A tale of two grandmas

My Grandma is on her way home, her final and eternal home. She is in hospice now with hours or possibly days to live. I'm sad for my grandpa, I'm sad for my uncle, my cousins, and my mom of course, but I am happy. I am happy for my grandmother. I am not happy for her pain, her anxiety or the way she has spent her last few coherent days, but I am happy her suffering is ending. I am happy that she will be restored and made new. I am happy that her battle with untreated, and severe mental illness is almost over and I am happy that someday, I will get to meet the grandma that the rest of my family knows so well.

My cousins and their kids are compiling memories of Gigi, and I am struggling to understand what I can contribute and why our experiences were so different. While I have a few good memories to add, memories of songs, stories, and lobster tail dinners, I have to wade through an overwhelming amount of bad memories to find them.  They grew up seeing the sweet side of her, while I from a very young age experienced the worst parts of her mental illness. I came along a lot later than the rest, and my mom wasn't favored as highly as their dad by Grandma. While they looked forward to her visits and staying at her house, I wondered which Grandma I would encounter. I saw glimpses of the woman my cousins saw, but I also saw something very different. Would I see the one who sang to me, or would I see the one who said horrible things to her daughter, my mother? Would she tell me a story from the olden days or accuse me of trying to blind her and kill my grandfather with my picture book at the age of four? They saw this side of her as they got older, I saw it from the beginning. Their kids remember a sweet old lady, who babysat them, mine remember a scary woman that tried to bite their mother. It's as if we knew two different people. Their dad, was my grandma's favorite, and for some reason my mom, even though she was an amazing kid was never good enough and I knew that she felt that way, I saw it. The last time I saw her, her illnesses both physically and mentally were taking a severe toll, and in the course of a normal conversation about the kids, she started saying spiteful, hurtful things about my mother. So it is hard for me to look past those things and see the sweet doting grandma. My grandmother can really be a sweet woman, but she can also be very cruel.

She suffers from Bi Polar disorder which she has long refused to acknowledge or get treatment for. She experienced a great deal of hardship due to the mental illness of her own family members. She lived through her sister's shock treatments and the suicide attempt that left her sister in a coma for a very long time.  I don't blame her for not wanting to admit she had a problem or seek treatment. The state of mental health treatment during the time she was raised was horrific.

I really don't blame her for all of those things I have heard her say over the years to my mother, horribly cruel things. Nor do I blame her for ripping my niece away from us a day after my high school graduation after calling my mom a horrible mother and telling all my graduation party guests what an awful woman she was. Those things push out my good memories of her, and fill up my memory bank, but I know that's not who she would choose to be. I know she wasn't in her right mind when she said those things. I know that the sweet grandma my cousins knew was the real grandma. The one that I got to see so often was the woman ravaged by mental illness, too afraid to admit that it was there.

I'm glad that the real grandma is getting a chance to return even if it's in heaven instead of here with us. She has suffered a long time, and lived a very full life. Her faith that she held to so strongly for many years will bring her to the God that will make her well. She raised two kids with my grandfather. had 5 grandkids and more great grands than I can count. She taught Sunday School, wrote plays for the church, shared her faith with others and was very generous. She was a good woman, but her illness stole a lot of that from her especially later in life. She has spent her years lately in a home being faithfully visited by my grandfather everyday, and my mom as often as she would allow. Her health has been deteriorating quickly and her body is giving up. It's time for her to go home to the God that loves her, and wants to free her of all of the pain.

So I will try to keep the good memories at the forefront of my mind and honor her in that way. I will try and crowd those other memories out with the memories of the swims in their neighbor's pool, catching fireflies, road trips to visit my cousins and swinging on the tree swing in her front yard.

She had illness but she also had faith. She believed in the same savior that I do. I know he is waiting to welcome her home. My mom found this poem today, and it brings me comfort and reassurance that she will be healed soon. I wish she could have been healed here, and I will never understand why some today are healed and some suffer, but I know Christ is the redeemer, and he will redeem my grandma. I am excited to meet this woman someday, with no fears or reservations about what her mind will make her say, because she will be whole and she will be well, the next time we see each other.


Christ the Healer by my grandma
When the Lord came down from His mountain speaking
The crowds clung to Him still eagerly seeking;
For Christ had captured them heart and soul.
Then a leper came asking to be made whole.
Jesus stretched forth His hand and the man was made well.
When He went on His way, Christ asked him not to tell.

