The 26th Of February.

02.26.10

Sometimes it feels like my life is a poorly filmed movie...with bad actors, and a director strung out from 20 years of sporadic acid trips and heavy cocaine usage.

I think that when I was in high school I had this idea that life was like a movie. And I was the main character. And God was the director.

Since then, I've learned that if life really is anything like a movie, I play such a minuscule role, a viewer would have to watch and rewind the scenes I'm in like 3 times just to be sure it actually was me. And I don't really know what part God plays any more.

Its the "True" part, I'm sure. But I'm all out of metaphorical references on this one, because I don't know how much "directing" he does. Maybe He's the guy who calls the cast. Maybe he's the audience. Maybe he's the script writer.

Whatever, its a bad analogy anyways.

Point is, my life feels like a really low budget...local...painfully eclectic art fuck kind of movie.

Only less interesting.



Tonight was great.

Today was hell.

But tonight was its own secret little miracle.

See, I worked my way over stressful minimum wage coffee shop job from 9-5. With one break. Its Saturday. Dealt with the usual dysfunction. Got all huffy and puffy about the schedule for next week. Felt under-appreciated. Underpaid. Overqualified and inadequate all at the same time.

I would elaborate further on my frustration, but the last time I checked this is public domain, and I'm not trying to talk shit.

Every one knows how it is.

The thing is, though. I have a job.

I should be content. Beyond that, I should be happy. Further, I should be fucking STOKED because the unemployment rate is REALLY high right now.

Because I am one of the richest people alive right now in the world.

I have it real good.

And yet the negativity just radiates from my angsty little latte making hands.

SO. I went to the Turf Club after work. Had a little bitch-vent-fest with my good friend Erin. She was talking about the social drama at her work. She says its a real drag. She works at an uppity sort of hair salon in the suburbs, so I can only imagine the scene.

Had a drink. Something about a screwdriver. Went home, changed - because I'd gotten a nice splurt of thousand island dressing on near every item of clothes I was wearing at work. Then I looked up this church I read about in the Star Tribune on Monday? called Urban Jerusalem.

If you're wondering whether or not it was front page in the local section, the answer is "yes". If you're wondering whether or not it is a break-dance enthused hip hop church in North Minneapolis, the answer is "no diggity doubt".

Obviously, God had me in mind when he came up with it, so.

I decided to go.

To make a short, vague and rather dull story quicker then it already is-

I walked into the wrong church.

I thought at first, the reason I was the only white person in the building was just by chance or location or something - and maybe it was. But. It also turns out that it was their annual black history month celebration ceremony.

I might have lighter skin, but I want to celebrate black history just as much as the next person. If not even, maybe, a smidgen more.

So I did what any white girl from the suburbs under 5 feet would do alone.

I stayed.
I cheered.
I laughed.
I sang.
I payed attention, stood and sat on cue, bowed my head, clapped my hands and quieted myself to listen.

What baffled me the most, beyond the beauty of it all, was that I heard the same message preached tonight that I will hear tomorrow morning. Where people talk different, dress different and do life different. I will hear the same message at church on Tuesday night. Where the train hoppers, musicians, artists, freaks, weirdos and normal folk in their own right will meet over in the phillips neighborhood.

That message is this: That Jesus saves.

And THIS is what gives ME hope.

That no matter how BIG we will fail (and I do. more than most). That no matter how MANY wrongs we've got under our belts, how many wounds we've got from the wrongs of others, that no matter what language we speak, what color of skin we wear over our bones, whatever social circumstance we've been born into or have ended up in, no matter how lost or how found we think we are...

We are united by human condition.

By lack. By fault. By longing. By Suffering. By pain.

And we are united by the same hope.
And we are united by a God called Love.

And whether or not we stand united in FAITH, I believe that we all stand united by GRACE.

Because He died for us all.

and hallelujah, I have faith.
and hallelujah, I know grace.

And whether or not we know each others stories or names, we can look at each other and say

"Hello! Hallelujah. You are loved."
"Hello! Hallelujah. We are the Children of God."








