Learnings

Small group is not just a group of people getting together to read scripture, pray or have awkward conversation, but a small group is the ability to enjoy the creation that God orchestrated in human time. The created beings that were first created by God and then inducted into the death of sin.

For a long time I so desperately wanted to be apart of a small group where every personality matched and flowed spiritually together. The reality is that God created human personality and breathes life into people differently. I will probably never be in a small group where our souls match simply because it would become a comfortable place where discipleship would be stagnant and Christ would become a lost icon. An icon that becomes the cross which hangs lonely and desolate in a musty sanctuary.

The question than becomes what we are going to do with the reality of sinful separateness. When we become intimate with God, when we come near to God He comes near to us. When we enter into the love of God and become hidden in Christ by the guidance of the Holy Spirit we learn to love the person that God created. We learn how to love the person that God willed us to individually be. A person that was created, before sin stabbed us with a poisonous knife. Before this poison that runs through out veins and seeps into our heart was introduced into our life.

When we become complete in the true life we learn how to live life. When we learn how to live life we become lovers of those who are around us. This creates not only the ability, but the command to love the people who might not know what this life is all about. This life also commands us to love the people who might have experienced the life but who might not know how to live this life truly out.

When we realize that God enjoys who we are, where we are, then we can truly enjoy the people who are in our small groups, in our families, in our schools, in our lives. We can enjoy them where they are and how God has created them to be.

If we refuse to do this, to accept the love that God has given us, to accept that God not only loves us but likes us, enjoys us. If we cannot realize this then we do not understand the sacrifice of the life that we enjoy now that was brought upon the cross. We ultimately say no to Jesus, his life, his death, and his Resurrection.

And that is when the cross becomes the lonely icon that hangs in the sanctuary that traps the moderate and mundane 'Christian' reality.

Preaching;a lost reality.

Preaching is an interesting animal. I am reading this book for class called The Heart of a Great Pastor. I'm in the first chapter and the author lists seven resources that every church/congregation needs. His fourth resource is Every Church Needs Biblical Preaching. The author goes on to describe that "one anointed person speaking a fresh word from God amid the people of God-is one of the Father's favorite ways of communicating His will to believers"

Now I am bias of course because I am a preaching major. But I am not bias enough to believe that statement. I do not believe that God has a favorite way of communicating his will to His believers, simply because the people who He created are wired differently. They hear Him differently. It's like having three children. Every child hears and communicates differently because they were all made different.

The author continues to describe this idea of preaching that solidifies the reality of the modern preacher. The preacher who preaches behind a pulpit on Sunday mornings and then becomes a mongrel at home, or who cheats on his wife. A preacher who is made to look like a star and not a human. Someone who is above the cut when in reality they are rotting internally.

You can edify the truth on the weekends all you want but true preaching starts when you step off the stage and into your community.

When you live your life day in and day out.

Preaching becomes not just what you say but how you say it. Not just what you think but how you think. Not just how you act towards scripture but how you interact with scripture through humanity.

A preacher is someone who uses words and stories to demonstrate the reality of God.

Preachers are not special. They are not the only ones gifted in the congregation. They are apart of the body and they are sinners as well.

Sinners that need to be affirmed by a community. Sinners that need to be forgiven and given grace.

Preachers have a gift that has been given by the Holy Spirit. Don't make that out to be a celebrity situation. Don't take a preacher and make him the star of the show because in all reality he is just and extra. She is an important extra, to God of course, but she is not the main character. She is not even a supporting character.

So the next time you get caught up on who said this or who believes that, like I do, realize that the only one who matters is Christ. If you get lost in the details you have missed the point.

I apologize ahead of time for the crappy posting.

I live in a world of constant transitions right now, simply because I am a college student. I have transitioned back into the world of school after a great summer up north.

3 things I'm looking forward to:
1. Preaching in November.
2. Rooming with my closest friend at school.
3. Making funny Bible College jokes that no one can understand unless you are a Bible College Student.

3 Things I'm not looking forward to:
1. Convocation.
2. Small town life/church.
3. Making funny Bible College jokes that no one can understand unless you are a Bible College Student.

All is well in Lincoln IL. I have already frequented the 24 hour Walmart and the newly established Culver's and I am ready to begin the school year. I have my notebooks and my pens and I just went to get going.

Most years I have a specific feeling about. My freshman year I knew was going to be a fresh start. My sophomore year I knew would be extremely transitional and pretty hard. This year will be the year of mistakes. That is how I feel.

Well until next time...This portion of the Alison Higgins life has been brought to you by Starbucks Frappuccino Coffee Drink. Don't be awake without it.

How are you to know?

So I have always loved quotes. You know the things famous or brilliant people say that are written down just to be inspiring. I have always loved reading different quotes from different people.

What I do on a daily basis is I hop from facebook page to facebook page just to read the quotes section. I actually was doing it one day and I saw that someone I knew and loved actually quoted me, like in a serious way. I thought this to be funny because I know that I'm not truly quotable.

However, most of the time these famous and brilliant people are talking about doing things, like following your heart or starting a revolution. Don't waste time, live your life, don't do the things you don't want to do.

This is what came to my mind. If you don't go through hard times, if you don't become marginalized, if you don't work the terrible jobs, if you don't understand hardship, if you don't read the great minds of history, if you don't know what's truly going on in your world, how in the world are you supposed to do anything great? How are you supposed to be something great or start a revolution if all you do is sit around and laugh, and get drunk, and 'live' life?

The reality is that the people who we often quote, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, or John F. Kennedy all went through hardship. They all were in stressful situations with stressful people. They all dealt with death and destruction. They saw something though, something different. They saw hope, and this hope is something that we seem to miss.

We see our world in shambles and we pick up a shovel and plant a tree, or a twenty dollar bill and go to the gap store and by a red shirt. We are to busy living our lives to actually make any impact on the world. And we want to be revolutionaries?

Revolutionaries were smart, they were people who understood their world and saw something missing, hence the revolution. And by their world I mean their immediate world.

I was talking to a friend in the car yesterday and I told her I didn't want to change the world, I just wanted to live my life. She replied "But that's how you'll change the world, by living your life."

I realized that I can't change the world unless I start loving the people around me and helping them live their life. I must become aware of my world to know how to change it. I must be aware of my community to see what needs to be changed.

How else am I to become anything or impact anyone?

What happens when our true selves truly come out.

When the liar is unmasked.

When the fake is made true.

When the selfish loses.

When the religious leader has to admit that he is wrong.

The fear is that we will be discovered but what happens when we become so self aware of ourselves that we become honest ourselves.

I'm tired of writing these thoughts out.

So I am bowing out for a period of time. The curtain is closing for now but I'm sure the production will reopen and when it does it will be better and more polished.

Good night and Good luck.

New Love

I was sitting in service last weekend and I had this thought. We are still going through the series, Words I Wish Jesus Never Said, and this last week was Making Disciples.

We discussed the difference between the Roman way and the Celtic way of making disciples. As I was sitting there listening to Tim teach I came to this short realization.

For centuries the Christian church has preached the Gospel of Hell. They have preached a Gospel that is meant to prepare the soul in the last breaths of a life. This preaching has influenced the lifestyle of what a Christian has been for years. This reality is a mundane and immature stalk of Jesus. The one great thing that came out of this was an urgency to spread this kind of Gospel. The church became urgent because it so desperately wanted to save the souls of those whom she loved.

Then the church went through a tolerant stage. We started loving everyone. Now this is a great thing, but not at the expense of the Kingdom of God. Our love was not overflowing from God it was a worldly love. A love that has shattered the church in a million different ways. A destructive and selfish love. A love that is far to afraid to speak the name of Jesus. And the urgency of the Gospel slowed down. It was no longer needed to talk about Jesus as long as we were loving people. Don't dare speak the name of Jesus because, God forbid, we truly might offend someone. Jesus never did this while he was alive.