There soon came another, a leader from Rome,
Whose servant was lying so ill at his home.
The centurion was naturally haughty and proud,
But he came to Christ humbly and with his head bowed.
Asking only that Christ speak the words of health --
His faith not his gold was the source of his wealth.

While Christ was staying at Peter’s house,
He healed the mother of Peter’s spouse.
And many others were healed by God.
Through His only son --- Christ’s mercy was broad.
His wonders were many as He healed all those ill.
Even storms out as sea bowed to Christ’s words be still.

As Christ told the Scribes so long ago,
His healing the sick was merely to show
That the main reason for the Savior’s birth
Was to heal all the sins of the men on this earth.
Our bodily ills are ever so slight
Compared to our sick soul’s dreadful plight.

The Pharisees were most distressed
When they observed the men Christ blessed.
They asked the disciples why their Master had dinners
With the Publicans and the worst of sinners.
Christ’s answer to them was sure, strong, and quick --
The Physician is sent for those who are sick.

Christ preached day and night and healed as He went
And prayed to His Father that more might be sent
To carry the Gospel to men of all ages,
We need not be wise men nor eloquent sages.
We need only faith --- God supplies all the rest.
To make us equal to meet every test.

I would rather go to hell than follow a God that excludes gay kids from His buildings

Did you ever play that hand game, when you were little, "Here is the church, here is the steeple"? It says open the doors and see all the people. It never talked about what kind of people, I always assumed it was all kinds of people. I grew up in churches that welcomed all kinds of people, even the janitor with the naked lady tattooed on his arm. Guest preachers of all races, gender, class etc were welcome. Catholic priests could give a message as well as my protestant dad. I guess the rhyme does say open the doors and see all the people, it's doesn't say open the doors and walk right in. It seems today that there are some conditions to be met before you might be allowed in. Sadly there is a perception by many outside of the church that the rhyme is more like, "Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and let in the right kind of people".

I have a scandalous secret for you. It may rock your world, it might even shake your faith. Here it is, every Sunday there are people different from you sitting in your church and I think God himself would welcome them there. You know what, there are sinners sitting in church too.  Really, I know it's scandalous but there are. Your pastor he or she is a sinner. Yep, sorry to burst your bubble, your spiritual guide is not perfect.  Guess what, you sin too. Yes that's right and so do I. None of us is perfect. We all hurt people in different ways, we each have our own level's of apathy, we don't always do the right thing and we are allowed into church every Sunday. We are allowed to come to worship God, and be a part of a fellowship of believers. Regardless of our choices in life, of how we were born, of our socioeconomic class, race, etc. no matter what our faith even,  we are allowed and should be welcomed into the church. This is why I am still smoldering with anger about the many stories in the news this week, about churches considering banning Boy Scouts from their buildings. I am not a big Boy Scout cheerleader, far from it, I am secretly hoping to never have to dress my son up in a scout uniform. That's just because our family can't handle one more commitment and  the thought of being a den mother makes my skin crawl.  It has nothing to do with how I feel about their moral compass. Churches this week, all across the country are talking about kicking out the scouts because they lifted a ban on gay kids. These churches are even considering starting their own scouting programs.

This denying groups of people admittance into your church seems to go against everything I know about Jesus, and everything I have come to love about the church. I am not going to get into whether or not homosexuality is a sin, in this post, or any other. I hate that argument and I hate that it has come to define so much of Christianity. What I think is deplorable about this whole thing, is that churches would think they have the right to keep anybody out, because of their perceived "sin". Jesus came to this earth and hung out with EVERYONE, and he talked about the fact that all of us have issues.  He didn't let people's issues get in the way of his love for them.  He hung out with those that were regarded as the worst, the misfits, the outcasts. If he had issues with a person's behavior he worked that out with them quietly as he spoke love into their life. He accepted them first, reached across cultural lines to make them feel welcome in his presence. He scared off those that were going to cast the first stone.  It was the religious leaders that he publicly chastised, and the salesmen commissioned by the leaders that he ran out of the temple.

You don't endorse someone's choices or behaviors by letting them into your church. You don't get to decide who can come and who can't.  We are the body of Christ. He is the head, the boss. So let's harken back to the 90s, really look at the gospels and think about WWJD. It doesn't matter what people are doing, whether it's sin or not, if they are repentant or not, they can be there, Jesus loves them.

