A Public Loneliness

As you probably have noticed if you've known me much at all, I'm an extrovert. Just to clear up confusion, being an extrovert means that I pull energy from other people. An extrovert is not necessarily a people person or extremely outgoing, although I am both. Introversion, conversely, means that you derive energy from being alone. (I would suggest finding a Myers Briggs personality profile if you've never done one. It's a great way to learn a little more about the reason you act and react in certain ways.)

My extroversion is fairly strong. If I go very long without being around people I just can't stay awake. I used to work in a cubicle, which many of you likely remember. This was torture for me because I did nothing but sit alone and wait for the phone to ring. While the conditions of the work environment were fairly good I felt like I was being punished for some wrong that I didn't know I had done. No amount of pay can make up for this kind of ill-fitting work environment.

I've recently been quite aware of a loneliness to which I am prone. I have spent the last week at Urbana 09 with 16,000+ people. I've been in very large crowds and yet somehow have felt completely alone. While sitting next to my dear friend, Brea, one night I turned to her and said, “I need to have an exciting conversation with someone I barely know.” She laughed a little but knew exactly what I was talking about. You would think that being surrounded by 16,000+ people would be enough to keep any extrovert awake for days, but it simply wasn't enough. I realized that it wasn't just that I needed to be around people but that I needed to connect. I suddenly understood the connection this had with dating. My desire to date and flirt is a product of this public loneliness.

So I've now identified the issue. Beyond just presence with others, I need a connection with another in order to feel satisfied. Once again, it seems like it would be an easy thing to find among Christians, but it may be that Christians are harder to connect with that non-Christians. (I'll go more into this at a later date.) I'm really not sure why this is true sometimes and not other times, but it appears to be a reality. There are definitely times in my life when just being near someone satisfies my extroversion.

Once one has identified an issue the next logical step is to find a solution. (Many of you know my preference for being logical and have most likely chuckled a bit at this statement. Now that you have returned, I'll continue...) My problem has now become apparent. I have no clue what the solution is to this one. Obviously the ideal solution is to find someone with whom to have a conversation. Easier said than done my friends, as I'm sure you are aware. I know people who have no problems striking up conversation with anyone and everyone (anybody just get an image of Peter Gill in their heads? Yeah, me too.) While I'm definitely not ashamed to have conversations with strangers my fear of rejection hinders me. I don't want to impose myself on people who likely have much more important things to do that talk to me.

Your turn. Please share with me your experiences and suggestions. This is a concept you may see repeated in this blog as I continue to understand myself and my relationship to others.

Urbana 09

Urbana 09 has, thus far, been a unique experience. I was a delegate at Urbana 03, the last one in Champaign, IL. At this Urbana I am a steward working with the Intervarsity Press Accounting team. I basically have been sitting in a guarded room counting the money from the bookstore sales. I'm glad to have the opportunity to serve such an amazing convention, but somewhat sad to not have the experience I know the students are having.

Urbana is a life-changing week of challenging speakers and stretching seminars. The students (delegates) go to manuscripts studies in the morning, Bible exposition late morning, seminars early afternoon, and plenary sessions in the evenings. In the midst of all this they are in family groups to discuss their experiences and have conversations with peers and staff who care about their growth during the week. There are also hundreds of missionary organizations and schools with booths available to help the students explore the possibilities. Truly an amazing experience.

My wonderful friend, Brea, has accompanied me this week to work along side me counting money. I've learned that she has an awesome speed to count money. Apart from counting loads of cash, I've been blessed with the opportunity to meet the wonderful people of Avant Ministries, the mission organization through which Brea will be sent to Italy next summer. These people have a passion for God and short-cycle church planting around the world. They have been good counsel, hearty laughs and wonderful encouragement. They have also brought some very full stomachs. Sunday night we had an Afghan meal and tonight we had Mediterranean.

The Scripture focus for this week has been John 1-4 with the catch phrase coming from the first chapter, "The Word became flesh." They have talked about the ways that Jesus has moved into our neighborhoods and what it means for us to serve incarnationally. Monday morning we studied the story of Jesus meeting Nathanael and reminding him that He has known him before this time.

