Sugar and Sin

So, I should begin by stating I am doing MUCH, MUCH better.  I do think it was/is good for me to question but I want to assure you all that I actually am pretty much solid in faith now.  After a few days I wrote out a lot of the things God has done for me in my life either in a very supernatural way or a very personal way (or both).  That testimony to myself made me remember why I could trust God and the Bible (although I can't explain or phantom all that is in it).  Perhaps I need to work out things more myself but I think it was more of an emotional crisis than an intellectual one.  I have always leaned more towards emotional dealings anyway.  I welcome all your thoughts/comments on this.  Mostly I just wanted to let you know I am doing fine and feeling closer to God even in slight ambiguity.  In fact, part of what draws me to God is the Mystery.

On to "sugar and sin": the reason I decided to title this post that is because for lent (well, to be honest, I think it's kind of more of an experiment) but PARTLY for lent I've decided to try and forgo sugar.  That sounds a little easier (or harder?) than it is.  Even though I already buy minimally processed foods and mostly organic/natural foods I have already found that I've eaten sugar in salsa and bacon by accident!  Sugar is in almost everything -- even bread.  So, I'm eating Ezekiel bread right now and might make some bread with honey or get a bread from the bakery that doesn't have any sugar in it (rye?).  I don't know.  I am also trying to give up discouragement (mostly for my husband) and replace it with encouragement.  That is more of my "real" lent fast.

So far I've definitely had cravings which is partly why I'm trying to fast from sugar.  I realized I've been using it as a crutch.  I'm also curious to see if I do have more energy and feel better if I don't eat if for a while.  Well, as I said before sugar is pervasive and although I certainly don't think it's a sin to eat sugar it made me think of the Bible Study we went to earlier tonight.  We read Ephesians 4:17-5:20; here it is in full:

¹⁷ So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. ¹⁸ They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. ¹⁹ Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

²⁰ That, however, is not the way of life you learned ²¹ when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. ²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

²⁵ Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. ²⁶ “In your anger do not sin”^[d]: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, ²⁷ and do not give the devil a foothold. ²⁸ Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands,that they may have something to share with those in need.

²⁹ Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.³¹ Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. ³² Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

5 ¹ Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
³ But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. ⁴ Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.⁵ For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.^[a] 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. ⁷ Therefore do not be partners with them.
⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light⁹ (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰ and find out what pleases the Lord. ¹¹ Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹² It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.¹³ But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. ¹⁴ This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper,
    rise from the dead,
    and Christ will shine on you.”

¹⁵ Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. ¹⁸ Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Alright, so I know that's a lot.  It's a lot and the reason I bring it up is because just reading it made me think of fasting from sugar.  Sugar is in nearly everything.  Reading through this passage made me realize sin is in nearly everything as well.  Just thinking of anger, greed or foolish talk (ok, this happens) and I'm already out.  Then I realize, it's not that I am called out to give sins I am also called to replace them with good things.  It's not so simple as not doing something as much of our culture presumes.  I like that there is a positive for every negative, so to speak.  For example, "Be careful, then, how you live-- not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil."  Anyway, realizing this in full it's no wonder I need the Holy Spirit!  I most definitely NEED to be "made new in the attitude of my mind; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." -Ephesians 4:24

So, yeah, there's some food (without sugar hopefully) for thought.  Haha.  It's interesting how fasting from something or even being intentional about doing/forming a new habit really brings things into clearer focus.  It's like, oh, wow, I need God to save me from sin and recreate me into the person I really am.  Yeah.

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
          

Cat-bus

I have been busy and not thinking I have much to say, thus, the lull in posts.

Yeah, but I did a drawing of a cat-bus today (from the classic anime movie My Neighbor Totoro) which I plan to send to a friend in a care package this week. I tried to turn it but it won't work for me so I guess I'll just post it looking like it's about to rocket into the sky.