Admittedly, I'm just a youth pastor, or actually Director of youth ministries, some people get upset when the term pastor is used to describe me, even though it's the easiest way to communicate what I do, and most resembles the duties I perform.  All I have though is a bachelor's in Bible, Theology and Youth Ministry, and 17+ years of experience working in churches, and faith that goes back as far as I can remember. I am not ordained, I do not have an expensive seminary degree, or a PHD, I haven't published any books or pastored a big church.  So you can judge for yourself how qualified or not, I am to make these statements, you can discount my opinion, you can cast me as naive. That's fine. I used to get easily offended by that, but I won't anymore, because I have seen far too many people with far bigger qualifications than mine, make horrible, misleading statements about the Gospel. I have heard people with "certifiable authority" say things in the name of Christianity that sound nothing  like the Jesus I know.

If those experts are right, if Jesus is exclusive, and discriminating towards certain "sins" or certain kinds of people,if he isn't full of grace for all, if his love isn't bigger than anything I can muster then I would rather be wrong. I would rather live in my ignorance. I would rather go to hell myself, than be with a God that would deny kids entrance into his church because they are gay.

And one more thing, I may not like what these people are doing, I may not agree with their views, but I still have to welcome them into my church, to my table. So if you disagree, if you take offense, let's get some coffee together, let's share a meal. We may or may not enjoy it, but at least we will be working at trying to be like Christ and isn't that what being a Christian is all about?

Tattoo Story #7- my family tree (please God don't let me screw up my kids)

All work done by Michael Facchini
at Blackhole Tattoo (West) Beaverton, OR

It took three years to complete, but it's finally done and since I can't share these stories from the pulpit, my tattoos are illustrations of the story God has written with me, and this is one I love deeply, so I will share it here.

It's not a family tree in the genealogical sense, but it holds far more meaning to me. It's about the passing on of more than genetic material, it's the passing on of our faith. There is a lot of pressure on parents. It seems there are so many opportunities to screw our kids up. I think that pressure is felt even more acutely when it comes to matters of faith. You want your  kids to develop their own faith, their own moral compass, their own sense of compassion. You don't just want them to be automatons for whatever you program them with, but you have to share what you believe, you have to pass on your values and your traditions.  So you try your best, and then you are bombarded with ideas and advice about what you should do. Are you doing enough, are you doing too much? How can you not screw up their paradigm of faith?

I grew up as a PK, a Pastor's Kid, and though that seems to screw a lot of kids up, I think it worked for me.  I think it worked because while I got a look at how horrible Christians and the church could be from the inside, I also saw the loving example of everyday faith from my parents. They are followers f Jesus, and you can see that in the way that they love others. They didn't worry about the religious acts of faith, so much. We didn't have family devotion times, times where we all got together and read the Bible every night, or once a week growing up in my house. In fact we had to stop praying at dinner time because my sister and I weren't taking it seriously. I once volunteered to pray for dinner in front of the nuns at my sister's Catholic school, and said, "hail Mary full of grace bless us now while we stuff our face". I think that's when we got rid of every night meal time prayers. We did always go to church even on vacation in Disneyworld, which admittedly was a drag, but but it did teach me to make God a priority.  We talked about the Bible, like people talk about sports teams, we prayed when we felt we needed to, and my parents were incredibly generous, loving and Christ like to just about everyone we encountered everywhere. I understood from a very young age what it meant to follow Jesus and have a relationship with God.  I don't feel like I built my house on the rock, that Jesus talks about in the parable. I feel like I grew out of and around that rock.

My faith roots me in God, and always has, that doesn't mean there are not doubts, questions, frustrations etc. There are times I have wanted to walk away from my faith, abandon my calling, and I have yelled out to God. Doubt informs my faith, strengthens it at times, and forces me to delve deeper into the Bible to figure things out. Often the things that send me running away from God soon have me running right back. I am blessed to have experienced a loving, God full of grace and mercy, that forgives, and reveals himself to me. I am blessed to have parents that could exemplify that.
That is what I hope we are giving to our kids, and that is what this tree represents. My faith, grown from the foundation of God's great love, shown to me first by my parents. It's a faith, I hope my kids come to know and understand. God has always been there for me, my rock, my anchor in times of struggle, my joy in times of celebration and in mourning and my parent's example is how that faith first started to form.

