Rest In Peace

I'm not a Halloween hater.  I'm not a lover either.  Yet there is one aspect of this fear fest that I truly disdain.  (And it has nothing to do with Satan.)

Across from the library I frequent there's an elaborate Halloween spread.  There are at least thirty goulish headstones staked into the ground, cobwebs clinging to tree branches and a large skeleton draped across the arched entrance to the "Lake St. Cemetery."

It's exquisitely dramatic, but I find it disturbing.  Not because I am frightened of ghouls and ghosts, but because the entire display portrays one of my beloved spaces as a frightful fantasy.

I love cemeteries.  They are great fodder for the imagination.  Each time I see a cemetery I think There's a story there.  Not the stories of goblins and zombies, but of real men and women, our fellow human beings.

In first grade our class took a field trip to a little cemetery across from a shopping center.  We were on a nature walk of some sort and for a reason I cannot recall we ventured inside the chain link.  Our class of knee high souls was remarkably quiet as we drifted across the sparse patches of grass.  There was nothing inherently romantic about it.  What struck me was the ordinariness of it, it's place so near the busy road where hundreds of people drive past each day. Death, this mammoth mystery that eludes mankind, is always among us.

Somewhere toward the center of this plain graveyard was a grouping of three palm sized markers.  They only bore one date.  Eight numbers chiseled into each one.  A set of triplets without names.  To their left a headstone of a woman whose life ceased on the same day.  A mother who died while trying to give life.

There is a story there.

My six year old self knew this even then.  It longed for the story buried in the ground.  The one no one could tell me.  There was a distance of decades between us, but only feet of dirt.  I felt close to them, close to them as human beings.

I also knew that one day the body I lived in now would be dirt under the feet of a stranger, a stranger who knew nothing of my six year old heartaches, the friends I loved or the color of my hair.  My story would be there, buried under a headstone, carried away by time.

In that knowledge I could have felt fear, but all I felt was a calm sorrow, a steady, inevitable weight of knowledge.  The scale of life exploded as my perspective shifted.  I felt incredibly smaller and larger simultaneously.

I always notice them now, the graveyards.  When I drive a stretch of highway they leap out at me, especially the fading ones with sagging alters of stacked stone.  I reach out for the stories.

Cemeteries are remarkable places where we are somehow near to people far away.  People who have in one way or another impacted our lives by preceding us.

"For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts: and that things are not so ill as for you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in univisited tombs."  George Eliot, Middlemarch

I like to visit the hidden tombs to reflect, to search for that same feeling of smallness and largeness I had on that day in first grade.

We desecrate sacred places of shared humanity when we characterize them as haunts, turning forgotten stories of sorrow, love, timidity and courage into frightening amusements for the living.

The stone markers of death and life, solemn and sacred mysteries, are trivialized with plastic bones.

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The Golden Arches of Existence

Some people eat without tasting.  I believe this explains the prevalence of McDonald's.

But in all seriousness, I read a whole article once about how many people eat their food without taking the time to taste it.  This article encouraged people to slow down and chew thoughtfully, savor each bite and reflect on the taste.  This, it claimed, could lead to significant weight loss.

I remembered this last night as I walked down the back steps.

People don't taste their food because they are in such a hurry.  Or they are gluttonous and only want to feel full.  Or they eat because they have to out of necessity.

I think I often live this way.  I live without tasting.

I am in such a hurry. I only want to feel full.  I live because I have to.

On my descent down the steps I wondered what would happen if I tried to slow myself down and become more aware.  What if I began fully abiding in my life as it was unfolding, savoring moments, really tasting them?

Perhaps I could lose some of this extra weight I keep carrying around with me.  



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A Cup of Smo

I faced the kitchen windows because they give the best view of the street.  I didn't want to be caught off guard.  I also stood there because there was a heap of dishes in the sink.  In my pink rubber gloves I stood with suds sloshing carelessly, my eyes too distracted by the view outside to mind what was before me.

