Lent [Day 8]: For Jess

Originally written July 2010

I sent one of my favorite people in the universe to San Francisco this week. We were quite a team, at school and elsewhere. Students called us Jesus and Peter. Truth and Love.  Swords and sheep.

People ask me what I'm going to do without my sidekick this year, and I joke that I'm not ready to be present with that. But the truth is, I've been present with it for a while. I knew when she started talking about California this spring that her departure would be sooner rather than later. And while I would love for her to stay, it's not part of the larger call on our lives and the lives of those who will enter our lives very soon. Sure, I get a twinge of sadness when I think ahead to upcoming events at school in which we would ordinarily be involved together. But one thing I've learned is that my imagination is incredibly limited, in comparison to the way my life has unfolded thus far. To say nothing of the ministry of absence, a necessary companion to presence.

So, today I send someone I love to a place I love to serve a God I love.

Time to make room for new favorites. Now accepting applications.

Lent [Day 4]: All or Nothing

Originally written Spring 2008

Recently, I've rediscovered some older songs and albums to which I never paid too much attention before - Jars of Clay The Eleventh Hour, and Paul Simon's Boy in the Bubble and Wartime Prayers.  Wartime Prayers has a catchy chorus: 

Because you cannot walk with the holy / if you're just a halfway decent man /But I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind / with a genius marketing plan / I'm trying to tap into some wisdom / even a little drop will do / I want to rid my heart of envy / and clean my soul of rage before I'm through

And it's really just the first lines that I latched onto.  God calls us to be all-in or else it's meaningless.  There's the oft-cited Luke 10:27, Matthew 22:37, and Mark 12:30.  All.  All.  All.  Not halfway.  And beyond loving God completely, I struggle to give completely in serving Him.  I feel like I spent about a year living half in the past, half in the future, and not at all in the present.  I've come out of that, somewhat, and while one could easily construe that as wasting that year, I needed that year.  It's still being put into context, but I can sense the reason for it.  These are truly days of miracle and wonder.

Church and the Single Girl (or Guy)

I've come across several pieces of writing lately about how the church treats single people:

This.  

And This.

I will admit I don't directly have a dog in that fight; I've been married nearly 14 years.  But I have a lot of dear friends who are not married, who encounter this every single day. (pun sort-of intended)  But I don't look upon them as "my unmarried friends"... I see them simply as "friends".

A quick look around, and you'll see this attitude toward singlehood is hardly limited to the church.  I think that the issue cuts all the way to the core of human nature: how swift we are to apply labels, and the nature of those labels (e.g. unmarried friends, childless couple).  Nobody wants to be defined by what they don't have.

Of course, America's fix-it culture probably plays a significant role in this.  What if we treated singleness less as a problem that demands a solution?  Or childlessness, for that matter.  Or lack of anything.  No station in life is an automatic prescription for happiness.  

What if the church focused more on cultivating authentic joy and contentment in ALL circumstances - not just teaching people how to accept their circumstances now until they get married, have kids, graduate, get a different job, or buy a house. Come on, Church, we should be showing the rest of the culture how that looks.

Motherhood of a Different Kind

I was sifting through one of my commonplace books this morning, and I came across this pearl from C.S. Lewis:

'She seems to be... well, a person of particular importance?'

'Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things...' 

'And who are all these young men and women on each side?' 

'They are her sons and daughters.' 

'She must have had a very large family, Sir.' 

'Every young man or boy that met her became her son - even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.' 

'Isn't that a bit hard on their own parents?' 

'No. There are those that steal other peoples' children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives. ... It is like when you throw a stone into a pool and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? ... But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.'

I am often asked about (not) having children of my own - it's usually one of the trifecta of small-talk topics when meeting people:  Where are you from?  What do you do?  Do you have any kids?  Especially after someone learns we've been married for more than a dozen years.  As a woman who runs in some evangelical Christian circles, it's assumed that I would have had them by now.  And that it's something I'm supposed to do, despite my body.  Frankly, I've never had a huge drive towards motherhood - I've looked at it more as merely the next logical milestone.  I'm not hostile toward the idea, either; I'm not militantly anti-children.  It just hasn't happened for us.  I choose to be satisfied either way - with or without.  We essentially gave the decision over to God; I never wanted to be so desperate that I would steamroll forth with my plan and overlook the one He has designed for us (and designed us for). A constant struggle that is hardly exclusive to child-bearing. 

