Life

Welcome, baby Zoe.

We can't wait to meet you and we are so excited that you have entered this world and joined our family. Mercy talks about you a lot already, and I am excited that you and Mercy and Aaron will grow up together as cousins. I pray that we might live closer to each other as time progresses so that we can enjoy lots of time together!

Zoe, your name means life and that is something I have been thinking a lot about lately. Sometimes your Uncle Doug and I really wonder what we are doing here in Los Angeles, and we feel the burden of things being really hard a lot of the time. I think a lot about "life" and what kind I want for myself, for my husband, and for my kids. There are a lot of things right now about "life" that I don't understand and can't seem to figure out.

Zoe Rose, you are a reminder to me that life is a gift not a right. You remind me that life is fragile and dependent. You remind me that life only matters in relationship to those around you. You remind me that life sometimes IS hard. But you also remind me that life is bound up in hope for the future. I remember reading somewhere that having children is a prophetic act; it is a declaration of hope in the midst of so many things that feel painful and hopeless all around us.

In the midst of the darkness here, Zoe, you remind me to live prophetically. You remind me to live with the end in mind; to live as one who yearns and hopes...

from death to life

When I became pregnant with Mercy, it was as if everywhere I looked there were nothing but other pregnant women. It's the same with cars, right? As soon as you buy a Subaru, that's all you ever see on the road!

A few weeks ago, I posted about my newly acquired poverty-induced stinginess. Since writing those words, I think every day has offered me some opportunity, some invitation to live generously toward others. Every day has given me desperately needed chances to learn to die.

There was the phone call from a neighbor who was literally down to one slice of meatloaf left in her refrigerator to feed her family of four and who would not receive her paycheck for two more days. Of course I did not hesitate to send Doug to Ralph's to purchase a grocery gift card for her family out of our church's benevolence fund. But he would not be home with that until after the dinner hour, so I quickly packed up the last meal's worth of groceries we had in our cupboard, the food I intended to prepare for our family, and brought them over to her home. Now we did not go hungry that night. But it was a chance for my heart to move toward the other and away from my own self in a very small way. It was a chance for me to live as a slave to love and not to fear. It was a chance to hold loosely and not to cling, to release and not to hoard.

Last Thursday Doug and I were guest lecturers at Fuller Seminary for a course on evangelism. We basically offered our church as a case study for some of the different ways that evangelism can look in different contexts. At the end we had time for a couple of questions, and the last question we were asked was about our kids and how we felt about raising them in this environment. Doug spoke for us both when he answered that they are the first thing to cause us to want to leave. But they are also the thing that makes us stay. In Doug's words, "I want my kids to grow up not thinking twice about giving away a car."

C.S. Lewis writes this:

"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down...Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked--the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you myself: my own will shall become yours.'"

how does your garden grow?

Last night I held my final membership class for a wonderful group of individuals considering joining Church of the Redeemer. To be honest, I was sad that it was over because I really enjoyed the excuse just to hang out with these folks. Even with two moderately grumpy babies (mine included), the class went well and as always with this group, good thoughtful questions were brought to the table (along with way too many tempting snacks--thanks, Christy!)

One of the questions was how we as a church are thinking about discipleship and what kind of format that takes in our life together. I was hard pressed to answer. We have little that is programmatic. It is, I'm afraid, one of our greatest areas of need, especially as new believers join our ranks. How do we see people maturing in their life of faith? It is the absence of this focus, I believe, that puts such great pressure on the Sunday morning experience: it becomes the one stop shop where all my needs must be met, otherwise I decide that I am simply not being "fed". This becomes frustrating for the preacher, the worship leader, the board chair :) , etc.

Yet I feel like we are constantly up against people's full schedules, the many missional commitments we share, and just plain life, not to mention work schedules (many of us work multiple jobs, night shifts, etc.) People don't want another "thing", another meeting, another church commitment.

How do we give ourselves to this journey and to one another? What place does gathering to pray, to read the scriptures, to receive instruction, to confess sin have in our corporate life? This, I believe, will determine whether we live or die as a church, not attendance benchmarks or denominational commitment.

The sound of silence

This week has me thinking about how we are doing as a church right now in terms of existing together as a learning community. Some people are expressing dissatisfaction with how they are being "fed". I feel some degree of tension between wanting the church to give people what they need to grow, and wanting people to put their "I need" checklists away and give themselves to the church and trust Father, Son and Spirit for the rest. I am weary of programmatic, structural solutions that promise to spit out shiny A+ believers, yet I do long to see real change in people's lives as they encounter a living God in the midst of our church family and our community.

