pondering Wild Goose and Willow Creek

In three months time I've see Lynne Hybels

and Bill Hybels

at the Wild Goose Festival

and the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit

respectively.

In many ways, the two experiences couldn't have been more different. At Wild Goose, it was hard to distinguish the famous from the ordinary. Sessions were more like conversations than lectures. Authors, scholars, and musicians - all with names you'd recognize - used port-a-potties and pitched tents just like the rest of us. We all stunk of sweat and bug spray. And it was beautiful.

At the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, speakers stood before a packed sanctuary at least three balconies high, while simultaneously being streamed live to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. We were handed a new shiny pamphlet every time we walked into the room. We were served by warmly smiling volunteers who seemed to literally come out of the woodwork, offering us water-with-lemon or iced coffee. Everyone looked and smelled lovely and there were definitely no port-a-potties.

And yet ... God was there, or as Billy Jonas sang to us at Shakori Hills, "God is In". He was there in the woods and He was there on the giant screen. He was there for the "beer and hymns" and he was there in the water-with-lemon. Not only that, the themes - the message - while communicated differently, were surprisingly similar. Worship. Justice. Peace. Activism. Leadership. Art. Creativity.The pulse of something new.

Of course, some differences were stark. I plan to post soon about how the gay question was handled in both places, and how I personally respect Bill Hybels for some seriously classy leadership in a very tough circumstance. Because it's not about agreement, it's about Love. And his Love was undeniable.

Lynne and Bill, Wild Goose and Willow Creek ... not pitted against one another but literally united in Love (in case you live under a rock, they're married). Both of them using their giftedness, living out their passions, creating a new and better world, often in radically different ways.

I've learned, though, that these worlds aren't so different after all ...and I feel personally challenged to the hard work of walking what sometimes feels like a knife-edge between the two. I'm inviting my Wild Goose-y friends and my Willow Creek-y friends to join me. Poke the boxes (to quote another amazing Leadership Summit speaker) you've been placed in. Challenge whatever your status quo is. Refuse to be pegged as "one of those people" and refuse to be cynical about "those other people". Keep folks guessing (trust me, it's fun!) If we do, I believe the knife-edge will become a wide open space of freedom, where we meet our Maker afresh and invite others to do the same.

pondering what I heard at The Global Leadership Summit

The Global Leadership Summit was amazing. I am humbled, truly humbled, at the hesitancy I felt at attending. I am quite foolish at times.

I assumed it would mostly be about how to have a bigger church - something I have zero interest in. Hear this now: I. WAS. WRONG. Very wrong. This summit was FANTASTIC. I can't imagine having not gone. I'm so thankful my church allowed me to go, paid for me to go - I'm humbly grateful. It will be a while before I've processed all I gleaned from the various speakers, but for now I want to focus on one aspect: having ears to hear.

As this summit began I offered up an open heart and open hands, and I asked for ears to hear. Now, God knows me. He knows my history. He knows I fight cynicism about certain things. He knows my language, and He knows how to break my barriers down. And over the past two days He continued to bless me with little gifts, treasures that were specific to me and kept my ears open.

I've already shared about the Mumford and Sons song yesterday. That, frankly, would have been enough. But this morning's opening scripture was my favorite passage from Colossians 1. I was trying to stifle a huge grin while my friend knowingly poked me from behind.

Later in the day, I found myself broken and spent after listening to Mama Maggie Gobran talk about the tough calling. With my head in my hands I gasped when I heard the team begin to sing yet another song I'm intimately familiar with, a song that's been set to "repeat one" often the past six months:

All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come up from this ground at all?
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

Hearing songs and passages that have been uniquely instrumental in my life lately ... it felt like whoever put this summit together had their finger on the same Pulse that I've had mine on. And that was an electrifying feeling! I don't know if I'm expressing it well, but it's incredibly affirming to realize "I'm not the only one" and "maybe I'm onto something after all". Such revelations blow fresh wind over the burning embers of your heart.

Finally (and I hope to expand on this more later), the last speaker made it clear - as if he'd pulled out a prescription pad, scribbled out words straight from God, and handed to me - that my role in making the world better, in literally creating the future, is to write.

It's that simple.

I asked God for ears to hear and I asked Him to speak.

He did.

"Write the damn book already!"

"Yes-sir!"

So with a shout out to the boy in the WAY too tight pants, I hereby declare myself a ditch digger. My shovel is a pen. Or actually (though less poetic), a keyboard.

*post-script ... to top off the past couple days of God-gifts, there's a fullish moon shining brilliantly above our backyard tonight. which you'd appreciate if I told you my moon story. but I've gotta save something for the book :)

pondering meeting my Maker

Back in June, we went to THIS concert...

