Not Their Prophet

A couple of weeks ago I shared a little bit of my own struggles with a desire to serve the last and the least (I cannot say that phrase without Relient K in my head, by the way. They have a song for everything I'm thinking.) that is always balanced by my recognition that I come from a position of power and  don't want to just make things worse.

Then, last Wednesday and Thursday, I had an idea.

Which I promptly forgot to write about. To be fair, it was because I got to spend all weekend in Austin!

I was there for the MFSA board meeting but I also got to go to some of my favorite restaurants and see some of my favorite people.

I actually did write a blog post while I was there, it just wasn't for my blog. If you're interested, you can read it here.

But back to the point.

Wednesday night was the weekly chapel service that I help to plan and Thursday morning was my class called Postcolonial Voices, which is both difficult and amazing. Postcolonial studies is a bit much to explain here, but one of the main ideas is that you can't ignore any point of view or restrain any voice. That's part of what makes it hard to define.

Wednesday night I was one of the readers, and the passage was Deuteronomy 18:15-20.

"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: ‘If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.’ Then the Lord replied to me: ‘They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.’"

This has always been one of my favorite passages (yes, even before I admitted to myself that just maaaaaaybe I was feeling a call to ministry) because, in some small way, I do see myself as a prophet. There are times when I do feel like there's a message that I've been called to share, and I guess that's part of what this blog has become.

But did you catch the end, about speaking words that haven't been commanded to you? Harsh. I've gotta say that this is one part of the Bible that makes me uncomfortable, that makes me wonder about who wrote it and when and why, though that isn't what I've been thinking about this week.

This week I've been thinking about how the end of that passage actually brings me back to the beginning of the passage, which brings me to the "Aha!" moment I had in class Thursday morning as we talked about listening to each voice.

The passage starts with "God will raise up for you a prophet...from among your own people."

Well we've already established that, in most ways, the people I am afraid of doing harm to with my desire to help are not really my people. I can't claim that history. I am a white, Christian, educated American with more or less enough to get by, even if I am a poor grad student.

I am not the prophet called out from the wounded and oppressed people of the world. I cannot speak on their behalf. I cannot share their stories- the stories are theirs to share or not. Those words have not been commanded to me to speak.

What I can be is the prophet called out of my own privileged, powerful people, and call them to better lives.

I can call my own people to share their power, to use it wisely, to honor the value of those that we have made outsiders.

To borrow some of God's words from Micah's mouth, I can call us- because Lord knows there are days when I need reminding- to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. To love God and love neighbor.

That is a message I can share.

That, if nothing else, is what I can do to make the world a little bit better, a little bit brighter, a little bit more like the kin-dom of God.

Exercise and Exercises

First, a quick rundown:

-I survived finals without a single meltdown. Progress!
-I've gotten four of my five grades back so far and am pretty happy with them. The fifth won't come in for another month at least because that's just how my professor works, and my perfectionist, OCD self is slowly coming to terms with that.
-We went to Texas for 10 days over Christmas and it was wonderful. We saw almost all of our family and our closest friends. We even saw Les Mis with my college roommates and saw one of Jeff's friends one last time before she leaves for Argentina for 3 months (buena suerte, Kendall!). Oh, and my nephew is adorable and quite possibly the happiest baby ever. Basically, good times all around.

Now, my actual thought for today:

New Years has come and gone, and resolutions have been made (and broken, I'm sure). One of the most popular resolutions is to get in shape, right? And, at least within the Church, another of the most popular is to be more dedicated with spiritual practices. We go out and buy our gym pass or that perfect new devotional, or we decide that this year we'll try yoga or lectio divina, and we go merrily on our way. For about a week.

Then we miss a day. But it's cool, it was just one day, and we rally.

Then we miss a couple more.

Then a few more.

Then the guilt sets in.

Then we think, ahhh, forget it. I'll try again next year.

And then I remember one of the best pieces of advice about spiritual exercises that I've gotten in 23 years: God doesn't care if you miss a day or if you miss a week. God just cares that you're trying.

Now, that's pretty simplified and (as most advice can) can be used to write off an awful lot of slacking, but the sentiment holds true. We're not perfect, and very few of us have the discipline to hold to a regimen of anything for the rest of our lives, whether it's physical or spiritual. But what matters is that we keep trying. We keep going back. The thing about strict workout plans or read-your-Bible-in-a-year plans is that while they can be really useful they can also make us feel so guilty when we miss a day that we quit entirely.

