Anticipation is My Favorite

I'm sitting in my living room on Christmas morning. It's almost 6am. Santa has come and my whole household is asleep except for me. I went to bed at 10:30 so I'm not still up from last night dealing with tiny screwdrivers and AAA batteries. I'm awake in the stillness, in the tension of great household anticipation because the quiet calls to me. Drawn out of bed around 4:30 for no other reason than I just want to soak up the magic. It was funny when I pulled up my browser to write because I was processing the value and existence magic in my last post. My feeling was that because there is so much darkness in the world, magic can no longer be truly pure, but lived alongside the dark and though that's more real, it's kinda sad too. And yet why am I awake? I want to soak up the magic.

I'm drinking the instant Peruvian coffee my incredible brother-in-law Sol brought to share. It's sweetened with the homemade (allergen-free!) caramel one of my best friends made me for Christmas. The tree is lit. I can hear the clock ticking behind me, the morn of Christmas just waiting to dawn. It's glorious. This tension. This wonder. The thrill of waiting to see my children experience the magic I was grieving the loss of just a few weeks ago. Maybe that's why parents cling so hard to giving their children magic. It's a way to revisit childhood and carry forward the beauty of a perfect day.  

I love anticipation. I always have. I love surprises. I love waiting (remind me of this next time I'm driving). There's something so beautiful about the tension in creates, like the giving of the gift is more savored when anticipated. Maybe I'm turned off by things that are cheap. If it's worthy, it can wait until the proper time. When something is rushed, it feels squandered, like some sort of distraction from the true value and meaning of things worth waiting for, working for. Maybe this is just my purity culture baggage talking.

I remember a house full of people on Christmas Eve growing up. My parents house is currently full to the brim. But I got to have them here for Thanksgiving so this holiday is about my little family and my sister-in-laws. It's so sweet and simple and fun. Three little girls are currently dreaming of toys and candy canes and the thrill of not knowing but hoping for something wonderful to happen. Maybe that's what's so appealing about this holiday. Hope. I'm obsessed with it (maybe this is a truly appropriate time to say "thanks Obama.") As a child, nothing comes close to the gift haul of the year and time holed up with your extended family. You hope; you wish; you dream. And I know this is speaking from a position of privilege because I have no memories of being disappointed on Christmas and that is a very special gift I was given as a child. But as we grow older, experience Advent and the beauty of counting down, waiting and wonder, that hope becomes something more. Hope in the relief that the birth of Jesus brought. Not in that moment, necessarily. There was so much chaos surrounding Jesus' life from fleeing Egypt all the way to his eventual death. But on a global scale, for all time, this baby brings eternal peace. And I believe not only that He died for all but that all were saved. I don't believe in eternal teams. I believe in peace. Restoration. Grace. I believe all things will be made new, put right, tied up in the end. And because of that, I can look at my little glass baby Jesus figure while I wait for little racing footsteps and truly say THANKS BE TO GOD.

