Make Every Place Love

[I don't think this one needs a warning. Maybe a strong caution?]

Love is a place. And I think I just left it.

I came back home after work and washed the last of the pool out of my hair. Don't get me wrong, it's been a comfort these past couple of shifts to have that familiar yet vaguely unpleasant smell in my nose as I wash dishes and scrub floors and occasionally serve people ice cream, but I don't love it so much that I'd keep it around. After the shower, I sat down to my computer and began searching for someone else's words to describe what it's like to love a place.

No one talks about that. Well, and then some do. But you can't quote James Taylor unless you're talking about Carolina (dark and silent late last night I think I might have heard the highway calling) and no one seems to really talk just about loving a place in general, they just talk about the place they love. So I guess three pages into "place quotes" and one awesome youtube video with Ten/Rose and the song Love is a Place later, I'm stuck having to find my own words to describe what it's like to love this place.

I just don't want to fail at telling you what it felt like to leave camp for the last time this summer, knowing it's the last. There's the camp sign that says Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you and I couldn't even look at that. Pray for a thousand years that He'll be faithful to that for these wonderful little people who take my heart away. I'm hiding under my sunglasses with the air conditioning on high and the green leafy dark of a Thursday afternoon out in the woods is peeking in through my windshield. It seems like every curve of the road that's taking me away is fighting against me. There's this tug on my stomach, something pulling me back all the time. I absolutely hate that this isn't the first time I've felt that.

I thought about saying good-bye to everything. I'd drive up to the gazebo (What's a ka-see-bo? One of my favorite camper questions) and sit on the swing and just feel the Spirit move the air around. I'd walk into the back of the Lamb's Chapel and the Shepherd's Shed and I'd pay my respects, remembering so many different songs. I wonder which ones I'd pick to play through my head as I find the exact corners that I see God in these spaces. I'd be tempted to walk up to the cabin, but I know it's not mine now. The poster I left two summers ago is as much a part of the upstairs wall as the second half of the God is Great! poster that's lived there ever since I've seen the place, but I can't take the cabin away from the counselors who stay there now. And I'd want to say good-bye to the campfire and remember its laugh. I'd want to go to the pond and feel its peace once again and go to the creek and let its waters freeze my bare feet one more time. I'd smile at the pool and the field where my campers fell asleep as I spent entirely too much time looking to the stars and not to them.

That place is never empty. It's like the ghosts of campers past float around and rustle the leaves (Have you ever seen a tree laugh?) and whistle through screens and windows. "There is nothing like returning back to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered" - Nelson Mandela. Even though I know it's not, I feel like camp is eternal and changeless. The faces change, the staff comes and goes, but if you told me God was hiding in one place, this would be my first guess. He touches somewhere and the feeling remains. You could take away the cabins and the road and the pool and the barn and camp would still be there.

OK, this is dumb. But how else do you pay tribute to the place where you grew up? What else do you say to commemorate four summers (five summers if you count where my brain was last summer... six if you count the all-too-short time that I spent there these past three weeks)? Beautiful souls. Maybe it's a trick of the light out there, but I feel like anyone who walks in there has a beautiful soul again, no matter the mess we make of it when we walk out.

Listen, I just wanted it to know how much it meant to me. The summer before my freshman year, I went to CTOPs in the middle of the summer, in the middle of camp. While I was at orientation, my heart was at camp, for a thousand confused reasons, and for a thousand more clear ones, and I spent my free time writing notes of encouragement to the staff members that I'd give to them when I got back in a few days. Now I don't think my senior year will be long enough to fill my heart with enough Chapel Hill to last me a lifetime (goodness knows I'm going to try) but I really think in some weird way that I've had all I need of camp, and someone determined a while ago that it had all it needed of me. Someone else needs an incubator for their soul, a reminder that God loves them too (that God really, truly, deeply, honestly, faithfully, courageously, unforgivably loves them too) and a reason to stand up for people whose legs have been knocked out from underneath them, to speak up for people whose voices have been weakened and to work for those people who deserve more out of life than life's seen fit to give them. Someone else must need a living bible to teach them the important things about faith, and the fun things about faith, and the awesome and unspeakable joys that faithfully doing work with God can bring.

Someone else must need to feel like they're worth something again.

