journeylent

Welcome to the Lent group blog for those who travel with Journey Imperfect Faith Community.

Easter Is Here ~ O Happy Day

kristine nesbit ~ surrendered reference points

I began this forty days of Lent by surrendering my need to gather; to gather knowledge, the perfect outfit, the perfect foods, and the perfect skills to name a few. In the past 37 days I have refrained from signing up for any classes. I have done my best to be happy with the food that is already in my pantry rather than running out for more. I only went clothes shopping when I got a new job that required me to wear something other than jeans. I’ve read little more than this blog, my email, recipes to cook dinner, and food ingredient labels. All of this left me with quite a bit of space and quiet time. After the first few days of being freaked out by so much blank space, I found myself turning to prayer. In the beginning, the prayers were mostly the ‘help me, help me, help me’ part that Anne Lamott talks about. This prayer brought me to realizing that God is always helping me so it became obsolete. Then thanking became the prayer of the moment and what a high that is. The more I sang thanks, the more that I wondered what was even beyond this. Then I discovered I could give thanks just by being present to what is. Then the prayers just came through me. Beyond this I came back to surrender; a surrender beyond giving up food, shopping, classes or books. I came to God sitting with me and upping the ante. “Surrender your fear of fear and hurt. Surrender your fear of vulnerability, foolishness, anger, and hard heartedness. Surrender your rejection of humanness.” God asked. Deeper and deeper I go.

A few days later He brings me this. “Surrender your need to be the best.” God doesn’t play this game of ‘best’. The ‘best’ to Him is when I have my eyes and ears tuned to Him, even when I am tumbling down deep ravines. The ‘best’ to Him is when the artist surrenders the painting to His guidance and lets Him run the colors together. The ‘best’ to Him is when the dancer who is really no dancer at all gives her whole being to Him and allows the dance to be a messy, clumsy prayer instead of a performance of an ego straining for unreachable perfection.

Then comes Maundy Thursday. In a tangle of black spider webs singed in crimson candlelight, the teacher stands and pokes me some more. “Surrender more. Go deeper. You know what has been holding you captive.” All of my previous timid surrender has been preparation for this most recent request; the big kahuna of surrender. I am being asked to surrender my life as I have known it. I am being asked to surrender all previous reference points.

I gaze into the flickering flames through tears. What does my life look like without the stories of my past; the stories of abuse and illness? What does my life look like and feel like without even the reference point of recovery? I have caught a glimpse of a new galaxy for the first time and I am awed and scared. What is the reference point in this place? God has prepared me for this moment too. I remember the prayer He put on my heart just this morning. I wondered then what occasion brought such a sweet gift as this. God tells me, “This is your new prayer:

Today I acknowledge that I always exist in Love. I speak this Love. I move this Love. I remember this Love. I dance this Love. I am this Love today and always in order to remind others that they too are this Love. There is nothing that can stand against this Truth. Amen.”

This is Jesus. This is what Jesus said over and over again. This is what Jesus kept modeling for us. His reference point was always this Love, even through hanging on the cross and in death. Always Love. I am always looking for a constant, something that I can trust and plant myself in within this constantly wavering world. This is it; Love. Everything else is just yarn. We are not just humans trying to catch a glimpse of Love through strands of tangled, crazy yarn. We are Love gazing at Love. This is what Jesus has been bringing me to. I surrender. Take it all, God. Bring me to the place where I sing and dance with wild abandon this prayer, “I trust you to kill me.”

karen manroe ~ the i’m right game

I grew up in a very dysfunctional abusive household.  Both my parents were alcoholics.  And my step dad was a firm believer in the “I’m right game (IRG).”  No matter what the issue, he would state the absolute, then no matter what your response, figure out how to degrade your opinion then convert you to his.  It would go on as long as his subjects would engage and regularly involved screaming and hitting.  Good stuff. 

As I grew up, I found myself playing the IRG with others.  I would staunchly support something and be unable to value anyone else’s opinion.  Then as I got older (like really old) I finally realized that I was not only playing out the sickness that was my life but also trying to feel safe.  If I could convince someone that my way was right, then surely it must be and I’d be okay.  Which of course is complete BS.

My husband and I participated in a program called Barnabas a long time ago and in it we did an exercise around this issue.  Two people that didn’t know each other clasped hands and began to push and pull their hands while alternating saying “I’m right.”  More than half of the men ended up with their faces red and screaming.  They weren’t even talking about an issue.  They didn’t even know each other.  The point was that feeling “wrong” evoked the fear of being unsafe.  And that fear can come out in a number of really violent, destructive, sideways ways.  And believe me, it’s not just men.

