24 hours

On Wednesday morning of last week… around 9:45am… I received a phone call from my pastor. He told me that he was being courted for a job opportunity for a part-time position as a Bible teacher as a local private school…and that he thought it would be the perfect job for me to pursue. Mind you…I already had a job and was making due with my, albeit crazy at times,  chuggin-right-along employment set-up. When something is possibly available…and possibly part-time (at best)… Well…you can see why I didn’t think too highly of this new opportunity. Nevertheless, it sounded like it could be promising, and there’s nothing wrong with applying…so…Hit the gas until the Holy Spirit hits the brakes.

Domestic(ated) Disturbance

I often feel spiritual heartburn. I suppose this is much like the tension that wells up inside every man that harbors the Love of the Almighty God inside of him. It’s a tension that calls out from God’s own heart, reeling at the site of gifts wasted, and destinies left dormant. It feels like a constant back and forth between celestial citizenship and straddling the fallen world we call home. It has a matter-of-fact hostility to it…one that winds these these two unlikely bed-fellows tight, instigating what feels like all the commotion needed for a Civil War. 

Such wonderful disturbance sparred within my heart again recently, and I found God’s good anger teaching me to hate that which He hates. This lesson in righteous anger however did happen to go through me…which inevitably meant not all was going to go as planned (grin). I not only enticed a situation that has thrown people in jail for far less, but my heart also received a healthy doseage of God’s uncompromising fire…and minus the handcuffs, thankfully, I learned how to burn a bit more like He does.    

It all began as I was…

Road-trip

It began by sneaking out  beneath an early morning  in backwater Kentucky. We were chased out of town by  their skies´ notorious peaches and blues that still managed to tatter a Winter-touched above… Kentucky´s up was only equalled by its below…a chilly land, ridden with a slue of surprisingly bright grays and browns. The Bible-belt´s bluegrass boy waved us on our way´til we vanished as far from them as they did from us…out of sight. 

Next came the politically charged sprawl of Illinois´landscape. Everywhere you could see, smokey swirls, both tidy and unruly, stretched their long necks into the sky, at the behest of the busy fires from within toasty homes. Broken, unfinished and survivingrang through the stories that hung in the air. A hodgepodge collection of half-finished, and half-destroyed brick buildings line the major streets of the town, testifying to a city that has planned to live for quite sometime now, but struggled little more than survive… The tale for so many. Grandiose Beautiful props its prowess up from within the crowd of weather-stained brick, as sporadically the cities broken sense of family is accentuated further as healthy church spires peer down at all the gang tagged, lost and hurt people´s pastimes below.    

As soon as you would start to really listen to Illinois´ story, St. Louis jumps out from behind

a Deep South Stargate

I walked into another world today…quite literally. My Tata (Grandma) from Peru was spending her birthday with us out here in Kentucky, and upon her request, she wanted to have Belgian rabbit stew (most delicious!). We quickly found ourselves in a predicament, because although we are in and around the sticks of backwater Western ‘Tuck, we knew we were not gonna find rabbit so easily. The local grocer summed up much of our initial search efforts…”Rabbit? We aint got no rabbit. Only people I know that eat them rabbits shoot ‘em themself.” 

But lo and behold, Kentucky proved yet again to be as perfectly old fashioned as it is resourceful against the problems of life. As is the typical chain of events out here, we knew a friend, who knew a friend, who once knew a guy, that might know someone who could help us. That might not sound too promising to many of you, but out here, as I’ve quickly learned, that’s almost as good as being

Courtly summers

Kentucky has been a corner of His Courts this summer…and has been just what my heart needed. 

