GASP

So today I feel like I’m going to drip from the face of the planet… but it’ll pass after I am able to get over the fajita I accidentally consumed. Sometimes fajitas aren’t good, you know?
Okay, so here’s one for you…

What is one thing you REALLY want to do before you die?

Where’s My Alternator?

Five years ago I went on a trip to Namibia, Africa with 17 other people, nearly all of which were under 25 years old. We decided to visit the Etosha Game Reserve for a few days but prior to this little freestyle safari, we thought to ourselves, “Hm, this nation is a desert. Why don’t we pray that it will rain?” Well it did. It rained more in four winter days than it does in their entire rainy season put together.
Our equipment consisted of 2 VW Combies (vans), everything you can fit in those 2 vans for the next 8 weeks, more peanut butter and jelly sandwich fixings than you would normally want, not enough water, and 2 large plastic Ziploc bags filled with cooked vegetables.
The only problem with having more than one vehicle is the tendency to have a bit of sectarianism between introverts and extraverts… maybe a better way to say it is rivalry. Being the loud-mouths that we were, our van made collective claims of being superior to the quieter group, who had a rebuttal for our misguided beliefs (hold that thought).
We arrive at Etosha. A day into it and the rain has exploded to the earth, thereby leaving no predictability as to what kind of animals we’ll see since the normal watering holes aren’t all that necessary. So what do you do with 18 young people, two vans and lots of puddles? Well, drive through them of course!
Whoosh! Splash! GUSH! The puddles could’ve been registered as ponds, so we dove straight into all of them until… Extrovert Van idles and then… nothing. No turn of the key could get that sucker to wake up. Then Introvert Van follows suit. We chuckled until we realized that we were smack dab in between cheetah territory and elephant territory, neither of which are particularly comforting.
The icing on the cake is that curfew was only a few hours away. Being outside the heavily gated/guarded campsites that get locked down without exception at sundown not only means a large fine that we wouldn’t be able to pay, but that meant we could easily become dinner. Dusk was rapidly approaching, and we had no idea how far we are to the next campsite.
Against both wisdom and law, we all decide to get out of the vehicles and ponder our next move. For what seemed like an eternity, nothing could be done. Suddenly, Introvert Van starts! Praise the Lamb! But Extrovert Van is not going anywhere. The waterlogged alternator didn’t know what hit it. I looked up to the sky in helpless boredom when something caught my eye; buzzards. Buzzards were flying in a circle not far from where we were. They began to get closer to the ground; then closer. “There’s been a kill,” I announced, unheeded. Not cool.
“What is that smell?!” someone gasped. We gathered around the Introvert Van to find that those blasted cooked vegetables had been forgotten and kept underneath a seat, baking further in the desert heat. The odor we experienced that day was indescribable. Now we really had to get back. Someone chucked them into a thorn bush and we all groaned with the scent still lingering in our nostrils.
Thankfully, a German family on vacation passed by and gave us a rope. The limping Introvert Van became the tug of the mortally wounded Extrovert Van as the sun sink lower and lower in the sky. Only one problem still existed: the nausea that is created when nine people are crunched into a van that’s too small is an interesting wild card.
I heard a faint sound, as several of my companions look outside their window in unbelief. To my simultaneous amusement and dismay, my dear friend Brenda is loosing her lunch in the vehicle ahead of us. “Shut the windows!!” someone barked. It was a timely command. Eventually we arrived at our destination, moderately unscathed, but not a moment too soon. The last of sunlight dipped beyond the horizon as we dragged ourselves into the guarded camp just as the towering gates closed and locked for the night. I’d had better days.

The Great and Terrible Din Part 2

Apparently I’ve managed to make some enemies by my observations of the interaction of females. Therefore, PART 2!!!
Let me start by reemphasizing the point that I find great delight (as I said in Part 1) in the people with whom I live as well as those next door. Not only do I love to observe people and the way they interact, I also come from Minnesota. My Swedish heritage automatically means that I’ve had to fight on a consistent basis throughout my life to express myself in more than one tone, but it’s taken some serious effort. Keeping this in mind, what you have to understand is that I’m dazzled by people of natural vocal expressiveness simply because it’s not what I grew up with.
The combination of the immediate 8, yea 10, personalities in my living situation create some of the most brilliant displays of fascinating and hilarious interaction I have ever seen (not exaggerating AT ALL). It doesn’t matter what kind of day I’m having- gut-busting snickering on my part is bound to eventually ensue.
In fact, as an aspiring writer, I was tucked away in my room, giggling to myself at the various things being said and I was thrust into the inspiration that produced Part 1.
Unfortunately, as has been the case for as long as I can remember, it slipped my mind that most girls read into things I don’t mean, which is a tragedy. As I said to one of them, my little take on the interaction of females was not a passive-aggressive plea for silence. It was an observation for the purpose of written creativity. Sadly, I have a habit of making women mad at me because I don’t process emotionally and usually end up offending them with comments that I don’t cushion with qualifiers.
So, be not offended, ladies of the world. I adore you for not being like me!

