Alicia's Sweatpants

Confession #1: I am wearing sweatpants on a Friday night.
Confession #2: I have been wearing these particular sweatpants almost every day for the last few weeks.
Confession #3: They are not mine.

They belong, in fact, to my dear friend Alicia who ever so graciously loaned them to me when we were having a movie night- a revival of Hook, I might add. Although I cannot take credit for that, it was the brain child of my delightful office-mate, Ashley. I arrived totally ill-prepared for this movie night: in a pencil skirt and tights. Alicia was kind enough to loan me the best, most cumfy pair of sweatpants that have ever been on my body. "It is like I am not even wearing pants!" I have worn them almost every day since. They look at me from their resting place - usually my floor or the dirty laundry basket- and they taunt my conscience. "I am here, just here for you, the most comfortable pants you have ever worn. Sure, I may actually belong to someone else, but I am here with you now: here to comfort you, swaddle you in warmth and fuzziness, and to help you forget all your worries, fears, and insecurities. Certainly, I have done that for Alicia, and could be doing that for her now... but since I am here, it would be a waste of my glorious gifts not to wear me. It would be, in fact, an insult to the ontological nature of sweat pants."

Now, I KNOW that I should wash and return the sweatpants. They have, in fact, been washed several times. Once after I took them to the east coast on a recruiting trip, and once since in a spurt of good intentions to return them to their owner. Even as I write this I feel guilty. These are not my pants and I am not doing a great job of respecting Alicia or of honoring her generosity. BUT.... these. are. the. most. comfortable. pants. I. have. ever. worn. I can justify this pattern of behavior by saying that I know Alicia, and I know how deeply she cares for her friends and that she would want me to be comfortable- that she would want me to feel the loving embrace of an understanding friend after a long, angst-filled day.

Since my time with the object of my affections is limited I find perfectly legitimate reasons to keep them just one more day. I will give them back tomorrow, so I should be sure to wear them for one last time this evening. The next day they are not clean and I certainly can't give them  back to Alicia dirty. I don't have time to do laundry until the weekend and we all know that the weekend is the perfect time to wear sweatpants. Luckily, I work with Alicia and so I will see her on Monday in order to return the perfectly clean sweatpants. Sunday night is youth group and not the best time to do laundry, so the pants can wait until Tuesday to go back. But who wants to laundry Monday night? And so, almost a month later, I am in the sweatpants. Luckily it is Friday night and I can enjoy another weekend of sweet, stolen time with the adultress pants.

This is a glorious love affair.

Recovering from Travel Season

"Well, you pretty much have the pick of the place. Where do you want to sit?"
Jessalyn, excitedly cutting off the youngish waiter, "Well... Oh! Can we sit over there in the crevice!?"
"Only if you refer to it as a crevice for the rest of your life."

Ah! I have missed Jessalyn dearly, and this is just one of the many reasons why. The youngish waiter walked us over to the alcove of a random restuarant in Reading, PA, halfway between my hotel in King of Prussia, PA and her home in Harrisburg. The crevice is a converted elevator shaft with an elevator permantly suspended 10 feet above our heads. It was the perfect setting for a 3 hour conversation to draw me out of my travel funk. Listening to Jess talk about her life and all the changes and shifts therein was the perfect balm for my isolated soul. I think that the Lord gave us that time together, and one thing that it did for me was to open up the part of me that tends to shut down during travel season.

She is so honest about how she is doing- on many, many levels at the same time. And in a way that only Jessalyn could, she spoke in animated, colorful, joyful terms about her spiritual life, her romantic life, and her realtional life. The conversation ricochetted all over that crevice, and I felt like I was being bathed in frienship. Is this a little dramatic? Yes. But, Jess and I are a little dramtic and that level of expression and connection was exaclty what I needed. I was able to get a jump start on the reentry to a normal schedule and long-standing, intimate frienships.

