Speaking the Truth in Love

I'm angry right now. I am frustrated with Christian brothers and sisters who make us look like uncaring, self-righteous hypocrites. In truth, I am a uncaring, self-righteous hypocrite but I'm not proud of it.

A few minutes ago I read the attached article on Heath Ledger and instantly my Agenda Radar (version 4.0) went off. I'm not going to comment too much on what the article said so perhaps read it for yourself and see what you think.

I'm increasingly sick of the need to take a story about a person's troubled life and use it as a lead-in to brow beat people for their Godless lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, there is A LOT of truth in this article. Most of what they say is true, but the manner in which they say it infuriates me.

I went to a Bible study at church last night and the speaker reminded us that we need to be careful as to how we use the Word of God. We need to check our heart and see what our motives are before we speak. She pointed out that even Satan uses God's Word (Matthew 4), but his motives aren't pure.

We need to be careful that we "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). Yes, truth needs to be spoken, but we need not step onto our soap box for the purpose of being right.

Heath Ledger's death is definitely something that we should talk about. I honestly don't know if this was a case of suicide or not. That is not for me to say, but whether or not it was, one thing is for sure, people are hurting. We all know that there is more to this life than what we see and stars that achieve everything in life that they can possibly achieve and yet still don't feel fulfilled are a good example of the fact that there is something out there connecting us to something.

As Christians we need to show that there is more to this life. When we behave as Jesus did the world sees that we have the peace that they long for. Bible thumping is not going to make the world want what we have. Why would someone like Heath Ledger turn to a Christian during this time if he felt that he was going to be attacked for his lifestyle. I'm not advocating complete tolerance to his lifestyle, but how can we expect someone to act as though they have the Holy Spirit when they don't have the Holy Spirit. Our first concern is for them to know Jesus. Obedience is a response to God's love and if they don't know God's love how are they expected to act that way.

Anyways, that is my rant.

In Response to God's Love

I’m going to attempt to do this again. As I said in my very first entry, I am so good at walking through life blindly and unengaged. Stopping to write down thoughts requires me to think about life. So if I stop to write, I am forced to stop and think.

Today has been a day of thinking. This morning has been a good morning. Let me explain my setting. Setting is extremely important to me. This is probably not a good mindset, but I think it’s an extremely girl like mindset and for me it is hard to get away from. If you’re a boy you probably will just want to skip the next paragraph (I know that not all boys will want to!) or two….okay perhaps even three. This is like a Coose Your Own Adventure book…go to the asterisk if you don’t give a crap about where I’m sitting.

I am sitting on my back patio (I moved a month ago out of the Thompson’s house down the road into a house with some friends) at our table. One of the selling points for the house (we rent so is that a selling point?) was the back patio. It’s a big cement slab covered with an aluminum overhang that leaks when it rains. Well it’s not raining now and this Nashville July morning isn’t too unbearable to sit outside in. It’s a little warm but there’s a nice breeze. Something has been running across the aluminum roof all morning …at least that’s what I think is happening…it could very well be the sound of the roof about to collapse.

On our patio table that the previous renters left for us I have 4 books, my journal, and beautiful mug filled with vanilla ginger green chai tea that was sent to me by the lovely Mary Miller. There is also an empty pudding cup. Yes, I had a pudding cup for breakfast. 1. I’m an adult and therefore I can. 2. I have no food staples and should be shopping right now rather than writing this. What I’m trying to get at here is this- It is a beautiful morning and a beautiful setting and I am blessed with a peaceful moment.

* Boys you can start reading here again. You have been mauled by a tiger and now no girl will ever love you. It’s not because you were mauled, it’s because you’re not good at listening to girls being girls. Suck it up and read the previous two paragraphs or forever be alone.

I finished up To Become One by Chris Seay (highly recommend it if you’re interested in a God centered relationship) this morning and started The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. I was struck by these several quotes in the RG. Again I find that I am never struck by anything but the most basic concepts. I am constantly taking faith essentials for granted.

“If we but turn to God, that itself is a gift of God”- St. Augustine

“Children are our model because they have no claim on heaven. If they are close to God, it is because they are incompetent, not because they are innocent. If they receive anything it can only be as a gift.”- Brennan Manning

“Simply accept the fact that you are accepted”-Paul Tillich

But he said to me (Paul), “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am stong. – 2 Corinthians 12:9

I am by nature a people pleaser. I think I have mentioned this countless times. I am also the first born, the good Christian kid, and have an extreme need for feeling appreciated and accepted. All of these things put together make a real mess, especially in my spiritual life, but rarely do I admit it’s a mess. I play the hero and try to wade through the crap that I have created in my life. I don’t need help, I can do it all myself or so I think.