Disrupted

My understanding of why I exist is currently being transposed. What’s my plan? To spend the rest of my life building a foundation of faithfulness in a lifestyle fully committed to the knowledge of God. Why? There is no plan B. I have to know Him.
Nevertheless, how much do I seek God as a means to an end? How often do I open my Bible or pray for “X” amount of hours to validate my calling and to stay out of trouble with God. Unfortunately, this is offensive to the majority because it requires abandonment.
It tears into my hang out time, the way that I spend my money, the way I view the future. To actually be consumed with a Psalm 27:4 lifestyle, pursuing relationship with my God at the expense of lesser things, means my greatest source of drive and anxiety is not my finances, or how many times I get the approving nod from those I most respect. Instead my waking thought, and that which keeps me up at night; the motivation of my every word and decision comes from the origin of my savage hunger to truly know God and to make Him known.
This is what the rest of my life (starting now) is for; to construct a history of searching Him out. Why? Because I forfeit my purpose for living if I don’t.
I’m not worried about what I’m going to “do” with my life. Many say to me, “Yeah, just wait until you have real bills or you start a family.” I appreciate this perspective, and I do believe in practical wisdom, but my desire is to keep the secondary things secondary. This is who I am above all else: a lover of Jesus. To shape my life around lesser things is idolatry.

Comments

Many of you are probably reading this with the intention of seeing whether or not I’m going to be the fad blogger type, and refuse to put your little web-surfing heart on the line with a comment because you don’t know if I’m going to skip town on you (or cyber space in this case). Let me offer you all the comfort I can- I’ll be here until I get fed up, which isn’t likely to happen soon since I’ve been craving creative expression like this for some time now. So leave a comment, or pick a fight, or say something utterly idiotic… the choice is yours. I realize I haven’t given you much to work with as of yet, but don’t leave me hanging. I’m touchy that way. Nah, just kidding. I just like hearing what people have to say since this is my avenue to sharpen my writing, so criticize my style, tell me how to do better, poke fun- I love it all.

The Great and Terrible Din

One observation I’ve made over the last several months is that the female species can be unbelievably obstreperous. They scream… for no clear reason- especially at the age of 18. Why do they do this? Is it because of some impulse that causes a swirl of excitement that has to be expressed in volume? Is it joy? Is it anger? No one can say for sure.
My delight is that I live with 4 other girls all under the age of 20 because of my job, and the 5 girls across the hall have open access to my apartment anytime they choose, save when the door is locked. But why, where two or more are gathered together, there is an exuberant amount of unwarranted screeching, shrieking, squealing, squawking, and general earsplitting din? I’m truly amazed.
Watching them relate is like nothing I’ve ever undergone. One begins the conversation, while the next responds in like manner and elevated volume. This continues and escalates until finally they are having an entire conversation, frolicking about, roaring with exclamation over the delight or dismay they are feeling, depending of course on the subject matter of the “conversation”.
As you may have guessed, I’m not particularly loud if I don’t need to be…unless of course, I’m trying to be the center of attention. Then it’s another matter entirely. But for the most part, though an extravert, there is something about silence that I taste little of, and therefore have a deep appreciation for. Part of me enjoys the ample amount of buzz, and the other part is flabbergasted by my discovery of the heights of female voice.

The Frustration of Sanctification

(I don’t know the rules and all that for poetry, but here’s something I wrote this fall that adequately describes my frustration with sanctification).

In the building of stained glass
Ringing with the hymns of the past
I pant for truth
But I stand here unmoved

So I pay my fare to dash
Away to somewhere where
I can find the Voice that
Tells me to dare
To feel, to breathe, to open and see
The things that I’m missing
And yet I’m seething…

“How could you!” I say,
To the Man who heals the lame
I’m burning inside, I’m aching
You tricked me. Hey, people knew me.

What we have here is
A chronic fear of being bare
And I stare, and I stare, and I stare…
They tell me You’re beautiful
That I’ll be just like You
If I sit here and stare

So a week goes by and I’m unchanged
The options removed
New boredom freshly gained
“Meditation is the way,” they say
So I crack open the dusty
Page of the day
And I look and I look
And I can’t find the book
Of “First Opinions”,
But I swear it’s in there.

