Sunday Seven 9-2-2014

Ahoy!  Currently posting from my new home in Charlotte; here are a quick seven things to try:

1.  This book:  Elyse Fitzpatrick's Because He Loves Me.  Elyse is an exceptional speaker (!) and a gifted writer.  Here, she beautifully brings to light gospel truths about how Christ truly transforms us, even in our everyday lives, as we walk with Him.  A very refreshingly truthful book.

2.  This movie:  Wes Anderson's film adaptation of The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl is AMAZING.  It's basically an adult action movie gift-wrapped as a stop-motion animation children's film.  The hilarious dialogue will dazzle you.  "APPLE JUICE FLOOD."  Treat yourself and rent this movie!

3.  This game:  The Game of Things provided a group of friends with two and a half hours of straight laughter last night.  It plays similiarly to Apples to Apples.  (My cheeks hurt from laughing so hard)

4.  This TV program:  Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

5.  This dip:  guacamole.  I could eat a liter in one sitting.

6.  This cheese:  Brie!  A French classic - try it on those Snaps pretels.  Mmmm!

7.  This organization:  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department's Animal Care and Control Division helped us adopt our first baby this weekend!  Meet Phoebe:

Stories of this crazy kitty to follow!

Cheers!
Katy

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?

Freedom

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life.  Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows.

For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself.  That's an act of true freedom.  If you bite and ravage each other, watch out - in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom me then?

My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.  Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

   This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Galatians 5:13-26, The Message

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...

Church

It has been brought to my attention that there are some ecclesiastical issues that must be handled. The church I've been attending for the past 3 years [and have recently joined as an associate member] is one of evangelism. This body of Christ can be quite welcoming and encourages members and regular attendees to invite many, especially nonbelievers. This is good. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples of all nations..." However, what about keeping the ones you've got in the faith?

I have seen, and others feel this way, that our church hooks people in and then leaves them floating around, not being challenged or shepherded properly. A person should not have to ask to be discipled; those more mature in their walk with the Lord should seek out younger Christians to help them along their journeys. A friend told me that he hasn't been to this church in 5 weeks, and no one has called him to ask him where he's been or how he's been. This concerns me.

To expand upon the "Great Commission" at the end of the book of Matthew:

"Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

Jesus taught a lot of things. His sermons and teachings make up most of the text in the Gospels. Can a church support its members and its believers without continuing to teach? He asked to make disciples, not just believers.

disciple: n. 1. religion
a. one of the 12 personal followers of Christ.
b. one of the 70 followers sent forth by Christ. Luke 10:1.
c. any other professed follower of Christ in His lifetime.
2. any follower of Christ.
3. a person who is a pupil or an adherent of the doctrines of another.
v. 4. to convert into a disciple.
5. to teach, to train.

If someone is not being taught or trained, and not being a pupil, are we truly making disciples? Converting people is not the same as making disciples, and I feel like this church has strayed from that original concept. If we are not continually growing and developing godly hearts and wisdomy minds, this is an opportunity for wickedness to enter. We must keep each other on track with our faith.

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. - Matthew 24:12-13

For one's love to grow cold is an ugly thing. For one to lose zeal for the Lord and for His Word and to become lazy in caring about growing is an ugly thing. I have dealt with times like that myself, and when I drift away, I become physically unhealthy/exhausted, I have a worse work ethic, I am not as confident or friendly with others, and I'm simply less caring. I have seen firsthand the effects of walking away from God and it is simply an ugly thing. Our Father made us to be beautiful just as we are, as lovers and worshippers and as sons and daughters of Him, and if we have the desire to walk away from that, or if we have no desire to seek that, what could it do but break His heart?

We must persist in our faith. We must persevere. We can't let anyone, not Satan, not our own flesh, not the world try to tear us from our loving and perfect Father. We can't let ourselves, our doubts, our anger tear us apart from Him. He loves us too much to let us go. He let His own only begotten Son go in our place.

