Boromir and the Portland Summer

When spring officially faded into summer on Thursday evening I was walking through the South Park Blocks listening to The Classic Crime song Vagabonds. It’s a song about loving a city and loving living in it.

“People can't get enough
Of living in the darkness and the rain
But when the sun comes out
The streets are filled with songs
And people playing it loud
So the whole world can sing along”

OK, I know that this song is about that other Northwest city, but it still applies. I LOVE Portland and the streets WERE filled with song as I left my friend’s apartment and walked the 10 blocks home in the twilight. Summer is here and the sun will soon come out and stay out for three long glorious months. We have been waiting. We are getting kinda stoked.

In Portland, we say, "If you don’t like the weather...maybe you should leave because this is how it is." Well, that’s what we say in late February when it’s rainy, cold and forever dark because we get like five hours of daylight. Notice I did not say sunlight. The light we get is filtered through heavy gray cloud blankets.

In late February we don’t tell those weather whiners about Portland’s spectacular summers because in late February, we only a few vague memories of the sun. We remember that once we frolicked in parks without dodging random hail showers. Those few precious memories we hoard.  We guard them and keep them close and use them to strengthen our belief that we deserve those three glorious summer months.

We negotiate with our unkind, selfish selves that will use those months for good, like cycling or kickball. We tell ourselves that only we, the ones who know the long months of weather misery, can wield all of that unbridled sunshine and temperature perfection.

We put in our time! Those months are ours and ours alone!

We get a little Boromir and the Ring about it.

OK, so in the dead of winter we’re a tad dramatic. After all, the five hours of daylight and miserable weather have forced us to retreat inside reading books, watching movies, and playing board games. Drama happens.

In October, however, when the memories and effects of long cloudless days filled with sunshine still linger on our minds and on our skin we say, “Yeah, the never ceasing rain and the darkness can be brutal at times but it’s all worth it for the summer. July, August and September are awesome.”

Today is the first full day of summer and we are on the cusp of greatness. We’ve already quadrupled booked everyday of every weekend. The joyful anticipation is building. July 5, you’re Portland’s unofficial first day of summer, we’re waiting for you. The weather’s been sort of weird this year, don’t let us down.

From Creepy to Etsy: Some Thoughts on Revelation

Personalized Dress Hanger from Etsy ~ May 2013

The book of Revelation use to seriously freak me out.

A. The imagery can be sorta creepy.
B. I really don’t understand what is happening in parts of it.And I'm not so sure I want to.

However, there are some parts I can really get behind. Like the section where Jesus introduces himself to each church. It is unique and personal to each community as if he is saying, “This is how YOU know me, this is your UNIQUE relationship with me.” And he does know them; he calls them out on the specifics of what each is doing right and on what each is doing wrong.

I imagine each church lined up in a row and as Jesus walks down the row, he takes each one by the shoulders and speaks as both friend and authority all in one. “Hey, Ephesus, you know me. You know that I’m the One who takes care of all things, who holds you in my hands. You know how I walk and move among you and our other friends. You. Know. Me. And I know you. So, I want to tell you something, you are doing good stuff. Yeah, I really like it. But…don’t forget me. I love you. Do you still love me? You’re doing a lot of stuff. Make sure that this stuff you do, is done out of love for me. Be with me first; LOVE me first and above everything else.”*

He continues this stroll and speaks to each church about both their good and their bad choices

And to the last he says, “Philly, you are newer here, but I don’t love you any less. We are just beginning. Remember that I hold all the possibilities. I know it can be overwhelming, but I will take care of it. I will take care of you. I can open and shut doors as needed to guide you into the right ones. I know you are weak, but you still stood strong. I’m proud of you. Now stay strong. I know you are being bullied, but don’t you worry. They will receive their comeuppance and then everyone will know how much I love you.”*

Jesus was telling each church to love God, themselves and their neighbors in ways that were unique and best suited for them in their particular circumstances. I think this is true for us as individuals, too. Just as Jesus acknowledges and encourages each church’s different strengths, Jesus acknowledges and encourages each of our different strengths. That is, when we take time to listen to him and let him do so. 

