Torn Sky

Space for the Fake

I’ve always been kind of fascinated by the trappings of other strains of Christianity – the icons and hierarchy of Catholicism, all the things evangelicals do with their hands, and of course, the flashier parts of the Pentecostal church – speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, handling snakes (yes, I’m aware that it’s a much smaller contingent handling snakes than speaking in tongues), etc.

Maybe it’s because it all seems so mysterious and “other” from the Lutheran liturgy I grew up with. Not that what other Christians do is objectively any weirder than what we do (my boyfriend, raised in the evangelical-flavored Church of Christ, informs me that responsive readings or anything we recite all-together-as-a-group is super-creepy and Twilight Zone-ish)... but it’s weird to me.

So I really enjoyed reading the Ask A Pentecostal… installment in Rachel Held Evans’ “Ask A…” series. Jonathan Martin writes so eloquently and passionately about his faith, and does so in a way that seems very open and inviting and friendly. I’ve read his blog a few times before, and I always end up wondering if I’m really supposed to be a Pentecostal…

...Because the way he writes about spiritual experience validates my own God-story and the part of  my spiritual life that is rooted in the 12-step community, and sometimes “Faith alone” and “Word alone” can feel like veiled threats about all the things you’re not allowed to believe in, rather than liberating statements about what you don’t have to do to earn God’s love.

But then I always remember some of my less-than-awesome experiences visiting Pentecostalish churches, and some of the things that some of my more Pentecostalish-leaning relatives have talked about, and I’m all, “eh… Jax… remember how you met that really friendly Mormon family at a wedding and you wished you could be a Mormon, but you just can’t get behind the garments and the origin story and the gender roles? This is kind of like that. Face it, you’re a boring, old Lutheran and you’re going to stay a boring, old Lutheran.”

But I do love when he writes: “But here is what it comes down to: you cannot create space for the real without creating space for the immature and even the fake.”

Space for the fake.

That’s such a powerful statement to me. So many of the conversations I’ve had about church and faith are about what’s real and authentic and organic. I’ve heard so many conversations in the 12-step world questioning whether someone “really wanted it,” or whether or not they were in the rooms for the right reasons. In the culture of heavy metal, fake is probably the worst thing you can be.

I move in quite a few circles where Truth and Authenticity are idols with zealot adherents all too happy to abandon kindness and mercy, love of neighbor, to say nothing of the ability to be surprised or moved to wonder, in order to show their fervent commitment to the One True Truth.

Space for the fake.

It’s just such a liberating concept to me, that in order to have room for what’s real to come in, you also have to allow and even expect some of what’s fake. And you won’t always know which is which, and maybe it doesn’t matter nearly as much as we think it does. Space for bad theology. Space for doubt. Space for half-measures and people who are only there to get their court card signed. Space for people who show up for the wrong reasons.

It’s dangerous – because we don’t always know what’s fake, and people can be legitimately hurt by those who come into churches or 12-step meetings or anyplace else in our world saying fake things and making fake promises and just generally being fake or manipulative.

But the idea still intrigues me. It still fills me with hope. Because the truth is, sometimes I feel like I’m a big fake. Sometimes I wonder if I really believe in all this Jesus business. Sometimes I go to the meeting not to be of service to the newcomer, but because I know people will ask if I'm not there, but I'd rather be home playing video games. 

And I wonder if everyone else can tell.

And I wonder if the blanket is about to be ripped off and I’ll be exposed for the big fakey fake that I am. And the judgment and condemnation will be justified, because after all Fake is bad and Authentic is good and Truth matters more than Love.

But maybe it doesn’t. Maybe there’s space for the fake.

More Than Conquerors

I read Romans 8 again this morning.

Like any good Lutheran, I’m always drawn back to Romans, and this part of the book of Romans especially calls me back over and over, always revealing more and more.

A couple of things.

8:6 – “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

I have struggled with “body issues” since 4^th grade. Over twenty years. I remember when I got my 4^th grade school pictures and a family member commented that I “better be careful or you’ll get chunky” or something to that effect. And it’s true, in that picture I have chubby cheeks and a bad perm and that weird asymmetrical squinty thing my eyes do when I smile for real.

So that’s where it started.

My weight has yo-yoed a lot. I’m not sure if every woman can tell you her highest and lowest weights for the past twenty years, but I can. 99 pounds in junior high, then up to 127 in high school, down to 119 when I went to college, up to 146 when I moved back home, up again to 169 which seemed gigantic when I moved to Fargo, down to 130, up to 170, back down to 114 where I see pictures of myself and think I look too skinny – then up, up, up to 220, down to 143, and back up to where I am now...

...and I suppose I’ll just say it even though posting my weight on the Internet feels like a tiny bit of death…

...up to 181, as of yesterday morning.

