it's we we we who build community--boom boom boom

i'm in chicago this week with my sister and brother-in-law. last night we went downtown to the 'taste of chicago.' a bunch of area restaurants set up booths and sell their specialities. it's a great street carnival of food. you buy tickets and then crawl from booth to booth, eating. you can buy whole meals or just a bunch of 'taste portions.' the booths take up three or four city blocks.

sarah and nate live outside of the city, so we drove in and parked. it was raining a bit, but there were still a lot of people--not so many that it was claustrophobic, but enough that it felt alive and buzzing. it was one of the most beautiful things i've ever done in a city. we walked with the crowd (or against it) and sampled food. the food was from all over: mexico, jamaica, thailand, puerto rico, china, italy, germany, india, ireland. the people were from every imaginable walk of life. and everyone was there to eat and enjoy. it wasn't overly commercialized. there were booths for cell phones and army recruitment and (my personal favorite) maalox... but they weren't an overwhelming presence. it was about the food.

and because everyone was there for the food, it was about community as well. it was a celebration of chicago. it was a feast on the best the city had to offer.

at one end, we took an extra loop that took us through a new park that the city just built. in the park, right across the street from some towering examples of chicago-style architecture, there are two identical, rectangular brick structures. they're set apart maybe 40 ft, and they're about 20 ft tall. water falls in sheets on all four sides of each. periodically, huge digital faces appear on the sides and look at each other and smile and blink. then, suddenly, they purse their lips and blow and jets of water, like 10-ft-high fire hydrants, shoot out of their mouths. it creates a half-inch pool in between the pillars--an open invitation to come and splash and cool off. last night there were kids and adults laughing and screaming and splashing. we joined the crowd standing around the edges. we started laughing, too. it was something you wanted to be part of--this city enjoyment of life, the shrieks of joy as the water came streaming down. there was a grown man sitting in the water, splashing it over his back. it was refreshing just to watch.

i always love the city. it always reminds me that i'm part of something larger. last night was a taste of heaven. a bunch of dappled people, eating together, enjoying together. it was like a great city worship service.

P M S

i realize that at the moment this blog is being read primarily by guys (which is an interesting phenomenon in and of itself). but stick with me for a minute.

in the last year and a half i've become much more aware of how i'm affected by my hormones. at first it was just good information to have: i knew that the feeling that the world was collapsing was only temporary, and i knew when to give myself some space. but after a while i started resenting how predictable it was. how frustrating is it that there are a few days a month that i can't interact with people without being a bitch? how agonizing is it that there are regularly times when i'll cry out to my father to comfort me, and feel like it's completely futile? every month i feel like i come back to the same struggles, to find them just as debilitating as they were the month before.

it's really easy to begin resenting the fact that guys don't experience this cyclical hell as well. my friend, erika, and i have spent a lot of time shaking our fists at how unfair the curse seems to be. it's not bad enough that we have to deal with pregnancy and labor, we have to have this monthly plague as well.

in january i screamed into my journal at God: what about pms? do you go there, too? how do you redeem that?! i scream at God a lot. and, in testimony to his incredible graciousness, he usually gently allows me to see the answers.

i've been realizing over the last couple of years how amazingly capable women are. they can do a lot, and what they can't do, they can figure out well enough to get by. they are more willing to put up with doing things it's killing them to do than men are. (i know these are generalizations.) it's really easy for women to believe that they can hold it all together; that they can save and sustain everyone.

and then pms hits, and they lose control, and they hurt the people they care about--the people they're trying to save and sustain. and they realize their need for a savior. pms is God's monthly mercy to women, calling them away from self-dependence and into dependence on him. that, at least, is what he's been showing me over the last six months. my regularly scheduled breakdowns are usually the times i come crawling back to him with fresh repentance. they're usually the times when i'm broken by my sin and the fruitlessness of my coping with it.

so, six months after my screaming episode, i think i can say: praise him for pms. his mercies are new every month.

i am anakin

my family went to see star wars episode 3 tonight. (i like star wars.
don't argue with me.) you've got to give somebody props for the fact
that in this one movie, they managed to transform anakin from an
annoying two-dimensional twerp to an engaging, conflicted character.
there must have been a few people working hard on that one. despite
having known the ending for years, i still found myself hoping for
anakin. he was so gifted. he had such potential. and then he went and
blew it because he was told to wait when he wanted to move.

that was the moment where i had the most sympathy for him. he gives
the chairman-of-the-jedi-council dude the info that the chancellor is
the sith lord (hope i'm not ruining this for anyone) and he wants to
come along and be part of the clean-up, but he's told to wait. he was
exposed and vulnerable. he was betraying someone whom he had
considered a friend and mentor. and he's left standing there.

i'm feeling a little bit like that with God this week. i want to be
in ireland, i want to be doing battle and using my gifts there, and
instead i've been told to wait. and while i'm waiting, i feel like
nobody gives a shit about my gifts--in fact, that those gifts have
been harming my relationships rather than helping them. in my hot-
headed arrogance i'm mad at God for not letting me use the gifts he's
given me. why bother having gifts if you can't use them?

i know the answer to that one, but i don't really want to hear it
right now. the dark side is threatening.

a moment for countercultural props for the box

my generation doesn't like boxes. in fact, we make a very big deal out of how much we hate boxes--how limiting, confining, restricting they are. we're so much more individual and free-spirited than boxes let us be.

generally speaking, i don't like boxes any more than the next postmodern. but i do want to take a moment to defend personality tests, which i've heard criticized several times over the last couple of weeks.

to be fair, a lot of the criticism is wise and valid. there is a danger in personality tests being interpreted by lay people. there is a temptation to excuse sin on the basis of it being part of your personality. and it's even possible to define yourself by your personality and thereby limit your abilities and excuse yourself from challenges. and of course, the limitation of personality tests is that they really only tell you what you already know--or think you know--about yourself.