Now we are preaching the Kingdom of God. The church has slowly, and I mean slowly, realized that the Kingdom of God is something that Jesus was inherently all about. This Kingdom living, learning, and loving was something that he truly envisioned the church to be. This involved love that the church wanted to, so desperately give out, but it was a different kind of love. It was a love that met a person where they were at but loved them to much to let them stay there. This love is no longer afraid to speak the name of Jesus because that is where this love was born.

And their is a definite urgency to this love. The church has realized that this love is the only thing that is worth truly living for. This God is the only thing truly living for, and the ones who do not know and feel this are truly feeling and living in an earthly Hell. There is an urgency because the ones we care about are experiencing a pain greater than should ever be conceived. It's the pain of an unreleased life. A life still chained by sin.

A life that isn't truly free in this new love.

Fascinating

I was listening to a sermon today and the preacher was telling a story of a young Vietnamese teenage girl. He stated that she became a Christian and wanted to be the first Christian Communist Secretary General of Vietnam.

She believes that Communist is closer to Communism than Capitalism. What are your thoughts?

Is big bad Communist more similar to Christianity that Capitalism?

Christians will love again.

Everything has a different feel to it now.

Whereas I only felt the dark things and knew about the light things, I now feel the light things as well.

I have been refreshed and redeemed in this community called the church.

This church looks like a formed and functional identity that is about to burst into a reforming reality.

I can feel something that is to become.

The love of Christ is to be found in Christians again.

Expectations suck.(sorry for the lack of creativity)

I think I have come to a breaking point in my life. A point of confusion. I don't tend to blog out real thoughts about my full life because I know the readers of my blog wouldn't truly appreciate it, but I couldn't help but write out this one.

I guess I have become tired of people's expectations. There are some expectations that I do truly appreciate. There are some however, that I do not.

It's not even about high expectations anymore. It's also about low expectations. People thinking that I need to do it this way or feel this way or act this way. They develop low expectations of me because they don't think that I will truly do anything great or even worth reading.

People make comments on my writing, my living, the way I do small group, the way I interpret the Bible, the way I ask questions, the way I see things, and I have gotten to the edge of frustration.

Stop asking me to be something that you have created. Stop giving me more or less of what you want me to do or be.

Let me be who I was created to be.

Don't create something in your mind about me or the way I will react, because in all reality you probably will be surprised.

People corner me in every aspect, especially in the relational sphere. People think I will react a certain way, or feel a certain way or befriend certain people. I have even come to believe these things myself.

I'm tired of these tiring expectations. These expectations have tied me down to a boat named predictability.

Stop expecting so much.

Stop expecting so little.

Live in the moment with the identity you see and truly feel. I will try to do the same.

The dreams have started again. The dreams that keep me up at night. The ones that lure me to sleep but reveal a graver side of my being.

I can't stop them.

So, I must conclude that it has started again.

I guess I'm just along for the ride.

The pain had lurched into my stomach.

The pain that was an emotional stir suddenly clashed into my physical sense. My body became a wet damp sheet, and my stomach forced my body to rush to a place where I could expel everything. All of the memories, all of the words, and all of the actions.

My body so desperately wanted to release everything that I had experienced in the last 18 years. Everything that I felt, and everything I knew. After my body had expelled the physical sense of those memories I still was in a shock. I couldn’t control the shaking and air couldn’t come fast enough into my lungs. It was like breathing through a straw.

The tears could not heal this. Running seemed the only logical plan.
And so I did.

I displaced myself. I became a shell, a shell of the emptiness and darkness that had surrounded me. The tears no longer came and the pain became a numb reminder that I was in complete desperation.

Sitting in that room. It was the reality that I had wanted to be an illusion. Every time that I sat in that room I wanted to run. Every time that I heard that voice I wanted to find an escape. So I created a wall. A wall that was higher and thicker than any other man made object.

After I created that wall I entered that room and was hidden behind my wall.
Every time he grabbed my neck, I wasn’t there.
Every time he poked me, I wasn’t there.
Every time he cornered me, I wasn’t there.

I perfected this life of hiding. I learned how to control my relationships and how to leave my emotions at the door step.

After learning how to hide I actually left. I moved away. I moved to Chicago. Being on the west coast had taught me to love the softness of the ocean and the beauty of the sun. Now the skyscrapers took the sun away. Everything that I knew, had become a distant fantasy of things yet to come. The faces of city goers in Millennium Park had softened the city that I had decided to find my place in.

But the reality of this place was something that could not allude me. I knew how to hide, and I continued to hide until I was only a body. A body that wandered around the busy streets of this windy city and was lost in it’s depth and structure.

I got a job at a small business answering phones. This riveting job introduced new characters into my realm.

There was Steve, the sandwich guy. Now I still don’t know exactly what Steve did for the business that I worked for but I did know this. When I walked into the door in the morning and when I left at 5 Steve always seemed to have a sandwich. I never knew if it was the same sandwich all day or if he ate multiple sandwiches during the nine hour work day. I also wondered if that was all he ate.

Then there was Mary, who was a nice girl but had the tendency to always be chewing gum. She also came to work consistently 15 minutes late and had a small tick that effected her only when she was nervous or excited. I still remember when we made her sing happy birthday to herself in front of everyone in the office. Her eye twitched in such away that I thought it actually lived and breathed on it’s own.

Joe was the funny jerk in the office. I think that everyone knows someone like Joe. He is funny as long as he is not making fun of you.

And then there was my boss, Victoria. Her closest friends called her Tory, a name I never uttered from my lips. Victoria was a narcissist. I don’t feel like there is any more to say about her.

There were a plethora of other co-workers but none of much importance. These were the three people that I worked with on a daily basis. These were the people that thought they knew something about me.

Unfortunately they never had the chance.

It’s not that they never knew me. I was truthful in some of what I told them but if they were to look at the big picture now they would have been baffled.

All they knew was that I was a sweet girl whose life was gone to fast. Who left to soon. Lucky for them, they still have a chance. I never did.

I will never forget how it happened.

I was just sitting there, and he came in. I thought I had gotten away, but he found me. In one moment it was all over. My facade was ripped away in an instant.

"If I can’t have you know one can," he screeched, just to get his point across. Then he pulled out a gun and I was gone. It wasn’t really painful, and my life didn’t flash before my eyes.
It just happened. The idea that death had occupied now became the reality of my identity. And in an instant he was gone. How I wished he had lived. How I wish he had lived out his days in the miserable state in where he sent me.

But he’s here with me. And we are in that same room. However, he is no longer in control and I am no longer the victim.

There is something different here. Something unknown. Something hidden. I guess I never had a picture of what the ‘afterlife’ would be like. I would never had expected it to look like this.
It was the same room that we had both lived in for the entirety of our relationship. This room had the memories of our broken marriage, and our broken souls. The blood stain was still on the wall.

That night was the night that I decided to run, and yet I am still in the same place. I ran away from the memories and from the darkness and yet I still am wrapped in them.
Is this Hell? Or just a state of being?

He is wondering around the room like he never left. Like he never came and found me and ended both of us. Eventually he just ends up flopping on the bed. The sheets raveled around him like he was still physically existent.

I wanted to scream. To scream at him and tell him that he ended it for both of us. To throw my pain at him. If I could only open my mouth and let my angry petitions out. Then I would feel the healing of this emptiness in my soul. I went over but I felt a black tar cover my mouth. I could no longer speak my thoughts. I stood over him in a way that felt like forever, and tried to get to him, but nothing came of it. So I sat down in our old rocking chair.

And the memories that I had thrown up had re-entered into my mind. The memory of holding my child in this rocking chair. That warm small body that was an interrupting event in my life. I had never loved someone the way I loved that body.

