The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever*

A couple of days ago I read this neat little part of Deuteronomy 30:

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

I liked it. It was challenging. It reminded me of when Jesus taught and said:

26"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. 27For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." (Matthew 24)

Sometimes I act as if God is difficult to understand. He is secret and hidden. He is complicated and mysterious.
While these things are true (he is God, after all), God is obvious. In his grace and love, he is simple. He is for children. He is for the blind, the weak, the lame.

This is so challenging to me because if God is simple, that means I can hear his voice if I listen. And he can hear mine if I speak. That means that I can go to him with the little things that frustrate me so much. And with the things that I fear. And with the wounds that are embarrassing that I don't know how to heal from.

A part of me has, honestly, no idea what to do with this. This new closeness of God has me feeling surprised, disoriented and awkward. Really, I feel it calls on a new way of living entirely.
Another part of me is so excited. I am excited that I can go to God with my everything. Excited that, though I may not be complete, I can come in my own completion and God will meet me there. I am excited that I can be awkward while God is around.
And I think a third part of me is a little afraid. Both because of and apart from the confusion and ecstasy, I am afraid of the high expectations this will challenge me to have and of the weight of the concrete on my body if I fall. I am afraid of God messing me up so much that I lose control. That is something my friends will tell me is good; mostly, I believe them, but some of me only knows that I don't know what that feels like.





* That is from Deuteronomy 29:29

good gifts

I had a friend tell me a story once about when he was five and really wanted a fisher price stereo toy. His dad, believing in "real things" for his children, bought him an adult-grade stereo device-object.
This friend, incensed at the nerve of his father to tell him what he really wanted, refused to touch the gift. He hated it. And even when he began to see how it was actually pretty neat, he only played with it when his father couldn't see.

*

Today I received an email of acceptance to intern with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

*

Father,
Sometimes I feel that I, with hands so weak and sight so dim, can't tell a good gift from bad.

*inhale*...

HOOoooooOOoooo

That's me blowing the imaginary dust off of my virtual public journal. Because its been almost eight months since my last post.
So, inspired by my seester and my brother, I'll pick up the craft again and hope that, reader, you enjoy. And I hope that this personal writing with this invisible audience to hold me accountable will result in some good thought-sculpting for my me.

Let's try this out.

I have a point....(subpoint 1: indigenous peoples are really amazing)

I haven't figured out why the history of Indigenous people gets to me so much...

...maybe because their story tells some of the shameful stories of the history of the Church.
Maybe, because for a few summers, I got to know some people who were manifesting the truth of injustice in their bodies and minds and families, and loving nonetheless.

I don't know.

Here's one thought that came to me while I was working on my essay on Native Catholicism. I have to preface it a bit, but I'll get to it eventually. :P

...on second thought, I think this'll have to be a multi-parted thang, so I'll start with point 1: indigenous people are really amazing.

The people who lived in (what we today call) Canada for possibly thousands of years lived in sustainable communities. And from what I've learned, they were pretty amazingly brilliant. They figured out things like irrigation systems and astronomy long (think centuries) before those in Europe.
It's crazy.
Ancient indigenous knowledge is used to guide "cutting edge" scientific research today. And US agricultural companies are going nuts trying to patent stuff (like grains and natural pesticides) that indigenous peoples have been using for centuries because they're the best. (That part's actually very wrong.)
They were pretty cool about women too. Women in many indigenous societies were leaders and important in politics. They had control of their own property and sexuality. They had measures of accountability in place in case of abusive spousal relationships. These things might not seem impressive now, but remember this was at a time when women of other cultures were treated as property and were excluded from political processes. I mean, it was only 15 years ago that Canada removed the "spousal exemption" for rape from its Criminal Code.
And about justice. Justice systems in indigenous societies tended to have emphasis on relationships, restoration, reconciliation and community. There are some efforts to incorporate these in the Canadian system today to add to its effectiveness.

But this doesn't even scratch the surface. Not only am I doing a ridiculous brush job of who indigenous peoples were, I haven't gotten to the truly good stuff.

More to come, I promise!

the place Hope lives

I wrote this song, and I don't know if it makes sense. The first part is about the sense of being unredeemable...so broken and breaking that I want to let that be the cornerstone of my reality. And then the second part is about redemption. How that which was unredeemable is redeemable because of God.