Nowadays, I have grown to hate legalism.  With all my being.  I can feel the hairs on my neck go vertical with the first “but does he really know the Lord” or the ever popular “but it says in Proverbs” or my personal favorite “love the sinner, hate the sin.”  Complete crap.  And translated, it all means “I’m afraid that I’m wrong.  And if I’m wrong then I’m not safe”.  Safe from hell, safe from bad things happening to me or my family, safe in how people perceive me.  Pick your poison.

But it does make me wonder why there are so many conflicting things in the Bible – the ultimate place we look for the rules so we can know what’s right.  For example, God had to have known that if “love thy neighbor” and “those who sin are to be rebuked publicly” live in the same Bible, we’d be confused. 

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day – she said the reason she is against abortion, no matter the circumstances, is that God says do not kill.  But she’s in favor of capital punishment because it’s justified.  Huh?  Says who?  To me, this is the perfect picture of what happens when we want to be right and so we use the “rules” of the Bible.

I’m reading Donald Miller’s book, Searching For God Knows What (I love this guy.  Every time I read his books I think maybe he’s been reading my mail or my mind or something.  He beautifully articulates exactly what I’ve been feeling and dealing with.) and he talks about this:

I met a guy not long ago who was very conservative and had opinions all over him, and he was saying why God agreed with his political ideas and why that makes his political ideas right.  The whole time he was talking to me…I was feeling like this guy with the opinions was presenting a kind of Jesus who didn’t even exist.  His Jesus was just an invention of his imagination, someone who more or less justified his position concerning a lot of different political opinions.  Sitting there listening to him made me feel tired.  People like that should have an island.

Amen.  Tired and like I want to run away.  In my experience, people that believe Jesus supports their wealth or their bigotry or their mini idea of Him tend to attack if you don’t agree.  So I retreat.  Best not to enter the IRG.

Donald Miller says not only do we use God to be right, we use Him to get our goodies and make Him into Santa Claus.  If we just behave and say the right things and believe the right things, we’ll get the goodies.  Also referred to as the Vending Machine God.  I wonder about people that pray for things specifically (like make my kid well or pay my bills) and do the holy dance as fast as they can, and then how they deal with it when God doesn’t come through.  They put their quarters in the machine, right?  That is too scary for me – maybe because I’m not that good.  I just pray for God to help me deal with whatever happens with love and compassion and like Jesus would.  But I digress –ponderings for another time.  Back to the IRG.

Jesus didn’t seem to care about the rules.  So what does that do to the IRG?  He was about loving and asking people to examine themselves and most importantly about being in relationship with God and with both good and bad folk.

In fact, He said he didn’t come to get rid of the laws, but to fulfill them.  But then simultaneously he broke really important cultural rules that had been long inflicted by the uber-righteous, who quoted the rules straight from the Bible.  Then when Jesus died and was resurrected, the ultimate physical, biological rule was broken.  So what’s the deal?  Was he trying to tell us something about the Bible?  That love supercedes all the thou-shalt-nots?  That if we’re trying to love people, we can’t be bombing them or killing them or judging them simultaneously?  That if someone is trying to be loving, they will be making healthy decisions for their own lives and not trying to convert others and the world is right with God?  This makes sense to me.

At the risk of dissing the other parts of Bible, I hope that Jesus is the part we’re supposed to pay attention to.  I can love and worship and believe in and trust a God that acts like Jesus.  I believe He is the ultimate answer to every IRG, thus love is the answer.  The rest will take care of itself.  What a relief.

If you read my previous Lent blog, I’ve never been much for giving up stuff for Lent – seems kind of lame.  But maybe a good thing to give up, in honor of Jesus, might be the need to be right.  And to practice self awareness around needing to play the IRG when I need to feel safe.  And then to replace that game with love and compassion and see what happens.  Worth a try, huh?

lisa carton ~ one year later

I wanted to share a blog post that I wrote last year:

Holy Week is my favorite week of the Christian year. I love the drama, the arch of the story. Spiritually, this week is always a touchstone, a marker for me. Watching the altar being stripped on Thursday night is a reminder of getting down to the root of my faith, clearing out all the crap. Waiting for something new to come to life. Experiencing death--painful, bloody death.

I was born and raised an Episcopalian. Actually being Episcopal was more than my religion. It is my culture and my heritage. Many of my earliest memories are at church. Being loved and accepted. I always knew I was someone special when I walked through those doors. I married another Episcopalian. I couldn't imagine marrying outside my tribe, my lineage. Our wedding was a true Anglican feast for the senses-smells, bells, costumes.

Over the past year we have taken a break from the Episcopal Church. After 2 and half dreadful years of Episcopal seminary our wounds were pretty deep. I could never bring myself to admit how betrayed I felt by my own people. Instead, I just told myself that I needed a little something different and time to heal.