The deep peach moons…the fields of locusts…the stars that burn heavy in the night sky… the endless breeze  running its fingers through the younger lake below it…the bullfrogs that chorus with an endurance and vehemence that rivals the prarie of wild bison down the road…not being able to tell the difference between the hellos of strangers and family…because people down here care about one another…the grin that surfaces when you start to recount just how much sweet tea you may have actually consumed in a summer…the renowned small-town challenge here of trying to eat the “Whopper,” a 28 inch pancake…feeling a day pass by the only speed this part of the world knows: slowly, steady and true…seeing bald men watch bald eagles for hours on end…tubing until either your knuckles or fingers give in and start to bleed…having a thrill of a fight

the Pearl kids…

 Last week on May 4th I officially taught children the bible for the first time. I recently, by God’s wonderful Grace, happened upon a church here in Portland called the Pearl Church. That might seem like a simple enough answer to perhaps a mild pursuit…but I assure you, it was an answer to a prayer that had left me looking all semester long. I went nearly 3 months without attending an official church. I made on-line sermons my Sunday morning fill-ins where pulpits once stood. But no more!

The Pearl found me and I wasted no time jumping right in. I met with Sara, the Children’s Ministry team leader later that first Sunday (Apr. 20th), and then met up with them later that that following week to figure out when I’d be teaching Sunday school in the monthly rotation. I observed the following Sunday closely, as I was teaching the following week.

This might seem like a simple thing, but for the longest time I have run into many close people I trust that have suggested to me that I should not follow my heart to want to teach kids because it is simply something that comes too easy, and might not challenge me or stretch me in my faith. Heeding their words over the past handful of years I have steered clear of officially teaching kids…which is funny, because I am always unofficially finding little groups of them and seizing opportunities to teach them.

That said, this last Sunday was like long awaited rains on my parched heart’s landscape. I’ve been banging hard on many doors in ministry trying to find my niche so to speak, and while I have not been perfect by any means, I have been pounding upon doors nonetheless. Sitting in front of the kids and teaching them lit up my heart in ways a girl should only hope to mimic if pursuing me. I felt like I could have melted right then and there, except for the fact that I was beautifully on fire and strengthened by every bit of it.

I was asked to teach on Communion (Luke. 22:19-20) and while I could have given them the age-old lesson along these lines, I walked them instead down through the festival of Passover, the amount of days the festival lasted, the bitter herbs, why the bread was unleavened, etc. These kids are brilliant and have this stuff written on their heart, often finishing my sentences for me…but I did manage to stump them a bit…haha, as well as the other teachers looking on a bit too…which is perfectly fine, as I too learned stuff I did not know when preparing for the kids. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…my little teachers make my heart so very alive!

There’s currently a Children’s Pastor position opening up at the Pearl and I’ve been encouraged to apply by members of the church. I don’t expect to get the position as I lack much official experience in the area, but I actually did a really good job on Sunday and absolutely love preparing for them, teaching them and watching them further their walks with our Lord. So, to call something as precious as this my job…haha, let’s just say I, regardless of whether I ever end up officially working at the Pearl, may have found a niche God had in mind for me all along. God bless His little ones! 

www.pearlchurch.org

Bedtime…

So, at the beginning of the semester I had determined to undertake this process of making my days start and end with prayer to God. It was a glorious idea perfectly framing in my opinion my days borrowed from God. The Omega part of those days has worked itself out somewhat well…although there is still something to be desired in terms of it being all 7 days, but I’m working on that with Him. The Alpha aspect to that venture…hmm…well, it’s been interesting to say the least. I had a stretch where I was getting up every morning except for Saturday mornings at 5:00AM on the dot, in prayer and soon after that hour on my way to the gym to listen to sermons and music via I-Pod…but something about that before-the-world-seems-to-wake-vantage seems, at least to me, to almost have mystical properties.

When reading about the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the faith, I’ve found that they often called the early hours of the morning their own…praying for themselves, and for all the world that still had yet to even wake. Jesus did the morning prayers…but then again his 3-time-a-day-plus regimen would befuddle us where we stood if we tried to overnight own such a prayer life. But, in that same breath…

Homeless hospitality

I made my way downtown tonight around 7:00′ish to a heralded hot-spot of some of Portland’s finest. The spot was beneath Hawthorne bridge, and the “finest” were the collective faces of the homeless, the jembists, the fire-dancers, and any of those lucky enough to just pass by and find themselves in the throws of community of a different kind…at least to this affluent, Seminary, white-boy.