God, take that place and make it beautiful for someone else. Keep my campers safe. Be with the staff. Work through my beaten down words to find the heart that's forgotten to praise You and make it whole again. God, I wince to see the Jesus camp that this whole story is going to be reduced to. Breathe into my life. What a miracle You'll work if You can make every place Love.

Lord, remember not only the men of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Remember rather the fruits we have brought, thanks to this suffering: our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown out of this. And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits we have bourne be their forgiveness.

—found on a scrap of wrapping paper
at the liberation of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp

Out There

Disney Lyrics Day! Out There from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
I think, though, that if we all had the patience and contentment of Quasimodo, our prayers would be much shortened.

Quasimodo:
Safe behind these windows and these parapets of stone
Gazing at the people down below me
All my life I watch them as I hide up here alone
Hungry for the histories they show me
All my life I memorize their faces
Knowing them as they will never know me
All my life I wonder how it feels to pass a day
Not above them
But part of them

And out there
Living in the sun
Give me one day out there
All I ask is one
To hold forever

Out there
Where they all live unaware
What I'd give
What I'd dare
Just to live one day out there

Out there among the millers and the weavers and their wives
Through the roofs and gables I can see them
Ev'ry day they shout and scold and go about their lives
Heedless of the gift it is to be them
If I was in their skin
I'd treasure ev'ry instant

Out there
Strolling by the Seine
Taste a morning out there
Like ordinary men
Who freely walk about there
Just one day and then
I swear I'll be content
With my share
Won't resent
Won't despair
Old and bent
I won't care
I'll have spent
One day
Out there

Spiritual Gifts Test

I'm spamming the blogosphere today.

So I had to google the spiritual gifts section of the NT because I got really sick of it in high school and proceeded to forget where it was. Then this spiritual gifts test came up (http://www.kodachrome.org/spiritgift/) and I figured I'd been ignoring one of these for a while, so I'd take this one. It's like a Facebook quiz for Jesus and my original intent was to take it about that seriously. Results below.

Score Graph of Score Spiritual Gift
19 ==================== Music
19 ==================== Writing
15 ================ Leadership
15 ================ Faith
15 ================ Encouragement
15 ================ Knowledge
15 ================ Giving
13 ============== Prophecy
13 ============== Discernment
13 ============== Poverty
11 ============ Wisdom
11 ============ Administration
11 ============ Pastoring
11 ============ Teaching
11 ============ Helps
10 =========== Exhortation
9 ========== Missionary
8 ========= Apostle
8 ========= Mercy
5 ====== Intercession
5 ====== Craftsmanship
5 ====== Celibacy
4 ===== Hospitality
2 === Miracles
2 === Evangelism
1 == Tongues Speaking
0 = Tongues Interpreting
0 = Healing

1) Prophecy FTW!
2) Celibacy? Gee, I didn't know loneliness was a spiritual gift.
3) Poverty? Wait, so giving is higher than poverty (which, btw, is higher than pastoring, so I totes should just go live in a box somewhere. And write encouraging and faith-filled things) which makes total sense because you can give out of your poverty... oh wait.
4) Mercy fail :(
5) HAHAHAHA speaking in tongues. Yup, those suckers got a NEVER so I'm surprised it got a point.
6) Healing fail :(
7) Helps?
8) Prayer fail. Not so sad face.

Clearly, I'm going to define my life plans off of this (or not psht), but I also feel like it's unfair to have me judge myself. I also feel like it'd be unfair to have someone else do it for me because goodness knows I won't let anyone in close enough to figure the most accurate answer for me. Anyways, I just thought I'd alert you, dear, unique reader, to this quiz's existence (all 140 questions) so that you too can learn things that other people have seen in you a long time.

Also, please judge me on my derisive nature, especially when it comes to the more fantastic of the spiritual gifts. I need someone to tell me that the Spirit really does move in weird ways so I can understand why people are suffering and dying unjustly all over the place but we can spend our time agonizing over a God we only remember because we've built many big (too small) houses for Him that clog up our memory and tear apart His Body.

Gah, why can't I be funny for once? Spiritual gift number 21: seriousness.

