Archive for April 2015
Need some Windex?
Posted on: April 23, 2015
On April 10th/11th, I attended the Faith & Culture Writers Conference in Portland, a two hour drive south. It was my first ever opportunity to engage about writing with others who also write. Trying to sort out the experience is a bit like trying to deconstruct a flavorful stew – the flavors are so intermingled and have so influenced one another that it isn’t entirely possible to label them separately. But I process things by writing about them, so I’ll put the experience through the word processor and see what emerges.
As expected, I met more than a few people whose life stories would make an interesting read of engaging plot twists in a landscape of complex characters. Other folks had simple life stories, but ideas that required significant mental gymnastics to climb. Whether like me, finding words to be ready toys and tools, or like others, for whom words come hard, there was a shared appreciation for the power of language, and for the responsibility and privilege we bear and share as Christian writers, whatever the subject of our pen.
I heard many casual references to “my next book comes out in so-many months”, some dropping as naturally as a passing comment about an upcoming summer vacation, others inserted with all the subtlety of a newly-engaged woman’s use of her left hand. Being writers, and thus delvers deep into the depths of the human soul, table topics during breaks moved almost instantly from “What’s your name?” to “What’s your worst fear, your darkest secret, the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done that you hope to goodness never shows up on YouTube?” – all answered without skipping a beat, in the presence of utter strangers. (Some of us seeming stranger than others, but none of us perfect strangers, thank goodness, or how would any of us live up to that?)
The speakers ranged from nationally known authors such as Emily Freeman (Grace for the Good Girl; http://www.chattingatthesky.com/) and William Paul Young (The Shack; http://www.windrumors.com/), to Portland-based Tony Kriz (Aloof: Figuring out Life with a God Who Hides; http://tonykriz.com/) and motivational speaker/new author Romal Tune (God’s Graffiti: Inspiring Stories for Teens; http://www.romaltune.com/), along with successful bloggers, internet article writers, and literary editors and agents. (I went to several sessions with author Terry Glaspy , and I am sooooo jazzed about his newest book coming out in July – The Prayers of Jane Austen!! He found them in collections of other works of hers and got permission to print them on their own. Since most members of my family are major Austen-philes, this is truly a Major Event!)
Another speaker was spoken word poet, Phil Long. (Cosmolyrical ; http://sacrificialpoetproject.org/poet/phil-long Spoken word poetry is poetry written, like drama, for the purpose of being performed, not merely read, using evocative imagery, story-telling, and word play. Just watch a video or two from the website and you’ll understand.) His performance left me feeling overwhelmed with imagery pulsating with fresh perspectives, familiar phrases turning on their heels and heading in unexpected directions. Whether listening to or reading it, this poetry is a rich experience.
Not unexpectedly, I added more books to my already too-long “to read” list. It’s a good thing it’s only a list, because a stack of the actual books would be into zero gravity by now. I came away with a number of quotes that I expect will ferment into blog posts.
I learned to my dismay that if my intentions are honorable and my purpose to grow my blog readership, somewhat techno-timid me will have to subdue the brave new world of … gulp … social media. I will have to become Twitter-pated and learn to sound retweet, become an Instagram cracker and milk it for all it’s worth, put a Pinterest in it, build with LinkdIn logs, and Facebook ‘em, Danno. I am rethinking several aspects of my blogging, as will be seen in the coming months.
I found myself uplifted, challenged, inspired, objected, overruled and sustained.
This was the first time I heard writers referred to as a class as “artists” and “creatives”, but I concluded that I am a somewhat defective creative, as I did not relate to quite a few things said of “we writers”. I don’t suffer angst about calling myself a writer or about writing. I don’t fear rejection, or worry that a publisher will think I’m crazy. (I AM crazy, so it would be an accurate assessment.) I don’t relate to ALL other art; some art moves me, while other just makes me want to move along. Still, it was interesting to ponder what I do in that light.
