Different but Equal

A Pansy among Impatiens ~ Portland, Ore. ~ August 2011

You and I are different. That’s for certain. We grew up in different places. We watch different TV shows. We listen to different music. But we are equal. We are equal because each of us has made poor choices and in doing so has failed at loving God, other people, and ourselves well.

I am sassy and stubborn and I seriously struggle with dependence on God alone. I make poor choices. My poor choices hurt people, they hurt me. Your poor choices do the same. Our choices are different but our need to be forgiven makes us equal.

Not a single one of us has it all together. And we never will. We will still be human, no matter our age.

I say this to level the field. I say this to free us from the compulsion of projecting ourselves as false pictures of perfection. I say this to free us from constantly looking to other people for comparison. I say this with the hope that this freedom will enable us, as broken beings in desperate need of God’s healing and grace through Jesus, to come to God.

A little over a year ago I went to The Justice Conference in Portland where someone spoke of justice as being the equalization of all people.

What if we lived with the realization that we are all indeed equal but all drastically different?
What if we admitted to and owned those differences?
What if we talked about those differences without ranking them?
What if this honest communication helps us grow in knowledge and confidence of our true individual identities?


Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
~ Paul’s letter to the Galatians The Message Chapter 6:4-5

Waiting isn't for the Weak

The Pink Tree of Portland ~ February 2012

Today is the 30th Birthday of one of my favorites. She is handling it way better than I did.  Today, she posted on Facebook: “I've been looking forward to 30 since 25 so I'm über-excited about this particular birthday.”

I, on the other hand, went a little, “Oh-my-pants-I’m-turning-30-and-I’ve-failed-at-life,” kind of crazy. I went for a walk on the waterfront along the Willamette River and admitted to God that I felt like I had failed because I didn’t have an awesome career or a fabulous marriage/family. In fact, I was nowhere close to either of those realities and I was a week away from 30 – unemployed and severely single.

God gently replied, just on the north side of the Morrison Bridge, near the pink tree where I often hear God’s responses;
 “You’re wrong. Failing, for you, would be already having those things. You are waiting for a reason. For something better. For me.”

I believe this. I believe I have seen glimpses of this in the incredible amount of healing and growth that has happened in the almost two years since this walk.  But I still feel like I’m waiting.

And sometimes it feels a little like that time I went a tad berserker because I was ridiculously hungry because I waited until 1:30 pm to eat my first meal of the day and because I was waiting for what felt like an eternity in a food cart line. And by wait I mean absolutely NO movement. There was no ordering then waiting for food prep. Oh no, no, no, I was waiting for the OPPORTUNITY to order. It was excruciating. I was good for no one. Really. I couldn’t talk to anyone because I all I could think about was how hungry I was and how the line WAS NOT MOVING and gave no indication that it would anytime soon. It’s a little embarrassing how obsessed I got.

Eventually I got my Vietnamese sandwich and then I walked the half-mile to my friends’ home to eat it. Those 15 minutes were totally bearable because of the movement.

I’m learning what it looks like to wait with elegance, especially when it feels like there is no movement. It’s hard to not be in control, to not take the little that I know and run with it. But that is what God is asking of me. God is asking me to be strong…to be courageous… to wait. Waiting isn’t for the weak. 

This whole food cart scene is a prime example of failing at waiting with elegance. But that’s OK, because while I’m waiting I’m learning how failure can be an excellent teacher, too.

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. 
~ Psalm 27:14 NIV

I'm a Liberal and other Admissions

In a conversation with a friend this fall, she admitted to me that she was a lesbian. I admitted to her that I was a liberal. “Feels good to say it out loud, doesn’t it,” she said. Later that evening I sent a text message to a mutual friend that read, “We tossed around a couple of L words this afternoon, mine was liberal."

The deal is that I knew this about my friend, not because someone outted her to me, but I just kinda knew. None of us are as good at hiding our true selves from one another as we like to think we are.

Still, my friend didn’t have to tell me, but it was good that she did, for both her and me. I don’t know why, but there is something powerful about verbally admitting who you are, even if everyone else has known for a long time. So here I go:

I’m liberal. I agree with a lot of left wing ideas. This is counter to the culture I grew up in. This is also counter to the typically publicized Christian culture of which I never had any part. As a Christian, I’m more than OK with that.

