Keeping Our Eyes Open

I noticed something this week in Maui. We live in a world that is incredibly focused. We go through life with our gaze fixed straight ahead—usually on the sidewalk directly in front of us making sure we don’t trip on anything, and we move quickly, dead set on arriving at our final destination as efficiently as possible. I’m completely guilty of this myself usually. One of my former roommates used to tease the rest of us for not “lolly-gagging” enough and tried to teach us to slow down, but I’m not sure it really worked. Until this past week that is. See, I have been to Maui several times now thanks to various people’s weddings and business conventions being held there over the years, and my all time favorite thing about being on the island is whale watching. I have never been to Hawaii when it has not been whale season, and quite honestly, I am not so sure I would enjoy it as much, as crazy as that may sound to some. There is something about literally sitting for hours doing nothing but staring at the water searching for the tell-tale puffs of mist that signify the presence of a whale beneath the surface that is absolutely addicting for me. On my last few trips over here I have pretty much insisted we go on a whale watching trip, not because I love being on a boat with 80 other tourists, but because it gets me out on the water and so much closer to these magnificent animals.

Anyways, the other day my parents & I had left our hotel and gone to lunch in Lahaina, at a beach-side restaurant that had a fabulous view of the walkway that connected several different major hotels with the beach (perfect for people watching), and the ocean beyond that. The entire time we were waiting for our meal and then while eating I couldn’t stop looking out at the water searching for those puffs of mist, and the occasional breach of a humpback, when I realized something. The whole time I was fixated on the water, literally thousands of people passed in front of us on the walkway, heading to or from their hotels, and none of them stopped walking to look around them! Maybe they figured that when they got to wherever they were going then they would look around and take in the view, but while they were walking, none of them slowed down enough to notice that right in front of them were some of the most majestic creatures on the face of this earth playing in the ocean.

That got me thinking. How many ways does God reveal Himself and His creativity, splendor, and glory to us? And how many times does He do this to have us completely ignore it? It’s like I preached about back in January—God reveals His glory all the time, but we are so busy being so focused on where we think we need to go that we frequently miss it. Even though we often ignore Him, God is going to continue revealing Himself to us. Those whales are going to continue breaching, blowing, spotting, and playing right in front of us, whether we are watching or not, but it is my prayer that we might all open our eyes a little wider, walk a little slower, and shift our gaze from the sidewalk in front of us to the splendor around us. Who knows, when we open our eyes, we might be privileged to see something like this:

or this...(a mom and her calf)

Aloha!

There’s nothing like 5 days of doing nothing but staring at waves, watching whales, and reading for fun! It was definitely a different vacation for me though! For one thing, this was the first family vacation I’ve been on since Megan and Nathan got married. They weren’t able to join us, so I was the “only” child for a week—lets just say I missed my sister! We’re used to going on business vacations, where Mom & Dad have banquets or business dinners each evening, but when that happens the two of us usually go to dinner together, and then either go for an evening swim, enjoy the hot tub, or go down to the beach together to watch the sunset. I wasn’t prepared to have to eat several dinners alone! I’m usually ok with doing that, with reading or people watching if I have to be in a restaurant alone, but there was something about it this time that felt weird! I’m not sure Hawaii is as much fun without you, Megs!

But, because this was a business trip (Thrivent, my dad’s company, takes their top insurance sales people and spouses for a week long trip each year to celebrate their accomplishments in 2006 and to re-motivate them for this upcoming year, and my dad was there from the corporate office to act as one of the “hosts” of the week), Thrivent chose the location. So they pay for the rooms, but each family is responsible for anything extra they order—food, drinks at the pool, movies etc. So since Thrivent chose the place to honor their top 100 sales people, we were at the Ritz Carlton, a place I have never stayed, and a place known for their astronomical prices & phenomenal service. Anyways, so I was on my own for all but 2 dinners of the week, so I went to the restaurant a few times and ordered room service a few times. I thought I’d save money one night by calling room service & ordering something from their kid’s menu, which they won’t let you do in the main restaurant but they will via room service. I didn’t have the entire menu in front of me, so I asked what they had on their kids menu and decided that the hot dog/French fry meal with a bottle of water—this sounded like a good, and probably one of their more inexpensive options available. So the bill comes…yeah, I enjoyed a $15 hot dog and a $12 bottle of water….and that was the most inexpensive thing we were able to order all week…needless to say when we go back to Hawaii on a non-business trip we won’t be visiting the Ritz!

Here are some photos from the week:

The first day I was there, my mom and I went on a hike with about 10 other Thrivent folks out to a blow hole and to a spot with this crazy cool lava rock spot.

