Show Me YOUR Glory!!!

After a much needed weekend on Coronado, I made my way to the evening service at Grace Community Church, Sun Valley California, to see what the Lord might engrav

e upon my heart this night. What a treat! Dr. Steve Lawson has been at Grace

for the past coule of weeks as Dr. John MacArthur is on a much deserved holiday - and he is so full of passion and excitement for the word! (Plus he has this great Tennessee accent to go with it all). His sermon was titled pretty simply: “Show Me Your Glory.”

Here is a prayer that ought to be on the heart of every believer! The sermon’s focal point was the mercy of God, but what stung deeper into my heart, was Dr. Lawson’s declaration of the power of this prayer – in its intensity – to dig the believer out of the shallow cup of lukewarm Christianity into the depths of faith.

I wish that I had my notes from the sermon right here beside me so that I could quote Dr. Lawson and reference all of the verses that went into this point, but it isn’t, and it is getting late, so I ought to finish this and find my way to bed instead.

This year I have been blessed many times over in my proximity to countless teachers of sound faith and doctrine, but this is not enough – as Dr. Lawson pointed out – this has to be a personal prayer, not just a congregational prayer – this has to be a declaration, a plea, from the deepest shadows of my soul, not just an utterance of my lips. I am as yet a lukewarm Christian – I am drowning in my academic, nonchalant, lackadaisical approach to scripture. Even in the shadow of such great teachers as I have found myself this year, it is not enough until my commitment to scripture, growth, and to The Lord is personal, and even then I will fall hopelessly short.

Let me make this plea public then, let me cry out “Aba! Father!! SHOW ME YOUR GLORY!!!” – but let this be the plea of the depths of my spirit as well, as of every believer.

Though I am floundering in shallow water, there are many who have sampled the depths but have begun to stagnate – to this Dr. Lawson so helpfully pointed out that there is always something more to learn of God’s Glory than has already been divulged. This prayer belonged to Moses first – among the most affirmed men in the Bible – having visited God on Mount Sinai already, surely he knew more than modern men already – but yet he recognized that he had still more to learn.

Father I pray that I may never (again) forget that there is infinitely more of you for me to come to know – may I never grow bored in seeking you, searching for you in my heart, and learning of you in my mind. Stitch my soul into the fabric of your believers so that I may become one with the body, that my eyes might see your glory in every piece of creation around me.

In Your Son’s precious name,
Amen.

Frequent Flyer

I was home for a brief visit in June - really brief. In all, I was gone from Hollywood for 11 days. I spent 2 days in Denver, 1.5 in Wichita, 6 in Oklahoma with JROTC, and then 1.5 more in Wichita. (It is no wonder I make such a point of stopping to smell the roses)

----- WOAH! -----

Needless to say, by the end of it all, I was much in need of a breather. Can't say I really got one in Hollywood, the first week back I was right back to work - Wednesday, June 30 (2 days after my return) was big day for Outreach supporting a homeless connect day in the South Bay area. There aren't often moments to breathe on the golden coast, though - at least not when your tour guide is a non profit.

We did manage to get away, though, my roommate Kenna and I.

I have some amazing friends living on Coronado Island and have been more than hospitable to us on three occasions now. The first time they were not home and so let us know how to make ourselves at home. This second time they are and what wonderful conversation! I would have thought that I was looking for time away in this vacation, but truthfully, I was merely searching for time with the right people - close enough to Hollwood for a weekend, but far enough away that we can see a star or two in the sky.

Tonight was the best fun I have had in a very long time. We went for a drive after dinner around the island - locals definitely make the best tour guides! Jim and Marilyn (our lovely hosts!) have a ruby red slug-bug convertable and plenty of stories to tell about the island, as each of them lived out here toward the end of their high school years. The houses are incredible and so is the view - and the jokes.

These are the people whom we must cherish forever! The stories that we have here to share with each other in faith and for the sake of growing one another are invaluable, and I must say that I am impressed by how generously they are offered to us their home, their hearts, and their love.

God blesses us by planting angels discreetly all along the path that we must walk, and I wonder that we might have uncovered some this weekend. Amidst many hugs and promises to see each other again, we will bid them goodbye tomorrow morning and head back to Hollywood -but I know for a fact that here I have recharged, and next week my heart will be overflowing with the love that they have lent to me.

