Expectations

As I am sure it is with all humans, the notion of expectations has been one I've increasingly grappled with in growing older, particularly within relationship. My personal trend is toward high expectations of others and even higher expectations for myself. With each of life's hard knocks my expectations of other have lowered of others and with each new to-my-knees moment my expectations of myself have (slowly!) been lowering.

After a breakup with a boyfriend about a year ago, conversation with friends and family seemed to center around the concept of "no expectations". A concept which I have no acquaintance with and honestly, I don't think any of you do either, no matter how much pain life's thrown onto your shore. (I have met people who seem remarkably good at having no expectations but, as I've grown closer in my relationship with them, I've only found such to be a mask or a substantial denial.) Anyways...after reading one of Jason Upton's blog entries, I've begun to think the conversation of high expectation - low expectation - no expectation may not exactly be the terms with which God approaches the topic "expectation". So often I think we leave God out of our conversation about expectation. Without God any one take (high, low, or no) leads to hopelessness, I think.

I like the angle Upton takes to the topic...

"Tonight Samuel and I read the story of ‘Jacob and Esau making peace'. The verse that stuck out to me the most tonight is Genesis 33:10, where Jacob says to Esau "And what a relief to see your friendly smile. It is like seeing the face of God." Jacob was preparing to meet a very angry and bitter Esau, but instead was received with Love and forgiveness. I believe one of the practical ways God reveals himself to us is by countering our expectations with the "last thing we expect." Expectations are one of the ways we feel in control of what is going on around us, but also one of the great blinders over our eyes from seeing God. Sometimes it is a fearful experience when things don't turn out the way we plan. Other times (like with Jacob) it is a great relief when things don't turn out the way we plan. Either way, these are often the moments in life that we see the face of God most clearly.

Today I had an experience like this. I went to the U-haul store to pick up some boxes for my wife Rachel. The clerk at the register's name was Anton. As he was taking the money I owed, I noticed his two pinky fingers were bent inward. The only other person I know that has bent pinky fingers is my friend Brandon Hampton, and he says it helps him play the guitar. All of the sudden I sensed that I was to tell Anton that God had made his pinky's that way for the purpose of being a great guitar player and they were not a deformity. Let me just say that Anton was a very large African American man who did not look like he was having a great day to begin with. I was a little worried that he might think I was calling his fingers deformed and beat me right there at the u-haul store. I told him anyway. His face got real sober and he looked up at me and said "that is really strange, because I have been learning how to play the banjo." All of the sudden he got this HUGE smile on his face as if to say ‘I need to keep playing because playing the banjo is part of my destiny." Seeing Anton's smile was like seeing the face of God. I walked out of that U-haul store with the sense that I had been face to face with God.

None of this happened today because of my expectations. My circumstances today did not at all point toward seeing the face of God. God surprised me by letting me see and experience something I was not able to expect. God's nature seems to force humanity to expect nothing but surprises."

Changed Color But Not Yet Fallen

Far too often busyness has kept me from enjoying the fall season. It's busyness, I suppose, and the reality that in the midwest the period between 90 degree weather and snow flakes is so fleeting. If you were to take only a long nap you'd miss it! Too many times flakes have covered the ground before I've been able to fully appreciate the crispness of fall and the changing color of the leaves.

Stephanie and I were determined not to let this fall season slip by. We decided it was important enough even to skip our Sunday church service to take a fall roadtrip to Galena, IL - a quaint, historic town which lies on the boarder between Iowa and Illinois. Legend has it glaciers never formed over the area hence, the rolling hills and valleys which break the miles of flat plain.

Yesterday was a most ideal fall day. Few clouds in the sky. Crisp but not chilly. Sunny. Leaves had changed color but not yet fallen to the ground.

Galena sits up on a hill. Coble stones still line the streets and the people have preserved the homes of Ulysees S. Grant and Ronald Reagan. The first bank still stands and a river runs right in front of the town.



We also made a stop in Elizabeth, another small town just outside of Galena which prides itself on the Apple River Fort. The fort, which has only two huts and measures 50 feet by 70 feet, was home to 50-70 adults (nevermind their children) for several weeks in 1832 at the start of the American-Indian War. The fort was built in defense of the Indian group led by the famed chief Black Hawk - an immensely resourceful and civilized group justifiably enraged about loosing their home to Anglos bent on conquering and colonizing land further and further West.

Illinois state grant money has allowed for the fort to be recreated to its actual measurement. Stephanie and I visited on the last day of live history, a time when a cast of characters describes and lives out the fort's activity.





And finally, we were blessed with a picturesque drive home.