So, now I am home. I have restocked my pantry, cleaned my bathroom, slept in my own bed, showered and not had to dry things off and pack them up for the next hotel room. I have seen my roommate, watched a move, adjusted my fantasy football roster from my home computer, and even started laundry. Happy Sigh. In my best Samwise Gamgee "Well, I am back."

PA in the fall: thoughts on isolation

I sit in the dinning room of my friends Nate and Jill Roach, and I am not in the least alone. Nate is just in the other room, doing something on the computer, Jill is upstairs presumably taking a nap, and there is a small, crema-colored kitten wandering around. I am quite enjoying the shared quiet. I am here for a few days as part of a recruiting trip for TIU. This trip is the end of travel season, a time of college fairs, high school visits, crch visits, hand shaking, chit-chatting, and trips both in and out of state. Often I am surrounded by people, and yet this is the season in my year in which I feel the most lonely.

Dozens of surface level, transaction base connections each day string into weeks without many substantive conversations, and without really connecting with others. There is a guardedness to the communication of admissions counselors when they are on the road. No matter what else we do, we are representing our schools, and in that setting there is a level of reserve that can't be dropped. College fair circuits are the easiest places to make friends. Imagine a setting where there are dozens of highly friendly, socially capable people all around the same age. And now imagine that they are all in the same profession and that they see each other multiple times per day. See? Easy.

On the one hand, this is one of my favorite things about being an admissions counselor. It's like camp: there is a small number of admissions counselors sharing the same experience. And I love meeting new people and making connections at colleges all over the country. I have formed some very deep and real friendships on the road. I am so very grateful for those people. On the other hand, I spend hours alone in the car, in airports, at coffee shops, and hotels. Conversations in this setting tend to be surface level and task-focused. In the middle of this I find myself both lonely and fiercely independent. When you are traveling there is permission to disengage from the relationships in your life. I don't have to hang out with people or make it to regular commitments, I don't have to call or email or Facebook. I am gone. It is empowering to travel the country alone - to explore cities, regions, and states; to seek out new coffee shops and restaurants; to meet new people and make new connections; to bodly go where no TIU rep has gone before- alone.

Here is the really surprising thing: It is challening for me to settle back into intimate relationships when travels season is over. I crave intimacy when I am traveling, but shutting down accepting the reciprocal presence of another in my life is one of my first reactions when I return. Why is this, I wonder? Why, even now as I sit with Jill and Nate, do I struggle to access my own internal world? I am not sure what it will look like, but I anticipate some kind of reentry into the close relationships in my life.

A Letter To Parents

I am not a parent. I have no children, and so I can't even begin to say that I know what it is like to walk in your shoes. But I can say this: I know that you are the most important, most influential person in the spiritual life of your adolescent. It does not matter if they acknowledge it, it does not matter if you never talk with your child about about your spiritual life or their, it does not matter if you are not sure your children are even hearing you, no matter how they react, YOU are the most important person in the outcome, formation, and longevity of the spiritual lives of your teenager.

Over and over again the research points to parents being far and away the most consistent predictor of the faith of their children. As Kenda Creasy Dean puts it "we get what we are." Christian Smith and the National Study for Youth and Religion name parents, and in particular, the mother, as the most influential factor in the participation and internalization of the faith of their children. " On page 116 of Soul Searching he says, "Family socialization generally seems to work when it comes to teenagers’ religious faith and practice. Furthermore, the quality of the relationships that parents build with their teenagers, and their own choices about marriage relationships, education, and occupations—insofar as they have choices in these areas—also create family contexts that again form the outcome of their teenagers’ religious and spiritual lives."

