What do you want to do more than anything else in the world?

One of my students asked me on Friday what I wanted to be/do more than anything else in the world. It was completely random and personal and several things ran through my head before I simply and dishonestly said "I don't know."

My first thought was "curator of the British Museum" because that's my go to answer when people ask what I wanted to be when I grew up.  But, being a jaded adult, I don't want that job now. Then I thought, "I am what I always wanted to be", which is true. I love my job and I can't imagine doing anything else... professionally.  Which was when the real answer came stirring out of my heart - what I want to be more than anything else in the world is the most honorable and worthwhile thing anyone can be: a wife and mother.  That's what I want more than anything else.

Its amusing how God uses the oddest things to expose your.heart.  I'm really struggling with contentment lately, but slowly and surely God is molding and pushing me towards finding my value not in my job or my relationship status, but in my Creator. I am not there yet, but he's illuminating things. Sanctification is what life's about.

"All of a Christian's life should be one of repentence." - Martin Luther

A Scribbled Look at What Goes on in my Brain

People stood up during worship on Sunday.  This is a big deal.  A movement away from legalistic ritual death and toward freedom and life. Led by one old woman and a 30-something young family. May have partially been confusion about what the last song was, but I'll take it!

My deepest desire is to have a husband and babies. I find myself awed by the simplest love. I'm getting better at being content, but it is so hard to trust. We are far too accustomed to being betrayed. (Pv3:5)

Harry Potter showed me the gospel today. Remember the scene in Sorcerer's Stone when Harry first sees Voldemort in the forest feeding on a unicorn? Firenze saves him and says to him, "it is a terrible crime to slay a unicorn. Drinking the blood will keep you alive even if.you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price - for you have slain something so pure that from the moment the blood touches your lips you will have a half-life, a cursed life." And then Harry asks, but who would do such a thing?"  The answer in real life, of course, is all of us. All of us have been a part of the slaying of something so innocent and pure, for God is that innocent and pure. And any little sin is a perversion of that purity.

Have you ever wondered why death hurts so much? I'm starting to think that its because its unnatural. Seems ridiculous, right? But sickness and death surround us. Touch all of us. We have to accept it because it's inevitable. And we do need to know how to suffer well, but what if it wasn't meant to be this way.  What if death is the most unnatural thing in the world? What if we know that deep down, or knew it once upon a time? What if the reason immortality appeals so much in the form of elves and vampires not just because we are greedy, but because we know that it was always supposed to be that way? What if our attraction to Dracula, Lestat, and Edward Cullen is a fallen perversion of a desire to return home? What if elves are actually more natural than we are?

When I Found Myself Loving Listening to Tone-Deaf Guy

Hopefully, this will be just the first of several blogs that are rooted in the Linger Conference.  This weekend was amazing.  The conference was just a time to linger in the presence of God; just be with God, and concentrate on the basic and central things of relationship and  spirituality.  I'm still processing, but this first installment is about a man who can't sing at all.

At one of the sessions, during worship, this loud voice came not-ringing out from behind me.  It startled me, honestly, and distracted me, because this man could not sing.  I mean, really, could. not. sing.  I can sing.  I like singing a lot.  I'm not Adele, but it's very important to me.  I was glad when the crowd drowned this guy out.  He must be totally tone deaf, but he has volume.  He can sort of yell, and can do it loudly.  It's hard to describe, but it was truly honestly bad.  The definition of "joyful noise."  So, I just tried to politely ignore his terrible singing.  Then, the next session came along.

For the last session of the conference, this man sat about four seats to the left of me.  I resigned myself to another session of ignoring him.  So, John Piper preached, and I noticed this guy diligently took notes and was intent on the teaching.  Then, as soon as worship started, he started up again.  He knew every word to every single song.  He caught onto what the song was before hardly anyone else near us.  It struck me as actually impressive how someone so non-musically-inclined could love and know music so well.  Then, I realized how judgmental I was being.  I realized that God enjoys this guy's praise JUST AS MUCH as he enjoys mine; maybe even more.  That man worshiped with more abandon and devotion than anyone.  He was brave enough to sing out even when it was completely unpleasant to everyone around.  I don't think he was being inconsiderate; he was just worshiping God like everyone else there.  Juxtapose that with the worship leader that morning who was doing runs and raising hands and who could sing beautifully, but (and I could be totally wrong here, I can't judge her heart) who seemed to me sort of disingenuous and showy.  I much preferred my tone deaf guy.  His sincere worship and abandon moved me.  God loved it.  Tone-deaf-guy was equal to me.  God saves and loves each of us completely and equally.  There is nothing we can do to fix ourselves.  We can't become better singers to make God happier; he's happy with us just as we are.  Like your little baby who makes you just beam with joy when they smile when they see you, but then who poops all over your favorite shirt.  You adore them anyway; you even love them when they ruin everything around them.