I remember giving that body away.

Secretly, before I ran.

35 days.

I have a bad habit of counting down. I do it with my birthday right after Christmas. I have always done it in school.

I was one of those kids in high school that had the small numbers in her assignment book to show how many days are left.

It's not that I am trying to get out of the situation that I am in. I really enjoy what I am doing this summer and I really enjoy who I get to work with everyday but their is something in me that counts down.

I think it's my need for consistant change. I have never had the dream of settling down in a house with a white pickett fence. I want to travel and meet people and experience the reality of God in this world through different cultures.

I have a bad habit on counting down.

I was in Holland, MI all of last week. If you know me well you know that I have traveled to Holland in a frequent manner to see my best friend who attends Hope College.

I was actually there with 100 high school students and leaders attending a Christ and Youth conference. It was a great week.

While the week was serious and life changing there were moments of complete hilarity, as there should be when you are surrounded by 100 high school students and leaders.

One of these hilarious moments actually was self inflicted. My best friend was leading about 65 of us to a private beach to go swimming. She was on the phone and was trying to figure out how to get through all the different trails to get to the beach.

My friend Shelley, who also was an adult leader on the trip, thought that we would help Kelly and go on our own to try and find the beach. We headed out on the trail and actually spent a good forty five minutes walking and then running on hot sand looking for the beach. We finally got to a four hundred foot dune and had just seen a couple of young looking guys at the top. We thought, "Well those must be our students, so I guess this is the only way back up".

Now let me pause this moment and let you know that, unfortunately, I am not in the best physical shape in the world. I do not have that going for me. Just think of that while imagining the rest of the story.

So Shelley and I are looking at this dune and I am in shock. "I can't climb this" Is all that was running in my mind. Shelley actually tried to pump me up by telling me a story of how she lost her shoe in the mud but it didn't really help.

So we started up in and five feet up I stood there and said, "Umm...Shelley I can't do this..."

She encouraged me and we took twenty....okay maybe fifteen steps up the hill at a time. While she was encouraging me, I was cussing under my breath.

Every time I got tired I actually sat down, which probably caused me more energy because every time I sat down I had to get up.

We ended up at the top of this massive dune and took a deep breath. The beauty was incredible and I was so glad that I did it, but then I had to figure out how I was going to get down. Normally one would just walk down the dune but the sand that day was hotter than hot tamales. You would take five or six steps and then your feet would start burning.

I actually started walking down the hill, but then the sand was to overbearing. I then put my towel down and stepped on it and was going to slide down the hill that way. Again it didn't really work out.

I finally decided to roll down the dune. That's right. I started rolling down the hill and sad got everywhere. I finally just stood up and rand the rest of the way and into the lake.

All I know is that if I am ever sent to Hell, my punishment will be to climb dunes for eternity bare foot and wearing winter clothes.

I started following Jesus.

I started following Jesus last week.

I would call my life a constant conversion. The reality is that I have never been saved. I can not pin point a moment in my life where I can look back and say,

"This is it, this is the day I have turned my life around."

However, God has given me opportunities to follow him. There have been four or five opportunities where God has brought my life to it's knees.

"It's either me or it's not"

This constant conversion has marked everything in my life and has created a sense of an unknowing reality.

I was sitting in a night service at the Christ in Youth conference that I was helping with last week and the speaker communicated this idea very clearly. He had a clear box with the name Jesus written boldly in black. He was holding a small green ball and had started his message with where he found his identity when he was younger. At first it was his older brother, then it was sports, then it was his girlfriend, then it was being a pastor's kid. His identity was masked in something other than Christ. He came to find his identity in Christ and when he came to that he threw his little green ball in the big bin that had Jesus' name on it.

He paralleled this idea with Simon from the New Testament. The idea that Simon had been following Jesus around for two years. He had been following his principles, his advice, his conversation. Simon had listened to the parables and had seen the miracles performed. He watched Jesus walk on water and sit with the prostitutes at dinner. He watched this man overcome all of humanities natural abilities.

But there was a moment where Simon stopped following Jesus around and started following Jesus, Himself. It was a moment when Jesus asked the disciples "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

They answered, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets,"

Then Jesus asks the question that transforms Simon forever,

"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God."

After this answer Jesus gave Peter a new name and a new identity because he had stopped following Jesus around and became hidden in Jesus' identity.

Nothing revolutionary happens when you just follow Jesus' principles or when you just hang around with Christians.
Nothing revolutionary happens when you just hang out at church.
Nothing revolutionary happens when you are a 'good' and 'moral' person.

Something happens when your identity is hidden in Christ. A new identity, a new fresh start, a new name, and a new community are the reality of your new life.

Don't be obsessed with Christ.

Don't replace your flesh addiction with a Christ addiction.

Hide your life in Christ.

If you play hide and seek with the world and you hide in Christ the world will lose the game.

CIY was AWesome....


stories to follow soon.

Theology or Not?

I was having a conversation with one of our leadership residents a couple of days ago and I said something that shocked her. She has just graduated from Seminary and I said something that is potentially heretical according to seminary.

"I truly believe that my theology and my relationship with God needs to be separated."

She looked like I just took my pocket knife and started cutting my own arm off.

I continued the conversation and stated that if my study of God is the overarching reality in my collision with God then I don't really have a relationship with God.

My relationship with God should spur my study of God. This can also go the other way. My study of God can enhance my relationship with God but I do believe that they are very different realities.

Today is one of those days when I want to go home. Not my home in Naperville but home.

It is one of those days that the pain of the world and the overbearing reality that sin is a pollutant in the air that I breathe is to much.

I want to go home and have the opportunity to fall on my knees, and try to tell Jesus that I will never be good enough.

That I will never be smart enough, funny enough or pretty enough.

I want to go home and be held by the King.

I want Him to say my name in a way that makes the blood in my viens rush.

I want to go home and feel the answers to the whys.

I want to go home and feel what home truly feels like.

I'ts one of those days...

I don't want mud on my wedding dress.

"Why does love do this sort of thing? Why does it ruin stuff?" Friend.

For the first time in the last three years I realized there is a really big difference between God's love and the World's love.

"Well, love isn't supposed to hurt people. God's love isn't anyway. God's love doesn't destroy relationships and put people in danger. What we are seeing isn't God's love. I don't really know what to call it. I would have to make up a word for it.....

I guess I would call it worldly love." Me

"It's just sad" Friend.

"I know." Me

I went to Bible college and in the first two weeks I had people tell me openly that the only reason that they were attending was to find a husband or a wife.

There is actually a saying that is tossed around; "Ring by Spring and your tuition's free."

The percentage of couples that get married and divorced in the secular world is the same as it is in the Bible College world. Interesting.

I used to pick up books like :I kissed Dating Goodbye" and "And, The Bride Wore White" and I observed if what these intelligent authors were writing was crucial and being taken seriously in the Christian circles.

I stopped picking those books up.

I listened to couple after couple come into our school and talk about marriage and how it should work.

I only have seen two or three couples in my own life who haven't missed the point and who live it out.

I once heard a metaphor that was stated to the girls on my floor.

"If you are running towards God and you look next to you and there is a man running at the same speed running towards God than it's right and good."

I would disagree, I would say that if you are running towards God and you collide with someone and God all at the same time than it's 'right' and 'good'.

I have started telling people that I have stopped dating and my friend keeps telling me;

"You'll want to start again when you want to get married"

But why get married when all I have seen in my life is destructive relationships?

Why invest my life into something that is so fickle?

Because the way I have always seen it is through the world's love. Most of my friends that I have seen in crappy relationships have been in worldly relationships.

I'm holding out though. I don't want to waste my time or my life on something that is temporary.

God created marriage. I'm not going to let the world pervert it. I refuse to allow the world's love to destroy any more of my friends lives.

