Fully to Him

Why must we give ourselves fully to God? Because God has given himself fully to us. If God who owes nothing to us is ready to impart no less than himself, shall we answer him with a fraction of ourselves? To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God himself. I for God and God for me. I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way induce God to live for me. Therefore to posses God we must allow him to posses our soul.

These words were written by Mother Theresa and are recorded in the book, "Mother Theresa: Come Be My Light". The book received a lot of press this fall when it was released so when I saw a copy on the shelf of my local library, I picked it up. I've almost stopped reading it three times - it's challenging me in ways that I'm not really sure I want to be challenged.

Lately I've been finding in myself a longing for something deeper in my relationship with God. American Christianity is so self absorbed - so about what makes us happy and what makes our lives work. I easily fall into that trap. I want life with Christ and life lived on my own terms. I want great faith but I don't want it to mess with what I want to do in life. I want to live a life deeply connected to God as long as that doesn't interfere with my schedule too much. I want to make an impact on a community of people as long as they make me happy. Ultimately what I see, is there's a lot of me in the equation.

As I'm reading about the life of Mother Theresa, I see in her a woman who wanted nothing more than to experience God. She was willing to sacrifice everything for that - her family, her comfort, her position - everything. As I'm reading this book, I'm realizing how little sacrifice there is in my own life and I'm not even sure what that looks like in my life. How do we really give ourselves fully to God in a culture that is fixated on giving ourselves fully to our own pleasure? I don't know for sure but I suspect it's in the way I choose to live each day - either with an attitude that is self serving or with an attitude that sees everything (even the nasty drivers) as an opportunity to know God and make him known. I suspect it has something to do with dying to myself - I'm not very good at that one.

So this is my struggle right now - this is the prayer that I'm begging God to answer in my own life. I don't want to live the "average" Christian life, I want to experience the God who I can only really experience by giving myself fully to him.

Redeemer Christmas Party

The highlight of this past week for me was our Redeemer Christmas Party. We celebrated at Rock-n-Bowl on Wednesday night. Rock-n-Bowl is one of the hidden treasures of New Orleans.....it's an old bowling alley (no electronic score keeping - you do it by hand) with a stage and dance floor. They have live music while you bowl. We decided to make Christmas simple and have the party at there this year.

I've experienced more community at Redeemer than I have any other place in my life. One of my greatest fears as I moved to New Orleans was that I wouldn't have any friends - God abundantly answered that prayer by taking me to this tiny church about a mile from my house. The first Sunday I was there, maybe 40 people were at the service. Redeemer was a small and struggling church before the storm and much of the congregation left after the storm but against all odds, we continue to grow! What I've experienced at Redeemer is real people who don't hide behind the Christian facade but live real lives and deeply experience God. I've been challenged and loved so well through the community of our church.

Since I'm a terrible bowler and my back was hurting from some freaky and torturous position we did in Yoga the night before, I was standing near by our last lane on Wednesday night chatting with people as they arrived. At one point a break in the conversations came and I turned to look at our little crowd. About 40 people had gathered that night. I couldn't help but think that Redeemer is a picture of surviving. The pastor who came said yes to a lesser job (he could have taken a job at a big church in California) and loves New Orleans more than anyone I know. Our church is filled with people who moved to New Orleans to make an impact on the city post-Katrina mingled with a handful of people who were here before the storm and have welcomed us into their city and mentored us in the ways of New Orleans. (I wouldn't know half the things about the city if it weren't for the Moffats). It was such a sweet picture to look out over friends celebrating in this church that had survived the worst natural disaster in our countries history. At that moment Steverson Moffat (one of the folks who was here before the storm) walked up to me. I commented on my thoughts to Steverson and with a big grin on his face he agreed. He said, "I tell Jane (his 13 year old daughter) all the time that we have something special here - having a church like this is rare".

I wonder if I were 13 years old and in Jane's situation if I would realize what an amazing community I able to grow up in. Probably not - I was too self-centered at 13 and would have been looking for the big youth group with tons of conferences to attend. I would want the slick program and the amazing praise band. But now, with almost two decades on Jane, I realize that what we have is indeed rare. Community is more valuable to me now than programs and I am so grateful to experience such an incredible community!