I have struggled all my life (I don’t know when I became a Christian…be appalled by that if you wish, but it’s true) with trying to win God’s favor. If I do this, he will love me more. If I don’t do this, he will take something away from me. Deep down inside, I know that none of this is true, but I’ve lived my life this way for so long that it takes a lot of digging to get back to the fundamentals of faith- Grace.

Grace is not an easy concept for me. Because I don’t have life changing conversion experience, I don’t remember a time when I was without God. The reality is that everyday I need his grace, but it so easy to convince myself that I’m not that bad, and what I’m bad at, I need to be better at.

Today I was reminded that even my recent lapse (one of many lapses in the cycle of my life) in putting God first in my life is forgiven and I am still loved. My ability to read my Bible, pray, do good things is only by God’s grace. Without God, I wouldn’t be able do any of these and my constant trying to do it by myself, to win God’s favor is why I’m coming up short in this area. Yes, I do need to make time, but God is the only one that can change my heart in regards to it.

This is what I wrote in my Journal.

I need to be broken again.
I need to not think that I by myself am holy.
I need to understand that I am deeply loved.

I was reminded for the millionth time (I am so dense) that responding to God’s love is the only way in which I can have a pure relationship with Him. Doing anything for any other reason is just me trying win brownie points. Like I said so basic, but without this I miss out on everything.

This afternoon I'm going to hang out with two more recent dear friends- Jenni and Melanie and tonight I'm going to eat pizza with more people that I love and then go see the new Batman movie. Thank you God for Christian Bale...I mean friends.

Way Busy

So the past few weeks for me have been insanely busy. Between Cornerstone work, HM work, Mo Leverett work, and side projects for John, I feel like I will never finish. I've also been trying to balance church functions, youth group, small group, the little community we've got going on here, my spiritual life (on the down slope kids-read 2 blogs ago), the Thompson Family, visitors from home, concerts for work, and a relationship. I don't say all of this to get sympathy or to play let's see who's the busiest, I say this purely because I've come to the conclusion with a lot of help from James that I can't do it all.

I'm a major people pleaser and I have a really hard time saying no to anything. For some reason I have it in my head that if I don't do it no one will and then it won't get done. How self-centered of me. Honestly I'm not super stressed right now. I get stressed when someone else asks me to go somewhere or do something because rather than saying no, I start rearranging my schedule so that I can work them in. This is why I know that I'm too busy. I don't want to work people in. I want to be there whenever they need me. I know that is not always going to happen but I want it to be able to work the majority of the time.

I really feel that God brought me here to establish a community amongst people of my age group. When I first moved down here I waited and waited for people to invite me into their lives and there were a few that did and I thank God for them (Peter and Whitney, Danielle), but I was disappointed to see that people really weren't reaching out to me. One day Michelle and I sat down and decided that if we were going to have friends here, we were going to have to be the ones to start reaching out. If they weren't going to start coming to us we were going to go to them and with God's help I started doing that. It seems that everyone here wants community so badly but so many of them are scared to take the step to reach out. So I started inviting people over and introducing them to each other. One night I had I believe like 13 people over to the house to eat and hang out. It was wonderful and everyone kept saying how much they wanted to do it again.

I don't think that I'm God's gift to Nashville and I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but I really feel that God brought me hear to link people together. I hate the word networking because it seems so slimy but I guess I'm kind of a networker down here.

Because I have been so busy, I feel like I've not been as active in this area of my life and I really miss it. This lead me to write the youth leader at Village 2 days ago and tell him that I could no longer help out with the youth group. This was probably one of the top 10 hardest things that I've had to do for 2 reasons- 1. Letting someone down. 2. Admitting that I couldn't do it.

Also this week, Mo and Gyroscope parted ways so that Mo could focus his money in other areas of his ministry. This was also hard for me because Mo and Rebirth are what brought me down to Nashville in the first place and this marks the end of that period in my life.

To try to sum this up...I miss you all. Thanks for being my friends.

On another somewhat related note-

My boss John J Thompson has just started up a blog called Thirty Three and a Third; Slow down and listen. He'll be talking about music, the Bible, the music business and anything else that slips into the faith / art / family vortex of his life. I personally love John's writing style and I thought a lot of you would be interested in this. His first blog is on the late Larry Norman http://johnjthompson.blogspot.com/.