I have also been blessed to have many other adults in my life that followed Jesus with a genuine, compassionate faith, and loved me out of the love God gave them, helping to shape me into who I am.  This tattoo is a nod to them as well. There are so, so many, but the Davis family is where I first encountered a Japanese Maple.  One grew right by their doorway. I loved that tree, and I loved being at their house, it has always been a place filled with love and a hospitality like no other.

As for how I share my faith and pass on what I think it means to live as a follower of Jesus to my kids, well, it's not perfect but it works for us. We don't do regular family devotion times, we don't pray at dinner every night, but I think we are doing a pretty good job of passing on a genuine faith to our kids. We pray as we feel led to, when something is tough, and when things are good. We breathe out prayers of relief, and we giggle out prayers of thanksgiving. Elijah always wants to pray with me before bed, "Now I lay me down to sleep", but I don't know how much of that is actually wanting to talk to God and how much is comforting ritual, either way it's okay by me. We read the Bible together sometimes, or when a question comes up. I talk to Tabitha sometimes about what I am teaching at church and ask her what she thinks, or how she would present it. She knows my favorite Bible stories just like she knows my favorite books from childhood. We named them both after Biblical people that we loved and would love for them to be like, and those are some of their favorite stories, they go to over and over again. They also love when King Solomon talks about cutting the baby in half too, but that's a little different. At any given time there are multiple Bibles strewn about the house. We go to church every week, multiple times (because I work there) and sometimes my kids don't want to go and say they hate it. That has more to do with being stuck there for hours on end as I work, and having to get up early on a tired Sunday morning. They know the people there love them, and they have friends there of all ages. We incorporate giving into our holidays and we talk about the importance of living like Jesus in our daily lives. Questions about God come up all the time as we are driving to school or getting ready for bed.  Like I said, our strategy isn't perfect, but they know that God is an important part of our lives, that church is a place of imperfect people, but it's also a place of healing, love, challenges, and fun. Most importantly, right now, they know that they are loved by God and should love others with that same generous, grace filled love.

Elijah's Profile Silhouette

Tabitha's Profile Silhouette

While I don't have a favorite, this piece is a great collaborative of my kids ideas and their Uncle Tattoo Mike's ability to take ideas and make them happen. The signatures are my kids, at I think, their most precious stage of handwriting. It tells you so much about their personalities too, Tab's is careful and thought out, the boy's scrawls up my arm with a backwards J.  They wrote them, our artist transferred them using a copy machine with the stencil ink which is how all tattoo stencils are applied after the artist creates the initial sketch. The tree is a Japanese Maple, my favorite, which are normally short and squat, but had to be tall and gangly like me to fit my arm, which was a challenge. It originally started as just the rock and the tree, three years ago but Elijah was upset there was no grass. He didn't like it floating there, so two years ago we added the grass. There was no room on my arm from the original tree and rock to put a proper border or frame on with the grass, so our artist, Michael, had the brilliant idea to put a silhouette of each kids' profile in the grass to form the border. You can see them in the pictures. AMAZING! This year Tabitha decided that she wanted there to be clouds and sky on the tattoo since Elijah got grass.  Again having no definable border was an issue, but Mike made it work, and I think it has taken the tattoo to a whole new level of greatness. The colors in this thing are awesome. Mike's color saturation is excellent by the way, the skin on this arm seems to not appreciate blue ink, and has had issues healing. The leaves are layered in purples, reds, yellows and oranges, so much color went into those leaves that two years and lots of sun later they are still vibrant. It was amazing to watch it get painted into my arm.

the kid's signatures 

I hope someday they will come to have a family faith tree too, maybe not a tattoo, but an appreciation and an understanding of how their own personal faith developed from the many wonderful people and experiences God put in their life.

the overwhelming fear that keeps me up at night, and rips at my faith

There is something that terrifies me. It alternates between keeping me up at night or waking me with a cold sweat. It haunts me when days are good equally as much as when days are bad, and for those of you that know me, it’s not zombies, although they scare me a lot too. It’s suicide. Just when I think I have gotten over it a bit, and it’s not at the forefront of my mind, I see the news. This week it was the news of Pastor Rick Warren’s son, and then today two more suicide stories came on the radar.  In Warren’s letter to his congregation he talked about his son having the best medical care and support and a great day together with the family, and yet his son still succumbed to his depression.  Depression can be fatal, just like many other diseases. It can be terminal, and suicide can seemingly come out of nowhere, when the depression sufferer is doing “well”. This is what haunts me, because my husband battles depression everyday. He has been fighting for years to overcome the overwhelming sadness that plagues him, and I know what one of the possible outcomes of that battle can be. That fear plagues me and it makes me feel like a failure as a wife, and a mom, and a leader in a church.  Shouldn’t I be able to relax and trust in God, I guess I should, but lately I can’t. And at the risk of sounding like a drama queen, I don’t want too. Let me explain…