This week seemed like the perfect time to rejoin the tribe. My parents were in town and our best friends had really wanted us to join them at our home parish for Palm Sunday. This sounded good to me.

"All Glory Laud and Honor", I have sung it on Palm Sunday for 44 years. I love the music and drama of the liturgy. It didn't click. I felt nothing. I knew the service by heart, but the heart was gone for me. I was a bit puzzled by this.

On Thursday we went to another Episcopal service. Bob preached. Maundy Thursday is my favorite service of the year. As I watched the altar being stripped, it hit me that I may never come home to the Episcopal Church.

Something in my experience of faith has died. It wasn't like I would have hoped. But it did die-dead.

As I sit waiting for Easter, I wonder what will be born in my heart. How will Jesus find me in new surroundings? How will I find him? This is the mystery of the tomb---like the early followers --- Jesus will raise this death into to a new life of faith. I sit in sadness waiting outside the tomb with heart full of anticipation hoping for new life, new faith.

In the past seven months since arriving at Journey, God has found me through many of you.  I came here spiritually spent and unsure if there was still a place where I could gather and remember what my heart knows about God. I was tentative and unsure when I entered the doors of the warehouse. 

What I have found in many of you are fellow travelers.  I have found a place where I can sit with my questions. I’m not sure what I expected to happen next in my spiritual journey. What I am finding is that living in community with all of you is allowing me to grow and to reach out of my comfort zones.  I find this both exciting and terrifying. 

No, God didn’t forget me or leave me. I didn’t leave God either. I’m not even sure this was really a story of death; maybe it was actually about new life.  The wonderful tradition of faith that I learned as a child isn’t dead. It is simply evolving.  Jesus looks a little different to me in this place.  And yet- I recognize him. I’m not sure where this is going or where God is calling me. I just know that I am here and I am loved.

bob carlton ~ when secrets break

When I was a young boy, I was obsessed with a toy that is common around Texas.  The finger trap  - you know, that simple puzzle that traps your fingers (often the index fingers) in both ends of a small, woven bamboo cylinder.   These things appear to be almost universal in their appeal - they are called  Chinese finger prison, Chinese finger cuffs, Chinese finger puzzle, Chinese handcuffs, and Mexican handcuffs.  It just shows my simple adolescent mind - I could spend literally hours on a family trip playing with my little finger trap,  fascinated by the tension I could feel by entering this woven bambo.

If you are anything like me, your initial reaction  is to remove your fingers outward, but this only tightens the trap more.  I do not want to spoil this for any youngsters reading this, but the solution to escaping the trap is to push the ends inward toward the middle, which enlarges the openings and frees the fingers, before slowly twisting them out of the trap so as not to trigger the tightening reflex again. A second form of escape is to push your fingers together and then grab the ends of the trap with your middle fingers and thumbs.

I have lived with secrets as long as I can remember playing with little bambo cylinders.  My instinct is to pull out of them, to jerk away, to run.  A lot of these secrets revolved around my Dad.  When I was in my early teens, my Dad's emotional turmoil became more & more apparent.  In my family, at that time in our culture, it was just not kosher to talk honestly about mental illness.  Whether out of of necessity or avoidance, we just struggled more and more, pulling harder and harder, with the restraints pulling harder against us.

One part of my Dad's struggles with depression, anxiety and what they called at the time "mood disorders" is that he was hospitalized on occasion as part of his treat.  One memory that I still can not shake is him being wheeled out of our house on a gurney,  for what ended up being a particularly long stay.  I later found out that he spent a fair amount of this time receiving electroconvulsive therapy.

I thought of this yesterday when I got the chance to hear Frank Warren,  founder of PostSecret.  Warren has been called "the most trusted stranger in America", as so many people trust him with their secrets.   This ongoing community art project in 2004, when people began mailing their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.  Warren has collected and displayed upwards of 200,000 original pieces of art from people all around the globe. Warren said in his talk that he sensed that the reason so many people have engaged in this project (and website & books) is that there is a profound hunger for for grace, for authenticity - in our jam-packed world, people want to tell their stories, share their secrets.

When I talked with Lisa about this truly extraordinary talk at a conference for Web geeks, I mentioned how much it reminded me of church this past Sunday.  For me, it was a glorious example of when church breaks out at a gathering, when people allow themselves to collapse on God and one another.  It is brave for people to share their secrets, tell their stories - whether in the living room at the warehouse or on postcards or on this very blog.  It is messy and even a bit wild - sometimes, I have the feel I have when I see a butterfly light.  I find myself holding my breath, not wanting to scare the butterfly, hoping to hold the moment for as long as nature allows.

My Dad died a few years ago - and a whole set of secrets broke for me.  I struggled with trying to free myself, trying pull against what I sensed was constraining me, thrashing like mad to free myself.  I have found some ways to slow down,  pushing inward toward the middle, working with the tension, not against it. 