Maui has all kinds of crazy beautiful spots that you just kind of stumble across as you wander...

The Ritz...yeah it was a rough week!We went whale watching on Saturday, with our new friends Hana and her grandpa. Here we are, ready to head out to sea in search of humpbacks!The West Maui Mountains from the boat Our hotel had baby sized palm trees--they were SO cute and I was actually taller than them!The beach by the hotel

And…even though I am not officially Lutheran any more, the one thing I have always appreciated about Lutherans (even though this is not something you might expect me to say…) is that they sure do know how to throw a party! Each night of the week had a different theme, and they did a full-blown bash every night to celebrate the accomplishments of their top producers. I wasn’t invited to any of the parties until last night when they let the families come to the St. Patrick’s Day party, and I was blown away by what they had put together. I didn’t realize this but Thrivent has a team of event planners that do nothing but plan the big events for Thrivent throughout the year. Since the last night of the week was the 17th, an Irish pub crawl was quite appropriate, and it was also a fabulous way to announce that this top conference for 2009 would be taking place in Dublin, Ireland (next year’s is a Mediterranean cruise…I’m kind of bummed my parent’s probably won’t be asked to host that event!) Here are some photos from last night: they even brought in a band that impersonates U2, they’re called “To-You” and were surprisingly fabulous—they did all the U2 songs and did them really well, getting everyone dancing and celebrating.

The entry bridge

They very cool guy hiding in a fruit platter who startled people as they reached for dessertOf course they had plenty of accessories around to help everyone get into the Irish spiritHana beating me in foosball

And...That's a Wrap!

So I haven’t decided if this is going to be a ridiculously long post or if I am going to split this into a couple different posts—I’m currently writing this in a word document as I’m on an airplane, but we’ll see how I am inspired when I actually go to post this tomorrow! I haven’t written in quite awhile—and have actually received comments from a couple of you asking me when I’m going to have something new to read—I didn’t even know people faithfully checked this page, so to my faithful readers, thank you! And I’m sorry for being so delinquent in my writing! I can blame it on class work, and finals, but really laziness and a lack of inspiration also have played a part too!

So winter quarter is officially over, and it was pretty much insane right from the beginning. Classes were a lot of work, but we also had a ton of extra events for the Presby community that took up a lot of time planning and organizing. It just felt busy from day 1, and I never felt like I even came close to being caught up until I turned in my last final paper. Mom and Dad had a business trip to Maui scheduled for this past week and had invited me to join them. I of course jumped at the opportunity & then realized it was finals week, not spring break, so that meant trying to turn in all of my work early, which sounded totally do-able about 2 months ago—and about a week ago sounded like the most ridiculous idea I have ever had. But, somehow I managed to get everything finished, turned in, and on Tuesday I hopped on a plane and spent the past 5 days relaxing in Hawaii. It was a wonderful trip…and I have more thoughts/pictures on that, so see the post below (Keeping Our Eyes Open).

This quarter found me figuring out a new passion of mine that I didn’t realize I had—preaching. This quarter also found me discovering one of the most difficult and frustrating things I have ever done—preaching. I took homiletics this quarter, and supposedly learned how to write a sermon…what they don’t tell you is how unbelievably difficult and aggravating this process can be. I can research just fine. Give me a passage and I’ll somehow figure out some cool historical background information on it, I can tell you if there is anything interesting in the Greek grammar of the passage, I can talk about who the original recipients of the letter were etc. But, the process of taking all that information and putting it into a message for people, a message that is not simply a lecture on the historical background of a passage of scripture but a message that actually speaks to their present situations is enough to drive me to tears each time. I love to write, and I love to speak, but somehow this process of sermon writing is unbelievably overwhelming to me. Yet I still love it. Because, it is a time when I am forced to say “ok God, I cannot do this on my own. I have nothing to say to this audience on my own, I need you to give me your words, I need you to help me figure out how to frame this in a way that people can hear it.” And what absolutely shocks me, is that every single time this has happened, God has been faithful. He does speak, sometimes not on my time schedule, but God does speak, He does eventually help me craft my research into a message, and I get to deliver a sermon that I know I did not write on my own. It is a crazy experience—one that I can’t often describe, but each time I am more and more amazed at how faithful He is. In April I’m preaching again at First Pres, Burbank, and am tackling a passage from the book of Revelation—which I am very excited about…so stay tuned J

I am also really looking forward to next quarter because I have decided to try slowing down a bit. I am only going to take 2 classes instead of the 4 I was originally registered for, and I am hoping to be able to spend more time experiencing different aspects of ministry in my internship because I feel like I just did not have the time this past quarter to really learn as much as I could have in this fabulous opportunity I have to serve on a church staff before I am thrown into my own church to sink or swim! I also hope to slow down a bit and be more intentional about keeping in touch with those who I have pretty much managed to ignore this quarter in my self-centered busy-ness—so to those of you who I have not done a fabulous job of keeping in touch with, I’m sorry and I am hoping spring will look a little different for me!