One thing that did seriously bother me was an attitude I picked up from some of the session speakers. There was a consistent message from most of the lead speakers that we need to be like Jesus, who sometimes flipped tables and sometimes spoke gently to the hurting. However, especially in some sessions I attended, there wasn’t always acknowledgment of the Scriptural truth that we are one body, each with its own part to play. We are not each called to look like all parts of Jesus. Some of us are table flippers, some are comforters; some of us are sandpaper, others, Kleenex. Several speakers stressed the need to respect those who see things differently, no matter how much you differ from their perspective, but other speakers seemed to apply that only to the world, not to others in the church. They freely – and sometimes with glee – condemned the “thems” who the “us” have declared to be shallow or not “authentically” Christian. At those times I found myself very thankful that many of my friends and family were not in the audience, because they would have been sorely wounded to hear their hearts judged and themselves made fun of, devalued, and dismissed, because they find have different opinions and find meaning in things those speakers find meaningless.
Having the conference close with William Paul Young was a wonderful counterbalance to that. He challenges the church, but his love FOR and identification WITH that church comes through clearly. We’re ALL at the same Table, whether we acknowledge it or not – because it’s HIS Table, not ours. I don’t interpret all life as Young does, but , unlike some of the other speakers, I would love to sit down to coffee with him, feeling that there would be no judgment from him while I was with him and no condemnation by him talking about our conversation later to others.
In the end, that is what challenged me the most from the conference, because I know I far too easily fall in the camp of those who sit on a holy high horse disclaiming on Where Other Christians or the Church As a Whole Have Gone Wrong, criticizing and, yes, even (to my shame) deriding other Christians. Yet I am struck by a phrase in Hebrews 2:11. In speaking of those who are sanctified – which is ALL Christians, not just those we like or agree with – it says that Christ Himself is not ashamed to call them His brothers and sisters. Ouch. When we begin to slam our brothers and sisters, making judgments about their hearts, criticizing their motives and questioning their intentions (which are both matters of the heart that only God sees), when we would prefer not to be known to be family members of “those” Christians because we know we’re “better”, or “wiser”, or more “spiritual” than they are, we “better” be careful. If they are God’s people, then they are His just as much as we are, and they are answerable to HIM, not to us. (Romans 14:1-4) There’s nothing “funny” about “sticking it to” our brothers and sisters. No matter how correct the criticism or valid the point about an issue, we are wrong if we venture to judge or belittle the person.
One of the analogies given for us as writers was that we are “window washers”, giving people the opportunity to see things more clearly. I think the window I better wash first is my own.
Need to Get Away?
Posted on: April 8, 2015
“L’Oreal – because I’m worth it!” “You deserve a break today/So get up and get away/To McDonalds!/We do it all for YOU!” “Pepsi – You deserve it!” Advertisers appeal to their customers’ sense of entitlement for one reason: it works. The instant-credit financing industry is built on the whole idea that you NEED these things, and you need them NOW – and by the droves, people sign up. Walk through any store and you’ll hear a chorus of “But, Mommy, I neeeeeeeeeeed it!” from toddlers who want the tempting toys so deliberately placed right by the check stand, or from teenagers who are convinced they have to have the latest “IT” brand or they’ll die.
When I started writing this post, I wrote out in simple, single-event sentences a timeline of the eighteen months from a fall I took in September of 2013 and going through the start of March this year. I didn’t include anything that was merely the normal wear-and-tear of life, only the out-of-the-ordinary. It took a page and a half! “On December 6, my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer.” “Just after the start of August, I moved into my mom’s to take care of her. “ “Also on the 30th of August, Marie took not one but TWO falls, resulting in five broken bones in her left foot, including one of the most important – and longest-to-heal – bones in that appendage.” “On October 1st, Mama had to go back to the hospital because she was convinced my sister-in-love and I were anti-government agents out to kill her, so she refused to take her medications.” “Just after 2 in the morning on October 29th, Mama finally died, in great pain and distress.” “In the last five months, I have experienced seven deaths in immediate family, near family, or as-good-as-family.” A page and a half – and that’s the truncated version. Yeah, it’s been that kind of a stretch.