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

I saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo over the weekend, and for whatever reason, Rooney Mara’s character Lisbeth elicited a weirdly strong reaction from me. During the last part of the movie I couldn’t even follow the story because I was focused in so closely on her – her transformations, her body, the way she looked so effortless in both heels and badass boots (that’s just not fair my mind screamed – that she gets to be both the classy pretty girl and the rad tough girl and she also gets to be punk-rock gorgeous while eating nothing but Happy Meals!)

I don’t know why I reacted that way – I have thoroughly enjoyed plenty of movies with attractive female actresses. But for whatever reason, a bunch of my stupid self-judging, self-obsessed, self-pitying junk got birthed out into the light… again… and I suppose that means I have to deal with it… again.

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

So I was reading Romans 8 again this morning, and it occurred to me that every time I let that stupid liar voice come up again that tells me I’m too fat, that tells me I’m getting too old already before I’m even 35, that tells me I’m not pretty enough because I have asymmetrical eyes and bad skin… I’m setting my mind on the flesh.

I think so often the American-Christian tendency is to read Paul’s talk about “the flesh” as being about obsessive lust, but maybe another aspect of “setting the mind on the flesh” is, well, thinking so damn much about my flesh.

Maybe the sinful, destructive, deadly thing is believing the liar scratching at the door of my Enneagram-Type-1 soul that I’m not good enough for a million different reasons. And maybe Romans 8:1 is right, that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” and I suppose that means I have to stop condemning myself so harshly if God has already made the call.

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

I don’t know if there will come a time when these “issues” go away. I hope so. I’m so tired of the liar at the door keeping me locked in, keeping me from truly seeing you, keeping me from being the complete, free and powerful person God calls me to be in this world.

Craig Koester, in speaking about the book of Revelation, says that evil rages fiercely not because it is powerful, but because it is wounded and losing and dying.

I think that’s true.

^8:31 What then are we to say about these things?

I say yes, and I say the liar at the door is getting flustered.

In the words of Ryan Adams he’s “angry like a salesman who just can’t make a sale.”

If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn?

Not me. The Spirit dwells within, and it is getting harder and harder to look in the mirror and believe the liar.

It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. ³⁵Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Not even nakedness. Not even the fear of being caught naked, the fear of being seen for the flawed and vulnerable and imperfect person I'm pretty sure you can already see anyway.  

³⁶As it is written,

‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
 we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

More than conquerors.

More than conquerors.

More than conquerors.

Like a drumbeat, like a heartbeat, it echoes deep, deep, all the way down to the truth that was there all along. A truth louder than the lie when it finally bounces up into reality. A truth that will not be ignored or dismissed. A truth that laughs in the face of the liar, then scoops you up in its arms to hold you close, then takes your hand and says “let’s do this thing.”

³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.

On Dancing, or, "So It Turns Out That that Evil Pastor from Footloose was Wrong After All"

The drums, the drums… and the dark… and the disregard for whether or not I look good. The freedom of anonymity and the safety of my beloved’s happy gaze.

I watch the drunk girl with her Ke$ha posturing and the guy who grinds on her in of-all-things-to-wear-to-the-club, really, pajama pants and it all seems so staged and fake and Jersey Shore-sad and desperate but maybe beautiful because of that… and good for you, pajama pants and all, because even the lamest among us long to be loved.

For years I danced almost every weekend, a blur of big, ravey Jncos and glittery makeup and shady boys with shady intentions and jungle and drum n bass and happy hardcore. As much as it was about the hormones and the alcohol, it was also about the freedom of being young and wild and beautiful (though I never really felt that way) and reckless.

And maybe even more, it was about the freedom from constant self-consciousness and fear of judgment, the two things that have been bearing down on me for my whole life right up to this very day.

And then like a needle scratching across the vinyl, I stopped. I got it into my head that the way I danced attracted the wrong kind of attention, that I could just walk away from it, that it wasn’t grown-up or ladylike or Christian or whatever.

That’s so much crap.

I think it’s true that faith can be tremendously liberating – it has been for me in many ways. But just as often, we find ways to use faith as a convenient excuse to reinforce our pre-existing insecurities or fears or prejudices or politics. I am as guilty of this as anyone.

And saying that I wasn’t going to dance anymore because it wasn’t ladylike or Christian or grown-up was convenient and sounded better to me than the truth, which was closer to “I’ve gained some weight and my body is changing and I’m mostly afraid of looking ridiculous and I never really learned how to do this sober in a way that feels natural.”

I’ve been slowly, meanderingly reading the book of John since Christmas, grappling once again with what it means that God showed up with a body, that the Word became flesh.

