missional community.

[sunday: conversations; bagels;abigail washburn; crisp weather & chilly feet; brainstorming; harmonica; coffee]

Missional community seems to be the word of the past few months, as I've been processing what that even means alongside my community group and home church (Jericho Road). Throughout this process, I've become easily frustrated and cynical because I feel like it's hard to live missionally as an overcommitted student--like there is no place for me in this whole pursuit.

This past summer I was beyond blessed to be a part of a missional community in Amsterdam. I worked at a Christian hostel that literally gave the poor wanderer a place to lay her/his head. There would be days where I would have tears of joy because I was so thankful for being a part of something that I only dreamt of before. There would be an almost equal number of days where I would be in tears because of the overwhelming amount of heartbreaking stories I would hear and see. But goodness, my dear friends, it was so powerful to be in a community that loved and served in bold ways--a community that did life and shared meals with people from all walks of life. No longer was the woman caught in prostitution just a statistic, or the man struggling with alcoholism just a wanderer on the street, but they were my friends and very much involved in my life.

My question, then, is how do I translate that back home? I'm a busy student. Most of my week is filled with classes and clubs. I don't have a car. I live in a small apartment with three other woman. I live in a bubble.

So, this morning I decided to stop throwing the "I'm a student so missional community is hard" pity-party, and actually started to rethink my definition of missional community. Don't get me wrong, I dream to one day live in an intentional, missional community--to have a space where I can pursue that more fully through hospitality and the like. But that's not where I'm at these days.
     [and does missional community come easily for anybody? I can't think of any situation in which a missionally-minded lifestyle would come naturally. We're all working through this with different committments, resources, responsibilities. It's something we all need to work through]

I need to stop restricting my involvement by what I can't do, but rather think about what I can do. And the beautiful thing about community is that we all have different resources and gifts to bring to the table to accomplish what is impossible to do with just one.

My prayer for you and for me is this: to get creative with what we have and to actually do something with it.

[i typed the word "missional" 9 times. now 10]

fręêdøm

[Sitting on a train; coffee on my breath; hope in my heart]

I live in shades of gray, but what I know to be true is this: freedom is only found in my Maker. Freedom isn’t in broken me, nor is it in you [he or she, him or her]. I’ve sought this freedom here and there, near and far; time and time again I confuse Freedom with all things fleeting and flaky and false, and this pursuit of freedom in all things other than my Maker ends up becoming a burden—enslaving myself to things that never deliver what I so desperately long for.

[But too often these truths get stuck in my head and never make it to the heart]

Often, [unpredictably] my mind travels back to what was & I sift through the soil in which this heart of mine was planted—you know, those valleys in your story that are saturated with more paradoxes than most—of pain, heartache, laughter, salty tears, toothy smiles—and you accept that you don’t fully understand why it happened but you’re thankful for it, anyway—or at least thankful for the valleys on the days when the sun is shining and the wind is at your back and everything seems well in the world on the other side of things.

The pursuit of Freedom has been a theme in my life, and I think it’s safe to assume that it’s been a theme in yours, as well; most likely taking on different shapes and colors in different seasons.

You, my dear friends, were created to be free.

                        [pursue it confidently] 

thoughts on courage.

I vividly remember [clear as crystal] the night I chose the words powerful and courageous to describe who I was [are those appropriate words for a evangelical woman to describe herself as?! ;)] I remember being called a woman that night by someone who actually beleived it. Cold, we were, sitting on a bench eating ice cream, and venturing into places we have never been before--verbalizing ideas freshly explored. It was a beautifully vulnerable moment, really.

That was many years ago, seems like decades [but I haven't even been alive for 2 decades, so it couldn't have been]. Those words, powerful and courageous, have traveled with me. Sometimes I didn't seem fit to carry them, sometimes I didn't even want to carry them. But it was almost impossible to let them go, and I don't think I really wanted to let them go, either.

[Those words and I are one and the same] and we have been to places I never even knew existed, and some places I never wish to visit again.

Courage is never a pure noun, is it? It has, for me, always been mixed with fear and other emotions that make my stomach flip around and tie in knots. For most of my life courage has manifested itself in the form of words. These words are like the moments before you are going to throw up: you start to have hot flashes [the top of your head sweats] and you realize that whatever is inside of you has to come out, and waiting to throw up is almost as bad as actually doing it.

I've been thinking a lot about tensions recently. Mainly how I need to embrace places of tension instead of running away from them. If courage is something that doesn't come with age, but rather grows as we experience hard things, then how does that relate to having enough courage to enter into places saturated in tension?

All I'm saying is that I want to become a woman that isn't afraid to have hard conversations, to get messy, to say that I don't know but I want to talk about it. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? What a shame it would be, my dear friends, if we lived our lives seeking places of comfort and safety.

This is difficult. Can we admit that? Is it ok to tear down our walls and admit that we don't know what the hell we're doing? This is really hard, and most days I don't know where to start.

May you sit in the tension. Embrace the tension, whatever that may be--because it is in those places where beauty is waiting to be discovered. I would remind you to not forget your power and courage, but something tells me that you carry them always. And for that I am glad.

I think I'm turning into a post-colonial feminist. And I'm ok with that.

I used to fear normalcy. Until I realized that even the craziest, most radical life would get normal after a certain period of time. Living in a traveling nomadic community would become normal to me after a while. Normacly is inevitable, and I think that's ok.