A few years ago I was asked to be at the house of one of the family’s of our congregation when they broke the news to their son, that his father had committed suicide. It is a privilege and an honor to be allowed in people’s most intimate of moments, and be trusted to be a support, and I am happy to do it. This though, was traumatic in ways I never expected. I saw so much of myself and my family in theirs. The widow was so strong in that moment, just hours after a sheriff knocked on her door to inform her that the fears she carried for years were now true. The kids were devastated but they too had an idea that this day could come. Their dad had been battling severe depression for years. I grieved for them and I watched in horror this scenario that could apply to our own family, play out.  He had been in such a good place recently, it seemed things were looking up, but there we all were in tears, broken and mourning.  There’s this weird thing though that many terminally ill people go through, when they know the end is near. They get this sense of relief as they know they are letting go, and a euphoria sets in.  They do better for a bit, better than they have been for a while, because they sense they are almost done battling. Their families though interpret it as them getting stronger. I had heard of this before, seen it in people that were fighting cancer, witnessed it in situations that were almost alien to me, but this was real and in my face and close to home.

Since that day, I have a lot of trouble setting my fears aside on bad days but also when things are good.  There are the really bad days, when he is not himself, or when he talks about feeling like a burden, and I wonder if he is making plans Worst though is a paranoia in the back of my mind when my husband is doing really well, that maybe it’s because he has a plan, and a false sense of relief. I feel guilty that I feel so paranoid. Valentine works very hard to cope with his depression, and be present for our family. I hate second guessing what is going on in his head, or being suspicious of his hard work in managing his symptoms. I don’t want to watch over him like he is a child, or read into every little thing he does.

I try to “let go and let God”, to trust God that he is taking care and helping Val through. I try to trust that He is holding onto our little family and giving us strength. Then the son of the pastor of one of the largest churches in the world commits suicide. The father of two of our church kids commits suicide. Bad things happen to very good people, to people of faith, and to the completely innocent children all the time.  God allows us as broken human beings to make decisions, to do things, even though they are destructive and hurtful.  He doesn’t force us to be good or healthy. He heals some, but not others.  He allows sickness.  He doesn’t promise that those things won’t happen.  He promises that he will be with us, that he will mourn with us, and that he will help us to be stronger as we endure suffering. He turns tragedies into triumphs, as they say. Our stories end up touching other people, our testimonies furthering God’s work. Yeah, I get it.  I have been touched by the stories of people who have overcome tragedy. My faith has been strengthened by their example of faith. I understand that God can work through this. I understand but I can’t process through it right now, it’s not computing in my brain.

I don’t want to be stronger, I just want my husband. I don’t want to endure this so I can have stronger faith, preach better sermons, have lots of blog followers, and write a book about surviving. I just want my kids to have their dad. I want my husband to be at peace now, not in heaven. I do believe that God can heal any kind of illness, but I know that sometimes he doesn’t. I do believe that he helps us through tragedy and suffers alongside us, and those things can make us stronger. I have experienced it, but I don’t want to anymore, and not with this. I want Valentine, here now and until we are really, really old.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, my life is better everyday because Valentine is in it. He is an amazing husband and dad, and if this is what we have to deal with to get the complete package that is him, well, we got a great deal.

So I will keep working at having faith, and understanding a loving God who restores and redeems, and a broken world where people die at their own hand because they feel so miserable and alone. I will tuck my fear away as best I can, and try not to bring it up with others. I will focus on the good, the love of God and the love of my husband. I will do my best to not be drama and let this fear define my day. Jesus said don’t worry about tomorrow…

Stains- message from the Good Friday Service

Stains have a way of ruining something, of making the bearer of the stain seem worthless or shameful. In our western society if something is stained and all of our tricks of detergent, bleach, stain sticks etc, don’t work, that item of clothing is relegated to rag status. It’s only good for that which is filthy already. If the carpet or the furniture is stained, we try and hide it or disguise it, and eventually get rid of it altogether.