What a perfect weekend!

Apologies and Fleas

I have begun to neglect this part of my duties, quite regrettably. So here I will aim to stop that. My hope is to continue with this not just here and now, but also on into my air force career. This blog, and the e-mails that I get when I (as I have been) begin neglecting it from time to time - are an excellent proof of my supporters out there. I need it, I need the kick in the pants, and I appreciate every one of you.

Since my last post in May (which was itself rather emaciated) the whole of my life in Hollywood has been thrown into a bag, shaken up, and poured out haphazardly to create a whole new scenario - a much better one, I hope.

I have been through stress like even USAFA could not teach me about. I have been home for a week to remind myself of a military environment through JROTC Summer Camp. I boarded the plane back to Hollywood to finish up these last 28 days with enthusiasm. I will no longer be working at PATH as I have for the rest of this year - and I have embarked on a journey to both end this year well, and to leave this house in much better shape than I found it in.

To say the least, this amounts to only a brief recap. I anticipate, however, that there will be ample opportunity to write in the coming days. Tonight it hit me that I won't be going to work and I was ecstatic. There are many things around here for me to work on these 2 and a half weeks - from gardening to fixing our toilet . . . which completely died tonight, much to our discomfort :( . . . So I can add all of this to the list of *fleas* that I have picked up this year:

How to shoot a basketball

How to cook for five

How to delegate more effectively

How to fix a faucet . . .

How to fix a toilet (joy)

I have to go to bed now so I suppose I won't try to make everything make sense. What I really wanted to say is yes, I am still here, and OH YES!!! I am still learning at incomprehensible rates . . . I will share more in the days to come. What an underrated sounding board blogspot can be! I have missed how this time with my lawn-mower-wanna-be computer forces me to reflect and organize my reaction to what I am experiencing here. I will get back to it. I need it.

Futures

To say the least, my perspective on life has been changed tremendously over the past month or two – how long has it been since I last posted? For one thing, my short term future has been set, though not literally in stone, it’s about as close as it gets. The academy has accepted my application for reappointment and I have accepted their offer. I have signed my life away, or at least a 7 year chunk of it.

(In other news, the fan in my computer is dying and making an awful racket, which has contributed to my lack of blogging – and computering in general)

I will be spending a week this summer as a Platoon TAC for JROTC summer camp at in Gruber Oklahoma; Funny how futures link back to so many memories. I think that my path through the academy was laid in for real at JCLC the summer after my freshman year. Lt. Col. Kennedy decided to sit down at my table at lunch and talk to me about them. I guess I was more than a little convinced.

The biggest uncovered future, I guess, really is nothing but an uncovered past: What got me here to begin with – both here to the academy and here to California.

I did not join the Air Force to become another among the many. I joined with the intent of becoming one among the many but not cut quite of the same cloth. The defining moment that most easily illustrates that came from a day that I am certain none of my classmates even took note of.

State benchmark testing was well underway, and as such, we were not in our usual classes when the pledge of allegiance started (have I blogged about this before? I’ve told the story so many times before . . .). I was generally in my JROTC class – where of course everyone at least stood, even if they refused to say anything. This day was different.

Instead of saying the pledge with my fellow cadets, I was surrounded by my IB classmates – my colleagues who were earmarked to be the best in whatever field tickled their fancy. It didn’t even occur to me that the pledge might mean anything different to them than to my JROTC classmates. When the intercom cordially invited us to stand however, I found myself to be one among two who chose to participate – I think we were both shocked, because I could not hear them saying anything and I could barely hear myself.

The best and the brightest don’t believe in this country – so why does it come as any surprise when things begin to fall apart? – but that’s really not the point at all.

Since then my purpose, my intention in serving has been to protect the freedom of my classmates not to stand up if that is what they should choose. That is something that I easily forgot in my first two years at USAFA – making this year a necessity.

This past Saturday we participated in the May day march in San Diego – they are held around the country, but that is where we were. I was extremely uncomfortable with the situation on the way there, however, I was so directly reminded of my initial intent – and another layer to it – that I am without regrets for going.

