here's to remembering on mlk day.

don't know of the guy who wrote the article, but i think he wrote well nonetheless...

through the eyes of a child.

wednesday is my princeton lunch day.  which means i go to lunch and eat with the fourth and fifth graders.  more so, hang out and chat with each table for a few minutes, being intentional about chatting with the soccer players, making sure to chat with everybody else while also graciously saying no to chatting too long to certain kids, and trying to time it right so that i see each table before lunch is up.  takes some practice, i'd say.

1.  johnson, a soccer player, was writing his name in his book as i walked up.  the way he was carefully writing it with a huge pen made me think he was signing a yearbook.  so, i asked him what it was.  just a book of his.  he was using his friend's pen - one of those huge ones with lots of different colors to choose from.  and, i had a couple thoughts.  i bet johnson carefully chose his color to write with.  it might have taken him a while, maybe a minute or so - gotta get the right color.  i bet he's being real careful about how he writes his name, as he wants it to be perfect.  i bet he's focused only on writing "j-o-h-n-s-o-n" and nothing else.  i bet he's enjoying the heck out of writing those seven letters and is in no rush.

2.  i walked over to a fifth grade table where kiersten, one of the girls on my team, was sitting.  i sat down at the open seat in front of her.  while saying hello to everyone else at the table, i got caught up in conversation about something happening at school later in the day.  i glance over at kiersten.  she has this look of anticipation like she just can't wait to tell me something, with maybe even a bit of wiggling in her seat trying to either be patient or contain something.  i try to graciously end my other conversation so i can chat with my soccer friend kiersten.  and once i give her the floor, she pipes up, "you know that northstar party?  it's on my birthday."  and she goes on and on about her birthday plans...for a while.  and, i just listen and think.  soak it all in.  thinking on how long she has been waiting to tell me this.  thinking about what it was like to be her age and be excited about something.

from a boy who is carefully writing his name in a book to a girl who eagerly waits to tell her soccer coach her birthday plans, kids often see the world differently.  duh, right?  learning point #1 of the day - they often appreciate the smaller things.  maybe because they're a bigger part of their lives.  i remember being ten years old, and being super pumped to celebrate my birthday.  like, for the entire month before.  oh yeah.  and, i'm thinking of how i don't see the world like a child.  i don't appreciate the small things.  i don't go slowly through life.  i don't take time to rest and just think and be.  i don't take time to pick a color, i just do whichever one is quickest.  this has been me of late, although i'm slowly changing.  yes, indeed.  and praise the lord for that.  because i want to change back to seeing life through a child's eyes.  to see the fall colors and marvel at this world and its creator.  to see a blue sky and smile.  to watch a sunset.  to really be present with people and enjoy being with them.  to eat slowly and savor the flavors of whatever food i'm eating.  to anticipating as i go to sleep.  to even going to sleep early.  ha.  to just being, and not worrying about whatever's next.  cheers to continuing the art of remembering and resting...

he will not abandon my soul.

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

psalm 16.  amen and amen.  thankful for a recent reminder of how much i do love and need these verses in my life.  he indeed will not abandon my soul...

thoughts.

thoughts.  i joke that sometimes that's all i'm good for.  i don't always come to a conclusion, but i've got lots of random thoughts/ideas/questions flowing through my head.  given that, i do know this - if my thoughts don't get out of my head, they just sit there and simmer and create this mixed-up jumbled up mess.  ha, but seriously.  something happens when they get out, whether written on paper or spoken to someone else.  i'm not sure if it's the exchange or give and take of words or questions, or the process of the thoughts making it from my brain to the outside world, but something happens.  and, as i write tonight, i think about how i need to do more of this.  blogging, talking, thinking, praying, journaling, questioning, processing - i want this all to happen.  more.  because i need it.  this is how and who god has designed me to be.  this is how my brain and heart work.  so, as i've questioned this whole blogging thing and purposes for it, i've come away with this - i need it.  something happens when i sit at my computer and type away.  something worthwhile, that i'm wanting to connect to again.  and, for me, even if it's weird to admit, i think that's enough.  so, without further adieu, here are some thoughts of late...

joy.
choose joy.  it's a thought of late, especially after a rmc women's retreat a month or so ago.  sometimes we don't want to choose joy, and life circumstances don't lend us to doing so, but god still calls us to choose joy and even be thankful.  and, i'd like to think i've done a good job of this in years past, but for whatever reason, it isn't the case now.  but, it is what it is.  win some and you lose some, right?  so, with that, i'll take the refresher course on joy.  and get on choosing it.

