donald miller is one meghan’s and my favorite authors.  his writing is simple, reflective, and hilarious.  so meghan and i were so excited to find out that his new book came out while we were staying in portland, where miller lives.  those who know me know i have a heart for the cliche and corny at times.  i cant help it.  it is fun.

so meghan and i made miller’s new book release something of elegance.  we bought it at the famous powell’s used bookstore (which by the way is a full city block and someone could get lose in it for hours).  we went to reed college and other places he named in blue like jazz.  we went to fun granola coffee shops and read his new book while people watching.  i wonder what donald would think if he knew we planned a bunch of our honeymoon based off his book.  maybe creepy.  maybe he would laugh.

anyways, his new book has been such a blessing on my life.   rob bell writes his endorsement on the back of the book about how when reading this book, the book begins to read you.  i couldn’t agree more. the book is very reflective and hit me at a time where i am ready to be reflective.  i got married less than a week ago and today i turn an age i am not very excited about.  so my coffee in hand, i dove into this book as the book dove deep within me.

the book is about the concept of story.  we all know a good story.  just look at our facebook pages and we list our favorite books, movies, and tv shows.  we know what we like and we know the characters we like within the stories.  but rarely do we see ourselves at characters within a story or characters with a story.  and he is neither talking about in the magical sense you get in the movies nor is throwing some self help garbage at the reader.  miller is talking about our place in god’s story.  not just that god has plans for us and all that jazz, but that we understand our place in god’s story and that as god created us, we can create within the story.

sadly, i think most people, myself often included, do not know where we fit in the story and often don’t want to have the responsibility of it takes to be in a story.  Miller writes that he wonders “if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don’t want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgement.  we don’t want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage.  And if life isn’t remarkable, then we don’t have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims rather than grateful participants.”  if we acknowledge our true roles we will have real responsibilities and watching tv for hours a day will no longer be a suitable way to participate in the story.  so many of the meaningless things i do can no longer substitute or keep me from engaging the fear from my responsibilities and conflict resulting from taking my place in the story.

part way through reading this book, i started to reflect on my life.  i really love my life.  there have been lots of ups and lots of downs but overall i like my story.  at the same time, i don’t think i really know my story.  what i mean is i know who i am and i know some things that have happened to me and therefore i act based on that experience.  but i want to know more on why i am the way i am.  i want to know even little things like why do i flinch so much.  why have i never really cared about the american dream.  why do i cry so easily.  why when i get emotional.  why do i have my insecurities and what holds me back from diving deep within them.

i know some will see this as futile and some will see this as narcissistic, but i have decided to go back and exam my entire life (sounds more ignatian).  if i want to know the story i am living, i need to know what has made me in order to move forward.  rather know myself really to know my story.  christians often believe that when they die they go through their entire life before god and some christians believe they merely talk about it and others believe every action is judged  but i wonder how many people will even remember most of that stuff when going through it with god.  we get so busy that we don’t really remember but i am ready to remember.

for the next couple of months i am going to focus on different periods of my life and write down everything i remember from that year and or years.  i want to remember and feel all the good things that happened but i also want to remember and feel all the bad. i want to feel things even if i am still confused on what happened.  i want to feel my first accomplishment as a child and my first failure.  i want to remember the first time i had weird feelings towards girl and getting my heart broken.  i want to remember when i first started to believe in god and why i thought that god was jesus.  i want to remember the first time i realized that the american dream is really a nightmare and the first time i realized i love to work with children and their families.

thank you for being part of my story.

Again, my heart is being stirred by God working through the words and life of Henri Nouwen. I just finished his should book “Making All Things New” and wanted to leave some of his sayings on “community” that I will be processing hopefully for the rest of my life.

“There are many groups that have been formed to protect their own interests, to defend their own status, or to promote their own causes, but none of these is a Christian community. Instead of breaking through the walls of fear and creating a new space for God, they close themselves to real or imaginary intruders. The mystery of community is precisely that it embraces all people, whatever the individual differences may be, and allows them to live together as brothers and sisters of Christ and sons and daughters of his heavenly father.”

