Packing the diaper bag

One of the biggest challenges for me about being a parent of two very small children is how a simple thing can take so much time and feel SO HARD. The last few days have been marked by a brutal heat/humidity wave and it has made me a bit of a grouch (or "ouch" as Mercy calls her favorite Sesame Street friend). I keep trying to tell myself, "Erika, at least your not pregnant this summer!", something I have NOT been able to say the last two, but I have found myself feeling overwhelmed and a bit claustrophobic. I want so badly to escape the heat but we don't have a big yard for the kids to run in, our neighbors gave us a little pool but we have nowhere to set it up and leave it so it sits in a box, and to even THINK about going outside requires so much sunscreen we might as well just get on each other's nerves in the living room!

I am realizing that it is the hard work of getting clothes and diapers and shoes and socks on and milk chilled and bottles fixed and nalgenes filled and bjorns packed and snacks found, and the seemingly neverending list of what is required to simply go out the door that I can find paralyzing. I am feeling foolish even now as I write this because, C'mon Erika, none if this is hard. Get your act together! But once you mix in a temper tantrum, a poop, and a spit-up, it can start to feel just plain impossible.

I was thinking today that this is a lot like the kinds of relationships we are trying to fill our lives with right now. Because we are choosing to share our lives with people from different ethnic backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds, different socio-economic backgrounds, relating to people can feel a bit like trying to leave my house with two little ones: there are any number of reasons why it can just feel so hard. And it can be very, very tempting to just not put yourself through the mess of it!

Yesterday when I was feeling overwhelmed I strapped the kids into their carseats and we just drove around, the wind blowing our sweat-wet hair off our faces. I didn't have a diaper bag packed for them and neither child had shoes on: but the amount of effort I did put out paid off. Auntie Anna and cousins Jordan and Isaiah had just come home when we drove by their house and we ended up having a delightful afternoon trying out their new hose attachment and eating watermelon.

I am reminded that we can all be like this in one way or another: sometimes the prospect of what it would take to do something exhausts us so we opt for doing nothing. It can be that relationship with someone very different form us, that great volunteer opportunity we keep talking about getting involved with, that spiritual discipline we long for in our life. What it would require of us to make it to that destination seems like too much work to be worth it! But just like my last-resort car trip yesterday, I am reminded also that even our smallest, most flawed efforts are almost always rewarded. And once we get there the things that seemed so hard about the journey pale in comparison to what we receive.

The Communion of Saints

On Sunday I spoke at Pasadena Covenant Church, our sister church that has partnered with us in this adventure of church planting here in South Central. I never cease to be amazed by the generosity of this congregation. Generosity of friendship, of time, of listening and praying and celebrating with us. It is a true generosity of spirit and I truly cannot imagine the last three years without their steadfast companionship.

This is a church that, as they envisioned their life together three years ago, felt led to commit significant resources, time and energy to the birth of a new ministry in a totally unrelated community, among people having nothing to do with their congregation. There were a lot of other options for how they could steward their resources, many of which would have directly benefited their members. But they chose to release and not to store; to give freely and not to hoard. In other words, they chose, in a very dramatic way, to "consider others better than themselves" (Philippians 2).

I just read on my denominational website the story of another Covenant church up in the Northwest whose capital campaign for facility improvements included $100,000 for roofs to be put on schools in the Congo.

It is easy to be cynical about "the institution" of the church. My generation is especially good at this. We need to hear stories like these.

Irony

Yesterday I met a woman about my age who lives around the corner from us with her husband and two darling children. They were walking home from the store and we were out front doing our best to escape the heat (with some help from Paul's sprinkler). I was holding Aaron and her little boy wanted to come and see the baby up close. So they came over and we got talking and the kids started playing, and it was probably a good hour that we spent together.

I really liked this woman and I adored her kids and I think she is someone that I could definitely see becoming a good friend.

So a year ago I blogged about a certain house in our neighborhood. That is where she and her family live. She moved in almost exactly a year ago, after the house was remodeled and painted by her Mother-in-Law who bought the property. She is so proud of how beautiful her home is.

Jessica

Today marks a monumental day for someone I hold very dear. A young woman I have known and loved since she was the age of my sweet Mercy leaves the comfort of friends, family and home to move into a tough New York City community where she will, for two years, serve as a teacher through Teach For America. I am blown away by her courage, her steadfast commitment to what she values, and the way her belief in God compels her to go and dwell among the least.