Clear Off The Road

The story behind how these pictures of St. Ignatius Cathedral and the Chicago skyline is short and dangerous. Simply, I took them while I was driving. I know you're now going to want me to call you whenever I plan on driving. I am worse than a 16 year-old with a new license. What can I say?!

But, while these pictures might now insight terror in you, each time I look at them I smile. I smile because I am living my little girl dream of being a young professional who plays on the weekends under the shadows of the skyskapers.

Jason Upton - Dear John (Born)

With contemplative beauty Upton brings hope into a world which carries so much hopelessness.

Stop Looking at the Ground - Look Up!

And then, there are those moments...






...like last night's sunset.

Larry Himmel in front of his destroyed home

Prayers go out to those in California!

CCDA

The conference I attended this weekend was the Christian Community Development Association's annual networking conference. Urban ministries from all over the country came to represent. :-) Association member organizations ascribe to eight components - relocation, reconciliation, redistribution of resources, leadership development, listening to the community, as well as church-based, wholistic approach towards empowerment. The Association was founded by John Perkins and his wife, a pastor and ministry leader in Mississippi, who believed these components foundational to Biblically-sound ministries within multi-ethnic urban centers who inevitably encounter the pains and joys of seeking racial righteousness. Perkins is still alive and well, continuing this time with his morning Bible study each conference day, a ritual of his at the conference. As with most conferences, there were a few great quotes each of which, this year, came from Perkins.

"We wouldn't have so many eager leaders if they knew what their true responsibility is to be."

- in speaking about how Godly leader's first priority is in bearing the people's burdens.

"It's okay to be mad at God; He can take it."

- in his examination with the prophet Habakkuk's conversation with God.

"Plan like Jesus is going to return in 1,000 years, and behave like He's coming tomorrow."

"When God calls, He gifts the person with the relations for the call."

"Those who are called are not in competition with one another, but are

about the success of all the ministries and churches in the town."

"I can't fix everything, but I want to be concerned about a lot."

- in retort to those who say he is impassioned by too many good causes.

St. Lou - City of Many Stories

First, I must begin on a completely unrelated note to this entry. I periodically read back through my blog entries and every single time I do I am appauled by my horrid grammar and the gross number of missing words. This evening's review was no different. Seeing as my writing is what puts food on my table, I am wondering if I should begin to prepare for the imminent famine which surely is just around life's corner. Thank God I have editors for my professional work. They are getting their Christmas presents this year!

Okay, the real topic of this entry: St. Lou. I was there this weekend for a conference and to see some family. Now, I'm back with so many stories that, once I've conquered the flu virus I'm battling and have unpacked a bit more, I'll write to you about. In the meantime, it's just pictures.

1.) Courthouse of the Dred-Scott Decision + the Arch
2.) St. Louis Art Museum at night
3.) Cherokee Row (a.k.a. Main Street U.S.A.)

"God never just sends one sign: He keeps on confirming His course for us with one vision after another. But the reading of His signs is essentially a task for faith, a task for people who are willing to persist in seeking out the correspondence between the external and visible realities of their lives, and the interior weather of their souls, striving always to bring the two into line in order that the kingdom of God might come. For the interior journey is necessarily an exterior journey, the path to God necessarily the path of deepening human relationships. Marriage stands at the very hub of this exciting spiritual dialectic, for it is, as Paul points out, a cameo dramatization of the relationship of the whole church with its Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

- Mike Mason, "The Mystery of Marriage"

This, my friends, is why when someone retorts to me, "You don't need a man, Lauren" I cringe. Because this person clearly does not understand our urban increasing, evermore independent, cyber-ridden, cynical, commitment fearing and increasingly hopeless world. These people don't seem to remember that the very man in Scripture who said that it "better to be alone than to marry" was the very same man who spent chapters more making marriage comparisons to the relationship between Christ and the Church. And, they also have forgotten the verse about iron sharpening iron and how when that iron - the person - is the one we sleep with, eat with, have friends with, work with, have sex with... the irons are sharpened in ways no homeless man in the local shelter can sharpen or your married girlfriend who comes over occasionally for a glass wine and nail polish can sharpen. And, this person who makes this retort has also forgotten Adam and Eve and the Creation story and how even though Adam supposedly had everything He needed to be happy, with the company of God ever-present, a world without sin, and as many animals, flowers, trees, and bushes a man could want Adam, in fact, still was not entirely content. Furthermore, such discontentment was not some sinful, fatal flaw but something created into him and foreseen before him by his Creator.

Okay, I'll get off my soap box, now. But, now I know you'll think twice before making such a comment to me.

