so i say to myself

May 17
2012

We pray for young people
Who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
Who like to be tickled,
Who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,
Who ask for $20 before they leave with their friends,
Who erase holes in math workbooks,
Who never put away their shoes.

And we pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can’t bound down the street in new sneakers,
Who never “counted potatoes,”
Who aren’t anybody’s Facebook friend,
Who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead in,
Who never go to the circus or to a concert,
Who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for young people
Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
Who sleep with the cat and bury goldfish,
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money,
Who leave make-up all over the sink,
Who slurp their soup.

And we pray for those
Who never get dessert,
Who never had a safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who can’t find any bread to steal,
Who don’t have any rooms or lockers to clean up,
Whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s iphones,
Whose monsters are real.

We pray for young people
Who spend all their paychecks before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,
Who stay out past curfew while their parents wait for them,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who think they’re far too old to be hugged good-bye,
Who squirm in church and scream on the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything,
Who have never seen a dentist,
Who are never spoiled by anyone,
Who don’t have a loved one to come out to,
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for young people
Who want to be carried
And for those who must,
For those we never give up on
And for those who never get a second chance,
For those we smother,
And for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind
enough to offer it.

We pray for children.

Amen.

— From Brian McLaren
Read by Amy Butler at Children, Youth & A New Kind of Christianity
Written by Ina Hughes

Mar 14
2012

…but minimizing the crisis does not merely suppress the pain crisis causes; it is also a way of pushing aside the necessary transformation of the whole system of living…Only life systems that are capable of suffering are capable of surviving, because they are the only ones that are prepared to learn and are open to change.

— Jurgen Moltmann
God in Creation

Oct 21
2011

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country music has produced a panoply of songs that could have been written either about an incredible relationship with a boyfriend or an incredible relationship with jesus.

luckily, blake has stepped in with one that switches the question to girlfriend or holy spirit?

cheers to the bible belt.

Oct 13
2011

if i get to five

sometimes the best ministry books aren’t really about ministry at all.

from neurosurgeon fred epstein’s if i get to five:

“we’ve learned that keeping ourselves open to the emotional as well as physical pain around us doesn’t come naturally; retreating from other people’s pain does. compassion isn’t a passive state. it’s an act of will, an act of courage; the courage to cope with every parent’s worst nightmare, the courage to be emotionally honest, the courage to risk having your heart broken, the courage to care enough to push yourself to do what’s scariest.

i used to think that courage meant taking on the toughest cases, being the guy who dared to make the life-and-death judgment calls in the operating room. i now know that holding a child’s hand while he undergoes chemotherapy can be a lot scarier than holding his life in my hands during an operation.”

Sep 26
2011

royally wasteful

my current hero, lauren winner, at a conference for christian artists a few years back::

“we live in a secular world governed by a capitalist model of scarcity. there’s never enough money in our world and there’s never enough time. all of our resources are scarce.

by contrast, our god gives us a very different economy. our god is a god of overflowing creative fecundity, a god of inexhaustible eucharistic offering. a god who, after all, multiplies loaves and fishes.

so to borrow marvus don’s phrase, one of the things that marks us as followers of that god is the consistent practice of being royally wasteful. of wasting time by praying and worshipping … christians need not, because of our god of abundance, always be concerned about the evident utility of everything we do. we are instead called to worship and reverence a god who is interested in whimsy and not just utility.”

she’s brilliant.

Sep 15
2011

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there’s not much that’s more embarrassing than loving a song by an artist named “pitbull”. but i do. i love this right now.

Aug 31
2011

to hand a man seeds for his swelling, panging starvation, and ask him to believe in a feast — is this what everyday faith is?

— ann vonskamp

Aug 12
2011

I began spending the bulk of my “relational ministry” helping youth develop a vocabulary of faith. I learned that pastors have permission, and even an obligation, to ask questions that others do not ask…Together we tried to notice and critique the theology present in the hallways at school, in the kitchen at home, and in the nagging omnipresent question of both adolescents and Jesus Christ: “Who do you say that I am?

—

Kenda Creasy Dean

The Godbearing Life

Jul 14
2011

the stories i tell myself

as i have begun to study and think about spiritual practices i am less and less satisfied with the often-used analogy of practicing piano scales in preparation to play beethoven someday. instead, i find myself drawn to the idea that spiritual practices are really just the stories that we repeat to ourselves. i am convinced that the practices i embody - the stories i tell myself - have real impact right now, not just in some possible performance to come. as i practice, i am embodying the truth i know. i am reminding myself with the greatest force i have, my very body, to remember what is true.

there are stories i tell myself without meaning too. when i choose to eat a double-double with fries (or more realistically, when i continually choose diet coke over water) i am quietly telling myself that the story of a God who has promised to someday resurrect this body of mine isn’t fully true. i am suggesting to myself that the physicality of this body doesn’t really matter.