Not took on flesh.

Not pure light-and-spirit putting on awkward, clumsy body like an ill-fitting, unfortunate coat.

But became flesh –

- and what that says about God’s regard for human bodies, human bodies being us – because I still have trouble reconciling “I am a body” rather than “I have a body.”

Because if I confess that the clearest and truest truth about God is not words on paper or a vague and nebulous sense of Spirit but Jesus the man with skin and teeth and glands and maybe even parts that jiggled and sagged, then I can no longer hide behind the idea that somehow crawled into my head that God disapproves of bodies or God doesn’t want me to dance, because a God who became flesh surely didn’t mean for us to sit primly in the bleachers until we could be tidily spirited away to heaven, gazing as the dancers float across the floor, the way I spent entirely too many Friday nights in junior high. Longing to be down there, waiting desperately for an invitation instead of simply joining in or God-forbid getting out of my head long enough to notice that there were kids who felt even more left out than me and extending an invitation of my own.

I still struggle with feeling awkward when I dance. Part is being sober. Part is the echo of years of American-Christian-Puritianism and Midwestern-Norwegian stoic culture. Part is that my body doesn’t move quite the same at 33 as it did at 18, so I have to find new movements.

But I can lose myself in the rhythm for whole minutes at a time. 

I find things I can express and ways to be for which words are inadequate.

And I feel a kinship with the others who have also dared to step onto the floor, also awkward, also imperfect, but drawn to the drums and the dark, and I think to myself, “I won’t judge if you won’t, or at least I’ll try not to, and for just this little while I'll try not judge myself either.”

And in the movement the Spirit that dwells within finds its freedom to fly so much more than when I held it safely in my hands from the sidelines.

The Ripple, the Whosoever and the Tedious, Tedious Waiting of it All

Ah, the Advent season. That time of year when some churchy types take great joy in reminding everyone that it's about watching and waiting, not shopping, darn it, and some other churchy types take great joy in saying “it’s Merry CHRISTmas, not Happy Holidays!,” darn it, and we all take great joy in eating too much sugar and listening to the Beach Boys’ “The Man With All The Toys.” Or at least we should.

I’ve been lazy about blogging, mainly because my job is taking up a lot of my creative energy. That’s a good thing – when I started this job, I didn’t think I’d get much of a chance to really be creative at all, but lately a lot of what I do is creative and challenging and fun and maybe even theological and all of that good stuff.

Last week I presented a case study on Communications & Culture Change loosely based on David Lose’s work in the whole “Tell a Better Story”/belonging & purpose area, along with Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment and Seth Godin’s All Marketers Tell Stories. It was fun to have a chance to do something a little more challenging and something related to the things I’m most interested in and passionate about, and my ideas were really well-received… so much so that I got to present it all over again for a group of executives this week (who also loved it), and then again today for a smaller group of people who couldn’t be there the first time.

If you had told me a year ago that I would be passionate about shaping corporate culture and genuinely see it as a great opportunity to do ministry, I probably would have laughed.

I used to say, “I got tired of working for the Man, so I’m going to work for the Man Upstairs.”

As if the church is the only place to do that.

Silly me.

I have had so many amazing conversations lately, so many little joys and signs of light in my days at work, and so much of a sense that a) God wants me to be right where I am right now, and/or b) when I decided to hold off seeking a pastoral call because it didn’t work with where my personal life is at right now, God was like, “Oh yeah? Well then, I’m going to have to go ahead use you here. How do you like them apples?”

God is also a big fan of Matt Damon in my head, apparently.

Anyway, it all has me thinking that for each of us, the ripple in the water of the universe that we make is inevitably so much bigger than the boundaries we try to draw around it. And the body of Christ – the “corporate Corpus Christi” if you will – the “whosoever,” as I like to say – is so much bigger than the group of people who call themselves the church.

And the God who became a human just like you because He loves you like a fool is already using you for something surprising today, and is planning something miraculous right now, no matter what you think is on hold or broken or not quite how you planned it to be. 

I am still very much in an area of watching and waiting in so many areas of my life... and doesn't *that* get terribly old and tedious? But isn't that also most of what life is? It seems like for 33 years I've almost always been watching and waiting for something, so maybe it's less about getting to whatever you're waiting for and more about enjoying the journey.

At least that's what everyone's inspirational posters on Pinterest seem to tell me.

And also what I suspect is true, even though I still kind of hate it.

But aside from the waiting and the waiting and the waiting that makes up so much of our terrifyingly short lives, I also feel like I'm learning to be more authentically and expansively myself, to feel less of a desire to apologize for my imperfections even while I pray that they might be transformed to serve others, to listen for what God is calling me to more and more, and to be less cemented in all of my preconceived ideas about what that is supposed to be. 