Vivian came scuttling into the kitchen and set a plastic orange cup by my elbow.  A plastic orange cup with a tin lid on top.

"Here's your smo, mommy.  Be careful, 'cause it's hot."

"Smo?"

"Yes, smo.  It's hot, okay?"

I nodded absently, keeping my eyes on the window panes.  She makes up words frequently.

Watched window panes never produce cars, though.  The moments drug by.  Moments into minutes.  Vivian came back in the kitchen with her hands on her hips.

"Mommy, you didn't drink your smo!"

"My what?"

"Your smo.  Come on, you need to drink it."

"What is it?"  I cracked the lid to the empty plastic cup.

"It's a little type of juice...a little type of blueberry tasting juice."

"Oh."

"And I mixed in some of that stuff, you know, that yellow stuff."

"Yellow stuff?"

"Yeah, yellow stuff.  Like what you put on a hot dog."  She turned her hands and proudly pretended to shake a bottle.

"Mustard?!" I grimaced.

"Oh, yeah, mustard.  Smo is blueberry juice with some mustard...and raspberries.  Now drink it up, please."  She said this sweetly like June Cleaver.

And just as I began to tilt my head the sound of a slamming car door sent us both darting to the doorway.

Our peculiar life is full of comings and goings, but the best thing about the many goings we experience is that we get lots of comings.  Vivian screamed as she always does when her daddy comes home.  It is predictably precious. 

It is good to have Scott back with us.  

There was no transition, though.  No easing into life again.  At 6 am the following morning we were both up to go to work.  Our Saturday was spent at an event selling crafts and sharing about the ministry.  We love doing this, but I will tell you a secret.  

At the end of day, as we packed up our wares, I felt myself begin to unravel at my heels.  I felt unexplainably tearful.

Some sorrows occur when things happen to us, but others...others we bring on ourselves.  We pick them up daily, lay them on our backs and follow after.  We do this in love and obedience, and when we begin we feel somewhat capable and enthused.  Then the hill grows steeper, strength wanes and tears come because everything feels too big and sitting in the grass seems like the best option.

Last week I hung up the phone after talking to Scott and a very clear thought entered my head.  I was standing in the dining room when I felt the words You don't have to do this.  

I stood stark still and had a vision of my life like a magazine picture I had recently seen, with Vivian and I standing at a clean counter making pumpkin muffins in matching aprons.  I had a vision of a simple life, one without transatlantic telephone calls, frequent travel and inconsistent finances.  One where I didn't have so many others watching me or expecting things of me.  One where I wasn't responsible for the well being of countless children, where I wasn't forced to grind away all my preconceptions and prejudices to hold hands with another culture.  One where there was less chance of looking like a fool, where I didn't feel so exposed and vulnerable.  Where I didn't have to rely so intensely on others or so intensely on God.   

After all, I don't have to do this.

I wondered about this quietly for days until on Saturday, after all the other vendors had gone and we were the last two souls dragging crates out to our minivan, the weariness made it up from my feet and into my heart.  I felt small, alone, and absolutely spent.  Why were we doing this?

Admist my desperation, walking along our church sidewalk and up the grassy slope, my hand struck out to grasp for the fringe of His garment.  

And in that instant I could feel the power come out from Him.  

He turned, quietly, and saw me just as I was.  Then asked me as He had asked the twelve

Do you want to leave also?

I waited.  Then with my hand still wrapped around the threads I whispered 

To whom else can I go?

And as the words rolled through my heart I realized that not only was there no one else, I didn't want anyone else.

I just wanted Him.

Life is a crazy cocktail of sadness and joy, exhilaration and exhaustion.  When we pick up our cross to follow after Him we open ourselves to a new kind of pain, a voluntary one that says we must die to what seems safe and trust that His burden is light.  For whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 

So here is the other secret I want to tell you.  The power that comes out of Him is not a power to make our calling easier.  It is a power to keep dying, and somehow that dying makes me feel more alive.  I do not have to do this, but I want to.  

