the church non-conforming: a sermon from john 17

I had the privilege recently of being asked to preach at First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake.  The new sermon series was on the Church’s relationship with the world, and the topic of the week was “non-conforming” from Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17:6-19 [full text here].  I thought I’d share an edited version J

*****

I was about ten years old when my family started going to church.  It was a little non-denominational Christian church in the small town where I grew up, and on one of my first Sundays, someone gave me a pocket-sized copy of the Gospel of John.  As a ten-year-old I didn’t understand half of it as I read it, but that didn’t matter… I carried it around with me all the time.  As I kept leafing through that little Gospel and we kept going to that church, I learned very quickly that what Jesus mentions in John 17 is a large part of the reality of being Christian:

That we are in this world, but not of this world.

That the world would hate us because we don’t belong to it... but that we can “take heart!” as Jesus said, because he has overcome the world.

In other words, that we are a non-conforming people.

There’s something about being in relationship with Christ—being part of the Church—that should make us look and speak and act differently from the rest of the world.

I began to notice even at that young age that “non-conforming” could actually be pretty easy on the surface level.  I started listening to Christian music, found a Christian bookstore, made friends that went to the Christian school, and started buying those plastic bracelets that said “WWJD” on them (shout out to anyone who did youth group in the nineties).

I learned that I could surround myself with a distinct Christian subculture that would reinforce my new identity and keep me a little safer from the rest of the world.  And in many ways it did:  I had a great childhood and I loved my church, and I managed to avoid a lot of the drama of my teenage peers.  Still now, when I listen to Christian music or read John Ortberg or Tim Keller or C.S. Lewis, I am both refined and encouraged. 

Now, on the one hand, some people accuse Christians today of not looking much different at all from the rest of the world—and in many ways, if we’re honest, they’re right. 

On the other hand, we can stay set apart by insulating ourselves from the surrounding culture… staying safe from the temptations of the Evil One in the world… waiting faithfully under God’s protection until we, like Jesus, “remain in the world no longer.”

Unfortunately, the more I’ve come to understand this passage, the more I think that’s not what Jesus is praying for. 

As he prays, he knows that he’s about to be taken to the cross—that he will be crucified, resurrected, and ascend to heaven in glory—and he is clearly concerned about the ones he’s leaving behind… but why?  Because they’re still in the world!        

Thirteen times in these fourteen verses Jesus mentions “the world.”  The Greek term (kosmos) has a variety of meanings in Scripture, but here Jesus seems to use it to refer to that within creation that is broken… the systems and principles that are hostile to God, and particularly to the truth of Christ.

If the world is hostile to the truth, surely it will be hostile to the ones who believe in that truth—that Jesus is, in fact, one with God as he says he is. 

So Jesus prays for their protection. 

But we need to pay attention to who he’s praying for.

He’s with his eleven remaining disciples (after Judas peaced out at the Last Supper).  These are his friends, and they have been with him for three long years during his ministry.  But they didn’t all start out as friends… 

One of them (Simon) was a zealot—what we might call today a violent religious extremist, a fanatic.  Zealots believed that the best way to reestablish Israel was to physically overthrow Rome.

One of them (Matthew) was a tax collector—a sellout to Rome.  He was the one who would hound his fellow Jews for money to pay the Roman empire; and tax collectors were notorious for being shady and corrupt and holding money for themselves on the side.

Several of them were fisherman—blue collar, perhaps poorly educated, working class guys… the kind who hated both the zealots and the tax collectors.

Another one, Thomas, was a skeptic, who later wouldn’t believe any of the rest of the group that Jesus had been resurrected… and who could blame him?  Some of these guys hadn’t exactly been trustworthy to begin with. 

Three years may not have been long enough. 

And later, to top it all off, Jesus would call Paul, a Pharisee, to go into the world and share the good news with the Gentiles and be part of this group of apostles. 

So in today’s terms, we essentially have a violent extremist, a corrupt IRS employee, a handful of union factory workers, a cynic, and eventually a fundamentalist… all about to be left alone together without Jesus.  If you added a condo in southern California and a few dozen cameras you could have a hit reality TV show.   Heaven have mercy on us all. 

But here’s what Jesus says, in verse 11:  “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” 

These disciples are no longer of the world… because they have accepted who Jesus is and obeyed what he taught.  But they still need God’s protection… because hostility is a tough thing to break. 