We do the same thing with our own stains, our own mistakes or the mistakes others make that effect us. We carry the shame, the pain, the guilt, the mistrust around as a stain on us. We hurt, we get angry, we feel worthless, we are stained. We don’t feel good enough, or we feel that others aren’t good enough. We try and get rid our own stains with denial and distraction of all kinds. We try and make up for them, or we embrace them and make them part of our identity. It’s not just our own stains we get caught up in either; we carry the stains of others. We harbor resentment, we point fingers, we blame. We let fear of their stains cloud the reality of our own. We are a mess. We aren’t good enough.

In Jesus’ time, that stained feeling, that feeling of being not good enough, was built into the temple system itself. The temple, that place where people could go and offer sacrifices to God for atonement, for cleansing, where they could learn about him, was limited to those who were deemed good enough. As a woman, a child or a non-Jew there were only certain parts of the outer temple you could go in. You weren’t good enough for the rest of the temple. If you were a Jew, you were deemed worthy to go into another part. If you were a priest, still another. All though, were cut off from the Holy of Holies, the place where God’s presence was supposed to dwell. Only certain times of year could someone enter, and only a priest who had been cleansed. He had to have a rope tied around his ankle, because even he might not be worthy, and if he were not, he would fall down dead when he entered. The rope would be used to drag him out.

There was a system of rules and sacrifices to make you clean, to make you worthy, to keep you from stains, from sin and to cleanse you from sin. Even then though, not all were good enough. It was a terrible system, and caused people to be even more terrible to each other than they already were. People were declared unclean because of their stains, because of their issues. Some people thought they were clean, thought they were better than others. God knew though, that all of them, that all of us are broken. He knew he would have to do something to make us clean, and to help us see each other differently.

Jesus changed all of that though. He invited the unclean and the left out to his table. He touched the lepers. He healed the sick and the cursed. He showed people that the laws weren’t working, and that they needed to love each other first. He surrounded himself not with the seemingly perfect, and pure, but with the dirty, the misfits, the stained.

We saw the account of his own disciples, who made mistake after mistake, and they were the closest people to him. He didn’t cast them aside, he built his ministry with them. He built his church on them.

In this passage in Romans, we see Paul talking to a church that has struggled with keeping the laws. They are fighting about which ones should be upheld. They are making some feel left out and out of place in the church again and Paul reminds them. It’s not in the keeping of these laws that we are made right. It’s through Jesus.

Jesus made this at once beautiful, and horrible sacrifice, of his life. His blood was shed and stained the ground around him, so our stains could be made clean. So that we could be made right, made new. That is an amazing gift as Paul points out. We can’t earn that. He gives it freely, because he loves us, and though we might see ourselves as unworthy, we are worthy in his sight. He loves us with an amazing love, like no other. When he died, the Gospels tell us the curtain in the temple tore in half. No one was kept from the presence of God anymore. All who could accept it, were made worthy through Jesus sacrifice

All we have to do is have faith in his sacrifice, and believe that he shed his blood for us. He doesn’t even require an unyielding faith. Just that we step forward and try to trust him. We see doubt in his followers, we see doubt in the early church. The new testament is filled with the disciples trying to answer questions and sort out problems. The scriptures are filled with doubters. That’s okay. Doubt can inform our faith and help it grow. As long as we are asking, as long as we are seeking Jesus, we are okay. Jesus took the stain of our sins, all of our sins, the ones we haven’t even done yet.

Stains can make us feel so ugly and unworthy. They can make us feel beyond hope. They can bind us in anger and shame. They don’t have too. We can give those stains over to the one who gave his life for us. We can accept that grace, that mercy and love, and we can also extend that to the people around us. Jesus showed us a new way on that cross. We may point fingers and condemn, we may try and say that we are better than others, but Jesus took the punishment of a criminal. He took the ultimate humiliation and pain. He did it for all sinners, for the liars, for the adulterers, for the murderers, the cheats, the complainer, the gossips, the thieves, nothing was too big, nothing too shameful. Jesus died for all of it, and all of us.