I need to redefine my normal. Normal doesn't have to be something to fear. Complacency, yes, should be feared.

Normalcy is inevitable, and I think that's ok. Normal doesn't equal complacent if my definition of normal discourages habits that cause me to get stuck in a rut. Ruts are bad.

Nuts are good, though. Like the roasted nuts they sell in the mall.

What is your normal?

Goodmorning

Last night I had a nightmare.

It went like this:

I was walking through an office building with a man and three three other girls. One of those girls was my sister. The man was showing us around his office, showing off the things he has collected from all over the world. I couldn't focus, in fact, I was shaking from fear because I knew what was going to happen once show and tell was over.

We were then led to what I imagine a brothel looks like. We were all put in different rooms and were told to wait. wait. I was horrified. Absolutely horrified. What was worse, was that in the other room I knew my sister wasn't waiting. She was doing whatever this man wanted from her. And in those moments alone in my room, I have never felt so helpless and angry. If I could, I would bust in that room and tell that man to stop. I would tell him how beautiful, courageous, and precious my sister is. She is a woman, dammit, so treat her like one, I would say.

But I couldn't. All I could do was wait and pray that someone else would care enough to stop it.

And then I woke up. My head and my heart were racing a million miles a minute. Releived that my sister is safe at home, and I'm fully clothed.

And then it hit me: my sisters around the world are living my nightmare every night of their lives.

Goodmorning.

I want to be a nomad in a traveling community at some point in my life.

You're welcome to join, of course.

Salvage the broken; Create beauty.

Happy New Year, friends!

Some New Year's thoughts/ramblings I'd like to share.

This year, let's spend more time salvaging.

I can seriously spend hours in a thrift store without even realizing it--that's not an exaggeration. I don't go often, so maybe thats why, but when I do go, I can't pull away. My favorite section is housewares. I can't wait to furnish something other than a dorm. I went to Goodwill at the beginning of break to buy some Christmas presents (shhh) and fell in love with an over-stuffed, wooden arm chair. Sure, she has seen better days and was looking pretty sorry, but goodness she had potential. My problem is that I had no place for her to stay once I gave her a fresh coat of paint and sewed her a new outfit. Darn. Maybe I should rent a storage unit.

This year, let's spend more time salvaging.

I'm going to make a confession that could cost me, especially being a Wheaton student: I don't like K-LOVE. That's almost as bad as saying that I don't like C.S. Lewis at Wheaton. My professor confessed that once, and everything in the room frosted over from the chilly silence. Seriously. I saw it happen. The thing that frustrates me about K-LOVE is that it can lead many Christians to believe that there is only beauty in the sacred; a song is only beautiful when Jesus' name is mentioned twelve times. A painting is only beautiful if it's telling a bible story. A story is only beautiful if it has a metaphor of the Trinity. A movie is only beautiful if it doesn't show a broken family or use swear words. I'm not saying that Christians should listen to explicit music, trust me, I stopped listening to System of a Down in high school for that reason. But I'm convinced that Christ is in both the sacred and the secular.

I've been enjoying music by Jonsi lately. Jonsi is gay, and I know a handful of people that problaby wouldn't listen to his music because of that. His music is beautiful, and as a follower of Christ, I'm obligated to appreciate beauty in the same way that I'm obligated to believe truth. Let's not miss that. As followers of Christ we should be committed to creating beautiful things--creating beauty that brings this earth closer to the way our Maker intended it to be. Christians should start appreciating beauty more.

This year, let's spend more time creating beauty by salvaging the broken, ugly things around us. The things that have seen better days, that look a little sad, that need a fresh coat of paint and a new outfit. And let's pause for a moment and note that beautiful things don't have to be thousands of dollars and sitting in a display case. Please no. If you have a couple thousands of dollars to spare, invest it in something that will advance the kingdom of heaven.

Salvage the broken; Create beauty.

This isn't limited to the tangible. Goodness, no. This year, let's salvage broken relationships and create something beautiful out of it. This year, let's use our words to create beautiful conversations that inspire, redeem, and ignite a desire to follow Christ in radical and beautiful ways. The fantastic thing about all of this, is that we can collaborate with our Maker to make beautiful things. God is inviting us into His story, to join Him in the redemption process. I'm convinced that we can't do it alone.

Salvaging is messy, to be sure. Expect to get your hands dirty, to pull out stubborn, thorny weeds to make room for the tulips to grow. I'm captivated by the processes, especially the process of redemption. It's a beautiful mess, really.

I used to be obsessed with Stephan Christian from Anberlin. I'm no longer obsessed with Stephen Christian, and I seemed to have moved on to Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. Anyway, Stephen has this great quote:

"Its as if in life we are a metal frame structured in the likes of a skeletal system. every word that is spoken to us is the putty slowly manipulating who we are and who we are becoming. Unfortunately most of the time the words that we remember are all the negative words, it is our choice whether we are going to believe them or not. whether to make a statue out of the words spoken."

Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we all are all marked by painful words spoken to us. I wish this weren't true, but it is. We know this is true because we can each remember a painful comment made to us even if that was back in the first grade.

Words are powerful, my friends, and it is my hope for both you and I to use even our words to salvage. There is something beautiful about truth being spoken. Truth that is willing to get down on it's hands and knees, to chip away the layers and layers of caked muck, and make something broken beautiful again.

May you be inspired to salvage, to create beauty, to collaborate with our Maker. Encourage others to do the same--it will help them sleep at night.