Happy Advent! 

A Broad Place

While I was at camp a few weeks ago, spending time balancing on things alone or in groups and discussing it for graduate credit (okay, we did more than that… but we really did physically balance on a lot of things), one of the discussions that emerged was a comparison between balancing and “the narrow way.”

I countered that with – “Yeah, but doesn’t the Bible also say something somewhere about 'you have set me in a broad place?'”

Clearly, you can see that I’m not one of those preachers who has the Bible memorized. I mean, I know what’s in there, for the most part. But I am terrible at quoting things verbatim, chapter-and-verse, and often have to look things up.

Anyway. We did look it up, and there are indeed a number of places in the Bible where the phrase “a broad place” comes up. So I didn't just pull that out of thin air, which is good, because people do that to the Bible a lot. And the "broad place" passage that has really been speaking to me over and over for these past few weeks is Psalm 31:7-8. Here it is, for my fellow chapter-and-verse challenged brothers and sisters:

I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have taken heed of my adversities,
and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place.

I’ve been getting back into doing yoga, and as I struggle with balancing poses and the fact that my feet naturally turn out a little bit which makes it hard to do some poses, and the fact that I’m still a little overweight which makes it hard to do other things… that last line keeps coming back to me.

Because the mat is long and narrow, but it feels for me like a broad place. A place where I can slow down and focus on my breathing and accept my body exactly as it is. A place where, for once, I don’t feel like people will laugh if I fail. And one of the few places where I sometimes feel genuinely strong.

***

The call/job/vocation saga continues. I am grateful for a Lutheran understanding of vocation – the understanding that all work can be spiritual in nature, and a good secretary does God’s work as much as a good preacher.

I’m also grateful for a Christian understanding of identity – in the words of Tyler Durden, “You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your [bleeping] khakis.”

(Jesus might add “You are who God says you are in your baptism.” Tyler Durden doesn’t go that far, but hey, Fight Club is still a really great movie and I still think that the ending where they bomb all the banks to erase the debt record is maybe one of the best metaphors for the cross and salvation in recent pop culture history. But as usual, I digress.)

I got a phone call on Tuesday to offer me a good administrative job where I would be able to use my English background and editorial skills at a rapidly expanding company. Delighted at the prospect of being employed, I went in on Wednesday to fill out some additional paperwork…

Thursday morning, I got a call from the Bishop’s office to tell me about a lovely little church on a lake in a small town in central Minnesota.

Of course I did!

I joked about this possible scenario - the Bishop's call coming as soon as I got a regular job - to several people before it actually happened. But the fact that it actually happened is less funny and more fraught with questions and confusion and half-remembered quotes about things happening in God’s time and constantly reminding myself that God didn’t have me meet and fall in love with a wonderful person just to take that away from me, and God really doesn’t want me to be miserable… although sometimes I really think God likes to mess with us to see what we’ll do.

(That’s not a very Lutheran thing to think – we’re not big on the whole “God is testing you” thing – but sometimes it’s hard not to go there.)

And through it all, that passage keeps coming back to my head – “you have set my feet in a broad place.” Even though it feels like a tight, anxious spot, I have to trust that I’m set in a broad place. That there is room to wonder, to discern…

...space for conversations with the people I need and trust the most in my life…

…or just space to rest and discover the next right action when it reveals itself to me. And I trust that it will.

Anyway, I’m sort of in the middle of it all, and it’s way too early to say anything, probably too early to even be blogging about it but sometimes the way I hear what I need to hear from the universe is through writing about things. Regardless, things are bubbling and brewing and the Spirit is blowing... and sooner, much sooner than later, I will have some idea where the next chapter of my life will take me.

I don’t know where that is yet.

But I know that it, too, will be a broad place.

 

***In searching for an image to put in this blog, I just discovered that Jurgen Moltmann wrote a whole book called A Broad Place. I heart Jurgen Moltmann. I should probably read that.***

Child's Pose

I suppose I should be grateful to have two weeks with nothing much to do except a little bit of summer school homework.

But instead I stay antsy, wondering when exactly I will get some news... any news... about a call or even just a regular jobby-job, not sleeping well, obsessing about the future and money and blah blah blah.

I've been trying to use the extra time to do some of the things I let slide a bit during the school year... eating better, going to yoga, doing the things that keep me (relatively) sane and spiritual. They make me feel better and keep me from spiraling too deep into my stupid obsessions and the dubious selections in my Netflix Instant queue. 

It almost surprises me a bit how deeply/emotionally this period of uncertainty is hitting me. I've been without work before for stretches of as long as a few months, and I never questioned myself so much or struggled with it so much...

