I.Am.HERE

I just got back from watching Hillsong United’s I Heart Revolution documentary, We’re All In This Together.  I was speechless when it finished, yet not for lack of thoughts.  Instead it was more like there were so many thoughts going through my head that I had no idea where to begin putting them into coherent sounds.

First, let me just say, that I thought the documentary was absolutely incredible.  I figured/hoped/prayed it would be really good as I walked into it, but I was completely blown away.  The cinematography was brilliant (though it made me a little motion sick at times – I think this had to do as much with the fact that my head was spinning from all the information being thrown at me as much as it had to do with that action movement of images).  The commentary was heart-wrenching and gut-honest.

I expected to come out of the movie feeling strongly convicted and yet completely powerless, and while I definitely felt convicted I also felt empowered.  It was the thing that stuck me most.  Not that we must be doing, doing, doing.  That we must be curing AIDS or ending hunger.  Or protesting genocide or fighting human trafficking.  Yes, we should be doing that.  But more importantly we should be doing what we’re doing here.  Now.  We must be PRESENT.  I’ve discovered that it is too easy to let life slip by.  Suddenly weeks, months, years are gone, and we’ve been so busy trying to get to that next thing.  We focus on tomorrow’s to-do list and before we know it, today is gone.  And it’s today again and we’re still focused on tomorrow.

The point is, and always has been, I believe, that we stop living for the future.

It was hard to sit there in the cinema and be confronted with the atrocities that are affecting so many people worldwide.  To sit there and know that I would leave my comfy seat, go home to my comfy bed, get up in the morning to whatever I wanted to eat… I could go on (you know what it’s like).  It made me want to run out of the cinema and hop on the next plane to the deepest, darkest part of the world and plunge my arms in up to my elbows and DO SOMETHING.

And then I realized that I AM doing something.  (At least I’m trying, and only time will tell how successful I’ve actually been.)  Every time I smile at someone on the street, I’m doing something.  Every time I give one of the girls at church a hug, I’m doing something.  Ever time I mumble a prayer for the unknown hurt of the lady in the coffee shop, I’m doing something.  Every time I give in the offering, I’m doing something.  Every time I tell someone else about the importance of doing something, I’m doing something.

Maybe I’m not doing enough, but I beg that God would show me how to do more and that He would give me the courage to follow through.

Thank you to the Hillsong United team for being willing to be open not only about the struggles in the world but also about the struggles you had personally with how to cope with the tragedies and injustice we are surrounded by.

If you haven’t seen the documentary yet, I highly recommend it.  i-heart.org

Songs to Reach Nations

I went to an album launch at C3 church on Sunday and stumbled on to an ORU alumnus.  He graduated from ORU in ‘05 and had gone through the MultiMedia Institute.  He’s now making documentaries, and he and his wife are going to the Philippines for 6 months to film people’s stories and encourage them in song.

His wife, Louise, just released an absolutely beautiful album.

Check them both out on their website, songinadifferentway.com.

(Listen to one of my favorite songs of Louise’s here)

So Thankful…

For friends
For love
For learning
For stolen opportunities repossessed
For  good bands, iPods, in-ear headphones, and long bus rides
For courage
For moms, dads, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews and more
For a house with a large and varied bookcase
For a bed under a window
For camping adventures
For those that are willing to believe that I am able to do more than I ever imagined
For the shrinking of the world via the internet
For the vastness of the world as the ocean reminds me
For a roommate who’s willing to take walks with me and just let me talk things out
For all the fun memories of Black Friday with my families
For open windows and summer breezes

That I can list a lot more things I’m thankful for than I realized

The L70 on a Monday evening.

I took a different bus home today, which happened to be a better choice because, even though it was crowded, there were a few empty seats and, more importantly, they were almost all busy and therefore much quieter than, though probably equally self-obsessed as, the school kids that I too often end up on the bus with.

But that wasn’t the best part.