Jessica has been an intimate witness to my own life and struggles in pursuing God in difficult places. Her home in Naperville was one of my places of rest and recovery during tough years of ministry in Chicago. She has had her own share of challenges and heartache in her years, and I know that she enters the inner city as one who knows the language of suffering; she thus enters as one capable of deep compassion which will be her greatest weapon against the injutice and oppression she will most certainly encounter.

We often laugh about the uncanny similiarites between Jess and me, and I know I get blamed (and probably rightly so) for many of them! I can only hope that Mercy will have many Jessicas as role models for how a young woman can boldly walk in God's calling.

We love you, Jess. May the Lord bless you and keep you, on this journey and always.

Quotation of the Week

"When Jesus opens the table to all, the table begins to tell a new story. But it is a story unlike the story of his contemporaries. The observant person's table story: You can eat with me if you are clean. If you are unclean, take a bath and come back tomorrow evening. Jesus' table story: clean or unclean, you can eat with me, and I will make you clean. Instead of his table requiring purity, his table creates purity. Jesus chooses the table to be a place of grace. When the table becomes a place of grace, it begins to act. What does it do? It heals, it envisions, and it hopes...

The table of Jesus talks by envisioning a new society, a society of grace, of inclusion, of restoration, and of transformation. We need to ask what, at the physical level, our churches are saying."

From "The Jesus Creed", by Scot McKnight (pp.36, 39)

Clutter

This past year I have been on a mission. I am determined to eliminate a bulk of the clutter that Doug and I each brought into our marriage as well as the unnecessary things we have collected here in L.A. My husband and I can both be sentimental creatures so this has not been an easy task. So much so that I have turned to an outside source for help in how to think about my attitude toward "stuff".

This past week I read one of her essays that described how things are not necessary to represent relationships: in other words, that statue or vase or sweater from your great-aunt whoever doesn't really need to sit in a corner of your house for you to honor your relationship with her. This is where my sentimental butt gets a good little kick!

I am reminded, though, of a promise I made ten years ago to a fourteen-year-old boy.

Ivan was a kid in my neighborhood in Chicago, one of the original "crew" who won my heart and led me into God's calling for my life. One night I took him out to dinner. Now kids in my neighborhood didn't "go out for dinner" anywhere. McDonalds was a treat, as was the walk-up Chinese restaurant. But I had told Ivan that I would take him out for dinner as a treat--I don't even remember now for what. So we went to this little Italian restaurant next-door to the Cubby Bear where I used to work in Wrigleyville.

I remember that the tables had white paper coverings, and each table had little packages of four crayons along with the centerpiece. I remember us coloring on our "tablecloth" and laughing a lot that day. I remember the look on Ivan's face as he sat in this "fancy" restaurant, ordered a nice meal, and told me that he would never forget this day for the rest of his life. I remember getting ready to leave and having Ivan look me soberly in the face as he held one of the boxes of crayons: "I am going to take these home and I will never throw them away and I will always remember this day." I looked at him, picked up the other box of crayons and promised him I would do the same.

Six years ago, Ivan's best friend, another young man I deeply loved, was murdered. I will never forget knocking on Ivan's door, his grief-stricken face, the way he collapsed in my arms. I will never forget his anger, his despair. And I will never forget walking into his room where he had dumped out a box that held all of his "treasures". Photos of him and Jamar, most of which I had taken over the years, covered the bed. As I picked up a photo and strained to look through my tears, Ivan reached down and picked up a little white box and held it out to me: it was the box of crayons from the restaurant. "I told you I would always keep these, Erika. I will never, ever throw them away."

I still have mine too: they have moved with me from Chicago to Spokane to Portland and Los Angeles. I don't care if that box of crayons is just "stuff" and isn't necessary to honor my relationship with Ivan. I will never, ever throw them away.

What do you mean?

I made an amusing discovery this past week. Mercy is generally a very good talker. She knows a lot of words and her pronunciation is great (except for blanket which is "biktet", "bagdhad", or "biltlek", or some composite of the three). However, there have been two words that she uses with great frequency that have remained a mystery to us: "thank you" is "meeeenaaaak" and "spoon" is "muuuuuunsch".

A couple of days ago I was reading the perennial classic, "Goodnight Moon", to her and we came to the page that reads: "And a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush" and as I looked at the picture I realized that what you see is a bowl with a very large spoon in it. Suddenly it made sense why Mercy just may believe that the proper word for "very large spoon" is mush.