Your kids ARE listening, or more accurately, they are absorbing. They are absorbing your beliefs, habits, and level of internalization. I want to take a minute and talk about the internalization piece (which is a word coined by Fuller Youth Institute). In a nut shell: internalization is the level at which one's faith affects one's daily life and character. It is about Christ changing who we are, not just what we do. An integrated faith changes thoughts, values, beliefs, priorities, budgets, relationships, and schedules. A person who is internalizing their faith in Christ is moving towards loving others and God on a daily basis. This is often messy and awkward. It involves mistakes, apologies, harming others, being harmed, sharing our tender spots, it often involves anger, confusion, hope, tears, affection, kindness, and grace - lots and lots of grace. If you are moving towards internalizing your faith, then the odds are high that your child is as well. In short, adolescents are absorbing and mimicking the level at which the faith of their parents is or is not internalized.

I ask myself this often as a youth worker: Am I being transparent about my mess? I am becoming more and more passionate about parents also asking that question. The influence of positive parental relationships during adolescence is both one of the most powerful influences on lasting faith, and one of the places that our culture has stereotypically expected disengagement on both the part of the adolescent and the parent. While teens naturally reproduce the spirituality of their parents, they also benefit greatly from an adult, and most particularly, a parent having an open dialogue about one another'sspiritual lives. In particular, if you are following Christ, then sharing about your daily spiritual life, how you became a Christian, and everything in between can equip your child to navigate the transition into adulthood with their faith in tact. It makes so much sense to me! You have lived more, and you know what it looks like to follow Christ in your stage of life, and quite simply, your kids do not. They have not lived it or walked it and cannot know what it looks like without the adults in their lives being honest about what it means to follow Christ in all of its messy glory.

How you live your spiritual life matters, how you share that with your teenager matters. I am praying for you all as you make this journey. Please pray for me as I learn to relate to you and your children. Let's keep walking this road together.

I Can Barely Contain Myself

I love research! More specifically, I love research that is well-done AND that applies to daily life! It is a rarity, a jewel, not quite a pearl of great price, but really, really close. One such research project was recently finished and published by the Fuller Youth Institute. In fact, they have an entire website dedicated to the idea of adolescents persisting in their faith into emerging adulthood. Stickyfaith.org has a section for youth workers and a section for parents. It is chocked full of podcasts, curriculum samples, blogs, discussions and just plain super useful things for those who invest in the spiritual lives of teenagers.

Check it out, DO IT. yes, now.

More to come, but for the moment, I am just so excited that I had to tell you.

I have seen all of your wedding photos

I have never met you, I don't know you, but I guarantee that if you have posted your wedding photos on facebook, then I have looked at each and every one of them. Yes, my friends, the internet is public. Anyone can look at the photos you place there. Even with privacy settings, they might know someone who knows you. I know becasue I do this all the time - I love wedding photos, and you put them on the internet- party for me! But don't you see the problem this creates? All of the internet is public, not just your wedding photos. You may have noticed that this is the first thing I have posted in weeks.

I have been avoiding the blog these days because I keenly aware that it is public. Straight up public. And while, yes, that was the idea when I started a blog, I feel intimidated by the immensity of that reality. Who is out there? And who is reading all of my thoughts? Are they up to snuff? While I care about what others think of my writing, my ideas, and the heart behind them, I have been crippled by my own self-doubt. This is in no way connected soley to my blog.

I have also been feeling this way about ministry. I want to do everything so amazingly well that people want to hear how I did it, and then I can have the best platform ever to share my passion for youth ministry. I want to make 12 dozen phone calls a week to all small group leaders and all students. I want to be able to do everything so, so well that I can win the war against my own doubts once and for all. Those doubts are what really is at the heart of wanting to be the best youth worker that ever lived, EVER. This is the embarassing battle that has been going on in me. You see, if I was bloggin about those things, then they would be out there, like your wedding pictures. I love wedding pictures, and I look at the decorations, colors, dresses, suits, tuxes and I make a mental list of things I like and don't like. Don't you? And therein lies my problem with the blog - are people making lists about the things I am putting on the itnernet? I would be. Back to the gnawing self-doubts.