"For I am convinced that neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:38-39

How can we ignore so great a salvation? It is so wonderful to be loved by God! Therefore we can't just ignore Him or be angry for the petty "bad things" in our lives. We complain because it's raining, because school is hard, because of family problems, because of friendships gone wrong. They are nothing compared to the problems of Ugandan children who fear being abducted every single night to be forced into being child soldiers for a terrible army of rebels who kill civilians and whose actions force the Ugandan governments to put their people into displacement camps without food, or clean water, where malaria kills more people than AIDS. And even in comparison with their troubles, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." [Romans 8:18] When we're with the Lord in heaven some day, we won't even remember our diseases, frustrations and hardships because it will be SO GOOD!!!

This is why I wish the church would focus more on building intimate relationships within the family of God, focus on growing these disciples closer to Him in a more trusting relationship with an eternity focus on life. Paul says best in my favourite book:

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." - Philippians 1:4-6

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. - Philippians 1:9-11

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 3:12-14

ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei

Feelin' down again...

"We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" - Hebrews 2:1-3

"Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts" - Hebrews 3:7-8

"See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first." - Hebrews 3:12-14

This whole situation is still not getting better. It's affecting my body; I feel a physical weight pushing down on my spine, I feel muscularly weak, and I don't feel like eating at all. And I'm dehydrated.

The weekend, however, was great. Quite a refreshing time to be carefree and adventurous with my dear Wallace. We did a Fountains of UMD tour, trespassed, frolicked [in a special way] through the thunderstorm, and I met some new friends. Saturday was Maryland Day, so campus was v. crowded. We ate Chick fil-A!

That night we slept in cardboard boxes on the Mall by the Washington Monument for Displace Me - a media/awareness event held by Invisible Children [dot com], where they showed us video testimonials of folks in Uganda who are in the displacement camps where the government put them to keep them "safe" from the rebel army. Last year they held a "Global Night Commute" which was basically reenacting what the Ugandan children do every night to avoid being abducted by the rebel army to be made into child soldiers or sex slaves. This year we were made to experience what they deal with in the displacement camps, except we had clean water and no AIDS or malaria. We had a 6-hour fast, and then were only allowed to eat water and saltine crackers. We called people and wrote to congressmen to spread the word in hopes of the U.S. or the U.N. doing something to bring peace to northern Uganda.

The next morning Wallace and I hit up Starbucks before church [how convenient to have one between dorm and campus], which was run by Maryland Christian Fellowship and was cool. We sang a "yee-haw" song.

Directly after lunch we got a call from Horatio, who had come to pick me up. So Wallace and I parted ways again. Hopefully we'll hang out again this summer - when we'll do even more crazy adventure-type things! Whee!!

The drive back with Brandon was good. It didn't even get dark until we got home. We stopped in Philly for supper with Y-von at a place called Brigid's. I got gnocchi in pesto, mm!! It was rather tasty. We also got to see her studio in this church; Ruben Ghenov also works there! How exciting! I hadn't seen Gali since he was a baby; what a cute kid!

I had a somewhat sleepless night, followed by weaving class, geometry quiz, crafts class, geometry class, glazing and then a chat. In some ways, I feel like Paul....

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.

For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" [Romans 7:15-25]

Thanks be to God indeed. Jesus will rescue me from this body of death. I want my sinful nature to die. I just hate sin so much I want it to be completely gone from my life; separated as far as the East is from the West. I know that I'm forgiven, I just want to sin no more. I won't be pressured into sinning anymore. It just burns a hole in my gut, like too many of those Warhead candies.

And I'm seeking counsel within friends. Sometimes it's hard for me to ask for help, so if you've got wisdom or advice about certain sorts of things, please just pour it upon me. If I'm not in the weaving studio this week, I'll be at the Chris House [need time in the chapel], or my phone is usually on if I'm not in class.

*le sigh*

And I feel like such a b*t*h for complaining about my stupid life problems when 5 year old kids in Uganda are being abducted from their starving, infected families to be forced to carry a gun that weighs nearly as much as they do. How do you feel about that?

oh, and pardon my french.