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow to attain the resurrection from the dead. 

We who love Him all know this secret.  That His very presence is so precious we would walk through briars and flame if it means we can simply stay beside Him. 

I count all things loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.

I want to be like Him.

Where He leads me I will follow.  

What He gives me to taste I will take.

For the truth is the only real bitterness was swallowed up by Him that I might dwell in the blessed sweetness of God.

I can hear Vivian's little voice cheerfully prodding me along, "Drink it, mommy.  Drink it up."

Christmas on the Horizon

Yesterday I ran an errand in a department store where the halls were already decked.  That's right.  On October 20th they had Christmas decorations everywhere.  How disappointing!  I think we can squelch the uniqueness of Christmas when we overextend its season.

Nevertheless, the nature of our work requires us to plan ahead for this special season and we begin preparing for our Christmas events and fundraisers during the summer!  July isn't exactly the "most wonderful time of the year," but we need months to fully execute some of the special opportunities below.

I know some of you are planners too, so without jumping the gun prematurely, here are some things to bear in mind for this upcoming holiday season.

Ornaments4Orphans is something Pearl Ministries does each year.  When you buy a handcrafted, fair trade ornament through Ornaments4Orphans the proceeds go to benefit children in Uganda.  But the really exciting thing about Ornaments4Orphans is that you can do even more than just buy an ornament.  You can actually put up a tree yourself!  

When you sign up to coordinate an Ornaments4Orphans tree at your church, school, business or home Pearl Ministries will send you a selection of ornaments which you can sell from your tree throughout the Christmas season!  You can make a tremendous impact by giving those in your community the opportunity to buy and ornament and bless a child.  The only cost is your time!  Simply send back the ornaments that you don't sell.  It's that simple.  

For more information or to sign up to coordinate a tree this year visit www.Ornaments4Orphans.org or email me directly at jamie(at)pearlministries.org!

Many of you have asked if we'll be doing the 12 Days of Christmas again this year.  Yes, we will!  Each Christmas we stock the pantry at Ranch on Jesus with food gifts for the children.  Buy a chicken, some beans or sweet potatoes to help them grow up healthy and satisfied.   The 12 Days Catalog is in it's final stages and will be posted online in the next few days.  

If you're looking for unique Christmas gifts that are ethical and help give back to others, make sure to shop at KANZI.  Pearl Ministries' fair trade initiative has an online store and we will be frequenting many locations this holiday season.  

Tomorrow we'll be here: 

And I did say WE.  Me AND Scott.  Yes, his plane just landed fifteen minutes ago in Atlanta, but the man has crazy in his blood.  This is our family's home church so he wants to be there.  We are excited to be able to help our cause AND the global missions fund of our church.

We will also be at Christmas Village in Birmingham and beginning in November we will have a kiosk here in the Brookwood Mall!  

So mark your calendars, make a note and when you gather yourself to begin the celebration join us in helping the less fortune of the world celebrate Christmas well!

I Managed to Stay Awake to Write This

Ah, this week.  This week....................................................

Sorry.  I nodded off just thinking about this week.

Scott has been in Uganda the last few days.  Ten to be exact.  I'm running on empty.

I had many lofty goals for those ten days.  Projects, activities, visits, errands, meetings, recipes, mending, scrubbing, reading, writing.  I got a little ambitious.  I think it is a way of psyching myself up to bide the time.

And the time was bided.  Almost too much.  I have stayed busy running here, there and everywhere.  As I ran here, there and everywhere I was being circled by a rambunctious three year old trying to shove acorns, raisins or bits of crumpled up paper into my pockets.

I love my child.  I love being with her.  But by day four of uninterrupted togetherness let's just say I was tempted to Google study abroad programs for preschoolers.

Yet the end of our mother daughter bonding adventure is in sight.  Scott arrives home on Friday.