6 AM

6 AM. Not 2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake, not it's 3 AM, I must be lonely. No, 6 AM. Songs aren't written about 6 AM. Know why? Because most good song writers are asleep at 6 AM. Most sane people are asleep at 6 AM. In case you hadn't guessed yet, I've been getting up at this ridiculously early time for two weeks now and am slightly annoyed that my body is used to it and now insists that this is the proper time for awakening.

And yet, maybe this crazy early risers have something right. A smile is a little a lot required when I see upstairs lit up without fluorescent lights and it makes the journey down the stairs a little lighter, being excited to be outside. Have you ever seen campus near dawn? I imagine most college students don't, or if they do, they're not really in the right mental state to enjoy it. Quiet beams of sunlight through trees instead of intense rays in the middle of the day or dying light at its end. Peaceful, easy sounds, not the noises of class change or afternoons in the quad. God's awake then, I'm pretty sure, getting the world ready for the day. I give Him the bike ride over to the planetarium and He gets to wish everyone a good morning through my mouth because goodness knows I would never sound so cheery of my own accord. Maybe I will miss 6 AM. Or 6:45, anyway.

My point is, I wouldn't have said this even a month ago, though maybe a year ago it might would have slipped out. I filled a notebook, finally, full of the prayers and thoughts of more than a year and I looked back at who I was, back in the day. I laugh at her hurts- does she realize how ridiculous she sounds, how small her pain was then? I mourn a little at the death of the optimist and the kid who hopes for justice- if they would have lived, maybe they could have changed the world. I scoff and roll my eyes at her objections- sometimes she just doesn't get it and sometimes she gives away the answer on her own and doesn't realize what she's got in her hands. Then I sit quiet for a minute because she just said something that sailed right past the shield of sarcasm and experience and stabbed my heart a little too much. I angrily whisper at the ceiling because she just prayed in absolute faith and that prayer didn't change a thing- not me, not God, not the circumstances, nothing. I stop in amazement because I see what this person, who claims to be me, said at the time when I would have been I would have been throwing darts at the Divine.

I don't know who to blame what on and in that case, I think it's best that blame gets laid aside. I don't believe everything I read anymore, I don't turn off songs because I can't listen to them and I've stopped thinking that with each new revelation I know everything. Maybe the idealist just slept, though, because hope had been a bit revived of late. Listen, it's a bit of a burden to be miserable, especially when it's self-inflicted. All those songs that I rolled my eyes at, that talk about being free and junk like that just because they have faith, they're making a bit more sense. Geeze, can I make my life a coming-of-age story on Lifetime? One day I'm going to grow out of this walking Hallmark card phase, and so much better for the world and probably you, dear reader. Maybe one day I'll learn to say more with less and then the world will definitely be a better and much less cluttered place.

But for right now, happily, I'm in the right place. After all, you always are where you're supposed to be. If you weren't supposed to be there, there would be someone else there. And God's going to use you for good no matter where you are, as long as you're trusting Him, as I was recently told. Maybe summer showers walking across campus washing away crazy expectations and extra makeup are reminders of that promise. It's 6 AM in my life and though I'm looking forward to the fireflies, I'm ready, for once, to live the day that passes before they come.

Moses and Jonah

The sermon Sunday was about confession. I have a confession to make. I didn't get up this morning in time to have a devotion. I missed out on my coffee and laid in bed until 6:45. I am a slacker. I am also a hypocrite, because I've spent at least the last week praying that people who give their time to others would realize how much a morning devotion helps. It's a spiritual breakfast and as much as I hate to admit it, breakfast is important. My heart and my tongue were not quite prepared for today.

In my camp, I have a David, a Joseph, a John, a James, a Mark (and a Marc), a Matthew (Matt), a Noah and a Micheal. Last week I had a Judah, two Aarons, a Nathan and an Isaiah. I made the comment that we had a lot of biblical names here this week and left it at that. I figured I was in order, even for a science camp, because the Bible is a well-known cultural reference. I'm not preaching Christ to the unbelieving nations here, I'm talking nomenclature.

