First Snow

The first snow of the season came today. It surprised the last days of an unseasonably warm fall, sweeping aside the last leaves clinging to the trees, and frosted the still purple leaves of my lettuce in the garden.

Best of all, it quietly blankets my soul. Whispering as it falls through the dark, grazing across your cheek, thick in the street lights. Suddenly, I am okay with slowing down, savoring, resting.

I never thought of winter as a season of rest before, but I am discovering it anew this year. A few weeks ago, Brian McLaren was sharing at a retreat about one-word prayers for each season in our lives. I expected winter to be a season of pain and questions, but instead he described winter as the quiet season of our soul that follows the death of autumn. It is the season of rest before new growth.

May we settle in and know rest and peace in Christ this holiday season.

Sacred Moments in a Rec Room

Heaven comes on earth everyday, but we don’t always notice it. I dare you to watch for it though.

One of these moments snuck up on me the other day.

We were at a retreat for school. A group of us gathered after the evening session to continue the conversation and ask the speaker additional questions we had. We huddled in the rec room, some sitting cross-legged on the floor, some on the pool table, some in the few chairs, but all leaning forward with the expectancy of disciples eager to learn from a master.

Much of our conversation ended up centering around the larger issues our churches often miss—issues of prejudice, poverty, and violence. At one point, someone named Albert courageously opened his heart to ask “are the [white] people in this room on our [minority] side?”, and I had the privilege to answer with the others in the room, “yes, we are fighting the same fight, dear brother. Thank you for being willing to ask rather than just putting me in a hated category because of my skin color.”

It was a sacred moment.

Thank you Albert, for reminding me that there is a perspective outside my own. That there are others bringing another side to the table that I need to hear about. Thank you for sharing from your heart and for opening your heart to us. I hope you’ll find that it’s safe to have us there.

Rice & Noodles - THE BOMB!

So, I know that I just dated myself back to 1998 by saying the bomb, but - regardless - if you're in the Lancaster area you totally need to go eat at Rice & Noodles! We just experienced it tonight for the first time, and enjoyed great conversation with a super cool person (you rock Deb :) over wontons, spring rolls, and friend rice.

http://www.riceandnoodlesrestaurant.com/

Menu: Yummy Vietnamese - think delish spring rolls, tantalizing friend rice, famous wonton soup and salad bowls, refreshing jasmine lime iced tea, the list could go on.

They not only have amazing food, but also an amazing story.

Story: One family, flees from Vietnam and successfully starts a group of restaurants in New Orleans only to be displaced by Katrina. After being evacuated to Houston, they relocated to Lancaster where they had a family connection. Now they're sharing their culinary talents with us here!

Click here if you'd like to read more about their story.

P.S. They're between Boston Market & that bright yellow chinese place on the right as you're coming down Oregon Pike into the city.

You Know It's Cold When...

Every spring & fall we try to conserve some energy by leaving both our AC and heat off for a month or two. One time we made it two months, but we're usually doing good if we make it 6wks. Then, when we are using them, we try to use our programmable thermostat to conserve. In the winter for example, it automatically lets the house stay colder during the day while we're at work and at night when we're curled up under the covers. Then it keeps it warmer during morning and evening hours. Anyway, enough about that.

As usual, the heat & AC went off several weeks ago, so the temp in the house has slowly been dropping as fall set in. This morning it was finally down to 62. Now, I know some of you would say this is the temp you always keep your house at, but I'm cold blooded, so this is pretty chilly for me and I decided it was that time to turn the heat on.

I knew we had let it get cold in the house when, just a few minutes later, we found our dog Zuri standing over the heat vent letting it blow on her face and ears!

Good Art Makes My Heart Happy

Prodigal from Stephanie Mathis on Vimeo.

I had the coolest moment today

I talked to a guy on the phone today. He's interested in volunteering where I work, at Water Street Ministries. Water Street's vision is transformed lives as they work with the poor and homeless in our area.

His daughter is one of the employees here, and he wants to support this.

Here's the only thing. He's deaf.

Yep, I did say that I talked to him on the phone. There's this awesome video phone translation service where my call to his house gets routed to a translation center. One of the translators picks up the phone, sets up a video feed with their deaf client, and then proceeds to translate between the two parties--signing on video to the deaf person, and relaying their signed message in speech back to the hearing person.

How awesome is that!?

The situation almost brought tears to my eyes. It just felt redemptive somehow. Here's this guy who's been dealt crap, but he wants to give back to others and there are others in the world partnering with him so he can do things hearing folks do, like talk on the phone.

Sweet.

How Do You Stay Sane?