I was once in the local magazine for declaring that I was going to be pure until my wedding night. I realize that it's not even about the physical anymore. Purity is an all encompassing thing. It is about the mind and the heart, not just about the body.

I don't want mud on my wedding dress or my wedded life.

This One Need....

Trying to figure out the need of people combined with good stewardship and trust in God's providence.

Are we supposed to give everything and trust God enough to provide for us?

When is there ever a point in our lives where instead of giving people our own clothes we buy them brand new clothes?

What is the balance between good stewardship and unconditional giving?

Side walk scolder.

So, I was driving home from the bank the other day and I was on Hobson heading towards Washington St.


I was in a line with a couple of other cars that were turning right and we had a green light. There were two side-walkers to my right. They were the classic suburban moms. Both wearing matching sweat suits and walking with their arms swinging violently. These side walkers saw the walk sign and decided to walk even though we had a green light and were trying to turn right.

The car in front of me actually got the brunt of it. While the second women was walking across the street she was waving her arms wildly towards the walk sign and yelling loudly at the car trying to turn. She did this the whole way while crossing the street. I bet you the driver in that car was learning a profound lesson. It was the same lesson I was learning...

People are crazy.

Not only did I learn that lesson but I learned a different one. The reality that none of us really follow the same rules.

Christians seem to forget this and play the crazy side walk scolder. They look at the world through a fundamental moral reality and they forget that other people are following other rules. These other people are usually following the actual rules of the world. These other people are being told to go, even if they are going to hurt themselves or other people, but these rules are the only ones that seem real to them.

The problem is that Christians don't seem to get it. They don't seem to understand that other people are real and that they come from different backgrounds with a different set of rules. So in the end we become the crazy side walk scolder who, along with our other Christian friends, wear the same outfit, and say the same thing but when it comes down to it, we become fanatical and exclusive. We scream and yell and kick just to get our way in this world because we forget that Jesus didn't call us to live in a "Jesus saves" bumper sticker, ABreadCrumb and Fish t-shirt wearing, plastered smile, lifestyle.

Jesus doesn't want you to yell and scream at other people and then throw your arms up pointing them to Him.

We need to stop being side walk scolders. We need to start realizing that we aren't that special, but we are called to preach the good news.

How can it be good news if we are making people feel so bad about it?

Swimming

My family and I went swimming this last weekend. It was fun reminiscing with my brother about all the times that we enjoyed the pool when we were younger and how it has changed.

change

So I’m just going to be honest because that is what I’m known for. I am nineteen years old and I am a Sophomore in College. I started this writing this project when I was a freshmen in college and I am sure that I won’t finish it until I am out of college and well on my way to becoming whatever God wants me to be. I am naive and I am ignorant and these writings are things that I have seen and experienced in the church. I have no right to be a writer and I have no right to say the things that I do. I am only nineteen and these days nineteen year olds don’t know what they want to do with their lives. In our culture nineteen year olds aren’t really responsible for anything they do. They shouldn’t have to go to work, they shouldn’t have to have any large responsibilities and they shouldn’t have to figure out what is really going on in the world. Well I have a reputation of going against the grain on purpose. I’m the kid who always takes her classes out of order and parked in the teacher’s parking lot. I have never really followed the rules. I figured I would go with the Roman’s mentality. Adopt and Adapt. I’m nineteen years old and I don’t want to be a feather in the wind. I want to do something great. I want to be a legend. I have no time to waste because I could be gone tomorrow.

I am to young to have experienced a lot but I do know one thing for sure. God has a sense of rooting for the underdog. He had a tendency to put people that know one believed in, into leadership and he gave them something to say. I pray that you know the reason I write is solely because I want to share my observations of the church. I pray that you know that all I want to do is share the Gospel. I don’t want to sell the Gospel and I don’t want to defend it. That is not in my job description. All I want to do is share it. The reason is because It was shared with me and it changed my life. Plus sharing seems like a better idea. When you share you allow the other person to partake in something that you thoroughly enjoy.

A story that comes to mind is when my parents first met in college. They were both taking a music theory class at Eastern Illinois University and my mom had brought a bag of Oreo’s. My dad loved Oreo’s and to this day will eat the whole package in one sitting if he’s allowed. My dad mentioned to my mom in class that he loved Oreo’s and so she decided to share with him. That simple act eventually led to my birth. Which I view as highly important.

I have a two year old niece who we are trying to teach to share. It is a household rule in America. You learn how to share in kindergarten. It is something that is essential to growing up. It is essential to community. Something that I have learned in my short life is that I would rather someone share with me that sell me something or force something down my throat. I don’t want you to force food on my if I walk in your house but you can share you dinner with me. I don’t want you to sell me your coffee but if you make some I will probably partake in it. I don’t want you to sell me the Gospel or force it down my throat, but if you live it around me and offer to share it with me I might give it a chance.

Finding Your Desert.

Last night my small group met and we discussed what the desert scene in the Gospels looked like. We are investing our time in the book of Mark chapter 1:1-13, and we discussed and noticed the following.

• The desert is crucial to Jesus' spiritual journey and is represented throughout the rest Mark.
• Jesus' baptism and his being thrown in the desert mirrors the Hebrews when they were delivered from Egypt through the Red Sea and then sent into the desert for forty years.
• Mark is the only gospel that discusses John the Baptist's clothing and what he ate.
• Jesus was tempted directly by Satan in the desert.

The question that we where trying to answer was; What does the desert represent and how does it fit into our lives as Christ followers.

Our conclusion was that the desert was crucial to Jesus' intimate relationship with God. Jesus was connecting with God while he fasted. We also see that Jesus was tempted directly by Satan and equated this with two things.

1. Jesus was purely human and was tempted just like us.
2. While Jesus is trying to connect with God in an intimate way Satan is directly attacking him.

This reality that Jesus sought out in the desert is crucially important to our realities. This holy intimacy marks Christ's strong connection to God the Father. This desert scene needs to be sought out in our lives as well.

The reason I say this is because we can not truly know Jesus unless we know his Word. I know it sounds simple and even slightly dull, but it is the truth. Jesus' life is found in His message to us. His story is important and needs to become apart of us so that we can live it out more fully. If we are not seeking out desert time to become intimately connected in His Word and in conversation with Him how are we going to imitate Him?

If we don't invest in his life on a daily basis imitating him is impossible. Community Christian Church is doing a series called Eat This Book. This last week the message was about fresh is the best. The idea that the Bible is supposed to be fresh to us and become a part of us not only individually but in community as well.

Our relationship with Christ is personal but it's not private and we are called to be apart of God's great story in community. We are in need of scripture, for when we are apart of it, it will become who we are and will become apart of us.

Have you found your desert yet?

The Preachers are coming!

At LCC the title of this blog is a saying that is known well. It is a saying that was part of the foundation of why the school wanted to exist.

I was at a young adult barbeque two weeks ago. In July I will offocially be old enough to actually attend the young adult barbeques...haha.

Anyway I was there and one of the young ladies that attended as well asked me what I went to school for. I told her and then she came and sat next to me.

"Well, who do you preach for?"-young lady attendee.

"I preach for everyone."-me

"I mean, do you preach for young people, men, women, children, old people?"-young lady attendee.

"I preach for everyone, I preach for anyone who will listen."me, thinking the first answer made this clear but just in case she didn't get it I emphasized what I said with a certian preacheresque voice.

"Well what do you want to do when you graduate?"-young lady attendee.

"I want to go and preach to everyone who will listen to the gospel. I want to tell people about Jesus' love for us and his sacrafice"

She then leaned over slightly and looked at me straight in the face. In a low voice she said this,
"I'm a preacher to..."

The preachers are coming, they just look a little different.

Previous Statements.