With this huge heat wave covering the nation the last few weeks, I've heard many people, news reports, etc. blame all this on global warming. In fact, Time magazine this week put out a special, extra edition specifically dedicated to detailing global warming. But, has anyone thought that this might just be an answer to my prayers and those of many others that endure year after year the misery of midwest winters - gray skies for 275 days, slushy streets, extreme cold? I've been praying to God that He would extend the sunshine & warmth as long as possible. So, the way I see it, He's just lavishing good gifts on this sista.

Jesus - Defender of the Damned

I picked up this book other day - "Defending the Damned" by Kevin Davis. one of those impulsive, while-the-other-books-are-undergoing-the-scanner-I'll-pull-this-one-off-"needs to sorted" cart moments. (That can't be proper grammar.)

Davis is an award-winning journalist based in Chicago, who has written for the Chicago magazine, Tribune, Sun Times, and the list goes on. He spent five years studying public defenders at the Cook County Courthouse on California & 35th, not far from where I live. Yes, public defenders. You know the ones. The lawyers assigned to those who cannot afford to pay for a defender.

Davis was intrigued by these particular lawyer's motivation - lawyers who plead the case of individuals who, 9.8 times out of 10 are guilty, often committing their crime in broad daytime within sight of several witnesses. Davis' investigation began with several of his own, looming questions. Are these defenders conscious-less, morally-seared individuals, only a rung or two above their clients on the humanity ladder? Were they as appalled and deeply disturbed by the stoic recounts of their clients' grotesque crimes, some as heinous as the rape, murder, and dismemberment of months-old babies? How can they defend clients on trial for such "horrible acts day after day, year after year, while keeping a safe emotional distance and preserving their sanity? What motivate[s] them to come to work in such a dark place?"

I won't give away what Davis discovers (haven't yet finished the book myself). You will have to buy/borrow the book for yourself. However, from page one of the "Author's Note" I was struck by how this author was describing with secular words a secular world which has remarkable parallels to the spiritual world. Simply put, Jesus. As someone who has a fondness for seeing justice served (unless it is pointed at myself, of course) I've been regularly challenged by the notion of Jesus as our advocate - our lawyer - before the Father. For me, however, the word advocate or lawyer has always conjured up some images of a handsome man in a clean-cut suite, addicted to work and enamored with the intricacies of words and their meanings. And, because there many different kinds of lawyers the parallel between the fleshly, occupational lawyer and the seen-by-few, now-in heaven Advocate for Jesus Christ, in the past, has only retained its challenge only for so long. The endearing "warm fuzzies" of Jesus' compelling, tear-jerking closing comments to the Father on my behalf have ended once I begin the mental debate over Jesus as our property rights lawyer or international courts lawyer or... but, never has my list included Jesus as our/my public defender.

If you think about it, though, that's exactly what he is - the advocate for the damned. Served in a dark place. Saviour of those who've committed heinous crimes. Misunderstood by the media and the general public. Quickly stereotyped by a world who knows little if not anything about the case He is defending or the motive of His defense. Whose closest friends are beer-drinking, work-crazed, justice-bent, quirky men, some of whom have been raised in Chicago's Gold Coast while others pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to be something more than their coal mining father.

Having grown up in the church my entire life, attending one Christian school after the next, and now working in a ministry, the Christian cliche is just about all I can present in my explanation of the Person of my faith. So, I'm finding "Defending the Damned" to be a manual of new words, illustrations, and explanations of Jesus to a world who can't quite understand the humanity of my God.

A Simple Shake Made Way Too Complex

I met a gentleman today - 6' 4", muscular, 30-something, basketball player type. Shook his hand in introduction. He responded, "You trying to break my hand?" I laughed. smiled. explained that I ain't going to give him a "fish" handshake. (noooo way. "fish" handshakes are my pet peeve.) he kept insisting that I try the shake again. I was mildly offended by his question and by his preceding insistence that I redo the introduction. don't know what this says about me. because I'm good at majoring on the minors, I've been processing this short incident all day. I'll admit it was the woman inside of me that was peeved. problem is: my feminist lens needs to be squeegeed these days. maybe you women out there can help me. is my reaction such because he was a man, making the comment feel chauvinistic? because he was older & the comment felt as if it was some kind of parental discipline? or, maybe its embarrassment? maybe I did shake his hand too hard. difficult for me to accept the later to be true. and I predict anyone who knows me and my physical frailty might find such a rational equally as surprising. anyways... thought writing - blogging - about this would help me with the processing, but...it hasn't. :sigh: