wanted to make sure to link to it here so that you all could see it too!

Monopoly Pieces and Conversation (California Part 6)

I think the best part of my recent escape to California was simply the hours and hours of conversation.  It was seeing where Lisa lives and works, meeting her family and friends, and then hours and hours, through everything that we did, of sharing stories.  The stories we'd already shared by email and in blog posts took on new life now that they had a personality and voice attached to them.  And we talked and talked.

I'll be honest in saying that I was a bit apprehensive.  I'm not exactly known for taking risks, or handling new things very well, and, while two years of emailing had me convinced that I wasn't walking into some sketchy situation, I still wondered a little what it would be like to spend an entire week with someone I'd never met - how I'd handle that.  I was pretty sure I didn't need to worry too much, but I did still wonder.

I didn't need to worry.  I walked off the plane in San Diego and into a hug.  A hug that was repeated over and over through the week.  A hug that I'm definitely missing now that we're back in our separate CA's.

Because a huge part of my day to day reality is that the people with whom I share history - the people who are closest to my heart - all tend to live far away, time in person with someone like that is precious to me.  And, while Lisa and I admittedly didn't have in person history, two years of emails gave us a great base to work with.

And we talked for hours and hours.  In fact, one of the days that I smile the most at as the memory returns is the Sunday afternoon.  She had a giant bucket of the little metal monopoly markers (the dog, car, hat, etc.) that needed to be sorted for the Sunday School Talent store at her church.  After we got home from church that day, and ate lunch, we settled in to sort the thousands of pieces in the bucket.  A few of those tokens even made the trip home with me, and are sitting in a spot where I can see them easily, and be reminded of the fun, and serve as prayer reminders as well.  We passed a book (pictured below) back and forth that we'd been using as a jumping off point for conversations, each of us taking a turn picking a question that we'd both answer.  And we spent hours sorting monopoly tokens and sharing life and stories and laughter. 

And tears.  My life is admittedly raw right now, and tears have been frustratingly close to the surface for months.  Per usual, and initially to my embarrassment, they made themselves known rather frequently.  But there was such a blessing in sitting across from a friend whose eyes I could meet through the tears.  A friend who repeatedly gathered me into a hug when the tears flowed as I finished whatever story it was that had triggered them.  A friend who saw all the messy stuff and still saw me and welcomed me into her home and her life.  That was a gift of a value that I cannot even describe.  To simply be loved on, to be challenged to continue to seek healing, in a time where my heart was so longing to simply be seen and loved, to not be judged for being broken, but to be seen as valuable, and encouraged to continue to fight to heal.

I thought of that gift that Lisa gave to me when I read this quote from Richard Rohr last weekend after getting home:

I hope you’ve met at least one Kingdom person in your life. They are surrendered and trustful people. You sense that their life is okay at the core. They have given control to Another and are at peace, which paradoxically allows them to calmly be in control. A Kingdom person lives for what matters, for life in its deepest and lasting sense. There’s a kind of gentle absolutism about their life-style, an inner freedom. Kingdom people feel like grounded yet spacious people at the same time, the best of conservative and the best of progressive at the same time.

Kingdom people are anchored by their awareness of God’s love deep within them and deep within everyone else too. They happily live on a level playing field, where even God has come to “pitch his tent” (the literal translation of John 1:14).  (Richard Rohr)

I'm thankful for the gift of time with a friend who offered me a place to exist that felt "grounded yet spacious" for a week.  And that gift, as well as the promise that I will be welcomed again, the next time I need to escape, was truly a treasure that I'll hold onto in the coming weeks and months as I walk through some challenging new things.

I'll close with some pictures of our monopoly sorting adventure, and the book that fueled lots of great conversation throughout the week.

 see the size of the pieces in perspective against the bucket?

 part way through the sort

 see?  a whole coffee table full of monopoly pieces!

The book that fed our conversation.  Not all of the questions are ones I'd ever use, but the ones we did use were great conversation starters and I'm already pondering what sort of book of that nature I can pick up to spur further conversations the next time we're together in person!

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 44

Today's Daily 5:

1. the sights and smells of my favorite tea shop in Kensington.  the smell of incense mixed with tea and other aromas, and lots of hippies.  totally tells me I'm in Kensington.
2. browsing for a few minutes in a bookshop that carries unique stuff, and adding several titles to check for at the library or on Amazon to my list
3. laughing over tea with a friend
4. going to my favorite bakery in Chinatown (Jing Jing Bakery on Centre Street if you're wondering)
5. getting home just in time to miss the surprise rain storm that came out of nowhere
6. walking through downtown on a relatively warm Indian summer day
7. spotting a "palm tree" growing outside downtown
8. getting a big hug from mom after surprising her with a coconut tart from the Chinese bakery
9. the little bit of happiness in my mouth after that first bite of the pork bun I detoured to the Chinatown bakery especially to purchase
10. the smell of a bakery
11. macdonalds comfort food for supper
12. skype and conversation and laughter with a friend tonight

Your Type Not Wanted

I loved this cartoon when it appeared on ASBO Jesus recently.

I'm a pastor's kid and I spent years as one of those question marks.  I also spent years working to conceal that I was one of those question marks.  I'll never forget some of the faces as I shared my testimony when I was baptised (by my dad) just weeks before my eighteenth birthday.  For the first time (and maybe the only time in that church), I talked about the fact that for the past six years I'd been asking major questions about my faith.  That I'd spent a lot of years pretty convinced that I didn't even want anything to do with this Christian thing.   That a church split that happened when I was ten had left me pretty convinced that most Christians were hypocrites and not people I wanted to know.  That I hated being a pastor's kid. And (though I'm not sure I actually said this in my testimony) that the only reason my butt was in a seat week after week for a lot of those years was that the rule in our house was that as long as we were under legal age (which is 18 here in Alberta) and living in mom and dad's house, on Sunday morning we would be in church.  There were a few pretty shocked faces as I shared.

Looking back I wonder if they would have been gracious about the questions.  But at the time, all I knew to do was hide them.  I hid them other places too, but mostly in church.  And these days, I meet people all the time who know what it's like to be "that type".  And I count it a privilege to stand up and tell them "me too" and I still love Jesus, and I know He loves me and welcomes me - questions and all.