more than watchmen wait for the morning

I confess that I have not been practicing advent well. I have not given it the time it deserves. I wrote earlier this month about the discipline of waiting. I stil am not sure I know exactly what to wait for; however, that doesn't bother me as much as the fact that I do not know how to wait. I am taught from my culture that there is no sense in waiting. Either I should be able to readily grasp what it is that I desire, or for the things that take time, I should be able to use that time to do something productive. Thank goodness I have my cell phone with me so that everytime the world tempts me to wait I can call or text a friend because waiting is a terrible waste of time.

Now I don't know how God wants us to wait. These days I am waiting for my semester grades to come in, but I am not sitting around by the computer refreshing my portal every three minutes. Waiting is not normally something that consumes the moment.

Psalm 130 tells of a different manner of waiting:

5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

Apparently there is a need for redemption that I am not aware of. Its almost a funny thing to say considering I often am surrounded by those in circumstances that explicitly shows this need for redemption of the world. Paul in his letter to the Romans mentions as well that "creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed" and we too "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Again, redemption! How is it that I forget my/our/the need for redemption? What am I settling for? If I have no need for redemption, I have no faith and without faith where is my hope?

No, I don't think that sitting around and waiting for God to restore is God's call on our lives. Suffering (with others), maybe, is how God wants us to wait. Because in suffering, we are aware of the need for redemption. We won't wait unless we suffer with others. In suffering though there is room for joy because we have hope for resoration.

Isaiah 30:
15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
16 You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.'
Therefore you will flee!
You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.'
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
17 A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill."
18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

Hosea 2

Israel Punished and Restored
2 "Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.

4 I will not show my love to her children,
because they are the children of adultery.

5 Their mother has been unfaithful
and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, 'I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water,
my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.'

6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
'I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.'

8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.

9 "Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her nakedness.

10 So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.

11 I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
her Sabbath days—all her appointed feasts.

12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.

13 I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,"
declares the LORD.

14 "Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.

15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

16 "In that day," declares the LORD,
"you will call me 'my husband';
you will no longer call me 'my master. '

17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.

18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.

19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.

20 I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the LORD.

21 "In that day I will respond,"
declares the LORD—
"I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;

22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.

23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.'
I will say to those called 'Not my people, ' 'You are my people';
and they will say, 'You are my God.' "

How do we know if should be waiting for God or if God is waiting for us?

Advent Resolution: Waiting

I learned on Sunday that waiting is a spiritual discipline. I never considered that before (but Foster didn't add into the Celebration of Discipline, so its not my fault). I feel like I've been trained to combat every problem in life with prayer and action, because if something is going wrong, we should fix it. To simply stop thinking, considering, trialing, creating, etc, and instead to just wait is a new concept.

This is a little dangerous isn't it? Maybe I'm afraid that waiting will lead to idleness, but maybe my fear is deeper than that. What if I'm really afraid to wait because I don't know what to wait for? What if I work not to keep me from being lazy, but what if I work because I'm not satisfied what God would have me wait for. So I work and imagine more and more in a vain attempt to find a conclusion that suits me.

I think that God does give us power to change things here on earth. I think God wants us to dream and hope for better than what we see. However, even in the midst of ministry and the love's best intentions there is room for patience. As a resoltion for this new year, I think that as I go into ministry I want to be guided by more than trial and error, and instead wait for God to reveal opportune moments through the Holy Spirit for me to act in. After all it's God, not I, that is mighty to save.

I'm trying to learn: How do we wait? Please contribute.

Psalm 131

1 My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

Because of Winn-Dixie

Friday at the elementary school I borrowed the book, Because of Winn-Dixie. I read it Saturday morning, and I was actually quite pleased with myself because I've never finished a whole book like that in a morning. It didn't occur to me until after I'd finished it that all I'd managed to do was read a 183 page book that was relatively the same size as my hand,size 12 font and double spaced proving to me and every one who questioned that I indeed had surpassed the fourth grade reading level.

None the less I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I got a lot out of it. I think I may read some more children's books because I figure that everything you teach children is more or less everything worth knowing. Maybe I can finish the Chronicles of Narnia (or as I like to call them the Chronicles of gnar gnar- silent "g" of course) over break.

Anyway Because of Winn-Dixie has this interesting quote that spoke to me, "Gloria says that you can't hold on to anything. That you can only love what you've got while you've got it" (DiCamillo 167). I feel like we know that nothing lasts forever so a lot of my love may be motivated by making people want to stick around more. But I'm being taught how to love people not because I want them to stay, but just because they are there. I want to be more aware of what/who I've got and how to best love them and enjoy them for the sake of the moment.

