I needed to hear this one today

When you start telling people that you want to enter ordained ministry, they look at what is wrong or sinful about you. “Tamara, you can’t curse in the pulpit.” “you will never have sex again.” “Does this mean we can’t hang out anymore?” “I don’t know if I want to date a preacher.” “Does this mean you are going to become closed minded.”

Not only do words like this come from ohter, but sometimes it comes from within. Sometimes I feel unworthy because I don’t profess or believe enough. But today’s reading puts things in perspective. Below is today’s meditation from forward day by day. I hope that this also validates your humanity and yet your ability to enter the kingdom of God.

Just a question: how would church be different if this was on the biblical quote on the back of most people’s cars?

Matthew 21:23-32. Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.

Like all Jesus’ parables, there is a surprise in this one for his listeners. The first son told his father he wouldn’t do as he was instructed, but then did it anyway. The second son said he would obey, but he did not. Jesus asks the “chief priests and the elders of the people,” who are his audience, to try their hand at interpretation. They all know well that the first son is the one who is doing his father’s will.

Like the second son, the devout of the community will learn that entering the kingdom will not come easy for them. Jesus’ surprising words are, “the tax-collectors and the prostitutes,” will enter “ahead” of those in the world who appear to be more righteous.

Jesus warns us, who are very busy keeping his church going and perhaps self-righteously demonstrating our faithfulness, to listen to his deeper word. Those who must struggle to know him and to believe in him are the ones who are nearer to the kingdom of God. The surprise for us is that when we set our self-assurance aside and listen, we will hear Jesus say, “Change and believe.”

Psalm 121

The thing about the discernment process is that life continues. I still try to date people, have friends, socialize go to a full time job and of course, watch Wimbledon on-line. The thing I suck at the most, is relationships. I recently found out that my ex is dating someone new–oh facebook. It was kind of hurtful to see, we only have been broken up for a couple of weeks. In my dreams, it was still possible to salvage this relationship–but only in my dreams. Seeing a facebook status update that was never granted in our relationship through me for a loop. I gave myself through the end of yesterday to morn this moment. And after speaking with some friends, I am feeling much better. But the real triumph is in these words:

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

If God can figure out how to make the heavens and the earth, then I think he can figure out how to send me the ma that will love me the way I need to be loved and he will love me for all of who I am. My therapist said that for some of us it takes a longer time to find that person, I pray that it is not too much longer. But I also came to another conclusion in therapy. Maybe God wants me to build a more solid relationship with her first, then I will be ready to receive the love of a man. I am so excited to engage in the spiritual direction process.

Thirsting for God?

During my discernment presentation someone asked me, “How do you thirst for God?” I still have no idea how to answer that question. I don’t know if I understand it, but I decided to Google thirst in the bible and here are some versus that came up.

Psalm 63: 1

You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.

Psalm 42:2

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

Isaiah 49:10
They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

Isaiah 55:1
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost”

Matthew 25:35
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,

John 4:13-14
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

There is a difference between the old and new testament when speaking about thirst. In the old testament God is understood as someone or rather something that is out there. One must therefore do things to connect with that being. When they sin or are having a rough go of life, God is distant and their connection to God is lost. In the new testament and Isaiah, there is a focus on this thirst being something to quench. The focus is on quenching the thirst of others, rather than people crying out for thirst. And then in this last verse I present, we learn that Jesus will give us water so that we will never thirst.

I think I am not thirsty, not because life isn’t rough at times and God seems fuzzy in my life, but more because I do something almost every week that keeps me from thirsting–I go to church and partake in the Eucharist. I guess I would answer the question this way now: “when I am feeling parched I go to the table and partake in the breaking of bread and the prayers. For through Jesus I drink water that “becomes a spring of water welling up to eternal life”

Also, God is not a being out there, but well you know…with me, in me and all around me. So if God is in me, I might desire a drink of water, but I am never really thirsty. Even when I refuse to drink, God has forced my mouth open or put in an i-v and poured water into my body until I can go to the stream and fetch it for myself. My soul doesn’t need to thirst for the lord–thanks Jesus for building the spring of water welling up inside me.

