Barn raising

I've been thinking about community the past couple of days. As most of you know, I'm leaving this fair 'village on the plains' in a couple of weeks. It's so strange to me how much you can loathe a place so much, and in the midst of it it somehow becomes home. Like a leech that I didn't know was there, it has burried it's way into my leg and somehow become a part of me. Gross, but true. I didn't want it at first, I would never have entered the pond had I known beforehand of the leeches to come, but there they were... waiting to cling to me.

Maybe a leech is a bad analogy.

This weekend on Friday night, I ate at the Commanders' house, along with the band of brothers (Adam, David, Eric, and Phil), Jill (Eric's girlfriend, and my roomate for the summer), and the two youth interns, Jason and Derrick. Julie Commander invited me saying, I'm feeding the boys so they can help move furniture. You can come too, but you don't have to move anything. So I did. And I didn't. But it was fun sitting there, playing with Joy, making costumes from the packing and talking about the big box and it's many uses, while the boys were sweating and hauling, and I thought that maybe this is kind of the modern equivilant of a barn raising. The community coming together to help each other out.

The next day, another family who has just finished building their house had about 20 people come over and help them lay down grass in hopes that they would some day have a lawn. They finished just before lunch, when the rains (AKA Dennis) came.

I don't know what is so amazing about community to me. I mean, really, it just makes sense... everyone working together, and accomplishing more than an individual... but in this individualistic world that we live in I often think about how hard it is to be a person who invites community.

It requires that we shuffle off the shell that we protect ourselves with and allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We come out of hiding, and admit, "I need you." Admitting our own weakness in the process, though validating the need for others in this gigantic way.

I think about a friend of mine who was moving and she called me and told me that she asked a woman from the church where she was moving to, to be her mentor. I remember her saying:

"It was so hard, Kara. Just the awkwardness of it all. Who does this kind of thing? What do you say? I actually said to her, 'I don't really know what this is supposed to look like, but I would really like you to mentor me when I move here."

I was so proud of her, because she was building intentional community.

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if Jesus was like, you know, I don't need anyone. I'm just going to wonder around and heal people and sleep on the streets and fend for myself. He was GOD AFTER ALL! But even God was dependant on other people. He fed 5,000 with food from someone else. He was the ultimate in the dependant relationship... and yet we sometimes think that we are too good to need others.

Lord, teach me how to accept community. To accept it, and to seek it out, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it is hard. Thank you that you have not left us here alone. That you commune with us, and that you have left us each other, each living stones built up in you.

On roaches and bombs dropping

I'm in Spidle Hall, putting the finishing touches on my thesis. There is a roach crawling across the floor to my left. I am really tempted to be grossed out and scream, but there is no one else in this whole building, so I know that really it will do me no good. As he meaders across the floor, seeming to float on the carpet itself, I'm reminded about the random morsel of knowledge, "If a nuclear bomb dropped, roaches would be the only thing to survive." This is interesting, because today I feel like some bombs have dropped, and yet here I am.

The roach is still here, but somehow so am I.

Today I hurt a lot for others. I have been so enveloped in my own stress and pain for a couple of weeks now- like a horse with blinders, only seeing one direction. But today, in what felt like only an instant, I began to really hurt for someone else that I love dearly. It has consumed me all day. I hesitate to even blog about it, wondering what eyes see this blog, even though it just feels like I am writing into the infinate cyberspace of no one.

Today, was a day that I am ashamed to be associated with a pack. A tribe. A group of people. A denomination. A congregration. A religion. Today it seems that all the reasons that people give for not wanting to join mainstream Christianity came and slapped me in the face, and I am forced to look at them, and wonder what the Gospel message has become.

In the midst of our behavior modification rituals have we lost grace and love? We say that we do not want to be like the world, and yet we care so much about rules and obeying.

I thought that this was what Jesus came to change.

Tonight, with tears in my eyes, I grieve for a wounded warrior who walks alongside me. One who feels defeated, but doesn't see the Lord fighting alongside. But I also grieve for that which so many have become, who "they" think that "we" are in this insider/outsider game of who looks and acts the best.

I grieve that sick people can no longer recieve mercy at the hospital, this place where they need it the most.

And I pray that somehow I can be an agent of change, a messenger of light to those who are broken.

Celebrate Diversity

So I realize fully that I am in school, but no one, including my parents, and even some friends who see me every day really knows what I'm getting my degree in. Oh, they've asked many times. I explain with large words... small words, try to paint pictures, use modeling clay, it's of no use. So I think my parents believe I'm going to be a counselor. That's ok. I'll just let them believe that. Maybe I'll send them to counseling when they figure out the truth.