My faith has seemed very dry for the past few months. Even when I have attempted to meet with God I have felt that He has been purposefully silent. I have struggled with questions that have shaken my faith and have at times worried that my questions would effect my salvation. I have been reminded by wonderful friends that God is not intimidated by my fears and concerns and that He is present even through the droughts.

My prayer Monday night was that God would acknowledge and remind me that he has seen me and known me. I chose to sit under the "fig tree" by coming to Urbana and attempting to meet with God. God was gracious to answer my prayer. Through a variety of amazing conversations my passion has been restored. (More on this in the next post.) While my questions remain and my soul still feels dry, I know that God is present in my quest and has been near.

Thanks be to God.

Faith Traditions

I've been in church for my whole life. My dad was a pastor when I was young and I've been serving various ministries forever. My faith is a very important part of my life. But as any faith should it challenges me on a regular basis. I made a decision in college that I wouldn't live my parent's religion or buy into anyone's specific tradition. I know that I am unique and therefore my faith traditions and needs will be unique.

I've been in a variety of different kinds of churches over the years and for the most part my non-denominational roots have been the most satisfying long term. But at some points in my life they have not been. Like now.

I'm reading a book called "Sacred Rhythms" which talks about the fact that as our lives have a rhythm, so must our spiritual practices. We must be willing to change our habits and disciplines as our lives change, constantly searching for the best ways to know and understand God.

One of the things that has always grown me the most is hearing other people's stories of faith. It awakens my heart to the many ways God works in the lives and souls of different kinds of people. I love that my God is big enough to be so personal.

So here's what I need from you, my reader. Please tell me your story. Email me or call me or ask me out for tea. I'd love to hear it. Really. I need to hear it. How did you decide on your faith tradition? How have you chosen the spiritual practices that are a part of your life?

Thank you to Dr. Talbert and Ryan D. for helping me take hold of this search. I appreciate your input.

"When God Interrupts" by M. Craig Barnes

This was a fantastic book! I'm sure there will be at least one more post from this book. Here are some of my favorite lines:

*Saints aren't born. They are made along the way. p. 16

*We are invited to witness what Episcopal priest Alan Jones has called the "unfinishedness of human existence." p. 16

*We will probably spend most of life with family, friends, good health, and good work. But they are not ours by rights. They are not promised to us. We may have to give them back to God at any moment. Someday we will give back. The trick is to learn how to do that before they leave us. That allows us to spend the rest of our lives enjoying them as the temporary gifts that they are.

*Abandonment has become a permanent social dynamic that is feeding off itself. As children of broken homes grow older, they find it difficult to trust commitments and frequently sabotage them out of fear. Some never get close enough to be hurt. Others just make sure they always leave first. p. 19

*In the future we will need to maintain faith in God in the midst of serious doubts that anything is certain. p. 21

*If Christian vocation is about what you are called to do, Christian conversion is about what you are called to be. p. 23

*But the main reason we don't want to go to the place Christ would call us is that we know that we will have to abandon our most cherished images of who we are. p. 23

*Nothing is ever wasted when God converts us. What we want changed is what God wants to transform into something useful. He will use our past hurts, our long detours in the wrong direction, our old gifts and skills. He will use all that religious stuff we've learned, and all those memory verses. p. 35

*They ponder. They get perplexed. The thin veneer of the ordinary has been scratched. p. 40

*These interruptions proclaim that life is not what we hoped for. It isn't even what we had settled for. God has interrupted our ordinary expectations, as cherished as they were, to conceive something. We can't manage it. We can't even understand it. All we can do is receive it. Because if God has conceived this thing, then it is holy, and it will save our lives. p. 41

*But we do know that no interruptions, be it tragic or delightful, is greater than our God. p. 42

*So we gather at church, young and old alike. Some of us Mary. Some of us Elizabeth. But our common terrifying realization, that life is not what we had thought, binds us together in a unified confession that God is mysteriously at work. And in that confession, hope is conceived. p. 42

*Conversion always occurs en route that places we do not wish to go. We can get there only if we have abandoned hope of returning to the place where we would rather be. p. 44

*When Christians really believe they need a savior, they are not as tempted to try to be the saviour for others. p. 51

*But making a difference is not the point. Giving love away is the point, and we can only do that if we have fallen in love with the grace of our own saviour. p. 52

*The challenge to people of faith is to learn how to follow. Central to that task is giving up the expectation of knowing where we are going.