I am relieved, but I am also frustrated that my extensive list of goals is largely unattained.  While I'm irked that the house is covered in toy shrapnel my biggest disappointment is that I did not manage to do the personal things I'd planned during my solitude.  

I'm currently plowing my way through the list of Pulitzer Prize winners.  I have a personal goal to consume the entire fiction category by the end of 2012.   I checked out a ridiculously large pile of novels from the library last week assuming this would be an opportune time to read in peace.  I imagined myself curled up each evening on the sofa with my books and my notebook.  

I have spent each evening curled up on the sofa, but I only read a few pages before I'm sound asleep.  The same thing happens when I try to write. I had a long list of posts I planned to polish, but by eight o'clock I'm completely spent.  My thoughts become slippery and won't be netted.

I suppose there are worse things.

I could just use prayer that I can hang in there these last couple of days and that I will gracefully accept what was and what wasn't.  And please pray Scott is able to wrap up his loose ends in Uganda, get our shipment soundly packed and travel home in peace.

Have I mentioned we have an event the day after he arrives home?

Have I mentioned we're crazy?

On that note, I'm off to bed!

He Was A Jerk

I thought I would be a writer.

Or a choreographer. Or an actress.

Or mostly a writer.

I was 15 with a lot of choices to make.

At 12 I had dreamed up a story for children. The characters lived in my back pocket and I'd pull them out often to pen a moment. I had a stack of stories with more ideas crackling through all the time.

This stack of stories made me very nervous. I wanted to be a writer, but I also wanted to be good. A good writer.

My mother told me that the things I wrote were wonderful, but this is what mothers say. I was 15 and I wanted substantial literary evaluation, so I turned to the most authoritative source I knew on the matter. Mr. Davis, my ninth grade English teacher.

His classroom in the middle of Hall A was a portal into the backwoods of Georgia. Displayed on the walls were two mounted deer heads, a stuffed squirrel, a pheasant, a wild boar AND a full sized coyote beside the file cabinet. I often wondered if he kept them there because he needed to affirm his manhood to his English students. Now I just think that his wife must have hated them.

That year I trudged through the masculine curriculum choices of The Old Man and the Sea, A River Runs Through It, Farenheit 451 and Romeo and Juliet. ( Not so manly, but lots of bloodshed.)

At the end of the year I had stored up enough courage to show my writing to another. I printed off a few pages, a short story, and stapled together the corner. One afternoon I slid my heart across Mr. Davis' desk.

"When you get some time I'd love to know what you think."

It was one of the bravest things I had ever done.

Days went by. Then weeks. My heart drooped and drained of life.

At last, on the final day of school, I paused in the doorway after class, waiting for all the other students to skip down the hallway.

"Mr. Davis..." I could not steady the waiver, "Have you had a chance to read my story?"

He nodded, as if I had asked him if he'd like fries with that.

"It's fine," he said in his slow drawl. "But you've got lots of time. Why don't you take your time, settle down, have a few babies then see how you feel about it when you're grown?"

Yes.

He.

Did.

The shock bled through my face gradually. I fought the tears down that long stretch of hallway. I wanted to glance back to see if I was leaving a trail of shame on the linoleum, but I didn't want him to see my weakness.

The most authoritative literary expert in my life just told me I was a lousy writer.

Or so I believed.

For years.

I grew convinced that little would ever come of my words and I could not risk more humiliation. But like any true writer I could not help but write. The writing became my secret, though. No one would see it again.

Around this time I became increasingly enamored with Emily Dickinson. I imagined one day after my quietly unusual death people finding trunks of stories stashed in my bedroom. I would never have to know how they were received. Death is a good barrier to criticism.

I would have hidden my words forever if it had not been for Africa. At 20 I started showing my words again for the sake of my children. These stories of children and their needs compelled me to pull back the curtain and express. Their potential gain from them far outweighed any potential criticism I might face.

