praying for the weather.

Let me tell you something-- God works that field. He works it. Like an inappropriate reference. Works. it. We have got to start doing more field-praying as a church.

Last night was another ILA prayer-walk over the Springfield Underground. I am so enthusiastically a fan of the last one that I was worried that tonight wouldn't pan. That I'd get back out there, and get warmed up on the weather, cruising towards salvations, only to find that it was just a special thing, last Saturday. Just a one-hit wonder in the prayer-walkin' world. A powerful moment is all.

Again, I began in a smile. I didn't mention this about Saturday, but the sight of so many people heading out in prayer makes me smile. It's weird, yeah. Goofy. Something other than normal, to have people lifting their arms to heaven, pacing a giant snake bed. But my heart feels its goodness. Where my mind says, "What the h are these people doing?", my heart says "Yes, Lord, this is good." So I smiled, and began to pray.

Prayer and I have a funky relationship. I've struggled heavily with prayer, for years, and the last ten months have been no exception. For awhile, I felt as though I was forcing prayer. That I was creating a God in my mind, through prayer. I gave that up, realizing that I cannot "create" Him, He exists. Done. Then I stopped praying for specific things at all, and just gave really short prayers. "Your will be done." Then I thought maybe I could view prayer as a casual conversation. Which is fine, and maybe good in ways, but resulted in a lot of prayers like this: "Look, God, I know you're going to do what you want to do, but I would really like it if you could..." I've come to more-or-less okay prayers over the last few weeks, but have still felt odd asking for the basics, and the specifics. James River has no such qualms.

As I sat out there, trusting God that I'd not be eaten by a cottonmouth, something changed. I began to pray, and heard the familiar refrain, "...but I know you might not do that, and if so, that's cool too..." and got interrupted, "There's obedience in the asking."

There's obedience in the asking.

I've always buffered my prayers with "you might not," and "whatever you want to do," and "but if it doesn't turn out," thinking that I'm the smarter for recognizing that sometimes, things don't go as we pray. As though these people don't know that. Like they are ignorant to the fact that though they pray in belief, God chooses otherwise sometimes. Of course, they know. And they've known what I haven't. There's obedience in the asking. So I began to ask.

Only...I'm not used to asking for things. Big, immeasurable, diffuse things, like wisdom, and love, and grace--certainly. Small things, like sunny skies, and traffic, and test grades--no, not really. So I started to ask, but quickly found myself in the same pattern. "Father, please touch hearts regardless of the weather." No, wait. What do you really want? Wait, what do I really want? Does God care?

My mind drifted to a half-dozen scriptural references to God's attention to prayer, and I realized...He wants to know what I want. I don't often pray for the specifics because those prayers aren't always answered, but there's obedience in the asking, and I have a God who cares to know. There's love in the asking. I don't understand the entirety of His plan. I don't know why He lets some people fall into financial ruin, and others die terrible deaths, and others live happily ever after. But He cares. So, I sat in that field, and took freedom in what I really wanted for the people I was praying for. It felt good.

Yet, even as I stepped forward, I felt resistance. The weight of my habits sat over my prayers, and I had to fight the urge to back down, to say, "Well, God, regardless of the weather..." I felt doubt in my heart. I felt silly for asking. And I realized.

My reticence to pray for the "small stuff" has been a power grab. In dismissing His call to pray over the details of my life, instead deciding that He might not answer this, and might not answer that, so I'd best not bring it--I've been choosing. I've been holding on to things, deciding that I know better. That I'm too smart to ask. As though He can't see the cards I'm holding.

To ask, knowing that His plan is bigger, and better, is humbling. To ask, knowing that whatever He gives will be perfect eternally, is awe-inspiring. To ask, without doubt and fear, is freeing.

So I asked. Smiling, I asked for 82 degrees, with a slight wind out of whichever direction these people like their wind coming from, and no rain.

prayer-walkin', prayer-talkin'.

I've never prayer-walked before. Can you use the phrase that way? I was prayer-walking, I am a prayer-walker, I prayer-walked this morning?

I did. I went on a prayer walk today. It was by far one of the goofier things I've done with this church yet. But also one of the most powerful. Goofy, but good. Very, very good.

Let me describe the scene. There's a really huge field, bordered by some sort of industrial plant on one side with a view of the highway, and country land on the other side. 100 or so people are gathered under a white tent at the far corner of this massive piece of land. There's a ten minute sermon. Then, we are sent out to...walk, I guess.

A friend briefly describes this adventure, and the rules seem simple. Walk, pray, be back in 40. Got it. So, I walk. And I pray. And throughout that 40, something happens.