So tonight, let’s give him our stains. Let’s work through our shame, our guilt, our anger, our mistrust, let’s give it all to him. Those things we have done and those things others have done to us, those walls we have put up to hide our stains, let’s give those to him. Let’s take all the trying to work so hard to be okay or to keep up appearances, to get out those stains on our own, and let’s give them to Jesus. Let’s accept this sacrifice as gruesome and as horrible as it might seem. Let us accept it, and our brokenness, and let us receive the mercy and the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

the embarrassing security blanket of my evangelical roots

Evangelicalism is the security blanket of the faith I have been rooted in since childhood. The language and practices of evangelicals used to be a comforting environment, but now seem to strangle me with shame as the evangelical community sits in tatters. Like the preadolescent of my past, I want to distance myself from this piece of my childhood, yet something won't let me cast it off completely. Instead I want to stuff it away into the closet of my faith, so no one will see me with it. Yesterday I had the chance to sit in on a conversation about the future of evangelicalism with Roger Olson and Rachel Held Evans, this story brought a lot of things to the surface of my memory from my own story of evangelicalism. It made me want to sift through that story, and process what brought me to this current place of discomfort, shame and loss. I have links to Olson and Evans blogs below, Roger Olson has an amazing overview of the history of evangelicalism, and Rachel is fantastic! Below is my own story though, my own attempt to sort through this mess, and there are no answers or solutions included. It's not really a rant, more a struggle to understand my discomfort with this term that was such a big part of my identity for so long. I apologize for any christian-eze words or references, that might make you feel left out of this conversation, to borrow from Evans"it's my native tongue".

I would say, that I was raised as an evangelical or at least one type of evangelical, even though some would say because of the denomination I was raised in, Presbyterian of the PCUSA variety, that I was not. To me though, the churches I was a part of and the family I was raised in, embodied the greek root of that word, bringers of the Good News, the Gospel. We were evangelical in that we shared that good news of Jesus and that was the primary focus for us. Roger Olson calls it an evangelical ethos, that has at it's core, Christ and his sacrifice on the cross as central to salvation, a personal relationship with Christ, Biblical authority, and activism as we seek to work out that faith and share Christ through service and restoring justice. I grew up with all of that, around me all the time. My dad held both a masters of divinity and a doctorate, he was a walking concordance.  He shared the Bible with me often, and taught me Calvin's TULIP principles along with the Mickey Mouse Club theme song when I was little (although perhaps both of those things would make me very un evangelical). Both of my parents modeled personal relationships with Christ to me daily, and they certainly embodied the service and generosity that should flow from that faith. Our church often joined with other churches, protestant, catholic, you name the denomination and my dad worked with them. We were very ecumenical. As a youth group we attended ecumenical youth gatherings that included alter calls and the plan of salvation. We went to Billy Graham crusades, and we listened to Christian music. I knew what the 700 Club was and sometimes watched it, we visited the Crystal Cathedral when we went to Disneyland. I was reading Tony Campolo, Brennan Manning, Andy Stanley and Francis Shaeffer in high school for fun.  I lead people through the sinners prayer, did those silent skits about salvation to Michael W. Smith songs, memorized the Romans Road and so much more. I was raised as an evangelical, even though my church ordained women, and we didn't speak in tongues. We may have been a frostier frozen chosen variety, but we were evangelicals, and some of those things, especially what my parents passed on to me, I am very proud of, some of them are embarrassing, but to be honest, they are all a part of who I am today.

It wasn't until I got to Bible college of all places that I started really becoming uncomfortable with that label, and started to feel smothered and embarrassed by it's blanket. Suddenly I was introduced to a different, more exclusive brand of evangelicalism. My baptism as an infant was called into question by one professor, and it was alluded to that perhaps without a "proper adult baptism" I might not have the holy spirit after all. To their credit, the particular Christian college I went to, tried to be non denominational, trained women for the same ministries as men, and when I brought up perseverance of the saints, they sent me not to their own essays, but to exegesis of the scripture. I started to see though that not all evangelicals seemed to be created equally. I also started to feel uncomfortable with these practices of evangelizing. For one class we had to head downtown and go through the romans road or the four spiritual laws with complete strangers. We were taught to look at every opportunity as a chance to share salvation with a stranger. Rachel Held Evans in her presentation yesterday mentioned that she still feels guilty when she sits on a plane and doesn't "witness" to the stranger next to her, and I identify with that a lot. I have a few more years on her though, and my guilt over that particular thing wanes more everyday. I often wondered what good it did to share the story of Jesus with someone then walk away, never to see them again. My differences with what seemed to be mainstream evangelicalism became clearer as I started working with other youth ministers too. I learned that because of my gender and denominational affiliation, I didn't necessarily fit into their evangelical clubs. I might be able to work a youth event with them, but I could never preach in front of their congregation. Luckily not all the men I worked with felt that way, but enough did that  it gave me a distaste for this breed of evangelism.