One way I usually respond to the question - mostly to fill the conversation space that would have otherwise held a description of my family - is that as a high-school teacher and mentor, I've been busy shepherding others' children.  Which raises a question: Must I justify our lack of children with some substitution or place-holder?  Sometimes, yes, because I've been made to feel I am somehow less of a woman for it.  Comments from a doctor and also from some well-meaning friends in a position of spiritual authority.  Defense does spring back from that kind of thing.  Surely God demonstrates His love for us through parenting.  There are things about God's relationship with us you begin to understand once you have children of your own.  I get that.  But He also doesn't call everyone to live out the same story.  Creation and community do not support homogeneity as the rule.  He calls some to remain single all their lives.  He calls others to marriage late in life.  He calls others to be parents of one.  He calls others to be parents of many.  He calls others to be parents of none.  But He also demonstrates His love in ways too numerous to count.  

Flipping through the same book, I re-read Donald Miller's words: 

After all, the metaphors - love between a father and a son, between a man and a woman - didn't have to be exact.  They were only supposed to make a motion, to grunt toward the inexplicable.  And we don't all get to experience all the metaphors.  A person who never leaves China doesn't get to appreciate God's handiwork in Yosemite National Park, but he will have his own versions there in China.  This was important to me, because it meant that even though I didn't have a dad, I still knew about love, and from plenty of places.  So while all the metaphors weren't firing, some of them were.  I could still understand God was loving and kind, because I knew about love and kindness.

I don't need all the metaphors.  I have some.  And, in this lifetime, I'll barely scratch the surfaces of the ones I do have.  "Some" is still an embarrassing surplus of riches.

A Good Day

I had a great day!  Not for any big reason - it was just full of little delights.

My morning bus driver remembers that I grabbed a newspaper once last week and now always saves me one and hands it to me when I board.  I take for granted that I might be rememberable, but I suppose I can't help but stick out in the ethnic and age mix of Hawaii bus riders.  I always like to think I can blend into a crowd, but I think I'm just kidding myself sometimes.

I got downtown with enough time to pop in to a cafe/roaster downtown and get a latte.  And mine had a heart in it today.

After those two shots of espresso, I was totally wired.  I described myself to a friend as "barely containable"... and was only half joking.

I had a handful of appointments today, including an easy graduation audit, a double-major advising, and a degree plan and general advice.  Most appointments are solo - not much shadowing any more.  I routinely think that I'm not ready for the training wheels to come off just yet, but my mentor advisors think I am, and they let me take the lead.  I find myself pleasantly surprised with what I am capable of, more often than I am confronted by the things I don't know.  I don't know when, exactly, that ratio turned around, but I'm glad it did.

I'm so glad to be into advising now - it was so much of what I did on any given day that it's nice to make it my primary job description.  But recently I've been ... concerned about what I've been brought here to do.    I know it's still early - it hasn't even been two months at my job yet! - but most of my appointments have been very quick graduation audits.  I just make sure students, who are in their last semester, have completed their degree requirements - and it's not surprising that it's difficult (if not impossible) to forge relationships with them.  It's not the point, really.  I haven't yet had many degree-planning meetings with students, in which I will actually start to get to know them.  I understand that relationships need time to be cultivated.  But I've been concerned with the change in rhythm from teaching and the comparative ease with which I could speak into students' lives.  You can't help but forge those relationships when students barrel into your classroom on a daily basis. And how would that ever happen when I don't teach now?  But I also know that all I have to do is be available; ministry can't help but happen (1).  So I've been struggling with thoughts I know better than to dwell on - I just need to trust and be patient.

My last appointment of the day was counseling a student about finishing her undergrad degree, getting into education and teaching high school.  PERFECT.  She had a bundle of questions and was really personable.  She'll be back for several more appointments concerning graduation and her grad program.  It was exactly the glimpse of my career to come that was the exact antidote to all the prior concern.