so the reason that i want to defend them isn't because they're flawless, but because in my life, the boxes of personality tests have set me free. american culture tells you that you have to be extraverted to be successful--you have to be able to jump from one thing to the next, juggle a thousand responsibilities and invest in a million relationships. american christian culture tells you that women are supposed to be soft and fuzzy, slightly irrational, but tender-hearted. being critical--especially as a woman--is as good as being a prostitute. being indecisive is a weakness, and a sign that you don't have enough faith. in some places it's frivolous to be visionary. in others, it's a shame to be bogged down in details.

the reason that i'm a fan of the meyers-briggs personality test is that it helped me to see that God created me as an analytical, indecisive introvert for his own glory. and he looks on me with love--not as an egregious failure. it's helped me to see the good things about my personality, and to stop beating myself up for being so unable to live up to societal expectations. it's helped me understand that when i love people, it looks more like a sword than a teddy bear.

that's not to say that i don't sin in those areas as well. i do. i hide from people and criticize them instead of love them. and i make an idol out of the ability to make right decisions. i have as much to repent of as a decisive extravert. but let me repent of my sin, and not of my personality.

your references are illusions

"i guess culture shock is more powerful than anyone realizes. i really felt like i was drowning. i've never felt like that before, like being in a place with no references. where what you thought were references are illusions." kimberly, the american in thailand, bangkok 8.

i'll admit--i'm a little obsessed with culture shock. i love the interaction of cultures and the necessary dissonance that occurs. i love the way it rocks your perception of reality. i love the way it makes you question all of your assumptions and presumptions. don't get me wrong--it's a bitch to live through. but if you can hear the gospel in the midst of it, it's more beautiful and multi-dimensional... more dappled, as gerard manley hopkins would say.

last week i read bangkok 8, on recommendation from krissy. a nice little murder mystery, with insights into thai culture and buddhism thrown in. or maybe vice versa: a fascinating study of thai culture and buddhism and the way the west has affected them with--oh yeah--a murder investigation thrown in. observation: other cultures seem to have a much better understanding of themselves than americans do. i think it's because we're young and so many cultures combine to make us who we are.

here are a few quotes from bangkok 8 on the east and the west:

actually, the West is a Culture of Emergency: twisters in Texas, earthquakes in California, windchill in chicago, drought, flood, famine, epidemics, drugs, wars on everything--watch out for that meteor and how much longer does the sun really have? of course, if you didn't believe you could control everything, there wouldn't be an emergency, would there?

there will be a massive shift of power from West to East in the middle of the twenty-first century, caused not by war or economics but by a subtle alteration in consciousness. the new age of biotechnology will require a highly developed intuition which operates outside of logic, and anyway the internal destruction of Western society will have reached such a pass that most of your resources will be concentrated on managing loonies. there will be tv news pictures of people fleeing from supermarkets and pressing their hands to their heads, unable to take the banality anymore. the peoples of southeast asia, who have never been poisoned by logical thought, will find themselves in the driver's seat. it will be like old times, if your timeline stretches back a few thousand years.

and one on insecurity:

i note that he has chosen the theme tune from Star Wars for his ringing tone, whereas i myself opted for 'the blue danube' (thereby demonstrating that i am no more than an impostor in western culture, a naive tourist anyway, with the musical taste of a grandmother; i can't think why i didn't choose Star Wars, which i actually prefer).

looks like you're waiting for something

for memorial day this past weekend, my dad's side of the family had a work day at our house. i should tell you--our house is big and old and falling apart. we have a hard time keeping on top of it. last year when i got back from ireland, there were huge chunks of concrete that had been thrown into a ditch in our backyard. later, just before winter set in, someone anonymously left a load of rocky, clay-ey dirt on top of the concrete. all through the rainy philadelphia winter, we had a mud hole in our backyard. it was depressing.

so my aunts and uncles and cousins came over on monday and we broke up the dirt, evened it out, replanted some flowers to prevent erosion and spread grass seed. (my uncle mark was a farmer and has the most amazing grass sowing technique i've ever seen. it's like watching ballet.)

that was monday. this is thursday. but i still have the happy glow of a job well-done--of something that was ugly being made beautiful. i'm sitting on my porch swing now, admiring our work. every morning i get up and look out the window. i can't wait until the new grass grows in and we have a lovely, green yard.

we're also in the middle of remodeling our downstairs bathroom. the floor had always been a little dodgy and one morning my dad decided to fix it. that night the entire bathroom had been gutted. my dad had always thought it was ugly. now there's a solid, beautifully tiled floor. the walls are straight and painted in this purple color that never would have gotten there if my mom hadn't found it on sale. it's still not done, but i walk in sometimes just to appreciate the solid craftsmanship and restorative beauty.

yesterday at the mission, we read revelation 21 and 22. a new heaven and a new earth. paul cried as he read it, and i teared up as i reread it this morning. my heart aches to see creation restored. projects like the backyard and the bathroom pull at something in me--it's something that was old, dirty, ugly and broken being made new, whole, clean and beautiful.

i was talking to my friend, lara the other night. she told me people keep telling her they think there's something big in her future. it's kind of like what the oracle tells neo--it looks like you're waiiting for something. i feel that, too--the expectation of huge things to come. lara wondered if that isn't just what hope is--opening yourself up to the reality that this isn't all we were created for. we were created for a new creation. we're waiting for the Kingdom to come. we live in an atmosphere of expectation--of a hope that doesn't disappoint; of a Lamb who is worthy; of a King who is victorious; of a bridegroom coming for his bride.

even so, come Lord Jesus.