Friday's inspiration

I've been inspired by quite a few things today: An invigorating and interesting job interview; a UNHCR photo exhibit; the new Brooke Fraser album 'Flags'; an (as always) interesting discussion about all things development, the church, human rights and missiology with my friend Bron; a Wendell Berry poem about loving our enemies; making a beautiful cabanossi cabonara and enjoying it with a glass of my favourite Margaret River shiraz. It was an enjoyable day, a day I'm deeply grateful for. But I was struggling to think of anything useful, constructive or coherent to write and then I saw this....

"What we pay attention to is how we spend our lives."

Ann Voskamp (Taken from Roots and Wings.)

I'm not sure yet what I make of this quote or why it struck me so much tonight... Let me think about it, and maybe tomorrow's blog will be a little more coherent!
Meanwhile, pay attention to life

Epiphany

Unclench your fists
Hold out your hands.
Take mine.
Let us hold each other.
Thus is his Glory
Manifest.
- Madeleine L'Engle from The Ordering of Love

This is a much more succinct and beautiful description of the truth that I have experienced over the last few years: It is living in community - true, honest, messy, loving community - that we experience the fullness of God.

Amen

Just another Wednesday

My head and heart are full from a long day. It's so hard to know where to start, what to write at this late hour of the night.

I have the absolute blessing of caring for two beautiful little human beings as a 'job'. I watched Will grow up all the way from birth to the beautiful, sensitive, imaginative, crazy 3-and-a-half year old boy he is now. Today we played lots of games that included 'baddies' and 'goodies'. We made massive bubbles out on the deck in the sunshine. We talked about making up stories.
Sascha was born just over a year ago, and is the most intense, loud, gorgeous, dare-devil 1 year old girl I have ever met. Today she managed to climb onto Will's motorised mini quad bike and off she went (with me running after her, I should add)! Will wouldn't ride it himself until he was at least 2! When she woke up from her nap she snuggled back into my shoulder and stayed there cuddling with me for another ten minutes. We sang along together to our favourite Justine Clarke dvd.
I love those two kids as if they were my own. Every day that I get to spend with them and love them and play with them is a blessing, not a job. Yes, sometimes I get cranky when they are too demanding. Yes, sometimes I'm glad I get to go home and sleep without having to wake up to them. But overall, my life would not be the same without the little brown-haired boy with a beautiful smile and the blonde-haired girl with the big blue eyes.

This evening I spent a couple of hours with three of my favourite people in the whole world talking about life and hope and faith and choices and brokenness and redemption and blessing and curses and prayer and so much more.
I was reminded of the verse from Deuteronomy:

... I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deut. 30:19

When we choose to live (instead of merely exist or waste life) we open ourselves up to more and more of the abundant blessings that God intended for us, and longs to lavish on us. When we choose to live in blessing, and allow God's blessing into our lives, we can experience so much hope and restoration. It can been painful, hard work to choose life.... but it is worth it.

I'm tired from a long day. But my head and heart are full and I am blessed.

inspiration & mystery

My beautiful and creative friend Katie wrote on her blog yesterday:

It seems that this is how things always go: I want to write and be creative every day but then… life happens; It seems as though there is always something [else] to do, someone to see, errands to be run. Yet, in defiance of these patterns of late, I am resolved to write a blog post every day for this week at least.
Happily Katie

I feel the same way a lot of the time. I am currently in the most creative space I've been for many years, I'm finding inspiration in so many things everyday.... and yet I don't follow through with a lot of the thoughts that pop into my head. And I've been challenged lately that if I want to be a serious writer (and one day maybe even get paid for it!) then I have to do what my piano teacher always told me: practice, practice, practice!

So I'm going to set myself the same challenge and write something on my blog everyday for the next week. Here it goes.....


I have been reading Brian McLaren's brilliant book 'A Generous Orthodoxy' lately. Every chapter contains something beautiful and profound for me, so I am pacing myself to one or two chapters a day. Sometime last week I came across the following quote, and have been reflecting on it ever since:

"To address the issue of a truth greatly reduced requires us to be poets that speak against a prose world." Walter Brueggemann quoted in Brian McLaren's 'A Generous Orthodoxy'

McLaren believes, as do I, that in many parts of the Christian community today the 'Truth' is not alive in the vibrant and dynamic way that it should be. Our call is to speak against this. How then can I be a poet in a prose world?