It is imperative that the people in this country who have a voice lend their ears to those who do not. That is what we did on Saturday and that is another layer to what I hope to do through whatever avenues I have available to me – through whatever career paths this all may lead me down. I will follow this faithfully – and pray that I never again forget the roots that led me here. Without them, I am but another grain of rice in a vat of horchata.

This country has the potential to rise to even greater heights – or to fall to all-time depths. The deciding factor will be our investment in its success.

You Don't Have to Yell

So called reality

Right there on my TV

If that's how life's suppose to be, well

Somebody's lying

Being transplanted into Hollywood has been a trip, to say the least. I never would have considered that this would have been possible even a year ago. There is a plan in all of this somewhere, though I cannot seem to find the map. Perhaps I was never supposed to find it here. Certainly not yet. I am wandering blind - feeling blind, I have but one place to turn. There is no compass for life but to call on God for guidance. Certainly the media, the common culture, has not given us a good pillar to lean on.

The camera's on and we can tell

To keep your fame you have to yell

Cause tensions build

And products sell and

We're all buying

I hope we're smarter than this

I am surrounded more than ever by the wrong signs here. I thought that it was hard to ignore the nuances of our culture of lust before entering into the entertainment hub of the world. What did I know? Here it is on every billboard, every street corner, the side of every building. At least they are not still advertising the release of the latest "Grand Theft Auto" video game. I am not sure, though, that those adds were any more perplexing than the adds that I see for the 'sassy' shows - the ones full of drama and most of all of glorified defiant women.

Everybody take a breath

Why are all your faces red?

We're missing all the words you said

You don't have to yell!

I caught myself this week forgetting to breathe. It is so easy to let that happen here. I have come to the conclusion that I am not cut out to be a social worker (that was never really in question) at least in the sense of case management. Certainly this placement has done exactly as it was intended to in stretching me well beyond my comfort zones. I am grateful. I am also grateful that I have discovered this here rather than after years of pursuing it or something of the like. I love that the days are nonstop and that we are not confined within the walls of an office, but to some extent, this job is too far outside of those walls, or any walls. How do we stop to breathe when our job is to make it so that someone else can? The paradox, the hard but necessary balance, is to learn to stop and breathe with them.

Draw your lines

And choose your sides

Cause many thing are worth the fight

But louder doesn't make you right

You don't have to yell,

Oh, You don't have to

Over all of the babel I am having a hard time hearing the truth - and when I do, I am not so sure that I am listening. The lessons to learn here are innumerable - both good and bad. I cannot know if I have picked up on the right ones or if I am still floating in a sea of folly. Here is a reminder to look back at the quiet ones. I have a book that is my "AHA" journal for the year - it was suggested to us by someone who spent a year in Doolos - a similar program. In it, of the six lessons that I have recorded since I began again, 4 relate directly to love. Love for sure is a quiet lesson for us to learn, and a quiet reassurance when it has arrived in our hearts, quiet support for our people - barely a whisper. Love is the first lesson, the foundation, the whole support structure of our faith and (should be) of our lives.

I turned in to hear the new

I don't want you point of view

If that's the best you can do

Then something's missin'

And experts on whatever side

You plug your eyes,

You scream your lines

You claim to have an open-mind

But nobody's listening

One of my coworkers likes to express tidbits of wisdom from time to time, usually he says the same one for about a week at a time, over and over, but there is some usefulness to it - if only because it is a good memorization technique. This week he has been throwing in "God gave us two ears but only one mouth; heed the ratio" at every opportunity. There is something to it, to say the least. I hope I was quiet long enough to hear him this week. I pray that I will learn the quiet necessary to hear God whispering his way through my life. If I am yelling he will not force me to be quiet so that I can hear him, but he will be waiting when I stop to take a breath.

Everybody take a breath

Why are all your faces red?

We're missing all the words you said

You don't have to yell

Jesus explained to his disciples the new commandment, greater than the others, to love one another as he has loved them. By no means is this command new until we consider that in Jesus' life we have a standard clearly illustrated for us in Him. Jesus, too, was soft spoken. Have I already drowned him out? Have I already refused to hear him once too often? I pray again for my heart to be broken, especially here, this night that is Good Friday - Father FORCE me to see the pain that I am causing for my savior, even in this moment, by my sinful nature...