rest.
my how i need it.  and, my how i run to broken places/things to find it all too often.  if i've learned one thing from the busyness and stress of the spring/summer, it is that i need rest, and i need to make time for it and get it done.  it can mean riding my bike in the beauty outside or choosing to spend 15 minutes journaling instead of going to sleep.  it's simple, i know.  not rocket science here.  but, i don't always want to find it.  the true rest.  rest in jesus.  and rest in who he is, not in what i can do or have done or should do, or what i think i need or want or hope.  but, rest in him.  and to be rejuvenated and refueled by that kind of rest, even if it's active and more required energy than i really want.  but, `as my like-minded friend catherine and i joked, we never want to sit down and process or journal - it always seems like too much work.  but, once we do, we realize how needed it is.  for our brains to get things out and figured out, but also to process things through with our lover and creator and giver of every good thing.

contentment.
in a sense, birmingham hasn't been quite what i've expected it to be.  and, there's lots of layers to that.  but, what i do know is that it's been a bit harder/more difficult than expected.  and, given that, i'm much thankful for reminders and truth of who god is, even in the midst of my whatever you wanna call it.  god is still god, even in the midst of the wilderness.  in fact, in jeremiah 29, we see how he actually sends his people into exile.  say, what?  god really did that?  even in genesis too, moses asks pharoah to release the israelites so they can worship god in the wilderness.  mind blown again.  i know god is sovereign, but he would actually send his people into exile?  into the wilderness?  does that mean he's sovereign even if i'm in a type of wilderness (as i don't have a better name for it, where life is okay, just maybe not quite 100% "everything is awesome")?  well, scripture says the answer is yes.  yes and yes.  he's the same god.  so, be content here samchok.  find joy and rest even here.  as he's sovereign.  even bloom and grow here.  yes.

"Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease."

Jeremiah 29:4-6

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. And you shall say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.”

Genesis 7:14-16

a thought for tuesday - playing to win

so, i've been mia from the blog for a while.  i know i know, y'all.  but after wondering about what exactly should i put on my blog, what to write about, who even reads this anyways, do i have time for this, blah blah blah, i've decided i need a little pick me up.  well, maybe not a pick me up.  but, something to get me going, as i do often have failure to launch.  (by the way, i don't have answers to all those questions.  but, i do know i need and want to write again.)  so, enjoy the ramblings folks.  today is tuesday, so enjoy.  here's to new beginnings...

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i ran across a fabulous npr story earlier today: when kids start playing to win.  obviously, i listened to it through the lens of my soccer coach self.  and, i obviously enjoyed it a bit more than maybe the average joe.  maybe because it affirms what i believe about coaching youth soccer - winning isn't the only thing.  here's my fav quote from the piece:  "when asked how she knows if she's done a great job at a meet, peri [13 year old swimmer] has a quick answer. 'well, sometimes my legs feel like jelly. and so, the first time it felt like that i knew i had succeeded.'" so, check it out y'all!

thank you ben rector...

i think i originally wrote this on december 31 of last year.  i never finished the post (hence it isn't what i originally wanted it to be), but i think it's worth posting anyways...especially as the list still applies.

"good music makes you homesick for a place you've never been."

went to a good concert a while back.  a month or so, now that i think about it.  delightful.  it was one of those that was totally worth it.  and, i decided to finally buy the album.  i liked it so much.  good work ben rector.  so, i decided i would sit and listen to it.  and, there's something about his sound and his lyrics that stir something in me.  maybe make me homesick for a place i've never been.  maybe just take me to my happy place.  anyways, sitting and listening (before i got too uncomfortable and needed to get up and do other stuff) made me think.  think about things i wanna do a better job of doing:

• really knowing people and pursuing relationships.
• taking time to sit and rest and be still and wind down (just stopping and listening to music, ya know)
• know the lord.  i do good at times and bad at others.
• rest in the lord.  know that who i am is not dependent on how put together i think i am, how well work is going, or where i am in life.  it's in jesus.  
• take up some spiritual disciplines.  
• dream.
• do fun things i've been wanting to do for a while.
• process and blog and journal more often.
• appreciate natural beauty.
• make new memories.  

gentrification with justice.

toxic charity.  it's a book by bob lupton.  a guy who cares a lot about community development in the context of the kingdom.  he works and lives in atlanta.
so, he gave this talk/seminar/conference/i don't know what to call it one saturday in birmingham.  the northstar crew went.  and, it was good stuff.  i recommend reading the book or hearing him speak if you haven't.
many things from the seminar and book to incorporate/process through in regards to northstar and me  personally.    
that saturday, bob lupton talked a good bit about gentrification.  yes, it's the hot topic of today, the cool thing to do, the place to be.  but how can we gentrify justly?  bob is a believer in jesus.  interesting that even secular organizations are trying to answer that question, for reasons laid out in this ny times article.  check it out.

a wedding sermon from a prison cell.