Just as Jesus, out of love and desire for the good and best, calls the churches out on their individual poor choices, Jesus calls out our individual poor choices, but here again, we have to listen. 

Jesus understands/ knows/gets each of us waaaaay better than we understand/know/get ourselves and he wants to share this knowledge with each of us to help each of us in unique and personalized ways. Jesus is not offering mass-produced assembly line solutions. He’s creating hand-made quality goods. Turns out, Jesus is less big-box, more Etsy.  So that's cool and not creepy at all.

*Loose paraphrases of Revelation 2:1-7 and 3:7-13 mostly based on The Message and The Voice translations with dashes of NIV.

Promising Possibilities

In John's first letter to the new followers of Jesus he writes, "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known."

How promising is this?! Oh, the possibilities! I am fairly certain we don’t ever fully grasp what an absolutely incredible promise this is. Most probably because we don’t fully grasp who God is.

God created everything.

God has the power to control everything.

God knows everything.

God, like an good parent, wants the best for his children.

Now, we as humans are certainly not the best gauges of what is best. Sometimes we even fail at being good gauges of what is adequate. I think this is the root of much of our discontent. Knowing that we are created in God's image, we prefer to see ourselves as mini-gods, able to judge and discern what is right and best, instead of how God sees us, as children who need to be guided into making proper choices. To be clear, we are children God LOVES beyond all measure and would do most anything to ensure we receive what is in our best interests (see: sending Jesus as a sacrifice for our poor choices, etc.)

So, God sometimes doesn’t allow our lives to play out the way we imagine or desire. Sometimes that’s because the desires of children can be their ruin.

A few Sundays ago, while I working with the kids during worship, I asked them to name the one thing they would want in the whole wide world. One said a robot, another a super fancy car (I mean super fancy with a name I have never heard of) and another, with a twinkle in her eye, wanted the entire building we were sitting in to be made of chocolate. The rest of the children completely rallied around this idea.

Children don’t make the best choices. And the truth is, neither do adults.

It's comforting to me to know that with all of the choices I have already made and all the paths I have already taken, what I will ultimately be is not yet known. Because I am God’s child, my future is still full of promising possibilities.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! ~ 1 John 3:1

The Office: Finding Comedy In the Midst of Tragedy

The Office: My Favorite

This week a natural disaster devastated a community. I know what that feels like. It feels absolutely horrible. This week I was going to write an entry about what The Office meant to me during my long recovery from Hurricane Rita. When I saw the devastation in Oklahoma, I reconsidered.

Then scrolling through twitter I saw a tweet from Patton Oswalt, presumably in response to someone telling him he was being insensitive:

So after seeing this I thought, “I will indeed write about The Office because in tragedy we need comedy. Otherwise, why go on?” So here I go:

My hometown was ravaged by Hurricane Rita in the fall of 2005. During the initial aftermath, my mornings and evenings were spent in phone calls to loved ones in Louisiana: locating family and friends, assessing damage to various homes, churches, schools and businesses, and creating plans of action.

Two months later those plans were being executed, only, without me. I was 3,000 miles away spending my days at my new job in Human Resources in a bustling metropolis that had all but forgotten what occurred on September 24. I was trying to understand how to be a part of this seemingly normal office/city life while the many of the people I loved were standing in FEMA food lines, shifting through the debris piles of their former homes, and having discussions with insurance companies.  

It was about this time that I discovered the television show The Office. Turns out, I really needed a laugh. The Office delivered. Over and over and over again. 

The Office was in its second season and my friend Erin and I would call each other during commercial breaks to discuss the hilarity of the previous scene. At the end of each episode we would recount all of our favorite parts, laughing hysterically and craving longer episodes.  Sometime later the network execs somehow heard our cries and delivered. Erin and I were overjoyed.

