Everything that becomes visible is light

This is one of those painful posts that I hesitate to write.

Anyone who has been reading my blog knows that moving here to Mankato has not been a cake walk for me.  I have been deeply rooted in Minneapolis and I still am I guess.

The thing is (as I've stated before) I let people in my community in Minneapolis become kind of like one of those breathing devices for people with respiratory problems because I've needed them to breath in the Holy Spirit practically.

Right, and it absolutely says to not give up meeting together (Hebrews 10:25) and that believers are built up together (Ephesians 2:19-22) but it also says Jesus is the cornerstone.

So that whole Jesus is the cornerstone -- mmm -- even though Jesus is amazing -- that's hard.

I do not want to be over-dramatic but I've been struggling with different lies for these past months.  Some of them have been about my "goodness" and I have realized that I'm not "good" but I do believe I'm redeemed by God's grace (Ephesians 2:8-10).  Okay, I knew this before but it's come across to me even plainer lately.  Let me state this: for those who know me; and a lot who read this probably do; I appear very "good" but it's just not true.  I say that trying to separate the self-deprecation from the reality of just being a person affected by sin but yeah I just feel the need to state that.  I may look good but I AM NOT.  Thank God my life does not rest on my being good!

We've been going to a church in Mankato and it's okay.  It's probably a pretty great church for a lot of people.  I do not want to disrespect it but partly going there has made me question my faith.

This weekend I thought to myself: perhaps none of this is true and I've just surrounded myself with people who I like who believe it so I've believed it.  I was actually sitting in a dark theater watching a band called "All Eyes" play their very brooding, futuristic sounding music and I thought: this could be just a big theater production.  It could be no more that that.  It wasn't even that I was doubting Christianity (although I was) but underlying it all the things we do in our lives for ourselves and to make ourselves feel something and the meaninglessness of it all and what if I was swallowed up by this meaninglessness: could this be it?

I know it sounds melodramatic.  Yet, I have not really questioned my faith though and it was/is hard.  I also had just starting reading the book "1984" where the main character cannot trust anyone essentially so I think that set me on edge too.

The next day I went to Messiah Episcopal (I love this church) and I talked and cried with Chris and allowed myself to just be real and admit I do not know everything and it may not all make sense and I can continue to question and it's okay.  It actually made me talk to God more genuinely and I found myself doing so.  Being on the edge of losing faith actually compelled  me to want real faith and a real God.  I have been just "going through the motions" a lot in Bible reading and prayer and the way I relate to God lately. 

I read "The Cloister Walk" by Kathleen Norris recently and I just finished it last week.  She is a poet and speaks about how she lost faith but found it again after realizing that she didn't have to have all the answers and maybe relating to God was more like a poem than a math equation.  I take from her here and have to say that's how it is with me.  There is certainly some ambiguity and a lot of mystery about God.  Yet, as I read the red letters of Jesus in my Bible last night it was crazy how real they actually seemed!  I think I had finally let go of all the pretense and He. just. spoke. to. me.  I will not let doubt get in the way because God is a lot fucking bigger than those.  I can rest in the hand that guides me even as I wonder quite who He is and why things are as they are.  Maybe it sounds weird but I think I believe more now.

Thank God for light.

"All things become visible when they are exposed to the light.  For everything that becomes visible is light." -Ephesians 5:13

"For this reason it says,
          'Awake, sleeper, 
          And arise from the dead,
          And Christ will shine on you."
-Ephesians 5:13-14
          

The End of an Era

"Leaving Minneapolis is like leaving a lover/You've got so much history you just don't want it to be over."

I've never left a lover and so my writing those lyrics might seem kind of ridiculous (even without the tackiness factor) but I do truly feel like Minneapolis is a dear, dear friend I'm parting ways with (even if it's just for a while).

I guess the truth is what I love most about Minneapolis is the friendships I've developed here.  The people, the community of communities itself, is what makes it hard to leave.