As I walk, I see others walking the field around me. Sometimes I pass close enough to see or hear them. Most of the time, we are figures too distant one to the other to make out words. I see some of them lifting their arms in prayer. Others kneel to the ground. Most just walk. I pass one or two speaking in tongues.

The day is gorgeous. Unbelievably big blue sky, I mean just, huge, expansive, awe-some. I begin in praise. I know that whatever else anyone feels when they step onto this land, I want them to feel awe. I praise, because I want them to praise. I feel my knees pulling me down, and I know I want to fall to them. To Him, more precisely. I know that what I'm feeling is worship, adoration, humility. I want to fall to my knees, and tell Him that I'm not God. That I don't want to be God. That I love Him, and will give everything at every moment to be close to Him. That I'm in. I am all in. And sometimes He scares me. I don't always understand God, and what I do understand bowls me over, knocks me down, winds me. But I'm in. I am in.

But then. I'm not in. I'm too scared to fall to my knees, because there are others around. I'm too scared to pray aloud. In a big, big field, with no one around! I think to myself, "Ash, who cares if someone were to hear you?" Maybe they'd think I was silly, or that my prayers were silly, or that I wasn't a very good pray-er. "Really? And yet you pray to God all day. You pray intermittently all day to the Creator of all of this. The Most High. The power. But you're more worried about the ears of men?"

Sometimes, I feel like a failure. I'm not doing what I want to do. In some ways, I'm not being who I want to be. Not to my Christian friends, and not to my non-Christian friends. Not to myself. Not to God?

He loves me anyway. He honored my prayers today, though I stood still and silent when my heart called me to more. I felt His presence today in a way that I never have, which I can only attribute to whatever happened on that field. Though I could not or did not step out for Him, He loves me.

I pray that He continues work in me. That though I am scared and timid, and self-absorbed...I would become less so. That though I live far from His heart so often, my knees would bend, my voice would lift, and that I would every day be whatever kind of "all in" I can be.

closer to that edge.

My car is having trouble. I'm not actually sure that it will start tomorrow morning. This morning, I guess.

It broke down. And I panicked. This is not a great time financially for big car stuff. I have an exam to get to in the morning. On and on. Then I realized...I've been praying for wisdom, and Godliness, and thanksgiving through stress. And now's the time. How much more important is a person's life, than my car, and I've written here about praying that those who have bodies wracked with cancer would lift their arms and praise Him.

I've written about how if God took every good thing I now possess, I would still have Him, and that is all there really is. I've written that I don't exist to be served but to serve Him, and that if this life were filled with nothing but strife, yet still I would fear God because He is God.

A car might seem a silly a thing to stress on. It is, and it isn't. But, I have the very palpable sense that God allows this sort of strife as a form of blessing.

I was at this bible study last night, and the rabbi we were listening to talked about how in the OT, leprosy was given as a consequence of sin. In at least one case, when a person whole-heartedly repented, she was delivered from the terrible disease.

I thought that, in a sense then, what an incredible blessing to have been given leprosy, to have been touched by God with such a conviction. Certainly, many others, all others really (and all of us), deserved such a consequence, but not all were given this opportunity to be touched, and turned by God towards repentance. Many simply lived on in sin, in ignorance of God's power and holiness.

Clearly, I don't think that my car breaking down is a consequence for sin meted out by God. Though shoddy craftsmanship is most definitely of the underworld. But, this is an opportunity to know God, to understand His sovereignty in my life, to put to the test all that I've said about the singularity of my purpose.

I stood in my kitchen this afternoon, thinking about the car, and I felt God speak peace to me. Peace, and challenge, almost as though He was saying, "You need to walk with Me in confidence here, because the waters are going to get really rough sometimes. And so this kind of thing cannot pull you under." So I asked, what should I do? "Love the people coming into your home tonight. Pray. Deal."

I guess it's funny to be grateful for a challenge. An annoying, costly kind of logistical challenge. But if challenge brings me closer to Him, I will celebrate it as whichever slim part of the plan I am able to understand.

tongue-tied.

Can I just be honest for a second?

I cannot seem to keep my mouth in check. Lately, I have been saying things to people, and either immediately, or a few days later, it hits me... what in the world was I thinking?

Sometimes, it's small. Maybe s/he didn't think a second thought. Other times, it's huge, and I know I've got some apologizing to do. Often, it's with other Christians, and I'm fairly sure that though I'm proving myself obnoxious, I'm not leading anyone astray. Too often, it's with people who already have a disdain for Christianity, and I realize that I am hurting them in a much greater way than with gossip or insult.

Across the board, I cannot seem to reign it in.