Midway through the morning, an email arrived in my inbox, inviting me to this year's AP Reading!  And it's in the midwest, where I have family and friends.  I LOVED the reading I attended a couple years ago.  Completely unlike any conference I've ever attended (plus the stipend isn't shabby).  So, a nice professional-development opportunity, a good excuse to return to the mainland - even if briefly - this summer, and it might overlap with some of my former colleagues!

I had a lovely online conversation with a friend in which I quoted one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite books.  Last night, the very excerpt popped into my head while I was sorting laundry.  The Holy Spirit knew we'd need it the next day.

A midday appointment cancelled, so I decided to push lunch back so I could attend a weekly campus chapel service in the building next door.  We're still looking for a church home, still trying to figure out what the search should even look like (that deserves its own post later), so I thought a mid-week service on a college campus might be worthwhile.  Particularly since it's the beginning of the reflective Lenten season.  But lunch today, instead, brought a phone call from a dear friend, and I decided to stay at my desk and converse with him . I like to think I chose the better part.  I'll aim for chapel next week.

All these joys kept me in a great mood right up through closing time.  At the end of the day, I walked out to catch the bus, only to catch this rainbow first.  The rainy season weather has returned, with fresh trade winds and mauka showers that bring gentle rain and subsequent afternoon rainbows.  I can't believe I get to live here.

(1) Thank you, Frederick Buechner

Thoughts on Leaving

Well, have I been woefully negligent in posting, or what?  I started a bunch of posts over the summer and never finished them.  Until now... so, apologies for the newsreader bomb, subscribers.  

Anyhow, the big news this summer, if you don't already know it, is that we are moving! To Hawaii!  Mr. Jenspin got a promotion, and that promotion is on Oahu.  It hasn't felt real. It gets a little more real as days pass, but I still can't believe it, even though all our household belongings (that which we didn't give away or sell - which was a lot) is in a shipping container somewhere between Florida and Honolulu, our car gets picked up and shipped tomorrow, I quit jobs I loved and don't have anything lined up in Hawaii yet, and we had to say a lot of goodbyes to a community we specifically moved to seven years ago.  

We had to do a lot of figuring-out about what to do with our belongings. We purged a lot in some typical summer-cleaning, but we had to decide what really made the cut, as we had a finite volume of a shipping container to constrain us.  What comes with us? What sells? What stores?  And since it was summer, I spent a lot of time in the lovely home we built and continually improved. I have been sad to leave my gorgeous kitchen, my big screened patio, the luxurious bathtub. And I had to ask myself, Do I love Jesus more than my stuff? And, if I'm honest with myself, sometimes the answer is no.  But then, isn't that a fundamental question? "Stuff" isn't just stuff. Could be "spouse". Or "job". Lots of little gods, all competing for our allegiance. Which we so readily surrender.

So, believing that the opportunity was from God, we pursued it, willing to shed things like belongings, like houses, which I've discovered often cause people hesitation in decisions to follow after God's desires.  Come, follow Me.  Sell your belongings, give the money to the poor. Don't look back.  The invitation is deceptively simple.

As we decided to move over the summer, that meant my last day of school - a lot of lasts, really - had already happened. And I was grateful for that, because I think if I'd known I'd been experiencing my last whatever, along with my seniors, I'd have been miserable. And instead, it was a season of such joy.  Unlike any other.  And that joy, along with a natural sense of completion in graduating off my seniors, made the decision feel fairly natural. I actually went back to campus this fall, to help out with the new teacher's transition the first week of classes. I was glad for the opportunity to see students one more time. But the lasts I thought I'd been spared, I had to confront them. A little. It's a new school every year, but this time it's different.  The increment of change seems much larger. It's familiar, but a lot of the students are new, a lot of the faculty is new. New programs, new classes, new people; it didn't feel quite like mine any more.