The book also makes me want a dog.

this post is about my grandma

My grandma is my hero. Only in the last few years have I realized that my grandparents are really people who have struggled and hurt and experienced life, and not just innocent, simple jollier versions of my mom who make cookies and play golf all day. For my nursing class we have to do a "Well Elder" project where we interview an elderly person and comment about the aging process and how our client has responded to it. So I'm interviewing Grandma Bunny (I don't really know why we call her that--but maybe you understand my disillusionment a little better now). Anyway, she has an amazing story.

My grandma and grandpa got engaged after a grand total of three weeks of knowing each other. My grandma was 18 and my grandpa was 30. At the time, my grandma was just starting to explore her faith in a Presbyterian church youth group. She was attending college at, Michigan State, and was very successful and diligent in her studies. After she got married though, her whole life changed and she began, in a way, to lose herself. She stopped going to school, and within two months of marriage became pregnant. My grandfather was Catholic and demanded that his children would be raised Catholic, so in order to keep the family unified and be respectful to her husband, she became Catholic and cut all ties with other parts of the church. She said she can still remember the priest explaining that she was expected to be submissive, and what that meant for her marriage. She needed to keep the house in order, be a supportive wife, and adhere by certain Catholic ways of doing things, including a kosher means of "birth control" resulting in the births of seven children over the years. Now, its not as if my grandma did not enjoy motherhood. In fact being able to hold and care for babies became a sense of emotional release for her. As she told me of her life though, she explained this sense of loss of identity that she lived without for 30 years. When she finally started to regain a sense of herself she started participating in Bible studies in a protestant church, taking classes at a community college, and thinking of herself as an individual.

I don't exactly know how to explain my admiration for my grandma without creating some sort of paradox, but I feel like life in general is better characterized paradox than logic (or maybe just mine). I think that her sacrifice was a noble thing. She was able to maintain a personal faith in God over the years, despite being forced into a Catholic manner of doing things*. She is a very strong person, I think, for being able to raise seven children (one of which has extensive mental and social disabilities). I think that if I ever get married and have a family and all that I would desire to have a similar selflessness. However, the fact that she had a loss of identity makes me question what it means to sacrifice and serve people; I don't think I want to live like that. There is a sense of dignity that my grandma was robbed of for 30 years and I think that is wrong. So my struggle is how do you balance your sense of identity and purpose while living out Jesus, in the language of Philippians 2, considering others and better than yourself and emptying yourself for them.

I think I actually have an answer to this one. My grandma may have been living it right. She was being Jesus for her family. Its not my grandma or her service who is at fault, but people's response to it. It was her society that was to blame, it was her family, it was the church that was in the wrong. The problem was not that my grandma was acting as Jesus would act, but that people treated her as they treated Jesus. I hope that we as Christians and disciples have at least learned how Jesus should have been treated. That when people lower themselves, they are to be raised in praise. When people sacrifice themselves to us, we in turn sacrifice ourselves to them. We submit to each other out of reverence for Christ. Too often we step on those who lower themselves, and we demand every last drop of those who empty themselves. Maybe more of our problems with the church and the brokenness that often characterizes it can be resolved not simply by people trying to act more like Jesus, but with people trying to treat people more like Jesus when they see him in others.

So, Jeff I think I'm beginning to understand the importance of giving each other identities.


*I get that the Catholic church is a dynamic thing sometimes influenced by cultural and societal forces apart from spiritual ones. I don't mean to attack Catholics or condemn them as if they are the only ones guilty of screwing with the word of God. I do think though that in general Catholic and Protestant faith is very different. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but either way, in my experience, its reality and even more so in the past.

"he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?"

1 corinthians 11:
3Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. 4Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. 5And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. 6If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. 7A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.
11In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. 13Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. 16If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.

It would be tempting for me to throw out this whole passage seeing as no one really seems to take the head covering thing seriously anymore. I confess I don't really know how to read this passage; I don't know how to separate the eternal truth from the cultural truth or if there is a difference. I kinda feel like I need to learn Greek before I tackle this text, or at least take New Testament.