The Dream Act

Ok, can we just take a moment to talk about the dream act. This is a law that was written by both parties in congress before Obama took office. Then when he takes office, all of a sudden republicans are all, “we didn’t sign up for that.” “we’ll give people a path to citizenship if you build a pipe line that could add jobs to the economy and then give all the workers cancer and lead to a huge amount of money spent in the future trying to clean up the oil spill that happens from alaska through canada and all up and down the US. But that’s our goal. Fuck the planet for the future, we just don’t want our kids to have financial debt. And what we mean by our kids is, rich and wealthy ones that can keep the world populated with the ‘right’ kind of person.” Ok, maybe they didn’t say that, but that’s what I heard.

This is the easiest and most logical bill congress could pass in the next year. People who want to add to the country, folks that want to die for a place that doesn’t even want them here…these are the kinds of people we should be trying to keep around, not deport. Here is an article on a recent protest by Dreamers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/07/20/GA2010072005839.html

You know the right to lifers always say, that we shouldn’t blame the fetus because of the mother’s choices. but when it comes to immigration policy somehow I don’t see folks standing up in the same way. It is my call to my friends in White America to stand up and speak out. I ask you this–would their be such controversy if the majority of people who fit this bill were from Canada or the United Kingdom? How would the conversation be different? What pictures would we be seeing? What resistance would their be?

The other really frustrating thing: asking about the Hispanic vote (really it should be the Latin American vote) should not be synonymous with immigration reform, just like asking about the Black vote shouldn’t be synonymous with prison reform and welfare; just like asking about the White vote shouldn’t be synonymous with, “will you vote for a Black guy a second time?” When the shit hits the fan, we all going down. Despite what they told you, we are connected more than you know. the faster you understand the game, the faster you can manipulate it and re-write the script.

I made a choice

The thing about discernment is that I have to surrender to the will of God and pray that what I am saying and what people are hearing is the same thing. Yesterday I did my presentation for the discernment committee. I didn’t curse the entire time!!! Mission accomplished.

I decided to talk about music camp because I felt like it was one of those places where I can bring together all my parts and they make sense. And it is where I literally felt called. There were a couple of learnings from that presentation.

  • I do need to engage in spiritual direction to clarify which side of the fence I land.
  • I am definitely feeling called to an ordained ministry: is it deacon or priest–something I struggle with.
  • The was a question about how I thirst for God. And I don’t really know how to answer that questions still…possibly something to figure out in another post. But basically I feel like every time that comes up in the bible, its about a feeling distant from God and then needing to get God back. I have never felt that way. My soul has thirst for the Lord I guess. But God didn’t go anywhere. It was me who decided to turn the other way. It was my choice to do something else, to turn in a different direction, to explore other roots to peace and then realizing that God is the way. I didn’t feel thirsty because I was choosing to suck on my own spit. Not the best way to survive, but it gets through the time.
  • Discernment, will inevitably feel like a theological investigation. I know that isn’t the point in many ways. I don’t think that anyone is doing it in a mean way. It just ends up being a part of the process.
  • I surrender all, is hard to do. So I played it to start out the presentation because I needed to remind myself. At this point I have done what I need to do. I am now waiting to see what will happen. But I don’t have any control from now until I hear. I do get to make choices, I can freak out for three months while I wait or I can continue living out the ministry of God in my capacity as a lay person.  And I can continue to work on me. I could go on a date or two. We’ll see.
  • I am realizing that when I say that I would prefer not to do this or that, that what other people hear is, “you don’t want to do this or that.” But its a little more complicated. I don’t like to get up every morning Monday through Friday and go to work, but I do it. And I do my job well. If I have a choice between sitting at home and reading books, watching TV, etc.. and going to work, I would probably choose waking up late. Just because I think something is hard, doesn’t mean that I am not invested in that thing. Just because I a preference doesn’t mean that I am not willing to push and stretch my comfort levels in order to achieve a greater goal. There are things about life that are awesome, and others that suck. I am not afraid to say what is going to suck. Doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize what the fortune cookie says on my desk: we want to have a testimony, but we don’t want the test. I don’t mind the test, but I’ma just let you know that the test is hard.
  • Deacon vs. Priest: I know that I describe my call in deaconal ways. Because the work that I would do as a Deacon would be fulfilling and it would fulfill most of what I feel called to do. Performing sacraments would just add something to that deaconal work. So for me sacraments are adding to what can be true in building spiritual communities, but I feel very much connected to the sacraments and I don’t know, but I would feel kind of stuck. Like we went through all this and now, go over there to that person.
  • There is this moment when they say, not everyone will be ordained who goes through the process. And that will be ok, I may not like it, but it will be ok. Because:

God is with me, God is in me, God is all around me helping me through the mess.