Today our churches are full of people with different backgrounds: 

Some of us had loving childhoods, and some of us come from more difficult homes. 

Some of us are Republican and some are Democrat. 

Some of us are financially stable (perhaps even with significantly more than we need), while others may be living paycheck to paycheck—or with no paycheck at all.

Some of us are held down by systemic racism, while some of us get the benefit of societal privilege because of the whiteness of our skin. 

We have people who are old and young, male, female, and non-binary, gay and straight, loud and quiet, stubborn and easy-going.  

In all likelihood, we already know how difficult it is to be one, as Jesus as the Father are one… if such a thing is even humanly possible. 

But if this is what Jesus is praying for—this needs to be our goal.  This is how the Church will show the world that we refuse to conform to its hostility and brokenness. 

Right now the world is full of tribalism and mud-slinging and violence.  Especially with the internet and social media—people say things now that they would never say to another person face to face.  It is all too easy to draw ourselves into our own camps with people who think and act like us… and it happens even, and sometimes especially, within our churches.  Being Christian takes a backseat to other qualifiers.  We draw lines based on how liberal or conservative we are, which type of music we want to sing in worship, or even how we voted on church policies.  More than once I’ve looked at other Christians and resented them for giving me a “bad name.”

But Jesus seems very clear in what he says in John 13:  “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  “By this everyone will know you are not of the world… if you love one another.” 

It’s often about as easy as cutting off your own right hand.  But here’s why it matters:  

Just after this text in John 17, Jesus continues…

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one-- I in them and you in me-- so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

This is radical non-conformity. 

In his day, Jesus claiming to be one with the Father would have sounded blasphemous, and impossible.  Today—given the state of the world—it sounds just as impossible that people from different places, cultures, backgrounds, political affiliations, ages, genders, sexualities, and skin colors—that we all might be one in the same way that Jesus and the Father are one.  But THAT is how we have been called.  To one Body, in one Spirit, and one baptism… out of every tribe and tongue and nation… everyone who has received the word of Jesus and known in truth that he came from the Holy Father, the one whose name is over every name.

When zealots sit next to tax collectors who sit next to fisherman and skeptics and Pharisees and all of them have to figure out how to honor the oneness of God in and amongst themselves… to be brought to complete unity so that the world will come to know the one who was sent… that is the Church’s task. 

Jesus left the world, but he didn’t leave us alone.  We have been given the Holy Spirit and the truth of Christ, and they are powerful.  So I think it’s time we understand the Church’s non-conformity as less about who and what we stay away from, and more about who we dare to be near. 

[Photo credit: link]

aspiring to a wholehearted life

I just finished a book this afternoon for class.  [Class hasn’t actually started yet—our first meeting is tonight, but the book pulled me in and I couldn’t put it down.]  This book is called Toughest People toLove: How to Understand, Lead, and Love the Difficult People in your Life—IncludingYourself, by professor-pastor-counselor Chuck DeGroat. 

We all have tough people in our personal and professional lives (let’s be honest…) so when I saw this book on our syllabus for this quarter, my first thought was, Oh yeah… this is gonna be good.  And it was. 

The long and the short is that I still don’t know how to deal with the people whom I love dearly but drive me crazy—any more than they probably know how to deal with me in my crazy.

The truth is, we all have a little bit of crazy, and we’re all tough, because we’re human. 

But that was kind of the point:  dealing with each other well ultimately means dealing with ourselves and coming to terms with our own messy, annoying, glorious humanity. 

Take the following for example:

The other night I got so frustrated because Matt put a billion chopped onions in our homemade enchiladas.  I had found and followed a recipe in the past which we loved, and this time we decided to do multiple batches at one time because we’re lazy on weeknights and love easy leftovers… but I come into the kitchen, and we’re talking a massive heap of onions in the frying pan.  My immediate (and very verbal) response was to cite the holy grail of cooking texts that was the online enchilada recipe, and flush red over the fact that the onion-to-other-ingredients ratio was about to be massacred by my husband.  I went into a downward spiral about how my cooking decisions are never good enough, how he always wanted to change things, and how he wasn’t taking my desires into consideration.

None of this was true, of course.  He was only trying to be nice and help me make enchiladas.  And he happens to love onions.

The real issue is that I struggle to bend the rules.  I am far more comfortable with following recipes and controlling outcomes.  If I feel “ownership” of a task, I want it to go my own way.  I wanted him to cook how I wanted, not the other way around. 