The most profound way I understand is to be open to the mysterious, paradoxical, messiness of our faith and belief; to acknowledge we misunderstand and don't begin to understand so much. This is the faith I want to seek to live today...

McLaren quotes a Catholic chaplain as saying this:

[when one] attempts to convey something of God's holy otherness he tries one earthly simile after another. In the end he discards them all as inadequate and says apparently wild and senseless things meant to startle the heart into feeling what lies beyond the reaches of the brain. Something of the kind takes place here: 'Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has for prepared for those who love him.' (1 Cor. 2:9) These realities beyond understanding can be brought closer only by the overthrow of everything naturally comprehensible. Flung into a world of new logic, we are forced to make a genuine effort to understand. A Generous Orthodoxy, 153-54.

May we all experience God's holy otherness in new, mysterious and profound ways, that we might be drawn closer to Him.

HOPE

Life feels like hard work most days at the moment and it has left me feeling pretty flat. I’ve discovered there is a fine line between letting go of the things in our lives we can’t control, understand and change - the things that must ultimately be God’s domain - and take responsibility for the things we can and should change.

This week my friend led our small group through a meditation on hope. Considering the experiences, both past and present, of members our group, it was an ambitious and sorely needed reflection. Despite our faith, life seems dark and hard at the moment for some and sometimes we need reminding to choose hope over being consumed by the darkness. I especially needed the gentle reminder. It has left me trying to articulate why and how I hope.

On a wall somewhere in my high school was this quote:

"Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope."
- Author Unknown

As a teenager with depression, I thought I understood this to some degree. But in the ten years since high school, I have begun to live and believe this idea with greater fervency and need than I ever could have imagined then.

If it were not for hope, I would not be alive today. Literally. Hope has saved me on multiple occasions from the dark road of self harm and suicide. Hope has saved me from losing all perspective when I, or dear ones around extreme difficulties. I would not call myself a natural optimist. In fact, I've had to work very hard to not automatically see the worst in any given situation. Depression, as a mindset, teaches you to misread and distort the truths that appear around you. In this context hope is very hard to maintain, and yet absolutely essential to fight for!

A couple of summers ago, my life fell apart. I was already struggling with the worst episode of depression I'd ever had, when a number of factors beyond my control sent me spiralling into severe anxiety, resulting in panic attacks which I had never experienced before. Those months were the blackest months of my life. During that time Ian and Gina (and their daughter Anna) welcomed me into their home and their family. They loved me and cared for me unconditionally. They sat with me though panic attacks and hours of tears. They talked through my deepest hurts and fears with me. They prayed with me. They taught me how to love reality tv shows, and that laughing was irreplaceable medicine. They spoke words of life and hope over me, when I had no capacity to think straight and believe in anything much.

I vividly remember the morning the first ray of hope and light broke through my wall of pain. Sitting at the kitchen bench sipping a cup of tea, I was unable to move with the weight of all that was on my heart and in my head. Ian was speaking to me, when I was overcome with the sense that I was loved. I WAS LOVED. In that moment I was struck with the undeniable reality that I was loved, by God, and by this family that had seen me in my darkest hours. I can't explain why it was that moment I trusted that truth, except to say that the weeks of persistent, practical love and hope finally started to break through my thick head! It was in that moment I knew that there was HOPE. And that hope was life-giving. In that moment, I believe, I experienced the love and grace of God in the most real and profound way. That beloved family were the hands and feet of Christ in my life that summer.

The road back from that dark time was long and windy. And there have been other really difficult times since then. But I have lived through each day in the knowledge that there is hope and that it is the only thing giving me breath.

Now, Ian, Gina and their family are facing one of the darkest time of their lives. Ian is recovering from a blood clot, a stroke and a number of very serious brain surgeries (among other things). There have been a number of times in the last three months when I, and others around me, have been tempted to lose hope. This situation is so unfair. This situation doesn't make any sense. Why do things improve only to get much worse? Will things ever return to ‘normal’?