Well, maybe five minutes into the mid-morning break/ snack time, one of the kids throws out, 'Who here believes in the Bible?' and I raise my hand (almost a little too slowly, though I want to say it's more from shock than anything else). And the kid says, 'Really? The Bible is a load of... well, I can't say it because you're an adult and will probably get mad at me.' He looks down at his lunch while I make some remark about it being a legitimate historical document and he mutters something like, 'It's a bunch of C-R-A-P.' Then he asks who goes to church and I raise my hand and he says, 'Really? Because I don't believe in God.' He talks about how he convinced his parents that they don't need to go to church anymore and I make some noncommittal comment about respecting other people's beliefs. He says he believes that Jesus of Nazareth lived, just that he wasn't God or the Son of God- he doesn't believe there's a God. This kid is going into the seventh grade- that's what, 12? Maybe 13? Twelve, maybe thirteen and from a home in the suburbs- has this kid really seen enough of life to claim that there's no God? The bible reading I didn't get to this morning was the first chapter of Romans (PS-the end of Acts is not Earth-shattering. Just thought you ought to know). Paul talks about Creation being proof enough of God but says that man shut Him out enough not to see Him anymore and that He let us go our own way.

The devotion was about wanting to listen more to God's servants than to God, but it also made the point that we embarrass God. He's like a parent whose kids don't claim Him, certainly don't listen to Him, and only come back to Him when they've done something terribly wrong and/or need something fixed. I'm easily convicted and my shoulders are more than willing to slump when I hear that I've misrepresented God or hurt Him in any way. I am, of course, much more aware of the conviction at 8:30 at night instead of 6:15 in the morning. I'm also easily sidetracked and I miss the big point. We're more willing to listen to God's servants because if we hear Him speak, there's no inaction involved. We must either obey Him (no matter what it is- and we can be sure that if He's talking, the status quo is going to be upset and fast) or say that we're not going to listen and live as rebels.

I am so afraid of action. My friend has had a rough year- her best friend died, it was her first year at college and crazy drama occurred. She's not up for going to church. She just isn't in a position to talk to God or to see Him, even though she's been a Christian her whole life. I supported her but now, I'm not sure that was out of kindness or cowardice. It's been a year and we've been talking about her unwillingness to talk to God for a couple of months now. I think it's time to come to the altar, to come back and let God work in the wonderful ways He's planned but I don't want to step on toes. Where is the line between meek and coward?

If I have a purpose in Chapel Hill, I'm not sure of it. Are Methodists stereotypical prayers? Do we pray more often than normal denominations? Because if I have any problem, I pray about it and I have learned the wisdom of the adage- Be careful what you pray for. First week, I had a kid call me out for being a Christian and another ask me why my phone said, 'Jesus Rocks.' Other than those two instances, where I affirmed that I was, I didn't say a thing about this huge part of me. Last week, I had Judah who said that he doesn't really go to church because his parents think that following a religion makes you close-minded and I respected that. This week, I've got Iain who might be the first person to call me dumb because I believe that a man I've never met was not only a moral teacher or a prophet, but the Son of God. I believe that a man was God and I don't see why I never understood the Jewish leaders' huge objections to this. This is hero-worship to the extreme, this is a crazy idea, a radical idea, a scary idea, this is a sacrilege and idolatry, if it's not true. I believe this man was God and that when He died, He didn't stay in the grave. I believe that someone truly ceased living for a Friday night, a Saturday and into the early hours of Sunday morning and that after that He, through no one else's power, came back to life. Please explain that biologically. This is ridiculous. Really? I mean, really? No wonder the 'enlightened' world thinks we're nuts.

Oh, my Lord, what I wouldn't give to have been there those three years, to have seen You, heard You, understood what You really were, are. I would come back proclaiming the truth in these gospels, the insane facts that force us to see God and to come back to Him, since apparently stars and the entirety of creation aren't enough. Yet, would they hear me? Would I come back emboldened in faith, ready for the task You had laid before me, or would I disobey and remain silent forever?

'I'm starry-eyed and vaguely discontented, like a nightingale without a song to sing.' Miranda introduced me to State Fair today and I latched onto this line. I have a way of twisting what's supposed to be romance into faith, since there's a clear lack of one in my life and a gracious outpouring of the other. Once, I asked God why His message couldn't be a quiet one, since I'm not one to yell from the rooftops. Kids, this is my song and without it, my eyes look to the heavens and see misunderstood glory and my heart beats with a vague discontentment. And, goodness gracious, if I have to shout it from the rooftops to get it out, you best be praying that God shows me some ladders, because it's getting sung.

