Karl Barth is sooooo smart.

How does one reconnect with God? How can we reverse the flow, and go against the way we were born into this world? Were we crying when we came into this world because we knew---ever so clearly and simply---what it feels like to be separated (in some sense) from God's heart?

Conversations lately have been wild, as I feel almost embarassed at how blunt and obvious so many people in my life have been when it comes to approaching me about my own faith. Case in point: today at work, one of the receptionist ladies who answer phones, do patient charting, and a host of other things, asked me "tell me what was the best single thing you learned while at school/seminary last year?" Now, understand this: up until this point, the most contact I've had with this woman is a fair 'hello' exchange from time to time. But here she is, asking me the most radical thing I learned last year at seminary and wouldn't you know I had to think for five minutes before even answering. My response, now looking back, wasn't so great even though she seem to accept it as legitimate and marginally profound. And now that I think back again, I wonder why I didn't steal from the great theologian Karl Barth when giving my response. Because after decades of theological research and intense epistemological debates and creation/evolution talks, and liberal/conservative protestant discussions, he was asked what (out of it all) was the greatest thing he came to know.

"The greatest thing that I've ever learned and known is that Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

Sometimes I need to be just taken back to square one and remember who it is I'm actually living for. Yes, Jesus loves me...and Jesus even likes me (something Brennan Manning taught me to accept) and this I've come to know and love and cherish and cling to when I'm feeling alone and depressed, and depend on when I don't know where to go or who to turn to. It is the "it" in the gospel that blows me to pieces. It is in the form of grace and yet still, it hits me almost every time.

U2

I have a new favorite U2 song: "So Cruel" from their Achtung Baby album. Oh my! I've heard this song before but this is the first time I heard it and felt like I got it! And ironically, it was playing on the radio last Saturday night after talking to my childhood best friend from third grade for 2 hours.

Thank you again Tara for allowing me to see the light, again and again.

Welcome Home

South Carolina is just as beautiful as I remember it, and coming back for a wedding of one of my beloved childhood friends has been the thing I needed to do. Running into old faces, and friends I used to ride bikes to swim practice with, and my best friend from 3rd and 4th grade who I haven't seen since my family moved away from South Carolina, almost 13 years ago...has all been nostalgic to say the least. It's been like one of my favorite movies "About Schmidt," as the melancholy feelings and bittersweet recollected memories parade around in front of me in the form of ticking clock. I know I'm getting older, every day, every hour, every time the sun goes down below the trees. I realize this is happening but I don't think I'm comprehending it. I think most of the time, I like to live as if it's not happening. And although I don't think it's possible to live always aware of our finitude and of our own everyday reality, I do think it's possible to at least try.

Whirlwinds

Tody is one that is flying---by both bad and good winds---and I can't seem to figure out what the heck is even going on! Work was a blur. And I realize when I say that, I sound like Lindsay Lohan from "Mean Girls," but it was. I left it going, "what in the world just happened today?" Everyone's temperature seemed to be boiling at both ends of the spectrum---one minute people were laughing and giggling, the next they were in fits of rage or squabbles of tears. What is going on here!?!

I know people bring their home to work and vice versa. I realize that amongst me at work there are nurses working who have husbands that beat them, and there are those of us who are extremely lonely and confused, and there are others who continually find themselves living in fear, in anger, or in a state of being where nothing makes sense---at all. I realize we all bring our own worlds to the big world of work and we all attempt to continually throw bits and pieces of our worlds into the wide open melting pot. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised at days like today. And maybe you're reading this and wondering what the heck it is I'm really talking about.

It's so hard to explain really, but I"ll try in one sentence. You ever have the kind of day where near strangers began to ask you about the ultimate questions of existence, where persons are opening up to you about serious personal issues they have at home, where another woman seeks out your advice on whether or not it's "okay" for her to be a lesbian, and where in the midst of it all, you're constantly being torn between the thought of doing the work you're at work to do, and doing the kind of human work you know deep down really needs to be done?

