mayYOUpalooza!

Following up on the success of febrYOUpalooza, Justin and I will be headed down to Monroe this weekend to celebrate mayYOUpalooza with dear friends.  We’ll have it easy — only an hour’s drive — but to attend this A-lister event, others will be making the trek from such glamorous and far-off locations as Boise, Spokane, Medford, and Sweden.

Basically it’s a bunch of Justin’s old college buddies getting together to play games and eat all weekend.  Because of our 9-year-long shared history, some of Justin’s old college buddies happen to also be my old college buddies, so that’s fun for me.

Here is the official mayYOUpalooza flyer (methinks Jamie had too much time on his hands at work):

mayyoupalooza

Here are some of the games we will be playing (if you haven’t played these games, you are simultaneously not as cool and not as nerdy as we all are):

Munchkin

Bang!

Settlers of Catan

Twister (just kidding)

Pirate’s Cove

Hilarity will ensue!

the challenge

During our drive three hours south to visit our families this weekend, Justin and I started playing a new game to pass the time.  We didn’t think of it – it was introduced to him during a long boring shift at Blockbuster – but I feel brilliant just in passing it along to you.

I give you: That Actors/Actresses Game.

It proceeds a-like so:

Me: Name your actor.

Justin: John Cusack.  Name yours.

Me: Samuel L. Jackson.

Okay.  The fun begins.  You have to link these two actors based on costars they’ve shared movies with.  From memory (no imdb-ing!).  I have a tendency to not necessarily take the shortest route — there are some big movies I’ve missed, but I usually get there.  Also, you can’t use any of the Oceans 11 movies.  That’s just cheating.

This one’s an easy one:

John Cusack, Julia Roberts, America’s Sweethearts;

Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, The Mexican;

Brad Pitt, Geena Davis, Thelma and Louise;

Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, The Long Kiss Goodnight.

It’s That Actors/Actresses Game.  Keep it up your sleeve.

Oh, and Team Lawlis will accept challenges.

yesterday’s deep gladness

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

–Frederick Buechner

*****

Hadn’t mentioned that I was back playing and singing again because I wasn’t sure if I would stick with it.  It’s easier to keep some falterings and hesitations and back-and-forth-ness quiet.  It’s a little less embarrassing, I guess.

It isn’t all that earth-shattering.  For some, it would look merely like the decision to pursue a hobby or not pursue it; nothing more, and nothing less.  I suspect there might be a little more riding it on it.  Heavy words like Identity and Vocation and Potential come to mind whenever I think about it.  Which makes it both a scarier and an easier decision to make.

Justin and I attend a great church here in Bellingham.  Well, kind of.  We sometimes do.  We started off going almost every Sunday, but these days we’re not so consistent.  If one of us worked late, or if we’ve had a week that’s low on rest and low on connection between us, or if we’re just simply feeling lazy, we stay home and read Philip Yancey together.  Much as I appreciate the church and the people who serve it, my favorite Sabbaths are those spent reading out loud in bed.  For some reason, I feel closer to God when I’m reading the experiences of those who struggle to connect with God than I do sitting in church, surrounded by people who speak of him in such certain terms.  It’s like they had coffee together at Starbucks on the way into service or something.

I don’t experience God this way.  The relationship part of our relationship is glimpses only.  Sunsets, unexpected grace, something good following my gut-wrenching anxiety over something, my husband taking my hands and bowing his head and saying, “Hey, God.  Um, we need help.”  The gratitude is there; the awareness is there; “Wow”; and then it fades into the background again. 

Apparently I’m still not up for the Faith-Filled Christian of the Year Award.  All I can say is that I’ve gotten better at seeing those quick glimpses, gotten better at simply standing there for a moment, jaw hanging open, eyes wide.  ”Wow.” 

(Sometimes we have to measure our Christian growth in millimeters.  If you’re like me, I highly advise it).

During the time when we were going almost every Sunday, I started trying to get back involved with the musical worship team.  It was really hard to get things moving — took months.  My emails inquiring about any openings for pianists were swallowed into some internet vortex, but I kept pushing through until finally I made contact with the necessary folks.  It’s only now that I wonder if I should have yielded to the initial difficulty in even making contact.

When I last called Bellingham my home four years ago, I played keys and sang my face off.  I loved every moment I could spend with those folks.  We recorded a few albums together.  I grew phenomenally as a musician and as a worshiper.  I felt that ever-elusive “fit” that I now ache about not feeling.  Everywhere I looked, there was an opportunity to be a part.  Open doors.  With people who, quite frankly, were way cooler and way more talented than I was (am).  Meeting a need?  Check.  Deeply glad about it?  Check.  I was in the right place vocationally, and had good relationships with those I served beside.