And all I wanted from the start
Was affirmation of my faithful heart;
To meet You at the shade tree and be
Just You and me

But instead of the kissing
I’m met with prodding and pressing
Like bamboo shoots up the fingernails
I’ve now begun feeling

See, all along I thought it was
I who was staring…
But peering around the corner
of my tearing
Are those eyes, those eyes, those eyes
Glaring…
Rifling through my antique sin
(I thought we‘d agreed to never bring that up again).
And my heart lays there
Cupped in a pair of defensive hands
It slowly petrifies before my eyes
And I cry…
Like a child I say,
“Okay! Have Your own way!!”
And a mangled hand reaches down
To that semblance of heart
Hoisting it up to play its true part.

For the Core…

This post is specifically designed for my 8 interns as well as my dear friend/assistent Bri.

Here’s the site to take the Myers-Briggs personality test. Take it, see how you score, and then post a comment here and tell me all about you! As I said before, I’m an ENFJ, which basically means that I’m rad and influential, but I have some (though not much) consideration for others.

Anyone else can do this too, but for my girls, DO IT!

Have fun.

Spring is here… uh oh!

Here’s another tangent of what happens when you give a preacher a computer and venue to express her thoughts. So I have nothing against the “romance” of the first time we have our hearts awakened to the newness of seeing the Lord in light of the sound backing of how the Scripture defines Jesus, our Husband. However, in my limited experience, I’ve found more often than I would deem as healthy the amount of times Jesus is portrayed as the “Hollywood Heart-Throb”, largely due to the chick flick culture in which we submerge ourselves.   I have no beefs with a good chick flick, granted it’s not splattered with filth, and this is by no means a feminist diatribe for the purpose of venting my rage to rally the independent women of my small world against intimacy. I’m simply feeling the sting of aiming too low at how we view the Divine romance. Yes, Jesus is a Lover and yes, He is coming back for His Bride the Church, but in order to keep from getting off in our perspective, I believe it’s important to have a holy view of the One we have in mind when we say “Bridegroom”. 
God is a Lover, and all of the Law and the Prophets do boil down to love. Jesus said it Himself (Mt. 22:37-40), but because of the amount of materials I have read and sermons I’ve heard on this topic, I’ve personally needed to increase my awareness of what my mind goes to when I think about the Lord in this way. Does my mind automatically go to the events clearly laid out in the book of Revelation, or does it go to the movie of the “Ever After” caliber? Now, romance and marriage are designed by God because He loves it, but at BEST it is a shadow of the marriage to come. In my opinion, our hearts fall far more in love with the shadow than the “real deal”. So often I hear from younger believers that yes, they want Jesus to come back, but not until they get married, have 2.5 kids, a nice house with a white picket fence, golden retriever, and a decent retirement plan. I’m not excluding myself from this. I have a tendency to do the same, but the problem is that we have no idea what we’re saying. What we do not really believe is that life would be eternally and infinitely more glorious if Jesus were here than if we had our American fantasy. What’s my point? To get caught up in a more lofty view of Jesus! Why? Because until we know Him and His ways, I’m afraid we are confined to a limited perspective, falling more in love with the shadow of things to come than growing in the ache and anticipation of Who is to come!

I’m very aware of how little I know on the topic of love in general, but at the same time, in the spirit of Matthew 10:37, I want to grow in loving my God rightly. Life truly isn’t right until He splits the sky!

Don’t Give Me Simplicity– It’s too hard!

I’ve forgotten how to articulate those occasional eloquent thoughts from the deeper interior of my existence. Not that they’ve ever been all that deep, of course, but when one steps away from the meditative lifestyle one has grown accustomed to, it’s shocking how shallow ones prayer life morphs into almost instantly. I’ve been asking the Lord for so many different things lately, but what I’ve been struck with is how absurd my claims are of having a friendship with God, when in reality, I mostly relate to Him on the basis of my need. For the most part, my foundation of “friendship” is to ask the One who was and is and is to come to give me things. I know from experience that there is more to this whole life of godliness than asking for provision. It’s not wrong, but it is incomplete. When was the last time I actually related to God on the grounds of His eternity, for instance? Or how long has it been since I asked Him why He created theSea of
Glass? Far too long. And yet, I sit here writing about it, rather than doing it. The fact is, I’ll do anything but deal with Him. Still I can’t approach Him with boldness, expecting Him to speak to me. I fear that He won’t answer and I’ll be no better for having asked. The only problem with that is that it’s illegitimate grounds for avoiding prayer. If He doesn’t speak, at least we were just being with one another, which, according to my suspicion, is precisely what He’s after. I need to pray.