Freedom to Doubt

Somewhere in my church journey I internalized the idea that doubt would undermine my salvation, and I should, therefore, only ask certain questions. I got the impression that one should be certain about Christianity; not just founded or convinced, but iron-clad, closed case, proof positive certain. I remember sitting in Dr. Lunde's office begging, insisting that there had to be a way to be certain. After all, my immortal soul, not to mention the souls of all humanity, hung in the balance. Committing to follow Christ is one of the biggest risks that any human can take, shouldn't certainty be on the table? A very frustrated Dr. Lunde replied that I only needed enough certainty to act. I only need enough to move and trust and risk.

This is a critical distinction. It certainly has been and will continue to be formative in my journey. It helps me to be able to ask questions that my younger self considered taboo. And, while asking these questions, to be able to trust Christ. I don't have to be certain about Christ, just sure enough to risk action. I can ask where God is in the death of my dear friend's daughter. I can ask how it is possible that a God who tenderly offered to gather Israel like chicks under His wings can possibly be the same God who caused the earth to open up and swallow people whole. And I can ask these things while depending on His guidance for a job, for a spouse, for the daily care of my emotions. I need His tenderness and I need His correction, and I can lean into that need and expose myself to the possibility that there might be an actual response on the other end of that need precisely because I don't have to be sure. If I had to be sure I would never move beyond self-protection. I would never cease to have a question that was valid or a reason that I should not trust a God I cannot see.

Instead, the distinction between faith as certainty and faith as risk frees me to ask myself "What do I know about this God? And is He worth the risk in this situation?" This allows me the space to have just enough information to try trusting God, to walk the next step, to put myself out there and see what I encounter. It allows me to move and to get to know this God more and more as I go as opposed to needing to know everything before moving at all. It is a much needed freedom.

This is what I did instead of sleeping

This evening I spent and hour and a half driving around, thinking, listening to music. The roads are a glorious outlet at night when they are partially empty and accompanied by a full mind and a great playlist. Sometimes there is a song or a group of songs that hits the spot like a food you have been craving, only better. Music is such a great vehicle (pun intended) for thinking and processing. This evening I let me myself cry, pray, rant and rave, yell, and, to the best of my ability, give the whole thing over to the Lord. Music was essential to this process. The ins and outs of each song became a train to take my internal world where it needed to go. I love this about music.

The playlist:

Take a Picture- Filter

Save Me From Myself-Jone Foreman

Up All Night (Frankie Millar Goes to Hollywood) - Counting Crows

Bite Hard- Franz Ferdinand

Ramble On- Led Zeppelin

Lucid Dreams- Franz Ferdinand

White Lily No Soul- Helicopters

I Wish I was a Girl- Counting Crows

Keep Me in Mind- Zac Brown Band

Notion- Kings of Leon

Over and Over- Hot Chip

This Girl- Punch Brothers

Call It What You Want- Foster the People

Farther Along- Josh Garrels

Ring Them Bells- Sarah Jarosz

Clara- Punch Brothers

Love in Japan- Coldplay

Curtigh- Punch Brothers

Orpheo Looks Back- Andrew Bird

The Daylight- Andrew Belle

I won that battle like a boss.

Do you ever find yourself fist pumping about solving a workplace mystery? Commenting under your breath “I won, take that!” after guessing the right answer to an unimportant question during someone’s ice-breaker? Yes? Me too. We are the ranks of the irrationally competitive.

I am competitive about almost everything. Today I could not get a few simple documents to print, and after 45 minutes, several setting adjustments, and a re-boot, I won. I totally solved the problem and showed that network printer that I am boss. And I won that battle like a boss.

Too dramatic? Maybe. But let me ask you this: if that computer were to have persisted in not printing the documents, I might have been defeated and demoralized all day resulting in a significantly less productive work day, resulting in fewer students at TIU, resulting in a decline in a tuition-driven institution. Not to mention the rampant revolt of electronic devices. Don’t believe me? Haven’t you ever wondered why you can’t attach a document to an email? Why that web page edit just won’t actually update? Why an email you sent to yourself takes 1.5 hours to get to our own inbox? Why your itunes needs you download version 107.89? By succeeding in this endeavor I have successfully stayed the tide of this rebellion (you are welcome), regained my personal pride, and started the journey towards having the most productive work day ever.

I wish that I could say that the story ended on this high note, feeding and reinforcing that having a competitive mindset about inconsequential things is well worth my time and energy.