Maybe because those times I hadn't invested 4 years of my life in graduate school. Maybe because those times the lack of employment didn't make me question whether or not I had correctly discerned God's will for my life. Maybe because those times I had cable teevee to distract me. 

I don't know.

I went to yoga today, despite the fact that I slept terribly last night and spent the morning manically submitting resumes for administrative jobs on Craigslist. I figured it would be good for me to get out and go to class, even though my brain would really rather spend the day obsessing.

They say you're not "good at yoga" if you can bend into all kinds of crazy poses, but rather, you're "good at yoga" if you can stay focused on your breath and your own body's strengths and limitations - you push yourself, but you also pay attention to what feels good or what hurts, and there are some things you simply can't do without having practiced yoga for a long, long time... and since I'm just getting back into it after months of not really working out at all, even some of the simple poses I had previously worked up to are challenging or impossible. 

Anyway. All the crap going on in my brain showed up loud and clear in body during today's class. I couldn't hold any balance poses for more than a few seconds. I felt like I had no strength in my arms or my upper legs. At one point I was ready to swear off ever doing a stupid chair pose again. (Seriously. This instructor *loved*  her chair poses.) While everyone else balanced and twisted and looked calm and spiritual, I found myself feeling frustrated and repeatedly going back to resting poses - downward-facing dog or child's pose - and halfway through the hour I decided my only real goal for the day was to stay in the room for the full hour.

But that's something.

Downward-facing dog doesn't really look much like a dog to me, but child's pose is the perfect name for what you do with your body in that pose. You sit back on your knees on the mat, so your butt is touching your heels (or close to it), and fold your upper body and head forward until your forehead touches the mat, with your arms either straight out in front of you on the floor or laying at your sides. It looks like a position of complete submission, kinda like, well, what a tired child might do when she just doesn't want to keep going. 

Child's pose is a "restorative" pose, meaning it's not about pushing or straining, but a pose that lets your body rest and recuperate. 

And during the class today, I realized that taking child's pose when I need to is a vital part of the practice, and a vital part of life. Knowing that I need to go into child's pose and doing it even if everyone else in the room is happily going into some crazy, body-pushing balancing pose... that's brave. Acknowledging weakness when I'm feeling weak can be as brave - maybe braver - than being strong on my most powerful-feeling day. 

And pretty soon, I get up out of child's pose and join back with what the rest of the class is doing.

And it's okay. Because my goal doesn't have to be to do what everyone else does or feel how everyone thinks I should feel. Sometimes just staying in the room is the only goal you can muster up. 

I feel kind of like that's what God is trying to teach me right now. That I am strong - stronger than I could possibly know - but that being vulnerable and honest about it is another side of strong that I need to learn to live into without shame.

That it's okay and necessary to say "I have no idea" and to let others teach me.

That it's okay and necessary to ask for help. Often.

That it's okay and necessary to go into child's pose.

If you're the praying kind, please keep me in your prayers. I need it right now. And also my family, as they struggle with their own challenges brought on by the flood in Minot in the last weeks/months.

And if you see me in child's pose, well, hey... I'm still in the room.

Fearless Identity, "Bill Cunningham New York," and What I'm Wearing for the Rapture

Finally, a Christian blogger who's not going to write some thoughtful / progressive / snarky / whatever response to the Judgment Day hullaballoo. I don't really think it's going to happen, but I'm already bored with everyone making fun of it, and hey... if tomorrow really is Judgment Day, I'm hoping to weasel my way into getting raptured, so it would probably be best not to have a blog entry on the record making fun of everyone who told us it was going to happen. Amirite? 

I saw Bill Cunningham New York today, and it was so inspiring. Full of beautiful, exciting people doing beautiful, exciting things with clothes; both the rich-and-fabulous types we usually think of when we think of capital-F Fashion, and regular-and-fabulous types who just know how to rock clothes.

So many movies and magazines about fashion treat it as an inaccessible or aspirational thing. It's all designer stuff you will never be able to afford worn by people who are thinner than you will ever be to places you will never be cool or rich enough to go.

But Bill Cunningham New York tells the truth about fashion instead - that almost anyone in almost anything can be amazing if it's done right, that it's more about the look than the label, and that it's not about being rich or thin or cool but about being yourself, unapologetically and fearlessly.

My own attitude toward fashion has done almost a complete 180 since I started losing weight about a year and half ago. When I was at my heaviest, shopping for clothes was such a pain... I hated going to what I called the "Fat Girl" section of the store (or shopping at "Lame Giant, " even though they actually have great clothes and I sometimes miss shopping there). I mostly wore black metal-band t-shirts with jeans and tennis shoes, I had maybe one or two dress shirts to wear with my one or two pairs of dress pants... and no dress shoes. I have a picture of me meeting the ELCA Bishop when I went to Mexico for the International AIDS Conference, and I'm wearing a black band t-shirt and baggyish denim capris... and you can't see it, but I'm pretty sure I was wearing white New Balance tennis shoes with that. Eek.