Well, if you get that you know what kind of day I had. Not bad, not necessarily good---just befuddling and confusing and fascinating, all at once.

Gay marriage, Abortion, and Enron.

Maybe I'm so far off it's not even funny or maybe I'm just angry and wanting to think outside the Christan norm...but a discussion with my small group tonight made me think about this central question: is the Church apart of the the main "battle" going on in the world today?

Of course, it's hard to read such a question without hardly any context but immediately I thought 'no...it isn't!' Even though I generally frown upon such language (i.e., "we've got a battle to fight today, and the Church must fight back!") I understood the question and still found myself disagreeing. Consider the past presidential election for instance.

Were the two main issues (gay marriage and abortion) evangelical Christians rallied behind really the ones central to the global Church's concerns at large? Meaning, were these issues the main battle going on in the world today? Were these the biggest hindrances to people coming to Christ? Or coming to God?

Once again---like in the good ole' scary Bible times---people who know very little about God and don't even pretend to call themselves Christians generally seem to be the ones fighting for justice, for peace, for love. So when the Enron scandal came out, how did the Church respond? Did it speak vehemently and passionately against this corporate scandal of injustice, lying, cheating and stealing, like it did when it spoke about abortion and gay marriage? Or was it merely just another story of man wanting too much money and the Church believing that there were other more pressing issues out there? Could it be possible that maybe, the Church missed the boat---again!?

In the New Testament, it's no surprise to the average person that Jesus addressed the problem of greed and the love for money as the single greatest threat to knowing Christ. Yet, when was the last time you heard a sermon on America's equating salvation with earning more money? When did the Church last picket corporate criminals who steal from middle and low income familes just so they can take another week of vacation in a year?

Somehow, most of us Christians (including myself), don't seem to be too concerned with that whole "sell everything you own and follow me," command that Jesus gave. No, we're on America's side for the most part. After all, how dare we question this Christian nation's values? How dare we suspect that the things that America holds to be its dream is not at all what we Christians should be living or dreaming for?!

Elliot Fox Hoeflinger

I finally got to meet and see my beloved godson Elliot Fox Hoeflinger, and he is just as beautiful and wonderful and near-perfect as I imagined. Seeing Dave and Lindsay (his parents) was a blessing in and of itself, but Elliot added a little extra bit of wonder to the evening. I hope someday I can be like my friend Dave Hoe...not just because he's cooler than I'll ever be but because he really is (and tonight, watching him with Elliot and Lindsay and in just about everything) I saw the selfless, love-filled Dave Hoe I remember from Taylor freshmen year.

In other news (as if some of my friends confirming of this thing wasn't enough) I've finally come to terms with something about myself: I'm not a cynic, despite always saying "maybe I'm a cynic" in every other post. No, I'm an idealist. So whenever something coming from me sounds purely cynical, know it's really just my idealistic mind meeting up with my idealistic heart in order to construct an idealistic world.

Failing the Test: The Story of Abraham and Isaac

Recently, I've been thinking about something I read in a Madeleine L'Engle book ("The Rock That is Higher") more than a year ago that until now had dismissed as just merely something I didn't believe. The story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the most common ones to the Christian Orthodox and Jewish traditions, and rightfully so. Having to sacrifice your son is never something I'd like to be challenged to do in the future, and so, I used to not feel any connection to Abraham and the entire story surrounding God's request that he should sacrifice his son.

But then, it came up somewhere else---in another book---and I decided to revisit the story again and see if I really agreed with the "new interpretation" that was out there in so many Christian scholar circles today, on this particular story.

Simply put, many Christian and Jewish scholars today are saying (what Madeleine wrote over 10 years ago about) that perhaps Abraham actually failed the test yet God honored and fulfilled his promise to him anyways. Yes that's right...you heard what I said: Abraham failed the test and God intervened just before his son was to be killed.