Tour Day 4 Part 1: Kyrie

It's raining. I have no clue what the group is doing because I stayed back at the college with a sick stomach (probably due more to cousin Tom than anything else) and a sick attitude. I figured it was better to rest up to be useful in the afternoon than to spend my morning in Intercourse, PA, looking at the Pretzel Factory and possibly Build-A-Bear. I'm kinda sad I didn't go now, but that takes a minute to explain. Sometimes, the mountain stays firm and will not come to Mohammad no matter how much he sighs and begs it to. Sometimes, Mohammad has to roll his eyes, pick up his bag and walk to the mountain. By the way, the bag was given to Mohammad by the mountain.

Sunday morning I walked into the office to get medical forms for those people (me and Jessie and Eli) who hadn't filled them out yet. I saw the CD from 2002 and knew Be Still and Know would be on there and since we hadn't sung it the way I remembered it yet, I figured I'd grab it and maybe play it for the choir if there was time before the second service. At the worst, it'd be played on tour some time, still being useful. I forgot about it after telling one kid to listen to it, but grabbed it out of the choir room before running around like crazy trying to help get the praise band loaded on the bus. It stayed in my luggage and I figured I'd done a good thing. There was no reason for me to have brought it- I knew all the songs on the CD by heart and I'd heard the whole program so many times, I might could have recited all the prayers for you. It obviously wasn't here for me- some kid would find it and realize how great Crossflame was and it would inspire the whole group. I know the power of one small thing, however insignificant and so I've been waiting for the chance to use it. With only two concerts left, though, I was starting to think it was a waste of space.

Well, I pretty much slept off the stomach ache, but not the bad attitude. To avoid the silence in my room which would have required actually talking to God, I put the CD in my computer- I liked hearing Faithful Over a Few Things so I figured I'd put it on my MP3 player. This is the prayer of confession off that CD:

Almighty God, I come to you because I am struggling inside. I dwell on past hurts and heartaches and refuse to let go and forgive. For that, forgive me. I spend so much time as a worrier, looking within, that I forget the promise of Your child, given to me. For that, I need forgiveness. I focus too many times on useless speculation of the unknown and fail to recall the promise of the Holy Spirit. Forgive me for not remembering that You live within and beside me forever. Amen.

That year, as the tour gift, they gave out stones that were your burdens before tour (I heard 'for tour' the first time I listened to someone telling the story). I love our wooden crosses but today, I'd like the stones. I'd like to take my burdens and put them in a stone and learn to let them go because they're keeping me from being the person I want to be. I'm not holding out for universal adoration- Jesus never even got that. Yet. But I want to be something more that what the people who have just met me see me as. I have a soul, kinda deep down, but it's there. I have a heart, it's just a bit walled on these trips so I don't drop it and break it so much. I'm not Jessie- I don't thrive around people. But today, I know that the time spent away from people has just been a barrier and it's my fault. God's a people Person and it's His Spirit that lives within me. After all, it's Christ who dwells within me and I'm supposed to have died and been raised to His life.

Now, this new-found goodness of heart might die within ten minutes of being back with the choir, but then I'll know that there's just more that I need to clean out for God to work properly. I'll see that it's me holding me back, not someone else's disrespect or apathy. It's like what Ghandi said: 'Be the change you wish to see in the world.' If I want kindness, I must be kind. If I want listeners, I too must be prepared to listen. But above all, I need to be willing to serve. God used this time alone to get me straight, but I'm sure He would have loved to bless someone else by having them help me. If I'm not willing to put me aside to help someone else, how can I expect anyone else to put themselves aside for even a minute to help each other, to help the life of the choir? I don't know that serving means keeping my mouth shut all the time but I know it means keeping my heart open. I got to figure out a way to make the two go hand in hand.

So thanks for reading. They'll be more later, I'm sure. Amber-Drew promised a blog post about our excursions in Philly, so if you know her blog, I'm sure she'll be on that soon. Pray for the choir tonight at our concert and for safe travels back and forth from the college. If you have a few prayer minutes to throw around to make your quota and want to holler at God about me, you're more than welcome. I'm sure there's better topics of conversation, but I didn't sing Somebody's Prayin' to sit back and think that it hasn't helped me when someone's been faithful to God about me. I might forget that, but I'll come back eventually.