I keep saying it's not goodbye, it's really see-you-later - and I really do trust that's more than lip service.  With modern methods of communication and personal broadcasting, I'm in contact with hundreds of people all across the globe that I otherwise never would have seen again.  Plus, our lives have gone in such a crazy path I never would have predicted, I can't discount seeing people again.  It's not like we are moving to a beautiful vacation destination or anything.  It's just so weird, I keep getting fleeting thoughts like "we are moving to Hawaii.  Do you hear yourself??" I don't know when it will really sink in.  Or stop feeling like vacation.

If there's one thing that I've learned, moving to college, to grad school, to California, to Florida, it's that I always find my people.  And there's always room for more favorites.

Anyhow, we're currently en route, stopping in Indiana to visit family before heading to the middle of the ocean.  I'll continue to post updates as conditions warrant.  It's exciting, having the prospect of a new place to explore, a new culture to navigate, even a language to learn.  It's decidedly foreign, but doesn't require a passport.  Aloha!

Hymn

If to distant lands I scatter
If I sail to farthest seas
Would you find and firm and gather

'til I only dwell in Thee?

If I flee from greenest pastures
Would you leave to look for me?
Forfeit glory to come after
'Til I only dwell in Thee

(Brooke Fraser)

Teachers and Teaching

I've been involved, or privy to, at least four separate conversations today about learning and teaching and just what it is we've each learned from one another. And another conversation about how shamefully neglectful I've been of my blog. So, here you go, dear reader. Some (largely unedited) thoughts.

As a teacher, I like to think I teach my students plenty. Well, some days more than others, of course... But I also know I don't teach my subject matter in a vacuum - and I've been aware of that for a while. No, I mostly teach what it looks like to be a grown-up. What it looks like to know God and follow Him. How it's okay to be a nerd. That one's worth is not determined by a figure on a paycheck. Et cetera.

But the influence totally goes both ways. My students affect me - profoundly. Sometimes it's been delightfully unexpected; sometimes I ask God for it. I doubt they could know just how much I learn through them. Not necessarily from them - they usually don't explicitly teach me things. But, rather, I am taught things through them. As much as I believe myself to be a conduit (rather than a source) for understanding, I suppose they are the same, though completely unaware. I learn so much of God's love, patience, and mercy through my interactions with them. The nature of grace, existing only in its extension. The deeper meanings of service. Of selflessness. Of sovereignty. The commonality of the human experience and the singularity of it all.

I'm just really grateful for this venue for an education that surpasses my wildest imaginings. I can only marvel at it, for I cannot wrap any part of me around it.

More tangibly, however, their influence is most easily seen in the music on my ipod. Lately, a peculiar mix of indie-hipster and glowsticky house.

A 2007 Kind of Week

Wow, it's been too long.

As has this week. Normally they fly by, but this one sure took its sweet time. I remember thinking on Wednesday morning that it had to be Friday. Thursday, at the very least. But no. The week's journey was an interesting one. Went swimming into others' spiritual storms and found myself in a pretty dark place by midweek. Where the work seemed far too big. And it is, for me. But not for God. Prayer and meditation, plus a restorative phone call with a friend helped turn the week around, and I was back to being a real person again by Friday. So, all's well that ends well.

Meanwhile, the frippery machine is in full swing - soccer and basketball games, senior speeches and shirts, plans for prom. I adore it all! As a teacher, I get to enjoy all the trappings of high school, but with an older, wiser perspective above all the teenageriness. And with the precious opportunity to speak into the lives of students whom - despite what I thought four years ago - I love dearly and celebrate with a special pride I haven't felt in several years. And if there's one thing I do, it's celebrate! I just wish it wasn't already November. There is still so much to be taught and learned.

I also made the executive decision that it's time to put Christmas music in the playlist.

He sends His word and melts them; He stirs up His breezes, and the waters flow. 1

I don't know how long I'm gonna have you for, but I'll be watching when you change the world. 2

August Prayer

All I Have

Lyrics by Mat Kearney

Well here we go at it three years later

Would you help me to dream it all up again?

Tired of the same song everyone's singing

I'd rather be lost with you instead

Don't you come around here

Come around here any more

Dragging my fears

Dragging my fears out the door

All I have all I have all I have, well, you know it's yours

Every breath every step every moment I'm looking for

All I have all I have all I have is yours

And you watch my heart break a little bit more

My heart break a little bit more

My heart break a little bit more

Is it cold yet in New York City?