If you read more closely and you seek out the character of God more thoroughly in the Old and New Testament, it seems very against God's nature to request such a thing. I know, I know...many of you are saying, "But he was only testing Abraham---to see if he really feared God, and loved God more than anything." But I'm thinking more now, "Was he?" It seems this tenth test of Abraham was really a test of whether he would choose law over love. And sadly, instead of choosing love Abraham chose law, and didn't even go as far as to question God's motive on the matter. Was Abraham simply obeying or is there such a thing as discernable obedience? Why didn't he question God who had called him to keep his commandments (which how could he forget, included "Do not murder") when God was asking him to violate one of these commandments? All throughout the Old Testament it seems Abraham and so many others wrestled with God and argued with Him whenever He would ask something shady or unreasonable of someone. I mean come on, God changed his mind a number of times because of people like Abraham who wrestled and duked it out in the relational life pool of ideas with God. Is it ironic or mere coincidence that Jacob, the man who wrestled with God is whom Israel is named after? God's chosen people's very name suggests the fact that they "wrestle," and yet, Abraham (this time around) doesn't do anything of the sort! Something is seriously messed up here, isn't it?

Perhaps I'm merely trying to understand the infinite too hard with my finite brain. Perhaps I really don't understand this kind of God---a God that would ask me to murder someone I loved so dearly. After all, if this happened today would not 99% of Christians be telling the Abrahams out there, "That is not God telling you to kill your son! That's someone else! Don't listen!"

From my perspective so far, it seems that you don't have to change a lick of scripture to come up with this interpretation of the story. It seems that Abraham could've seemingly failed the test, but yet, by God's grace was given what was promised to Him anyways. And if I'm not mistaken, wouldn't that be more in line with the God we Christians proclaim to serve? Wouldn't this interpretation make more sense when it comes to years and years later and Jesus is about to be crucified, and it is uttered (and compared) "Are you sons of Abraham or sons of God?" Or metaphorically speaking, do you live for the law or live for love?

I'm still thinking on this a great deal, but when I read this again recently and did some more research on it, I came to see it as a much more freeing and grace-filled interpretation of a sacred story that's been agonized and studied over year after year for thousands of years. I'm gonna keep searching, but for now this is just another thing in my life in which God's grace grows and my need for mercy extends even greater.

Behind the Times

I just saw the music video for the song by Beck entitled "Dead Weight," and although it's almost a decade old, am I so lame of a person to want to have it and listen to it now again and again? I know great songs can be enjoyed whenever but it always seems like that when it comes to the music world, I'm years and yeard behind the rest of the world.

But at least I enjoy it still even though most people would simply scoff and say, "Oh my gosh! That song came out like last summer! It's so old!" To which I always smile and say, "I know....but I really love the old songs! What can I say?"

Get to know your co-workers.

"Sometimes you see things and...well...other people, they can't see them."

One of my many favorite lines from the movie "Millions" seems to appropriate today after I got to know one of my employees at the hospital a little better. She is one of those wonderful older women---vibrant, very alive, and a very hard worker---and she also wears a necklace key change thingy that says "Jesus Loves Me" on it repeatedly (one phrase after the other) and is vehemently not a fan of George W. Bush. She makes me smile whenever I get to talk with her.

So today, she's sharing with me about herself, her past and her life basically and it saddened me to hear her story. Hearing how she struggled with physical and emotional abuse for years and years until finally, after 30 years she left him (she forgave and forgave and forgave and just kept letting him "come back"), I was angry with the world again but yet, too upset and sad to really do anything about it. I stood there listening, and watched as my respect grew even more for this woman---a 52 year old child at heart---and I thanked God again for being able to see someone I thought I knew...in an entirely different light. And this goes on all the time and I seldom choose to notice it. Maybe I don't want to see how I see people because it makes me think about the way people might see me. I wonder how so many people could be wrong about me, and I think about the few who I feel "get me"...like few people in this world do.

And I suppose that is how life is generally supposed to work. We see people the way we want to see them until they give us reason to see otherwise. And when those few people in our lives give us that other reason, they no longer become simply other people---dancing in the sea of the census---but they become our friends, and the ones who will hold our hand when we will leave this world, and be with us as we slip into the next.

This is why today, I'm happy to be alive.