I can be, apparently, a tough person.

The lesson here is one I’ve been hearing from a cascade of literary and pastoral voices over the last few years—Brené Brown, Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, Ronald Richardson, and others…

They all seem to grasp the concept that part of being in healthy relationships with others is being in right relationship with God and yourself—experiencing what the Hebrew Scriptures call shalom, a deep and abiding peace and wholeness.   

Part of the problem in my relationships is me.  My life feels disorganized, my brain is fractured, my desires and aspirations are self-absorbed, and I drag around what DeGroat called a “long, invisible bag” stuffed with all the parts of myself I don’t like and don’t want others to see.  The bag gets heavier the longer I pull it around, and unfortunately it doesn’t get lighter without patiently airing out some of that dirty laundry.

I don’t want to do it.  I’d rather have you all think I’m perfect. 

But let’s be honest, “perfect” is boring.  And it’s fake.  The Greek word that we translate “perfect” in the New Testament—as in “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect”—is telios, which (in my imperfect understanding) is similar to shalom:  complete, mature, whole.  It’s less about one ideal standard than all parts working in harmony.   

“Perfect” is annoying, because it’s what we can all pretend we want to be, but no one actually believes we are.  “Whole”—or “wholehearted”—is real and honest and a bit broken, but also somewhat put graciously back together.  And it’s relatable:

It’s the deep breath you get to take when you can admit your own mistakes.

It’s the glass of wine you can have on your couch with a friend with your feet up and your shoes off as you talk about the movie you loved or the work project you’re struggling with.

It’s the spattering sound you can appreciate when you look up from your phone screen and see that it’s raining outside.    

It’s that blog post you never thought you were interesting enough to write. 

It’s the realization that it’s okay to put up boundaries with people that try to claim a lot from you.

It’s the grace that we find in Jesus’ tender and outrageous mercy. 

Failing is okay.  Being honest with ourselves and others is okay.  Putting too many onions in the enchiladas is okay.  The moral of the story here is that my crazy is going to try my best to love your crazy, because beneath all of our collective crazy and deep flaws, our name is Beloved and God said that we are all “very good.”

the fate of the fig tree: a sermon for lent

I was invited to give the sermon for the third Sunday in Lent at our church in Seattle on March 24th.  The lectionary text was Luke 13:1-9.  I’ve edited it down for brevity, but here it is:

*****

In the season of Lent, the church remembers Jesus’ journey to the cross; and this week’s text in Luke takes place as a part of that journey—when Jesus travels from Galilee (where he began his ministry) to Jerusalem (where it will end).  The crowd opens the conversation by asking Jesus about some troubling recent events: 

“There were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices”

…almost as if to say, “Did you hear about this Jesus?  Men from Galilee went to worship and Pilate had them murdered in the Temple.  What do you have to say about that?”

I have to admit, I’ve had some similar thoughts lately, things that I’d probably like to ask Jesus about if he were around…
Did you hear, Jesus, about the 50 Muslims who were killed in the shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand? What do you have to say about that? 
Did you hear, Jesus, about the anti-Semitic murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.  What do you have to say about that?
Jesus, have you heard about the students who were shot in their classrooms at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year?  What do you have to say about that? 

And Jesus says, yeah… yeah, I know about that.  I know about the Temple.  I know about Christchurch and Tree of Life and the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.  I know about Sutherland Springs, and Charleston, and Orlando, and Vegas, and everywhere else.  I know.  Are you asking me if God had a hand in those things?   

The common understanding at the time was that God rewards those were righteous and punishes those who sinned—so if something bad happened to you, it must be a direct result of something you did wrong. 

“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? …Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you.”

Jesus essentially says to them:  I know you want me to justify these things, I know it will make it easier to think that there’s a reason that they died, but I won’t… because that’s not how God works.  But he follows it up with an ominous warning: 

“…but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he tells them a parable about a vineyard owner who looks for fruit on the fig tree growing in his vineyard, and after three years of finding nothing tells the gardener to cut it down so it won’t waste the soil.  The gardener replies:

“‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

And we’re left with a cliffhanger… Does the owner listen to the gardener, or does he cut the tree down?  Does it ever produce fruit?

What is the fate of the fig tree?   

The crowd has just been reminded of two instances in which people’s lives were lost.  God’s doing or not, life is sometimes unexpectedly short.  And what Jesus seems to say in this text is:  repent, or your life too will be lost. 