Part of why I put almost no thought into a "look" or whatever for so long was that I wasn't happy with my body, and it's hard to get excited about wrapping the package when you don't like anything about the package you're wrapping.

It started changing when I did CPE, and I started doing some internal work around issues of embracing the power / authority that comes with being a public leader. I'm using those words in the most positive sense - I hate the idea of "authority" as ruling over someone or being the arbiter of others' behavior/beliefs, and for me it's more about recognizing that if people have given you the privilege of being in charge of something or care enough to listen when you say something, you should make damn sure to use that power wisely and for good, not evil. Anyway.

It changed even more once I started reading Beauty Tips for Ministers, where I found writings that made me think about the connections between leadership and presence and appearance.

It changed the most once I started losing weight and was finally happier with myself and my body. I think I've written before about how I cried the day that I tried on clothes from the "normal" section for the first time in four years. It was overwhelming for a few months - I was used to having so few options, and even fewer exciting or attractive options. I would walk into the regular womens' clothing section and feel like there was just too much to choose from. 

It's changing more now... now that I'm no longer overwhelmed by the selection, now that the prospect of presenting myself as a public person/leader is imminent, now that I've started to get really encouraging feedback about the metal/theology stuff I'm into and wondering how that gets interpreted in my appearance (e.g., how to present myself in a way that is congruent with the things I'm thinking and writing about, if that makes sense...), and most importantly, now that I'm realizing more and more the need to claim my own God-given identity and be unapologetic and fearless about it in a world where so many ideas and so many people and so many corporations do everything they can to stake their claim on the minds and bodies of others and colonize them.

Bill Cunningham New York is more than a movie about a guy who takes great pictures of great clothes. It's a portrait into one man's quest to make the radical claim that what is beautiful matters, and matters especially in a world where there is so much that's ugly and horrifying. It's about lifting others up instead of tearing them down, and about celebrating both your own unique and awesome God-given identity as well as the spectacular diversity of people all around you.

It's about the impact that one person can have on millions of other people by simply getting up every morning and deciding to get out in the world and celebrate what it means to be alive in some small way.

If the Rapture really does come tomorrow and I get raptured, I'll be sad. There's so much more that I want to do, and so many people and places I want to experience again or experience for the first time. If the Rapture comes and I don't get raptured, well, I'll be available to hang out with the rest of you heathens tomorrow night, I suppose. 

Either way, it's probably out of my hands now.

But either way, I'll be wearing my knee-high black leather Doc Marten 3-strap boots with something glam-meets-industrial/rock n' roll and sparkle eyeshadow and shiny lips. And I'll go out knowing I was trying to live as fully as possible into the fabulousness for which we were all created. 

And if the Rapture doesn't come... well, those boots are seriously really awesome. It'd be a shame to save them for the end of the world.

 

One Glittering Shard at a Time

So I’ve been pretty mope-tastic lately. So many of my classmates are getting interviews or calls… and I suppose in most cases it’s kind of like when you’re not in a relationship and all of your friends are getting married, and you look around and think, “Well, I wouldn’t necessarily want to marry any of those guys anyway,” but you’re still kind of bummed about the fact that they get to go try on dresses and eat free cake samples while you have to go see Hesher all by yourself.

(I’m joking. Of course I want to see Hesher by myself! Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks pretty darn good as a metal guy. I digress.)

Anyway. It feels like Arcata outside today, all rainy and cloudy and there’s no point in straightening my hair. I finished my last homework assignments for the semester yesterday, and I have two weeks until graduation and the start of my summer class, which leaves me with plenty of time to do one of two things:

1. Sit around and freak out some more about things I can’t control in between wasting time on the Interwebs.

2. Read some of those books I haven’t had time to read for the last 13-14 weeks (or the last 4 years). Get my résumé together and get on Craigslist (y’know, just in case). Stop isolating all the time and engage in the kinds of normal social interactions that most people, myself included, find life-giving and worthwhile. And still have plenty of time left over to waste on the Interwebs.

There are glittering shards of light and grace peeking through the clouds. They force their way through and poke me on the shoulder and say, “Hey you! Yes, you! We know that you’re determined to be all mopey, but we’d like to remind you that God exists and loves you, that many, many people give a damn about you, and that you are more than capable of injecting something good into the universe if only you’d get off the pity pot and stop worrying about what’s going to happen several months from now. Because God is on it. He really is. So seriously, check this out…”

(I have really verbose and kind of aggressive shards of light and grace, don’t I? I'm also a little annoyed that they use the expression "Get off the pity pot." I hate that expression. Anyway.)