I've been meaning to put this up for almost a month now. I'm what professors call a bit of a "PROCRASTINATOR". more to come soon.

love.

The Greener Side

I might be the only person who sees it, but...

I am especially beautiful today.

The story goes as follows:

Jesus looks for girl.
Girl finds Jesus, and in such becomes found.
Jesus loves girl.
Girl loves Jesus back.

Everything in-between gets fuzzy pretty fast.

And I mean that both metaphorically and literally.

Put bluntly - last night my friend had to wash my pants because a drunken rap-sing song-ey version of myself threw up on them a little bit. This morning, the contents of my jacket pocket was a couple of crumpled singles, a guitar pick, some change, and half a pack of American Spirits. I've got a voice that hurts to speak or swallow, and admittedly feel all mucus-y and gross.

I quit smoking a month ago. I think.

The good news is that Jesus doesn't tell me to get fixed before he looks for me. And then when I find him; answer to that little voice inside that says "MORE", He doesn't expect me to get fixed before He takes me on a date to the movies.

And as of right now, I know there IS more.

What I know-

And I've learned to know that I know, (really know) just a few things.

What I know is that I can rejoice.

I can rejoice in the love of a savior who said "I love you, anyway."
I can rejoice in the death and resurrection of a God who has defeated everything of any remote evil. I can rejoice in the simple gospel message. I can rejoice in all the little things between the big, shitty things.

I rejoice.

I will say this, though, its a struggle figuring out what to do on a daily basis. Where to go - how to get there. If I had one prayer today, it would be this.

God.

Show me what love looks like in the real world. This world. With the hang-ups and failures, and injustices, and brokenness that we all have and are. I ask that I would be consumed first with love that knows no condition. And next, joy. And Peace, and patience, and self control. So that in and because of Your grace, I can be those things to others. I keep becoming more centered on myself. Bad habits included. But I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, because Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, this body, imperfect, hung over, and adorned with scars and tattoos, I live by faith in the Son of God. Who loved me. Who died for me. Teach me to press on with my head held high - to walk by faith and not by sight. To keep my eyes on Zion.


See, I am especially beautiful today. I haven't a drop of makeup on my face, the same exact outfit that I wore yesterday and threw up on last night, messy hair, unbrushed teeth and the same extra however many pounds I could stand to lose pushing my shirt too tight. BUT. I smile from the inside out today, because I am found.

I have a light that starts in my chest, bubbles up my throat, spreads to my face and escapes through my eyes because I am not CONCERNED today. I'm not concerned about how wrong the church has been. About how wrong I've been. About how I have been wronged by this that and the other person. I am not CONCERNED today about whether or not the Christians think I'm too potty mouthed and abstract, and I am not concerned that the Atheists think that I'm a fool (even the attractive ones). I am not concerned today, because I woke up basking in the same beautiful clear sky sun that I've learned to call Mercy. Grace. Forgiveness. Hope.

I am especially beautiful today, because this beauty is not. my. own.

It feels great to FINALLY be on the greener side. The grass smells really good here.

<3

"Emergency Stop"

About 2 years ago, give or take, I swore to myself that I would NEVER quit smoking AGAIN, because quitting was damn near one of the hardest things I ever did do. But, of course, that would mean that if I ever started up again, I would just have to keep smoking until my lungs swelled up till they bent my spine and at the ripe old age of 50 or something tragic, I'd cough up both of them, and I'd be pronounced both "dead" and "dumber than they though I was". Lo and behold, though, last year around this time, I thought it'd be a good idea if I made a little visit to my old bad habit. After all, it DID help me relax, and I was going through a tough time. So one cigarette a week, which, was seemingly harmless, turned into one a day, which was not notable still, turned into 26 or however many come prepackaged and the next thing I know I'm a fiend, and a fiend who forgot what I swore.