Many of you may know John and not even realize it. He has been a presence in the Christian music scene since the mid 80s. You may have read his magazine (True Tunes News), been to his store in Wheaton, IL (True Tunes), been to his venue (Upstairs at True Tunes), read his book (Raised by Wolves), read one of his many articles, or even seen him working at Cornerstone. Currently John is the Creative Director at EMI CMG Publishing and President of Gyroscope Arts Inc. If you are really curious, you can read his bio at myspace.com/johnjthompson.

Also you should definitely check out Doug Van Pelt's blog. He recently went on a trip with Compassion International to Uganda. It's a REALLY good read.
http://www.hmmagazine.com/blogs/doug/

Something to Make you Laugh

These are people from my church and this in their entry into TN's 2007 48 Hour Film Project. It won Best Overall Film, Best Comedy, Best Sound Editing, the Audience Choice Award, Runner Up: Director, Runner Up: Screen Play, Honorable Mention: Editing. Please enjoy. I find it hilarious.

The Element of Change

It has been a really long time since I last wrote! Many things have changed and today while waiting for my computer to install 13 updates before it will reboot (we're at 2 of 13 and it's taken 15 minutes to get that far), I find myself thinking about how I've let myself slip back into passivity.

I moved to Nashville almost a year ago. April 10th marks the day that the car pulled away from familiarity. The first few months here were hell. I felt like I was having an out of body experience as if I was watching my life but not participating in it. The best way that I can possibly describe it is a dreamlike state. Have you ever had a dream that feels so real but yet so inconceivable at the same time? You can feel the emotions, you can comprehend and understand who the people are around you, you sense who they are, but you can never fully see them. You know that it's them, everything in you tells you that it's them, you wake up and you even tell so and so that you had a dream with them in it, but yet in the dream, they are still hazy figures of the people that you know they are. Maybe your dreams aren't like that, but mine are and within my first few months here, my life was a haze. The only person that I fully saw was myself.

It's amazing how unfamiliar change (with a little help from adrenaline and a lot of help from God) can go from disconnection to extreme alertness. Hard times and tragedy bring even unbelievers to their knees at some point and for me, that's the case as well. God lifted the haze and provided the friends that I now hold dear and through them the encouragement that I needed.

Hurray right? Honestly, praise God, but because like everyone else I take good things for granted and when comfort comes so does passivity and complacency. These are two words that too often describe my spiritual life. Below is a very precise diagram.I am now in the midst of another change. From the start it is been a good change, but it's comfortable change and I have a choice to make. I can embrace this for all it's worth or I can idly sit by and just go through the motions. I know that this is an opportunity for God to reveal things about me that need to be altered, to learn how my life affects others, but so far, I feel as though I'm just comfortably sitting by and not letting myself be challenged. I want this change to be an alert change, not a hazy one. Most importantly I know that I need to make a choice to give this over to God and I know that he will guide me through everything. Pray for me.

I leave you with a quote from Brennan Manning (from the Signature of Jesus...a book that I've been reading for almost 2 years...I know, shameful).

"When we are seized by the power of great affection, we are empowered with the courage to risk"

What to expect in 08

I swear to all of you that I actually did something tonight. I know that it looks really lame that I'm writing this at 1:41 am on what is now New Years day but things aren't always as they seem.

I have been in Illinois for a week and a half now. It's cold I don't like cold. Never have and now that I've had a taste of warm weather in the winter, I don't foresee myself moving back to a colder climate anytime soon. It would have to take a really good looking man (who is perfect of course and has a British, Irish, or Australian accent) to convince me to move to a place that gets a lot of snow. Just saying.

Yes snow. Beautiful but horrid snow. I like snow that sticks to every part of the ground but the roads. That kind of snow is a rare hybrid snow that you can only find in very well off neighborhoods. I'm not from one of those.

I'm from a small town southwest of Chicago. It used to be a farm town, but is quickly becoming the new up-and-coming place to live. I worked, went to church, and hung out for the last 6 years or so mainly in Aurora, IL (yes Wayne's World) and that is 30 minutes away from my hometown.

Like most people, I had a couple of options of how and with whom I wanted to ring in the New Year. I was going to try to hit both of my options in one night, but they were not close to each other and it had been snowing all day making the roads gross. I decided that I would only go to Aurora and usher in 08 with my IL small group.

In typical Midwest winter fashion, a 30 minute drive became a 60 min drive and because the land is so flat, it is next to impossible to see where the edge of the road is. The road and the fields become one big white blanket.