11:03 first attempt to print fails.
11:15 consult with our all-knowing office receptionist who is also stumped.
11: 17 attempt to email myself the document.
11: 35 check all wires, chords, and other hardware.
11:43 change settings.
11:48 reboot computer with updated settings.
11:52 reboot successful – documents print. (see above post for emotional state)
11: 54 settle in with said document to get some work done.
11:55 spill coffee with delightful home-made spicy creamer.
11: 56 choose to save wireless keyboard- picked it up, started to wipe it off, realized that it is still connected to my laptop and all my key strokes are showing up on the screen.
11:57 realize that unplugging the USB is a two-handed job, and I have to put down the keyboard on my chair? no, coffee stickiness on my chair is not good, on one of the guest chairs in the office? no, same problem, but with aforementioned dire consequences for the University, back on the desk? no, desk is covered with sticky coffee goodness, that is spreading behind the monitor, slowly moving towards the back of my desk and abyss that lies behind it. must act fast. precariously balanced on the recycling box? yes.
11:58 dash to closet to retrieve paper towels. discover there are only two on the roll. take those. blockade back of desk and around monitor. carefully arranged post-its are a loss.
11:58 return to closet to get another roll of paper towels. see roll. tug. bring down two plastic items in the process- those hit me in head. replace extra items. express frustration to all-knowing receptionist about her insensitivity to my height as evidenced by booby trapped closet. (note that this was not in the least her fault)
11:59 open extra roll in office and begin the process of cleaning up the coffee mess that has by now spread just about everywhere. must push monitor back to get at mess under monitor in so doing I knocked off a mug placed behind the monitor. this particular mug is still ¼ full from last week. does not spill. fist pump, taking credit for this small victory that has nothing to do with me.
12:00 assess damage: key board appears to be rescued and not too sticky. all post-its, daily lists, and mouse pad are lost. paperwork that was fruit of earlier victory against the evil printer is totally soaked. Document containing said information has random typing in it from keyboard cleaning. Delightful coffee beverage mostly gone.

And I am having a bad hair day.

But I beat the printer, dammit. I kicked the crap out of that printer. That printer is taking the walk of shame wherein it submits and does everything I ask it to do. Always. Take that for subversive printers everywhere!

Jared Allen's response at the end is my favorite example of the ranks of the irrationally competitive. 

A week of Pinterest projects

Yay! Thank you, Pinterest for all the ideas, creativity, and for putting it in the voices of real people who have tried real projects. I will happily add mine to the din.

I fell in love with the idea of painting/decorating the inside of a bookshelf, and decided that the bookshelf made pantry in our kitchen was ripe for a make over. I removed all the shelves, shored up some nails in the back, then laid in face up on the dinning room floor. Then I mod-podged some craft paper onto the inside of the shelf- it took about 13 pages that were 12 inch squares. There was some piecing together to do, but not much.

It took two rounds and several hours in between for the mod-podge to dry to my satisfaction, but once I put the shelves back in it was totally worth it. 

I think it looks best without food in it, but we have to keep our pantry supplies somewhere- so it might as well be pretty!

I also made some recipes this week that were super easy, healthy, and very tasty. I always like to know which things work best for other people, so I thought I would throw these out here with my endorsement.

1. Lentil Soup from 101 cookbooks.com. She encourages us to "think of this soup is broad strokes," and I second that. I accidentally made a variation on the recipe here, and it was very good, easy, healthy, and really tasty. Dani and Betsy can attest to that. :)

I made mine with a poached egg, which I highly recommend- poaching instructions courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.com. If you have not gone there and fallen in love with it, please do so at once.

2. Gimmesomeoven no bake energy bites. I can't believe that these are not far worse for you than they are. Oatmeal, honey, peanut butter, and grains. These are the perfect snack- I am always eating one just as I start cooking because I inevitably wait until I am overly hungry to start the cooking process and don't want to wait 30-45 minutes to eat. These are perfect.

3. Finally quinoa mac n cheese by Around the Table. Belive it or not, this only has a cup and a half of cheese, several eggs, and vegetables! It is SO good for you, and really, really tasty. Anyone who knows me knows that I love cheese and this is an amazing dish. Thank you, Dani and Jon, for introducing me- it could very well be a life-long relationship.

This is all- happy pinteresting. :)

Francis Chan, Shamrock Shakes, and Fear

 You must watch this video in order to get the most of this post. Did you do it yet? Do it. Good. 

Saying that I don’t think Christians should live out of fear is all well and good until it means that I have to be weak, vulnerable, and exposed to other people. That scares me.

