um... creepy?

So, I've always kind of liked this guy's youtube videos. Yeah, he looks kind of creepy, but in a fun, harmless entertaining way. And he lips-sinks animatedly to up beat, old favorite songs. It's like, "oh, silly, creepy old man, look how ridiculous you are! You creep me out a little, but you also make me laugh. How fun!"

But apparently he's a registered sex offender. He's not harmless at all. He's a real live dangerous sex-offending creeper. My heart is sad.

Boo. That's the worst.

but, what do i love when i love my god?

I'll just say it plain: I had a bad day in ministry today. One of those days when the students I work with just didn't engage, when nothing seemed to work, when they didn't want to be there. And because they don't want to be there, I didn't want to be there. I found myself wondering, "what's the point?" Why make them come to something they hate? I've tried re-imagining what youth ministry looks like. I've tried everything I can think of from games, to discussions, to worship, to small groups, to interactive prayer. I've tried to simply be present, to listen, to relate. But today, they looked disinterested and bored. They talked to each other, and rolled their eyes, and wanted to be doing anything else. I crave for them to connect with God, but today I confess that for a moment, I thought, "If they don't want to, there's nothing I can do. I give up.

But when I came home, Kyle was telling me about a passage from Augustine's Confessions that he had been reflecting on, and it reminded me of something beautiful. Instead, of asking, "why don't they care? why don't I feel more respected and appreciated? why do I do this? what is the point?" This amazing passage re-oriented my thoughts, and breathed life into my faith at the moment I needed it most, by asking a question that is bigger than all my negative thinking:

"What do I love when I love my God? Not material beauty of a temporal order; not the brilliance of earthly light, so welcome to our eyes; not the sweet melody of harmony and song; not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes, and spices; not manna or honey; not limbs such as the body delights to embrace. It is not these that I love when I love my God. And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace; but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self,when it listens to sound that never dies away; when it breathes fragrance that is not borne away on the wind;when it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating;when it clings to an embrace from which it is not severed by fulfillment of desire. This is what I love when I love my God.

But what is my God? I put my question to the earth. It answered, "I am not God, and all things on earth declared the same. I asked the sea and the chasms of the deep and the living things that creep in them, but they answered, "We are not your God. Seek what is above us." I spoke to the winds that blow, and the whole air and all that lives in it replied, "I am not God." I asked the sky, the sun, the moon, and the stars, but they told me. "Neither are we the God whom you seek." I spoke to all the things that are about me, all that can be admitted by the door of the senses, and I said, "Since you are not my God, tell me about him. Tell me something of my God." Clear and loud they answered, "God is he who made us.” I asked these questions simply by gazing at these things, and their beauty was all the answer they gave…

I know that my soul is the better part of me, because it animates the whole of my body. It gives life, and this is something that no body can give no another body. But God is even more. God is the Life of the life of my soul."

So, today I am reminded of the Life, who gives life to my soul. The one whose embrace is never severed. The one who I taste, see, and feel in the deepest unexplainable ways. The one who is expressed in all the beauty that springs out of creation, but is more than the sum of all created things and beings. So, the question of why I do ministry has a simple answer: because I love my God, and the question of who I love when I love God is one I want to spend my life contemplating.

The question of who we love when we love God, is why we try to find God's presence in worship, why we talk about our faith, why we argue about theology, why we struggle to re-imagine the church in a way that is relevant. Today, I will not throw in the towel. Today, I will pray that the God I love will be present in ways I cannot begin to imagine, and that I, and every student I work with, will come to know the one we love in a deeper way.

saturday afternoon bounty.

I love fresh produce. Today, I came home with this beautiful pile of apples and pears among other things (lots of other things). And these are all grown on local farms on the west coast. Today, I'm in love with our bountiful earth and the Creator of all this life and beauty.

the hours.

I've been rereading the lovely (and pulitzer prize winning) book by Michael Cunningham. It is magical. He is truly a lyrical writer. A novelist, with a poets sense of music and beauty. Here are a few of my favorite pieces of this sad and achingly beautiful story about human longings and relationships:

"What I wanted to do seemed so simple. I wanted to create something alive and shocking enough that it could stand beside a morning in somebody's life. The most ordinary morning."

"[The story] was full of a love complex and ravenous, ancient, neither this nor that. It will serve as this afternoon's manifestation of the central mystery itself, the elusive brightness that shines from the edges of certain dreams; the brightness which, when we awaken is already fading from our minds, and which we rise in the hope of finding, perhaps today, this new day in which anything might happen, anything at all."