Round here the trees been blowing up red

And everyone's talking about change on the airwaves

But I still got you on my breath

Lord, I'm still trying at this my hardest

Would you pick us all up from a fall?

Rip a little corner off the darkness

Just a crack of light in the middle of it all

The Long and Difficult Road

I was on the Big Island of Hawaii recently, where I broke a bone in my foot. It's a crummy thing to have happen on vacation, surely, but if it was going to happen, at least it was after we got to the volcano - I'd been there before, so I only missed out on one hike I hadn't done before.

There was a surface lava flow just outside the park, so we drove to the county-run viewing area. On a foot broken only 48h earlier, and no crutches, I set off from the parking area as the sun slipped behind the mountains. One mile out (though I didn't really realize it was that far at the time - but a) I'm known for my ridiculous death-march hikes and b) it's not like we have a volcano at home. I was gonna see lava.)

One younger-dad type passed us, saw my limp, but encouraged us to keep going. We were maybe only a third of the way in. He said it's still a long walk, but it's incredible. So we continued on.

Later, maybe another third of the way, we passed an older-dad type, who told the group walking in front of us that the walk wasn't worth it, they may as well turn around, there wasn't anything more to see.

Ever the eternal optimist, I chose to believe the first guy. We walked about as far as you could go on the paved path. We didn't get close enough for the lava to singe our toes or melt our shoes or anything, but we did see some fires where the lava was consuming trees. And slowly, as night continued falling, more and more red spots on the hillside became more and more visible. It was quite a sight, even if not the apocalyptic lava fountains one secretly hopes to witness on such a vacation. But something, for sure, unlike anything I'd seen before. Standing on rock (1) younger than me - younger than my students, even - watching island-building in action. A whole fiery hillside sliding toward the sea under a glassy black crust.

But back to the two men who offered very different advice along the way. It's interesting that neither saw the lava in its full nighttime glory. We passed them on the way out, while the bright tropical sunlight was still obscuring the more subtle incandescence from the lava.

Maybe the first one had seen it on a previous evening. Who knows. It's easy to feel sorry for the second guy, who spoke from a hardened heart, of sorts, and who doesn't even know what he doesn't know.

These encounters echoed a passage from Brent Curtis and John Eldredge's The Sacred Romance that I read the very next morning (2).

When we face a decision to fall back or press on, the whole universe holds its breath - angels, demons, our friends and foes, and the Trinity itself - watching with bated breath to see what we will do. ... The question that lingers from the fall of Satan and the fall of man remains: Will anyone trust the great heart of the Father, or will we shrink back in faithless fear?

So, to whom am I listening on other journeys? The acknowledgment that the road is long and, in my broken condition, may be quite difficult and painful, but that in the end it is all worthwhile? Or the voice of easy abandonment: turn around now, you've already seen all that's good to see? We'd probably like to say the first. But the second is so dismissively seductive that it's easy to choose.

Broken, I press on, with the promise of the spectacular.

-----

1 Which has since been covered by new lava!

2 I've encountered an incredible amount of well-timed reading in the past few months. Skeptics may call it coincidence or an artifact of my awareness. I see their points, but choose a different explanation.

Good on Paper

A friend and I have thrown around the phrase "things that look good on paper" lately. Which has me thinking about the things in my life that have looked good on paper. Things I thought I wanted that didn't turn out so well. Or, truly, those things which I thought I didn't want but have proven to be more than I could have ever wanted, with rewards exceeding my imagination.

Chemistry. I always tell my students (though they never believe me) that they should keep an open mind about their future college major and subsequent career, because one never knows exactly how it will all end up. When I was in high school, I didn't exactly hate chemistry, but I was surely a long way from loving it. But I could easily say that the last thing I thought I would ever do was teach chemistry. Teaching itself wasn't necessarily out of the realm of possibility, but chemistry sure was. Fast forward 15 years... and I love it. I have to believe I'm doing exactly what I was created to do - it's the hardest, most consuming work I've ever done, but I adore it. My former meteorology job was perfect on paper - a balanced blend of aesthetics and science, artful design and technical skill. But something was missing. Looking back, I believe this might have been people. Or else a sense of universal significance and purpose. It slowly grew less challenging. I could spend an entire 8-hour day without a single in-person interaction. I grew restless. The perfect job on paper... wasn't. But the wholly imperfect job on paper? most days I can hardly believe my good fortune and privilege.