And Then The Car Died

I've been careful to veil our current employment situation as a family on this blog because it's not specifically my story to tell, though under-employment is very difficult for a family dynamic and I am definitely affected by our current situation. As a normal person, I've largely filtered our "season" (God, I hope it ends soon) of part-time, multiple-job employment through my personal experience of it. As I was reviewing my husband's resume adjustments today per his request, I got another peek into what he's going through in this process. We're both going through a lot but it's largely different for a lot of reasons. Seeing through his lens of challenges today, I was reminded of just the level of confidence projection required during the process of job hunting. It's too much. And the longer you go without full-time work, the more exhausted and discouraged you are (the notion that poor people are lazy is laughable, unless they really just aren't willing to work. It's so much harder to work several crappy jobs without stability). 
No matter how suited you are for a specific job, just to get in the door, you're jumping through invisible hoops that leave you guessing. You don't know if the job posted is really available or if it's posted per some requirement though they already have someone in mind for the position and this posting is really just for looks. You don't know how many applicants they have. You often don't know even the salary being offered. You don't know what their hiring process is, how many interviews you will go through or if you will get called at all. All you know is, you need a job. Many of the jobs you are applying for are well within your wheelhouse of experience and capability and yet, no job. Sometimes no response, even. Some of these jobs are well below your capacity and still, no job. 
It's a very strange dance you do with personal potential, financial obligations, dreams, strangers unspoken expectations and time, so much time. We would all do well when eliminating people from their jobs to acknowledge that it can take the better part of a very difficult year to replace a job. It may be worse paying. We have consistently made less money per job he's taken since we got married. This is the world we're living in. I know people don't want to talk about politics, but I also think sometimes people aren't aware of what things are really like "out there" if they haven't been in this position for awhile. Once Tim started working, even part-time without receiving his first check, we lost our unemployment money. And that money is only half of your original income, so it's not even paying your bills at that point. 
I don't write these things to complain. We're ok for today and sometimes that has to be enough. We've made some deliberate choices about our lifestyle, what we're willing to give up and what we're not (unless truly forced). We desperately want to make a difference in our community through work and that leads us frequently to low-paying jobs. That is something we're comfortable with. So again, this isn't about "poor me" as much as it is about the low points of an extended job search and how hard it is to wait for something to change. Tim's car died this weekend. Ironic how I was all braggy about our old cars in my last post :) Unfortunately, a lot of our options for him to pick up cash once the school year is over involves having a vehicle. We're weighing our options and unfortunately, that long rope we started with is getting shorter. Sometimes you really need to see that light at the end of the tunnel. Believe me, I'm squinting. I'm looking for it. I really hope it's there.