Over the last 8 years, I have had some seriously trying times. Much about my young life has been unstable and insecure, but for me, The Office has always been a place of certainty. It has had the same expertly designed set, with the same well written and well performed characters, delivering the same high caliber commentary on a reality that in many ways is shockingly similar to mine. It was always there when I needed a lighthearted respite from my reality and, for that, I am extremely grateful.

Thank you, good people of The Office, for providing laughter in my life; for helping me go on.

Making Peace with Psalm 23

Green Grass & Quiet Water ~ May 2013 ~ Portland, Oregon

Where I grew up most, kids learned the 23rd Psalm. I think they had to in catechism. Where I grew up, all the school buses altered their routes to include a stop at the Catholic Church on Mondays for catechism classes. Because of where I grew up, I heard that Psalm recited as rote and therefore I didn’t much care for that Psalm. Also it talked about valleys of death and rods and staffs, and hearing that over and over and over again sorta creeped me out.

Where I live now, I do full time ministry through my church by encouraging and supporting university students and other transients of my downtown Portland neighborhood in a variety of ways. To do this work, I raise my own support. I sorta suck at this aspect, but that’s another story for another time. And now I have an agent for my book so I’m retooling my book proposal which means an enormous amount of research and writing and editing and feelings of inadequacy. Again, another story for another time. And I also have a life full of relationships with people not connected to anything mentioned above that I try to maintain. I guess you could say I've got some stuff going on.

I try to be diligent about maintaining a Sabbath. Because of what I do, it happens to be on a Wednesday. What I mean when I say 'Sabbath', is a day where I truly try to stop and rest and spend some time focusing on God, believing that my to-do list will get taken care of…eventually…in God’s perfect timing. Sometimes this involves a lot of deep breaths and verbal reminders that it WILL all be OK.

On one of those Sabbaths God reintroduced me to Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

The message and God haven’t changed, but I have. I now hear them more fully. I now know that life is better when I take a moment or a day to lie down, to be still, to let God’s truth, wisdom, love and life pour into me, to have my soul feel all shiny and new.

Today was the last Sunny honestly warm day Portland will see for a while. I spent most of it inside working. That was up until the last hour and a half of daylight when, due to a variety circumstances, including locking myself out of my apartment, the Lord herded me down to the green grass beside the quiet waters of Willamette River and, there, the Lord refreshed my soul.

Sometimes we just need to take a moment to pause, breathe and remember that it WILL all be OK.

I'm Scared of the Nothing

From the good folks at IMDB

I use to get crazy anxiety when I came to the end of a plan. Mostly because I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I like plans. I used to be kind of obsessed with them, actually. Emotionally, I don’t do super well with the nothing. I feel like I'm shouting along with the Empress in The NeverEnding Story when she is about to get swallowed up by the nothing, “Say my name, Sebastian! SAY MY NAME!”

I’m scared of the nothing.

It’s kinda like when a new born baby endures her first bath. That baby has no idea what she’s getting into and, frankly, it’s scary. I mean she’s just recently gone through some fairly traumatic stuff so understandably she kicks and screams and cries. This is the unknown, this is the nothing. Soon she learns that she will survive this ordeal. Going forward, each bath time gets a little less scary. Sometimes when the air is cold and she has to get marker scrubbed off her arm she cries a bit more than usual, she may not know why this has to happen, but she knows she will survive.

She believes she will survive because she is becoming dependent. She is learning to trust.

I went to the Faith & Culture Writers Conference a month ago and heard William Paul Young, the author of The Shack speak. A good deal of what he said resonated with me, but in particular he said that God is healing us so we can be children.

Healthy, safe, and well cared for children aren’t obsessed with plans. They are unaware of the nothing.

When I live my life in fear of the nothing, I make some really desperate choices that are not for the best. So, I am choosing to live my life as a child of God, as a child of love, not of fear.  I am learning to trust. I am becoming dependent. I will survive.

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