I hype myself up to talk with certain people, knowing I tend to say dumb things around them. And then I end up insinuating that they're attention-hungry. I remind myself repeatedly to show kindness, but I still let rip one barb after another. I prep myself for a conversation, knowing I'll feel a tendency to misrepresent my true feelings on some issues. And I still end up telling some stories best left untold.

The worst part is that what I say isn't even really what I feel. I'm just reacting from this weird, self-protective kind of sarcasm. So it's not only meanness, it's narcissism.

I tried to explain one of these situations to my best friend, and she asked me why I felt I had to be kind this guy I know. I'm thinking, "Is this a trick question?" I did not realize that kindness was not a universal value. But then I had to explain--and how do you explain the need for kindness without bringing up God, Christ, grace or love? (My inability to go there with my friends is another post entirely--and another way in which I've been feeling like a complete failure recently.) So, I'm trying gingerly to give a rationale for wanting to be kind to this guy, despite our animosity. Fail. She tells me that some people just don't respond to neutrality or kindness.

That somewhat misguided advice notwithstanding, their response is not entirely my business. I ought to be in the business of kindness. Of honesty. Of thoughtfulness. Regardless of how it is received.

So I pray. And I fail. I pray. Then fail. On and on. Soon, I start to wonder, why does God love me? How can He forgive this stuff?

And Grace becomes a little bit more real.

Maybe staying in the center of that grace is the key to my taming of the tongue?

churchy. what. what.

I am churchy.

I realized this while talking to my roommate last Wednesday. I was feeling really tired, and roping her in on the debate as to whether or not I should skip church. On the pros, I could barely make sense. On the con side, I said, I haven't skipped church "just because," since I got here. And the legit absences could be counted on one hand.

Her eyebrows went up, and that's when I realized. I'm in this.

I mean, I've known I'm in this. That has been blatantly obvious for awhile now. The first time you show up at the church at 7:15am on a Sunday, bleary-eyed with the caffeine shakes--it's on. But the surprise on her face really drove it home. I am churchy. I should just go buy a Max Lucado book. Then stop using Max Lucado as the prop of choice in my churchy slams.

After months of making fun of churchy-ness in others, it's time to face the truth. That's a dumb way of saying this: It is time to let go of the skeptical cynic I was, and embrace that I have become something else. Though I may never stop seeing the "strangeness," I am now much more like my community than I am different. And my residual sarcasm serves only to make me feel alienated, and to in fact alienate me from people who I so greatly admire, and love. Those who have so greatly loved me.

I return to who I was, mistaking that for who I am. But I'm not that same girl who came here to mock and ridicule. I don't believe in some sort of infallible intelligence any longer. I accept my inability to be God. I respect the authority He has placed in the leadership of a church I love. Done.

Standing in the kitchen, watching my roommate watching me, it suddenly occurred to me that she really doesn't understand what she's seeing. We moved in together about two months ago. She doesn't know any other me than the me who volunteers at church, and pulls out paraphrased, pop-infused references to the Old Testament (only when provoked). She'd be surprised to read some of the early entries of this blog.

The reality that I live (but have been poorly living in) is that God came, and He shook, and He loved, and He changed. And I don't have to be the cynic any longer. I get to be the enthusiast. The one who belongs. The one who worships. The one who claims His name without any shame.

The one who knows better than skipping church.

having had Him once.

So much of this blog is my own attempt to capture, if just for a moment, the steps on this path. To reach out and say something, anything, about these individual moments to make them stay. To remember them. Cherish them.

I was standing in the narthex last week, leaning against one of those pillars that have the words at the top, maybe the one the that says "Hope." (Is there one that says "Hope"?) I remembered standing there months ago. So much happens in a month now. Every three weeks, I think back to three before, and barely recognize myself. There are friends I haven't seen for a few weeks, and when I see them again, I feel as though I should warn them: "I look the same, but you might have to get to know me again." It's probably not really noticeable to anyone else.

But I was standing by the pillar, and I turned to look out. The glass soars upward, and, despite that building across 65, and 65 itself, there's something expansive about the view. Something that reminds me that God is a big God. I stood there, doing what I do in the quiet moments, trying to connect to God.

I worry a lot that I create a god for myself--that in my attempts to pin a feeling, or a sensation of God, I cheapen Him. But in that moment, I understood. It doesn't matter whether I can "feel" God. My sensing God is irrelevant to His existence. He doesn't exist as a part of my heart or brain, but as a physical reality so much larger than any part of me. If I ceased to connect with Him today, if I never put another ounce of effort into being with Him, He would still exist.