So, I recently finished reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Good stuff y'all.  There might even be a blog post later about it.  But, until then, here's a wedding sermon from a prison cell.  Oh yes, that is what the title says.  But, it's real good stuff too, y'all.  So, enjoy.  It was written in 1943, while Bonhoeffer was in prison.  And, he knew he was to miss his good friend's wedding.  This is what he wrote from his cell, in lieu of his attendance and assumed officiant status.  

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It is right and proper for a bride and bridegroom to welcome and celebrate their wedding day with a unique sense of triumph. When all the difficulties, obstacles, hindrances, doubts, and misgivings have been, not made light of, but honestly faced and overcome - and it is certainly better not to take everything for granted – then both parties have indeed achieved the most important triumph of their lives. With the ‘Yes’ that they have said to each other, they have by their free choice given a new direction to their lives; they have cheerfully and confidently defied all the uncertainties and hesitations with which, as they know, a lifelong partnership between two people is faced; and by their own free and responsible action they have conquered a new land to live in. Every wedding must be an occasion of joy that human beings can do such great things, that they have been given such immense freedom and power to take the helm in their life’s journey. The children of the earth are rightly proud of being allowed to take a hand in shaping their own destinies, and something of this pride must contribute to the happiness of a bride and bridegroom. We ought not to be in too much of a hurry here to speak piously of God’s will and guidance. It is obvious, and it should not be ignored, that it is your own very human wills that are at work here, celebrating their triumph; the course that you are taking at the outset is one that you have chosen for yourselves; what you have done and are doing is not in the first place, something religious, but something quite secular. So you yourselves, and you alone, bear the responsibility for what no one can take from you; or, to put it more exactly, you, Eberhard, have all the responsibility for the success of your venture, with all the happiness that such responsibility involves, and you, Renate, will help your husband and make it easy for him to bear that responsibility, and find your happiness in that. Unless you can boldly say today: ‘That is our resolve, our love, our way’, you are taking refuge in false piety. ‘Iron and steel may pass away, but our love shall abide for ever.’ That desire for earthly bliss, which you want to find in one another, and in which to quote the medieval song, one is the comfort of the other both in body and in soul – that desire is justified before God and man.

Certainly you two, of all people, have every reason to look back with special thankfulness on your lives up to now. The beautiful things and joys of life have been showered on you, you have succeeded in everything, and you have been surrounded by love and friendship. Your ways have, for the most part, been smoothed before you took them, and you have always been able to count on the support of your families and friends. Everyone has wished you well, and now it has been given to you to find each other and to reach the goal of your desires. You yourselves know that no one can create and assume such a life from his own strength, but that what is given to one is withheld from another; and that is what we call God’s guidance. So today, however much you rejoice that you have reached your goal, you will be just as thankful that God’s will and God’s way have brought you here; and however confidently you accept responsibility for your action today, you may and will put it today with equal confidence into God’s hands.

As God today adds His ‘Yes’ to your ‘Yes’, as He confirms your will with His will, and as He allows you, and approves of, your triumph and rejoicing and pride, He makes you at the same time instruments of His will and purpose both for yourselves and for others. In His unfathomable condescension God does add His ‘Yes’ to yours; but by doing so, He creates out of your love something quite new – the holy estate of matrimony.

God is guiding your marriage. Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which He wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more that something personal – it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As you first gave the ring to one another and have now received it a second time from the hand of the pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity the rights, and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

God makes your marriage indissoluble. ‘What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder’ (Matthew 19:6). God joins you together in marriage; it is His act, not yours. Do not confound your love for one another with God. God makes your marriage indissoluble, and protects it from every danger that may threaten it from within and without; He wills to be the guarantor of its indissolubility. It is a blessed thing to know that no power on earth, no temptation, no human frailty can dissolve what God holds together; indeed, anyone who knows that may say confidently: What God has joined together, can no man put asunder. Free from all anxiety that is always a characteristic of love, you can now say to each other with complete and confident assurance: We can never lose each other now; by the will of God we belong to each other till death.

God establishes a rule of life by which you can live together in wedlock. ‘Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives’ (Colossians 3:18-19). With your marriage you are founding a home. That needs a rule of life, and this rule of life is so important that God establishes it Himself, because without it everything would get out of joint. You may order your home as you like, except in one thing: the wife is to be subject to her husband, and the husband is to love his wife. In this way God gives to husband and wife the honor that is due to each. The wife’s honor is to serve the husband, to be a ‘help meet for him’, as the creation story has it (Genesis 2:18); and the husband’s honor is to love his wife with all his heart. He will ‘leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife’ (Matthew 19:5), and will ‘love her as his own flesh’. A wife who wants to dominate her husband dishonors herself and him, just as a husband who does not love his wife as he should dishonors himself and her; and both dishonor the glory of God that is meant to rest on the estate of matrimony. It is an unhealthy state of affairs when the wife’s ambition is to be like the husband, and the husband regards the wife merely as the plaything of his own lust for power and license; and is a sign of social disintegration when the wife’s service is felt to be degrading or beneath her dignity, and when the husband who is faithful to his wife is looked on as a weakling or even a fool.