Boys. Whenever I envisioned myself raising children, I always said I wanted to have girls. - never sons. [Funny that Belated Promise Ring ("my Rebecca says she never wants a boy" just shuffled onto the ipod - now waiting for Upward Over the Mountain to follow it...]. First, I am one, so I figured it would be easier, since I knew how girls worked. Second, the clothes and accessories and toys of girls are way cuter and more fun. Yet, one look at the students with whom I've developed close relationships, they are almost overwhelmingly boys. Adopted sons, if you will (though maybe I prefer thinking of them more as nephews, or even younger brothers). Not to say that girls don't spend time in my classroom, but they are certainly outnumbered. To mentor them, I've had to learn so much about boys/men and what makes them tick. I don't know whether I'm being prepared to be a mother of sons or whether I'm simply to continue shaping others' sons, or whether it's all just a function of the subject matter I teach, or my approachability... but it's certainly the opposite demographic I ever expected to be "raising."

Central Florida. When I came for a conference in 2002, I distinctly remember saying to myself, "How could anyone live here? It's completely soulless!" Fast-forward three years, and guess who is moving here? Granted, I try to minimize my time in the tourist districts (the location where the aforementioned statement was made), and I'm not entirely unconvinced this place is devoid of soul; I can can at least make peace with it.

That Time of Year

It's that time of year, again (already). Late spring - marked by an acceleration to the finish line, exacerbated by a late spring break.

As we ready ourselves for the season, some Kahlil Gibran:

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they do not belong to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Though manifest not of our physical selves, our arrows are just as much a part of us as we them. We are bows, built to bend, but not break. We flex in His hands, entrusted to do that to which He calls us. Designed to launch, yet retaining some resonance from the shot. May we trust the Archer's eye, and trust the Air to carry those arrows toward their targets.

Unfinished

Three weeks ago, I stumbled into a conversation with my last-period philosophers about the nature of teaching and why I choose to teach when I could make (and have made) way more money doing something else. One student asked me how much money it would take for me to leave teaching and return to research, and I told him honestly that it would take a lot - if not an infinite amount. Because I certainly don't teach for the money. I left it at that, that afternoon, and we got onto another topic, but I felt like I was hardly scratching the surface. Then, that very evening, not 3h later, I'm reading Colossians 3 in a discussion about work as worship (avad in Hebrew), and there it is. The fundamental underpinnings of my teaching philosophy.

23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Exactly one week later, as I'm driving in my car, something reminded me of another conversation I've always felt was left unfinished.

Three years ago, someone very dear to me asked why, as a Christian, I would want to be bound by rules, to be subservient to God, when I could be free to do as I please. And I don't feel I gave him a sufficient answer. I said something about the importance of the relationship, and to honor that relationship, to please our Creator, I do as He asks. Because a faith in God isn't about restrictions and rules - He gives us some because He's a loving Father who cares for His children and wants the best for them (the same way our parents would tell us not to touch the hot stove) - it's about Love. Following the rules doesn't achieve salvation, after all. Our mutual love with God does. And our response to His overwhelming love is our obedience to His commands - the greatest of which is love.

I choose to live within boundaries and there, paradoxically, is where I find my greatest freedom. Because living according to God's will and commands, I find, increasingly, affords us freedom from the broken trappings of this world. Instead of freedom to do whatever I like, I am free from so much more - and spared the heartache and want and separation and regret and ramifications that come with the freedom to do whatever I please. Sure, I can do anything I want. I choose not to. Sin enslaves us, not God's commands. God could have easily designed humans to be mindless drones that worship and serve Him at His control, but He instead gave us the freedom to choose Him and His ways, contrary to our very flesh and nature. Even if we are sloppy with it, how much more meaningful is our decision to love Him, then, when the option not to is on the table?

