My new favorite thing, etc.

So, Chris' college friend who is from Africa came over for lunch the other day and we offered him tea.  He asked, "tea or chai?" mostly because tea and chai I think are the same in some cultures/languages.  So I thought, hey, we can make chai from this English Breakfast tea - add a little cloves (which we have from Indonesia!), cinammon, ginger, sugar, milk, etc.  It totally worked and it was delicious.  This is, if you were wondering, my new favorite thing.  *smile*

Today I am enjoying it as I sit in my house fearing the gruesome outdoors (it's fierce wind and rain out there).  Yes, and I am thinking about a lot of the same things I've been blogging about recently - injustice, racism, poverty, etc.  I wonder, 'What am I supposed to do about this?'  I've been craving talking with some people about this IN PERSON.  Things are so much better in real life.  Truly.  I don't mind this blog and facebook and email and the like, but social interaction is so much better when you are actually face to face or side by side doing something daring or fun.  Well, anyway, yes, so I am going to go to this "Come Together" conference that is going to address many of these issues from leaders in the church.  I am thrilled to go and do this.  I just hope it leads to hope, you know what I mean?

Love and hate

 Well, I just wanted to put a little well of refreshment out there in this desert.

 I had a very rough day substitute teaching today and I actually sat after school and read a book written by an inner city teacher with some writings from his former students about teaching and seeing these kids (who I had a very hard time "seeing" today).

I also read some of Madeline L'Engle's "A Wind in the Door" later in the evening and one of the themes of it (without giving anything away) is being Named.  Being Named rather than being annihilated.  Being Named rather than being nothing.  Sometimes I go to substitute teach without love and what I need most is love.  
Yet, I can't bring love and life if I don't get if from the Life-bringer, Love Himself.  I can try, but I will fail.  I need to know I am Named to Name others.  Love really does overcome Hate.  It can never be the other way around.

Here's a track that I just knew the chorus to and then found this online after I had been singing it (with my uke) a little bit ago.  Yes, creativity is very rejuvenating as well.

http://romadiluna.bandcamp.com/track/tree-of-life

The song is interesting to me because it is kind of hopeful without being hopeful.  I feel like it paints a picture of what our lives are like sometimes and it's true, we need to be taken to the Tree of Life (although that isn't just going to happen "when we gather in the sky"). I do believe that God's purpose is to bring his Kingdom of Life and Truth and Love even now because He is going to fully bring it here when he comes back.

The City (and thoughts about privilege)

I live in the city.  I live in Minneapolis.  I love it.  I truly love it.  I love that I walk in the Wells Fargo on Franklin and I feel that I could be in Somalia because it's almost all Somalis serving me.  I love that someone put art on the Greenway by one of the signs on a little post so that you have to stop on your bike to see what it is.  I love the parks and the lakes and the great throbbing mess of people who live here with so many hopes and dreams and so many stories of triumph or defeat (or both).  I was born here and raised my first 9 years of life here.  I feel that is rather significant.  Even when I moved with my family out to the suburbs (or especially when) I had a sweet affection for the city of Minneapolis. I have only lived here for one year and a few months of my adult life and still it is close to Saint Paul (not even a mile away to cross the river).  Yet, I guess I have the feeling that I have lived here much longer because I grew up most of my childhood here and for about 5 years I have been hanging out almost exclusively here.

I have also been substitute teaching in the Minneapolis School district since November of last year which has opened my eyes to the scope of Minneapolis and the disparity between minority and white students.  I think this, and living extremely close to Lake Street, has made me see how much privilege I really have.  I was part of an intentionally diverse community at my college called Antioch.  We would meet once a week to talk about race, culture, ethnicity and issues surrounding these things.  When I was there I did feel I learned some things and I could, in some ways, peel back the layers of my perspective to see other people's experiences and perspective.  Yet, it was so different than me stepping into a truly diverse community.  My college was far from diverse in reality and even though I have always loved talking to people of different backgrounds I feel I barely understood what minority students were saying about privilege.  My parents have never been conservatives politically but I think I was somewhat trapped anyway by the affluence and privilege I had experienced my whole life.  Now that I've worked in different Minneapolis public schools I see the same thing happening to most of the white kids in the mostly affluent Southwestern part of Minneapolis.