Slowly I grew beave again. Slowly, as I fought to suppress the words of Mr. Davis, I grew bolder. Because all these years later I still hear them. I still see his profile in the doorway. I still wonder if I am embarrassing myself by trying.

Criticism weighs so much more than encouragement. I sinks to the bottom of us and latches on to our guts. It is not easily dislodged. We are prone to believe the negative things said of us more than the kind things. At least I am.

What I realized as a grown woman was that Mr. Davis never said a single word about my writing. He told me what he thought I should do with my life. He was prescribing a destiny for me based on a narrow box he penned all women into. That year we never read a book by a female author.

It wasn't me. It was him. He was the one with the problem. Because even if my words had not been excellent he could have offered me feedback and specific advice related to my efforts. He could have handed back my papers marked up in red pen showing the strong parts and the weak parts. Because criticism is a healthy part of growth, healthy criticism that is thoughtful, offered with the intent to benefit.

Mr. Davis gave me nothing but a chauvinist's stereotype, but I took it as an evaluation of my value.

I haven't been very successful at having babies, Mr. Davis. But I am starting to believe, despite what you said that maybe, just maybe, my words might mean something.


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Crisis 1 Part 4

After much delay here is Part 4 in the Crisis Series. You may want to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 before proceeding.

I wish things were clearer. It's like waking from a gripping dream unable to connect the dots. Some scenes are remembered perfectly, but the transitions between them can't be recalled.

This is the period my story is shifting into, a season of vagueness. This is why I have been avoiding the telling of it. I am concerned that I cannot tell it right. Not in a way that will do it justice.  So much of what happens next could not be seen with the eye. It took place beneath the surface, in the places known only to myself.

My life was bright at the time, externally bright.  Obviously I experienced the normal pangs and twangs of teenage-hood, but at 16 the circumstances of my life were more than placid.  They were pleasant.

Yet no matter how pleasant a life can seem to the outside observer, when there is no light dwelling on the inside darkness reigns.
   
At 14 I chose to bar God from my life, but the barring did not shut out the fear, the anxiety and the sadness. I searched for balms in other pastures, but there were none.  And my spirit became slowly more agitated.  God hadn't answered my questions, but neither had anything else.

I spent out my soul in wonderings the way the prodigal spent his inheritance in his wanderings. And like him I ended up hungry.

Sometimes I would cautiously pick up my Bible, a slim bluish leather-bound NIV which I had tossed to the back of an upper shelf. At twelve and thirteen when I first began to slip into crisis I burried myself in the middle of it. I would flatten out the pages of Psalms and take a notebook and begin to copy the lines out word for word. Reading it wasn't sufficient. I needed to create the words with my own hands.

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck.

Cloistered off in my room I filled pages in secret, because I felt a great shame that my heart was so unsteady. How can you tell others you are afraid when you have no explanation for what you fear. You fear existing.

I knew, even in my retaliation against it, that the Bible was made up of bread, food that fed hungry people.

Perhaps in my Father's house there was enough food and perhaps if I snuck in softly enough he would let me sit on the edges of the table to catch the crumbs?

I wanted to come home, but humble pie tastes so unbearably bitter. There had to be a way to soften my reentry into the Christian universe, to consider converting subtly and inconspicuously without looking like a fool.

A plan began growing within me, a plan to run away.

I accelerated my high school courses, graduated early and was going away to college in the fall. At Birmingham Southern College I would major in theatre, triumph in my studies and get my life pulled together away from the "I told you so" gazes of others.

At least that's what I intended.

To Be Continued...

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WIC Conference 2011!

Two fifteen hour work days on solid concrete.  That describes my weekend.  And as exhausting as that sounds (and I assure you it was) it was also exhilirating.

Friday and Saturday we were set up as exhibitors at the 2011 Women in the Church Amazing Grace 360 Conference.  That's our booth...booths...up there at the top.  We filled two spaces with KANZI and Ornaments4Orphans.