More Driving Saga

Okay, I know, enough with the complaining about the driving incidents. This one was too good not to share. I drove to Atlanta today - left New Orleans around 5 a.m. to miss the Friday afternoon traffic in Atlanta. My parent's life way north in Atlanta so it takes about an hour to get to their house once you hit the city. I arrived around one thinking it would be smooth sailing - it was not. Everyone was heading out of town the Friday before Christmas - still, I was pleasantly surprised. We moved along at a creeping 15-20 miles per hour but no one darted in and out of traffic, no one laid on the horn, no one darted in and out of lanes and no one was drinking a beer as they raced through traffic. I was so shocked that all these people were sitting in traffic with so little road rage. When we hit the Georgia 400, "that guy" showed up - you know the obnoxious one who is in such a hurry that he bullies all the other cars. He was in the far right lane (the lane you're suppose to be in if you're the slowest driver) tailgating people and blinking his lights for them to get out of the way. There were 4 passing lanes to his left. He was weaving in and out traffic - cutting people off like he was the most important person in the world. As he darted around me I saw his license plates - Louisiana of course!

Time for a Break

It's time to get out of New Orleans. After the incident on Sunday with the guy yelling at me for stopping where there was no stop sign, I was starting to feel the city close in on me. All week I've been honked at for driving too slow, too fast or not moving fast enough when the light turns green. Today as I was walking through the Quarter people were blaring on their horns right and left. I made my way back over to my secret parking spot (secret because it's free) and pulled out to leave. Because the street dead ends, you have to make a left onto a one way street. I did that and started to drive down it only to have the car in front of me fly into reverse and come at me very quickly. I laid on the horn thinking that I was seconds away from getting hit. Rather than going forward down the one way street, the car stopped until I backed up so they could go through and then the lady leaned out the window and started yelling at me for going the RIGHT way on a one way street.

I'm ready for a break - I'm ready to go to a place where people don't regularly yell at you for legally driving - I'm ready to not worry about potholes and crime for a few days. I'm lucky, I get to leave. As frustrated as I am with the crazy lady today, I can't help but wonder what her life has been like in the last 3 years. Did she lose everything? Has she fought back only to find her Road Home money fall through? Do her kids go to the terrible public schools? Does she live in a neighborhood where she fears being shot on a daily basis?

Some days it seems like the whole city is just pissed off, but I guess that people do have a lot to be pissed off about. I asked my friend David English for some advice on living in the middle of this craziness. Here's a little portion of the email he sent me:

There are things that cause us to be emotionally sad or feel something
like that. Sadness is an emotion we feel when there seems to be no
control we can exercise. It also happens when our expectations are not
fulfilled. Sadness can control us and sometimes for a lifetime. It can
be the predominant emotion that characterizes some people's lives.
Sadness is not bad. Jesus was referred to as "a man of many sorrows."

Here is a process to deal with sadness:

Low entitlement
High gratitude
Don't take failure personally
Rest

I see in this city (and in myself more often than not) a high sense of entitlement, a lack of gratitude, a feeling of personal failure and a lack of rest. No wonder we have such a hard time recovering - no wonder we're yelling at each other in our cars.

So, the challenge for those who claim to follow Christ is to deal with the sadness in a way that would honor the one we follow, not the way we see modeled around us all the time. I hope that we would be people that would live seeing Christ in the midst or our circumstances - taking a break from the city to rest when we need to, but having grateful hearts to live and serve here.

Oh and I think I'm going to take the Street Car next time I go to the Quarter - no need for anyone else to yell at me about my driving!

Training

I'm back in training for a race.....now I use those terms very loosely. I don't really consider myself any type of athlete, I really just do races to stay motivated as I see my waist line expand over the holiday/conference season. I hope to run in the Mardi Gras Half Marathon but we'll see if I actually make the goal. Regardless, I pulled out my little training chart last week and began to run again.

It's funny the lessons that I seem to learn in training and this time has been no exception. I ran 4 miles on Sunday and felt great - I could have gone at least one more. So today, when my little chart said 3.5 miles, I thought, "piece of cake". Well, not exactly. About a mile into my run I started getting a sharp pain in my side. This happens every time I start to train for something. Before I ran my first half marathon I would always quit when I got to that point and would never be able to significantly increase my mileage. What I learned when I trained for that race is that it may be painful and it may be ugly, but you have to push through the pain if you're going to make it for the long haul. Today when that pain started I was very tempted to quit but I kept going. After about another mile, it went away only to return in the last quarter mile.

As I was running down the street counting down the seconds until I hit the 3.5 mile mark, it struck me that life is a lot like that pain in the side. The challenges of life come and go and if we aren't able to push through the somewhat painful times, we won't have the training to make it on the long haul. There are some slightly painful things in my life right now and everything in me wants to avoid them or to even run from them, but who will I be in the end if I don't face them and continue down the path? Who will I be if I don't face what today holds so I can handle the things that come some day?

So, out the door I go - tying on my shoes and believing that the pain of today does matter - it is part of what gives me the endurance for the long haul.