I don't know if you can tell from the video (not shot by me, I was down on the floor singing at the top of my lungs with my hands in the air) but this was a seriously intense God-moment. The energy in the room, the looks on the group's faces as they listened to all of us singing THEIR WORDS written from THEIR HEARTS, the passion with which they played their instruments, the intensity with which we ALL sang, the palpable presence of something Bigger than any of us smiling on and in and around us... it's hard to articulate how special it was.

So it goes without saying that Mumford and Sons' music means a lot to me. Especially this song. I've listened to it a lot the past few months, as life has been uncomfortably uncertain, in ways. Owning my questions and outing my beliefs, opening my heart WIDE for anyone and everyone to see, has brought some difficulty. The entire album, and specifically this song, has spoken to me in very real ways. I've sung it at the top of my lungs with my kids, laughing when they misunderstand the lyrics (Mary thinks the "har har" is about Jesus living in your heart, how precious is that?) I've sung it while mowing the grass, which I do when I'm mad or frustrated. I've fallen asleep listening to it.

Then we come to this morning. This morning I attended the Global Leadership Summit at a local satellite location with others from my church. I'd been invited and I agreed to go, even though - to be honest - I wasn't sure I should. I wasn't sure I "fit". To confess, here, I'd actually called the Well of Mercy - I was considering bailing at the last minute and going for a solitude retreat instead (since I'd already worked out child care). The sweet Sister informed me they were completely booked. I took that as a sign: humble thyself, and go to the summit.

I love the people I'm attending with, don't get me wrong - genuinely love the dear people from my church who came along. But as things got started I was still fighting this feeling that I didn't actually belong there and really shouldn't have come. I held this feeling up to God with open hands in prayer, asking if He'd meet me - regardless of whether I was or wasn't officially part of this or that group or team. Just meet me - me.

Meet me, please.

I literally prayed these words.

Then something truly surreal happened. A black gospel singer started to sing words I am intimately familiar with, but which sounded foreign coming out of her mouth... there was a praise team with her ... the words were:

How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes

I struggle to find any truth in your lies

and now my heart stumbles on things I don't know

my weakness I feel I must finally show

I literally jumped upright! I looked around myself. Is anyone else hearing this? Anyone?! It was like two separate worlds had collided into one strange, twilight-zone moment. Oh, what I would have given for my husband to have been with me or one of our friends from the concert, but none of them were there. No one "got it". But that didn't matter... I got it.

Even though it was admittedly quite weird and almost laughable listening to a black gospel praise team trying to do the "har har"s, I could barely contain my excitement when I sang along:

Awake my soul

for you were made to meet your Maker!

It was literally like He lifted my chin, looked me in the eyes, and said, "I see You. And yes, I will meet you. You were made to meet Me. And you belong here."

I'm told that hundreds of thousands of people watched/listened to today's summit all over the globe (hence the name) but I can't deny - I won't deny - that that very song was chosen just for me.

As Sara Groves sings,

They want to know what I'm thinking • What motivates my mood • To spend all night in the backyard • Staring up at the stars and the moon • But maybe this was made for me • For lying on my back in the middle of a field • Maybe that's a selfish thought • Or maybe there's a loving God • And maybe I was made this way • To think and to reason and to question and to pray • Or maybe that's a foolish thought • But maybe there's a loving God •

There is a loving God. He sees me. He knows me.

I was made to meet Him.

And so are you.

Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all
But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall
Lend me your eyes I can change what you see
But your soul you must keep, totally free

har har, har har....

pondering motive

It's been said that, "You can't see a motive."

I'd have to agree. And yet, it's so common for us to assume we can? Makes me think about how Jesus told us that we are blind for the very reason that we won't admit we ARE in fact blind. Definitely the case here.

We judge what we can't see. What we can't know. All the time denying we are in fact blind to others' motives, to their hearts, to their stories.

Case in point: the kids and I spent yesterday in Julian Price Park on the Blueridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC. We were creek-walking, and my oldest was out ahead. He has Asperger's Syndrome - a form of Autism. To say that he does not think before he acts would be a gross misstatement. He does think. He thinks all the time. He just doesn't think the way you or I do.

If you or I were walking in a creek and saw a watermelon in the water, we'd assume that someone put it there because they wanted to keep it cold. If we didn't arrive at that conclusion, we'd probably at least walk past, leaving it alone. I'm guessing.

Not him. His thought process is mostly visual images, but if translated into words it would go something like this:

"Watermelon in creek. Watermelon does not belong in creek. Watermelon belongs in store, in fridge, on counter, on table, in bowl - places I have seen watermelons before. This is clearly an unattended watermelon - if it had a caretaker it would be in a logical place for watermelons to be. I've often dreamed of smashing a watermelon just to see what would happen, but every watermelon I've previously encountered has been overseen by someone who had other plans for it, and thus, smashing would result in a negative experience for me. This watermelon is obviously not being overseen, otherwise it would be in a logical place. Not lying in the creek. I shall smash it."