I'm rooted in this forest.  I can't even begin to list the things I'll miss, but I suppose I will:

1.  Our housemates Jane, Lydia and Mary...our little community house has had it's rough patches but I love everyone and have been blessed so much by being in this together.
2.  The beauty that surrounds the house we're in: it's proximity to the Mississippi river, the big park, the Greenway bike trail, the garden space, the ability to go out and just rest in the yard, etc.
3.  Our neighbors that we've gotten to know; the East African family next to us just invited us to dinner and we hung out with them last week, our neighbor Mel, other quirky friendly neighbors; particularly Richard who plants tomatoes and green beans in his front boulevard and encourages people to pick them.
4.  The Seward Co-op and being able to bike there.  All the hippies in Seward.  :o)

Jane, me and Chris at the Art Shanties after we did the bike ice race

5.  Jesus Kitchen hugely!  We will be trying to come back once a month (this we are committed to but realize we must be flexible as well).  Chris and I met there.  These last 9 months or so we've essentially led it and feel very vested in it.  We love the people we know through it and fully intend to continue those friendships.  We love sharing God's love and being challenged by what's really going on with people's hearts and heads.
6.  Hard Times (in a lot of ways Hard Times is somewhat synonymous with Jesus Kitchen to me because we most always hang out there after the Kitchen).  It's punk flavor that still seems to let so many others spill into it's doors and co-exist: college students, refugees and immigrants, people just looking for others to be with/contemplate with).  I will also miss it's super cheap and good food.
7. Our official church, Seward Church.  We've grown with it and kept on seeing people come and go.  Good times even in hard times (heh, seems like a pun from the previous listing).  I've come to see my need for Jesus in real ways through doing life with people there and hearing the Word.
8.  Salvage Yard Community: it seems this spans just Tuesday night service.  Hanging out at Greenhouse Potluck and doing Jesus Kitchen has probably helped us continue on in these connections.
9. Greenhouse Potluck:  bringing people together for food!  Playing silly games and feeling at home in a home away from home.
10.  The rich diversity of the neighborhoods in general:  I love the midtown area where so many cultures meet.  I love how Minnesota's Lutheran roots have created a social system where many immigrants feel safe and find their needs meet.  I pray that will happen more.

THERE ARE SO MANY FLIPPING REASONS I'M GOING TO MISS YOU, MINNEAPOLIS!

"Love Songs"

Earlier this morning I was listening to the "Feist" station on Pandora and I was surprised by how many "love songs" were playing.  I guess I typically avoid that kind of music (even though I do like Feist).  However, It is pretty difficult  to listen to pop music of any kind without hitting a "love song".  Now you many be wondering why I am putting "love song" in quotes.  I felt compelled to put it in the quotations because as I was listening to the lyrics (a very important part of the music for me) I realized just how selfish and childish sounding most of the songs were. They were not so much about love that endures, a love that is faithful like the one described in 1 Corinthians 13, but about a feeling, even sometimes it seemed, just hormonal compulsion, and maybe at it's grandest, a reflection on life.

Now, to many people, maybe this is what "love" is...I don't know.  Yeah, it probably is.  :o( How disappointing and trite if that's what "love" relationships end up being.

I am grateful that Jesus calls me to a much greater love than that.  I am grateful for the imperfection and yet commitment I experience through Chris and my marriage.  We have our struggles but our marriage (our love) is based on something and Someone who created the Heavens and Earth and sustains them by His being.  Our "love" (blast that word, it's been so abused!) is something that expands with us.  It is not in a dream, it is not in a vaccuum.  It is shaped and forged and strengthened and even spilled out in and on a community of friends and family.  

I am going to put all of 1 Corinthians 13 on here and I want to note that I know this isn't about a marriage or love relationship -- but it's explanation of love is the one all kinds of love need -- friendship, family, marriage, community, etc.  How much greater and deeper and richer is that love of Jesus (and how much greater and deeper and richer does it make our lives).

1 Corinthians 13
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice with unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge , it will be done away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.  When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.  But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; bu the greatest of these is love."