How I wish this was a true mark of the Christian community. I have seen this but I do not think this is the norm of the Christian community.

And on how we talk:

“But often we find that words function more as walls than as gates, more as ways to keep distance than to come close. Often-even against our own desires- we find ourselves competing with each other. We try to prove to each other that we are worth being paid attention to, that we have something to show that makes us special.”

I felt pretty called out on this.

And lastly:

“The question is not simply, ‘Where does God lead me as an individual person who tries to do his will?’ More basic and more significant is the question ‘Where does God lead us as a people?’”

This smacks Christian individualism in the face. This individualism makes me more convinced how our expressions of Christianity often are due to our culture compared to what Christ intended.

Deeper reflections to come.

Just been processing this quote from Donald Miller. I can relate to it.

“My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don’t really do that anymore. Sooner or later you figure out there are some guys who don’t believe in God and they can prove He doesn’t exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it’s about who is smarter, and honestly I don’t care. I don’t believe I will ever walk away from God for intellectual reasons. Who knows anything anyways? If I walk away from Him, and please pray that I never do, I will walk away for social reasons, identity reasons, deep emotional reasons, the same reasons that any of us do anything.”
- Blue Like Jazz

i remember when i didnt live in the land of the governator, but of his predator co-star and former pro-wrestler, jessie “the body” ventura.  he was doing an interview for playboy and said something to the effect that religion is a crutch for those who are too weak.

i was outraged.  what was he talking about!?!?!  living for god is powerful!  my faith isnt weak!  i just started to know what it means to live with and for god and this seemed to go against everything i stood for.

but a now, a few years later i realize that mr. ventura was right.  religion is a crutch.  it is a wheelchair.  christianity is all about dying to ourselves so we can live.  yes, we have life in its fullest, and of course there is that thing about eternal life, but it is all about us relying on christ.  seeing ourselves as were are.  finite.  messed up.  sick.  needing a doctor.

i wish it got easier.  often i see religious people act as they have it all together.  they get their seminary degree and have something to talk about and a degree to prove it.  now they “know” how to live so they can tell others how to think and how to live.  it is their duty to talk for god.  the longer they are christians, the more they seem to know what it means to be holy. 

this makes me sad.  it seems the longer i am in the faith, the easier it is for me to think i got it.  the more tempted i am to give an answer instead of truly listening to what people say.  the easier it is to choose the law over love.  the easier it is to define whom my neighbor is.  the easier it is to justify my sins. 

and the longer i live within the context of christianity, the more i begin to identify myself as the people jesus is so frusterated at in the gospels.  after being liberated by jesus i sometimes see myself in jesus’ stories as the religious oppressor.

yet, as i lean on my divine crutch, i know i am safe.  i am not safe from the people i hurt, but safe in the fact i am messed up.  i will always be messed up.  i will always mess up.  but just realizing more how i mess up and how i am messed up, gives me so much freedom to run back to god.  to further understand god’s heart.  to learn what it means to follow him.  to learn what it means to love as god loves.  to ask for forgiveness from those i sin against. 

 i need this crutch.  i have been a christian for almost eight years and i still need this doctor.  the longer i am a christian, the more i realize how much i need god.  in everything. 

religious people are really funny.  it is interesting how christians say they sin everyday, yet are so hesitant to name their sins.  they can name other people’s sins with passion, but they rarely name theirs.  and if they do name a sin, it is usually in terms of  inner formation and nondescriptive  such as having pride or not relying on God that seem accepted in christian circles instead of naming specific instances where they resisted the urgings of the holy spirit, ignored someone for their personal gain, or purposefully manipulationed a situation.  when was the last time you heard a pastor confessing their sins to a congregation? 

i pray this christmas we see how messed up we are.  as we celebrate immanuel, god amongst us, we let god into everything.  that we let god be our crutch.  that we let god be our doctor.  and that we rest in god taking care of all our mess.  no matter if we have just started to follow jesus or if we have for decades. 

and that we celebrate how messed up we are.

one of the main reasons it will be hard to leave san francisco one day:  food.  yes, i love the weather.  not as cold as the midwest.  not as hot as la.  but the food is out of this world.  i was talking with another transplant to the city and he kept going on about how with such quality food everywhere, it drives the price down, especially between authentic competition.

