wealth

i see a t.v. preacher promoting his 'financial breakthrough bible' and the 'four miracles god will release into your life'. before that, he proclaimed God's coming judgement on the u.s. for its inappropriate sex and abortion.

i look once more at this man, shouting into his microphone, wearing a great big red silk tie, an enormous gold ring on his finger, and an expensive-looking suit that covers his enormous body.

my confession:  i eat more than my body needs.  it's true.  where in my caloric intake does ice cream play a part in aiding the nutrition of my body?  it does not.  i call myself out: i'm a sinner who eats more than i need to.

the increasing reality of americans' obsession with food can be clearly seen in their volume.  cars become suvs [for suburban commuters] to accomodate the size of passengers.  rollercoasters now boast rows of larger seats for their guests.  tv channels that once provided science education now air programs about 800+ pound persons' addictions to take-out, their bed-bound lives, their gastric bypass surgeries, and their deaths.

it is easy to point out obese people and their obvious problem: food addiction.  but we must think on our own selves as well.  how much are we eating?  what money are we spending frivolously that could be used to help the poor - as Jesus asks us to?

if one person who purchases a cup of coffee three to four times a week gives up the java and puts that money towards a poor child; that person could sponsor a kid in africa for his or her education, healthcare, food and more... for years.

Jesus calls us to love God and love our neighbor.  more specifically, He calls us to do three things to honor God:  pray, give, fast.  i admit, i struggle to do all three of those.  it may be difficult because of the implications our western society puts on us as its citizens, fueling our selfish, sinful nature.

1. pray - prayer constitutes the simple act of quieting the mind and communing with God. listening to Him, and speaking with Him [beyond asking for trivial things & saying thanks for dinner].  how do we achieve quiet?  put down the crackberry, hush the tweeting, log off of facebook.  turn off the mobile phone, step outside, lie down in the grass and be quiet.  do that for more than 10 minutes and find out how much you hear.

2. give - God wants us to take care of the misfortunate because it brings honor to His name.
  instinct tells us that the man on the street asking for change will use it the next minute to buy booze or crack.  does Jesus ask us to judge what he'll do with that money?  if we're honest with ourselves, as much as we think we work hard to "earn" money, we can't deny that God gave us the skills... and provided education... and put us in the job... and He's the one who truly earned us our paychecks.  the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it.  even two dollars in your pocket belongs to God - let His will be done when we give to strangers.

3. fast - this one is the most oft ignored among american Christ-followers.  we don't think about *not* eating, mostly because we have in our country a ridiculous abundance of food.  God spoke to the prophet isaiah, telling him that He wants a fast that's pure - a heart that wants to give up food so it can give that food to the hungry.  He says if we do this, "then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear.  then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard."  awesome, awesome things happen when we choose the righteous path.  what's holding us back?

Not even at a crossroads

Hello friends of the internet,

Now that NaNoWriMo is over (as well as No-Shave November, which I haven't personally concluded) I can do other things with the time I don't spend at work or with people. I ended at 50,062-something words, although my novel isn't near finished. I had kind of mapped out a plot in my mind, and would skip ahead to write different parts, bouncing back and forth so I wouldn't tire of a particular part of the story. Maybe I'll complete the story during next November.

Recently I read the first half of The Secret Life of Bees, recommended to me by Christine Barlow two summers back. Last night I began reading The Lord of the Rings, because this weekend a TV channel aired all three movies of the "trilogy" and I felt my brain could use some stimulation from Tolkien's adventures in language. (Writing my own wimpy book, I could see how awfully limited my own vocabulary is right now - which I attribute to only having been required to write about art during the past four years of my life)

Right now, I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. It's much more difficult to discern the call of God when I don't spend time listening. I read Brennan Manning's The Signature of Jesus, in which he described how to do a "centering prayer". It's meditative, and you do it for about twenty minutes at a time, before breakfast or dinner so your soul can connect with the hunger of your body. My problem is that I need a clean, peaceful space to do it, and my room is not in that condition at the moment. I miss the Christopher House in a time like this, because it had the chapel - small, intimate, quiet. Lined with a few chairs, stocked with diverse musical instruments for worship, and with candles always lit, it really felt like a sacred space where we as individuals or the whole fellowship could come for quiet (or loud!) time with the Lord, because that space was created specifically to meet with Him there.

Soon I'll be starting a youth ministry internship at my church, which I'm pretty ecstatic about. It makes me very glad that God doesn't call the qualified, but qualifies the called. I'll make curriculums for pre-school through senior high, teach, lead events, work on communications (don't I wish I took some graphic design courses?), and learn how to administrate. My pastor and the elder in charge of youth will be mentoring me through the process, so I'm going to ask that they also keep me accountable for my own spiritual growth, challenging me through this season (ooo, Christian vocab word).

Unpaid internships usually need to be paired with part-time jobs, so that's the thing I worry about. Working at Pier 1 has been a lot of fun, I actually enjoy it a lot, but I'm unure how long employment lasts after the buy-stuff-in-December season ends. (don't you hate having to associate Jesus' birthday with giving gifts to everyone but Him?) The career-building/resume-sending/connect-with-employers websites are okay. Without a degree in nursing or engineering, there aren't many jobs available. There are a few positions as postal workers or typists for the state, so perhaps something like that will hold me over. I feel like I just need a short-term job where I can earn some money to save up for a car; and once I have that, I'll have mobility and I'll be independent and I'll have peace about that.

Saturday was a really cool day because I got to hang out with a bunch of people I graduated high school with, whom I hadn't seen in maybe two or three years. It was hard not to feel discouraged, though, because they're all doing real things, having graduated with real majors that led to real jobs. More (?) importantly, they've all got their own places and aren't living with their parents. Of course, some of them received cars from their parents; something I don't have the luxury of, and also something that keeps me immobilized, tied down.

I know I need this transition period, this internship, because I didn't go to school for what I'm called to do - stupid - so I am hoping to put a lot of energy and effort into mentoring and loving on the kids in my church, and learning as much as I can from this experience so I can go do it, serve where I'm called to serve on my own. I'm still on the road toward the point of decision making, and that intersection seems so far off right now.

Fighting a battle against time is stupid. However, I seem to subconciously enjoy doing that. I feel tied down, like I want to start the great adventure of my life, but I have to save up some money before doing that. I have so many friends who are serving in different ministries around the country, around the world, because they had opportunities to jump out into the unknown in faith, following God with reckless abandon. I want that. I'm crushed under the waiting for it. Hopefully I can bear this all for as long as it takes...