"Why is it so impossible to speak plainly, to ask the important questions? What are the important questions?"

"She feels the presence of her own ghost; the part of her at once most indestructibly alive and least distinct; the part that owns nothing; that observes with wonder and detachment, like a tourist in a museum."

"It seems possible that she slipped across an invisible line, the line that has always separated her from what she would prefer to feel, what she would prefer to be. It does not seem impossible that she has undergone a subtle but profound transformation, here in this kitchen, at this most ordinary of moments: she has caught up with herself... She will not lose hope."

"There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though one knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more."

dance break.

I have long believed that if people had a mandatory dance break in the middle of their day, we would be about a billion percent happier. If we would just give ourselves a moment to be silly and to move our bodies... then we would feel a little free. We spend so much time sitting. So much time contained. What would it mean to really let ourselves let loose, to not just think and feel things, but to embody them? What if offices had dance rooms instead of break rooms? Or what if church leaders as they invited people to pray said, "let us move joyfully and dance," instead of "let us bow our heads?"

I think it would be good. I spend too little of my life dancing, and truth be told it is very difficult to be in a bad mood if you are on your feet, jumping, swaying, moving your limbs in rhythm.

Katherine Mansfield once wrote something about the way we treat our bodies like some kind of rare antique. She suggested that we act as though moving or being silly is shameful - so we contain ourselves. In the story "Bliss" she wrote, "She still had moments when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, or to stand still and laugh at -- nothing -- at nothing, simply... What can you do if you are [an adult] and turning the corner of your own street you are overcome suddenly by a feeling of bliss -- absolute bliss -- as if you'd suddenly swallowed a piece of that late afternoon sunlight... Is there no way you can express it without being drunk and disorderly? How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?"

She wrote that 1918, but 90 years later we are still just as idiotic. When we feel something, we rarely express it in any way except what is dignified or labelled as socially acceptable. Or better yet, we deal with it in the privacy found behind closed doors. But, have you ever watched the way a child plays? The way they run and spin and laugh with true abandon? I want that kind of freedom. They are unabashedly joyful. And I wonder if adults haven't so much lost joy, as much as we've lost suitable ways of expressing it.

Have you ever watched those "Where the Hell is Matt?" videos on youtube? Basically this guy goes all over the world, and just does this silly dance. Is seems completely absurd, but I think he's on to something. The truth is the world has watched those videos a million times because in them we see something we crave. Silliness. Fun. Humans just being human together.

In a segment for NPR Matt says,"When I dance with people, I see them smile and laugh and act ridiculous. It makes our differences seem smaller. The world seems simpler, and my caveman brain finds that comforting."

I am with Matt. I want to smile and laugh and be silly with people, For a few moments I need the world to seem a little less complicated. So, I'm going to try to make more time for dance breaks, and hopefully invite others to join me.

I hope that you'll treat yourself to a little dance break today, too.

inspired.

Sometimes, I stress about my job. I worry about all the youth I haven't connected with. I worry that I'm not fun enough or honest enough. I worry that often the youth seem bored and disengaged. I wonder if what I do matters.

Then I have a moment when the amazing youth I work with remind me that God is doing something very real in them. And that I am blessed just to witness it.

At the youth lock-in on Saturday night, I set up some prayer stations and at one of them they wrote down some of the things that were on their hearts and laid them at the foot of a cross. Today, I was reading through what they wrote and I felt inspired by the beauty of their spirits.

Here is the list of their prayers:

family. friends. and life.
You are love, life and purity. I feel for anyone who does not yet know you.
My relationship and belief in God.
My parents and grandparents, all people in suffering, people dealing with pain or with handicaps.
The ones who are always there, Christ, family, relationships, long-lasting impressions and people who listen.
People who are suffering, loved ones, others, friends, people who feel alone and lost, Please help them feel better, God.
Bring me back.
People you love, ones who love you, church, sufferers, ones who help, family and friends.
My family, old friends, lonely people, my aunt, people with incurable diseases.
Home, new opportunities, love, life, family, friends, those who are suffering and those in need.
Life , love, worship, family together, home, friends, and joy.

I am humbled by their compassion and their honesty. Their hunger for God in their own lives and their hunger to see God comfort and heal the lives of others is amazing.

I can't believe I get paid to hang out with these incredible people. Today, for at least a little while, I set aside my worries and was simply thankful. Through them, God touches me.

I love her.

Yesterday, I went to ridiculously packed concert in the park to see Neko Case. Her voice takes my breath away. Her song lyrics are incredible. If you are not yet a fan, you should become one.