Like there was this kid at the post office pretending his sleeve was a bow and arrow. And he pointed the “bow” and “shot” me, so I pretended I was hit and clutched my chest and made a pained expression. Three times.

Because it’s so crucial to play, even when everything feels like a job. Maybe especially then.

And I listened to the new Beastie Boys album and I felt like I was 18 all over again, and everything was possible and I wasn’t so cynical or jealous or suspicious. And I wanted to dance like I did back then, alive and electric in every inch of my body, free and flowing and not caring what it looked like because it felt good.

Because it’s so crucial to dance, even when it’s hard to really hear the music of life. Maybe especially then.

And someone said the most amazing and encouraging things that were exactly what I needed to hear, which was so good because I’ve felt so let down lately. And the fact that I didn’t even really want to be there and I wasn’t even expecting to be lifted up made it that much sweeter.

Because it’s so crucial to hear the truth about who you really are, even when you’re in the depths of convincing yourself of the lie. Maybe especially then.

And I found out there is a huge picture of me on the back cover of The Story magazine, which is completely random and weird and I had no idea they were going to do that. And I don’t have any profound nugget of insight about that… but it’s not a bad picture and hey, now I can technically say I've been on the cover of a magazine, so that’s not the least-cool thing to ever happen, right?

And a random quote that I posted on tumblr from Motley Crue’s truly excellent autobiography The Dirt got reblogged 27 times in the last few hours, so that’s pretty rad, too.

All this is to say that I am continually reminded of how much light and grace there is in the world, even when I insist on wallowing in the dark.

I am urged into joy despite my willingness to hang out in the land of boring and bleak.

I am touched to the core of my soul by other people despite my tendency to isolate more than I should.

And I am convinced that there is a reality beyond what we see in front of our faces, beyond what we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other, beyond our ability to conceive or wonder or imagine.

And it is revealing itself to us one glittering shard of light and grace at a time.

And someday we will wake up drenched in it and wonder how we missed it for so long when we were swimming around in it the whole time.

New Work, First Call, and the Ever-Looming Future

It seems fitting that as I’m still in limbo about my future/calling/career and coming to the end of a semester studying the Interwebs for a class, I’m reading Cory Doctorow’s novel Makers. I only wish I was getting some type of course credit for it.

Set sometime in the next decade or so, Makers describes an America a lot like the one you know, but a little bit different. Protagonist Suzanne Church sets out to profile the “New Work” movement, where small teams of inventors who are kind-of-independent but kind-of-financed-by-huge-corporations use Horatio-Alger ingenuity and 3D printers to dream up and create techy little tchotchkes. These include everything from a system that will tell you where any item in your house is located (cool) to a linked group of Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that can drive a car for you (even cooler).

Church is so enamored with the New Work movement and all of its freewheeling, freethinking techno-creative inventors that she leaves her job for a major newspaper to cover the movement full-time as an independent blogger. She transitions so seamlessly from the steady income of a corporate paycheck to a steady income from banner ads on her blog that it makes you think you could do it, too.

It would seem that this is a world where everyone is richer than you and smarter than you and cooler than you, but, y’know, cool enough that they don’t make a big deal out of it.

But it’s not really that kind of world that Docotow is describing. (I guess he’s left that to the likes of Seth Godin and Clay Shirky.)

There’s also a shantytown of Dr. Seuss-ish houses filled with junkies, criminals and the working poor, a wonder drug that lets formerly-obese “fatkins” eat 10,000 calories a day and maintain a supermodel physique... and a Goth Disneyworld.

I’m still in the middle of the book so I won’t attempt an in-depth critique (and please don’t tell me how it ends). I’m mostly just intrigued by the “New Work” landscape Doctorow describes… In a world where regular jobs are in increasingly short supply, this ragtag bunch of smart, creative misfits creates a counterculture where people can do work they’re excited about, make enough money to live decently, and live in communities built around mutual interest where people are in charge of their own life and destiny.

It’s not a rushing river by any means, but there is a trickle of conversation on campus and in the church in general that if you are a senior in the MDiv program, after graduation you are quickly and gracefully escorted into a call with an eagerly waiting congregation with whom you will live happily ever after.

(This trickle, of course, coming mostly from those outside the MDiv program and the assignment process, and not from those of us who are watching the calendar days slip by frighteningly fast and still have no idea what we’ll be doing with ourselves after graduation.)

The Lutheran even printed an article about the increasing difficulty and complexity of the first call process this month... an article that didn’t exactly fill me with hope or joy, but I suppose it’s good in a general sort of way so people know what it’s like right now for those of us awaiting first call.