These are some of the previous statements that people have told me in the last three-four years my life.


"You are going to do great things"


"You could be the next great thinker of our time"


"You are gifted"


"You are great at making people and events successful."


"When you talk people, just seem to listen"


While these are great statements and I am encouraged by them I need to let the world know one thing.


I am a child of God.


Most people would of course say, "Well yea, Alison, everyone is a child of God"


But I need to make this clear so that I know it and so everyone else knows. I am a child of God first. My identity is hidden in Christ and in His story. Everything that you see in me is Him. Everything good that comes from me is from Him.

While it would be great to do great things in the future all I am trying to do is figure out how to live a life hidden in Christ. I'm trying to figure out how to love unconditionally. I'm trying to figure out how to serve unconditionally. I am trying to figure out how to just be in the presence of God without actually trying.

These things are what are important to me. These things make my life what it is.

I had a conversation with a parent of a student that I mentor last weekend. She was asking me what I wanted to do after I graduated college. I knew this parent would expect some long planned out list of where I am going to go and what I am going to do, but I didn't have that.

I don't know where I will be in two years. I don't know where I will be in ten years. I don't know where I will be next week.

For a long time I had dreams to do things in student ministry, to preach at big conferences, and to impact the world hugely for Christ.

I still want to impact the world hugely for Christ but I want to do it behind Him and with Him. I told this parent that I am going to follow Christ and wherever I end up that's where I will end up as long as I have Christ by my side, in front of me, behind me, above me, and below me.

The parent walked away shocked. I could see on her face that she thought I was nuts. Actually my first response was humor. I cracked up. When the humor faded I realized that it is crazy to think that I am planning my whole future on something that many people call foolish.

Call me crazy then.

God does crazy things.

So I know that I have always believed that God is providential but I have never truly experienced it until these last two weeks.

Last week I met a girl named JJ who wanted to get connected into my small group. Knowing her life situation I knew that it would be hard to plug her into a group that is already connected.

Last week I saw an old friend from high school named Ally. She hung around the cafe and asked me if I was starting a small group.

Last week JJ and Ally saw each other in the office and freaked. Apparently they went to college together and were close then. They rekindled there friendship and are excited to be in the same small group living life together.

Kelly knows Ally because she is close friends with her sister.

This week I talked to Bill and he wanted to get another person connected into my small group. I met her today and my best friend, Kelly, who is also co-leading this small group is going to be in her sister in laws wedding in three weeks. She is connected relationally to Kelly and Joy.

Kelly is connected to me, Joy, Jessica, Ally, and Brittny.

I am connected to Ally, Jessica, Joy, JJ, Kelly, and Brittny.

JJ is connected to me and Ally and soon Kelly.

Ally is connected to JJ, Kelly, and me.

Joy is connected to me, Kelly, and Jessica.

Jessica is connected to Kelly and Joy.

Brittny is connected to Me and Kelly.

Every single person in my small group has deep relational mileage to one or more people. God has put us in one place for three months.

I am a victim of providence.

Good bye.

I am disappointed in the lack of creativity in other people. I have recently picked up the habit of going to www.blogger.com and watching the blogs come up that have just been updated.

The key is to pick a blog that looks interesting and hope that you will stumble on to some sort of creative genius. However, my plan has sorely failed seeing that no one tends to truly be creative any more.

I guess it is all about writing about reality. In all honesty most people are boring, and even the most eccentric people in the world are bored.

Alas, creative writing has come to the peak of it's existence. I just mourn for the future generations, for they will be without the great ideals of writing.

But, if the world is going down like it has been writing probably won't even be needed except to read the illusion that appears on our fore arms.

Side effects

Every time I watch a commercial on television that is referring to some sort of medicine it always seem to list the side effects at the very bottom in small print or they say them really, really fast at the end of the two minute blurb.

I have a problem with side effects because I am the kind of person that usually gets them. The whole list of; nausea, headaches, congestion, and loss of short term memory seem to get me every time.

I notice the same thing about our modern day cures for sin. We(as a culture and a church at times) label sin sometimes as temporary virus. We them prescribe this virus with a multitude of things: go to the doctor, start working our, go to a therapist, read your Bible every day, go do this, go do that, go, go, go....

These suggestions are not bad things at all, in fact, they can be a tremendous help to our health, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, but if we are depending on these things to pull us through our sin we are mistaken.

And suddenly we find ourselves with a whole mess of sinful side effects. The sin seems to not only be our first disease but also tends to be our side effects as well. These side effects seep into our relationships, our friendships, or mentality towards work, our emotional balance, and our own view of who we are and who created us. The spiritual immune system is being completely ripped apart because we are chasing after the right medication, or the right therapy for our sinful desires.

We tend to forget to simply repent.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" 1 John 1:9

When we go to our great physician and repent he forgives us and we become healthy again. We may not feel healthy but God is building our immune system up and we, if we continue to walk with Him and repent when we sin, will become strong and healthy.

We will be able to eat solid food and run with Him. The side effects of our sin will not seep into our lives any longer.

Elijah Thomas Plassman is the most beautiful baby that I have ever seen and I love him!!!!!

There is something that I don't understand.

One thing that keeps me from doing the best.

For some reason I continue to live out a life that is glorified by my mediocrity. I am shamelessly trying to keep my head down, for if someone new the one thing that I am missing, they would start truly believing in me.

At the same time I am completely surrounded on every side. Surrounded by the air that seems to be clogged with the pollution of myself. I surround myself and I pollute my mind and my heart.

I eat the bugs that craw all over my bed at night and deshelve all of my emotions just to throw them on the floor for people to step on. I walk around in a web that is being torn down by the rain from the dark skies that torment me even when the sun is high.

My darkness alludes the light and shatters me from my mirrored self so all I am left with is someone unknown and foreign.

I am a foreigner, an illegal immigrant. I am being thrown out of a land that was once a home. I am searching for a place, a ruler, a country, a home to find my own.

I dare not tarry in this place for long for it might behave badly and prove them all right.

Come find me.

Some who wander are truly lost.

Lost in the facade that seems to live through transparency.

If I am wrong than I will lose most things and find myself at the bottom of a cage. This cage that everyone falls in and everyone so longs to think out of.

Think outside of the box while you still live in it. Think up a new bigger box to put things in.

Don't forget the lid.

I am a fake. A sinner. I find my life lost in rust stained chains that tear at my flesh and splinter my bones. I am chained to not only myself but to the earth. To the pollution, to the perversion, to the abuse. To the tree of choice. I am not a being but a symbol. A symbol of a human trying to represent a true life.

Jesus Christ is the only air, and is the only water, and is the only life that is truly pure.

There certain attributes that every super-hero has in their lives. These attributes are exceedingly important in truly defining the super-hero. While other humans can be defined by a multitude of things super-hero’s have specific requirements that determine their identity and their purpose. These requirements can be found in many of the comic book heroes that we so adhere and adore.


The first of these requirements is an estranged birth.


A super-hero must be born in a weird and unnatural way. This birth happens twice in a person’s life. The first is their physical birth. Usually this birth defines the culture and the atmosphere that will create a sense of true injustice in the super hero’s life. The second birth is when the super-human part of this person starts to form. Sometimes these two births happen at the same time, but there are times when there are singular moments when this super identity is truly formed. This can be seen in many of our own favorite super heroes.


Let’s look at Spider-man. Unfortunately the movies did not necessarily tell the best story of this super-hero, but Spider-man is a super-hero that had two births. Peter Parker was physically born with two parents who die when he is young and then is raised by his aunt and uncle. However, his powers don’t come to him until he is bitten by a radioactive spider during a science demonstration. Peter is a teenager when he inherits these powers and struggles with them for years. He desperately seeks out fame at first and then realizes that power is not something to take lightly. This lesson is taught by the loss of his uncle and his girl friend.