1 Peter 2:16: Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

In Exodus 21:5-6, the slave is given the choice between "freedom" or remaining in the service of a loving master. And in doing so, he is adopted into the family as an heir. Galatians 4:3-9 puts it into the context of Jesus.

So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now what you know God - or rather are known by God - how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

And thus, my choice gives me an eternal inheritance far beyond worldly wealth.

Well. As time goes on, I feel strangely shy about trying to resume these conversations. I don't know why - it's admittedly silly for someone so prone to non sequitur! Instead, I feel some strange need to throw it all out into the universe, on a blog - I don't even know who reads it - partly for my own closure, partly to atone for having left them unfinished in the first place. But mostly, I suspect, for reasons I may never know.

Holy Week

It's been an interesting and busy week, but, outside of my Monday-night small group's discussion of Passover, I haven't paid much attention to the upcoming Easter celebration, much beyond buying Peeps1 for my chemistry classes' gas-laws demonstrations.   I have foregone many of the typical Eastertime traditions - nothing given up for Lent, the extent of my fasting was for a blood test one afternoon, reading things other than scripture.

In what can only be characterized as a half-assed attempt at remembrance, I started collecting some songs in a Holy Week playlist, of sorts.  I've been listening to it in the car most of the week.  A mix of praise, darkness, reinvented hymns, redemption, and, ultimately, love.

Jesus Paid It All, Mosaic Worship

...o praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead...

The Eleventh Hour, Jars of Clay

...I'll find you when I think I'm out of time...

The Wonderful Cross, Chris Tomlin (and maybe Matt Redman?)

...bids me come and die and find that I may truly live...

What Wondrous Love, Jars of Clay

...while millions join the theme...

Beautiful, Scandalous Night, Smalltown Poets

...at the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree/ on that beautiful scandalous night you and me/ were atoned by His blood and forever washed white...

 

O Come and Mourn With Me Awhile, Jars of Clay

...and victory remains with love...

Martyrs and Thieves, Jennifer Knapp

...where there is peace and love in the light...

Everything, Lifehouse

not particularly Eastery, but it's just one of my favorites

Love Song, Third Day

This song provokes a physical response in me like none other. 

...and I know that you don't understand the fullness of my love/how I died upon the cross for your sins/and I know that you don't realize how much that I give you/ and I promise you I would do it all again...

Marvelous Light, Charlie Hall

Another one I included just because I like it.

...see the light that I have found...

Bread and Wine, Campus House

I don't even know what the real name of this song is or how to attribute it - it's ripped from a 11-year-old CD from a campus ministry - but it's lovely.  I can't quite make out all the lyrics, but here are some of them:

Eat my bread 

Drink my wine

Bitterness yields to the sweet

[? ?]

I watch you lie upon your bed 

of reminiscent regret

and I would simply like to say 

that I will not let go

Drink my wine

Eat my bread

Raise your glass of tears and laugh instead

It's funny you should pray, I must say

I was just thinking about you

thinking about the day 

when you said you will not let go

One death [debt?]

One breath [bread?]

One blood

One Father's little baby boy

One truth

One man

And [?] passion

One night

Flesh is bread

Blood is wine

Give and take if you are 

so inclined

Lose yourself in me 

and I will be the whole of you

Take your brother's hand and say 

that you will not let go

1 Side note on Easter candy: When I was growing up, my grandmother (who lived with us), always bought me a hollow chocolate bunny.  They're always dreadfully cheap and waxy chocolate, but I always looked forward to receiving that bunny!  I'd eat the ears first, and leave the sugar eyes for last.  It's been a dozen years since she passed away, and even more since she last bought me a hollow bunny, but every year since, I have bought myself one.  This year, though, I went upmarket with Lindt.  Only because Target didn't have much of the bunny species for which I was looking by the end of the week - only solid chocolate, or else abominations like Butterfinger-Bunnies.

On Aviation Incidents

Rest in peace, all souls from CJC3407.