with each episode of the bachelorette i watch or norah roberts book i read i am whispering to myself that i have been promised - that i deserve - a husband. i am rehearsing the story that surely my prince charming is on his way to rescue me from the doldrums of singleness and surely (surely!) we will live happily ever after.

these are not the best stories to be telling myself.

there are, though, stories of truth that i am actively choosing to tell myself. i sit in a large room each sunday morning surrounded by people like me and unlike me. there are newly married couples, empty-nested parents and people i honestly don’t like to be around. we gather to pray and rest. we sing and grieve and listen. and in that hour i remind myself of the grand story of the worship that is to come. of the indescribable, infinite time that i will spend gathered around the throne with the faithful of all time, worshipping the one true god.

as i order my day around a set schedule of prayers i tell myself the story of the God that ordered the universe and holds time in his hand. i remind myself that the agenda of the kingdom is far greater than my personal plans for the day.

i clip on my chaplains badge and walk into a children’s emergency room to remind myself of a God that took on human flesh and entered into this mess of human grief and suffering. i spend my friday afternoons practicing to myself the story of the incarnation.

and so i am beginning to come to grips with the idea that the way i live this life has significant implications for today and for eternity. i am beginning to force myself to look past the surface of my sleep schedule or my finances to discern what stories i am telling myself - to question the truth of the narratives i am rehearsing. it has become my hope that as i begin to root out the lies i whisper to myself that the story my life tells will be a tale that is daily more full of truth and more often overflowing with grace.

Jul 11
2011

i have a deep appreciation for youth specialities’ decades-long desire to equip and empower youth leaders.

as a 20-something female, though, i don’t know how to respond to the ad that arrived in my mailbox today. i’m not quite sure how to move past the implicit communication that “middle age white men make the decisions for the leadership of american youth ministry.”

i know i belong at the grown-up table at thanksgiving, but am i really invited to what is advertised as the boys table of youth ministry?

Jun 22
2011

o Love that will not let me go,
i rest my weary soul in Thee;
i give Thee back the life i owe,
that in Thine ocean depths its flow,
may richer, fuller be,
may richer, fuller be.

o joy that seekest me through pain,
i cannot close my heart to Thee,
i trace the rainbow through the rain,
and feel the promise is not in vain
that morn shall tearless be,
that morn shall tearless be.

—

rev. george matheson

vespers office, june 21, the divine hours

Jun 17
2011

surely it will take months to process how these last two weeks have changed me, but for now it is enough to say that this beloved group lavished on me grace and joy and love. and deep, deep freedom.

team bricolage, june 2011.

Jun 14
2011

sometimes the crucifixion of our will comes through other people whom we bear, or whom we must serve, or whom we must obey.

sometimes the crucifixion of our will comes through sickness and disease, past our ability to do anything about it.

sometimes circumstance serve to crucify our will as they crush the dreams, plans, and ambitions that we hold so closely, like idols which resist the touch of the Living God.

that suffering, dying, and the daily crucifixion of our will can lead to the deepest level of divine life is a mystery we scarcely fathom. but here we see it in Jesus, enveloped by torment and opposition, going willingly to death for the redemption of all creation.

—

meditations on the stations of the cross

belmont abbey college

Jun 12
2011

remember when i lived in dallas?

me either…

Jun 11
2011

pastor and theologian?

i have left, this week, my beloved community of gritty, grounded ministry and have been given the privilege to listen to the voices shaping the larger conversation of the Church. it has been an indescribably rich week, but has left me wondering if it is possible to both speak into the cloud of higher conversation and have feet firmly planted in a local community.

i am confident that excellent ministry must informed by excellent theology — the onus of responsibility is on the pastor to be sure the practice he preaches is based in fully formed doctrine, but must the reverse be true? is a theologian only as good as the concrete praxis that comes out of his theoretical positing?

is there a point at which those involved in the formation of current theological theory become so disparate from those involved in the formation of local church praxis that the two become irreconcilable?

we have local shepherds with excellent practicality but whose voices are neither offered nor sought at a national/international level. and we have brilliant minds pushing forward conversations that must be had but are seemingly divorced from a consistent local congregation that would keep them relevant to the implementation of their ideas.

where are the small town pastors at mega-conferences? why always the audience and never the platform? who is shepherding the “speakers’” congregations as they bounce from conference to book contract to podcast? are the guiding voices the most authentic or just the most ambitious?

ultimately my questions are based in obvious selfishness. i ask if one voice can be both macro and micro and do either one with any semblance of excellence because i want to be that voice. i’m asking if there enough room in my particular life to deeply love both my micro-community and the macro-conversation? can i actually be both fully pastor and theologian or will i eventually have to choose?

is the tension so great that it is uninhabitable or just great enough to pull me to a life lived on my knees?