*It is possible to get so lost in the success of our choices that we assume success means our choices were right. But typically, success is just one more reason we need a savior. p. 67

*Jesus, the coming Judge, chose to descend in to the ambiguities of compromised, complicated, and conflicted lives. p. 69

*We killed Jesus, not because he claimed to be the Messiah but because he became like us. This is a blasphemy against our greatest hopes for what a messiah will do. p. 69

*There is no better way to lose your life than to constantly measure it. p. 71

*Christianity isn't something we get good at. If the goal is to receive the love of God, then the only way to progress in the faith is to confess how lost we have become. p. 73

*Failure is refusing to risk what will happen if we follow Jesus. p. 74

*Faith means betting our lives on the grace of God. p. 75

*a calling to love our God, who saves us from the things we do to make us worthy of a love that can only be received. p. 80

*Jesus is the savior who encounters us in the midst of our futile plans for making life better. p. 90

*The Healer is with us, and he is with this world that is running out of plans.

*Every abandonment is the invitation ot strive with God. p. 100

*As we struggle to understand and fearfully take God on, the promise is that we too will see his force. He does not give us the things we want. he does not give us explanations. he just gives us himself. In the church we call that discovery worship. And that, we believe, is the purpose of life. p. 100

*If the church limits its ministry to holding up the "ideal family," it will miss its great opportunity to participate in God's conversion of those who long ago were abandoned by their ideals.

*But if we focus too narrowly on the dream we thought the savior would give us, then it is the dream that has become the savior, not Jesus. p. 116

*The deep fear lying behind every loss is that we have been abandoned by the God who should have saved us. The transforming moment in Christian conversion comes when we realize that even God has left us. We then discover it was not God, but our image of God, that abandoned us. This frees us to discover more of the mystery of God than we knew. Only then is change possible. p. 123

*He loves us too much to let our health, marriage or work become the savior of our lives. p. 124

*To receive Jesus as Savior means recognizing him asouronly help. p. 124

*Faith is what binds us to Christ when everything is gone, including our most cherished expectations of him. p. 126

*Once we discover that God has joined our tears and can be moved with compassion, the world becomes a very unpredictable place. p. 127

*It is not until we tire of the things we can do for ourselves in the Christian life that we will open ourselves to real conversion, which can be accomplished only by God. p. 130

*The best way to strengthen faith is not to scrutinize it, but to look at the One in whom we are trusting. p. 132

*I also get to watch how faith develops as a response to the silence of God. p. 135

*It was the search for the sacred that drove Tom away for the too-well-rehearsed answers that had been so much a part of his Christian background. He craved a relationship to something truly sacred, but all he had was a stale orthodoxy. If belief is nothing more than the right answers, it is not belief in God but in a religious system. p. 136

*Like the prodigal son, doubters don't come back to the Father's house because they have figured things out. p. 136

*Whenever we domesticate the mysterious into something familiar, it abandons us. p. 139

*If we are to find God, it will only be as a result of his finding us. God will have to join in our abandonment. p. 140

*Easter can't have an ending. it is not about what is finished but about what has just begun - a future that is so mysterious only God could write it. p. 143

*On the other side of abandonment, all of life becomes an expression of gratitude. The journey through loss was long and filled with pain. It cost us our lives. At the bottom of the abandonment, the only thing that was left was the love of God. But to be alone with the love of God is the only way to find life again. p. 144

*Either we believe life is something that must be achieved, or we believe life is something that can only be received. Once we start seeing this choice in the Bible, we find it on almost every page. p. 145