Towards the end of our evening together this past Wednesday, my friend asked us to think about what we hope for, and what our hope is in. It is easy to think of what I hope for: Ian to recover quickly and fully; for my body to heal from months of post-viral syndrome; my mind to heal from years of depression; and the list goes on.

But being able to describe what my hope is in is a little harder. But I was reminded of this beautiful passage from Colossians:

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

Colossians 1:15-20 (The Message)

Hope, for me, is in the knowledge of a God who loves and cares; a God who redeems and restores all things, creating vibrant harmonies where there once was pain and hurt; A God who blesses us with more than we can imagine or dare to ask for.

I believe I am blessed to have already caught glimpses here and now of the restoration that is promised in Christ. I have seen fractured relationships restored lovingly. I’ve experienced the beginnings of restoration to my completely tattered self-esteem. I’ve seen beauty come out of life’s tragic circumstances.

And these glimpses spur me on to hope more....

That is what I hope for.

"Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing: that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us."

— Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)

Seeking Justice Together

The state of Australian political parties is rather pathetic. The international aid and development industry is rife with bureaucracy and greed. The Christian church is as much a breeding ground for hypocrisy, fear and hate as any other community.
These aren't the most hopeful of conversation topics, but in the last month I have blessed by time spent with good friends discussing these very issues at length. I have found great encouragement in fellowshipping with others attempting to combat the apathy and confusion we see around us and within us everyday.
Having spent the last few years studying for a BA in Development Studies and Cultural Change, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the lack of understanding and concern in the wider community around me. Concern for justice, integrity and compassion in our government, the global community and our churches. I struggle to understand how Christ's followers, the very people who should be the voice of revolution and hopeful justice, are so often lacking in compassion and action.
The Jesus I've met in the gospels was a voice of hope, justice and compassion throughout his life and ministry. But to be honest, I haven't met this Jesus much in current Christian culture. I've had some very lonely times wondering if maybe I was alone in my experiences, wondering if I had got this Christian faith all wrong. I knew there were writers and thinkers out 'there', but did anyone in my communities feel or think the same way as me?
Thankfully, I've discovered the answer to that last question is yes! I'm blessed to have met other Christ followers studying development, working with churches to advocate for the powerless, using their creativity to bring attention to poverty; people seeking change and justice in whatever situations they find themselves. This gives me hope... and challenges me to make some noise as well. And the more I talk with others wrestling with the same issues and questions, the more I am energised to seek solutions.
We don't often seem to find answers. Things continue to depress us. We raise more questions. People criticise us. But in meeting together and sharing our burdens and passions, we catch a glimpse of the community Jesus described and the way of life he lived on earth. It is for this reason we must not give up talking and asking questions of each other. It is only in beginning to seek justice together that change can begin to happen.
My prayer is like Leunig says:

"God help us to change. To change ourselves and to change the world. To know the need for it. To deal with the pain of it. To undertake the journey without understanding the destination. The art of gentle revolution. Amen"

And I'm so grateful to Laura, Alex, Bron and all the others who are seeking justice with me....

Things that are good for the soul (and recovering from Glandular Fever)

I've never been very good at resting. But I've learned that there must come a time when our bodies and hearts revolt from all the stress we put them through! So I have spent the last two months attempting to recover from Glandular Fever.
At the beginning I did not appreciate the forced rest. But one of the things I've begun to learn of late is that sometimes we must choose to be grateful even when we don't feel it. I believe it is in this act that God begins to open our eyes to his abundant blessings. And before you know it, you actually feel grateful!
So with my changed perspective, I have tried to rest well and feed my soul. Here's a list of the things I've had the chance to enjoy in this last month and a half of rest (in no particular order)....

• I'm relishing the chance to cook lovely nutritious food (and some treats as well of course!) My favourites: Lamb Shank and Winter Vegetable Soup; Chorizo, fetta, sundried tomato and spinach pasta; and my own creation of Choc Chip and Peanut Butter Cookies.
  