As worship continued, I found myself actually intentionally listening to tone-deaf-guy - actually enjoying him, thanking God for him, loving listening to him.  I was seeking out his voice in the crowd.  He was brave.  He was free.  He was beautiful.  His worship was beautiful.  And it humbled me, and it taught me that grace makes all of those material, momentary, things meaningless, and so we can move through life utterly free.

"I stand before almighty God alone,

I yield my need to cast the blame or stone..." - Song

"For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."  Ephesians 2:8-9

Can't get no satisfaction

I find that people are ridiculous. I desperately want to get married and have babies. There is nothing I want more in this world than to be a mom - no higher calling in my book. I cry because I don't have that; yet, my married-with-babies friends cry because they do.  We are ridiculous. We are fickle creatures.

I am angry with myself for being sad.
I am angry with myself for being so unsatisfied.
I am angry with myself for not living, for waiting.
I am angry with myself for realizing this but not being able to do a darn thing about it.
I am tired of all of tears I've shed because I am constantly not-chosen.
I am tired of the broken record of '6 years' that my heart leaks.
I am tired of being unhappy when I have soooo much to be happy about.
I am tired of overlooking blessings because I thought I would have different ones by now.
I am disappointed that I have so much to satisfy, yet that I have so little satisfaction.

"We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he can't imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

Snow never happens in Texas.

70 degrees on Saturday... 20 degrees on Tuesday.  Oh, how I love my home state.  People from other states really can't understand how proud Texans are of Texas.  Texas is just different, and awesome, and quirky, and independent. 

Enjoy the snow!

Night before after El Taurino's:

 

 What I woke up to (work was delayed)...

Work got cancelled!

Then, the next Tuesday...

It's been a strange winter, indeed.

Magic

C.S. Lewis once said that "Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."  I just finished reading the entire Harry Potter series for the uncounted time.  And I already want to read it again.  I still remember it being about 1 in the morning when I started the last book of the series.  My sister was laying on the loveseat with her copy, and I was on the couch with mine.  My friends and I would call each other and carefully ask if the other had gotten to 'this' part yet, trying to pick out significant but non-spoiler points so as to gauge what you could scream about or cry about to each other, or say "Oh just wait!".  The tears started when Hedwig died and just continued in various levels of severity until the last page.  I remember it was about 2 in the morning (the next day) when Fred died and the tears poured from me so much that I couldn't read the pages, and I just kept weeping for so many different reasons until the very end.

Last year, I began to give this big metaphor in class between something that had happened in Harry Potter and something I was trying to teach kids about history... and I got blank stares.  I was aghast.  I asked for a show of hands as to how many had read HP... out of 20, about 4 had, and about 3 more had 'seen the movies.'  Sigh.  It's fading, this initial phenomenon, but it will never fade entirely.  The words are too strong; books are too powerful, and this story, the story of an orphan whose world is turned upside down will find its place next to Peter Pan and Aslan and Cinderella.

I grew up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  These completely fictional characters actually helped to define me as a person, helped me to grow up, helped me to see the world a little more clearly.  I will be eighty years old still reading Harry Potter, and when my grandchildren question me my answer will be "always."  The series is not about wizard school or even heroes really (though, that makes it quite as cool as bow-ties), the story is really about love and overcoming.
It's about the love between friends; it's about how truly important and precious family is; its about being chosen; its about the last thing you think about before you die being the love of your life; its about how sacrifice is the greatest expression of love; its about true nobility that we have so forgotten; its about rebirth from the ashes; its about treating everyone with equal dignity; its about the human fight to keep evil at bay even if it can never quite be eradicated.

All Generations Will Call Me Blessed

The story of the most famous man in history begins with two women.

I just noticed this for the first time while doing my advent reading tonight.  The story of Jesus starts off in Luke with a focus on an old barren woman (Elizabeth, my first daughter will have her name) and a naive teenage girl. Not the picture of womamhood we're used to.  Modern media teaches us that success looks like a fit woman in her late twenties who waited to have kids and is unfulfilled if she's not working and making her husband into an accessory.  Modern feminism teaches us to shy away from motherhood and to see everything as a patriarchal attack.  And while the struggle for equality has been a long one (its almost as if there's some force in world working to destroy the sacred feminine), sometimes what we are fed in our society is not a true picture of the value of womanhood.