Not blogging and the driving desire to over perform in youth ministry are the same root for me: insecurity and the inability to hide myself in a loving God. I know that when I can accept my weaknesses that the Spirit will be there in them, and will show all His strength and that will be so much better. What I need to do is to bring this insecurity and need for affirmation and achievement to the Lord, He is always encouraging me, pointing out what I am really good at, and reminding me of where I am broken. He is the answer to the self-doubt that has kept me from writing and that is driving me to perform in ministry.

It is applying and injesting the knowledge that is the hard part. Knowing that God's tender, open, loving heart is the answer to my insecurity does not make it all that much easier to walk into that love. It helps, a little. What really seems to help for me is confession. This weekend, on a youth ministry leadership retreat, I brought these fears to light. And I was met with understanding, compassion, and prayer. I don't know what this struggle will look like going forward. I have no idea. I hope that I will be able to remember both that everything I do is flawed, just like those whom I respect the most. I hope to be able to let the compassion, understanding, and truth that I encountered this weekend to encourage me to continue to bring my insecurity and desire for fame into the light. It is there that I have found the most comfort and the most humility for my pride. Because I tasted the reality that we are all just broken people doing the best that we can to serve God and love teenagers. That is all we can be.

So, I am putting this on the internet, out there, in public. I am hoping it will serve as a reminder for me that I am broken.

Hope

We often concieve of hope as an empty glass we wish were full. But hope is not empty. Hope is an activity. It is more like hiking a mountian than a glass half-full. I am by no means an expert on hiking, but I have been on enough trails to get the general idea. At some point during a hike I inevitably get frustrated. This is hard, Why am I doing this again? I am so out of shape, my lungs are burning, my legs hurt and my poor, flatlander body cannot get enough air at a mile and a half above sea level. One of my greatest challenges (besides generally being out of shape) is to get to a point where I find a reason to fight through all of the pain and frustration. SOMETHING has to motivate me to get off the rock, back on the trail, and through the next set of obstacles. Ususally that something is the view.  There is nothing quite like the view from the top of a mountian, and usually the desire for that view that drives me through the uphill climb, and one more switchback. When I arrive, it is even more valuable and breathtaking because of the effort. In some way I have owned a part of the mountian through my toil; the view belongs to me and I to it.

Summiting the mountian is, of course, the best-case scenario. My Dad, who is a seasoned and accomplished hiker has rules for climing. "A day in the wilderness is never wasted."  "There is no view like the one from the top." My Dad knows that sometimes we don't make it. We may not experience the thing we are hoping for, but it is rewarding to go through the effort anyway. So, also, is Biblical hope. Hope fights through opposition and has its own rewards. When we hope in something, we are letting go of the present reality with one hand  and reaching towards the coming, hoped-for reality with the other. We pass up on somethng immediate for something not yet actual. We put our time, effort, energy and recources into that something that is not yet actual because we hope that it will be actual. This is hard to describe because most of this effort is interal and abstract, but it is real effort nonetheless. The Biblical idea of hope is not wishful thinking, it is an active investment in a reality that God has promised. I don't just sit and wait for the fulfillment of the promise, I am motivated enough to invest in it.

Hope fights through opposition and has its own rewards. Hope must acknowledge both dissapointment and possibility as real and valid. It must wrestle equally with both and be swayed ever just the tiniest bit more by possibility. (It must be so much easier for an optimist to hope) Those who hope lets themselves be motivated enough by the promise of God that they move towards that possibility.

I am greatly encouraged by this. And I have to fight for hope itself to have space in my heart because it takes energy, time, and investment. These days I have to move aside despair, self-pity, and pride to make room for hope. No, hope is not passive. Instead, the call of the Spirit is to get up, face the trail ahead of me, and keep walking because the view is worth the effort. And in so doing I am both getting closer to the summit and also reaping the rewards of a day in the wilderness. Hope, my friends, is active, and it is far from empty.