Sometimes being faced with the reality of death is enough to get us to repent, and to start walking in the way of Jesus, because he gives hope of something more, something eternal.  And maybe that’s what this text is… a reminder that we often need to turn our lives around and start producing fruit. 

Now I have a confession to make:  I have a healthy relationship with Netflix. 

And by “a healthy relationship with Netflix”… I mean an unhealthy relationship with Netflix.

I watch too much Netflix.

But I discovered a new show a few weeks ago.  It’s a reality TV show where a group of five gay men (called the “Fab Five”) are invited to help makeover an individual’s life—hair, wardrobe, living space, diet, etc.  And one of the Fab Five is named Bobby, and Bobby grew up in the church.  He says he spent almost every day there as a kid, his family was very involved, and he loved it… but when he came out as gay as a teenager, his parents and his church completely disowned him.  They thought he wasn’t producing the right fruit and no longer belonged in the vineyard, so they cut him out. 

As I was reading this text after watching this show, it made me think:  Do we really have a God that’s like the vineyard owner?  Do we have a God who looks at us, and if we’re not producing fruit wants to cut us out?

On first read, Jesus seems to say, ‘Don’t worry—God doesn’t punish people for their individual sins… but if you don’t repent, you will be punished.’  The parable makes it very much sound like we need to fear a God that walks around the vineyard with an ax.  Many people, and many Christians, have read this text and have left thinking exactly that.  And it’s true that we genuinely believe that there are sins we need to repent from, and that orienting our individual lives toward God in Christ will help us produce fruit. 

But the fruit is not moralistic legalism, and the fig tree may not just be one person.

What I learned in studying this text this week is that the fig tree was often used as a metaphor for the people of Israel… as an entity, as a unit, as the holy body of God.  The prophet Hosea, for example, writes,

“Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree, in its first season, I saw your ancestors.”

I also found that fig trees were occasionally planted in vineyards to help prop up the vines.  So not only should they be producing their own fruit, they were also supposed to support the vineyard—they had a job.  And the people of Israel were given a job too.  In Genesis 12, at the very beginning when God establishes this holy, chosen people, he tells Abraham:  “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing… in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God intended for this holy people to be a gift to the entire world, to produce fruit, and it was not happening.  As it turns out, it is so much easier to take what is good and try to wall it in with rules and customs and traditions, to clearly define who’s in and who’s out.

And why should God not be exasperated at that? 

Many years I’ve been waiting for you to produce fruit… I’ve given you space and soil and water and I haven’t found what I’m looking for.  My heart is for this vineyard, and I’ve planted you here to help it, and it turns out, you’re failing to produce the fruit that will bless everyone else.

What is the fate of this fig tree?

Photo Credit:  BiblePlaces.com

But the gardener… thank goodness for that gardener. 

We can still make this right, he says.  Let me tend to it, till around it, put some fertilizer on it… go to the cross for it.  Don’t cut it off just yet—it can still be a blessing to the vineyard. 

And the irony is that the owner and the gardener are the same. 

They both care about the fig tree. 

They both care about the vineyard. 

They both know that anything less than true repentance does not produce a people that embody the fruits that the Spirit of God seeks to bear:  love… joy… peace… patience… kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

That is our gift, our mission, to the world.   

And we’ve screwed up a lot.  The church at large and the church in America have had a hand in discrimination against the LGBTQ community, people of color, women, and many others… we’ve not always embodied these fruits. 

But we can.  The fate of the fig tree is left open for us.  We can repent and know that the gardener is still with us.  He’s tilling us and feeding us and bearing the cross for us… so that we can be the tree that produces the fruit of the Spirit of God for the world:  peace, joy, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… and love. 

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”

– John 13:35

that time we marie kondo'd our condo

I’ve noticed a trend over the past few years, and that trend is this:  when I walk into our house and things are dirty and cluttered, it stresses me out. 

The formula is pretty simple really.  Clutter = stress.

I brilliantly figured this out by my own trial-and-error (also known as my ability to accumulate lots of stuff and inability to keep it all nicely put away).  But as it turns out, studies are beginning to suggest that this is actually a thing.  I’m not the only one!