I don't like driving in the snow, it terrifies me. My first car was a Ford Taurus that handled terribly in the snow and I landed it in a ditch twice before I reached the age of 19. I'm a bit gun-shy because of this and tonight I was even more nervous because I was driving my parent's car. Heaven help me if I put the Honda Accord in ditch. If that happened, I think I would have called a taxi to take me to the airport 2 days ahead of time.

Nothing happened except for me losing a good quarter inch off of my molars from clenching my jaw so tightly. Just so you know I’ve never driven a car that handles better in the snow. Free promotion for Honda.

I knew that tonight was going to be great because these people are seriously some of the greatest people that I know. This small group was so instrumental in how I now view the world, people, community, and relationships. I learned how to be transparent and real by interacting with these people and honestly every time I'm with them, I think "This is what heaven must be like".

You all know that I'm not your typical party girl. I don't do well with large parties where I know few people. It feels fake to me and I don't tolerate fake well at all. I'm not good at small talk because honestly I never feel like people really care and that they are just talking because that's the thing to do. Half the time I don't feel like I care what they have to say either and it irritates me that I'm acting like I do. I really want to be a person that values people so much that I really do care what they are saying, but for now I don't want to act like I care when I don't. I don't like being humored and I doubt the person I'm talking to does either. I sound like a jerk I'm sure.

I'm also not really a drinker. It's not a principle thing for me, it's just that I haven't acquired a taste for most alcoholic beverages and I feel that if I don't like it, why should I make myself like it? I have no problem with people having a couple of beers but I'm perfectly happy not having anything. When I do have something, I can't drink very much because I fall asleep. Now that's what I call the life of the party.

So tonight I welcomed the fact that I knew almost everyone in the room intimately and they knew me. I definitely feel like I'm getting to that point in Nashville, but these people were in my life when I made the big decision to completely alter my life by changing careers and moving away from everyone. They encouraged the decision and I think that it's really interesting for them to see how it's all playing out. They actually were around when I didn't know that there was a decision to be made and I was struggling trying to figure out where my place was in this whole thing called life. Again they are incredible, incredible people that I look up to immensely.

Tonight the festivities took place at the Cochran's house. It's one of the coziest houses that I've ever been in on one of the most picturesque streets. We sat in their living room while eating food, telling stories, laughing, and of course having deep discussions. This group amazes me in that they talk about the deepest things so naturally without being pretentious at all. I personally don't think that I'm deep, but I love listening to them discuss human nature, theology, and life. People's opinions vary, but the discussion never gets heated and differing opinions are welcomed and considered. You think I'm making this up, but I'm not. Like I said, heaven on earth.

The warmth of the night was made even more complete by the Christmas tree in the corner, the fire in the fireplace, and the beveled glass windows looking out onto the snowy street. It was absolutely perfect. We (well actually Mike) even roasted chestnuts over the "open fire".

I left around 1 because the roads were bad and my car would be towed a 2. This story would not be complete without a stupid Erin story. Although I lived in Illinois for 25 years prior to moving, I somehow failed to realize that wearing Chucks on a day when we were expecting 4 inches of snow (it turned out to be more than that) was not a good idea. I also wore a lighter jacket and forgot to bring gloves. Once I got to my car, snow had covered all the windows and under the snow there was a layer of ice. Snowed filled my shoes, my hands froze as I scrapped my windows and because I parked next to the curb, I had to climb into a pile of snow to scrape off the passenger's side window. As I was driving home my toes were numb and at one point I actually had to take off my shoe because I was getting that bad tingling feeling in my right foot. Brilliant Erin, brilliant.

Wow. I'm sure that I could write another 3 more pages of thoughts, but I won't bore you with that.

So what to expect in 08. I can't even imagine what God has in store for me. I don't know how anything could top what happened in 07. In January 07 I had absolutely no clue that I would be visiting these friends over the holidays because I would not longer be living in the same state. I never thought that I would move farther than 30 minutes away from these people yet alone 9 hours. I didn't think that I would not be doing x-ray. I didn't think that I would be making new friends. My closest friends I had been friends with for 8 years. It is absolutely amazing this year to look back at last year and years before that and see how everything leads up to right now. I always wanted to know where God wanted me "right now". There was no way that I could see what he was preparing me for and I can now totally see that this was a prepared situation. If certain things didn't happen to me and if certain people weren't placed in my life, I would not be in Nashville. There is no way that you would have gotten to me to do what I'm doing and be where I'm at if these things didn't happen. I'm glad that I'm in Nashville. I feel completely at peace there. I love it now and I can see glimpses of how God is using me there. I just ask that you pray for me that I continue to be open to God's leading and that I don't try to do it all on my own. God bless you in 2008. God only knows what is going to happen.