The problem for me, with those thoughts, is that when I really start to understand like that, the enormity of God slams into me, and I feel like throwing up. The realities of this faith--that there is the God so powerful, His gargantuan love for me, His sacrifice, His continuing faithfulness--are completely overwhelming.

But the thoughts are important. The understanding is important.

Also important--the knowing that this isn't up to me. I pray sincerely for God to help me to understand our relationship. I read His word. I participate in His body. That's my job. Now, I trust. I cannot force a natural understanding onto a supernatural phenomenon.

I'll wait for Him because I want more of Him. But also because He is worthy of my waiting. Because even if He never felt close again, I'd have everything, having had Him close even once.

speed season.

So much to say. So few words available.

I feel as though I'm rapidly spin-cycling through "seasons" of faith. My perspective, and beliefs, and understanding is all changing so quickly, it's hard to catch my breath.

One week, the focus is on obedience, and I feel that I'm suddenly understanding parts of submission, and authority, and trust that I've never understood before. The next, a switch flips, and I'm being hit with words on humility and acceptance. A half-week later, my perspective turns upside down as I begin to understand better and better the reality of the personal God.

I'm panting, trying to keep up. Wondering if I'm doing all of this right. Trying to give myself some grace on the things I know I'm messing up. And there are so many things I know I'm messing up. I could pop off ten legitimate fouls right now.

It's almost as though the lessons and realizations are coming so fast, I barely have time to think about them, and incorporate them, before the next comes. Which reminds me that it's not about me grabbing wisdom, it's about grabbing God and living that wisdom through Him.

Good lesson on its own.

here i am.

I've been getting out of bed late at night.

Sleepy, with my face mask shoved up over a mussy ponytail, trying to make sense of the shape of my furniture in the dark, and always, always catching my left toes on that second bar stool.

I'm going to say something crazy in 5..4..3..2..

I get up because He calls to my heart. He says to meet Him. To get out of bed, and meet Him.

And I think, Father, I love you. But we've met. We've been meeting. Great job on the OT, by the way, that's really, really top notch stuff back in there. We've met. So why now? It's late, I'm tired. I'm in bed. I'm warm. I've prayed for the housewives today. It's all good.

Come. Meet Me. I want to talk to you.

And then I think, if God tells you to get out of bed because He wants to talk to you, you'd best jump to, Bunnell. Look at what happened to Uzzah. Dude got smote. So I get out of bed.

Some nights, it's glorious. We talk, and it's entirely different than any other time throughout the day. Something about the quiet, and the dark, amplifies my reliance on His voice. Other times, I feel like I wait and wait, and nothing happens. But I don't feel released. I feel as though He's telling me to stay still, and wait some more. So I do. Still, nothing. Until it's time to go back to sleep. I'm let go.

Either way, one thing is certain: I am honored to be called out of bed by a God who knows my name.

Yet, there's nothing special about me. He knows each of us. He calls each of us. And in that, we become special. Marked by the Most High.

A friend suggested I memorize scripture last week. Not something I was particularly keen to--I wasn't raised doing that, so the idea isn't a common one to me. But I do think it's a good one. So I figured I'd just start with Ephesians. I'm wondering now, in the telling, if that's normal. Do people remember whole books, or just verses from different places? Am I going about this the right way? I feel sometimes like I do this whole Christian thing a little oddly.

Well, anyway, Ephesians. As I've been memorizing, this verse in the first chapter comes back to me: "Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession..."

I like the idea of having been marked. I like especially the idea of a sort of indwelling by the Holy Spirit. When He calls me to meet Him, I've dimly understood that it has something to do with that Spirit.

I'm waiting on Him. With Him.

behind the veil.

I earned it. Right?

I've put in the time. I've lived the life. I'm wise.

I've earned the right to call it as I see it. I know what I'm talking about. I know you disagree, but, have you seen what I've seen?

Right.

So, you think you've got the ear of the Most High. But I know life. Forget about the sky, I know what happens down here. And what I say is real. It's true.

That's the fallacy I lived under. I came here with an arrogance that said all of that and more. It said, "What I say is right, and I have the wisdom and intelligence and knowledge to pass judgment on everything under the sun."

I'm thinking about this after a recent conversation with a friend from home. I was telling her that I was going out with some friends, and she told me, jokingly, to "Stay safe, stay sober-er." I said that I wasn't worried--the strongest thing these friends drink is some mouthwash down the wrong pipe. And there was a weird moment. A "what are you doing down there with conservative Christians" moment.

I want to think that I'm imagining these kinds of things. But I'm really not. The weird moments are there. They happen.