As a bit of back story, we’ve lived in Seattle for almost five years now.  We massively downsized our belongings before we moved from Salt Lake (down from two bedrooms to one), but somehow we’ve still managed to accumulate more than our 515-square foot condo can handle.  And when a woman is expected to come home from work only to have to sit down and do grad school homework, a messy kitchen, cluttered coffee table, and overflowing books, craft supplies, clothes, etc. are not conducive to a focused study environment.  I’m telling you, emotional breakdowns have occurred over two-day-old dirty dishes.

And the truth of the matter is, I don’t want to be a person who owns a bunch of stuff.  Because when you have “stuff,” you have to have a place to put it all, and you have to take care of it.  I need more time to take care of myself and the people I love… not my stuff.  [Not to mention the fact that humans go through inordinate amounts of the earth’s resources to produce it all.]

Enter: The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

I found this little gem of a book at Costco a few years ago.  I had already come across a few blogs that had mentioned it, and was curious.  Long story short, I don’t necessarily endorse all of her philosophy around decluttering, but I have very much appreciated the idea that we maintain a “relationship” of sorts with our stuff—we interact with our possessions on a regular basis, they (ideally) support our lives, and they provide us with a sense of who we are as a person.  Therefore, we should only keep around those things which bring us joy.  I need my home to be a peaceful, restorative space.  As William Morris once said:

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

So at the beginning of this year, I got Matt on board to do some major decluttering.  We Marie Kondo’d our whole place (yes, it’s a verb.)  We didn’t do everything in the exact order she suggests, but we did pull all of our things in each category out at a time and went through them one by one—kind of like shopping, but from our own home.  It was brutal to see how much “stuff” we owned, but such a valuable experience!  We documented for proof (but mostly for fun).

We started with our books (my most difficult category)...

Our books "before"

Our books "after"

Then we moved on to board games (Matt's most difficult category)...

We pulled them all out onto the floor...

...and ended up with these on our shelves!

We tackled our clothes by pulling them all out onto the bed (which ensured we'd get through them by the end of the day)...

This was eye-opening... so many clothes in one closet

My side of the closet afterward

And we eventually went through papers, kitchen supplies, craft supplies, decor, and other miscellaneous things...

These were from grad school binders

A few things coming out of our kitchen

Having gone through the long process, I’ve seen several benefits:

1. We’ve gotten to the point where we’ve been able to put our condo on the market—yay! 
2. Because there is less in the house, it’s easier and quicker to clean. 
3. I get to look around my home and see only the things that I love. 

Don’t get me wrong… having to clean my house is still a thing.  Getting frustrated by dirty dishes is still a thing.  Not making my bed, or putting all my books away, or wiping down my table is still a thing.  (The words “life changing magic” were used rather liberally in her title, I’ve found.)  That said, I did start to wonder how our culture as a whole might change if we all decided to redefine what it is we “need” in our homes.

Would we be less stressed and more content?

Would we have more financial freedom?

Would we appreciate the things we have even more?

These things have started to become true for me.  And I honestly could part with more than we initially gave away, not to pare down for the sake of paring down, but because it leaves Matt and I free to own only the things we love.  Because at the end of the day, we have more than enough.

top 10 reads of 2018

If you’ve known me for any period of time, you probably know I’m a book girl.  Reading has been my go-to down time activity since childhood. 

As a kid, I would read before bed, on car trips, in tree branches, at grandparents’ houses, and even on horseback.  I remember staying up on Christmas night each year pouring over whatever new literary acquisition had made its way into my stack of gifts earlier in the day. (I am particularly fond of all the Christmases spent romping through Hogwarts with Harry, Ron, and Hermione as a young teen… thank you from the bottom of my heart, Ms. Rowling.)

In recent years, graduate school has sucked most of my reading time into a theological vortex of textbooks and Biblical commentaries (which, admittedly, I still love).  Thankfully, though, a super awesome group of book club ladies has kept me connected to fun reading.  Given the many nights of wine and great discussions we’ve had, I thought I’d put together a list of my Top 10 Favorite Reads of this year (because why not, right?).

So, without further ado, here it is—absolutely not exhaustive, and in no particular order, but some fun recommendations and reflections nonetheless J

1.  The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah  

“In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”

Wade through the daily perils of German-occupied France in WWII through the eyes of two sisters—Vianne and Isabelle Rossignol—who have vastly different personalities and ways of coping with their present dangers.  One is practical, the other is impetuous; both demonstrate the power of ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances.