Conferences and conventions are intense, but I really love doing them, especially Christian women's conferences.  I usually get to participate in the conference for free.  A very nice perk.  So this weekend while my calve muscles were wincing my heart was absorbing the great teaching at the sessions and seminars, taking in testimonies and singing sweet words of truth along with 2000 other women and Indellible Grace.

Fabulous.

This conference also happened to be in Atlanta, which is my girlhood home, so I had lots of chances to meet up with ladies from my home church.

And I got a new book!  For free! Y'all know how I love books.

Covenant Theological Seminary was giving away these:

I am excited to see what Jerram Barrs is going to say about God's perspective on women in the Bible.  I can tell from the first few words of the introduction that I like where he is going.

 It was not only a great weekend for me, but a great weekend for the ministry.  We sold bagoodles (that's a real word) of KANZI products and connected with lots of wonderful women.

We sold out of corn husk nativities within the first few hours.

 Completely understandable.

And we sold dozens and dozens of Christmas ornaments.  Dare I say hundreds.

It is very exciting to watch Ornaments4Orphans grow.  Which reminds me that I should remind everyone that now is the time to sign up to be an Ornaments4Orphans coordinator for 2011.  The only cost is your time, and by volunteering to set up a tree and sell ornaments from your church, school, business or home you are making Christmas a little brighter for some wonderful children in Uganda.

More info at www.Ornaments4Orphans.org or just email me: jamie(at)pearlministries.org

It was a weekend for reflecting, some brought on unwittingly.  Digging through this bin of woven ornaments at the booth transported me back in time.  Almost exactly one year ago to the day I was curled up on our couch, losing another baby, and tagging hundreds and hundreds of these ornaments.  I wanted to feel useful, yet could physically do so little. So I determined to tag every ornament I could while on bed rest.

The sight of all those ornaments piled in the bin took me to a tender place, an ache tucked up inside the quilt of God's grace.  He has been faithful.  And I am truly thankful for the little triggers that remind me of what I have passed through, because they show me the God who passed through them alongside me.

Now..

Selling lots of product is fantastic, but it means we need more.  Scott left for Uganda this afternoon and will be there ten days visiting with Ranch on Jesus and rounding up our latest craft order.  He has A LOT to accomplish in LITTLE time.  Plus he's coming off of an extremely trying week.  So please pray for him.

I am holding down the fort here in Alabama.  So I guess I need prayer too.  But I am headed into this time with a spirit of optimism and trust.  Nothing reminds me so much that I am not alone as when I am alone. 

 

Hypocrites? Really?

We had a jam packed weekend at the WIC conference, but before I write about that I am going to hop down a little bunny trail to do something slightly unusual.

I don't write about politics here, but ever since mentioning Michele Bachmann last week I've had the itch.

All this stuff happening on Wall Street has been insatiably fascinating to me. My college major was history and for my senior thesis I wrote a twenty five page paper on mob activity in Boston during the American Revolution.

Yes...I am totally geeky that way.

I was, for a short period, a modest expert in Revolutionary theory and interpretation, and let me tell you,  history is not a simple timeline of facts.

So...mobs in Boston...my position was that mobs were not formed to disrupt social order, but to maintain it. Mobs arose to curb inappropriate or exploitative activity. It wasn't pretty, all that effigy burning and tea dumping, yet the mobs were mainly trying to protect themselves and their their perceived rights.  Sure, some crazies tagged along because they liked the acting out for the sake of acting out alone.  But these were not the people instigating the dissent.

Interesting stuff.

I don't think Occupy Wall Street is of the exact same material as early colonial protests, but there are always parallels in political discontent.  And rather than putter out gradually, Occupy Wall Street seems to be growing.

In my circles I've been seeing and hearing some pretty snarky comments about these protestors.

The criticisms leveled at this group are predominately twofold.