The best part was guy who was sitting in front of me.  He was wearing a bright green t-shirt and had his head tilted at an uncomfortable-looking ninety-degree angle.  It bobbed a couple times in rhythm with the bumps in the road, and I realized he had dozed off.  When he’d feel the jerk of the bus as it stopped to let passengers off and on, his head would spring up, and he’d look around wildly for his bearings.  The bus would ease forward with the traffic and his head would again fall gently forward until his chin rested on his chest.  This repeated for about 3 stops until it was finally his turn to disembark.  It made me wonder if the guy who was sitting next to him was thankful he was finally gone there was no more possibility of a stranger drooping onto his shoulder.

I wish I could apply this to something spiritual and meaningful, but, well, I can’t.  I’m glad there are things we can enjoy in life and simply enjoy them and not have to look for anything deeper.  There are always parallels if we want to dig them out, but sometimes it’s best to just stick the shovel in the ground and enjoy the flowers and sunshine.

Stealing Christmas

Just received my copy of the Nov/Dec Relevant Magazine in the mail.  Let me share with you one of my favourite quotes from an article in it, “Stealing Christmas.”

We call it Christmas and have named it after our Savior, but let’s not be so arrogant as to suggest the holiday is exlusively ours. … Christmas is the story of the incarnation–of the insertion of Christ into the dust of humanity, of the infusion of grace into something worldly and pagan.  In the process mankind was redeemed.  If so, then our theft of these solstice traditions is no crime against history.  Instead, it’s yet another picture–a beautiful, generous, peaceful, evergreen metaphor–of redemption.

Jason Boyett

Now go read the whole article:  Relevant’s Digital Issue (pg 83)

Let it Snow! Let it Shine!

I was just listening to “Let It Snow” by Michael Bublé while sitting at my desk at the office in a sleeveless shirt, open-toed shoes, with the windows wide open and a comfortable breeze wafting through.

It was so weird.

I knew it would be weird.  I knew living in the southern hemisphere and having seasons opposite to those back home in the US would probably play mind tricks on me, but I didn’t realize how weird it would actually be.  It’s different even than being in Florida or somewhere tropical, and I think that that’s what I expected.  But even in Florida it’s a bit cooler than summertime.  There’s still a difference.

I feel so happy that it’s summer.  I love that I’ll get to go to the beach and soak up the sun.  I’m happy that the days are getting longer and I can go camping and swimming and boating.  But I hate that I’m missing the crispness fall brings.  That I’m missing warm fuzzy feelings you get when you’re cozy under 3 or 4 blankets with a cup of hot chocolate, candles glowing, Christmas tree brightly lit in the corner, watching Elf or White Christmas.  Sigh.  (Ok, don’t feel too sorry for me.  I’ll be home for a few weeks in December, and I get to do plenty of cozy-blanket cuddling.)

Undoubtedly, the best part of having to conjure my own feelings of Christmas spirit (since they aren’t being spurred by the weather) is that it helps me fight the urges to do too much shopping, spend too much money, and generally buy into the lie that Christmas is about how much you give.  (I think this is a new plot to tempt us to spend money.  ”Give to others,” they tell us.  So we feel less greedy because we’re buying for others, but we’re still buying.  And buying.  And buying.)   I’m not going to preach here because we each have to decide for ourselves what Christmas means to us and how we’re going to allow it to affect us and those around us.  Each of us has to decide where the line between giving and spending blurs.

What I am going to do is declare “Let it Snow!  Let it Shine!”  Wherever you are, northern or southern hemisphere, whether you’re experiencing snow or sunshine, Christmas is a great time to remember that Jesus came to save us all.  That He is the greatest gift of all.  His is the sacrifice that makes our sins whiter than snow.  His is the light that shines in the darkness and draws all to Him.

He is why I love Christmas.

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Christmas last year.  :)

We Took Our Torches Camping

or The Many Dangers of the Australian Bush

“Doovdé, is that you?”  one of us called into the darkness and nervous giggles erupted from the rest of us.

We were camping.  Five of us had trekked out in canoes loaded down with tents and food and—I’m pretty sure—too many clothes to get away from it all.  It was my first time in the real Australian bush.  It was Shaz’s, Katie’s and Fletch’s first time to go camping “as adults.”  And it was Austin’s first time to take the young bucks into the wild without an actual expert to be our guide.