I am in love with this novel.  Kristin Hannah does a masterful job of developing what is clearly a well-researched, dramatic historical fiction.  All of her characters and story plot lines are well-rounded and complex, and fitted with moments that made me wonder if I would have the same type of courage were I in their shoes.  I don’t often read books a second time, but I will definitely come back to this one at some point down the road. 

2.  Beartown, by Fredrik Backman

“The very worst events in life have that effect on a family: we always remember, more sharply than anything else, the last happy moment before everything fell apart.”

Fredrik Backman might be one of my new favorite novelists of all time.  This is the second book of his that I’ve read (after A Man Called Ove), and it is phenomenally real and raw and especially timely in 2018. 

Beartown is set in Backman’s home country of Sweden, and is the name of a small town tucked into the woods, whose only real claim to fame is its boy’s hockey team.  However (*without giving too much away*), the town is shaken when events at a high school party turn into a ‘he-said-she-said’ and threaten the hopes and futures of its citizens.  This story explores community, loyalty, sexuality, shame, and relationships.  Every character has a story, and every choice has a cost.  No matter your background, I highly recommend it!

3.  What is the Bible? How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything, by Rob Bell

“I kept repeating this truth that the Bible was written by humans because when you start there, and you go all the way into the humanity of this library of books, you just may find the divine.  And when you do, you will have gotten there honestly.”

I’ve already written an entire post inspired by this particular book (you can read it here).  But basically, this is a great place to start for anyone who wants a quick overview of all the craziness that happens in the Bible. 

The book is packed with more questions and answers—which is not a bad posture to take when you’re dealing with a text that spans thousands of years, hundreds of characters, and a multitude of theological claims.  Bell attempts to give a fresh look at the depth and breadth of the Bible; and I especially appreciated his take that one must inevitably go through what is human (whether that be stories in Scripture, the person of Jesus, or our own human experience) to encounter the One who is divine.

4.  Waking Up White, by Debby Irving

“…people are not born racist.  Racism is taught, and racism is learned.”

Race and racism are difficult, but incredibly important, topics in our culture today.  For those of us white people who have grown up with the privilege of never having to think about our own race, Debby Irving has written an impactful and very approachable memoir on the subject.  The book gives an overview of systemic racism and the history of dominant white culture in the U.S. and is packed with Irving’s honest personal experience.  Whether you’re actively allied against racism in America or you’ve hardly given thought to the subject, I absolutely recommend this book.  (Our church read it for Lent, and I’ve already touted it to many of our family members and peers.)  So good for anyone wanting to gain new insight or an honest perspective on race and loving one’s neighbors.

5.  Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott

“Here are the two best prayers I know:  ‘Help me, help me, help me,’ and ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’”

I had heard about this book for many years before I actually read it, and I’m so glad I finally did!  Anne Lamott is funny, thoughtful, and brutally honest about the challenges of life and the journey of faith.  She writes about her experiences of childhood, grief, her church community, and being a parent in ways that are simultaneously humorous and gut-wrenching.  Her writing is clever, and her relationship with God is relatable to anyone who has ever wrestled with the concepts of love and mercy.  Loved it and looking forward to reading more!

6.  Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life, by Jen Hatmaker

“”…the truth is, most of life is pretty ordinary, so it is precisely inside the ordinary elements, the same ones found the world over—career, parenting, change, marriage, community, suffering, the rhythms of faith, disappointment, being a good neighbor, being a good human—that an extraordinary life exists.”

Jen Hatmaker is every woman’s favorite sister.  I laughed so hard I cried while reading this book, and Matt started wondering what on earth was wrong with me.  It was a great beach read on our family vacation last summer, and I even took it a second time on a road trip with a girlfriend to read aloud… and we cracked up all over again. 

The book is a compilation of short chapters that highlight the struggles and successes of womanhood in all its glory—broken up by sections of “how-to” lists that satirize the everyday challenges of family life.  From exercising to parenting, and Texas football to the difficulty of forgiveness, her writing left me nodding my head and desiring to own my own intrinsic value in all its messy packaging.

7.  When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi

“…even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living.”

Another memoir that grabbed me this year, this book comes from a writer-turned-neurosurgeon-turned-cancer-patient who struggled with life and death in a variety of ways before it became his own personal battle.  If you cry during books, you will cry by the end… but it’s still very much worth reading.  What happens when the doctor becomes the patient, and has to face his own mortality?  The book shows you how to face questions of meaning, and how to appreciate the life you get to live while you get to live it. 