1. They have no specific purpose in their protest.  


2. They are being utterly hypocritical in their stand against corporations because they are using corporately manufactured products and services such as iPhones, sleeping bags and toilets in McDonald's.

(Though I am sure if protesters started openly urinating in Zuccotti Park they would be lambasted for public indecency rather than applauded for ideological purity.  Oh wait...yeah...that has already happened.)

Listen, I don't know exactly what these protesters are trying to accomplish. I don't. But I do know that I identify with many of their complaints AND I am sort of a capitalist.

Corporate America and Political America are clearly in bed together. Conservative critics accuse protesters of aiming to destroy capitalism, yet the capitalism we have in this nation is significantly flawed. Michael Lewis was quoted today in a CNN article saying "it's capitalism for us and socialism for the capitalists."  That's a pretty good way of explaining it.

The protesters are still formulating their exact positions of complaint, but that does not mean they should be dismissed or mocked.  The spirit of these protests alone is a significant position.  A spirit of helplessness.  A spirit of frustration.  A spirit of wanting something better.  It tells us something.


And just as mobs rose up to burn effigies and pour tea into the harbor over two centuries ago, protestors are showing up now out of utter frustration. It was illegal, by the way, to dump the tea. It was theft and vandalism. Yet it is now upheld as heroic.

I am not trying to equate these protests with colonial defiance. Nor am I trying to say they are heroic.  But the people of colonial America felt exploited and entrapped. Many modern day Americans feel the same.  I may not agree with the protesters' solutions, but I see how they have arrived at their beliefs.

So this brings me to the second criticism.  The hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy because they have cell phones?  Really?

The reality is that we live in a society where it is nearly impossible to function in an ordinary way without interacting with large corporations. Consumers are inextricably dependent on products controlled by a handful of companies. As hard as one might try to function in society without being tainted by corporate America, the truth is that we are uncommonly bound.

Sure, there are some hardcore radicals who knit their clothing from goat hair and stuff their mattresses with straw. They may not be accused of being hypocrites, but they are widely considered nut jobs.

So that's the alternatives? Hypocrite or nut job?

Calling protestors hypocritical because they are criticizing the companies they consume from is unfair. That is like saying American citizens cannot ask certain standards of the government because we use public roads.

As citizens we have the ability to elect officials that represent us, but even when our candidate doesn't win we still have to pay taxes. As consumers we can choose which companies we purchase from.  But is it so simple?  What if there isn't another company to choose from?  What if you are low income and you cannot afford to buy from someone else?  Do you just have to keep your mouth shut?

The political system is deeply intertwined with money from a handful of corporations.  Washington is influenced less and less by the people and more and more by the corporate machine.  The marketplace is not so free and not so competitive.  Consumers do not have a great diversity of options.

Is it wrong to cry out for a change when we see the corporate system we are currently inextricably dependent on acting indecently?  Exploiting people?  Ruled by greed?  Is that class warfare?  Really?

If I own a car am I not allowed to make demands about how that car is made and marketed?  I could take my business elsewhere.  But what if there isn't elsewhere?

The point I want to make is that these issues are complicated and we need to be more compassionate.  Labeling anyone, the protesters OR the rich, is dangerous and prevents us from entering into lives the way Jesus does.  


(Though Jesus did have a lot more to say about the rich than He did the poor. Specifically something about a camel and a needle...)

As Christians I believe what we say is vitally important in these trying, uncertain times.

Most people would identify Christians more closely with capitalism and conservatism than with charity and sacrifice. They hear us championing economic principles that defend the freedom of others to make themselves rich, but do they see us making ourselves poor so that others might become rich? (2 Corinthians 8)

Because that's the Kingdom way. And the government is not the means of bringing the Kingdom. Yet many outside the church see the government as their best hope. What is the church doing to show them a greater hope?

Or have we also bought into the idea that the government is our best hope and forgotten that His Kingdom is not of this world?