Every Super-hero has two births. One that is purely natural and one that is absolutely super natural. These two births usually conflict with each other and cause a tension between natural inclinations and super natural desires.

I hate relationships.

Yea, it's one of those days.

I'm sitting here with one of the girls on my floor and hearing about her new relationship and I just can't deal with it.

The cynic comes out and yells "It's all a big waste of time! It's totally illogical"

Yes I know that relationships are great and are full of flowers and butterflies, but I just don't want any part of it.

I just don't understand why 'relationships' make people do crazy and stupid things. It doesn't make much sense to me.

The sad thing is that I have done it. I have fallen into the trap of the crazed and have wanted to give it all away.

I don't think that I would want to be tied down. At least not today.

Maybe tomorrow.

Reaching Out, Henri Nouwen

"I vividly remember the day on which a man who had been a student in one of my courses came back to the school and entered my room with the disarming remark: "I have no problems this time, no questions to ask you. I do not need counsel or advice, but simply want to celebrate some time with you." We sat on the ground facing each other and talked a little about what life had been for us in the last year, about our work, our common friends, and about the restlessness of our hearts. Then slowly as the minutes passed by we became silent.

Not an embarrassing silence but a silence that could bring us closer together than the many small and big events of the last year. We would hear a few cars pass and the noise of someone who was emptying a trash can somewhere.

But that did not hurt. The silence which grew deeper around us we became more and more aware of a presence embracing both of us. Then he said,

"It is good to be here" and I said, "Yes, it is good to be together again," and after that we were silent again for a long period. And as a deep peace filled the empty space between us he said hesitantly,

"When I look at you it is as if I am in the presence of Christ." I did not feel startled, surprised or in need of protesting, but I could only say, "It is the Christ in you, who recognizes the Christ in me."

"Yes," he said, "He indeed is in our midst," and then he spoke the words which entered into my soul as the most healing words I had heard in many years, "From now on, wherever you go, or wherever I go, all the ground between us will be holy ground." And when he left I knew that he had revealed to me what community really means."

Sometimes I like to listen to music and image that I am in a music video watching people live.

Sometimes I like to wear my headphones and not even have the music on so I will be left alone.

Time seems to allude me.

With it's seconds, minutes, and hours.

I simply can't escape it and it's melodic depth.

When the day is done my life is still ruled by the one thing.

That I can't escape.

Time rules my existence and takes ahold of my identity.

Without time my world would dissapate,

Without clockwatching my world would take a disastourous turn.

I would become a person of null facts and dull opinions.

Time seems to allude me.

Charisma

So, there once was a girl who was from the dessert of Najiba. She lived a quiet life and found resolve at the well on the outskirts of town.

Her name was Dayton. She was a girl of great height and her streaked black hair reached to the middle of her back. She would put it up with a scarf when it was mid day for the sweat would entrench her shirt if she would keep it down.

She lived with her uncle and her cousin. Dayton's parents died of malaria at an early age and she moved in with her relatives and was acustomed to a life of tradition and solitude. Every morning she would wake, facing the east and would get up to wash. She would walk out to the bath and use cold water to wash her body clean. She always enjoyed the bath and would make it a ritual to stay in as long as she could. She even got up early on the days she knew would be long with work just to spend extra minutes in the cool fresh water.

After she bathed, Dayton would climb into a shabby frock and start her daily chores. She would sweep the house, feed the chickens, get fresh water from the well and weave baskets for her cousin to sell at market. These mediocre chores filled her day and while Dayton was filled with joy for her family she felt like there was something that was not being lived out.

See Dayton was not a normal girl, even though she lived a normal life. While she grew up in the dessert of Najiba her orignal ascent was from the tribe of gallan. The family that she thought she lost to malaria were actually part god and she was as well. Dayton, however, did not come to this realization until the day she turned 15.

Dayton had gotten up early because she knew that the day before her would be a day full of emotion. When Najiban girls turned 15 they were given away to the community for social and ritual rites. She would no longer have the name Dayton but would be given a new name. She would no longer work her normal chores but would be sent about the community doing things for people she did not know, nor did she trust. Because she had no parents she would, After two years of this, be sent to the temple of Trothel and would become a preistess. For without parents one cannot be married.

She got up with an anxiety that she could not swallow. Dayton had been dreading this day for years and was trying to take it moment by moment. She rose from her cot before the sun came up and slipped out the back door. She slipped off her sleeping gown and put her foot in the cool crisp water that had been poured just hourse before.

Her whole body was soon immersed and as she looked up at the last remaing stars she wondered what would become of her. As she sat peacefully in a state of bliss she heard a thumping off in the distance. A sort of clatter that could only be characterized by a horse or an animal of that size.

"Must be a midnight traveler," she thought as she focused once again on the stars before her. The sun had just started to peak and the thumping became hollow and got closer. She straitened up to see who was coming and suddenley a red stallion presented itself before her tub. A cloaked figure got down and lay prostrate before the tub.

Dayton watched this scene in shock as she tried to cover herself. The figure just lay there in silence as Dayton moved around and tried to figure out what was going on. Finally the figure stood and addressed Dayton by a name she was not familer with.

"Charisma, this message is from the Lord and Lady that have created the heavens and the earth." The voice was neither female nor male, but rather undefinable. "I was hear to fetch you on the day of your birth and to deliever you unto the courts of gradeur. There you will recieve your birth rites and your journey statements."

Dayton still in shock stumbled out of the bath and threw her towel around her.

"My lady, you must hurry, we do not have much time left."

What was Dayton to do. She knew nothing of this traveler and knew nothing of the plans set before her. She was given a new name but was not told by anyone that she was to be summoned at some court.

Dayton rushed into the house and without ceasing to be silent threw on some clothes. She also packed a bag full of extra clothes for she knew nothing of how long this absence would last.

She kissed her cousin and uncle and went outside to start a journey that would not only transform her life but would transform the world.

Laying out.

So, this is what always happens.

It is beautiful outside today, and all over campus girls are laying out to get tan and to do homework. Well, I thought that this was a great idea. So I took my blanket and my books and my mp3 player outside today.

I put my blanket on the ground and layed on my stomach and tried to read. One problem the sun was to bright to read the pages out of my book. Also there were big hairy ants crawling on me.

So I got up and tried to sit and read Indian style(sorry, that is cross legged for those who are trying to be politically correct).

However, I got distracted by all the people who were walking around. Also there were little fruit flies who were trying to eat me alive. I continued to try and read but it didn't work out.

So I got up and started walking towards my dorm. Now I want to take a nap because the sun made me tired.

Never again will I do something that every one else thinks is a good idea.

24.3 reasons why penut butter rocks.

1.) It comes in various forms, chunky, penut, smooth.

2.) It rarley gets you sick(unless you eat Peter Pan, but then who eats peter pan anyway.)

3.) It combines with jelly of any variation and fluff.

4.) It's sticky.

5.) It goes extremley well with white bread.

6.) You can live off of it for days, no weeks.

7.) You can put it, not only on bread, but chips, cookies, fruit, and vegtables, and icecream. It hits almost every group in the pyramid.

8.) It goes really well with oreos.

9.) It can be comfort food or nutritanal.

10.) It goes really well with milk.

11.) You can take it on road trips.

12.) It comes in little packets at restaraunts.

13.) The excitment of getting to be the one to eat the first scoop.

14.) You can eat it by by itself.

15.) It lasts almost as long as twinkies.

16.) They make it with jelly.

17.) You can fry it.

18.) You can grill it.

19.) IT TAKES GUM OUT OF YOUR HAIR!

20.) It is the best thing to go into chocolate.

21.) If you put it on your enemies car seat while its in the sun it gets creamy and smelly.

22.) It comes in multiple sizes.