As you all have seen in my silence over the last few months, life is crazy right now. Being in school is an amazing thing but also has a way of sucking you into a giant black hole. ☺ Each day, I have to make choices about priorities. What relationship do I need to invest in? What homework must be done? What task at home is pressing? What is the next step for the launch of Pearl Street Photography? I’ve started realizing a few things: 1) I have to choose. Choose what I can and cannot do. Where I can invest and where I cannot. 2) I have to take small bites. Just accomplish one thing each day instead of trying to take on everything at once. 3) Take time to rest whether you think you have it or not. If you don’t, you won’t survive.

How do you prioritize your life and not only stay sane but also thrive in the midst of craziness? I would love to learn from you!

Jesus' Hands & Feet

I was at an all staff training for work when a co-worker shared something profound.

We find in the story of God that he calls his people to join him in his restorative work in the world. In the modern world, this work often involved intellect and the building of systematic theologies, sometimes to the neglect of action. God calls us not only to love him with our minds, but also with our hearts and hands.

So this staff member is also a current resident of our Mission, which I think is profound all by itself. But his words struck me when he shared something like this:

"I can't just be told that God wants us to love because my understanding of the whole idea of love was messed up. I needed someone to show me what love is."

This guy gets incarnational theology--the truth of who God is being acted out in our lives. God's people coming alongside one another and alongside our neighbors, putting hands to love, feet to faith, and action to hope. How true that we all have broken understandings of God's truth, and we need each other to put flesh on it to help each other see God. Theology is not meant to be merely an intellectual exercise. Those around us should experience our theology by the way we live.

Thank you, brother, for reminding us of this truth you understand so well. May we heed your words and engage our worlds with the loving truth of Christ...

I Am Still Alive

By this point, many of you must believe I have dropped from the face of the earth, so I thought I would drop in and confirm I do indeed still exist. Who knew full-time work + full-time grad school = crazy? It has, however, also been an amazing last couple months. I will be posting a few mini-blogs over the next couple weeks to share a few highlights and glimpses into my life right now. (Sorry all you get is mini-posts when it’s from someone fighting a daily battle against burnout :)

Spring!

Spring seems to have finally arrived!

First the leaves of bulbs began pushing through the ground, breaking up the brown of winter. It felt like forever before anything else happened, but suddenly the daffodils began nodding golden heads, and I found a blooming cherry tree arching over the sidewalk as I jogged through my usual route. Hedges I never noticed before jumped from the landscapes, cloaking themselves in yellow forsythia blooms and inviting me to brush against them as I run by.

Now the colors have multiplied. Dogwoods aren't blooming yet, but are pushing purple buds out, giving the treeline a hint of life. Redbuds are in full force. Cherry and tulip trees are full of purples and pinks. Fields are bright with new grass. White blossoms fill bushes along neighborhood streets.

As the sun shines warmer, the days last longer, and the smells of life fill the air, I remember why this is one of my favorite times of year...

Moving

Sometimes we stop and we sit

Sitting
Sitting overwhelmed
Overwhelmed facing the ocean of need
Crying

And it moves forward without us

Sometimes it continues on and we are blind

Blinded
Blinded unaware
Unaware of the dark injustice of our world
Comfortable

And it moves forward without us

May we be moving

Moving
Moving forward
Forward into the dark injustice of our world
Forward with the hope of the gospel

Together we hold lonely hands
Educate hungry minds
Feed swollen bellies
Stand by each other
And nurture souls

One step at a time
One voice
One word
One touch

Alone so small, but together facing the ocean
And moving forward

http://www.dalitnetwork.org/

Last week missing snow, this week dreaming of gardens

So, a few days ago I was planning this funny post about the (sometimes crazy) things that I sometimes miss about the average 13 feet of snow back home in the UP:

• The smell of snowblower exhaust
• Cleaning your car off in the morning
• Snowy roads
• The sparkling like diamonds
  
• Shoveling snow
• Your eyes hurting because the sun on the snow is so bright
• Walking through snow covered woods

But it's funny because right now we're having a warm spell here in PA, so now I'm dreaming of spring and gardens. Thursday it was in the teens, but yesterday was in the 50s and I worked in the garden in shorts.

Here's to sitting on the front porch in the sun, feeling the fresh air coming in an open window, listening to the birds singing, and planning this summer's veggies!

Just Do...Something

I often find myself overwhelmed in light of realities like this:



In the words of Edward Everett Hale:

I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything but still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

For too long I have been waiting for the someday and that something bigger, but I am beginning to realize that God has placed me where I am for a reason, and I need to be faithful to that, responding to the opportunities in front of me.

Let's just do something, and together we can do much.

Maybe for you, that something is giving an hour or two of your week here in Lancaster for one of the many organizations extending love by investing in the lives of middle schoolers, serving meals, counseling, offering shelter or AIDS relief, educating, or giving in one of many other ways.

Maybe for you it means packing peanut butter and jelly for lunch instead of eating out as a commitment to begin living more simply to have more freedom to give.

Maybe for you it means allowing God to mold you into an awesome neighbor, friend, or spouse.