Now, I came upon the scene later - when my son had moved on. An elderly man approached me, quite angry. He was missing some teeth and seemed to be, as my mother likes to say, "two sheets to the wind". Still, neither of these issues made him any harder to understand.

"You better do somefin bout dat boy a yers, he dun smashed dis here watermelon we was fixn to eat, and I'm *$^&* mad about it too! Mad, I say! You better do somefin bout him! You better do somefin, I say!"

I wish I could say this was a new and unusual experience for me, but it wasn't. My son is almost thirteen, so for at least twelve years now I've run interference between him and the non-autism-world. I'm developed a certain... unflappable-ness, shall we call it? Even this guy couldn't rattle me.

"I'm truly sorry. I'll ascertain what happened and get back to you."

More yelling, swearing, and chest thumping from tipsy toothless man as I calmly walked on, wondering whether he had the slightest idea what ascertain meant.

Thankfully, a woman who appeared to be his adult daughter intervened. I looked back and told her that I'd be sure to take care of the situation. She smiled a patient smile; in a way this made us kindred spirits.

I walked on and found my son jumping into a swimming hole. I pulled him over and asked what had happened with the watermelon. He related to me nearly word for word what I've already shared above (honesty is his strong suit). When I explained that a family had put the watermelon in the creek in order to keep it cool, he was mortified. He'd had no idea it belonged to anyone. He wanted to apologize.

I imagined him trying to apologize to drunken denture-needing man, and decided against it.

I returned to the scene of the crime and addressed my explanation to his adult daughter. She smiled and said it was no big deal. What neither of us said, but what passed between us all the same, was gratitude. I was grateful she'd been patient with my son. She was grateful I'd been patient with her father.

That's when it sort of struck me... this man had misjudged my son's motive, but who was I to judge his motive? Maybe watermelon was a luxury for him. Maybe he's been mistreated by spoiled boys who have nothing better to do than pick on old men. Maybe he's sick or mentally ill. Maybe he has a neurological difference that was never treated when he was young: Asperger's like my oldest son or agenesis of the corpus callosum like my youngest daughter. Who could know? Such things are invisible. I can't see his motive.

Turns out the only motive I can even begin to see is my own.. and often, that's iffy.

I'm guessing this is why Paul directs us to believe the best about people. And why Jesus reminds us to treat others the way we want others to treat us ... or our sons ... or our elderly fathers.

A final thought here ... while it isn't possible to see a motive, motives are knowable. But not with blind eyes. Only with open ears and open hearts. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear", Jesus said (a few times, as I recall). His brother James wrote, "Be slow to become angry but quick to listen." A good listener gets to hear the stories behind the motives.
A good listener gets to know. That inspires me.

pondering the orthodox heretic

My Galatians-Girls group talked about this parable from Peter Rollins earlier this summer. I continue to ponder it... would love to hear your thoughts.

pondering writing

This blog is practice. Some of you respond well to what I write, how I write... THAT I write. That helps me. Because this is all practice.

A year ago I read these words by Frederick Buechner:

Write about what you really care about. Write about what truly matters to you - not just things to catch the eye of the world but things to touch the quick of the world the way they have touched you to the quick, which is why you are writing about them. Write not just with wit and eloquence and style and relevance but with passion. Then the things that your books make happen will be things worth happening - things that make the people who read them a little more passionate themselves for their pains, by which I mean a little more alive, a little wiser, a little more beautiful, a little more open and understanding, in short a little more human. I believe that those are the best things that books can make happen to people, and we could all make a list of the particular books that have made them happen to us.

The writers who get my personal award are the ones who show exceptional promise of looking at their lives in this world as candidly and searchingly and feelingly as they know how and then of telling the rest of us what they have found there most worth finding. We need the eyes of writers like that to see through. We need the blood of writers like that in our veins.

I knew when I read that, that I have to write. Really write, as in a book. As in bookS. I've taken steps in this direction: last year I participated in an Artist's Way group, for example. But I busied my schedule with too many things and so I didn't actually end up really ... writing. Now? Well, now it is time. Events and relationships of this past year have enriched the story even more, so that I don't regret waiting. I am eager.

My husband bought me a little netbook laptop thing that is so light and tiny, and ALL MINE. I won't share it with kids. It can come with me on bike rides. It will go everywhere with me. And while they are in school each day I will hold up somewhere-not-at-home, get comfy, and by golly ... I will write.

What will I write about? What kind of books?

Why, the kind Buechner spoke about, of course. The kind that make people more human.

life lessons from mountain biking with my boys

fear ruins the ride-if you brake on the downhill you wont have momentum for the uphill

the secret to crossing narrow bridges is to pedal through

walk it when you have to, just dont stop

its a lot cooler under shade trees

that guy who said to take the road less traveled isnt always right

if somebody goes down, yell "are ya hospital hurt?" if not back up & try it again

at the end sing "we are the champions!" at the top of your lungs

**forgot one: always carry Bactine :)