Easy to be well and damned to be broken
I thought I could stand honestly this time
Your words left undone, my spirit unspoken
I still have your mud inside my eyes

After your response and my retaliation
All I have left are the tears I've cried
You're worth more than gold but I've brought you silver
And all that they hold is the one who died

Unexpectedly, you encounter me
I thought I was at the bottom of the
earthquake
And I understand as you take my hand
You put yourself at the
bottom of the earthquake
With me.

It's all of me found
It's all I can offer
Just these hands unbound
This heart contrite
It's beautiful sound
Our wonderful Maker
is singing out loud
hope for the blind

Somehow, these two incoherent realities find their way into my body and leave me to interpret the mess they make out my thought-life, emotions, and interests.
But I think I'm beginning to realize that this is the place "hope" lives. Even more, I'm realizing that this is only kind of place where such a thing as "hope" even makes sense - in the incoherency of the existence of something hope-worthy, although presently unattainable.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. For who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
- Romans 8:23-24

one certain hope

Risk.
I thesaurused (*rrrraaaawwrrr!*) that on Word today, and it came up as “danger” and “possibility”, and also, “endanger” and “chance”. I’ve been thinking about this lately – and its connection to certainty.
It seems like I’ve put myself in harm’s way before, but it was kind of like walking blindfolded across a highway (i.e., it was stoopid).
And I’ve been certain before, but it didn’t demand me to move my feet or my hands…it was more like pretentious-fodder.

And in my more visually charged moments, I wonder if I’m this spiritually-morbidly obese child of God who’s still disheartened from those injuries of so long ago.

I’ve heard so many times that faith is being certain of what you hope for and sure of what you cannot see (or something like that). I remember hearing that, and knowing that faith is something I needed, I really tried to figure out what in the world that could mean!
Now I’m thinking about it, and I think that, for this moment, that verse can mean to me this: proper risk.

Where certainty and the impossibly unknown find their confluence, and they interrelate in such a way that it demands one’s active participation, I’m picturing faith emerging, as if from a chemical reaction.

I think of the possibility of something new in this world of old cycles – the possibility of change in a world of deflating routine. And I wonder if these possibilities could ever be known or ever tangibly realized without faith like this.

house and hauerwas

I remember when I was little, on the playground, all my friends would play house. And the girls would be scrambling for the “mom” or the “cool teenage daughter” parts, and all the boys would want to be the burglars or the police officers. (I know: “house” in an age of over-television-ed culture, for sure.)
I don’t know what it was, but I would always want to be neutral. I’d play the part they needed in the end, usually the babysitter or the maid. And because everyone would assert there own story into the game (Mom would decide to go to work, the burglar would chose to steal the kids away, etc) and I would still be neutral, the babysitter or the maid would soon phase out.

I spent a lot of time in grade 1 recesses sitting on the playground bench.

I’m not totally sure why I was like that – where this deep aversion to my own subjectivity came from. But I do know that it’s truly like a battle to fight my way out of it. I do know that, at times, I’ve had to close my eyes to bring things in the open that I know are particularly mine.

So weird, huh? I can’t help but smile when I try to picture that totally neurotic 6 year-old. I can’t help but feel just a little trapped when I recognize that girl in my 20 year-old consciousness.

*sigh*. I’m starting in on this book called “The Peaceable Kingdom” by a Christian ethicist and very smart man named Stanley Hauerwas. Although he’s certainly not the first person to emphasize particularism, he talks about subjectivity and narrative as if they're all we’ve got.
Forget about the universal truths, the rational imperatives, all those “for sure’s” that I and (I think) all of us crave. We’ve only got history. We’ve only got wisdom that comes with time. We only have our families, and we only have our damn opinions.
For Hauerwas, God comes into the picture in a very powerful way. And his “subjectivity” (to use a modern term) and his narrative is really what we (what I) have got to get swept into.
So, for Hauerwas, sin is when we try to make up our own stories and press it onto a reality that God has already, in a sense, defined on his own terms. To use a Nietzsche-term, sin is when we try to be metaphysical artists.
Crazy, huh?
So, here’s to God's particularism.
Here’s to getting caught up in someone else story.
And, here’s to really, really, making history.