On Sunday, someone mentioned the tension between safety and freedom - it connected with me in a profound way that I still am trying to catch up to.  In a gorgeous moment during his talk, Frank Warren mentioned how grace can enter in when secrets break.  I sensed that in the stories shared on Sunday.  I know some of this grace from my own journey.  The Lenten journey seems to be profoundly marked by this kind of tension, this type of struggling, this promise and reality of traps breaking, prisons unlocked, freedom embodied, grace taking skin.

 

laurel dixon ~ on a threshold of a new beginning....

When I got up this morning, I didn't know what to write for today's lent entry.  It's the first official day of spring break and it's raining.  At points, the rain is rather hard.  I'm listening to the rain pleat against the window glass and I struggle to relax, regroup, rethink and  repray for what's next...all in the attempt to recapture the pendulum, which is swinging wildly from side to side, and move it back to center on my own.

I am one of those people who try so tremendously hard at life, and at times against all my honest work and strained attempt, it seems as if I can not get a leg up or feel as if I'm on top of things.  I am not just tired but exhausted.  I seems as if that I have two left feet when it comes to walking life's trail.  It might be okay if I knew how to slide but instead with hard-hardheadedness, choose to give 100 percent to everything I do..even if those steps are awkward and funny looking.  Yes, I am my own worst enemy.  Always have been.  And, through the trying and the beating up of myself, I am impatient with life and with God.  In the words of Joni Mitchell, I often just want to be unfettered and alive.

The rain has turned to a soft drizzle heard distantly by only a few drops hitting the pavement and glass and my breaths are not as shallow and I am in the process of regaining hope.  It is a day and a week from the official start of holy week leading to Easter Sunday.  The most profound thing I've learned in the last couple of weeks of graduate school is that Saint Paul, after being knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus and having his vision where Jesus spoke to him, took three years living in Arabia, doing nothing but trying to understand and wait for where God was leading him and for his work for God to begin.  He was planning and praying.  He was absorbing everything around him, waiting for God's plan for him to unfold.  Waiting for God's plan for me to unfold and believing and trusting in God's plan for me is the hardest thing for me to comprehend.  But, I believe God has a plan for each of us.  The Lenten season is a time for God, on His own, to move the pendulum back to center...to remind us how dear we are and how He comes to us in the quiet distant beat of a raindrop.

It's also a reminder that God comes to us in unexpected and sometimes heroic ways...and at times may even leave us on a road we never expected and one that may not be of our own choosing.  But in the after thought, we figuratively look over our shoulder and feel a degree of appreciation for a turn so beautiful.

My life is filtered through a strange dichotomy these days...the frustration and joy in the learning obtained in graduate school and the emotional up and down dealings of teaching high school.  So, with that said, I will leave this blog entry with a poem I read this morning, which leads off a chapter from a book I have to read for school, Taylor Branch's biography on Martin Luther King, Jr.  The chapter, called First Trombone, describes a 25-year-old King, newly married and freshly out of school, looking for that  first job, to mark a beginning to God's plan for him.   On a lark, he goes to check out and give a trial sermon in a little but notorious church in Montgomery Alabama, called Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.  He might have thought he was on a threshold of a new beginning, but little did he know at the time, God was placing him on the road to destiny.

God has a purpose for us all.  This is my personal hope and prayer.

James Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones

Take him, Lord--this morning--
Wash you with hyssop inside and out,
Hang him up and drain him dry of sin.
Pin his ear to the wisdom post,
And make his words sledge hammers of truth--
Beating on the iron heart of sin.
Lord God, this morning--
Put his eye to the telescope of eternity,
And let him look upon the paper walls of time.
Lord, turpentine his imagination,
Put perpetual motion in his arms,
Fill him full of the dynamite of thy power,
Anoint him all over with the oil of thy salvation,
And set his tongue on fire.

p.s.  In the words of another famous “poet of sorts”, Jon Bon Jovi, “Welcome to wherever you are....you are exactly where you are supposed to be...because every beginning is some beginning's end...”
Peace.