"Cat-bus" is also what my husband and I call the kitty that lives above us since it sounds as loud as a cat-bus.
:o)



I feel like my winter blues have passed and I'm getting into new things.  I've started volunteering by attending a Women's Craft Cooperative designed to get immigrants, refugees and native Minnesotans to mix and have fun doing crafts, speaking English, and sharing life.  I learned to knit there just this Friday.  I also went to a "Re-skills" workshop where we learned about baking bread.  I am baking my own bread right now!  See, an old dog can learn new tricks...hehe.

Well, just wanted to say hey and wish you all a vivifying day/evening.

On Princesses

From the beginning of George MacDonald's "The Princess and the Goblin":

THERE was once a little princess who—

"But Mr. Author, why do you always write about princesses?"

"Because every little girl is a princess."

"You will make them vain if you tell them that."

"Not if they understand what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

"What do you mean by a princess?"

"The daughter of a king."

"Very well, then every little girl is a princess, and there would be no need to say anything about it, except that she is always in danger of forgetting her rank, and behaving as if she had grown out of the mud. I have seen little princesses behave like children of thieves and lying beggars, and that is why they need to be told they are princesses. And that is why when I tell a story of this kind, I like to tell it about a princess. Then I can say better what I mean, because I can then give her every beautiful thing I want her to have."

"Please go on."

There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farmhouse, on the side of another mountain, about half-way between its base and its peak...

Working in a preschool I get my fair share of princesses as you can imagine.  I have been compared to a princess and also been informed that the little girls I work with are princesses as well as being a scribe for a handful of stapled together "books" containing stories about the girls who are little princesses.  Oh yeah, and then there is the ever-invasive Disney princesses which are not so terrible as I first thought, but also don't do justice to what I believe George MacDonald gets at in the beginning of "The Princess and Goblin."  Princess Irene, if ever there was one, is the real deal in princess stories.  She is simply uncommon.
When I was a little girl I was not into dolls or dresses or anything remotely like princesses.  I just didn't seem to care about any "girly" thing.  According to my mom, I liked to draw and I liked to run around and be a "little monkey." However, after reading the "Princess and the Goblin" and having my eyes widened to this great world I see. what. the. princess. thing. is. about.
Like a poet, I know I cannot quite put it into words, but, it's something about being lovely. A daughter of a king ought to be lovely simply on basis of being the king's daughter, shan't she?  If she is not, as George MacDonald says, she will at least need to hear these things about herself so that she might start to grow into truly having this quality.  I shy away from saying thing like "I am a daughter of a KING," (really the King of Creation) and yet when I find myself aware of this my whole being changes.  I begin to act it because I begin to believe it...and that is what being a princess is about.      

Psalm 21:1-6 (King changed to princess)

"O LORD in your strength the princess will be glad

And in your salvation how greatly she will rejoice!

You have given her her heart's desire,

And you have not withheld the requests of her lips.  Selah

For you meet her with the blessings of good things, 

You have set a crown of fine gold on her head.

She asked life of you

You gave it to her,

Length of days forever and ever 

Her glory (through Jesus) is great through your salvation,

Splendor and majesty you place upon her.

For you make her joyful with gladness in your presence."

Falling backwards and forwards

In high school I had a mad crush on a boy.  This boy wrote a work that was in the literary arts magazine I helped put together and one of the first lines was something like this:

"Do you ever feel like you are constantly falling backwards or forwards 4 years from where you are?"

For some reason that line stuck with me and sometimes when I am in a state of reflection I think of it.  I guess it's because it's truth.  It's hard to be in the place I am right now and I often think of things in the past that I miss or in the future that I yearn to come to be.

Hmmm....today, right where I am.  Right now.  Jesus, you want me right now, right where I am.

Jesus, you call me from the place I stand.  There is nothing that you don't permeate.  There is nothing beyond your Grace.
 

Hard to get torn at the roots...need Light and Water to repair it

"Hard to get torn at the roots...need Light and Water to repair it" is what I wrote in my journal the other day as I was thinking about the sweeping changes Chris and I have made as we are now in Mankato away from our community in Minneapolis.

Some people find a "community" in high school, some in college; but for me it was these last several years in Minneapolis post-college.  I felt like I finally connected and had a circle (and circles) of people I belonged to.  Not everyone being a close friend but a definite level of trust and recognition. 