23.) My dad loves it so when my mom is out of town their is no pressure to cook.

24.) It goes with any beverage.

.3) It tastes just as good when you lick the knife after you are done spreading it.

Honey Moon

I have come to this realization over the past two years being at Lincoln. Whenever I go home and have conversations about church with some of my close friends that I grew up with or my close family I hear the same complaint.

"Well we are just looking for some deeper teaching." Or

"We just want a different style of worship"

Now I grew up with these people and my home church honed a lot of these people. Community Christian Church is where we found our home. We, being a great deal of misfits and out laws came together to form a community that could not be denied or dealt with. We were a force to be reckoned with. We understood the mission that we were living our lives for and we grasped what the cost truly was.

Our small groups were constantly filled with the people that we lived life with. Our services were compiled with the misfits and the outlaws that we knew needed something more than their old and meidocre lives.

Many of us have stayed extremley close and if one of us was in desperate need I know the others would not hesitate to show up in a minute.

But alas, high school ended. Three of my close friends got married. The rest went to college and are doing their own thing. Change happened.

So now I come home every once in a while and I see these people and we have the same old conversation. We laugh and cry about the memories and we talk about the present. And that old conversation comes up. I feel like I am constantly defending the home that I have loved for such a long time.

So after thinking about my friends and my family's pleas I have come to a slight conclusion. It doesn't involved getting married, it involves understanding the cost of being a christ follower in a place that is constantly changing.

I call it the honey moon affect.

Let me paint it for you.

So we have a church goer who has been attedning the same church for over five to ten years. This church goer found God at this church and found a true sense of community there. However, the church started growing and things started changing. This church goer saw her peers leaving for every excuse in the book.

This church goer stuck it out though. Waiting for the day when things became familer again. Finally the church goer starts complaning about the service. "The teaching isn't deep enough, the worship is to loud. It's gotten to big. No more community."

So the church goer leaves. Breaks ties with a community that has helped develop and streghthen them in Christ. The church goer goes to a different church and finds two things.

First is that they can't find a church to their liking. So they become church drop-outs, thinking that they can make it on their own, because you can be a Christian without going to church.

Or second, they find a church where there is deeper teaching. Better worship. Or smaller setting. They get involved and have a new sense of being. Two to five years later they have found themselves in the same predicament. Things have started to change or have just remained the same. Either way the church goer gets frustrated and starts complaining again.

Here's why. The church goer can go to a church that has deeper teaching or better worship and they will feel more mature. Maybe because they will start learning more Greek words. Maybe because they will get that great sensation after service. But it won't last simply because they have not connected. There is no risk in getting involved in a new church every five years. The church goer will remain tactfully detachted with looking like they are extremley involved. You don't become mature unless you start knowing Christ himself. You need to take charge of your relationship. And another thing, if you truly went to service every week and had the ability to live out the theological truths being spoken out in the next week then you are a better person than I.

The church is a body of believers that mess up. Things change, people leave. If you are not willing to invest everything into the bride that Christ loves with everything than don't attend in the first place.

Here this, I know that there are things that Community Christian Church needs to work on. They are a large community full of redeemed people. No church is perfect. However, I found God there. I have seen my closest friends not only find God but find their spouses as well. I have seen drug and sex addicted friends find God there. I know that God is active in that community and I am not willing to slander its name because I may disagree with one thing or a another.

My allegiance lies with Christ but I cannot deny when God is working in a body of believers.

I'm on to the soda shop

As you know every story starts off with once upon a time,

This one however, starts off with two roommates who had an imbittered hatred for each other.

One was drunk all the time on her laughter and her folly.

While the other was concerned with focusing all her energy on ignoring her roommates laughter and folly. Especially her random dancing and her pubesent personality.

They constantly competed. Every morning they tried to out sing each and skate each other.

Both of them would awake and slip their skates on. They would skate around their abode singing the great songs of the past while doing poiettes and leaps. This would create a great amount of rucus in which their neighbors did not truly appreciate.

After their morning romp they would go attend class and work and then come back and shout witful amphoisms until their vocal cords bled. They would them make dinner together and try to poison each other but had developed immunities to them.

Every day they tried to kill each other but every day they seemingly could not match each other's strength.

Alas these roommates became immortal in their strength and in their legendary stances.

Forever they will remain and forever they will be alive trying to defeat thier own existence.

Forever they will be roommates.

We fool ourselves into thinking that if we talk enough about a revolution than it must be alive and real.

That is unfortunately not the case.

We talk about a revolution like it's happening, yet we continue to do the same things we would normally do in our daily lives.

We are not living in a time of revolution. We are living in a time of democracy.

Faith is proven by the validity of the life that lives it out.

Figuring things out.

My Roommate just farted, which just broke a ten minute silence. My roommate responded by laughing and then I applauded her valiant performance.

I lose track of the days and have to consitency ask people around me what day it is.

My roommate and I always compete on who can turn their music on first.

Monday: That was yesterday, I got up early and did homework because I procrastinated the night before. I went to classes and then went to work. Had a conversation with a close friend that proved to be worth every word. Did homework late because I procrastinated during the day.

Tuesday: Got up at 6:45 a.m.(which is not normal) Took a shower and went to breakfast where I consumed chocolate chip pancakes. Went to class, chapel, and more class. Had a meeting with a prof. about class. Exercised, went to dinner, did homework, watched Gilmore Girls and House, Now I am discussing things with Kierkegaard.

I feel like I am more and more becoming transparent in my bloggings. Either it's because I have nothing else to write about Or because I just don't have enough time to actually write any thing profound and funny.

24 days left of school! Then I will be a Junior in college. Weird.

The Hope of the World?

"I suggested that only a "dry as dust" religion prompts a minister to extol the glories of heaven while ignoring the social conditions that cause men an earthly hell." Martin Luther King Jr. talking with ministers in Brigham Alabama.

Bill Hybels says the Church is the hope of the world, but how is the church supposed to be this if it never reaches the world in the first place.

What is the church for?

Who is the church for?

Is it to be missional to attract the seeker?

Is it to be a steaming post of Christian education and community?

Is it to be a home for the widowed, the orphans and the parents who have lost a child?

Is it to be a forum of theologians and philosophers?

Is it to be a hospitable for the sick and the crippled?

Is it to be a place of chosen economic flourishment and forced economic poverty?

Is it to be a place where laws are followed but questioned?

Is it to be a place where the social rights of a person exist and discussed?

The church is to be all these things. The question remains then; who is going to bring the hope into the world?

Why

Why in the world does it happen this way.

Right when I am happy and content with the things that are occurring in my life this pops up.(This is a lie, yes writers lie to, it's called fiction- clearly, you haven't read The Da Vinci Code yet.)

Right when I have hit the point where school seems frivolous to me I collide into this detailed plan.(This is true)

Right when I forget to hear the music I walk into a room that is full of pianos in which only one is being played. (This actually happened to me today. They were selling piano's in the chapel. I walked in and there were at least forty pianos in the front room but only one was being played at the time. This sentence isn't just some poetic sentence used for the pulling of the heart strings.)

It's like that one piano is letting every other piano know that it is here for that specific reason.

Or it's like a coffee mug. If you fill it with pens, or tea it is not happy because it is not truly fulfilling its purpose. The only time it truly is happy is when it is full of coffee.(I have a coffee mug that is on my desk with pens in it.)

If you want to label an inanimate object with the emotional capacity for baggage.

I could use metaphor after metaphor but it wouldn't matter because real life is more existent(I spelled this word wrong when I first wrote it.)

Sometimes I worry about the people who are always laughing, because they must get tired of hearing themselves all the time.

The decision needs to be made the question is who makes it. Some say the individual will doesn't seem to be a real commodity in the economic status of Grace while others invest all their money in it. (People are obsessed with money. Oh wait is that me?)