I’m a geek. This is tougher for me. There is a part of me who, growing up, wanted to be a Kelly Kapowski level of cool. I was not. I am not. I love Doctor Who. I recently pulled my pub trivia team from 9th to 7th place because I know that Anikin’s home planet is Tatoonie and that Mike Tyson raises pigeons and I know this not because I’m a sports fan, but because I’ve read multiple books on pigeons.  I read The Hobbit and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy for the first time last month and really enjoyed it. I am currently obsessed with Gilmore Girls and I can kick some serious Settlers of Catan ass.

I’m loud.  My voice, my laugh and sometimes my clothing demand attention.

For most of you none of this is a shock, just as my friend coming out to me wasn’t. But for me, admitting these things is a big deal because it means I own them. I identify with them. It means that I am further defining my shape. I’ve spent a large part of my life trying to fit my life into other people's molds of acceptability. I am not going to anymore.

When Love Looks Ridiculous

University Place Hotel ~ March 2013

 “There are elements of the ridiculous about you…” ~ Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary

On an open suitcase filled with 40 brown paper bags hangs a hastily handmade sign stating, “Finals Survival Kits” in the hallway outside a meeting room in a hotel in downtown Portland. My life is a little ridiculous. Hours of work and a surprising amount of struggle have resulted in this strange tableau.

Once a term we collect donations from members of The Groves Community to create these kits, these small brown paper sacks filled with exam supplies, pencils, candy, granola bars and cracker and fruit snacks. After I purchase the supplies based on revenue collected, we gather to assemble the kits. Students pick them up on the following Sunday to hand out to their friends during class the week before finals. This is our tangible way to share God’s love with the students in our neighborhood of downtown Portland. Well, this time 40 out of the 30,000 students.

And now, as I stand in a worship service singing about the sacrifice Jesus made for me, I think of how tiny and ridiculous this offering in the hallway outside is in comparison. I think about my personal experience with God’s beautiful, gracious, expansive love and am a bit ashamed of my pathetic offering. All the while I am acutely aware of the great amount of time, effort and love that went into it.

I am humbled.

For a moment I understand what the scriptures mean when I read that all of our offerings are like filthy rags, or when Isaiah proclaims that he is a man unfit to be in God’s presence and for that moment I am thankful to be so poor and terminally in transition because these limitations free me to see my humanity, my utter weakness and my insufficiency so clearly.

If I worked in a larger church, one that perhaps had a building and a budget for student ministry that includes not only an actual livable wage but also resources for this kind of project, the presentation and completion of this project would look entirely different. It would be super slick and with a fancy logo on boxes and banners all presented on a table decorated appropriately.

I would not have to wait and see what resources are given to this specific project by generous church members and then spend hours calculating how to get the largest impact out of a smallish budget and I wouldn’t have to figure out how to transfer kits back and forth via mass transit or my feet from my apartment across campus to the room we use half a mile away in the on-campus hotel.

The project would look pretty and require less sacrifice and I would look at it and think about how great we are and about this swell thing we are doing for students and how God will use it for his good.

Instead, I look at it and think about how God had to move us and provide for us in every step and the result is sitting on the floor in a hallway in a suitcase with a paper sign.

Then I think about how much students really do appreciate this gift. About how exited they were to get them at the end of Fall Term. The students receiving these kits were unfazed by the simple plain packaging and are instead surprised and swell with love at this gift of love without condition.

It's interesting how closely this act parallels God’s gift of love through Jesus; the simplest of circumstances providing the most extravagant gift of love and humanity’s hesitation, apprehension and just plain resistance to receive this gift.

When I hand out kits, I realize how starved for love we all really are because, honestly, this kit is one of the smallest tokens of God’s affection. We really do accept the love we think we deserve and we are people in need of genuine love. We need truth and light to break through the lies and darkness that inhabit our souls enabling us to begin the process of being able to accept the abundance of love that God desires to give us.

And I think about what Jesus said, “This is large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.” (excerpt of Matthew 10:40-42 MSG)