 So, the story goes… my mentor, Brian Luse, grew up with this guy named Travis. Travis has, since they parted ways years ago, put into action an idea that God brought to him  …in fact he literally nestled it up right under the forgotten bowels below the Hawthorne bridge. The idea is simple… serve the homeless and the Church, all at once. It’s such a simple plan, perfect for what it’s set out to do. His flyers read as follow…

Many people do not give to the homeless because they are afraid the money will be used for drug and alcohol. By substituting Sanctity of Hope tokens for cash, we’ve removed these concerns. People and businesses donating to Sanctity of Hope receive one token for every $1.25 donated. These tokens can be given to the homeless. The homeless bring the tokens to the Sanctity of Hope mobile storefront and exchange them for goods such as food, blankets, clothing and personal hygiene products.     

Now, how many of you people that drive or walk by homeless people and want to give them something, but don’t, for fear of feeding an addiction, just felt like…

cable cars and baby eyes…

It happened the way Portland usually seems to play with my affections…the city goes a bit quieter than usual… shuffles and scatters its many walkers around just enough to call some it its bigger streets empty… drops randoms leaves from nowhere and somewhere… runs its fingers full of wind through everyone’s hair, especially the ones who would humorously bat it away… it seems to hum and hymn of its long forgotten stories, it’s sound pulses, breathing gently in and out, as though it were perfectly relaxing away just another day… filling it’s otherwise nook and cranny landscape with tongues doused in geographic and economic accent…   

Portland is the homeless man who winds through another day, just scraping by… and it is the garbage man who probably receives less eye contact in a day than he does respect… it is the misunderstood, confident Gothic girl draped in anything black…

it is the readers that fill and finance the coffee shops by trekking to their second homes, laced with literature and latte… it is the quiet face of a native born Thai woman who seems more taken back by my eye contact than my hug oddly enough… it is the cable car that is noisy but never seen as rude…

it is the corporate man sharing space at a crosswalk signal with a young Asian orphan named Tyler who will likely never own a cell phone, or at least not one as expensive as Joe Shark to his left… it is the breast cancer survivor shirt that just ran past me on the left… and the resident crazy man who leads out with bellows and protest about political issues that have long been decided upon…”We need to kick Reagan out”… it is the “Fuck your God” tee-shirt tightly hugging a rather barrel chested man who grinned as I walked past with the Bible in my hand… 

it’s the hungry eyes I see in so many of the students wandering around the inner city campus of Portland State… it’s the lonely hazel eyes of the bread shop girl who looked right into mine and leaned in so close she could have stolen a kiss if she had dared it… it’s the blood shot eyes from the elderly woman named Moira making her daily 6 block trek through the wind and allergies, all in a hope that she would get a bed at the Rescue Mission for the night…

it’s the grizzled chin of a disabled man named Charlie downtown who smelt of whiskey and what I could only guess was the sweat of someone else all over him (the corporate guy had the same smell…what stories those must be)…

it’s the baby crying just within earshot, and the baby peacefully draped on the nannies’ back wondering why his fellow baby is making a fuss… it’s the stray dog looking for scraps and affection and the poodle covered in sweater and rhinestone, sitting anxiously in a purse about its’ size… it’s the “free Love” body paint that traversed the old man’s bare back to my right… it’s the tired Mom of the three kids who won’t stop tugging at her shirt tail and what I imagine to be her life… it’s the breast feeding Mom in the park and the “A sex offender just moved in” notice pinned inches from her on a rather tac-holed electric post.