No, several weeks of inactivity followed by one day of exercise isn't a very good pattern for losing weight, but that doesn't mean that getting on the treadmill today without a clearly defined workout plan is a bad idea. You'll still get that benefit today, and having done it today will make it easier to do tomorrow. Reading your Bible or journaling or praying today won't make you an automatic saint, but it'll make you think about your faith a little more in your day-to-day life, and- who knows!- maybe you'll think about how your faith ought to affect your actions when you get put in a stressful situation tomorrow. 

In both our physical exercises and our spiritual exercises, we shouldn't let long periods of idleness prevent us from taking a small step today. That small, unguided step might be the beginning of a habit that we can keep up, one built on grace rather than guilt.

And maybe that applies to blogging, too.

A State of Mind

This has been stewing in my brain since I was in Texas a month ago. And by stewing since, I mean it’s come up from time to time but I’ve been ridiculously busy and just now wrote it down.

At the end of June I was so very blessed to be able to spend two weeks in Texas seeing dear friends and family, hanging out in my favorite places, listening to country music and southern drawls, and of course eating the most wonderful food on the planet. Seriously, two absolutely amazing weeks.

Then this past week two of my best friends, my roommates from college, came to visit! We spent three days walking all over the city, hitting all the major highlights (and some of my favorite places that aren’t quite so thronged with tourists). We ended every day so tired and sore (and hot and cranky) that we could hardly move, but it was so good to be with them. Plus, watching our favorite movies and having sleepovers every night because we kicked Jeff out for the weekend was lovely :)

So Texas has been on my mind, and I finally just jotted down what I was thinking. It hasn’t had much revision and I don’t even know how to qualify it (poetry, I suppose?), so no guarantees. But here it is.

Texas is not Bible thumpers, raging conservatives, and unbearable heat.

Texas is green trees,

red earth,

and wide, blue sky.

Texas is the dust of a rodeo

and the sound of the state fair;

it’s the roar of a city,

the bustle of people,

junebugs on an otherwise silent summer night.

Texas is smiling speech,

shootin’ the breeze

in that slow drawl,

that musical twang.

Texas is big family dinners

blessed by a deep family grace.

It’s comfort food and

comfortable conversation.

Texas is southern hospitality.

A smile, a wave,

wide arms and an open door,

friends and strangers alike.

Texas is,

it has been said,

an obsession approaching a religion.

It is home.

“A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner.”- John Steinbeck

Starting Over, Part 8,067

Well, 2010 was one heck of a year. I graduated from the best university in the world. I said goodbye to the city that I've called home for the past four years, not to mention all of the amazing people I loved there. I married my best friend. I moved a thousand miles away from my family, my friends, and everything I've ever known. I started seminary. I got my first position as a youth minister. I was stranded halfway across the country as my family fell apart and struggled to put itself together again. I made wonderful new friends (without whom I wouldn't have survived at all--CD group, Dumbarton folks and Thursday night bunch, I'm looking at you) and managed to succeed in my classes despite taking a ridiculous number of them.

But with everything that happened, I feel like I slacked off in some things, like this blog (which, I'm told, "people actually read, you know!"). And in keeping up some of my relationships. And in remembering to take care of myself. So let's see if I can keep this up, shall we? Maybe if I share my resolutions I'll be more apt to keep them, or so I've read. So, in no particular order:

-Lose my newlywed weight. Apparently that's a thing? No one warned me!
-Do so without going back to looking as anorexic as I apparently did when I started college. Again, no one told me!
-Pay more attention to my readings for school. They're assigned for a reason. Mostly.
-Go to chapel more. Since I'll be in choir this semester that shouldn't be too hard, right?
-Work harder on serving other people, especially Jeff.
-Finally establish that date night we've been talking about since June.