And we had heard some rustling behind us.

We knew there was a opossum out there somewhere.  We had seen it scamper up a tree a little while before as we were sweeping the woods with our torches (Aussie code for flashlights) for the source of a rustling we’d heard.  But even knowing it was very likely the opossum (who we nicknamed Doovdé out of respect for his brother Vhs, who we’d met at youth camp), our imaginations began to grow with visions of giant, pounding kangaroos and fierce, rabid wombats.  Actually I’m pretty sure mine was the only imagination to conjure visions of rabid wombats because they actually don’t have rabies in Australia.  (Another fact this camping excursion provided me with awareness of.)  Rabies or not, the potential for creepers in the darkness was still scary.

The five of us were huddled around our campfire on our air mattresses eating s’mores (something I was proud to introduce these best-campfire-snack-in-the-world-depraved Aussies to) attempting to ask each other deep and meaningful life questions and answer them while jumping every time someone moved their feet too quickly and knocked something over.  Fletch had spooked us with a few false alarms:  “Back there, back there, I see eyes glowing.”  Nothing in our light beams.  “Did you guys hear that?”  We had all been silent, and, no, none of us had heard it.  A few minutes later Fletch suddenly turned his torch on,  as the three of us who were lucky enough to actually be holding one of the three torches we had brought were apt to do, and scampering about four feet in front of us was a bushy tailed opossum.  The audacity!  To come so close to us and our fire.  All I could think was what if it had jumped on us?  on me?!

I tucked my feet up close to me, thankful that in the firelight no one could really see how curled into a ball I was to protect myself from the imaginary predators.  I had to fight several urges to turn my flashlight on and flash it frantically on the trees in front of me.  It’s amazing what peer pressure will do.  I wanted to be cool, unafraid of the dark, not showing my weakness to the others, so I didn’t turn my torch on, didn’t let myself jump at the noises.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I turned clicked my torch on and about two feet away stood the opossum, staring into my light, eyes glowing red.

“Uhh…” I said.

Even though there was no way I was going to take my eyes off the opossum in front of me, I felt like I could see everyone’s neck snap in my direction and, after a moment of stunned silence, we all started yelling and laughing and hollering at Doovdé to get away from our fire.  Austin jumped up and grabbed a pot and a pair of tongs, banged them together and chased the opossum up a tree.  We shone our torches on him for a while, teasing him, making sure he stayed up in the tree where he belonged and didn’t try to come and steal our s’mores.

Suddenly aware of how easily an animal could sneak up on us, we comforted ourselves with thoughts like, “If a opossum’s here, there must not be other predators around” and “There isn’t really anything out here the eats humans.”

When we all finally succumbed to the feelings of exhaustion that were attempting to take control of our bodies and crawled back to our tents to spend the majority of the night in them, every twig’s snap, every branch’s rustle popped our eyes wide open, and we’d toss and turn in an attempt to remind whatever visitor we had at our camp that we weren’t going anywhere and they’d have to get used to it.  Well, that’s why I did at least.

Check out more pix on my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=135324&id=646871400&l=6c203cdc63

A fiery work.

It’s easy to commit many sins (I know that’s strong, but stay with me) against the Holy Spirit.  The two obvious extremes are the people who ignore the necessity of His work and acknowledge Him only because He is mentioned in Scripture, and the people who think every goosebump, every feeling of euphoria or goodness are His handiwork.

Matthew 3:11-12 highlights a work of the Holy Spirit that I think we often are oblivious to.  It’s important that we know what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts and lives so that we can be open to His promptings especially when they involved change.  This is what the Scripture says (John the Baptist speaking):

“‘I baptize you with water for repentance.  But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gather his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

The Greek word for fire here, pu’r, means exactly what is translated as:  fire.  Jesus uses it when he says that every branch not bearing fruit will be thrown into the fire, and Luke uses it when he tells us that fire rested on the heads of those involved in the day of Pentecost.  Fire is used as a symbol for a work of the Holy Spirit.