The two-car-accidents-in-four-months saga began, however, and the rest is history.  I moved home, healed up after a while, entered an ill-advised internship with a pastor who abused our trust and deeply let us down in the end, and quit going to church for about a year.  There were various starts and stops, where I’d try to get involved again, would freak out about how awkward it all felt, and then make a bunch of apologies to people who had the bad judgment to trust me with something.  I’d feel horrible, but relieved. 

The starts and stops were of brief duration.  Dear Friend Daniel (a pastor friend who had the grace to stick with me at some of my messiest faith-moments) said that things had changed; rather than begging to be a part of the team, I now preferred to stay just off the radar.  I had been too wrapped up in my own junk and hurts to notice it before, but Dear Friend Daniel was right.

So I get up here, start feeling relatively comfortable being on speaking terms with church again, and want to contribute.  What poor decisions sometimes follow good intentions!  I met with the church’s very-cool worship pastor and auditioned for the team.  Told him part of my story because I wanted him to know what he was getting.  He was okay with it, told me I was welcome to be a part, but that he wanted me to go home and pray about it.  

I went home and didn’t pray about it.  I figured I’d done enough praying about it when I was praying that someone would answer my emails in the next year or so.  I wrote him the next day and said, in effect, see you soon.

That, in retrospect, was stupid.  I felt a vague sense that I was cheating a little, but was so excited about playing again, about being a part again, that I didn’t pay it much attention.

I’ve been paying for it ever since.  Early in the morning and late at night, when I’m too focused on trying to fall asleep to have my filter up and running, I have a really strong sense that I’m not where I should be; that I rushed the process.  I’m up there on a stage in front of about 1,500 people.  I’m singing words about Jesus that I never would actually say about Jesus in normal conversation.  I’m sometimes singing things that don’t reflect my experience.  (And up on stage, it’s not like you get to pick and choose which ones you feel are honest for you.  That privilege is reserved for the hidden). 

I’m singing like we had coffee together on my way in that morning.  We didn’t.

I feel like a fraud.  I often struggled with feeling like a fraud before, because it was always so hard to keep my motives in check.  When someone would say, “That was just beautiful, you have a lovely voice,” I had a tendency to agree with them, although I’d probably say something trying to prove how humble I was that in the end just made us both feel awkward.  But this is different, a whole other kind of faking it.  This is me acting like there’s a connection that isn’t there when I’m up there playing and singing the notes. 

It’s true that I once was very able to experience God and feel like I was communicating with God by singing songs.  It’s just not the case anymore, at least, not consistently, and at most, very rarely in the environment that a Sunday morning church service provides.  It’s just making noises these days.

The truth is that rather than being brave, trying to forge out a new way to serve God’s family, I went back to where my old deep gladness used to be.  I went back to the way I used to serve, and the people I used to serve.  I went back to who I was four years ago.  And scary as the thought is to me, that person isn’t there anymore.  As soon as I spent some time outside, I was forever changed.  I don’t pray too often, but one of my biggest requests of God is that I’ll stay changed – that I’ll never go back to life as an insider.

People in huge churches have no shortage of people to lead them musically into a time of focused worship.  There’s no ads desperately seeking people who would like to serve on stage.  In fact, there’s a waiting list.  There’s no shortage of church people to do church things.  But I know there are people who are far from church, or maybe just far from church inclusion, but perhaps not far from God, that I could at least help to feel affirmed and cheered on in their own millimeter-by-millimeter faith. 

We’ve had people in our home this past month who are experiencing messiness in varying degrees, and Justin and I have enjoyed making efforts to put them at ease and make them feel safe and welcome.  It usually comes in the form of eating together, and playing some games, and talking.  My God, is it a deep gladness for me.  And my God, what a deep need it is for some folks.  The doubters.  The oddballs.  The failures.  The fuck-bomb droppers.  Those who haven’t had coffee with God in years, if ever.

I needed it, and I wouldn’t have made it but for a precious few.  I still need it, and probably would feel like the loneliest failure at faith in the world were it not for my dear husband and his simple, sweet, honest prayers that make me feel like maybe talking to God isn’t so complicated or so hard.

If I had the choice between the two, I’d rather spend my time on the one that feels honest, the one that feels natural, the one that never wakes me up anxious.

I wrote the powers that be and let them know I would not be continuing, and a lot of why, and that I was sorry.  One wrote back and said he wasn’t sure he was ready to say, “Okay, don’t continue.”  He’s a really cool dude, and I immediately knew 1) that I’d meet with him as he asked me to, if only because he’s one of the Christians who seems to get it, whatever “it” is, and I like talking to him; and 2) that I’d need to figure out how to explain all this to him.  Thus, the above.  We’ll see what comes of it.