The place where God has put the wife is the husband’s home. Most people have forgotten nowadays what a home can mean, though some of us have come to realize it as never before. It is a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life’s storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary. It is not founded on the shifting sands of outward or public life, but it has its peace in God, for it is God who gives it its special meaning and value, its own nature and privilege, its own destiny and dignity. It is an ordinance of God in the world, the place in which – whatever may happen in the world – peace, quietness, joy, love, purity, discipline, respect, obedience, tradition, and with it all, happiness may dwell. It is the wife’s calling and her happiness, to build up for her husband this world with the world and to do her life’s work there. How happy she is if she realizes how great and rich a task and destiny she has. Not novelty, but permanence; not change, but constancy; not noisiness, but peace; not words, but deeds; not commands, but persuasion; not desire, but possession – and all these things inspired and sustained by her love for her husband - that is the wife’s kingdom. In the Book of Proverbs we read (31:11ff.): ‘The heart of her husband trust in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands… She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and tasks for her maidens… She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the need… Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come… Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her… Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’ Again and again the Bible praises, as the supreme earthly happiness, the fortune of a man who finds a true, or as the Bible put it, a ‘virtuous’ or ‘wise’ woman. ‘She is far more precious that jewels’ (Proverb 31:10). ‘A virtuous woman is the crown of her husband’ (Proverb 12:4). But the Bible speaks just as frankly of the mischief that a perverse, ‘foolish’ woman brings on her husband and her home.

Now when the husband is called ‘the head of the wife’, and it goes on to say ‘as Christ is the head of the church’ (Ephesians 5:23), something of the divine splendor is reflected in our earthly relationships, and this reflection we should recognize and honor. The dignity that is here ascribed to the man lies, not in any capacities or qualities of his own, but in the office conferred on him by his marriage. The wife should see her husband clothed in this dignity. But for him it is a supreme responsibility. As the head, it is he who is responsible for his wife, for their marriage, and for their home. On him falls the care and protection of the family; he represents it to the outside world; he is its mainstay and comfort; he is the master of the house, who exhorts, punishes, helps, and comforts, and stands for it before God. It is a good thing, for it is a divine ordinance when the wife honors the husband for his office’s sake, and when the husband properly performs the duties of his office. The husband and wife who acknowledge and observe God’s ordinance are ‘wise’, but those who think to replace it by another of their own devising are ‘foolish’.

God has laid on marriage a blessing and a burden. The blessing is the promise of children. God allows man to share in His continual work of creation; but it is always God Himself who blesses marriage with children. ‘Children are a heritage of the Lord’ (Psalm 127:3), and they should be acknowledge as such. It is from God that parents receive their children, and it is to God that they should lead them. Parents therefore have divine authority in respect of their children. Luther speaks of the ‘golden chain’ with which God invests parents; and scripture adds to the fifth commandment the special promise of long life on earth. Since men live on earth, God has given them a lasting reminder that this earth stands under the curse of sin and is not itself the ultimate reality. Over the destiny of woman and of man lies the dark shadow of a word of God’s wrath, a burden from God, which they must carry. The woman must bear her children in pain, and in providing for his family the man must reap many thorns and thistles, and labor in the sweat of his brow. This burden should cause both man and wife to call on God, and should remind them of their eternal destiny in his kingdom. Earthly society is only the beginning of the heavenly society, the earthly home an image of the heavenly home, the earthly family a symbol of the fatherhood of God over all men, for they are His children.

God gives you Christ as the foundation of your marriage. ‘Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God’ (Romans 15:7). In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts.

Your home will be a pastor’s home. From it, light and strength will have to go out into many other homes. The pastor undertakes a life of special discipline. The husband must bear alone much that belongs to his ministry, since the ministry is his and must, for the sake of God, be a silent one. So his love for his wife must be all the greater, and he must be all the more concerned to share with her what he may. And as a result the wife will be able to lighten the husband’s burden all the more, stand by his side, give him help. As fallible human beings, how can they live and work in Christ’s community if they do not persevere in constant prayer and forgiveness, if they do not help each other to live as Christians? The right beginning and daily practice are very important indeed.

From the first day of your wedding till the last the rule must be: ‘Welcome one another… for the glory of God’.

That is God’s word for your marriage. Thank Him for it; thank Him for leading you thus far; ask Him to establish your marriage, to confirm it, sanctify it, and preserve it. So your marriage will be ‘for the praise of His glory’. Amen.

northstar featured in birmingham magazine...

thank you so much birmingham magazine.  here's the link:  northstar in bham mag.