8.  Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table (with Recipes), by Shauna Niequist

“It’s about the ways God teaches and nourishes us as we nourish the people around us, and about hunger, both physical and otherwise, and the connections between the two.”

This was the book this year that made me want to sit around my dining room table and enjoy real food and real conversation and real laughter with the people I love most.  Bruschetta and cheese and wine, or frozen pizza and tap water—it doesn’t matter.  The point is hospitality, and sustaining our souls with community while we sustain our bodies with the food that God provides. 

I was encouraged when reading this to slow down for a minute and give myself space and permission to be in the kitchen, learning how to do something new, and recognizing the art of feeding myself and other people as valuable in and of itself (and not this thing I have to do three times every freaking day in order to do all the other more important things.)  Bread and wine, bread and wine, bread and wine—a sacramental practice built into our everyday lives.  How great is that?  

9.  Here If You Need Me, by Kate Braestrup

“I’m not really here to keep you from freaking out.  I’m here to be with you while you freak out, or grieve or laugh or suffer or sing.  It is a ministry of presence.”

Kate Braestrup is a chaplain for the Maine Game Warden Service—the troopers responsible for search and rescue missions.  She tells the story of losing her husband and taking up his mantle to become a chaplain, and about the ways she ministers to terrified family members when a loved one is lost.  It was a fantastic read for me in my preparation for ministry, and I think it’d be a great one for anyone else interested in how to be with others in the midst of uncertainty or loss.

10.  Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

“I’ve got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.” 

I fully realize the classics are not everyone’s cup of tea… but for my part, I enjoyed re-reading this book over Christmas break.  It had been so long I’d forgotten the story; and though the language and revelries and objectives of the characters show the book’s age, it was refreshing to be pulled back into a simpler time. 

The book follows the four March sisters and their closest family and friends as they grow up in the 1860’s and beyond.  Jo and Marmee were clear favorite characters, and the book had some good lessons on family bonds, working honestly, and pursuing virtue.  Not everyone will love it, but it is a classic and worth a read (especially with the new movie coming out soon!)

There you have it—a few of the favorites from this year.  Looking forward to reading more in 2019 and would love any wonderful recommendations!  Happy reading, everyone.

on running and marathons

It doesn’t make sense, this thing Matt and I keep doing.  We call it “running”—putting one foot in front of the other in relatively quick fashion for an extended period of time.  Honestly, in our case it’s more of a hopeful jog with a generous number of walk breaks and no small amount of swearing at hills.  But why do it? 

People ask me this all the time.  I ask myself even more often.  Why would a person do this bizarre, difficult thing?  It’s not as though I like to run.  (I run away from the crazy people who like to run… we do not understand each other.)  

Running is exhausting.

It’s sweaty. 

It’s time-consuming. 

It’s completely unnecessary given all other possible modes of modern transportation. 

I’ve gotten black toenails, underarm chafing (chafing is the worst!), hyponatremic dehydration, and Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome in my right knee.  I can think of just about every reason there is to NOT do this exact thing that we keep doing.  So why—why do we keep doing this bizarre, difficult thing? 

Honestly?  I think it’s contagious.

Matt’s dad started running in his twenties, and has completed nine marathons and numerous half marathons thus far.  One day in college, Matt started running with him.  And shortly after that, Matt talked me into running, too.  And then we ran-walked this 12K race called Bloomsday in Spokane, twice.  And all of a sudden, we started training for a half marathon the summer after graduation.  And here’s the thing—Matt finished his training and ran that half marathon with his dad, and I did not.  I got up to three miles in the summer heat and gave up.  It was awful and I couldn’t do it.  (I didn’t realize at the time that I had terrible shoes and that running in cotton tank tops was also a major no-no, but that’s beside the point.)  I felt completely defeated and out of shape and embarrassed. 

It took another two years and a wedding ring to convince me to try again.  Matt had already run his first marathon in that time, and the peer pressure (or “encouragement,” as he called it) finally got to me.  Go figure that this time we were running at five thousand feet in elevation, but still—we started training again for the same race I had quit on last time.  About a third of the way through our first four-mile run, Matt felt a sharp pain in his left knee (which we later found out was an IT Band injury that took quite a while to heal) and had to walk back home.  I finished that run on my own, and had to continue running on my own throughout the summer.  And I realized something:  I had spent a lot of mental time and energy comparing myself to my husband.  I thought I was never going to be as in shape and athletic as him, always just trying to “keep up.”  I believed running was “his thing,” and that I was slowing him down.  That summer I found out that I had it in me—I, of all people, could be a runner.  I could go distances I never expected.  I could push my body to do things it had never endured before.  I could own it.  I could look in the mirror and be proud of the person that I saw, because she was trying to stay healthy. 