If you think of it, say my name out loud to God and ask him to help me over the next days.  These may seem like really trite matters, and they probably are, but these millimeters of growth are important ones, expensive ones.  I wouldn’t trade the new way of looking at my faith that has come with these last few years for anything, but there is a tension that comes with it, and I get discouraged sometimes. 

Everything is a lot less certain than it was before.  But at least it’s honest, or at least as honest as I know how to be.  I’m hoping that counts somehow. 

hooray for being old(er)!

Hi all.  Nothing too earthshattering in the paragraphs that follow.  Just some random happinesses.

I turned 27 yesterday!  ACK!  That sounds SO strange.  I don’t feel 27…  Justin is giving me lots of crap about being so old… so wise… and robbing the cradle, but he had better live it up since he’ll be joining me here into the old-fogie land also known as being 27+ on Friday.

I’m not too worried about being older.  I’ve loved each year more than the last; have felt more comfortable and at peace in my skin than the year before.  And people at work thought I was turning 22 or 23, so that’s something.  A testament either to the fact that I look young, or that I’m horribly immature.  I choose to take it as the former.

It was a beautiful day, a record-breaker of 80-plus sunshine.  I left work, listened to happy birthday phone messages, opened my mail (thanks for the card, Mom & Dad; thanks for the lovely necklace from Maui, Jules!), and went out to eat some good Chinese food with J.  I missed the dear friends who would have usually celebrated with us, but as they are all far away loved ones, I felt the love long-distance and looked forward to visits in the days to come.

I received a journal and the newest Anne Lamott as birthday gifts from my dear husband.  It’s no Strong-Bad T-shirt, but I loved this gift and the thought that went into it.  I had seen the journal at B & N months ago, and had loved it, but — just like many things, had forgotten all about it once it was out of sight.  Justin remembered.    And, I hadn’t planned on getting the Anne Lamott book for a while, so it was a brilliant surprise.  An online review said that her book is more an extension of past work than anything new, but said that avid fans, who would line up to buy her grocery list, would enjoy it. 

I’m one of those avid fans who would line up to buy her grocery list, so that works out well for me.

The journal — this perfect journal! – has three sections in it: Books I Want to Read, Favorite Books & Passages, and Books I’ve Lent/Books I’ve Borrowed.  I’ve already spent about two hours writing down all the books I’ve read, and all the books I own but have yet to read.  I look forward to filling it in as the years go on.  The added bonus is that I respond well to anything resembling a check-off list, and was inspired to actually finish My Name Is Asher Lev before jumping head-first into my new Lamott book.

It was a great day to celebrate and to remember how much I’ve been blessed this past year.  God has been good.

(And in a few days, we’ll get to celebrate Justin’s oldness).

a little gratitude goes a long way

A few things that I am grateful for today…

–I talked to Julie for over an hour last night.  It’s been a few weeks, and the catch-up was sorely needed.  Our conversations wander all over the place and back, from topic to random topic, but at the end of our conversations I always feel grounded and centered and comfortable in my own skin.  I’m glad that though more of our friendship has been spent far away from each other than near (has it really been three years in Bend?), we’re as close as ever.

–Better sleep is officially on its way!  Justin and I bought a new mattress today.  The bed we have is nearly ten years old, kind of dips in the middle, and shakes for a good 3-4 seconds when someone turns over in their sleep.  The new bed is larger (a king size — I can finally SPRAWL!), dip-free, non-motion transferring (hallelujah!) and arrives Saturday.  Justin is not as excited as I am — the cuddlebug in him is fearful that now I can get away from him — but I think he’ll adjust okay when he realizes that he’ll actually be able to fit all 6′5″ of him on the bed with little effort.  Yay for us!

–Anne Lamott just came out with a new book of essays on faith, and I couldn’t be happier about the title: Grace (Eventually).  We have a rule that I can’t buy new books until I read the last one I bought (a good thing, since I have a tendency to buy books and sometimes don’t jump directly into them before my attention is drawn to yet another book.  ”Hey look!  Something shiny!”), so I’m going to have to finish A Long Way Gone before I can savor Anne’s good words.  I’m really looking forward to it, though.  I didn’t know she was coming out with something new, so this was an unexpected joy.