Commuter aircraft get a bad rap for a wide variety of reasons.  I've long disliked prop planes, and I'm sure I can trace this back to the Roselawn ATR accident.  I know they're as inherently safe as any other tube of metal hurtling through the air, but they sure are noisy and cramped, and to be honest, I generally prefer to divorce myself from the operation of my aircraft as much as possible.  Contrast a shaky takeoff in winter in a turboprop with an impossibly smooth climb out of a tropical airport in a 767.  (It's nice to have a home airport at which I have more choices than commuter planes.)

Still, I know that air travel is really safe.  Really safe.  I have lived and used to work for years right next to airports where hundreds of planes operate without incident each day.  I can rationally examine the statistics - and my brain acknowledges it readily, as I sit here on the sofa.  Surprisingly, despite all my frequent-flier miles, I can be a bit of a panicky flier if I'm not otherwise distracted.  Even a clear-sky approach into Orlando with rising thermals and wake turbulence from other inbound aircraft makes me hold on to my seatbelt a little tighter and start praying.  Again, even though I KNOW (far more than the average flier) the reasons for the turbulence we encounter at the top of the boundary layer, I often have to consciously unclench.  It's irrational fear and I know it.  It smacks of a larger issue I've been wrestling with lately - that of trust between me and God.  I guess it's easier to trust when your feet are on solid earth, but we have no more control here on the ground than in the air.   I ROUTINELY put myself in exponentially greater danger during my 1.5-h daily commute by car.  And yet, some days, it takes a boarding pass to get me to pray?  

I was on a commuter plane a couple summers ago from EWR-DCA.  It was a smooth summer-evening flight; midway through the final turn to line up with the runway, the gear came down and it felt like all hell broke loose on this plane.  Okay, maybe not all - we felt under control after what was likely just a few seconds and most likely always under control.  The NTSB today released FDR information from 3407's final moments, which made me think of that flight.  The gear dropped and the flaps lowered and, apparently, all hell broke loose.  Popular speculation is that a combination of icing and interrupted airflow from the lowered flaps caused a tail stall.  What's interesting is that procedures for recovering from a wing stall are exactly opposite to those for recovering from a tail stall.  So in an instant, a pilot has to determine what's gone wrong and correct it, with the wrong choice ending in disaster.  I make a ton of mistakes in the course of my career, so I have a lot of respect for pilots (consummate problem-solvers), who, bearing out the statistics, get it right almost all the time.

In reference to a passenger whose flight from MSY-EWR was delayed, keeping him off the crashed plane, a contributor on an aviation forum said an experience like that would change your life forever.

I missed a flight from London this summer, with 27 students on a tour.  Surrounded by a lot of panic and upset, I was relatively calm.  Part of it was my comfort with commercial aviation procedures.  Maybe it's because I'm on the ground, but I don't usually sweat delays or missed flights, though, and I attach a lot of baggage (pun intended.  would "gravity" have been any more acceptable?) to the deliberation when opting to switch flights or stand by for another.   To know why, rewind to 25 May 1979.  

Right before my third birthday, my parents and I flew to Los Angeles for my aunt's wedding.  We were going to take United ORD-DEN-LAX, but United pilots were talking about going on strike, so my parents booked American ORD-LAX instead.  We were originally ticketed on AA191 on the day before it became the deadliest crash on US soil (prior to 2001), but then my parents decided we would fly the next day.  They figured that if we were going a day later, we should take an earlier flight.  That was to put us in the air on the flight right before 191 crashed on takeoff.  That morning, we all overslept, had a 90-minute drive to Chicago, and had to return a rental car.  By the time we got to O'Hare, we had to run through the terminal in a flat-out sprint (my parents carrying me) the whole length of the concourse to make the flight.  Otherwise, we'd have been on 191, which was our back-up reservation.  Our tickets had 191 printed on it, but crossed out and our flight number written under it - I think my parents still have it.  

He's right.  It does change your life forever.

Believe what you will about your gods.  Mine kept me off that plane.

Look, I know I'm just one in a sea of people whose planes don't crash on any given day.  But I can trust a God who orchestrates infinite events, of which I'm not even aware, to put me where I need to be.  And I don't.  I've been bought at a price and have purpose.  And I let a little fluid dynamics freak me out?

I have a wrestling match to get back to...