Christmas Adventures in the Quarter

My friend Emily and I had quite an adventure last night. We thought we'd join this sweet and reverent time of caroling in Jackson Square - a 50 year tradition in New Orleans. It was......different than I thought it would be.

First of all parking in the Quarter is a nightmare. I refuse to pay $12 to park for a free event. So we drove up and down the streets looking for that rare but valuable free street spot. As we were briefly stopped craning our necks at one intersection to see if a space was available to us, the guy behind us started blaring his horn. One street down he managed to get around us as I was trying to see if I would fit into a space. At the next stop sign he got out of his car and came back to yell at us for stopping where there was no stop sign - yelled! "Merry Christmas to you too" I thought as I pulled out my cell phone, dialed 9-1-1 and told him that I was making the call if he did not get back into his car. After a few more stressful blocks of looking for a space, we finally found a great one and headed down the caroling.

Again, I was thinking of some of the great musicians in the city - how incredible the singing would be and how great everything would sound. When we were greeted at the gate by a man and woman dressed in Victorian attire, I was sure my suspicions were right on. As we rounded the corner to the stage we heard "and now our mayor will lead us in Jingle Bells". C Ray singing Jingle Bells?!? We had to push to the front to see this but as we darted under a palm tree it caught on fire (I'm not kidding and it wasn't us, we didn't have candles). People were frantically batting at the tree with their Santa hats to out out the fire so Emily and I pushed to the front to find that yes, C Ray was indeed leading us in Jingle Bells! From there the music went from bad to worse. It was all the city leaders who were our song masters and let's just say they weren't good and they seemed to have enjoyed the eggnog a little too much that evening. It was one of the most comical things I'd ever seen. It was also beautiful....all of Jackson Square in front of the cathedral covered by people singing, laughing and holding candles.

In a city where there is often lots of violence, anger, blame shifting and fear, it was fun to come together for an evening and celebrate. As we were singing "O Holy Night", I couldn't help but think of that baby born over 2000 years ago. Somehow being PC didn't matter last night - we sang of the hope of Christ. When I look at this city, I think that really is our only hope. I long for more times that our city could gather like this - to celebrate the true hope.....but maybe with different singers next time.

Street Car!

Today I was getting out of my car at the New Orleans library nearest me on St. Charles I heard this clanging sound behind me. I turned to see the street car running! The St. Charles Street Car line is the longest running railway in the United States and for over two years it's sat dormant. The hurricane badly damaged the power lines and much work has been done to get the car up and running again. For the first two years I lived here, the street car line was used only for joggers....a convenient way to avoid the hazardous sidewalks, (I've tripped numerous times on the uneven pavement) but just over a month ago the St. Charles line opened all the way to Napoleon Ave. I had just read in the paper that it was suppose to open all down St. Charles by Dec. 23rd, so I was happily surprised to see it roar past me today.

Yes, I know that the opening of the street car is going to take away our nice turn lanes.....but there's something about seeing it lumber it's way down St. Charles that makes me incredibly happy. In a city where things are constantly being demolished, it's nice to see something so historical be restored.

Decorating

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas decorations. On the one hand, I love to have my house decorated. I love the lights and the festive atmosphere it creates. On the other hand I hate to wrestle out the 8 ft fake tree, to put the lights on it and I especially hate the thought of coming home after holiday travel to take it down. This year I had almost convinced myself to not even decorate but when I invited my friend Melanie over for dinner got inspired....well kind of inspired. Instead of putting the massive fake tree up, I opted for the tiny (about 2 ft) tree that I bought the year the guys borrowed my tree for the student Christmas party but refused to give it back.

There's something sweet about pulling out your Christmas decorations every year. Each one of them holds a special memory. There are the wooden ornaments that represent my tree growing up - we always had the German ornaments on our tree (we also had real candles but that was put to a stop by the tree catching on fire one year). There's the white and silver snowdrop ornaments that I bought the my first year out of college. There used to be 6 of them - only 4 survived from the year my roommate tried to surprise me by "decorating" our tree - unfortunately she put it up crooked and it fell over in the middle of the night. There's the silver bells that I bought after the unfortunate tree falling incident - a little more sturdy than the glass balls. There is the silver Fleur de lis representing the first GNO team.

Memories seem to flood back whenever I decorate for Christmas - good and bad memories. I realized that I like being alone with those memories. They remind of the years - of the faithfulness of God over all the years. It causes me to remember people who are no longer part of my every day life and places that I've long left behind.

In the end, it's worth it to drag out all of the stuff - to clean up fake pine needles for weeks and to have to pack it all back up in January. It is a season that should be celebrated - not rushed, but savored for the sweet gift of that baby it brought us so long ago.