I am filled with much fear. I am seeing it more and more these days. I saw it this afternoon when Jordan called me out about being contrary about shamrock shakes (more on this below). Again today when I was trying to defend why I don’t like Peyton Manning. I saw it when I dug my heels in about not reading Blue Like Jazz or watching The Passion. I am fear filled. I am that person clinging to the balance beam. Worse, I pride myself on not being that person and so I am clinging to my balance beam yelling at everyone else that they should not be clinging to theirs. Ah. foolish, wayward, loved child. I can feel the Father shaking His head, sighing, and looking at me with love, affection, and a heart of correction.

I am afraid to go to Him, too. He changes me. He changes you. And He will certainly ask me to get off my balance beam and be vulnerable with others. I can feel the challenge to walk forward into being honest with people when I am unsure. Today, today it was the smallest, most shallow thing: a shamrock shake.

That is right. I had a moral conviction in the midst of a conversation about a shake from McDonald’s. (this is just more proof that the Holy Spirit must be real) I have had one, and it was not good, and I am irrationally gun shy about having another because they might be AMAZING! If they are, then I will have to have them all the time and I already have a not so small Diet Coke problem; and this would be yet another McDonald’s problem.(for those who don't know, Diet Coke is just a dollar at McDonald's. awesome. and terrible.) So, instead of admitting that, or even instead of just letting myself feel my fear, I covered it up with the desire to be right. Right that shamrock shakes are not good, because if they are not good, then I cannot be addicted to them, and therefore cannot be part of the hype about them, and therefore will somehow be protected all alone in my “I don’t like shamrock shakes and this is some kind of safe identity” place.

My own sin and weakness are dripping from my pores. The point is that I was not being wholly myself, and not really available to my co-workers and friends. I want to me more open to those around me, to heed the call of God to stand on the balance beam. I think that God is calling me to be open to being influenced by others when I am unsure, and to be honest where I am weak, or don’t have all the information .He is asking me to lay down my need to be right.

This is something I am going to have to lay down again and again as it is so deeply engrained in me. This is one way I was hard-wired to be safe in my family. If you were right, then you were in some way safe from criticism and I have absorbed that, taken it in, and made it my own in all of its green-ice-cream-resisting glory. It seems like there are dozens of ways to grow in this everywhere I look: say the affectionate thing I am thinking, say that I don’t know the answer, be open to being corrected in public, be okay with someone else having the spotlight, be okay with being in the spot light, give generously of my food and beverages (seriously, this is basically a love language for me), invite people to join me in my home, invite people to join me in other places I love (the Firkin, Caribou, Wrigley Field) , go with others to places they love, let other people’s praise and criticism affect me, wear more bright colors, sing more often and more loudly, and let myself be convicted by the Spirit.

First: try a shamrock shake with Jordan and Krystal. Yes, it sounds shallow, but it is more than that for me, and I should embrace that. There is yet another growth point- don’t shy away from depth in daily activities.

Oh man, here we go.

A Tale of Two Tables

How do we explain what meaningful intergenerational interaction looks like? How do we explain the difference between where we are and where we could be? I am so thankful for the hard work of the Fuller Youth Institute to make things easy to use and easy to understand. This is a very solid explanation of the intergenerational experience of most people in Evangelical America. There are, of course, churches, individuals, and ministries that are doing this and doing it well, but they are sadly not the norm. I think that we do have two tables in the church: parallel experiences of the same church and often times the same church service. Is this accurate? What is your experience of your church?

All churches are multigenerational. Few are intergenerational.

This is such a great distinction. Thank you, Fuller Youth Institute, for finding this blog post by Matthew DePrez. As he describes it, here is the basic difference between a mulitgenerational church and an intergenerational church: an intergenerational church is one where people have meaningful relationships across generations, and a multigenerational church is one where people from each generation exist peacefully together. He gives a few outcomes of each type of church; the intergenerational church know names and bits about one another's lives, pray for each other, and can count on one another for interaction and growth. Multigenerational churches participate in the same services and church functions, but rarely have more than cursory interactions with those outside of their age group.

The obvious implication is that it is better to have an intergenerational church. But, how to build one is a more puzzling question to me. Encouraging interactions and meaningful relationships across generations seems messy, confusing, and risky. It very well might be, but oh so worth it. How do we encourage conversations and interactions? It seems to me that in my own church generations are often in settings that are conducive to such interaction - children's ministry, youth ministry, missions trips, choirs, events, etc, but that it is hard to take those interactions and make them something relationally real.

How do I step outside of my comfortable young adult bubble and learn to get to know someone older than me? How do I navigate a real relationship with someone who is not a peer? What common ground might we have? And how do we get below the surface of Sunday morning greeting time so that we can genuinely minister to one another?