and just look at today for example what i ate.  i started the morning with a croissant and an espresso.  midday i had a vietnamese chicken sandwich.  then i had an asian dessert cookie thing.  then i had japanese lemon chicken.  

nowhere else do i think i could get such an authentic variety within walking distance.  mexican, el salvadorian, korean, thai, filipino, chinese, indian, pakistani, japanese, and canadian..  that doesn’t even go into the fresh seafood or the italian in north beach.  i love taking friends from home to the mall where they are amazed there is a chinese, japanese and korean place in the food court.  not that i like the food court much except for the free sushi samples almost 24/7.  

anyways, i am just dreaming of food.  la la la.  yum yum yum.

listening to the news is depressing.  everyday it seems some other big business is counting countless jobs. everyone wants a bailout.  almost everyday the stock market tumbles.  more and more houses are up for foreclosure.  the job market is getting very competitive.  i was talking to a guy who posted a nine hour a week job for $10 dollars an hour on craigslist and he had over 50 people submit resumes in the first hour. things are a mess.

what makes me more sad is the answer.  on meet the press last sunday, thomas friedman said the answer is to get people to spend again.  his answer echos a plethora of economists.  we need people to spend money to get out of this recession.

but why do we want more people to spend?  the average person has over $8,500 of debt on their credit cards.  most college graduates have loans they are not able to pay.  and more and more people cannot even provide for their families.  yet, we want people to spend, spend and spend.  

some people/ecomists are getting excited it is christmas because that means americans will spend more.  i personally hate the thought of the average family, or any family in fact, this holiday season instead of celebrating the birth of jesus (who was homeless and had others pay his bills), worry about making their kids happy by buying them things.  how depressing is it to tell your kids you probably cant buy them most of what they want even though many of their friends at school will get something.  why does purchasing equal love so often?

the united states america is supposedly the most “christian” in the world but how can anyone say that when our economic ethics are so distant from what christ says about money.  most americans dont save.  most do not give.  we spend what we do not have.  we gauge success by material wealth.  the united states has five percent of the world’s people and consumes forty percent of the resources.  

we are a culture of consumption and consumerism.  i hope that these times will continue to expose how money is security and a god to so many people.  and i pray this economic crisis cultivates a dialogue about really matters.  how money is to serve us and not us serve money.  where we realize how much of our emotions are affected by money and how money dictates what we do with our time and who we become. 

this christmas, lets not buy what we can’t afford.  lets not buy because we are expected to buy.  lets instead give a true expression of how we feel about people, not one we wrap in wealth.  but a gift wrapped in from the heart.

i have been just thinking about, listening to, praying through, and contemplating the chirstmas song “o come let us adore him.”

does anyone have any thoughts on what people were thinking when they saw jesus as a baby?  could we ever see a baby and really think this baby was the messiah?  babies are so fragile.  so dependent.  and this is god?

seems kinda strange…  especially for a story about god.

a few weeks ago, there were two people who kept coming into the coffee shop that i work at.  it was this woman, who seemed very educated from somewhere in the UK and a man whose clothes had holes all over them and i judge to be homeless.  the woman would come in, order a cappuccino for herself and a coffee for the man.  the man stood outside for the most part, not wanting to come in and the woman would bring the drinks out to the both of them.

one time i was sitting in the shop and i was watching the interactions.  i started thinking about their stories.  about where they came from and how they got to know each other.  i started to thinking how cool it was that this woman was investing her time and energy into this man.

then out of no where it hit me hard.  like one of those eye opening types of smacking that really humbles you.  i asked myself “what if it is the other way around?”  what if it the guy who is investing his time, energy, and love into this woman.  the more i looked into this relationship, the more obvious that became.  it wasn’t some woman taking pity on this man or anything like that.  it was this man, investing into this woman.  

how quick we are to judge people by their outer appearance.  by what/ how people order and how they live their lives.  ironically i was teaching children’s church that month about justice and poverty in general.  yet, even though i was teaching about these types of judgements, i did the exact same thing.