Divine Providence

Tonight as I walked into my house I was crying in a way that I have not cried in years, if ever. Quietly, yes, because my roommate is asleep, but uncontrollably all the same. I am filled by a mixture of dredged up sorrows and abounding joy.

I finally had the courage to bring up years of pain with a friend of mine from the campus ministry that I have been attending at USC, and the thought of it being lifted, the mere prospect, is utterly inconceivable.

In second grade was the first time that I remember my knees hurting me - I thought it was nothing more than growing pains. When I was 12 is the first time that I remember mentally noting that my shoulders hurt longer after swim practice than they should have, some thing deeper and different from that good sore feeling. Since then, things have most definitely gotten no better.

Tonight I spoke with my friend who is a physical therapist - who goes to GOC - and who could potentially mitigate something that I have dealt with for years and years. This is a Polaroid of the church in action. Just like when our water heater went out, this is the church wherein the members offer their expertise to each other for the greater good. What a beautiful model!

Whatever happens, I want to praise The Father for years of struggle and rerouted dreams that have led me here and allowed me to experience the immeasurable significance of this moment. Even as I sit to type this my shoulders are bothering me. My knees are quiet.

I cannot play cello without pain. I cannot walk or ride to work without pain. I cannot swim without it, I cannot play horse with the kids without it. I cannot sit for a long period of time - especially in an airplane - without wanting to scream. Even if this does not work, I will have an answer and know where to look for the next step to ending the daily, hourly pain of this broken and depraved body that is my temple before God.

I feel like a broken record - I have for years, and I feel like tonight someone was kind enough to lift the needle into the next groove so that I may have peace again.

A Piece of Gum

As an employee of PATH I have become very aware of the homeless population within Los Angeles and within Hollywood especially.

We operate in sort of a contradictory manor really; we are trying to help the people we encounter on the streets - to get them into shelter and ultimately into permanent housing - and we are working to create conditions where they want that shelter. In other words, we are working to make them comfortable and to be their friends and at the same time raising awareness so that the community will make them less comfortable, making shelter a more enticing offer.

Sometimes, it feels like working on a double standard, but really it makes sense. So long as a homeless man can get every bit of sustenance that he needs sitting on a street corner, he has no reason to actually make a change. Making that change requires tremendous effort and means following the rules of society - which many homeless deliberately rebel against.

We do not give the homeless money. Money can be used to buy any number of things that perpetuate homelessness, from alcohol and drugs to companionship to hotel rooms. Giving money to a homeless person allows them to feel that even in their predicament they still have some control over their lives - a desired commodity, but not one that is helpful in getting them into shelter.

On the job, we give homeless lunches to keep them for the day, but given that we see them only once a week, our rations are not what is sustaining them. We bring around clothing and blankets as well, and items for personal hygiene. Off the job, however, I rarely have anything of the sort handy. I think that I have found a perfect medium, however.

I still do not want to give money to the people of the streets, however, there is this one man whom I have passed many times riding home from the gym or walking home from the bus stop. He does not ask for anything when I pass by, which makes me more inclined to offer something at all, and he gratefully accepts what I offer - gum.

As a Christian, I find it very difficult to balance not giving money to our clients with still wanting to help - there is no way that I can always have an old pair of jeans or a sandwich in my backpack to offer, and even then, it's not entirely helpful. But by giving this man a piece of gum as I ride past, I have given him something pleasant to chew on, something that will help his teeth, and something that will not sustain him. So I have made him a little more comfortable, yes, but I have not given him the means of continuing to live this way here.

Even if he doesn't enjoy the piece of gum (I haven't stuck around to find out) He smiles and thanks me for it, and it ministers to my heart to know that I have at least extended a hand to say hello. The first time that I passed him I had literally nothing else to offer. Now I make sure that I have gum with me to share. The best things in life are those that we can enjoy in community, whatever that community may be. Who knows, maybe that piece of gum will be the thing that opens the conversation about shelter at some point.

Or maybe next week he will still be waiting for another piece of gum.