Maybe for you it means prayer and advocacy, giving a voice to those who are so often ignored.

Or maybe it looks like one of the infinite other creative ways we can begin partnering with God to bring healing in our suffering world.

These are the things I have been taking steps toward in my life. Will you join me?

I Can't Help Crying Sometimes

This morning, all the leaders of this weekend gathered together for one last time. We touched base on some logistical details and then created some space to share about the memorable moments from the weekend.

As leaders shared about students encountering the person of Jesus, I began to cry. These students are bearing more than their small shoulders ever should--grandma's dying from cancer, self-doubt from acne and from mental disabilities, a mom who passed away just weeks ago, and I could go on and on. But this weekend, they encountered Jesus and saw him beginning to put their worlds back together again. They began to trust how they are brilliantly created, how God is close in our darkest moments, and how he is in control and working in our world to put all this sh** back together again (sorry, sometimes ordinary words just don't carry the weight of the pain, brokenness, the sick things in our world that never should have been). They encountered him as they talked late into the night in their cabins, as they sat listening to Matt share the art, the teaching he has crafted from his soul and the truth he knows about his God, and as they stole moments to gaze up at the starry sky.

We saw a little bit of heaven this morning as leaders shared, a little bit of heaven coming to earth...

Sacred Moment

A while ago, we had one of our PA winter snow (i.e. sleet) storms. The next day, as I was driving to a meeting for work, the sun had come out and was transforming the icy winterscape into a wonderland of diamonds.

A response slipped from my lips: "It's beautiful--thank you, God."

At that very moment, a sense that I was in the middle of a sacred moment made my breath catch and my soul tingle. It felt like something was suddenly right in the world.

What made this moment sacred?

Cold Engulfing the Nation...and Me

Reports of frigid temps are all over the news. A work contact in Chicago today informed me the wind chill there was rockin out at -51!

Last night, I decided to stick to my rhythms and take zuri for a run. The "real feel" temp was -3, so I layered up hardcore. I was still afraid of freezing though, so decided to cut my run shorter than usual. Good thing I did because:

1) My toes are still sore from getting too cold in those 15 minutes
2) I still had to stop and thaw my dog's paw 3 times
3) It was so cold my earbud wires immediately froze, making a thumpy, cold-creaky sort of noise as I ran

I was still glad I went, but tonight the real feel is -7 and I decided to stay inside curled up on the couch with a blanket. :)

Origins of the Internet

Wow, who knew the foundations of the internet were being laid all the way back in the 1950s!? I get a little lost toward the end, but so it's a super sweet and interesting overview of how thing thing we depend so much on now came to be. Thanks to my friend Adam for sharing this sweet--albeit maybe slightly nerdy--video! :)


History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

Reflections on Light from the Christian East: Part 4

Here's the next to last installment of my reflections on Light From the Christian East by Payton:

10/8-9/08
I feel like I am being rather UNorthodox in these journal entries. It seems they involve more the stuff of thought and emotion rather than of action. After all, isn’t the Orthodox tradition one that says experience informs theology? And here I sit contemplating theology apart from prayer and meditation.

Anyway, I digress.

In this section of reading, I learned about several doctrines that carry more weight in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. These included the doctrines of incarnation, transfiguration, and resurrection. Learning about the Orthodox view of these issues brought new significance to them. For example, I always thought the Transfiguration did not make sense. It seemed like a random account of Jesus deciding to meet with some glorified dead people. Even when my church taught on the Transfiguration, it was usually something like “Now Peter and John selfishly or proudly wanted to just stay in this exalted place they experienced, but Jesus taught them that they had to go back into the world to continue ministry for a time.” The Orthodox view, however, expounds on the incident as a display of the deification that we all will experience because of the incarnation and triumph of Christ. We would all do well to opening ourselves up to learn from the doctrines of the Orthodox tradition that we have neglected.

One of the emphases of the Orthodox tradition that stood out to me especially in this section was their emphasis on union with Christ and their view of this and of salvation as a more holistic process rather than a series of events. Their emphasis along with their view on the nature of grace brought me back repeatedly to the teaching of Ed Miller, a humble man from Rhode Island who was very influential in my father’s faith journey and, in turn, mine. Ed over and over again refers to these ideas of union with Christ being the source of our life and salvation and of God Himself as our salvation, grace, wisdom, etc. In one of his reflections, he writes, “We have no doubt begun to learn that there are times in our lives when He will give us strength in answer to our prayer, but it is His greater desire to reveal Himself as our Strength. He will certainly send help to His people, but He would rather we discover the He Himself is our Help. He will give wisdom to those who ask, but better far is the realization that He is made to us Wisdom” (God’s Dawn for Every Darkness: Morning-Fresh Glimpses into His Gracious Heart. Colorado Springs: Random House-Waterbrook, 2001. 47).

May we all find life and rest by faith through union with Christ, our very Salvation.