• Reading poetry again. Old favourites like Emily Dickinson and Madeleine L'Engle. I've also just discovered the profound and beautiful Wendell Berry. Their words are beginning to inspire and challenge me to start writing again.
• Discovering great new music such as Wakey! Wakey!, Amy Stroup, Rosi Golan and Matthew Perryman Jones. As well as listening to the 'always on the ipod' selection of Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Patty Griffin, Switchfoot, Sara Groves and Katie Herzig.
• In order to curb my coffee addiction and limit my dairy I've been trying new teas. My current favourite: Royale Earl Grey from T2.
• Catching up with dear friends over cuppas.... and making some new ones as well.
• Setting myself ambitious reading projects such as The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider. While I'm making my way through these very slowly, I'm enjoying the challenging stimulation.
• My Mum and I have been making our way through all seven seasons of The West Wing on DVD. It's just the right combination of drama and intellectual stimulation.... not to mention the profound quotes on society and politics!
  
• I find there is something very therapeutic about being around small children. I've been caring for Will (3) and his sister Sascha (10 months) since they were both born. I also have the most gorgeous, talented and happiest nephew Finn (nearly 2). While children require energy (which I haven't had), they (almost) always leave me feeling hopeful and refreshed. They require you to be in the moment and fully 'present' at all times.... a good lesson to learn and very freeing for the soul.
• When I go walking around my neighborhood I am reminded how blessed I am to live in the beautiful Blue Mountains.
• And hopefully all of this inspires me to write more.....!
  

"Just showed up for my own life"

I've spent large portions of my life waiting. Waiting for something better, the next thing. Waiting for my real life to start.

"When I finish my university degree...."
"When I get healthier...."
"When I find a soul mate...."

I'm always planning to start living when I get things together. But unfortunately things never seem to get together!

This predicament has revealed itself to me in the last twelve months in a number of ways.

For the past twelve months I have been attempting to finish my final two semesters of a university degree. It has been a hard slog; what is a three-year degree has taken me four-and-a-half years (and looks like it could take longer)! In my home stretch, whilst battling a bout of Glandular Fever and the community around me is suffering through many difficulties, I've spent a lot of time contemplating the future. I've allowed myself to dream and plan and even occasionally take risks; all very new actions for me! I have for the first time, in a very long time, begun to feel inspired - about life and faith, about beauty and creativity, about injustice and speaking out. I've begun to be inspired to live! For someone who has spent the better part of the last fifteen years depressed, negative and doubtful, this is rather miraculous.

And yet I've caught myself thinking, "I'll do that when I can finish my degree, or when there is less drama happening around me, or when I feel less tired". While each of these things are justifiable reasons not to write a blog/write, or be involved in a protest or volunteer in my community, they are also not reasons to stop living each moment like it really matters.

Now I am facing the possibility that I have not completed my degree, my health has not improved and I have wasted many inspired moments thinking I should be doing something else or being somewhere else.

About a month ago my dear friend and mentor, my spiritual dad of sorts, suffered a massive seizure caused by a brain hemorrhage. In the past four weeks he has endured multiple seizures, two brain surgeries and a stroke. Praise God, he is now recovering and doing incredibly well all things considered. But the crisis shook me. This is a man who has seized life with both hands. A man of God who has taken great risks and attempts to live each day with great integrity. Whilst navigating all the emotions and challenges of the last month, I am most confronted about my lack of living!

So now, while I am on a break from study and awaiting news on job prospects, I am determined to set about the business of living! I want to be inspired - I want to read as much as I can; write whenever I feel words come; listen to great music; enjoy conversations with friends and family; drink good coffee and wine; cook good food; speak my mind about things that matter; cry with those in pain and laugh with those in joy; I want to walk in the beautiful bush and mountains surrounding me.

I'm reminded of the great Saint Irenaeus quote "The glory of God is man fully alive."

And maybe as I live life to the full I'll finish my university degree and get healthier and one day find a soul mate! Until that day I'll show up to the life I've been given.