Sometimes I Really Miss the Box

I've always been an adventurous person. I've been on many wild trips around the world. If you haven't sat me down to tell you stories, you'll have to ask me someday about the time I got chased down by creepy men in Mexico because of my long blonde hair or the time I was mistaken for a prostitute on my 19th birthday in Paris. How about the time I thought I could go ice climbing in Interlaken, Switzerland and instead spent the afternoon on the back of a moped with a would-be Abercrombie model. Remember the 10 days I spent singing in a band on the streets of Russia when I was 14? Or the countless nights I've spent on a benches in foreign train stations and on the floor of British airports. I've got anecdotes about clubbing at gay clubs in London and the summers I've slept in tents for weeks at a time in Northern Ireland with unshowered teenaged boys. How about when I ate only gelato for an entire weekend in Venice without getting sick or when I almost flew through the window of a bus in Argentina? The list goes on and on. I absolutely love being out of my element, flying by the seat of my pants and just seeing what happens. This is greatly juxtaposed by my rule-following, religious perfectionism and care-taking. It's really hard to live inside a box (narrow theology) and outside of it (wandering sojourner). I've waffled between the two my whole life. 
Theologically, I'm very much living into that adventurous spirit and running far, far away from any boxes at all. But on days like today, when I'm still in my pajamas at noon, caring for a fussy toddler and trolling through my Facebook feed, sometimes that damn box nostalgia kicks in and I feel sad. 
I went to private school all through my childhood, culminating in a high school experience that was a real faith high. It's a time in my life filled with treasured memories, wonderful friends and a total certainty about Jesus. This world is a place where "Jesus" is everywhere, where struggle always has a purpose and where everything fits together. Everything is viewed through the lens of faith and nothing works outside of it. Sometimes I really wish that had been enough for me. I genuinely do. I see pictures of old friends children dancing excitedly on a stage with "Jesus" scrawled on the wall behind them. Dancing for Jesus looks so fun and safe. His name comes up in every conversation. He pertains to your day, your politics, your health, your relationships. (If this sounds like I'm mocking this life, I'm really not. I'm being genuine when I say I miss it and I in no way judge the faith or lives of these people.) I remember when I saw him everywhere. There was a certain comfort in having his name written on the back of every puzzle piece of my life. Somehow everything really did fit together.
I don't deny that Jesus could be in the childrens dancing. In fact, I wrote a piece not long ago that clearly stated my awe and reverent feelings witnessing the community experience of my daughters school performance. And I'm not saying God won't someday put the pieces of our lives together in a beautiful tapestry that suddenly makes sense. It would be pretty amazing if he did. I'm just no longer operating under that assumption. That's just not how I view the world; it's not how I frame my experiences or how I fit together the stories of people all around me. I'm not going to force my Jesus stake in the ground and declare a parcel of land for myself. I'm not in a place to authoritatively put his name on my choices, my views and my circumstances. I don't want to pull out Bible verses at the ready and speak with confidence about how everyone should be living their lives. I'm not sure what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, so why would I put that on other people? 
Perhaps this is the difference between faith and hope. "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." (NLT, Heb. 11:1). I hope God is here. I really, really do. I think he is. Am I confident that everything I hope for will come to pass? No. I'm not sure how we can truly be confident about that which we cannot fully know, see or experience in the present. But man, do I hope. Oh, I hope for so many things! And like any deeply-held hope, these things shape the way I see the world and how I live my life.
Above all, I hope that God is good. Man, I really hope that's true. That's the one that I base all my other hopes on. I hope that God made me human on purpose, that his love and my humanity are enough for Him, that I don't have to be ashamed of myself or pressure myself to be more than I am. I hope that the Jesus who loved the pariahs and called out the proud elite is still relevant. I hope that being a good neighbor, accepting and loving myself and living into my personal values brings good into a sometimes very shitty world. I hope working on my own emotional and spiritual baggage will benefit my precious daughters and the world by extension. I hope gay people were made by God as gay as the day is long, that he does not condemn that which he has made inherent and that they will be given the dignity, equality and justice they deserve as human beings. I hope that blacks and whites can come together as two sides of the same coin, having been made equal and beautiful humans. I hope that we learn to identify ourselves in our racial power struggle and fight for equality, even when that means admitting we're part of the problem. I hope everyone experiences the glory and the all-encompassing grace and love of God whether in this life or the next, that all that has been lost will be made whole, complete and perfect in the end. 
I may not live in total confidence and assurance, but living in hope has become enough for me. Don't be afraid to step out of the box if those walls start to close in on you. I really do believe that God is big enough and exists outside of all the lines we want to draw on his behalf. Perhaps there's hope for all of us after all. 