Anyway, now that we are here in Mankato I have realized that in some ways I had become comfortable in that community giving me my sense of self worth.  Yes, I loved God within it and grew in my love for God and others because of it; but I also began to let it be a kind of idol that told me who I was.  The truth is that only God can tell us who we are and He always does so in the most beautiful, startling and yet profoundly calming, way.

These thoughts also grow out of my reading Don Miller's book "Searching for God Knows What."  He talks a lot about how we are wired to be in relationship.  He even states that if aliens were visiting us the thing they would notice the most is how much we are constantly comparing ourselves to each other.  We are wired to want affirmation.  The reason this instinct (so to speak) is so strong is that we are designed to be in a relationship with God who tells us who we are.  I think of facebook (and even this blog) where it has become the norm to constantly tell an audience what you are doing/thinking/feeling.  It's so obvious that we want others to affirm us (notice how there is only a "like" button and not a "dislike" one on facebook).

Getting back to what I was talking about earlier, as I realized how I had grown to depend of community and I step away from it into a kind of "void" here in Mankato I feel again a little like I did in high school and parts of college.  I am a maverick of sorts - not quite fitting in but able to roll with the punches with my few friends.  I am proud and yet I know I need community just as much as I did before.  Even more, I need God and thankfully the book "Searching for God Knows What" really hits on God's earnest desire for a relationship with us and has pulled me back in this direction.  God's love is so out of control -- it's a sheer astonishment.  We are sometimes caught in words and ideas of God rather than actually loving God for who He is. I have been refreshed by being called out to love Him and not just my imagination/a set of precepts.  He is the Light and Water that can repair my roots and keep me like a tree by the waters.

"This is what the Lord says:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
    who draws strength from mere flesh
    and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
⁶ That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
    they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
    in a salt land where no one lives.

⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:5-8

Christianity and Cynicism

I've noticed a trend in our culture at large of cynicism.  For example, the romantic comedy Chris and I watched recently didn't have a "happy ending" but left it with the woman protagonist more or less realizing it probably wouldn't work out.  It was all very post-post-modern.

So this kind of cynicism seems to have seeped into my circles of christian culture too.  It is popular (or maybe common is a better word) in these circles to be self-deprecating and cynical about sin.  Humility is one thing, but this isn't humility because it doesn't acknowledge the power and goodness of God in our own lives.  Instead, it goes around saying "woe is me" and "woe is the world" but not expecting change to come.  I want to say that I am not minimizing any hardships someone may go through.  I know that life is not simple but I believe God calls us to hope and believe (2 Corinthians 4:7-18 is one of my favorite passages that speaks strongly about these things).  We are earthen vessels, cracked pots with great power shining in us.

We need to have our eyes opened to the blinding truth that God's love is resoundingly infinite.  He will not leave us in sin and sorrow.  Our lives will not be easy, but with the Spirit of God our lives will be astonishingly redeemed.  I am speaking this to myself right now as much as anyone reading this:

I pray for new life and hope and that we'd be earnestly humble to see the KING work.

ISAIAH 59 was prophesied and prayed for over me a while back and I am awed by it:

"cry aloud, do not hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sins.  
yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know my ways, as nation that has done righteousness and has not forsaken the ordinance of God.
they ask me for just decisions, they delight in the nearness of God, "why have we fasted and You do not see? why have we humbled ourselves and you did not notice? behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire and drive hard all your workers. behold you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist.  you do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high.  
is it a fast like this which i choose, a day for a man to humble himself? is it for bowing one's head like a reed and for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? 
will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord? 
is this not the fast I choose: to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke? 
is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

then your light will break out like the dawn, and your recovery will speedily spring forth; and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. 
then you will call and the Lord will answer; you will cry and He will say, 'Here I am'
if you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your gloom will become like midday.
and the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a well-watered garden, and like a spring whose waters do not fail.
those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell.

if because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable,
and honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word.
then you will take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."