In Galatians, Paul (you know, the misogynist) writes that in Christ there is no differentiation of value between male and female. We're equally loved, valued, and saved.  In the birth story in Luke, God announces the birth of his son by blessing Elizabeth with a baby.  God uses little teenage country girl Mary to fix the fracture of the universe.  Mary, before anyone else, is the perfect example of faith in the new testament.  And then, the first person Jesus shows himself to after he is resurrected is a chick (whose testimony would not have even been accepted in the courts of the day).  Hundreds of women were part of Jesus' entourage as he traveled around Israel.  And God picked women to endow with his creative power. (I can grow a person-an image bearer of God!)

Its easy to forget that Christianity is a faith that deeply values women.  Its also easy to forget that women can be just as unjust as men. And its especially easy to forget that we women can be successful modern women, but that can just as easily mean executive as it can mean being a stay at home mom.

Retrospective Saturday Night

I want to be braver than I am.
I want to be kinder than I am.
I want the next time I fall in love to be forever.
I want to carry a baby inside of me.
I want to kiss in the rain.
I want to be spectacular.
I want adventure.
I want to grow and never stop wanting to grow.
I want to read a thousand books.
I want to make a great life with someone.

I believe that love is the most powerful force in the universe.
I believe that forgiveness is truly as important as the cliches say it is.
I believe that if we never realize that we need to be forgiven we are missing out on important depth in life.
I believe that if we never forgive others for deep hurts that we will never experience a very special kind of love.
I believe love means you will never leave.
I believe love looks like a man carrying a purse, fights with the kitchen sink sprayer, and laughing on a Tuesday night over a glass of wine.
I believe that everyone is important.
I believe that fairy tales are more true than non-fiction best sellers.
I believe that you can see beauty in anything.

Down with the Sickness

One of the biggest things that has always bothered me about Christianity/Judaism is the idea that I'm paying for the actions that some foolish man made tens of thousands of years before I was born.  It seems unfair and ridiculous.  As time has passed I've had the sin problem explained to me, and it has made sense, but then I lapse back into the thought that surely this whole thing is just not fair.  And God is just after all, right?  Last night, my dad was mocking the idea and, as usual, I found myself struck dumb in intimidation.  This nagging annoyance in the back of my mind that maybe this sin thing is just pure injustice.

But then today, it occurred to me that such a thing is really not all that ridiculous at all.  It's like a sickness.  You may not be the carrier, but someone else's actions can give you the disease, whether you deserve it or not.  A woman who has AIDS or Herpes or something can give it to the child that is inside of her.  An innocent child.  Infected with this poison before it could even take a breath.  It's still innocent, but now its infected, and as it grows it will have the disease.  Sin is an infectious disease.  It's in our DNA.  It's been passed down for millenia.  It kills us in the end. 

On Revenge last week, the main character said something about forgiveness being granted, but we still have to live with the consequences of our sin.  That's exactly true.  You can be forgiven for having sex before marriage and having a baby with some loser, but the consequences of raising the child and dealing with the dead-beat-dad are still there.  You have to live with the consequences of your actions.  And often times, those actions hurt other people.

Adam's rebellion, he and Eve deciding that there was something better than God, deciding to try to be gods created this disease.  Their discontentment (grass is greener and all that), their choice, their listening to lies, their pride, bringing poison into a world that had never seen it before was so incredibly horrific that it ripped nature, the universe apart.  And we've been living in the aftermath of that ever since.

Hiroshima, Japan.  Before and after the American bombing.

~

PS. I've been so very busy with school lately. All that bureaucracy is a killer! Teaching is pretty time consuming too. Excited for the Protestant Reformation tomorrow (entire thing taught in two days)

PSS. Too many people around me are currently pregnant or just became parents.  This has led to an alarming amount of mornings where I wake up from a vivid dream to remind myself that I am not in fact pregnant, nor do I have any little person to breast feed.  I know you wanted to know.

Checking In

I head back to work in about 32 hours... :S. So, I just felt in the mood to check in with a few one liner thoughts of the past week as the summer ends.

Casablanca didn't impress me much.
My church family is so precious to me.
People must only live in California for the weather. I understand this.
Some relationships, friendships, are more intimate and valuable in their own way than words could ever explain.
Its very easy to become discontented with singleness. (Specially with some baby or wedding popping up left and right oon the facebooks)
Death just happens.
I miss being the lady I forget I can be. I like her. She's super cool.
I want to read Tolkien to my children someday.
MY Bible is an old friend to me.
I watched The White Queen this weekend and felt that enchantment that first drew me to history when I was just a little girl wondering how common German princesses were and if there really were fairies and dragons.
I wish I saw my sister more.
I'm starting to lament the passing of summer less, and get excited for a new start and a new year.