AND… Portland… for now…is my wandering green eyes… soaking up all that I do not deserve to be graced with and learn from… the people, the mountain in the clouds (Mt. Hood), the smells, the eyes, the sounds, the bridges that get so very overlooked as they’re crossed, the laughs, the unnoticed streets, the hurts, the fights, the intimacy, the shyness, the weeping, the indifference, the defeats, the food, the searching of so many, and the dreams that escape from people’s mouths as readily as the caffiene seems to enter them. I am steeped in a city God knew would exist..and one that He Loves deeply, even if it would rather try on every other shoe before ever even thinking about adorning Him as their resolution. (sigh) Portland… the eclectic miracle of the Pacific Northwest.

  

While it doesn’t entirely dwell in my depths as being home, I am grateful to God that He would allow me to share in this place that so many others, by choice and be default do call home. It is a door to another world I feel…  

I choose to honor Him with where He always knew I would end up.

Acts 17:26

Pancakes, Prayer and a Princess…

If you know me you know that I usually don’t ever have trouble sleeping…I’m not necessarily what you’d term a deep-sleeper, as I in fact wake up a good few times through the night, but, heading back toward dreams has never been a problem I’ve suffered.

And such was the case, and the exception late last night around 3:00AM. I literally opened my eyes after only one or two clarifying blinks smashed against the pillow, then, as if led by the strangeness of it all, sat straight up in bed. Very odd. I started to look around the room wondering if I my computer’s volume had malfunctioned turning the  violined night into screaming strings. I then looked over at my roommate wondering if he had simply woken, and, in turn, caused me to. He was however rhythmically busy with sleep. I then looked down at my cell phone sitting at the foot of my bed charging away its night…it too looked fast asleep. But for some reason I thought, grab it and have a look anyway. 

Multi-media message awaiting…

I thought to myself, “great, now my phone is busted…I don’t get media messages…I can’t even send texts (yeah, I’ve been rockin’ the super-cheap phone for 3 years now…and love it).” Sure enough, after one little click to bring up the multi-media in-box, which I had never seen ’til that moment, there it was…God’s little rise and shine. I saw a picture of my mentor/pastor’s wife Shauna and a caption that I knew came from Brian’s fingers…”off to the hospital!”

I escaped my bedroom with as much stealth as possible, wanting to leave my roommate sleeping fast…hurried across the apartment to the furthest corner to talk without waking anyone and called the man and woman of the hour.

What a gift from God it was to be able to share in an event that I relish from afar, having not yet met someone to live such beauty with. My thoughts sprinted through all the emotions that one must go through in the midst of such baby-times. The shoulder-tap Brian was probably given, rousing him from sleep and off to the hospital…listening to his wife breathe just slightly different than normal on the car-ride over…the wonderful war waged between butterflies and knots in his stomach as he enjoyed every moment of anticipation (they did not know whether it was a boy or a girl before-hand).

(sigh)…I felt elated and exhausted in the very best of ways after Brian hung up the phone around 3:30AM. Amidst the whirlwind of thought I did know one thing with certainty…I could not sleep. And so, I did the only thing I could think of…I made pancakes in honor of what I now know is the Princess that entered the world this morning. She does not know it yet, but she will be growing up in Scotland. Brian’s family is moving to Glasgow to serve at the church I just spent last semester at. They are following God’s lead to eventually plant a church in the Glasgow area.

I thank God that I was awakened from sleep early this morning…how thought of am I… that given any other circumstance other than His hand, I would have kept my eyes shut right on through. I…in a way…was allowed to experience the birth of a child! Having been born again in Christ, given new life, I sat early and in the dark, listening to the joy that is a child coming into this world.

You are blessed little one…your Dad is a strong man with a heart I would consider lucky to follow into ministry, anywhere in the world. Your Mother is like clockwork… resplendent most when she is simply in the throws of being Mom, loving, tending, leading and inspiring her husband to in turn lead well. They, side-by-side, make a concert of leadership and Love that you, one day, will see for all it’s worth.

You have another daughter in the Luse family to Love on Lord. May she be Yours from the moment she drew her first.   

In our current lack of Eden rejoice that the house of God just became a bit more crowded.

Thank you Lord.