Honestly, my husband and I do not make a lot of money.  I emphasize: we do not make a lot of money.  In fact, there have been times we have been just scrapping by, and this being the recent past.  The difference between my husband and I and maybe a Latino family in Phillips neighborhood (who could truthfully quite easily have the close to the same income) is that we have grown up with middle-class or even upper middle-class families.  Our immediate families do well financially, all in all.  They may have not inherited this from their parents (Chris' dad was on welfare because his mom was widowed while he was young), yet the fact remains that because of our parents Chris and I both have college degrees, not much debt, and mostly comfortable lives.  Our families constantly support us by letting us know they are able to help us out financially if need be even though we are adults.  Our families give gifts to us a lot, whether that is taking us out to eat or giving us hand-me-downs that are actually really nice.  Not only this, but we have a great community of people from different churches and ministry who also may not have a lot of money but pool their resources often and they have been an amazing blessing to us.  I guess I've just really come to the conclusion that I really do have privilege recently because of my experiences being an adult and living in Minneapolis.  I just see it so much.  I am very, very blessed.  It's not all just "privilege" but I do think every blessing I have is a privilege, so to speak.

Anyway, I just wanted to write this because it's been something I've been thinking about even when Chris and I lived in Saint Paul.  I just feel like I have so much even if it may seem to be not much.  Of course, I sometimes get jealous and wanting things and I don't always feel this way, but I definitely do right now.  I have really seen that the Minneapolis Public Schools have a disparity of learning between white and minority students and I feel like there are a million conversations to be had even around this observation.  I just wanted to get that out there and if anyone feels like commenting in order to have a real conversation about these things I'd welcome it.  Whoever you are I hope that you are grateful for all God gives you today - all of it is truly a privilege.

This astounds me...

"And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the LORD to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace."

Zechariah to John the Baptist, his son, prophesying through the Holy Spirit
Luke 1:76-79

MUSIC and the gift

I love music.  I have been falling more in love with music lately.  It just inspires me, awes me...I love it.  I love hearing different kinds of music and hearing bits of pieces of each person's soul as they sing or play.  It is an amazing expression.  I love how it can convey so much.

I just watched some youtube videos from 89.3 the Current.  I watched Mumford and Sons, Haley Bonar, and Chastity Brown.  Earlier I watched a Paul McCartney video "Good Morning Sunshine" from a concert he gave not too long ago (I was playing it to help Chris get out of bed!).  It also, for some reason, had a space/astronaut theme which is perfect for Chris.  Hehe.  I also saw a youtube video from the band Dark Dark Dark for their song Daydreaming.  So, yes, I've been watching a lot of music videos....but it's for the music mostly...I need to get out and see a live show soon.

Anyhow, this is more or less a jumble of thoughts just like my last post, but I just want to put my thoughts and feelings down somewhere and I decided that I would just do it rather than worry if it is consistent and coherent.

Since I've been writing and playing music more it has made me love music more as well.  It's truly a gift from God.  I have been reading from Madeleine L'Engle's book about Faith and Art and she says how the we are given gifts that we may serve them, not that gifts are given to us to serve us.  As she states:
         "The important thing is to recognize that our gift, no matter what the size is, is indeed something given us, for which we may humbly serve, and, in serving, learn more wholeness, be offered wondrous newness." (p.237, Walking on Water)