–I’m enjoying my job and getting to know the people I work with.  I know it sounds weird to enjoy sticking people’s fingers and making them bleed, but I am.  Along with that, I have some healthy inner dialogue happening about setting boundaries for myself.  In the past, I haven’t been especially adept at separating the business side of my life from the personal (to me, it’s all personal), and it’s gotten me in a world of hurt.  I tend to make decisions based on what I feel is best for the people I work with, and then find myself surprised when they make a decision that is best for the company.  At two different jobs I gave more than two weeks notice because I was concerned about the transition going well, and both times, I took it right up the kazoo.  There are lessons I’ve taken with me from those experiences, and while I hope they don’t make me jaded or bitter, I hope they make me wiser and perhaps a little more guarded.  I want to be a friendly and supportive person to my coworkers, but at the end of the day what matters is that I put my head down, get the job done, and come home to the rest of my life.  We’ll see how well I do… I tend to struggle here, but I’m glad that at least I’m thinking about this so early on in my experience.  I hope I’ve grown.

–We’re visiting our families next weekend!  I’ve missed my folks like crazy.  Also, Justin’s mom just moved up, so we’ll get to spend some good time with her as well.

–Justin and I had a date night and went to Woods Coffee tonight after dinner.  He had a bunch of homework to do, and I read, but it was nice just to slow down for a bit together.  I love that no matter what we’re doing, whether it be playing online poker together, doing the dishes together, watching Dr. Phil (ha ha — we’re outed), or just talking about our day before we fall asleep, we have a good time and are well connected.  It’s telling that Justin’s favorite pet name for me is “Buddy.”  We’ll have been married six months tomorrow, and I know that I know that I know — I chose well when I chose Justin to share my life with.  I was reading someone else’s blog tonight — she just celebrated her first anniversary last week, and said that people had always told her the first year is the hardest.  She then went on to share how rough she’s had it, you know, him having her watch TV for a bit while he cooks dinner, him helping her take care of the house when people are coming over, him telling her one thing he loves about her before they fall asleep. 

The situations look a little different (Justin makes me a lunch and a mocha in the morning while I’m finishing getting ready for work — then grabs a Sharpie and scrawls a mushy love note on the outside of the brown bag; he puts my cellphone, glasses, and keys in my purse so I’m not searching at the last minute, which is me in typical form; he writes me love letters often; I fall asleep and wake up to him telling me that I’m beautiful and that I’m loved and cherished)… but I know exactly what she’s talking about.  I know we’ll have struggles and moments that stretch us both now and in the future, but seriously, this has been the best time of my life and I’m savoring each moment of it.  Most difficult year?  Not remotely. 

It’s been pretty rough so far, but somehow… somehow… I think we’ll manage.

Thank you, God, for my life.  I know I take it for granted far more than I should, but thank you for blessing me with so many loving people and beautiful moments. 

For the Glorification of God

Quick update, and then jumping into what’s on my mind this evening:

I started my new job two weeks ago, and am finding it very much what I hoped for.  The more regular schedule and less frenetic pace are helping me to regain some sanity, for which I am grateful, as I’m sure Justin is.  I do feel odd donning scrubs and a white lab coat, they seem so real-jobbish yet pajama-ish, but I’m quickly finding my place there and enjoying those I work with.  I’m almost able to work on my own and feel a supreme satisfaction each time I stick someone’s finger and am actually able to make it bleed enough to easily fill the capillary tube (this is something I had no idea took a bit of skill when I was simply donating at the center and was on the other side of the counter).  Simply put, I’m having fun and am thankful for this new experience.

*****

IF I WOULD HAVE KNOWN the tension that would accompany trying to live as a Christian in the Christian community following a season spent apart from that community, I would have either (a) never left in the first place, or (b) never come back. 

At least, this is how I feel much of the time.

Statements that once I responded to with great enthusiasm and nods of approval ring hollow and empty now.  During my time spent away from the Clubhouse, I lost the ability to hear things like an insider does.  I hear them and inwardly I’m thinking to myself, what the hell is that supposed to mean, exactly?

I want to relate.  I do.  But communicating sometimes is the churchland equivalent of trying to hold a conversation in fluent Spanish when the last time you spoke it was in Spanish II back in high school ten years ago.  You’re limited to broken phrases only, and the meaning never seems to come through very clearly.  It’s frustrating, no matter which side of the conversation you’re on.

Buechner writes about it in algebraic terms:

“X + Y = Z.  If you know the value of one of the letters, you know something.  If you know the value of two, you can probably figure out the whole thing.  If you don’t know the value of any, you don’t know much.

“Preachers tend to forget this.  ‘Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and be saved from your sins,’ or something like that, has meaning and power and relevance only if the congregation has some notion of what, humanly speaking, sin is, or being saved is, or who Jesus is, of what accepting him involves.  If preachers make no attempt to flesh out these words in terms of everyday human experience (maybe even their own) but simply repeat with variations the same old formulas week after week, then the congregation might just as well spend Sunday morning at home with the funnies.”