I finished that half marathon—my first ever, the Other Half Marathon in Moab, Utah—on October 20^th, 2013.  A week later, on a whim, I ran another one in Salt Lake City.  Apparently, half marathons were a thing that I did now.  And we kept doing them.  I got six half marathons under my belt before Matt finally talked me into running a full. 

We registered in January 2017 to run the Kauai Marathon for our five-year anniversary in September (because if I was going to run 26.2 miles, I was definitely going to get an incredible trip out of it).  And just for the heck of it, we ran the Rock N’ Roll Seattle Half at our halfway training point, too.  (And, might I add, the contagion spread—this time, our friends Emily and Robert ran it with us.  They beat our time, in fact!)  And then we kept training.

Finishing that first marathon was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. 

We started before the sun rose, and the first half (which we ran with Matt’s dad) was beautiful and cool.  Even the section of steady uphill was bearable beneath the famous “Tunnel of Trees.”  The second half, though… now I know why one does not simply run a marathon in Hawaii at the end of summer.

We baked. 

It was humid, shade-less, and as my friend Amanda lovingly says, “hotter than the hubs of hell out there.”  We chugged Gatorade and water at every aid station.  I reapplied sunscreen and Body Glide multiple times and still ended up burnt and chafed.  We crested a hill at mile 24 only to see another in the distance—one that wouldn’t even register as a hill in your brain if you drove over it, but after running for hours looked like a freaking mountain—and I started crying.  Only, I had been sweating so profusely that I didn’t have any water on reserve in my body and no tears came out.  My knee was killing me.  The scenery was drop-dead gorgeous when I had the energy to notice it, but I was depleted beyond measure and may not have made it had it not been for Matt.  But then we finally crossed the finish line.  It took us five and a half hours from start to finish.  It was utterly unbelievable.  The finisher medal felt heavy around my neck as I sat on the grass, back to a rock wall and ice packs on my knees.  Who knew that it was possible?  Running a marathon was never even on my bucket list, but I finished one anyway.  I was elated; and I was simultaneously pretty certain I was never going to do another one.  I’ll take my victory and call it a day, thank you.

Lo and behold, as you might guess—another year, another marathon.  Two days ago, Matt and I ran the Bellingham Bay Marathon in northern Washington (as a six-year anniversary event), shaving half an hour off our Kauai time despite running the entire race in the rain.  We were soaked and tired, but the views of Puget Sound were beautiful.  Hearing Matt’s jokes get worse and worse over time as all the blood went from our brains to our legs was even better.  I’m again uncertain that I will ever run another full marathon, but it still reminded me why I do this bizarre, difficult thing.    

I run because it keeps me healthy—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I run to break up the chaos of my “to-do” lists and get outside. 

I run so I can eat whole pizzas and not feel guilty; and for the peace of mind that comes from not caring how my body compares to other women’s bodies.  I’m taking care of mine as best I can.

Mostly, though, I run because Matt runs, and because his dad runs, and because this is a thing that we do together.  Even better than finishing the race—insanely good as that feels—are all the hours that I get to spend with Matt while we train.  Countless miles have nurtured numerous conversations about life, relationships, struggles, and hopes.  It’s become a good reminder for us to thank God for the healthy bodies we’ve been given and the time we get to spend together.  It has also been a way for us to encourage one another (and the other awesome people we love who have trained for events with us!) that we can do hard things, which is a lesson that carries way beyond the rubber meeting the road. 

Canyonlands Half Marathon in Moab, UT

At the start of the Phoenix Half Marathon

Finished the Rock N' Roll Seattle with Mike, Emily, & Robert!

Running with the fam in Bear Lake

Ready for the the start of the Kauai Marathon

Mile 25 of the Kauai Marathon - looking WAY more energetic than we felt

The Seattle Half with Tracey (her first half!)

Our second Rock N' Roll Seattle with Colin & Corey (their first half!)

Finished the Bellingham Bay Marathon for our 6-year anniversary

Finisher medals... more to come! 

“I dare you to train for a marathon and not have it change your life.” –Susan Sidoriak