I just gotta remember that it's never the end.

Fireflies

Today has been a lovely day, I think. I get woken up to drive one dog to the vet, only to find out he has Parvo (PS Who knew what Parvo was before Cinco got it? Not me). I got called by the other dog's name twice, confirming my suspicions that my parents bought her as a replacement daughter. My dad Cloroxed the yard and I enjoyed the look of my new, nice, clean room. I also did dishes and moved furniture and other 'womanly' things, but we won't go into that right now.

I got back from the vet a little angry, just because they had to keep Cinco and he might not make it and my mom cried and I hate pets because all you end up doing is loving them for the fraction of your life that they're around and then cry because they're gone to whatever dog heaven awaits them, if indeed it's different from our heaven. And since I was upset, I began to attack my ceiling with an almost vicious vigor. I had noticed that my stars as well as my comets had dust tails and decided that the glow in the dark sky needed a make-over. Just as a postscript, it's not an astronomy obsession to have a star-ridden ceiling- it was Stephen's and Jackson's when they had to share a room, back in the day. Geeze, I would have thought I lived in a post-modern Haunted Mansion, the amount of cobwebs I had. And as I much as I enjoy the analogy of scrubbing clean a room that looked at least tolerably neat before, I'll spare your intelligence. I don't think my mood was lightened in the slightest by this idea- I was too busy being angry at the dust in the first place.

The slightly funny thing was that I had just made the point the night before that it was much easier to be patient when it was just me and God (though I'm not always patient then) and I wanted to know what He was going to do to help when I woke up the next morning and had to help get the house ready for my grandparents to come up for Jackson's graduation. I've perfected the angry hand clench as a means of keeping my mouth shut, but I'm sick of having to keep anger bottled up. Listen, I know that most everyone has heard me outburst at least once- I can rant all day long (probably 9/10ths of why I have a blog)- but I really don't say everything I think. It's like that one guy on House who thought terribly mean things and then ended up saying them all because he had some mental disorder that started out with a nosebleed and then Kutner said it was like the Sorting Hat- we are who we are because of our choices. And at the same time that I was thinking about how angry I was and priding myself on keeping it all inside, I was berating myself for not being good enough and upset about the dog and a million other things. Honestly, one person shouldn't have all this on their minds. And still, twenty problems were not solved and I just wanted to fly away, since I don't run anywhere- though I'll walk quickly in your general direction if you need me.

Well, the momentary agitations left, sprinkled with little bits of encouragement from college and old friends and somehow it ended up being dark enough for me to start noticing the fireflies as I sat on the porch swing with my mother after reporting to everyone the results of the phone call saying that Cinco was wagging his tail and vomiting and apparently this is all a good thing. See, in one of my pissy, emo days where I fought with God over every little thing because I was convinced that He could not have anyone's best interest at heart, I sat on a bench just in front of the Old Well, facing Franklin, watching the darkening quad. I sat on the bench, quite cross, and stared at the empty air in front of me and asked God for one little firefly. I figured it'd lighten up the air, it'd certainly make me happier and it wouldn't be that big of a deal. One out of season firefly, no trouble at all for someone who's got the entirety of theoretical physics worked out in His head, completely ignoring the whole you shall not test the Lord your God bit of the Gospels. So needless to say, I stared at this little bug, not really listening to anything my mother said because I need something to make my life more than ordinary.

Then Jackson started a fire in the fire pit, driving away all the bugs by us and we sat and talked about random things, because nothing in my life can make sense. I did dearly intend for this to end up being encouraging, or at least make sense, but sometimes random epic fails are wonderful, like too many red sprinkles on a cupcake, something that would only bother those of us who are looking. I'm glad it's not June 5th anymore, but nothing promises that June 7th will rise above June 6th. But the great thing is that the Person who I doubted (doubt?), who has provided for everything, no longer seems like a stingy King sitting far away, withholding blessings from people not in His favor. He became human, and this helps me understand Him, though only a little.

Oh my God, it is so much better to be in love with You. You're much more patient with me when I leave and though You don't like the dust, You are much better about remembering that stars shine. And I forget.