However there are some themes in this section that make me question my identity in God as a woman, or young woman, or girl--whatever I am. “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” Am I made to serve men? Because honestly—and this may be crossing the personal-information-you-don’t-post-online-line, but sometimes I feel like I am. It’s easy, I think, for girls to fall into this line of thinking that we need a man to make us complete; to fulfill our purpose. I’d like to know how much of that is creation and how much of that is crap. Sure, using whatever power I have in hermeneutics I can think of verses that contradict that sort of thinking, but then again, those verses were written by Paul (he’s a dude). It seems like most of the references made to women in the Bible follow the same sort of thinking. I don’t know what to think about myself. I don’t know what to believe.

Of course, I can’t ignore verses 11-12 either. That at the bottom of things men and women are not independent of each other; we are both in fact dependent on God. So that means we need each other. I guess the questions is, how we need each other. Do we need each other differently? And what/who do we need to be?

I also think I should add 1 corinthians 7:34 which says, "an unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit." Of course that's also from a sort of cloudy area of scripture.

I don't know. Can someone make some sense of this?

I will seek him and find him when I seek him with all my heart?

I remember during my senior year telling Sarah Burns and Vanessa Rude how excited I was to go to Point Loma soon. Then, I thought, I would be away from all the distractions and expectations I had at home and would be able to start over. I thought I'd be able to seek God more devotedly and leave all my hinderances at home. Unfortunately I brought myself with me, and here I am wondering if I've moved anywhere. There are still big questions, there are still boys, and there are still friendships I don't know what to do with. I don't know if I'm any closer to realizing God than I was two years ago, and that makes me lose hope.

What does it mean to seek God? How much does it have to do with ourselves?

at work today two kids came up to me on separate occasions asking me if I was a nerd--simply based on the fact that I was wearing glasses. i miss those days.

True or false? Jealousy seems to be the only emotion that God feels that we can't righteously imitate.

We're one
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other

- U2, One

Dirt

Coming up at Point Loma is a "theology on tap" discussion about the question "does God have a plan?" I've been thinking about it a lot because I don't really think I understand the significance of the question. I don't like it too much. To me it seems regardless of the answer to that question, we have to live and make choices. In my experience God hasn't given me a lot of insight into the specifics of this "plan" before I live it, and I find he cares more about the way that I live than the what that I live. He tells me the way more than the what.

However, certain pericapies (yes!) in the Bible seem to show that who and what we are is kind of out of our hands. That's discouraging to me, especially when I read the parable of the sower and I start to think about which dirt I am. We are the dirt in that parable right? That's what I thought. Anyway, if I am the dirt with the thorns, I'm not too happy about that. But I don't really know how to go about changing that. I really want to be good dirt, however my life has shown that I definitely am a little thorny. ha. What I mean is in the past, the worries, pleasures, and greed in the world get in the way of the growth of the word of God in my life. And I feel like I have seen people who are good dirt, and I'm not like them. If I'm stuck being throny dirt I'm pissed.

Jesus, what's your point, why would you even tell us this parable if we had no hope of change. Can I be good dirt?

Homelessness is the new Africa, except a hell of a lot cheaper

It seems to be the trend nowadays. Maybe it's not a trend, but a revolution (or maybe its a trend brought on by someone else's Revolution--sorry, i couldn't resist making that reference...it was Irresistible...ha. maybe only i thought that was funny, but that's ok because that makes up 33% of the people who will read this) Anyway, yes homelessness. I had a long meeting with Becky Modesto yesterday about bread of life and homeless ministry. We talked about ways to handle all the eagerness to get involved. The thing is, having all the people who want to be involved is kind of overwhelming because homelessness is a very fragile thing, and its quite rude to think that just because you bring a few PB&J's and the best intentions you have the right to come into someone's living space and stay awhile. Oh crap, did I just convict myself?

In response to all the interest, we (some really spiritual people with leadership positions) are going to be taking steps to educate the point loma community (get over it) about homeless ministry. During my meeting with Beck-dawg she asked me if I found any unexpected prejudices while doing ministry. As much as I hate this, I really do have prejudice against the point loma community. I have a lot of doubt about the sincerity of this sudden interest in homelessness. I don't think people realize the commitment that homeless ministry takes and I only say that because I am only starting to realize it. In homeless ministry we don't minister to the homeless, we minister to homeless people, ideally. Ahh I'm getting frustrated writing this because I don't understand anything this paragraph is done.