Some days, I’m quite certain that my faith would not have survived but for Buechner and Yancey and Lamott.  Scratch that.  Most days.

I am blessed beyond belief to have a pastor who does flesh out what the words mean in terms of his own life, and it is like drinking a tall, cold glass of water to listen to him speak.  Grant is a rarity.  He spoke on a passage in James regarding taming the tongue this morning, and had the gall to declare near the end of his sermon: “I realize this is not easy.  I almost ruined my marriage with this thing [pointing to his tongue].  I almost lost the trust of my children with this thing.”  It’s truly mind-blowing to hear a pastor talk about personal weakness truthfully, rather than framing it as a joke or sarcasm.  He always brings it back around to the fact that he struggles with things too.  It’s such a relief to know I’m not the only one who has just as many screw-up moments as I do victories (on good days).

*****

Other spots aren’t so easy.

Someone asked Justin the other day what the purpose of marriage was.  Justin replied that it’s a lot of things: companionship, a support system, love, encouraging each other’s dreams, growing as an individual as well as helping your companion to grow, etc.  Justin asked him for his own answer, and his response was this: “Well, I think it’s about Jesus.”

Just that.  “It’s about Jesus.”

We were at small group later that night and the question was resurrected.  Another person easily chimed in: “Oh, it’s for the glorification of God.”

X + Y = Z.  I felt like I was the only one in the room who had taken crazy pills.  To everyone else, it seemed the answers made perfect sense without any form of explanation.  (Well, to almost everyone else.  Justin tried to make his point by answering every question for the remainder of the evening with the phrase, “For the glorification of God,” but everyone just laughed).

These statements bother me a great deal for many reasons, not the least of which is the simple fact that they’re not very different from things I’m sure I used to say all the time.  I spoke of spiritual concepts — to be honest, God himself — in such certain, casual terms, never taking the time to explain to anyone else (or even discover for myself) what such lofty phrases meant in my actual, everyday, very human existence.  I knew how to get the answer right.  Application was of little importance.

As we were talking about the past week’s sermon on tempation later in the night, one of the questions provided to us asked about how we respond to temptation.  “The Armor of God,” someone said. 

What?

At this point I need to back up and say that I don’t have a problem with people saying that something’s about Jesus or quoting something in the Bible.  We’re okay there.  What frustrates me is when people throw out spiritual-sounding answers so easily without explaining what they mean, taking the time to “flesh out these words in terms of everyday human experience (maybe even their own)…”

I asked him what he meant by that, if he really went through the Armor of God when he was tempted.  It was a sincere question, but I purposely pushed the envelope, wanting to get to what he really meant.  He laughed uncomfortably, and said, no, he doesn’t do that.  I pressed him, asked him how he personally handles it when he’s being tempted.  There weren’t any easy answers at that point, and at that moment I was most able to hear where he was coming from.  It was real.  It was unsure.  It was human.  It was an arena that I can understand.

Would my time be better spent at home reading the funnies?  Depends on when you ask me.  I like spending time with these people and would have them over for game night any day of the week, but I sometimes feel I might be better off saving my spiritual vulnerability for elsewhere.  I say it often, but it’s true — I’m a messy Christian, and I’m not interested so much anymore in having right answers as in having authentic ones.  I’ve had enough Sunday School answers for the rest of my life.  I’m comfortable talking about God’s holiness and talking about ways to grow closer to living it out, but would just as soon we spoke honestly about our own lack of it when it comes to our daily lives.

Tempted as I am sometimes, I’m not sure I’ll be at home with the funnies quite yet.  I can get frustrated with lack of communication, but the truth is that I have to be willing to spell out in clear and understandable words where I’m at in my own everyday real life.  I have to be willing to have courage and speak words from my heart, regardless of whether people think I’m a poor Christian or a poor example or an annoyance because I try to make people say what they mean (at least eventually).  I can’t ask of others what I’m not willing to do myself.  We’ll see.  It may be that we never get past Christianese and J and I will need to move on in search of counterparts who speak Human, but that time hasn’t come quite yet.  I’m still hoping that we can find some common ground and I’ll be able to feel okay being imperfect and doubtful sometimes.

I just hope it’s soon.  The journey is far too long not to have some encouraging companions along the way. 

Deepest thanks to Justin, who is the most trustworthy, honest and encouraging companion one could ask for.  I love reading our Yancey out loud each night and struggling through this thing together.  Justin, you are God’s grace to me in human form, and I love you.