The messages about the fire of the Holy Spirit that I’ve often heard have more to do with a “burning” sensation to get out and preach, to become “on fire for God.”  But if you look closely at most of the references that include fire, they are not talking about a passion.  They are talking about a cleansing.

The work of the Holy Spirit is, in part, meant to burn away the dead branches, the inedible chaff, from our hearts and minds so that we can bear good fruit and be a better example of Christ’s love to the world.  If we are not becoming a better person every day, if we are not seeing the “chaff” in our lives be burned away, then I don’t think we can actually say that the Holy Spirit has been working through us.

Perfect Faithfulness

It’s so easy to get frustrated when we don’t see things happening as quickly as we want them to, or in the same way or by the same means.  The past three months I’ve spent in Australia have been way different than I ever expected, in ways both good and frustrating.  I was reading in Isaiah when this verse struck me:

Lord, you are my God.  I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago. (25:1)

Notice that it says in perfect faithfulness.  God is perfect in His faithfulness.  God had things planned, spoke things through His prophets years and years before they actually reached fulfillment.  This scripture is especially interesting because Isaiah was the prophet that spoke the most about Jesus’ coming to Earth to redeem humanity from their fallen state.  In fact, just a few verses later, Isaiah says, “On this mountain [the Lord Almighty] will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever” (vs 7).  God’s promise to “wipe away all the tears” and “remove his people’s disgrace” (vs 8) was still hundreds of years from being fulfilled through Jesus.  Isaiah was not only praising the Lord for the fulfillment of His promises at that time, but for the fulfillment he knew would come eventually.

God’s timing is not for us to understand.  But through all the valleys we walk in, we can rest in the knowledge that He is faithful to complete the work He has begun in us, to not leave us in the midst of troubling circumstance, but help us find a way to the other side.

‘How do you take your coffee?’

Lately I’ve been frothing my own milk at the office.  Anna gave me the frother and a French press.  I’d mentioned to her one day that I’d had a not-so-good cup of coffee at work.  We had been using espresso ground coffee for a French press, and if you know anything about coffee, you will know that espresso ground is way too fine for a French press (called a plunger—more Aussie lingo).  Espresso grind is too fine to be pushed down completely by the mesh part of the plunger, so you end up with a lot of grounds in your what-would-otherwise-be a very nice cup’a joe.

I’d explained to Anna that I had figured out that this was why my cup of coffee really wasn’t that good, and she of course made all sorts of umm and ahh and hmm sounds and decided that I should just take her French press to the office.  No, that’s not necessary, I told her.  It wasn’t the plunger, anyways, it was the fineness of coffee grind.

Within minutes Anna had pulled out a green Wooly’s shopping bag and was filling it with every miscellaneous item she could see:  the French press, a milk frother, an old orange, a bag of almonds and cashews, and the entire kitchen sink (which wasn’t an easy thing to fit into the Wooly’s bag).

I decided not to even fight it.  It was nothing more than unnecessary, and why do we so often fight kindness anyways? Anna even stopped at Gloria Jean’s on the way to taking me to the office just to get me a bag of fresh ground (course for plungers) coffee.

About a week later, Sue, the assistant director, was making some coffee for afternoon tea and, upon opening the cupboard, exclaimed, “Why are there so many plungers in here?”

“One’s actually a milk frother,” I told her and left it at that.

________________

Other coffee terms I’ve learned while living in Australia:

• Flat white–a latte with all the foam from the milk strained off
• Short black–basically just a shot of espresso

It’s practically impossible to just buy a “regular” cup of coffee here.  I tried to order one my first morning (literally just off the plane), and the waitress just stared at me until I realized I had only told her the size.  (“And a regular coffee, please.”)  I fumbled around with my menu looking frantically for whatever it was that I was missing as the waitress waited patiently (she might have been trying to analyze my accent).  ”A, um, regular…” I drew out the last syllable as my eyes darted around the page “…cappuccino, please.”  A while later, I got a nice frothy cup of coffee with chocolate powder sprinkled on it which, because it had melted, actually made the foam look like it had been burnt.  I was hesitant to have the first drink, but it ended up being absolutely delicious.