And, Oh Yeah...Pack a Little Courage

The South by Southwest Film Festival began today, so since I was at a meeting in downtown Austin at noon today I couldn't help but notice the 6th Street/Congress area getting that festival vibe again.  There were celebs everywhere including Morgan Fairchild, Luke Wilson, Mike Judge, ZZ Top, Mariska Hargitay, and those were just the ones getting a soy latte at Progress Coffee.  While I don't have the cash to get a film festival badge, I always, peruse the Chronicle to get a description of as many of the films as I can...The critics and festival goers are anticipating the viewing of such movies as "21", "Baghead", "American Teen", "Goliath", and "Lou Reed's Berlin" to name a few...  There are a couple more that I know of that are not getting the critic's buzz, yet, I am really interested in how they do.   They both have to do with the  subject of human trafficking and, in my mind the display of great courage.  Justin Dillon, who along with "Not For Sale's" Dave Batstone were at Journey in September to share the call to respond to the international issue of human slavery.  If you remember Justin was working on a documentary film entitled "The Concert to End Slavery" which included interviews and music performances by writers, musicians, politicians, actors and actresses.  We got to see excerpts from the film which was in progress...well Justin  is having his first screening of TCTES this Wednesday March 12 at The Village Alamo Drafthouse.  Our buddy, Brandon Demaris, has been talking with an Austin filmmaker who is showing a documentary this week in which he spent several years chronicling the story of several young boys who were forced to become child soldiers in Uganda. 

One of the interesting aspects of immersing oneself in the story of the last days of Jesus' ministry is the inescapable realization that he began facing the inevitability that his refusal to play by accepted standard religious operating procedure was going to get him killed. Before the spectacular raising of his friend Lazarus from the dead, the scriptures tell us that while talking to Lazarus bereaved sisters "Jesus wept".  I believe that he partly wept because he loved his friends, and when your friends are sad, you are sad...even if you know you are about to bring one of them back to life.  But I also think that it could have been more than that...I think Jesus knew that if he does this public magic, and does the unthinkable...reclaim someone from the grave and put them back among the breathing...he has crossed the point of no return with the Jewish religious leaders...they will kill him to silence him.  A few days later around a campfire in Caesarea Phillipi, Jesus drops the foreboding bombshell by telling them that they are going to head for Jerusalem and passover...and when they get there, he will be killed.  To which Simon Peter responds.."Well that's a no-brainer, we just won't go to Jerusalem!" Jesus' corresponding words are some of the most passionate and emotion filled in all the scripture as he screams at Peter, "Get behind me Satan!"  Courage...the courage to make films about human trafficking...to be brave and courageous to take the steps to stamp out human slavery...the amazing courage to risk your life to escape being trafficked in the 21st century.  The courage it takes today to live like Jesus  in a world that killed him once and would do it again if it had the chance.  Love rattles the cages of power.  Courage gives a voice to love even in the very moment it is being betrayed and bought off for 30 pieces of silver...or less.  Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor says, "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Martin Luther King Jr., said, "Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question,'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right."

As we travel the Lenten Journey together, our path is headed straight for Jerusalem and to sure opposition and danger.  Courage is not the absence of fear or anxiety...it is proceeding to follow the voice of God in spite of the presence of fear and anxiety.  Jesus wept, and then set his face toward Jerusalem.  Not sure where you are headed tomorrow, but I pray for your courage to love in the face of hate and evil...and that you will be joined by a bunch of us who pledge to walk and love with you. 

dg

kester smith ~ living water

Saliva becomes thick and foul tasting; the tongue clings irritatingly to the teeth and the roof of the mouth. A lump seems to form in the throat. Severe pain is felt in the head and neck. The face feels full due to the shrinking of the skin. Hearing is affected, and many people begin to hallucinate. Then come the agonies of a mouth that has ceased to generate saliva. The tongue hardens into what one survivor described as "a senseless weight, swinging on the still-soft root and striking foreignly against the teeth." Speech becomes impossible, although sufferers have been known to moan and bellow. Next is the "blood sweats" phase, involving "a progressive mummification of the initially living body." The tongue swells to such proportions that it squeezes past the jaws. The eyelids crack and the eyeballs begin to weep tears of blood. The throat is so swollen that breathing becomes difficult, creating terrifying sense of drowning.

This is what it feels like to die of thirst.

When I read the story of the woman at the well, I am amazed at how much the story is about. It’s about acceptance for the outsider. It’s about true worship not being done in the right place, this mountain or that mountain, but in the right way, in Spirit and in truth.

It’s also about how we’re all thirsty. This is the human predicament. We are a world that is longing for more. We live in a world that is dying of thirst. Our life becomes about trying to slake our thirst, about relieving the emptiness and the dryness. It becomes about trying to figure out where that thirst comes from.

C.S. Lewis famously stated,  “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

In the bookstore where I work, there has been a surge in books whose topics and titles focus on happiness and the pursuit of happiness. The recurring theme seems to be that when we get that which was going to make us happy, it never does.

And so there is the universal experience of desire for something to fill us and complete us. This is why the movie Jerry Maguire did so well. The universal experience of seeking after that something or someone. The universal experience of dryness and emptiness and thirst.

I’ve always thought that Bob Dylan did a pretty good job of summing up the human predicament when he wrote, “the pump don’t work ‘cause the vandals took the handle.”

That seems to be the problem. And so we’re still thirsty.