It was the first of many decisions I made at the beginning of last year, that lasted and progressed into my own digression of sorts. First it was smoking cigarettes, then smoking other things, again, then drinking, alone, usually, which ironically, turned me into a social bar butterfly that fluttered and flirted itself from place to place every day of the week, running into about a billion ecstatic acquaintances. I saw a lot of good shows, met a good deal of interesting people, and woke up looking at a face that couldn't really see who was in front of them, once or twice or three times. Towards the end of 2009, I realized that I was living this sort of lonely-sulk-self-loathing kind of lifestyle (during the day) that was largely due to my abandonment of self. Who I am, really, is much cooler, I hope. ;)

God took my heart little by little, in poems and song and art and in longing. By the end of the year I was had by Him. I just wanted Him. The One who would not leave or forsake me; the One who does not fade; the One who truly, wholly, unconditionally, and unimaginably loves me.

I made this decision to throw all the other stuff out. The "need" for it, at least. The "need" for a drink. The "need" for a cigarette. The "need" for a man to tell me I'm worth more than first glance. I looked to that God who had me, and he said that His grace was sufficient, and I said "so YOU are all that I need."

Its been a hell of a month.


There is this disproportionately big red button on each of the treadmills at the YMCA. In bold white letters it reads, simply:

"EMERGENCY STOP"

Normally, when I'm on the machine, it doesn't phase me, even for second, because I'm too busy air-drum-running with the strokes or kanye west.

But today, that big red button stared me straight in the face - even as I had only gone 1 of my daily 3 miles. It begged me to quit; beckoned my hands as the sweat from my head found my cheek and the awkward tug of a calf muscle stretched and pressed and pulled too tight, it said "this is all it'd take to be done."

And I could've at that moment abruptly changed my view, from the numbers of the distance, speed and time to the floor, where instead, I could stand - and breathe - and walk back to the locker room where I'd shower and move along with my night, but I pressed on as far as I would to the 2 mile mark.

The thing is, I've done practically nothing for the past 3 weeks but work. run. read. and go to church. Its been surprisingly wonderful, and surprisingly terrible.

I now officially call myself a "non smoker".
I've had a few drinks since the First (when the wheels of resolution hit the pavement), but not like I used to.
Also, I haven't been laid in like 2 months.

To your average "Christian" this might be unimpressive. But to me, its like pulling the biggest 180 in human history.

After I showered and got dressed after my semi-half-assed and yet some how still terribly difficult, work out, I thought about that button.

How its Saturday night and I'm all dolled up with no where to go. How the only people who have initiated any sort of phone conversation via text or otherwise in the past week have either seen me naked or want to get me drunk, as all my close friends have seemingly faded into the past. How I know 20 different venues in the surrounding cities that I could arrive at, be welcomed by and feeling giddy and in a matter of moments; where the music would be played and the beer would be drank and that I would be flirting and smoking and laughing that silly drunk southern accent laugh like do and I would feel okay...

But I know from a year or two or three, off and on at least, that I wouldn't be smiling in the morning. And that all too easily, if I press that big red "emergency stop" button, I'll need the quick fix tomorrow too, and it won't just be THIS night.

The book of Romans has been helping me along greatly, in this new life.

In Chapter 5 verses 3-5 Paul writes

"We can rejoice too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment, for we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the holy spirit to fill our hearts with Love."

I guess sometimes, when you are filling a void, getting rid of what you're filling it with doesn't necessarily make the void go away. So it is with prayer for consumption by a God who gives unmerited grace to us that I "just keep swimming" day by day by day.

"yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

The Faithful love of the Lord never ends.
His mercies never cease.
Great is His Faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself "the Lord is my inheritance,
therefore I hope in Him."

-Lamentations 3 :24

Sex and C.S. Lewis

Among the many questions I have wrestled with over the years, in and with my faith in God, stands prominently and dauntingly the inquiry of why a Good Lord, who is omnipotent and unchanging would allow His creation, whom He says he loves, such suffering.
We as humanity have experienced suffering in many forms and facets. Some know it so much as hell on earth, some know just enough to know that heaven exists...and this is not it.