Well actually what I really wanted to say was that if I really cared about homeless ministry, I think I would get really excited about all the sudden enthusiasm of homeless outreach. After all didn't Paul say that the important thing is, whether from false motives or true, that the word of God is preached? And how can I judge people's motives without even giving them a chance. I hope that in the future I can have more faith in point loma and ultimately more faith in God and his work in the ministry. I hope that I can look past my doubts and concentrate on the opportunities we have. We are the church and we should be in this together and I really don't want my prejudice to get in the way of God's justice. I know that none of us really know how to do good homeless ministry, but we can learn if we are taught.

Ok so here's an email that I wrote to a couple of profs on campus. Not all of them replied and none of them replied in great detail, but I still found it interesting. Check it out:

Hi,

A friend and I have been talking lately about how our options (as Christians) for ministry and our ideas for hope and change are limited by our rules and assumptions as Americans. In our discussion we started talking about passages in the Bible like those found in Romans 13:1-7. Can statements like, “there is no authority except that which God has established” be applied to our government today? What responsibilities (if any) do we have as citizens to the American government? To what extent are we to let the laws of the land determine our actions (especially when these laws limit ministry opportunities)? Obviously these aren’t easy questions to answer, but I assume you all have had to come to some sort response to these struggles. Hopefully in getting multiple responses, my friend and I will be able to come to some sort of conclusion. Thanks.

Maddie Flaig
Soph. nursing major

Hello Mary. I suppose if it applies to the US, then it must also apply to Iran, North Korea, the former Iraq, and so on.

There is much, much more that can be said about all this -- and I'd be happy to meet with you (and/or your friends), but just can't type all that out right now. Suffice it to say that, as far as I'm concerned, the Church is our most fundamental social / political identity, and it is not subject to human boundaries, borders, languages, etc. I do not believe at all that being a Christian obliges us to be unquestioning supporters of our country -- and that in fact it will always move us toward resistance against collapsing Christianity into national identity / support.

Dr Lodahl

Maddie,

Good to hear from you. Wow. This is a big question (and a really good one!). Of course, much too big to give a quick answer to. Let me at least suggest an important starting point for the scripture texts angle. As a biblical scholar, I would want to put on the table that all of our consideration of biblical passages like the Romans one must begin by thinking about them in context. What was the context of Paul's statements there? Why does he say them? This is important because, as you know, we do not simply take whatever the Bible says and apply it directly to our situation (ex: women covering their heads in church!). So, we should not feel like such passages demand that we give a certainly loyalty to a government, especially when such a government is acting in ways that are clearly out of keeping with the messages of love and forgiveness found in the Gospel.

Does that help any?

Thanks for thinking about this stuff!
Best,
Dr. Kelle

Maddie,
Since I do not know you or the context of your question I can only reply in general terms (but will be happy to be more specific if you want to talk in detail).
Does Romans 13 apply today?--Yes. If it was true for the Roman dictatorship, it is certainly true for the U.S. By the way, when I lived in the USSR in the 1980's Christians there also recognized that it applied to their government.
Of course, there is always the great Acts 4:19-20 qualification--all Christians recognize that the laws of God are superior to the laws of man.
Blessings on you as you wrestle with these issues.
Prof Wood

hi jeff!

loving God and loving people

Here's something tough to chew on. So I was talking to Rabbi Jeff today and we came to an interesting realization. I was talking about how hard it is to share my struggles with people even though ideally I should be able to rely on God's worth in me enough to not be afraid of what people think of me. If we look for our validation in God then other people's opinions of us shouldn't matter right?

Well Rabbi Jeff thought that idea was misguided. He said that in the same way we love God by loving others, God loves us through the love of others. That its acutally ok to get our validation from others. What a beautiful thought, maybe. Acutally its not because unlike God, people can be nasty to each other without just reason. We can't trust others the way we trust God, right? So then how do we go about putting our hearts in the hands of others?

It seems like we get stuck somewhere on either end. That we either look for love and validation only from God and then we are stuck in the guilt-ridden misery of trying to pretend that we don't care what others think or we are whores to our friends and have no sense of intrinsic worth. I've made no conclusion yet, sorry.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

homeless ministry

There are so many people who want to be involved with homeless ministry. Enough that I feel like we could really do something. Maybe we already are. I was talking to a lady last tuesday who said that Point Loma kids had a pretty good reputation on the streets.

Here's a prayer for it (is it really biblical to write prayers on a blog?):

God, I don't want to pretend to be the answer to homelessness. I help me to simply be obeidient to you. Guide me as your hands and feet and help me to see your face in those I touch. Make this path straight. In your son's name. Amen.

I hate that blogs can evoke so much vainity.