And so is the woman at the well. What begins as a conversation about Jesus’ thirst quickly turns back around to the woman. In asking her to go fetch her husband, Jesus exposes a story that hints at a longing for completeness and wholeness. This is a woman who is looking for something.

We read in Amos 8 about how God’s people are made to thirst, their lack of obedience has caused a dry spell in hearing from God.

Everyday I rub up against people who share this universal experience of thirst to hear from God.

But our hearing is affected by our thirst.

So we try to make our own way to water. Jeremiah says that we commit two great sins, we turn away from the source of living water and build cisterns of our own that won’t hold water.

In our efforts to be more fulfilled, less dry, less thirsty, we have created philosophies and ideals that haven’t helped us. They are ideologies absent of God and so do not hold water.

They are like hallucinations, like a desert mirage.

But we keep returning to dry or poisoned wells. We drink what makes us sick or we refuse to drink at all. We end up polluted or we end up empty. And it feels like we’re drowning

In C.S. Lewis’ book The Silver Chair, there is an encounter between a girl named Jill and the Lion, Aslan, who is Lewis’ Christ figure. Aslan invites Jill, who is literally dying of thirst, to drink from a stream in front of him. Jill asks if he might go away, and he refuses. She asks that he promise to not do anything to her, and he refuses to promise. She asks if he has ever eaten girls and he assures her that he has swallowed girls and boys and cities and realms. She frantically states that she must go and find another stream.

“There is no other stream,” the Lion says.

There is no other stream. Christ is the source of living water. And while Christ doesn’t promise not to do anything to us and while the water may swallow us whole, if we don’t drink it, we will die.

We live in a world full of people who are dying of thirst. And people who are dying of thirst will drink anything, even if it’s polluted, even if it’s poison.

We have found the source of living water.

And here’s the thing that always gets me…we’re still trying to decide if we want to share it.

In fact, we’re so filled up on other junk, we’re not even sure if we want to drink it.

Which is what Lent is about. Fasting from the junk of life in order to take in the bread of life.

What keeps me up when I can’t sleep are the increasing number of people I meet and come to know and love who are dying of thirst.

Watching them, day after day and night after night, drinking from poisoned wells and filling up on emptiness.

When what they really need is living water.

Now, knowing that doesn’t mean I’m going to force it down their throats.

But I’m not going to keep it from them just because it’s hard to swallow.

The throat is so swollen that breathing becomes difficult, creating terrifying sense of drowning.

This is what it feels like to die of thirst. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is living water.

And we are called to drink. And we are called to share.

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

laura harris ~ there is no abyss

I've never taken Lent very seriously. It's not that I think it's worthless or wrong; I just wasn’t raised with an understanding of it and thus have never fully engaged it. However there is one element of Lent that I've connected deeply with, that is the idea of loss and redemption, the reality of death and the promise of new life.

Last Sunday at Journey was about fear and trust, and letting go of the need to control things. I was sitting in my chair thinking, "I so wish I could tell my story!" And then I remembered that I was doing the Lent blog today. I have decided tell it here since its about loss and how I went from being terrified of not having enough money to being truly free from the fear that that I wouldn't have what I needed. But I'll warn you: it's not brief.

In 1981 (when I was 20) I got married, and by the time I was 26 we had 3 children. The marriage was problematic from the beginning. One of our chronic issues was with money.  I don't want to get into too much here and start telling someone else's story but this one element is important - my husband was always self-employed and not very good with money. He earned quite a bit at times but there was rarely - if ever - any security for our family. I was determined to be the good Christian wife who submitted to her husband's leadership and went along with his decisions even when I thought they were completely wrong or crazy. It was my job, I was told, to pray for him and to trust God to provide for us. But over the years there were countless times we literally did not have enough to pay our mortgage, pay for groceries, utilities, etc… I was constantly afraid to hear my husband say, "this deal fell through - I don't know where we're going to get the money for next month's expenses." That paralyzed me with fear, and it happened regularly. In about 2000 he wanted to make some business decisions that I didn't agree with and that quite honestly terrified me. All I knew to do was to tell my husband, "Okay, but if you're going to go into this kind of debt I don't want to know how much we owe because I have no control over it." He reassured me that his business plan was solid and would finally pay off and provide the security we needed as a family. Looking back on it I can see I was caught in a web that was part Stepford wife, part "virtuous woman" (i.e. trying desperately to be a Christian wife/mother whom God would approve of) and truckloads of denial.