Expectations cause pain

“We want it to be the way we expect it to look, not the way God designed it to be.” As stated by Iyanla Vanzant during the Oprah’s life class. This statement is so true.

So tomorrow for my discernment presentation, I am going to start by playing “I surrender all.” It is an integral part to my story, but more importantly it’s a reminder. I keep struggling between proving and being. I don’t want to do a presentation, I want to tell my story, to be the truth of my heart. If I come in expecting something to happen or praying for results–things won’t work in my favor.

May I have the faith to surrender tomorrow, trusting that: God is with me, God is in me, God is all around me…well you know.

Surrender and brokenness

This Sunday is my turn to do a presentation for the discernment group. It’s a bit emotionally overwhelming to final be at the moment when I tell my story to a bunch of people I don’t really know. I am so happy I didn’t have to go first. But the person that did was a really great person and was able to set a good example for the rest of us. I know that mine will feel and look very different, but it’s nice to seem someone go first.

My struggle of course is letting go to the power of God to tell my story. I want it to be the “right” story. I want it to be told in a way that will make everyone say, of course you are called to the priesthood. Well clearly we have nothing left to talk about let’s just send you on in the process! But that wouldn’t be discernment, that would be a job interview. And the last thing I want to do is “prove” myself.

I have nothing to prove (or so I keep telling myself), but as someone who has rarely failed at these kind of things, I am a little nervous. What if this time I have fooled myself into believing that priesthood is my call, but it really isn’t? What if a variety of things that I hold as truths are just not true. It’s a nerve racking process.

I am thankful to my good friend D for talking with me today about it. I am broken and that is awesome because I am human and God really loves humans. Part of my learning from thinking about my story is that when I surrender to God, everything works out ok. When I listen to my deeper voice, the one that isn’t in my head, but whispering to me in my ear, I know that all will be fine.

This isn’t the first time I am telling my story, but it will be the first time I am telling it in this way. While speaking with friends and family, I often have a very short moment when I am able to surrender and I don’t need to articulate or careful with my words–I just speak. I end up coming out of that moment realizing that I wasn’t speaking. The spirit was. What is true will be true if I allow the spirit to speak and allow my story of broken pieces being glued together to come out and be told.

After our last meeting, I had this thought, “All humans need a little glue.” If you haven’t been broken, then you don’t realize that you are not in control. I have been broken and glued; I am not in control; it is only through surrender that I am free to embrace all of me because: God is with me, God is in me, God is all around me, helping me through the mess.

Please keep me in your prayers this weekend that I may be patient with myself, attempt to prove nothing–just speak my story, and remember that there is no race to win because it has already been run and won by Jesus: I’m just in practice.

The nuns get it right

I know that there are some out there that think that nuns are just mean old ladies that hit you with a ruler. But there are some really good things happening. The church doesn’t always get it right, but listening to God’s call always will. Check out these radical nuns and their fight for economic justice…I just gotta say, I got a soft spot for these kinds of religious order folk. Episcopalians–we gotta get on the train.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2018468096_nuns19.html

 

God, new creation!

I find great comfort in this reflection from 6.17.12. In a time of great reflection and soul searching, I am reminded of how messed up I am. I got a lot of brokenness (now in comparison with a bunch of people, I’m pretty together), but isn’t that awesome–God loves me enough to help me carry and heal it, to make me a new creation…

2 Corinthians 5:6-10(11-13)14-17. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.

Everything that Christ means and offers is summed up by Paul in these two words: new creation. I think about them often. They are as radical and stunning as the first chapter of Genesis. When I meet someone I try to remember as I look into their soul that Christ brings redemption, not improvement. C.S. Lewis said that God became human to turn creatures into sons and daughters, not simply to produce better people of the old kind; it is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better, but turning a horse into a winged creature.

It is not as if we just need a little medicine. We are in no better shape than Lazarus was in his tomb. Jesus did not roll away the stone and give him an antibiotic. Lazarus was dead. He got new creation, not improvement. He became a winged creature. Jesus said: “Come forth!” and he walked to Jesus from death to life.

The only way Christ has been able to forge wings in me is when I have abandoned the improvement quest and surrendered in brokenness—when I am able to bring him the ugliness and failure. Then I find mercy and friendship—laughter too.