My major is housed in the College of Human Sciences. Recently we (I being included since I am a part of the college, though the dean did not call for my opinion on this particular matter) decided that we (refer to earlier statement) should form a "diversity committee". I really supported this idea. If I were going to be here another year, I probably would have been on it. I love it. Yeah diversity. I sallute thee. So, to go along with our committee we decide to make a video. In the video people from the college come and say different statements. My statement was something to the effect of "To be a truly educated person, I believe that I must listen and understand other people's perspectives". Yes! I really do believe this. I started thinking about travelling and talking to people from so many different parts of the world and trying to understand the way that our differences bond us. I even blogged about it when I was in Italy. I love different perspectives. Really I do.

Then, as we were talking about it, one of the professors said, Oh, I picked up some bumper stickers for us. They had a rainbow in the back and said "Celebrate Diversity" and all of a sudden, I was taken aback. In all my celebrating, I didn't see the slippery slope that I was stumbling down. Please don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Celebrating, against Diversity, or against rainbows, but all of a sudden I was slapped in the face with the idea that tolerence has been matched with truth and they are pitted against each other as mutually exclusive ideas.

If I am not accepting of "alternate lifestyles"- a man and a woman living together unmarried- then I no longer know how to celebrate? Am I now lamenting? I was thinking about this on a walk home the other day, and I started to think about Jesus and the woman at the well. What if Jesus had said to her, "I know that the man you are not living with is not your husband, but you know what, Child, that's ok. Whatever makes you happy." NO! He said, "Go, and sin no more!" Jesus never made the gospel easy. He told the truth, indicating that what she was doing was not right to him. I don't think that I'm called to be Jesus and tell people to go and sin no more, but I also don't know that I'm allowed to misrepresent the gospel by saying that there is no truth.

So tonight. It's late, but I do celebrate diversity. I celebrate that in Italy they eat meals that last four hours. I celebrate that people in the northeast say "wicked". Tonight I celebrate that love crosses races, income lines, cultural lines, and continents. I celebrate that Giraffes are crazy looking and that the United States, as powerful as we think we are, are but a drop in a bucket among the nations to God. I celebrate that we are a kilidepscope of different colors, tongues, talents and hairstyles all across this globe, and I celebrate the the creator knows, sees, and desires the hearts of us all. I believe in truth. And tonight, I celebrate diversity.

Thesis monster

I want to say, first off, that it's 12:30 at night and I'm sitting in the computer lab pretending to work on my thesis. Ok, now that I have that off my chest... we will proceed.

I have not posted in a while, and I am sure that all of you local supporters have been enraged. Fortunately you are few, and I think in a dark alley if you decide to attack, I can handle you.

I have expereinced so much in the past MONTH that I have not posted. I went to Memphis and painted a house with 13 other kids (yes, I think I'm still a kid, too, though I think I was supposed to be the adult this time). I worked on my thesis, entered some data, went to a wedding of some pretty stinkin amazing people, and came home to... my thesis. Do we see a theme of what has been lurking in the dark shadows everywhere I turn when I have a free moment? Thesis monster is there... waiting to attack... or at least his sidekick... you're-not-working-on-thesis-guilt monster. It's a scary place to live... here in my skin, but I mean, someone has to do it, and I am willing to be the one. Better me than you, right?

YUM

Today I woke up and I was pretty hungry from the night before, so I stumbled downstairs and ate some Oreos. Quick, easy, and light, right? Then I decided to face the day with a short seven mile run. As I was running, it was crazy, I kept thinking about food. I had big plans for lunch, though,baby. A big bowl of pasta, or maybe even Niffers.

But somehow I got so busy, I didn't have time. There was the most interesting thing on TV! I grabbed a diet coke on my way out the door, thinking that my afternoon would be light and I would get a break later. By this time I was definately loosing steam. My stomach was talking, and my legs weren't really moving very fast... and i wasn't in the best of moods, but I really thought that my day was almost over. Then a friend came over, and wanted to go walk for a couple of miles. I couldn't really say no, so I went.

By this time I was famished, but i was so tired. My day was over, so I just wanted to go to sleep. I layed down, but as soon as I was about to go to sleep the weirdest thing happened. This guy comes and wants to fight. I was like, dude, I'm tired, and I'm just not ready for this right now. But I think he knows that... so he practically pushes me out of bed. And so we fight.

My very bones are aching for food.

Am I still silent?

Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

What are you eating?