Anyways—I’m on my way back from Hawaii, and because I left early during finals I still have a whole week off before class starts!

They Love God by Covering Their Heads

I just recently read "A Generous Orthodoxy" by Brian McLaren, one of the key leaders of the emerging church movement, and found that I absolutely loved the book. It was interesting listening to some of the comments my classmates made about it, and it seemed like most of those who spoke did not have a very high regard for McLaren or his views, they felt like he was fairly uneducated (it's true, he hasn't been to seminary, but I wouldn't say that makes someone uneducated), and that he had weak church history and systematic theology knoweldge (ok he pretty much has no regard for systematic theology). I probably would offer the same critiques if I thought I was reading this book to gain a solid grasp of church history or systematics--this isn't the point of his book though! What I loved about McLaren's perspective is how gracious and honoring he is of so many different denominations and traditions. We live in a world where mud-slinging between various faiths, and even between various Christian churches is almost the norm, not the exception, and this has always frustrated me to no end. I am tired of hearing friends talk about how there is no value in liturgy, the Catholic church, and mainline Protestant denominations are dead, people who pray pre-written prayers have no authentic faith, traditions and celebrating the liturgical calendar is wrong...and on and on it goes.....what infuriates me the most is not these particular opinions--if someone wants to argue that liturgy isn't helpful in bringing someone into the presence of God, or if someone wants to claim that "spontaneous" prayers feel more authentic to them than a prayer written by someone a thousand years ago, I am ok with that. But what drives me nuts is that often these comments are made by individuals who have never taken the time to try and understand these ways of worship, they perhaps have memories of being bored during Christmas Eve mass at grandma's church and therefore have completely written off anything having to do with a liturgical form of worship without even trying to understand the beauty, depth, richness and history behind these things.

McLaren approaches this book with the idea that every tradition and denomination from the Roman Catholics to the Orthodox to the Methodists and the Calvinists have something to contribute to worship, to spirituality, and by ignoring all these other ways of doing things that may differ from our own, we are vastly limiting our view of God, the ways people connect with Him, and the ways He works in the world through worship. He argues (ok I'm putting this in my words, he doesn't really say this) but when we stop the mud-slinging and start listening to and learning from one another, and treating one another with honor, respect and dignity, we will be enriching our own lives and understanding of Who God is and who His people are. I'll stop "preaching" but I wanted to share with you my favorite story from his book, it's a story he tells towards the end about a friend of his and how she taught her daughter to respect the Muslims and their tradition of covering their heads. This story made me start to weep--which was slightly embarassing since I was in a crowded coffee shop at the time--but I realized these were tears of hope, I caught a glimpse of hope that if Christians really took this idea of loving and respecting our neighbors, this world would be a vastly different place. We could spend hours arguing over whether Allah is the same God as Yahweh, and at some point in the discussion this probably has a place, but when we start there, in a spirit of argumentation and determination to "convert" them to our "side", we miss the opportunity to extend the mercy of Christ to our brothers and sisters--to individuals that He created and loves just as much as He loves you and I. May this story bring you hope as well...hope that things can be different.



From A Generous Orthodoxy:


"My friend Diana Butler Bass tells this story in her book Broken We Kneel. Diana lives near the DC area—rich in cultural diversity, tense after the 9/11 attacks, and the context for this story:

One day [my daughter] Emma saw a woman walking towards us covered in a veil and asked the inevitable, “what’s that mommy?”

“Emma,” I answered, “that lady is a Muslim from a faraway place. And she dresses like that and covers her head with a veil because she loves God. That is how her people show they love God.”

My daughter considered these words. She stared at the woman who passed us. She pointed at the woman, then pointed at my hair, and further quizzed, “mommy, do you love God?”

“Yes honey.” I laughed. “I do. You and I are Christians. Christian ladies show love for God by going to church, eating the bread and wine, serving the poor, and giving to those in need. We don’t wear veils, but we do love God.”

After this, Emma took every opportunity to point to Muslim women during our shopping trips and tell me “mommy! Look! She loves God!” One day, we were getting out of our car at our driveway at the same time as our Pakistani neighbors. Emma saw the mother, beautifully veiled, and, pointing at her shouted “look mommy! She loves God!”

My neighbor was surprised. I told her what I had taught Emma about Muslim ladies loving God. While she held back tears, this near stranger hugged me saying, “I wish all Americans would teach their children so. The world would be better. The world would be better.”

