a trend in going

i'm at the mission today. we're sending out summer interns to five different countries (today is uganda, kenya and spain--check out www.whm.org for more info). i love the days when we send people out. i love it because it's a picture of how God is at work, twitching strings, drawing people to himself, weaving together stories and causing the nations to worship. the group here today is no different. i can see that these guys are going to be different at the end of the summer than what they are now. they're going to have a different understanding of who God is.

i was struck with a thought, though, as we were praying for them. it's a thought that was piqued by two comments that i've heard over the last year. the first was with a similar group of people who had just shared their hopes and fears about what they were going to do over the summer. and someone made the observation that they were all expecting some sort of personal growth... but very few expressed anything missional or other-oriented. then, a couple of months ago, i was talking with my aunt about the number of young people who are going into cross-cultural missions. she said it was cool to see the holy spirit at work in my generation... at least... she hoped that's what it was and it wasn't just 'the thing to do.'

so the first thought is: is missions just the thing to do for a generation disillusioned by corporate america, rejecting authority and the confines of a 9-5 job? a generation that tends to like cultural differences and where it's trendy to hate america? or is it that my generation, because of an interest in cultures, because of a freedom from the expectation of making more money than their parents, is bolder in going to see the kingdom advance?

and the second thought: are people expecting personal growth on missions trips because of hundreds of groups returning from short-term trips who give the pat, 'i expected to go there and help the poor, unfortunate [insert people group here], but instead, i learned so much from [said people group]'? and so now people are going expecting to learn. (or at least, saying they are. in my experience, americans still expect to be right.) maybe it's a positive growth in humility. maybe it's just semantics.

thoughts?

can there be minis outside of starbucks?

i'm sitting at my coffee shop--yes, it's my own, personal coffee shop. beautiful day for it, by the way. i just saw someone leave the coffee shop and get into a mini. and i felt like i knew the sum total of this person. he leaves an independent coffee shop in this neighborhood--an eclectic neighborhood with lots of students (esp. grad students), young families, yuppies, families that have been here for a long long time, black, white, hispanic. he gets into a mini--every europhiles dream car. and he drives away and i know him.

 

i'd like to propose that someone who drives a mini wouldn't be found at a starbucks. but maybe i'm wrong. maybe minis have joined mass americana. dostoevsky says that psychology is a two-ended stick. maybe that applies to minis and coffee shops, too.

perfect provision

i watched 'cat on a hot tin roof' twice this weekend. because paul newman is hot. and because it's a fantastic film. so many great themes: mendacity, disgust, crutches, love, truth, a prodigal son, the american dream. tennessee williams was a little skeptical of the american dream. there's this scene where brick and big daddy are finally having an honest conversation. the whole movie there's all this talk about how rich big daddy is and how he owns 28,000 acres of the most fertile land this side of whatever river. in this scene brick gets through to big daddy that he doesn't want his things, he wants his love.

and we all say, yes big daddy, love isn't things. because we all know that's true when we watch movies. but we still get up the next morning and go to work so that we can provide for ourselves.

provision is something that's been knocking around in my mind a lot in the last few months. it's had to be--i'm raising support. everything my life /is/ right now revolves around provision. my friend, dan, was the first one who introduced the idea that support-raising is the antithesis of the american dream. the american dream is all about independence--achieving financial independence so that you can have an independent lifestyle. depend on no one. earn everything on your own. raising support, i'm not only dependent on everyone, i'm also asking independent americans to part with what they've worked so hard to earn. it's not really a comfortable place to be.

when i started out support raising in january--not really support raising... more just having to entertain the reality of having to raise support--it took a while for me to come around to having to depend on God's provision in that way. but i did eventually. eventually i was able to say that that's what we're called to as christians anyway--we're called to dependence. support-raising is my object lesson in dependence.

and then in february, just as i was warming up to the idea of support-raising, God gave me an opportunity to quit my job and support-raise full time. dependence again. provision again. my job was my independence. it was a place where i was highly capable and competent. my paycheck gave me the freedom to do what i wanted to do. no job. no paycheck. no freedom?

but it was like God was saying, 'do you trust me to provide in this, too? do you believe that you can live freely in my provision for you?'

i quit my job at the beginning of march. i still don't really believe his provision is perfect. i don't believe he's really going to provide my support. i think i have to go out and force it out of people. i don't believe he's going to provide for me emotionally. how could the God who created the universe possibly provide a boyfriend--let alone a husband--for me? and--perhaps most ironically--i don't think he's going to provide for me spiritually. i'm on my own to feed and nurture myself.

and yet, really, i've got my own big daddy. and he's not irritable and tempermental like tennessee williams's big daddy. and he's a lot richer--he's got way more than 28,000 acres. and he doesn't want to substitute things for love, he just loves me so much that he's promised to provide for me out of his abundance. to provide completely, fully, perfectly.

why can't believe that? i can believe the american dream. but i can't believe that i'm provided for.

seeing paramilitaries

i think i've got ireland on the brain. yesterday driving into the office there was a black suv in front of me with a sticker from county tyrone with the red hand of ulster. now, the dynamics in northern ireland are still a little outside my realm of knowledge, but the red hand of ulster is creepy to me. and it was made more creepy by the fact that we were on a road that was taking us past a pub that i picked out as an i.r.a. pub a couple of months ago. can't tell you why, but i get a dodgy vibe every time i drive by it. i actually started to envision a drive-by shooting happening between the obviously uvf suv and the ira pub.

today as i was driving in i saw, in passing (give me credit--it was in passing), a sign that had 'IRA' in big letters across the top, some smaller letters and then 'lucky lever #13.' it was close to the ira pub. what the heck is going on in this neighborhood?

turns out it was some guy named ira running for a public office.

Lord, get me to ireland soon and relieve my over-active imagination!

identity crisis

so, i just need to get it out there that starting this blog has called up all sorts of insecurities for me. i wasn't really in a good place to begin with last week. but a friend was obsessing about blogs and the more we talked, the more i wanted my own. i want a forum where people have to listen to what i have to say, and talk about what i want to talk about. and, because i wasn't in a good place, i was trying to avoid support-raising anyway. so i created a blog.

bad idea. suddenly, an abundance of decisions--my personal hell. what will i name it? what will it look like? what is it going to be about? and underlying all of them was this fear of how people would view me based on all of these random decisions.

so i put everything on hold until i was in a slightly better place. well, before that i went to hosea. hosea is a good place for me when my identity is being rocked. there's all this talk about sonship. i want to be a wife. and i want to be a wife like in hosea, where she gets romanced away from her sin and brokenness. where she no longer has to sell herself and market her beauty because she has someone who's invested in making her as beautiful as she possibly can be.

that's where ruhamah came from. gomer and hosea had to name their daughter lo-ruhamah--not loved. but later God says, "i will show my love to the one i called not my loved one." and that's what this is about--me learning that i'm loved. and learning to love.

so hosea is now splattered all over the blog. and my dark cloud has lifted... for now.

working out the kinks

the first post seems incredibly futile. no one even knows this is here yet. but some day people will know. and they'll come. and maybe they'll go back and read.

there's some sort of odd hope in that.

i have a tendency to endow small things with far too much significance, so i ought to end this now before i need a box of tissues.