My husband began having major problems with mental illness and chemical addiction in 2002. I tried to hold it together for three years (which was part of the problem), but things just kept getting crazier and were spiraling out of control. In late 2004 I learned that we were about $200,000 in debt and I freaked out. To say I was living in fear was an understatement! I was sick, worried, sleepless, begging God to show me what to do. I had been a stay-at-home mom for many years, worked in my husband's business (for no pay) for many years, and had a freelance writing career for many years (which was great but was not a job with much breadwinning potential). So I hadn't finished college, hadn't carved out a career for myself (yes, things that were my choice) and we quite literally had no money. In fact by the time my daughters and I moved out in August of 2005, here's what the landscape looked like: Bankruptcy. Foreclosure. Literally all money was completely gone. Creditors were breathing down our necks, calling our neighbors, showing up at our door. And while I was trying to hold it together for the kids and provide some sort of day to day sanity, here's what was going on inside of me: fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. On about July 27, 2005 my husband - who had been trying to work out a deal with our mortgage company - called and told me our house was going to be foreclosed on August 2. (I had known that's where we were headed but felt powerless to stop it.) We had to be out in less than a week. I decided within 48 hours that I either had to leave our 25-year marriage or drown with him. I made the decision to leave. I was a wreck - feeling like a failure, that I was letting God down, and everything I had ever heard from a pulpit about divorce was haunting me.

I was also wondering, "What the HELL am I going to do?"  Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. We were 6 days from foreclosure and nothing in the house was packed. I didn't even have $100. We had already borrowed money from our families. It was one month before my daughter started her senior year of high school and I felt strongly that I didn't want to live with family - that I wanted to provide a stable place for her to finish high school. We started packing up things and I started looking for a place to live. I begged God to help me, to show me what to do. How was I going to get an apartment without money, without a job, and with a bankruptcy and foreclosure on my record? Someone said they'd cosign a lease with me, and a neighbor offered to help me with the deposit and first month's rent. My friend drove me around Austin while I cried and cried. I sent out emails looking for housesitting opportunities, benevolent people, anything that might be God's provision for us. Nothing. I knew we weren't going to be out on the street because we had people who would let us live with them, but I longed for a safe, quiet place to get my head on straight. I was in shock and absolutely exhausted.

I finally resigned myself to an apartment way on the outskirts of town, though I was dreading the prospect trying to find quick work - even if I hated it - in order to pay the rent and provide for the rest of our needs. On Saturday I talked to the leasing agent and learned he was not available to sign the lease until Monday (the day before foreclosure). I kept imploring God to show me the way. I falteringly prayed "If this is the wrong decision - if you have something better in mind please intervene!" I wasn't feeling particularly connected to God at the time but I tossed the prayers up every few minutes nonetheless because, quite honestly, God was my only hope. I had exhausted all of my other prospects and resources. A dear friend stayed with me as I cried and packed and cried and packed. I was scheduled to go to an event on Sunday night at our former church because my daughter had been to youth camp with their youth ministry, and there was always an elaborate camp wrap-up. Going was the last thing I wanted to do because I would see so many people who would probably know some of what was going on, ask about the details, not approve of my response, etc, etc… In addition, I also could not stop crying. But my daughter needed some sense of normalcy (ha!), some sense that a parent supported her, so I reluctantly went. I sat in the back through the whole presentation, and when it was over I wanted to find my daughter and get the hell out of there. As I was walking across the auditorium toward my daughter, the wife of one of the church's pastors stepped into my path and said, "Laura, I don't want to pry but we got a phone call this morning from someone who told us you were losing your house." Great, I thought. Yes, I said, it was true, and that I was leaving my husband.

She said, "The people who called want to offer you their vacant town home in Northwest Hills."

"I couldn't afford anything over there," I told her.

"I don't think that will be a problem," she said. They want you to live there rent-free until your daughter graduates from high school.

What???? Surely I didn't hear that right.

"I don't even have a job yet," I told her.

"That's not a problem," she said. "The only thing is that they'd like to remain anonymous."

And that's exactly what happened. My daughter and I lived there for 13 months without paying a dime in rent, repairs, or utilities, which gave me the ability to slow down and ponder what direction I needed to head in. It also gave me the ability to seek counsel, switch careers, and go back to school (things I couldn't have done if I had to carry those expenses right off the bat.) That was almost three years ago, and I can honestly say that I have not lacked anything, anything I've needed. I could fill pages with accounts of how I have been miraculously provided for. I'm not trying to tie this all up with a bow - I am still very much recovering - emotionally, financially, and especially physically. This chapter in my life has taken a pretty big toll.

Believe it or not I am much happier now than I've ever been. You know the yarn hanging all over the warehouse? That's what my life looked like three years ago. "How could God be in this?" I thought. "Surely I've hit the threshold of grace and God has bailed on me." Though I'm not trying to compare my suffering to that of Jesus, for a very long time Psalm 22 loomed large in my head: "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But just like Rick has been saying Sunday after Sunday, I have found that God was, and is, right in the middle of the knotted, gnarly mess.