The pro and con list has been made.(Yes I get some of my guidance from the show Friends.) The conversations are happening, but what if I don't do it. What if I don't go through with it. What if I rebel and run and do something else. I guess some would say I was a waste of something. Whether it be a gift or a just simply a lifestyle. But would I be miserable. Miserable in knowing that I could have done something else. Miserable and stuck.

But what if I do. What if it happens and I live but I'm miserable. Miserable in my thought process and miserable because I am surrounded by the masses who laugh at every thought and listen to every note without hesitation.

Am I the piano being played or am I just one of the pianos watching with a sadness.(Pianos are inanimate objects, they can't feel anything)

"What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?" E/O Soren Kierkegaard (Don't take that quote seriously I pulled it out of context.)

Sometimes self disclosure is not only dangerous it is self-contradictory.

Irregular

Thursday day: met with a prof. who might give a cool opportunity for the next seven years. Took a Greek test, went and saw God move in IDS through PowerPoint and listened to old English.

Thursday night: Watched three episodes of House. Discussed the identity of Satan. Came up with a pro and con list.

Friday: Woke up and went to work. Gave a military man a tour of our school and ever time we entered a building he took his beret off. Got two free Starbucks drinks.

Friday night: Went to Bloomington where a small little Indian girl followed friends out of a store. Roommate was concerned so she did what any Indiana bred girl would do, she talked to the nearest police man. Only problem is this little girl didn't speak English. A nice women came up and started talking to her in Hindi. Mystery solved. Unless the women kidnapped her, then all helped in abating a criminal. Roommate just discussed that the child should have come to Lincoln.

Watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and discovered that the best movie line should always be the last.

Learned that when the plan that you really think is going to happen, happens, suddenly doubts become more prevalent. Frustrating.

God Hates Fags?

So I was talking to my good friend today about the Virginia Tech shootings and I guess her friend went there. So she was looking at some of the things that people have been saying on facebook and she noticed that westboro baptist church had commented.

The westboro baptist church and I have some history. Meaning I wrote them a letter once and disagreed with them. So I visited there website today once again and found the same stuff that was on there the last time I visited. If you don't know what they are about then I will breifly discuss it here.

Westboro is known as the church who declares that God hates fags. They believe that God hates fags and since we, as America, are allowing this appalling relationship to happen that is the reason that we are losing the war. So they go to military funerals and picket. It's the wierdest theology that I have ever encountered and it's wrong. They take scripture out of context and they are incorrect in there preaching.

I knew this and for curiousity's sake I looked up if any one agreed with me on facebook. Apparantly there are a lot of groups that don't feel like Westboro is doing America justice. I looked at some of the things written in these groups and they were declaring that we should kill and bomb the Westboro Church. That we should teach them some sort of lesson. Basically that we should use violence to kill there prejudice.

So lets bomb the church, and lets kill the main leader. This will work right? No, this won't for a couple of reasons. First, the church will feel like they are still in the right because they will have gotten persecuted for their beliefs. Man, would they have a field day with that. Secondly they will still keep their perverted theology. Violence won't change anything except give them some fuel to be the victem.

Violence cannot be the answer because it takes away their value as humans. This is the truth. Another thing that is true is that they are incorrectly exegeting the text. This can be shown and can be truly lived out in full form.

I have a tatoo on my arm that says Love Recklessly. That is what we need to do. If we are going to get rid of this pest we need to send some strong leaders into that community to have some conversations and to show the love of Christ to these people.

It needs to be strategic enough to work. It needs to be wise enough to be covered in prayer. It needs to be clever enough be apparant.

Who is willing to go into a place that is unhealthy and to reform it?

An itch

It's that itch you get when you have stayed in one place to long.

That itch that usually starts off on the leg or on the arm and then spreads unto the whole body. You can scratch and scratch but you can never actually become satisfied. Actually scratching just makes it worse. Simply because when you start scratching it then spreads which causes you to scratch more. Then you get into a routine of scratching and you scratch without notice. This then leads to your skin being scratched off, but you will take no notice. Then you will scratch off all of your veins, but, because it's routine, you will not even flinch. Finally you will scratch off all of your arteries, and your major organs. Nothing will stop you because you will have just gotten into a routine.

This itch will remain and the more you scratch the deeper it will get. You can try to relieve yourself with lotions and oils but it won't help, because your itch will sink beneath your skin.

The way to get rid of an itch like this is to find out what is causing this itch. When you find the cause then you will find the cure. For some the cause is their desire for money and pleasure. For others it is a great adventure. For the rest it is direct personal happiness.

The cause to my itch is not complex.

Freedom.

That is all that I truly desire. To shatter the old mold that has imprisoned me for such a time, and to live a new born life. A life that is not concerned with such rules and regulations but a life that is artlessly formed by the first breath.

I want to fly away and breath.

Like a concrete angel reaching up for something that she will never fully grasp.

A mediocre writer, writing about a mediocre life.

Tasting the Darkness

Tasting the Darkness...

It's like a hand reaching down into the depths of my throat and tearing out the ability to speak His name.

You know it's happening when you are lying in bed and all you can think about is the destruction and the despair that surrounds you.

It's like screaming until your vocal cords bleed, in a deaf crowd.

The night is not the worst part, it's the moments that come right before it and right after it. The moments when the goose bumps don't come. The moments that are completely silent. The moments when walking across your room to get to the door leaves you as vulnerable as a new born baby.

Tasting the Darkness...

It's when you know that the blood that was spilt was not in vain.

It's like having no emotions in a state when one should have all of the emotions in the world.

Those who have truly experienced it choose to remain silent because to explain the actualities of the events seems utterly unrealistic. Those who have truly experienced it do not have words for such an unrealistic event.

It's like trying to explain the worst moment of your life in the third dimension. Most of us can only experience events in the first dimension because our emotions get the best of us, but when the emotions are removed the third dimension becomes clear.

Those who have experienced have and underlying challenge to cope with it in their daily lives. These individuals have a knowledge of the safe places and the unsafe places and know that it will never stop.

Tasting the darkness presents the idea that there is no hope. Nothing can save us from the invisible ideas that are haunting every one of us.

This is seen in every conversation, in every song, in every single moment.

Tasting the darkness is not terrifying but it is sad. Sorrow and Grief are the syamese children that are seen waltzing around the darkened ball room.

These children waltz around with a slight smirk on their faces because they have brought to you a sense of utter despair. The scene of you in pain brings them a slight satisfaction.

And when you encounter these twins yourself all you want to do is bleed so you can feel the pain that you have no control over.

While tasting the darkness can leave us endangered, tasting the light brings us the hope that is distinguished.

Tasting the light is like receiving a bolt of lightning go through your body. It is a sensation that leaves one in absolute silence for a moment but allows them to shout about what has been done and felt shortly after.

After one has tasted the light one clings to it like it is the last thing on the earth. Nothing else matters, nothing else can take it away.

The light becomes something that you beg for. Your spirit becomes poor and begs for the light like a homeless outcast.

Tasting the darkness will wound you but tasting the light with heal you.

Tasting the darkness will tear your foundation down but tasting the light will build it back up.

Tasting the darkness with lie to you but tasting the light with tell you the truth.

Tasting the darkness with cripple you but tasting the light will push you to run.

Tasting the darkness will pervert you but tasting the light will purify you.

Tasting the darkness will imprison you but tasting the light will set you free.

Tasting the darkness will put a sign around your neck saying you are worthless but tasting the light will put a sign on your neck saying that you are a great prince or princess.

Tasting the darkness will suck the life out of your lungs but tasting the light will breath life into your lungs.

Tasting the Light....

Easter Sunday

"We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world."

-Dave Ferguson

Where did Easter Go?

I am a land mine in a world of deaf paraplegics.