A week or so back, I told God that if he wished the life of Job for me, however noble in endurance, however great with steadfast faith, however sweet the end reward...that I would be much obliged if instead, he would just spare me the hassle and take me right then. After all, I know this world is not my home, as my soul feels its lack here...and what better place to be then in the arms of my Maker - my redeemer, my savior, my father, my lover, my friend and my God?

But alas, he did not.

I was reminded of my recent resurrection, where in, I stated, wholeheartedly that I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God - who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I started reading Rob Bell's book "Sex God" yesterday. And by start, I mean I read 5 of the 9 chapters. I've had it stuffed with other books and gifts among countless other boxes, for almost a year, honestly. It was apart of a 'try-to-win-me-back' package from a man I'd recently broken up with. I'd wanted us to read it together, months before but...it never happened. Not when I needed it to. In the book, the author writes

"Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don't want it".

Its funny, because I feel like I was created to love, and yet...for so much of my life, my adventurous, silly, risk taking heart has been handed back. I've been under the impression for many of those years that there was good reason behind it - the handing back of a heart from friends, and family and strangers and yes, of course, and most often in my case, the opposite sex. But I've decided not to take that SAME risk this next year. Not because I won't ever again take the risk, or because I won't love at all...but because I want all the room in my heart to be a gift given and received by Jesus. From Him, to me, and out into the world.

A broken heart is just one (though not to be taken lightly) small portion of suffering.

There is loss, as in death, from which there is no cure.
There is hunger, and physical pain.
There is disease and war, and poverty.
There is injustice and cruelty.
There are physical and mental illnesses that effect every one around them.
There are betrayals, and harsh words; there are house fires and national distasters...
and really, the list goes on and on.

I have it SO good, if you compare, with human eyes, my life and world to the majority of those living on earth and YET, I too, know pain. We all do.

Just this week, I've been in 2 car accidents, have been confined to the couch, home sick, missing 2 work days, my grandma was put into the hospital because she broke her back, I was overlooked by both of my brothers in our traditional gift exchange, though I put a good deal of though into theirs, lost 1/2 my paycheck - a full time weeks wages on getting my new car (which is now totaled) out of the ditch and also, and in the meantime, I don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life.

And as tempted as I am to throw my hands in the air and write up comedic line or two for the fine readers of fmlquotes.com, I know that I am SO blessed, still.

"There's so much to enjoy, and yet we fixate on something we don't have...Until we can center ourselves on what we DO have, on what God has given us, on the life we DO get to live, we'll constantly be looking for another life. That is why the word 'remember' occurs so often in the bible."

Beyond gratefulness, though... is this:

"Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter, and shake our fist and the sky and say 'GOD! You don't know what its like! You don't understand. You have no idea what I'm going through. You have no clue how much this hurts...

The Cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses and arguments.

The Cross, is God taking on flesh and blood and saying "ME TOO."

(Sex God pg 106)

I believe this is where, how alive in Christ we suffer WITH Him.

I began to read the series of spiritual classics by C.S. Lewis. The kickoff of the 6 books, fittingly, is "The Problem of Pain - how human suffering raises almost intolerable intellectual problems" In the introduction, he explains -

"Christianity is not the conclusion of a philosophical debate on the origins of the universe: it is a catastrophic historical event following the spiritual preparation of humanity which I have described...

It is not a system into which we have to fit the awkward fact of pain: it is itself one of the awkward facts which have to be fitted into any system we make. In a sense, it creates, rather than solves the problem of pain, for pain would be no problem unless, side by side ith our daily experience of this painful world , we have received what we think a good assurance that Ultimate Reality is righteous and loving."

That last line really brings it home for me. "Unless, side by side with our daily experience of this painful world, we have received what we think a good assurance that the ULTIMATE REALITY is righteous and loving.

As Christians, we believe that ultimate reality, what is truly real...is also truly good.

In a letter to the church in Corinth, Paul writes, "For Just as the sufferings of Christ flow into our lives, so also through Christ, our Comfort overflows."