I think one of the best things that came out of this whole drama is that I can say that I am mostly free from the fear that I'll not have enough (I say mostly because I've learned the hard way never to say never.) These experiences - while probably the biggest nightmare in my life - have provided a fire that burned away the severe financial anxiety that had me by the throat for so many years.  I am still low income but in some strange way I prefer that. I can tell you this: even today the equation of my income and the abundance of what I have absolutely do not add up. My life shouldn't be so plentiful when I earn so little. Since I quit my job last year and started freelancing in order to go to school full time, I often don't know where my provisions for the next month will come from. When it comes up people will say, "I would be a nervous wreck if I were in that position!" And to that I reply, "I used to be that way…" One of my friends once said, "You spend your whole life fearing the abyss and then when life forces you to walk right up to the edge of it you discover a remarkable truth:  there is no abyss."

brian hill - oh oprah, you've done it again

my wife and i have a problem.  a biiiig problem.  we get addicted to reality shows too easily.  it happens every time.  there will be a commercial on tv about the next lame show where they stick 8 random strangers with different backgrounds into a small setting and just kind of see what happens.  they usually have a certain formula they follow in the selection process.  there have to be men and women.  there has to be an alcoholic.  someone dealing with depression.  someone with anger management issues.  a super christian. someone that is gay.  and there is usually someone that has a little common sense, but let's be honest, the camera never focuses on them because america wants to see the bible beater and the homosexual fighting...that's entertainment.  i told my wife that if i was gonna try out for a reality show, i would tell them that i am a homosexual southern baptist pastor with an alcohol problem whose favorite past time was racism.  they would have to let me on!

anyways, back to the reason why i am writing this.  i always see the commercial and think to myself, "what a waste of time.  another reality show that serves no purpose for society."  and it never fails.  when the show airs, i end up watching it, and get hooked.  i am now an expert on being a fashion designer, how to flip a house, that if i tell a guy to move his bus, there will be a brand new house behind it while toby keith serenades me with another song about patriotism, how to idolize an american singer with mediocre talent, what it's like in the "real world", and what i would do in a the situation if i was bisexual and had to choose between 15 guys and 15 girls to see which i prefer more (that's a real show by the way).

last night it happened again.  there was a new show on that i hadn't seen before.  this time oprah was involved, so it had to be good.  oprah is the queen of giving stuff away to her crowd while they dance and scream like they are on speed.  the show that aired last night was called the big give.  on the show, 10 ordinary everyday people are given a certain amount of money, a car, and a picture of a person in need.  there job is to hunt down the person, find out their needs, and use their money and talents to raise enough to help that person out of the slump they are in.  there was a lady whose husband just died six weeks ago and was now left with 2 kids and a house payment.  there was a lady that had two kids and had been living on the streets for over a year.  there was a lady that helped children with down syndrome and needed an activity center for them to learn and be creative.  there was a guy who had made it out of south central la and was finishing school to become a plastic surgeon.  he wanted to be able to help kids in need of surgery for free but needed to pay off the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of school loans he owed.  and there was a soldier in the military that didn't have a place for him and his family to stay since he has returned injured from iraq.

it was actually a cool show.  these contestants came together, and with the small amount of time they were given, were able to raise thousands and thousands of dollars in order to help out these random strangers.  they were calling businesses, throwing block parties, putting together fashion shows, all in a few days.  tears were flowing in our house as we heard the stories of those in need and then saw the difference that was being made.  my favorite was the lady living on the street that said she didn't need a handout, just an opportunity. 

as i was watching the show and trying to hold back the tears, it made me think.  these people weren't doing anything crazy.  i mean sure, they had oprah give them some money and they had camera crews following them around.  but the money they raised and the creative efforts they made came from them.  they were just ordinary people and all they needed was a little direction.  someone to challenge them to take a chance and help someone else out.  often times in my life, when it comes to helping others, i get so bogged down in the details.  what if i'm not good enough?  what if i fail someone?  when am i gonna find the time?  no one is gonna want to help.  raising money is too hard and it bothers people.  is this really gonna make a difference in the long run?

when i begin to think this way i am reminded of jesus feeding the multitude.  in the story, christ didn't ask the disciples to do anything crazy.  he didn't ask them to put together a committee  in order to vote on how to feed them.  he asked them to give what they had.  give him what they had and he would do the rest.  he didn't say, "you turn these fish and this bread into enough to feed all of these people.  christ did that.  they just had to give him what they had.

in this time of preparation and reflection let us remember that we are able.  we are capable.  we are creative enough to come up with ways to help those around us.  we just have to be willing to realize that we don't have to do it alone.  if we will just give christ our fish and our bread, he will use it to feed the thousands.  peace.