Happy Love Your Friends Day!

For Valentines Day this year, all 4 of us were single and 3 of the 4 of us had class that night (and the other one has mono...). Soooo, we decided that this year we wanted to celebrate and do something fun in honor of our friendship. Several weeks ago we drew names for our secret Valentine, set a price limit and started making plans. We had decided that we would each exchange a small gift on Valentines day, but we still had to keep the identity of our secret valentine, well, a secret. That meant we had to enlist the help of others to do our delivering...my gift (from Sophie I later found out) came during my small group meeting from Christina via Alan (since Sophie couldn't leave the house she had to have a few folks help her...). I had Sophie's name and left her gifts outside her apartment door, and then set up an email account for Kernie, her stuffed monkey & had Kernie email her to tell her to look outside. Becca and Jenn had each other--Becca found 2 bags of flaming hot cheetos (yes, I think they are gross, Becca loves them...) outside her apartment door that morning and Jenn found a gift sitting on her desk in the class the 3 of us have together Wednesday nights. Then we decided to dress up and go to dinner and a comedy show on Saturday evening, and exchange the rest of our gifts....here are photos from last night's outing:

Poor Sophie, she insisted on coming with us, but she was SO tired...here is her all dressed and ready to go, waiting for Becca to arrive.

For her main gift, Becca, our resident artist, had hand painted John 3:16 in Greek, English, and Latin on a canvas for Jenn's wall--it was beautifully done!
For one of her gifts, Jenn had framed 2 photos from Becca's time as an intern at San Marino Community Church. One is of Becca with the sign out front on a day she was preaching and the other photo is of the youth group kids on a servant day.
Reading my card from Sophie that says that friendship is what it's all about, not the hokey pokey...if you've been to Cursillo, it'll make you laugh too....
In the car on the way over we were discussing the finer points of Thursday's Grey's Anatomy episode, and I was once again lamenting my addiction to a TV show. I had commented that I've decided my gift to myself at the end of this quarter (coming up here in about 3 weeks) is to buy season 1 on DVD so I can take it to Hawaii with me over Spring Break to watch on the plane. So I was VERY excited when I opened my gift from Sophie to find she knows me too well and had gotten it for me...and then promptly took it back and told me I can have it after finals...yeah she knows me a bit too well....those papers and sermons just won't be written if I have that in the apartment!
I had gotten Sophie a collection of random gifts, one being a copy of the The Trumpet of the Swan, which was her favorite book as a kid...she was very excited, she said her other copy had been dropped in the bathtub one day....

The beginning of our modeling careers

Sophie has had this random idea for months now to do a photo shoot of the four of us, so today she finally decided she had the energy and we all had the afternoon free, so we went for it. I think we decided that this was our favorite picture--I think the goal was to go for an urban chic look....I'm thinking only Becca's personality truly fits that theme, but the rest of us tried!

Here are the rest of our favorite photos from the day for your enjoyment...

And we decided to do the individual shots....

Miss Becca

SarahMiss Jenniferand Miss Sophie

Winter Retreat!

This past weekend 25 of us Presbys headed up the mountain to Big Bear to spend 2 days relaxing, worshiping, playing, eating, not sleeping, and hearing from our wonderful speaker, Neal Nybo. It was a wonderful weekend, with our theme being "Encountering Joy" and our speaker having experienced Cursillo and having caught the vision of instilling joy and renewal into pastors and seminarians, so it had a little bit of a Cursillo feeling (not anywhere near a real Cursillo weekend, but it was still fun to see some masks come off people and see people start to encounter joy for themselves.) Here are some photos from the weekend...I didn't take that many, but here are the ones I do have!

Steve and Mary doing their assigned kitchen duty on Saturday morning

Becca, looking like a "real" musician, getting warmed up to lead us in worship Saturday morning

Chris, Lisa and Christina

Becca and Stacey leading us in worship on Saturday morning

Stacey, Christina, Dave, Dave, BeccaBaking desserts Saturday night--Denise, Sandra, and Ryanand Dave "helping" by doing some of the "clean up"Neal, our speaker, demonstrating that he is a man of many talents--here he is showing us his wood chopping abilitiesNeal had brought with him our official Southern California Presbyterian Cursillo "banner"--our surfboard with the butterfly, both to show us and to send it home with Becca to have her paint a better butterfly on it...here we are with Neal and Peter, another Cursillo-ite from Houston who goes to Neal's church in San Diego and came to join us for the weekend. and of course, our true California girl, Becca, decided to actually ride the surfboard--on the snow...I convinced her to get off the surf board long enough to take a picture with me...Jenni and Denise