What A Wednesday

I woke up tired, had hardly slept. Pushed back the dreams that had taunted me all night. Faced the day. A memorial service I was leading. So many details to think through. So many words to carefully choose. It's noon. People packed in, the service began. Great stories were told. Laughter and tears mingled together. Two hours of sharing memories, expressing lament, professing hope.

Jon woke up tired, had hardly slept. Faced the day. It's noon. An intense job interview, asking hard questions. An hour and a half of questions. Afterwards, time of waiting...but not too long. And the job was offered.

Lunch was skipped by us both.

A celebration dinner. Butter chicken at a favorite Indian restaurant. A long talk about what the future might hold with this new job. A movie at home, snuggled on the couch.

Tired bodies to bed early.

And still I wake up tired today.

Returning Home

We just spent a week in California at a campus ministry conference and having a bit of a vacation. It was a great week of connecting with new friends and old.

In San Diego, we boarded the train for San Juan Capistrano...but not before we (apparently) put our future children's lives at risk. This is the sign that greets visitors to the train station:

After the conference, we went to the happiest place on earth for the first time in our lives. I got to meet the Mouse:

Then we headed to Santa Barbara to meet up with two old friends from two different eras of my life. And we stayed in an amazing bed and breakfast:

After a week of traveling, we headed home to snow (although the weather isn't too bad).

And we discovered shortly after arriving home that a student at my school had died that morning. So now I am planning a memorial service and trying to walk with a grieving community. It's in moments like these, when nothing makes sense and people are hurt and confused and clinging to each other, that I realize the profound purpose in what I do. I don't have many answers. And I've never planned a memorial service before. I don't have the skills or the wisdom of people who have been pastors for many years. I don't pretend to have the right words. But in the midst of my own inadequacy, I have a deep sense that I am where I am supposed to be. And that in my own brokenness, God will work through me.

And so this weekend will be spent planning a memorial service, writing a message for that service, and spending time with students. And with a very real awareness that I am deeply dependant on God for all what I am and all that I do.

Finding a Luck Finder

My friend Sarah (who I haven’t talked to in a couple of years—Sarah, where are you?) introduced me to the term “luck finder.” A luck finder is someone that people are lucky to find, someone that you really want to be with, someone that you feel blessed to know.

I used to express a similar idea by thinking of who I would most want to sit next to at a dinner party. I want to sit next to someone who is engaging and personal, funny and caring—someone who draws me in, someone who lets me share in who they are. This is different than just wanting to sit next to someone who might engage me in interesting dialog—that is good too, but not the same idea.

During my early years at Regent, my friends and I had a lexicon of different types of crushes. The surrogate crush. The professor crush. The hero crush. There were others, which I can’t remember. But the one I’ve absorbed into my vernacular is “the friend crush.” The friend crush occurs when you meet someone and you think, “I just really want to be friends with that person.” This is not some creepy romantic stalker thing. It’s seeing the beauty and depth in someone you don’t know well and wanting to be part of their life.

I met a luck finder the other day, someone I might just want to sit next to at a dinner party. And I think I’ve developed a friend crush.

Like A Radio

The first few notes wrap themselves around me like a familiar, well worn sweater, like a rich aroma that fills every pocket of air. The words come slowly, seductively, and I sigh. These lyrics, this music, touches a place in me that is filled with my deepest longings, my best hopes, and my fullest love. I find that as I listen, I am drawn both into myself and away from myself. Memories flood my mind: late night talks, long drives in the Kentucky hills and the Colorado Rockies, walking to school through the thick forests of the Endowment Lands in Vancouver, and friends--friends who have shared this music with me. And I find a renewed longing for deeper relationships, for meaningful conversation, for others for whom these songs resonate somewhere deep in their souls.
I'm going to go make a cup of hot tea and melt into the music of Over the Rhine.

Lament

Tonight in the theology of worship course, we talked about lament. A timely topic, considering that tomorrow begins the season of Lent.
As someone said tonight in class, lament doesn't sell. It doesn't make people feel good. It's not flashy or high tech. It's not exciting or upbeat.
But it's real. And honest. And intimate.

And it's something that is deeply lacking in many of our contemporary churches. We so often seem to be about the happy, feel good worship songs, and we miss the depth that many of the Psalms embody.

I've learned a few things about lament this year. These aren't my ideas, but things I've gained by reading a few different authors:

Lament makes our praise more genuine.
It helps us to love each other more deeply.
It validates and gives space for the human experience of pain.
It helps us to know God more deeply.

Lament begins with a personal invocation to God and it ends with an orientation to future praise, a vow to trust God.

As we enter Lent, I long for spaces where lament can be expressed in corporate worship. And I sometimes wonder if I am alone in this.