Just showed up for my own life
Spending my time sleep walking
Moving my mouth but not saying a thing
Hoping the changes would take by working their way from the outside in
I was in love with an idea
Preoccupied with how a life should appear
Spending my time at the surface repairing the holes in a shiny veneer

There are so many ways to hide
There are so many ways not to feel
There are so many ways to deny what is real
And I just showed up for my own life
And I'm standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright

I'm going to live my life inspired
Look for the holy in the commonplace
Open the windows and feel all that's honest and real until I'm truly amazed
I'm going to feel all my emotions
I'm going to look you in the eyes
I'm going to listen and hear until it's finally clear and it changes our lives

There are so many ways to hide
There are so many ways not to feel
There are so many ways to deny what is real
And I just showed up for my own life
And I'm standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright

Oh the glory of God is man fully alive
Oh the glory of God is man fully alive

By Sara Groves (From the album "Add to the Beauty")

Brokeness and Fellowship

Reading: academic journal articles times a billion (the end of semester looms), A Common Prayer ~ Leunig

Listening to: Live under lights and wire ~ Sandra McCracken, Love was here first ~ Carolyn Arends (Thanks, Carolyn for another superb album!)

--------------

I have spent so many years learning to live with unanswered questions and prayers. My faith has grown incredibly in dry, desert-like places. And everytime I start to think I have it sorted, that I'm getting better at trusting and letting go... I realise I don't and I'm not.

The last few months have been hard and dark. I have experienced a new episode of the clinical depression and anxiety that I have struggled with on and off for around 12 years. And while there is a daily battle against hopelessness, fear, lethargy and lack of concentration; the biggest battle is against my own mind and soul.

And while I'm struggling, I see so many around me in pain and it feels some days like the world is falling apart....

- There's my dear friend and mentor who despite having so much hope and love and passion to give, is trapped in a body riddled with the ever mysterious Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

- A couple I know, having both survived serious alcoholism, substance abuse and addictions, came to faith. Now they continue to struggle against temptation, the physical and psychological after-affects of their past, mental illness and financial debt, among other things. Last week our small group heard that every time we pray for them things get worse in the ensuing days... causing us to pray even harder...

- Another dear friend admitted to me recently that she has taken drugs and forced herself to throw up in an attempt to manage her weight issues (caused largely by a medical condition), because her mum constantly hassles her about her weight.

- A woman who has already endured more than her share of injustice, abuse and pain in her life, is watching her 12-year-old son attempt suicide multiple times and fall through the cracks of the broken mental health system.

Just to name a few....

Despite my lack of understanding and answers, there is one lesson I am learning at the moment: Our brokeness is a place for grace and love and joy and hope to arrive in fresh ways.

For a number of months my best friend and I had only been exchanging random texts and emails that were few and far between. I accused her of not being the kind of friend I needed at a critical time. She graciously accepted my accusation and apologised for her lack of follow-through. Soon after, I discovered that while she had no idea what I was going through, I had no idea that she had been struggling with deep and painful wounds herself.

Amongst the tears and apologies, I began to catch a glimpse of an important truth. Whilst we might fear sharing our pain with others because of their own burdens, it is precisely in the sharing of pain that the miracle of God's hope and peace begin to break through.

As my friend and I became more honest with each other, what could have been an overwhelming amount of pain miraculously became easier to handle. I began to have a sense of hope and peace that passed all understanding. On Wednesday nights, as my small group gathers, we share and cry and pray and hope together. Somehow, in our combined brokenness we are not overwhelmed, we are encouraged and sustained. I can't explain why this happens or how, but I know without a doubt that God is - and that he is breaking through the brokeness.

So while life is hard, while we might feel so broken there is no hope, while faith does not seem to always hold the answers..... I pray that we can allow ourselves to be broken. I pray we can allow ourselves to share our brokeness. And I pray that in our shared pain we will witness God's miraculous grace and love and peace and joy and hope.

'God bless the lost, the confused, the unsure, the bewildered, the puzzled,
the mystified, the baffled, and the perplexed. AMEN' ~ Leunig

Doubt and Questions and Hope

Reading: Wrestling the Angels ~Carolyn Arends (for the 10th time!)
Listening to: The Day of Small Things ~Alli Rogers




The day is coming
Darkness is turning to light

Questions are still questions
Doubt endures
But somehow the hope is relentless


The light reveals a new chapter
The story is still being written with each step

Questions are still questions
Doubt endures
But somehow grace breaks through

And though the sun rises
There is still darkness alive in us
And though the sun rises
Questions are still questions
Doubt endures
But somehow love frees us