Now I can't say that everything happens for a reason. I don't think it does - I think that God mourns with us, and is also angered by injustice. I KNOW bad things happen to innocent children, and good people who the world could use, die while people who take from others, live. I don't think that there is always a REASON for our suffering, but I do know this: That God calls himself the God of Comfort. And that He, above all else, is Good. And that in His Suffering, which he DID, as he became flesh, and was tortured and murdered for OUR sin, while we rejected his love...he defeated Death.

"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"^h]"> The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That is reason enough to keep on swimming, for me.

p.s. if any one reads this, and you think "that there is no answer good enough for suffering, and any explanation just feels like a cop-out, and you kind of just want to laugh at the attempt to rationalize it, because its so bad, and there is just no excuse that even God could give...i feel that. and i think i understand. because i've told that to God a great number of times.

love,

naomi

New Beginnings

I'm a pretty dedicated journal-er these days. I have been for years, but its become more frequent and meaningful to me since I kicked off my summer spiritual journey/road trip extravaganza this past June.
Its hard to believe that was literally half a year ago now, but at the same time, some how, it also feels like its been ages; decades; internal centuries ago.
The last book, bound in light, lined, off white pages was filled in less than a month with metaphores, failures, ideas, victories and mundane, 'day to day' happenstances pressed in by the same kind of fine point sharpies that I used to originally jot this entry down with. It was a step towards "author-dom" compared to my other writings, as each entry was prefaced by a chapter number and "title" . I began the book by a chapter (notably, on the first day of the month and the first of its kind) called "/leap of faith/."

Its been a topsy-turvey journey into the 'river of life' I know as God's love. It would be naive to think that this new hope would not be met with a set of obstacles, but it would be a travesty is I did not wish to see past them.
So I'm pressing on - still knee deep in confusion, still too weak to trust much.

I've recently re-given myself to God.

After a year of heavy partying, random or real, but faulty, regardless, relationships and month after month of feeling a thick and often unaltered isolation, I have decided that feeling "free" to do as I please without the so-called-guilt or pressure to do otherwise by God, really isn't freedom at all.
That freedom is but a mirage that appeals us to come closer; to dig deeper; to fall forward head over heals for, and then vanishes at the assault of reality which so solemnly declares that it will never (ever) be enough.

John chapter 4 encompasses a story about an unfaithful, socially unaccepted woman who is at Jacob's well in Samaria, and her encounter with Jesus. When they had been acquainted, Jesus said to the woman
"Every one who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Now, I do not believe that drawing water from a well to drink is in any way, shape or form "sin". It would be foolish of me to conclude that, and if I did, a pious, more rule abiding version of myself, would surely die a miserable death of dehydration at some point this or next week. We need water to live. It is a basic necessity. But the symbolism in the passage speaks of a life that is not of the body, not of the flesh, but of the soul; the spirit.

"And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom".

I want to know what freedom really is, and i have an inkling from my past failed attempt to find it, that it resembles sweetly, and meekly, an attitude of surrender to He who gives us life.

I don't want to run from one broken relationship to the next; drink each night into another lonely day, gather wealth and power and possessions only to desire more with a thirst that cannot be quenched. No, I want to live each day full of True Life, alive in the spirit, which, resurrected through Christ is not swayed or taken or changed by circumstance.

"I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for NOTHING!" (gal 2.20-21)

So in my surrender to Christ, as I choose to live my life by faith, my favor with Him is not claimed by my righteousness, but by His grace, which I am humbly responding to.

This blog is my attempt at sharing my heart, my searching and findings, my journey into the next year 2010, to all the fine folks scanning the inter-web. My goal is to do at least a weekly update.

My desire is to know Jesus.

Christians, atheists, Buddhists, scientists, skeptics, agnostics, teachers, scholars, and historians can all agree that Jesus lived. He existed. He was real.

I believe He was the Son of God.

I dislike a great deal of Christian culture, regret to be an affiliate of an organized religion that has caused the world such pain, and am reluctant to put myself in their little club. But with the life I have lived, the thoughts I have processed, the experiences that have molded my understanding of this existence so far, I simply cannot deny God, and will not deny Christ. Not any more, at least.

So journey with me if you will...

Ignore me if you won't.

But I'll be here.

<3naomi