The only trips I had taken in those 18 months had been two one-nighters, so the idea of getting away for something longer had real appeal. My son, Phil, who lives across the state, attends a church that holds a mens’ retreat each year around this time; my husband, Rob, has gone to it with him for the last several years. So, Rob and I decided that this year, I would go along and hang out with our daughter, Cherry, Phil’s wife, Brooke, and the two grandprincesses, Evie and Fiona, while the guys were off retreating. No responsibilities, just relaxing and resting and playing – an honest-to-goodness vacation. We would go over March 26th and return home the 1st of April. When a new medical crisis with my cousin Marie on the weekend of the 22nd threatened to jeopardize my being able to go on the trip, more than one person told me, “No – you GO, no matter what! Let others deal with it. You NEED this vacation!!!”
To everyone’s relief, the situation with Marie was resolved enough that we did go to Pullman as planned. However, our going there was about the ONLY thing that went as planned! A nasty tummy bug that went from Evie to Brooke to Nona on succeeding days, a nasty change of weather that flared up my fibromyalgia, and terrible problems sleeping due to side effects of a new med my shrink gave me to help me sleep (how ironic is that?) … nope, I definitely got the wrong script. This was NOT the vacation any of us had in mind. It was a break, yes, away from home and its attendant responsibilities, away from Marie and her issues, but not really a vacation.
So, the question I was left to ponder is this: Did I, in fact, NEED that vacation?
Even just looking at it from a sheer point of logic, of course, the answer would be “no.” While there is no dodging the fact that unrelenting stress can have nasty consequences (such as my sleep disturbances of the last several months), no matter how badly I may have wanted it, no matter how much good it might have done me, a vacation is still only a want, not a need.
On a deeper level, though, wrestling with the issue of our needs and how – or whether – God meets them is crucial to our faith. God has promised that He WILL meet our needs. The very name Jehovah-Jireh, introduced in Genesis 22, means “God will provide”, or “God will see to it.” Writing to the believers at Philippi, in chapter 4 Paul says of Him that “…my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.” All through Scripture we see example after example of God’s provision for His people. At the same time, all through Scripture, all through history, and up to the current day there have been and are people of God who have starved to death, who have died of thirst, who have died for lack of shelter, died of or suffered from illness, who have been maimed, enslaved, tortured. Here in the affluent West, few of us face such extreme situations, but even the non-life-threatening ones we do, from the minor, such as the vacation that wasn’t, to the larger concerns such as the job that eludes us or the health problem doctors can’t find a treatment for, can cue a struggle as we seek to reconcile what God says with our perception of His apparent failure to deliver.
There are only two conclusions we can reach: Either God is a liar and does NOT meet our needs, or God meant what He said and our NEEDS are being met. If we believe that God is loving and kind, utterly incapable of cruelty, caprice or mistake, that He has our best and highest interest at heart, and that He is able to make all things work together for Good, then only the latter of those conclusions is possible. Rather than judging God by whether our needs are met, we should judge our needs by whether God has chosen to meet them; if there is something we perceive that we lack that He is not providing for, then it cannot, in fact, be our true need – or, at least, what we need most.
When Martha complained that Mary wasn’t giving her the help she needed to prepare the meal expected of a hostess for a guest, but was instead sitting at Jesus’ feet as if Mary had nothing else to be doing, Jesus’ response in Luke’s gospel (10:41) encapsulates God’s definition of our need: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Mary chose to be with Jesus, the one and most basic need we all have. All other things in life are totally eclipsed by our need to be with Jesus.
This vacation didn’t provide the relaxation I envisioned. It did, however, certainly keep me crying out, as I have for the last year and a half, “God, I can’t keep doing this!!!!!” – to which His answer was as it always has been, “You’ve got that right, but just stick with Me, kid. I can do this forever – with or without you.”
Vacations, jobs, health, safety – even life itself – may not be granted us, but the one thing He has absolutely promised us is that He will be with us. We can choose to fret about what we think we need, or we can choose to lay our perceptions of our needs at His feet and by drawing near to Him, have our truest need abundantly met.
We don’t need to get away. What we need is to get closer.
the susie solution 