Anyway. New Work. The future. Possibilities, not panic. Those are the things I’ve been thinking about lately.

I try to think about ways to put together a resume that downplays the fact that I’ve spent four years outside CubicleLand and plays up the fact that I have plenty of relevant and useful gifts and skills for doing many different things.

I try to think about ways I might be able to use those gifts and passions outside the path I’ve assumed I would take for the last four years, and also outside the career paths I've taken in the past that inevitably led to frustration.

I also continue to believe and hope that a call will open up – one that I can be excited about and one where the people will be excited to have me as a pastor.

I’ve been praying that God would show me God’s will for my future and my work… and if you’re the praying kind and you’re reading this, honestly, maybe throw a little prayer for me into your own prayers. Hey, it couldn’t hurt.

Because I do still panic. Maybe more than a little. I believe and hope there’s something awesome around the corner for me. But as I sit here and write this, I have no idea what it is.

I know, I know.

One day at a time. God is in charge. That Buechner quote about the world’s deep need and your deep gladness and all that. (Here it is, if you’ve never heard it.)

But seriously. Two months is not a very long time at all. And I am terribly impatient. And not terribly optimistic.

But that doesn't mean that I'm not also full of hope. And I am daily sustained in faith. And also aware of how terribly blessed I am in so many ways, not the least of which is my relationships with all of y'all who are on this walk with me.

Blogging and The Partially Open Door

I had a conversation this past weekend about this blog... about what people seem to respond to / comment on vs. what I wish or think people should respond to / comment on.

Almost always, the posts where I reveal some vulnerability about my own life or something I'm going through and then relate it to some insight about faith / spirituality / life / etc. are the one's y'all seem to like the most. I suppose that's because everyone can relate to feeling stressed out or experiencing doubt, but not as many people watch The Real World: Las Vegas or listen to death metal... and those of you who do probably don't care as much as I do about analyzing these things theologically.

(Actually, though, "Keep Jesus Out of Death Metal" continues to weirdly be the most popular entry on this blog... I wrote it a few months ago and it's still being read a few times a week on average. I have no idea who's reading it or what they think, since they never seem to comment. I'm kind of curious.)

I suppose all this goes to show that the things I'm most interested in writing about are not the things that people who read my blog are most interested in reading about. That kind of stinks, because I really love to geek out about God and pop culture, but I also understand that I probably need to be writing about shows that lots of people actually watch or music that lots of people actually listen to for that to be interesting.

(I bet if I wrote about Mumford & Sons, the indie rock band that every God-geek and their dog is slobbering all over lately, I'd get tons of responses. I tried. I really tried to like them. But they just don't do it for me. The closest I can get is maybe Foo Fighters. Or John Mark McMillan. He's amazing.)

So I suppose I could just write the stuff about my own life or struggles and faith... but the problem with that is that every week isn't really blog-worthy. Sometimes, I got nothin'. Other times, like last week when I was a big emotional mess and going through all kinds of doubt and despair and despondency and other D-words that Andy Root likes to write about... I didn't feel like telling you. I didn't want to write about how I was crying for no reason off and on all day on Tuesday, because I felt like the last thing I wanted was a bunch of e-hugs and frowny-face emoticons on my Facebook...

...or I felt like maybe there was something there for me to say about lament and despair and how they're a part of spirituality, but how far am I obligated to open the door of my own experience, my own emotions, my own life... how much of the unvarnished truth about myself do I have to reveal in the service of talking about the bigger kind of truth?

Especially to a bunch of people who don't even care what I have to say about the pornification of American culture and The Real World?

(That was kind of a joke and kind of not a joke. I don't know.)

I want to keep blogging after my media class is over. And I want to keep writing about the things I like writing about - both the personal/spiritual stuff and the pop culture stuff and the metal stuff and whatever else. But committing to blogging in the way that I've been blogging means committing to keeping that door open at least partways into my own foibles, struggles, vulnerabilities, joys, exasperations, etc... and while sharing some of that is easy, sharing some of it is really hard, and some of it is so hard that I'm not willing to do it now and I might never be.

And sometimes it's easier to write about The Real World than about my constant wondering and worrying about what I will do after graduation if I still don't have a call.

And sometimes I just feel like writing about The Real World and that's the only thing that's fired my spiritual imagination all week.

Anyway. I don't have a profound insight to wrap things up today. I've been blogging for a long time now in various ways, but it's changing as I grow more and more into becoming a public leader and embrace that role but also experience the tensions that come with it. I'm still figuring out how to navigate all that.

So, uh, let's set sail for the seas of truth and tranquility... or something... (I'm trying to play with that "navigation" thing. It's clearly not working.) So, um... have a great week. Yeah.