*But the truth is that the diseases of life have left us alliwth crippled relationships,crippled dreams and crippled health. By the time we make it to Jesus, all that is left is our rather common need for mercy. p. 149

*Our mission of service to God can never, never begin by thinking we have something to offer. p. 150

*If the first lesson on mission is to turn toward our suffering, the second is to then turn back to Jesus Christ in thanksgiving. p. 150

*Mission is simply what we find irresistible to do when we believe God loves us. p. 150

*As we make our way through the many abandonments of life and discover the new life that God is continuing to create, we realize that this new life does not look totally strange to us. What it looks like is a purer form of ourselves. It is the self we were created to be from the beginning. It is the restoration of the image of God in our lives. p. 157

*The saving work of Jesus Christ is that he finds us after we have lost our way trying to become something other than we are. p. 157

*However, if our starting place for mission is joyful gratitude for what God has done and is doing and is going to do, we are less likely to take over as anxious substitutes for the Creator. p. 158

*There is nothing as joyful as witnessing the salvation of the Lord. p. 158

quotes

“If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes.” - Corrie Ten Boom

“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” - Dr. Seuss

Writing

I've never thought of myself as a writer. Can't quite get my mind around the idea that I enjoy writing, but I honestly do. I enjoy watching my ideas take shape on the page. When I'm writing my hand, I love the feeling of the paper on the side ofmy hadn. I can' t stand a pen that doesn't write well or ink that doesn't contrast wit thepage. My words deserve more than that. They deserve the weight of good ink. When I'm typing I lose myself in the somewhat rythmic sound of clicking keys.

My biggest problem when writing is critiquiing my work. If I go back and read it at all I know I'll want to delete or scratch out half of it. I immediately start feeling unworhty of the space. Of course no one will care about what I've written. I'm just a kid with nothing important to say.

I guess most of my desire to write comes from a fear of being forgotten. I'm afraid that if I don't leave someting for them to find, they may just forget I existed. I realize this is a bit unreasonable. People do care about me and will remember me. I remember them. I remember those I shared part of my life with. I'm not really sure i would want people to remember me by what I've written. Most of it eludes to the paoin and yuckiness I've been through. Almost never am I writing out of the simple contentment that rules my daily life. Yep, still breathing. Ahh, a cool breeze. Warm sun on my face through the car window. The dog's fur seems softer than usual. In general I am content. But that' snot what makes it to the page.

All of this makes me hesitant to write. I'm afraid that I'm writing just for some kind of recognition. I realize that recognition as a basis for anything is a set up for disaster. I'm just begging to be let down. No one can be expected to acknowldege me enough to satisfy my selfish nature.

I've found that silence inspires my creativity. As an extrovert,I thrive on communication. Being with others gives me power and vitality. SOmehow this seems to stifle my creativity & writing ability. In order to quiet myself enough to get out all the stuff in my head I have to stop talking. To really be heard, I have to be quiet. Unfortunately, I'm not quiet very often.

My favorite place

There is this place in the center of a man's chest. When your head is just below his collar bone and above his stomach. It is somehow firm and soft at the same time. Its close to his heart and in the middle of his arms.

This is the place one can feel the most safe. But it's more than just safety.

Safety is what you feel when you find this place on your dad or big brother. Its the place your dad holds you to when you've skinned your knee or your friends have been mean to you. If you're lucky that is...

Protection is what you feel when you find this place on another man, boyfriend, lover, fantastic friend. Its the place you get to be when you can't be anywhere else. When all there is left to do is be held, it's where you go.

This is the kind of place that requires no response. You don't even have to hug him back when he holds you there. This is the place you can just go limp from the exhaustion. You can just be held there, listening to his heart beat, knowing that he would love to fix every single thing in the world that hurts you. You can know that he wants to protect you and keep you safe from harm.

This is a place of commitment. Without words he is promising that you will always have that spot. Even when no where else in your life is secure, you'll have that place.

Lucky for me, you can find this spot in just about all me. The good ones at least. If you're not getting it from a dad, you can find it in a brother. If you're not getting it from a lover, you might find it in a friend.

I'm glad to have found the spot.