And to that end, we decided to start the new year with a date day, which was wonderful. Actually, we started the new year with the wedding of some of Jeff's friends, then a day of catching up with some of our best friends before they/we head off again, and then we got to have a day to ourselves. Slept in, did a little work to justify taking the rest of the day off, then headed out to do whatever we wanted. Which meant getting a little dressed up, going to the gigantic playground in town, playing and taking pictures, getting some amazing TexMex while we can, spending almost two hours in Starbucks (next town over, of course, because Sulphur Springs is one of the few places in the world that still doesn't have one) just reading and drinking tasty warm drinks, and attempting to see Harry Potter again. I say attempting because turns out the theatre we tried to go to closes at 8 now, at least according to the guy who stuck his head out the door to ask if we needed any help. Despite the fact that the internet said they were showing HP7 at 8:45. But I'm not going to go so far as to say that it was shady, or allege that they were having massive drug deals behind the theatre facade, or anything like that... maybe.

All in all, though, it was a fantastic way to start off the year.  And now to get organized with work and doing reading for school, and we'll be back in DC at the end of this week. As much as I've loved being in Texas and everything that goes with it--family, friends, places I grew up, accents, friendly people, access roads on the freeways, warmer weather, Houston thunderstorms, Dr Pepper in every restaurant, TexMex, Bluebell ice cream, everything being cheaper--I'm also really excited to get back to DC and our life there.

I wanted to end with a picture from yesterday and one last thought. We were watching TV (also crazy, since we don't have it in our on-campus apartment) and saw a commercial whose premise was "What if we treated every day like New Year's Day?" I loved it. I've always loved that thought. Every day is a chance to make your resolutions again, to change the way you live or the way you look or the way you feel. So even though it's January 4, happy new year! Go out and be the person you wish you could be.

Dr Pepper, Queso and Triceratops

Yesterday was an awesome combination of home and my new city.

If you aren't aware, one thing that Texans take pretty seriously is their food. If you go anywhere outside of Texas and get something that Texans normally make, it'd better be pretty friggin' awesome or we'll make fun of you. So when I found the Austin Grill here in DC (complete with choices like Austin Wings, Bevo Salad, and Magnolia Eggs), I was both apprehensive and excited beyond belief. A friend of ours from UT is here for the semester, so we decided it would be a good place to catch up, reminisce, and miss things like Bluebell Ice Cream.

Also, one thing you should know about me is that my two addictions are Dr Pepper and queso. I was told that I wouldn't be able to find Dr Pepper up here, so I was ridiculously excited when I found out that it's actually in basically every grocery store. Restaurants, on the other hand, still make me sad when they don't offer it, or worse, offer Mr. Pibb like it's the same thing (hint: it's not). When we got to Austin Grill and sat down the waitress said their drinks included "Pepsi products," and smiled like she gets this question all the time from native Texans when I almost yelled at her, "Does that mean you have Dr Pepper?!" Queso, unlike Dr Pepper, is something I've found you can get at basically any so-called Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurant, but the quality often leaves something to be desired. I figured with their menu, though, it'd be worth a shot. And oh, man was it worth it. It definitely wasn't Kerbey Lane, but it was good enough that I think my withdrawal symptoms should stop. Also the whole restaurant was decorated so well that it actually felt like Austin, and they have live music on Monday nights because let's face it, if you're going to claim to be Austin-y you have to have live music. So lunch yesterday was an absolutely fantastic combination of food and people from back home, and it made me happy.

After that awesome dose of home, though, I got to explore my first museum in DC. The district is basically a museum-lover's paradise, and I am very much a lover of museums. So after managing to get lost in the three blocks between Austin Grill and the National Mall, Jeff and I met up with a bunch of my youth (note: "a bunch" of my youth group is approximately 5 people, because my youth group is approximately 10 to 15) and went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which is free and awesome. We didn't get to explore the whole thing, but I did get to see three of my favorite animals.

An elephant: (sorry, this picture is kind of blurry)

A giraffe:

And a triceratops:

We also watched an IMAX about the ocean which I was very glad didn't include any super-deep-sea creatures, because those things are terrifying and it might have ruined my awesome day.

In summary:
-Dr Pepper and queso are addictive, but it's ok because I've found places to satisfy my cravings.
-If you're ever in DC and are really missing Texas, go to the Austin Grill.
-Museums are amazing and DC has approximately a million of them.
-There really should be more giraffes in my day-to-day existence.
-There really should be fewer terrifying evolutionary mistakes from the bottom of the ocean in existence, period.
-I might be able to survive here.

Edit: Blogspot and/or my internet is failing, and I can't actually upload my pictures. Sad day. I'll do it soon, I promise.