And they remind me that we all have a religion. We all have a church. We all listen to sermons. We are congregants of whatever doctrine to which we feel called. Though we might eschew "traditional" belief systems, yet we believe.

Some of my friends are a little weird-ed out that I'm hanging with people who don't drink. People who don't swear. People who choose to take a pass on sex until he puts a ring on it.

They look at those choices, and the beliefs that underlie them, and they're incredulous. They think that these new friends are immature. Mistaken. Sometimes, it's a bit stronger. Sometimes, they think these friends are foolish, stupid even. And when it comes to the big ticket beliefs (ie. ones that can be voted on), the incredulity turns to disdain, then hatred.

All of that--based on what? A veiled religion. A personal religion that says that the Christianity of my new friends is bunk. But, a lot of those who claim to stand above religion ultimately follow the least sensical faith of all--an unsubstantiated set of sensations, or feelings, about the way the world is or ought to be. They claim to set aside judgment, in a sort of high-minded tolerance and relativism. But who can do that? Might just as well know the beliefs you live by. Know the standards by which you're passing judgment.

That might be harsh for me to say, judgmental, even. But I am well-qualified to talk about judgmentalism. I have a knack for snap judgment, a gift. I won the prize before I came to Christ, and I'm in the running still.

So, there's one thing to say.

Father, thank you for your patience with me. Thanks for letting me see what I hadn't. You reached in and changed everything when I was so so certain of my own wisdom. Thank you for giving me grace with people to whom I was so ungracious. Bless me to show that kind of grace. Take my judgmentalism, leaving only an unswerving love of truth, and a deep desire to know you beyond all of what I think I already know.

Let me be bare, that I might let others be so vulnerable to You.

stay close.

I'm not worried. I'm not scared.

I am curious. I wonder what it will be like to go home. I imagine myself, sitting around the kitchen of my mentors, sharing wine with my closest friends, talking about life. Jay will tell tales of med school, and activism. Suzie just graduated from law school. Elle and Mack are sending their oldest off to college this fall. They'll all tell about their victories, and their faults, and what they think has gone well since we last shared, and what bombed.

What will I say?

"Well. Remember that blog I sent you about that megachurch I visited when I first went down there? Something happened. Yes, it's big, and very conservative. But these people get love like no church I've ever been in. And I know it seems crazy from the outside. Yes, I remember Bush's re-election. But that's not what it's like. The media picture of evangelicals is not really all that accurate in the flesh. These people love. No, they don't agree with certain things, and they won't pretend like they do. But they don't hate, they don't judge. They just stand. And they're not dumb. They're not unsophisticated. On the contrary, they're well-educated, and incredibly talented. Take everything you thought you knew about born-agains, and chuck it."

Hmmm...that's pretty much how Christmas Eve started. That night ended with Mack telling me that I was an idiot if I agreed with the literal conservatism of the kind of church I was attending.

Maybe I should try a different route.

"You know the church I've been telling you about? Yeah, I kinda love it. Actually, I really love it. The love these people show is unbelievable...I feel like I finally see what the biblical church should be. It has changed me. I thought I understood Christ. But seeing Him in these people has changed my perspective. I feel myself getting softer. Slower to judge, less sure of my own truths and more open. I like it. I like who I'm becoming. They're not perfect. I'm not perfect. But I'm glad I'm there. Really, really glad, actually."

Hmm. Better. Not perfect.

To my closest friends, I think my faith is something of an enigma. They trust me. They trust my mind. But they think that truth is relative. So, we can maintain separate belief systems happily (though I see now that there are probably cut points--places beyond which they would find difficulty in living to let live). To my mentors, this is probably seen as just a necessary part of the path. I think they assume that I'll come through it, and back to them (the liberal intelligentsia, for lack of a better descriptor).

It's hard not to feel alone. Caught between. It was easier to hold the liberal theology--it was a bridge between whatever corner of truth I had found in the Gospel, and the relativist culture of secular education.

I can start to wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me. If reality isn't real. I begin to wonder if I'm not a little schizophrenic. Split between two worlds, unsure of which is truth.

I go to His Word. And I hear the Episcopal priest telling me of the difference between fact, and truth. How the bible is true, but not necessarily factual. A Lindell-esque response fires back: given that, how will we decide which parts are merely truth, but not fact? In which book, chapter, or verse will we decide to buy in? But, of course, we can't discount the priest out of convenience, or ease. To say that we ought believe from the beginning, because we are otherwise bereft of knowing where to begin speaks only of our desire to know, not our ability. And ignores the many ways of knowing, of understanding.

So, it's complicated. A sometimes lonely sort of complication.

Father, stay close.