The "Ministry" of Busyness

I was visiting with a friend today (I tend to do that a lot:) who is in ministry and I felt like I was looking in a mirror or maybe even the ghost of Christmas future if I were to have stayed in that life. She's much older than I am, with many more years in ministry under her belt. She's made different choices than I have, though I see similar hang ups between us. I'm not sure if our similar personal issues are products of being in church leadership or if they are what drew us to ministry in the first place. It's probably both. I'm confident that these things are fundamentally unhealthy and commonly reinforced by the church leadership environment. I see her people-pleasing. I see her exhausting herself. I see her floundering to keep up with the expectations placed on her both by her past behavior (over-activity) and by the community who hired her husband to serve them. 
I see her missing opportunities to be still. I see her mind racing frantically; her heart left unattended while she watches over the hearts of others. I see her telling herself and others that she enjoys all her service activities, while her spirit says she needs rest. Don't get me wrong; she is a LOVELY person. She believes she's doing the right thing, serving God, being fulfilled by it, even. While my ministry experience is limited in comparison to hers, I feel like I've been around the block enough to be able to identify care-taking, people-pleasing, resentment and burn out. I feel like I can see that without judging her because THAT'S ME! The church teaches us that "service" is the most important thing. That's how we act like Jesus, which is the ultimate goal. Service is defined by not thinking of (listening to) yourself but by putting others first. Yes is always the right answer. 
I'm all for loving people and going out of my way to be mindful of how my choices affect others. And maybe it's just me, as I'm the one who's therapist is hoping that the "others first" voice in my head would actually quiet down. That I wouldn't let my concern for others override my concern for myself. Even writing that, I know the over-churched will read that and think I'm a heretic at worst, or selfish at best.
Maybe I'm the only church-goer who has spent years valuing being nice over being emotionally, physically and  spiritually healthy. Maybe it's helpful for those "worldly" people who need to be constantly told that they're selfish; there's something wrong with them; and they need to fix it by serving others.  
For me, I'm in a detoxing process from this kind of theology. I'm learning to listen to my voice. As a highly sensitive person, I can very easily tell you what the voices of "God", my parents, spouse, friends, religion and country would say WAY before I could tell you what I really need to be doing, thinking and feeling according to my personal viewpoint. Again, maybe I'm the only one. But in my Christian process, I'm learning that listening to my own voice is part of me listening to God. (Again, heresy! What about how our hearts are evil?!?!) He made me who I am, and the ultimate form of worship to Him is to love myself, to have grace for myself, and to be honest. If I'm honest about my humanity and not trying to overcompensate for it (serving when my heart doesn't want to), I just might be in a better position to listen to the stories and journeys of all the people in the world around me. Believe me, when your soul, mind, heart and body are well-fed, you genuinely take pleasure in giving to your fellow man. The times that I have felt resentful, ungracious and stingy towards others are when I'm doing a "service" out of "the shoulds" or on an empty tank. This doesn't make me a bad, selfish, unloving person. This simply makes me a person. Embracing the reality of our humanity, that we really only have so much to give when we're not first giving to ourselves, is critical to true, honest living. 
When I stopped sitting in the theology that there's something wrong with me; I'm selfish and untrustworthy; I need to be what other people tell me I should be; that God is displeased with me unless I act in a certain way (that looks like every other believer); other people's salvation process is up to me; and that my work is never done; I FINALLY learned what grace really is. As good at church as I was, I still felt like I had no idea what grace really looked like as it applied to me.  
I think this is ultimately my problem with theology that over-focuses on sin. I understand that sin is a big problem, that it separates us from God, that Jesus died because of it. But if I believe that, isn't that all sorted out now? I know we like to debate issues of if we're "once saved, always saved", but if my Christian faith is a constant process of re-confessing, re-feeling guilty, and re-serving out of shame and a need to be loved, isn't that actually a slap in the face of the God who's already forgiven me, once and for all? I know Paul says that embracing grace doesn't mean we should pursue sin all the more because grace is abundant, I get that. But what if Christianity looked like ending the constant sin wrangling and instead focused on participating in the Kingdom of God NOW? What would our hearts be freed up to think, imagine, dream, and do if we stopped expending our energies on perfecting ourselves, constantly trying to figure out which sin we should work on next? Not hoping that we've said or done the right rituals in this life to make it in the gates of heaven when we die, but that our every moment can be about engaging in the world around us, with listening ears (not with judgment or even answers), with open hearts and minds? That we can change! That others can teach me something; about myself, God, the world. I find myself so much more interested in others when I take care of myself. I don't see their needs as a personal burden to me. I see myself growing through conversation, through reading, through writing, through changing my plans in the moment. I spent a lot of years with my head down, focused on my commitments and responsibilities, not able to be present, already thinking of what I needed to do to prepare for future moments. 
I guess what I'm saying is, be willing to be pleasantly surprised, filled with hope, inspired by the moment, and open to the world around you. Don't rush through life like it's a burden. Don't get me wrong; life is full of burdens!!! But take the grace right in front of you; whether it's a conversation with a friend, an afternoon in bed with a book, a great glass of wine, or taking something off your list today. I've found when I focus on working on my "stuff" and what God wants me to be (present, open, full of grace, hopeful, generous) then I'm too engaged in that work to be worried about what other people think my life is supposed to look like. Perhaps I'm not the only one whose main "ministry" is this.