Doug has been playing his guitar lately, singing some of the great songs he has written over the last few years. When I first met Doug he was in somewhat of a songwriting sprint and many of the songs he has been singing lately come from that time in his life. I remember that a weekly bible study many of us were involved in was particularly inspiring to Doug and his songs of that era reflect that.

Doug has not been writing a lot of music since we moved here. A new wife, too many jobs, and of course two under two are perfectly justifiable reasons for that, but I wonder if it isn't something else: perhaps he, like those discontent among my congregation, is feeling removed from biblical narratives with the power to inspire.

Is it not the artists of a community who sometimes give us the best read on how we are doing?

What a box of Quaker Oat Squares can teach you...

I came to a frightening realization recently. I have always thought of myself as a generous person. I have been known for freely giving of what I have. There was a brief time in my life when I made more than enough money to live on and it was with great ease that I gave what I had to those in need around me.

Something has changed.

Perhaps it is simply this: living with need. Just plain not having enough to buy and pay for basic provisions.

We recently had the blessing of dear friends and family sharing our home with us for the weekend of Aaron's baptism. I went to the grocery store in preparation, WIC checks in hand, and loaded up on food to have around. There are a few key grocery items that WIC covers for us, like cereal (for Doug, Mercy and me) and peanut butter. There are specific cereal brands we can buy, and one of them in particular serves as both a breakfast food as well as a snack on the run for our little girl. The monthly allocation is just enough to usually get us through each month.

The first night that our loved ones were here, Doug's mom asked me if she could take some of the cereal I had over to my sister's house where they were staying so she could have it to snack on in the evening. Of course I said yes and I encouraged her to take the whole box. As she left that evening, cereal box in hand, I realized that I was filled with anxiety over giving up that cereal. How ridiculous, I told myself! Yet I could not shake this deep desire I had NOT to share what we had, as I was haunted by the awareness that I had blown all my WIC checks for their visit and the month ahead stretched out before us yet.

Two of our big grocery expenses NOT covered by WIC are water (the non-rocket fuel laced variety) and soy milk (due to Mercy's milk allergy). We go through a LOT of both of these items, due to Mercy's love for her milk and my neverending need for hydration, which any nursing mom can identify with! The entire weekend, my heart would sink as I would watch our guests go through glass after glass of water, or opt for the soy milk instead of the regular (which CAN be purchased with WIC).

Needless to say, by the end of the weekend I was exhausted by this new and very ugly miserly side of myself I had not before encountered. I don't want to be this way. I don't think I realized before how hard it is for those accustomed to comfort to be generous when they find themselves suddenly without. I do not seem to encounter this behavior among those used to having little--they are usually the MOST generous, the most free to give of what they do have. My neighbors next door who continue to amaze me with their thoughtful gifts are an excellent example of this.

I have so much to learn, so much to die to, when it comes to trusting God and truly placing the needs of others above my own. Will I ever know Christ in me to the point of freely loving my neighbor as myself, in times of want as well as times of plenty?

Juxtaposition

Mercy has started potty training recently which translates to frequent visits to the bathroom for Mercy, Aaron and me. Aaron sits in his swing next to the potty, Mercy sits perched on her "throne", and I sit in front of both of them, squeezed into a small piece of floor between the sink and the toilet.

Sometimes Mercy needs to sit for a little while before she does her business, so we read books, sing, or I do silly things to amuse her. This morning we were sitting there when I heard a bunch of noise outside our window. A police helicopter had been circling our house for five minutes or so, and it was one of those times you know whoever they are looking for is very close because the whole house is shaking and it feels like the helicopter is coming in through your window. So I peered out the window and immediately saw four young men running frantically into a little shed in my neighbor’s backyard. Two of the guys I recognized as young men who have been involved in a fair amount of trouble we have had on our street recently; the other two I did not know. I am pretty sure they were laughing as they scrambled into their hiding place.

I called the police to tell them what I saw and the operator told me she had no information on a helicopter at my address. I wasn't going to argue with her, so I left my name and phone number so that I could be contacted if need be.

I have been edgy all morning. We have gone back twice to sit on the potty and both times I have held my breath and held back tears as we sit beneath that window. Just a few weeks ago our good friends had bullets pierce a piece of furniture in their daughter's room of their second floor house. Since then I have struggled with being sincerely afraid for my kids' safety.

I am delighted that Mercy is potty training. I am sad that she is doing it in front of a window that opens out to so much danger and fear.