I think what she says here is so key to being an artist.  I feel I have only begun to serve my gifts, but I am given life in return when I do it.  It's also good for me to be part of the worship team because it causes me to be disciplined and humbled in a setting of friends and other believers.
When I was about 16 I was part of a small youth group and one of the leaders of this group told me a nasty lie (he didn't know it was nasty but it was).  He said that he believed that music can't glorify God unless it is specifically written to do so.  I didn't believe him at the time but I thought about what he said anyway.  Now I know without doubt that he was wrong but it makes me mad to think that sometimes people like him limit the glory of God so rigidly and wrongly.  God can be glorified by any true piece of art whether or not that person knows God, because:
       "Provided, he is an artist of integrity, he is a genuine servant of the glory which he does not recognize, and unknown to himself there is 'something divine' about his work.'" (p.25, Walking on Water, L'Engle quoting Rev. A.M. Allchin of England).
Certainly, some "Christian art" is not art or Christian at all.  Sometimes people are not given the gift, even if they are a Christian, that non-Christian or atheist might have in abundance (this I am paraphrasing from L'Engle again).

So, I've gone off on a tangent, but I think it's worth restating these points because they have been really eye-opening for me in some ways. When I was in Indonesia on a mission trip a few years ago instead of feeling called overseas one of the things I felt God telling me was to continue to do art - writing, music, etc.  I realize now how important it is that I do this - to worship with the gift.  I love realizing that I am serving the gift that is placed in me.  I think often when I was younger I was reluctant to share the gift because I thought I would only be serving myself with it.  Now I see that is not true at all.  Now I see that it is a service to others even if I benefit from it.  It's sad because now looking back I see that perhaps I felt that way not just because of immaturity but even the way that some artists and musicians use their gift to serve themselves and that is what our larger culture has believed as well even if it isn't said.
      "To serve a work of art, great or small, is to die, to die to self.  If the artist is to be able to listen to the work, he must get out of the way, or, more correctly, since getting out of the way is not a do-it-yourself activity, he must be willing to be got out of the way...in order to become the servant of the work.
      To serve a work of art is almost identical with adoring the Master of the Universe in contemplative prayer...not to find self, but to lose self in order to be found." (pp.234-234 Walking on Water)

Adventures in Time

Woooot!  So I know I titled this something very exciting, although what I'm going to say does not really have to do with time travel...though maybe a little. 

Here goes:
So today on my way home from substitute  teaching I was driving on Minnehaha Parkway and thinking just how gorgeous it was outside and watching the bikers and people walking by on the path.  Then I was thinking, well, I could stop my car and get out and walk on the path, and then I was like: I feel lazy, and then I though: how stupid for me to keep driving simply because it takes a little extra effort to park my car and then I will lose some time at home (but I will gain infinitely more as I explore outside!).  So, I turned on a street and parked my car!  Yep, that's pretty much how the conversation in my head went.

Ah, how amazing it was outside today.  It was (and still is) one of those perfect autumn days where leaves begin to change color and you can crunch the fallen ones under your shoes and the air just has this tremendously pleasant aroma that only seems to smell that way this time of year. As I was walking I went over a small bridge and kept going up a hill until I found that I was overlooking a preserved prairie.  I just looked at it wondering if that's what it would all look like if us modern people didn't care about lawns.  Then I trotted down the hill again and I found a little path that cut right through the prairie/plain and I followed it.  It lead me to a massive log that spread across the creek.  It was actually a tree that had somehow toppled over and it was just right for climbing on.  I then decided that I was going to do just that.  As I did I felt that I may as well have been 13 as much 27.  I felt like a child discovering the natural world so splendid and rough.  I remembered the woman with the stroller and baby wrapped around her who had been walking a few yards behind me as I walked up the hill back by the prairie and thought how strange it is that I could be like her in a few, even a couple of years, with a child or children of my own, and yet...here I am.  I am more of a daughter than a mother.  I am more youthful than aged, and yet I never 'believed' in age the way some people do.  I want to live enjoying every moment as it comes.  I know there are different seasons and different times of maturity and I want to cherish them all, whatever they bring.  And truly, life is beautiful that way.