This past week we had a congregational visioning meeting for our church. It was one of those meetings where we reflect together about the past, accomplishments and disappointments, as well as what we have learned and hope for our future together. There was a fair amount of emotion in the room at various points, and during one such moment, a dear individual grew quite passionate and said, "Maybe we need a new theology of neighboring."

It was one of those O.J. Simpson verdict moments where half the room nodded vigorously in agreement while the rest looked on in confusion. I can imagine some people puzzling: "a theology of neighboring? What is that?????"

Now any self-respecting Southern California Intervarsity graduate knows exactly what that term, taken from the writing of Bob Lupton, means, as does someone like myself who owns all of Lupton's books. Any first or second generation Latino, however, would not have a clue how a word they thought was a noun is suddenly working like a verb.

Language is so potent. And it can be so divisive. And sometimes the best you can guess is that "mush" simply must mean "spoon."

Because we live in L.A.

I guess that everyone who lives here has their big star-sighting story to tell. Doug and I laugh because we NEVER see anyone famous and there are very few people we would actually be interested in seeing. But having Jack Bauer walk up to you while you are playing with your daughter at Manhattan Beach and strike up a conversation--now that is something.

Special Day

Top ten things we love about our Daddy
by Mercy and Aaron Emmanual Haub

10. He loves taking us to the beach
9. He's the best Mango cutter in the world (Mercy)
8. He's always willing to listen when I have really important things to say, even at 5am (Aaron)
7. He lets me pick out my own clothes (Mercy)
6. He always convinces Mom to let us buy the totally overpriced nectar at the Aquarium so we can feed the birds
5. He makes great Puff
4. He works really hard to make sure we have food to eat and a place to sleep
3. He reads us lots of stories
2. He makes Mommy happy
1. He is ours

Quotation of the Week

"Most churches ask, 'How do we get them to come to us?'
The real question is, 'How do we get us to go to them.' "

From a sermon preached by my preaching hero, Brenda Salter McNeil, at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan this past week.

See for yourself - scroll down to find June 15 sermon

Margins?

I realized in writing my last post that I have never explained the source for the name of my blog. Some have asked, so here it is...

I recently spent three years as a student at Fuller Seminary earning a Masters in Divinity. I have never been one of those students who sits though class busily typing away on their laptops (or playing solitaire, which I saw a LOT of in my classes). I have always been the old-fashioned pen and paper type. In every class I would take thorough notes, and as I was provoked by ideas or questions, as I was stirred emotionally, as I was troubled, I would scribble my musings in the margins of my paper. I have never been a talker in class. I was the student, in both undergrad and in seminary, that got notes from her professors on the papers she wrote that read: "You have great insight! We need to hear your voice in class." But the shyness that marked my childhood actually does continue in many ways.

My husband used to go nuts sitting next to me in class at Fuller. Some discussion would be going on around us and I would scribble in the margins of my notebook my thoughts on the issue, and Doug would do everything short of actually lifting my hand in the air to get me to make my comments aloud. But I would opt for the anonymity, the silence, the privacy of my thinking instead.

So when I first considered starting a blog, I was motivated by the idea of having an outlet for the things relegated to the margins of my notebooks. And that is where the title originated, and I liked that it held a double meaning for me as well: I live in South Central, Los Angeles and I share my life with people considered by most around me to be "marginal" for a host of reasons: race, economics, nationality, citizenship status, culture. A lot of what I write about is my experience of life in this community, so the title seems a perfect fit.

So there it is...

What's in a name?

I just stumbled across a collection of blogs from folks in my denomination. As I scrolled through the list looking for any familiar faces/voices I came across a blog named "Marginal Thoughts" . Intrigued by the similarity with my own blog name I clicked on the link. To my delight I found a blog belonging to a woman I have known since I was in college. She and I went on a mission trip to Mexico together when she was a youth intern in Mercer Island. I was a last-minute add-on to the trip, primarily because they needed someone who could speak Spanish to join them. I was on crutches at the time following foot surgery and one of my funniest memories is wearing this ridiculous sock on the tip of my open toed cast so that scorpions wouldn't crawl into my cast at night.

I didn't see this friend for a few years until she and I later overlapped at North Park Seminary in Chicago. It was great to be in touch once again.

Many more years have now gone by and so my heart is warmed to "see" her again through her blog, and to share a kindred spirit of blog names with her :)

Blessings to you, Jo Ann.

Quatro

Yesterday Doug and I celebrated four years of marriage. Someone asked me tonight if we had a good time celebrating and I told them that it was the best date I had ever had. My husband is very very good to me. Thanks, baby.