So how about you?  What do you think about Occupy Wall Street?  How do you think Christians should react to the political and economic difficulties facing America?  Feels free to disagree with me.  Dissent is patriotic!

Photo Credit

Living Like Laslos

Isn't this lovely?  

I know the morning sunlight obscures it a bit, but this is what I see each time I enter or exit my front door.  It's a bittersweet wreath that Scott made.  Yes, my husband's crafty like that.  He used to make and sell exquisite Christmas wreaths when he lived in Chicago.  For our December wedding he created evergreen centerpieces and table displays.  It's oaky if you're jealous.

Birmingham is not very friendly to wreaths and other Christmas greenery, but bittersweet does just fine.  Last week when we were at the East Ridge Missions Conference in Chattanooga we swung past some familiar haunts on Lookout Mountain.  Scott parked us, then traipsed off into the forest with his pruning shears.  

This is what he came back with.

He also traipsed off to Michael's this week and came home with these.

I have no comment except that I was outvoted.

As soon as we unpacked our suitcases Sunday evening everything got tossed into the washing machine because we had to turn around and repack it.  We've got the WIC Amazing Grace 360 conference in Atlanta this weekend.  Long hours, but should be fun.

And have I mentioned yet that Scott leaves for Uganda on Monday?  After we pack up our conference display he is jetting off for 10 days in the Pearl.  So needless to say things were hectic trying to prepare to leave today.  We had to bring both vans.

In the midst of this Vivian had a bit of an accident at preschool.  Her face hit the side of the slide.  

Here's what she looks like:

This came on the heels of several other tumbles over the last few days.  

She looks like a prize fighter.

And she's in a fighting spirit these days.  Below is evidence that I probably let her watch Tangled one too many times this week.  

The toy fry pan smacked me once in the back before I caught onto the drama, but thankfully plastic isn't as heavy as cast iron.  I got to do the fun parental thing where I had to explain that just because something is funny in a cartoon it doesn't mean it is funny in reality.

Oh-and if anyone has tips for getting your child to keep their pants on I'd appreciate them.  

Mine doesn't.  Ever.

Life is a little wild right now, but it is ours and we are blessed to have it.  Keep us in your prayers, especially for perseverance and patience as we tackle the tasks at hand.  Pray Scott has a great trip and that I don't go stir crazy at home.  But honestly I am looking forward to the quiet of the next two weeks.  This introvert needs some time to recharge!  And hopefully time to write.  I plan to write a lot this October.

Remember Who You Are

I have been having an Ecclesiastes kind of week.  

You know the kind.

Where it all seems pointless and useless and the biggest things you can dream of doing still seem smaller than an acorn.  I've been wanting to crawl up under the covers and call it quits.  My single life seems so meaningless.

We were watching Lion King, me and Viv, sprawled out in the couch in the midst of my apathy.  

Simba, believing he is responsible for his father's death, runs from home and spends years idling and hiding from his shame.  But a great king is not apt to allow his heir to continue on casually while the kingdom crumbles around him.  In an unexpected vision Mufasa rolls out of the clouds and rebukes his son.  

"You have forgotten me."

Simba balks and says he could never forget his father.  Yet Mufasa tells him that by failing to take his place and carry his responsibility Simba is denying him.

"Remember who you are.  You are my son!"

And from my seat on the couch I sat as speechless as Simba.  My Father was also speaking to me.

Remember who you are.  You are my daughter!

I have trouble believing this.  I have trouble owning that I am truly His child because I feel too useless and small.  Yet I am.  He tells me I am.  And by being His daughter He has something for me to do.  It matters.

When I shirk and regret and despair what I am really saying is not that I don't believe in myself.  I am saying that I don't believe in Him.  That I have forgotten Him.  

As small and pitiful as I feel I cannot deny my God.  So stopped at each traffic light today I turned my face toward the clouds and purposefully imagined the voice of James Earl Jones breaking through with the words I had to hear to keep going.  

Remember who you are...