When I started in ministry I employed many of the typical "evangelical" things, I am embarrassed to say. Looking back now, I can see though that it wasn't the skits and the formulas and the purity pledges that truly impacted the students I worked with.  The good news of Jesus Christ and his love and salvation didn't come through those things as powerfully as they came through my story and the stories my volunteers told of what Christ had done in our lives as we tried to follow him.  We shared our lives with students and we encouraged them to search the scriptures and those things helped shaped their faith. I am afraid the other things created the stumbling blocks that Paul warned us about, and I shudder to think, what they had to unlearn from those other methods, to be able to see Jesus himself more clearly. I even went to Africa and participated in school programs where we gave testimonies and led hundreds through the sinners prayer and possibly to Jesus. We went on state TV in Uganda and performed gospel skits. Now I look at the current state of evangelicalism and Uganda and am ashamed that I might have played a part in it, though I know there was more to that trip, than just those presentations. It seemed in a lot of the things I did in my early years of ministry, we weren't teaching students to think about scripture critically or really count the cost of following Jesus, we were more getting them signed up and following a pattern of behavior. Certainly not everything done in Uganda or in youth groups in those early days was a waste, God can work through anything, as we evangelicals say.  He worked through Balaam's ass after all, he could certainly work through me.

Later I got an even more bitter taste of evangelicalism as I camped in the heart of the Christian music industry. I saw these people that I had looked up to for so many years, that led thousands to Christ every night during mid concert alter calls, treat people like crap behind the stage. I saw artists that  were more humble in their presentation of the gospel, but seemed more authentic in their faith get raked over the coals for not being Christian enough. If your songs didn't all say Jesus at least once, your album might just be returned, especially in the Bible Belt.  The more stereotypically evangelical the crowd, the more haggling for cheaper shirts, or complaints about the Jesus-less track on the cd, there were. It got so bad that at one point I took a sharpie to a T-shirt and wrote, "Jesus had a nail in his hands, not a stick up his butt." I think those tours showed me the best and the worst of the people following this ethos of evangelicalism, and unfortunately the worst were louder.

Today I struggle with the word evangelical, because it invokes more of the bad memories than the good, and it seems to be synonymous today in the media with the very bad, the very bigoted, the very judgmental, the very opposite of Jesus. Those that seem to claim that they are evangelical the loudest also seem to preach a gospel of republicanism, discrimination of gender and sexual preference, materialism. Their message seems so far from the good news of Jesus.

 I wish I could recapture that word. I wish it could mean or be interpreted by society in context of that evangelical ethos that Olson talks about. I was so proud to be a Christian and be a Presbyterian (PCUSA), as we spread the good news in New Orleans and Mississippi after hurricane Katrina, when the Presbytery Disaster Relief was one of the few organizations working hard to restore them in the years following the storm. I was so proud to be evangelical, when it meant sharing my story of faith in Christ and his work in me, when I was washing the feet of a homeless guy with a group of Christians from all different walks of life. I was so proud to be a follower of Jesus when  teens came up to the merch table of my husband's band, with all their piercings and different hair colors and told us that they felt like they belonged when they saw us and listened to the band's music, and they could see that they had a place in the kingdom of God. I felt proud to be evangelical when my husband kept encouraging those same fans through emails and letters for a while, and kept sharing the good news with them for more than just a night. I felt proud to be evangelical, a carrier of the good news, when I saw students feeling safe enough to ask questions, so they could really understand who Jesus was, and what it meant to follow him. I felt really proud to be evangelical when my dad helped churches navigate the waters of the issue of homosexuality with love, respect and dignity for both sides, and he stood as a real example of Jesus love. There are so many things that make me proud of this tradition, yet those things seem to get lost in the tide of  infighting, division, discrimination, tradition, bad teaching, and media missteps of people like Pat Robertson, Mark Driscoll and the people of that infamous Westboro church.

Now at times, I pull my old baby blanket out of the hope chest in the closet, and I show it with pride to my kids. I tell them stories of our adventures together. Sometimes I wrap it around my shoulders.  I hope I will be able to do that with my evangelical roots someday too. I fear being linked to that title, I worry what others will think, what message it will send to them about me, or more importantly, the God I follow. I hope that someday I will be able to reclaim that blanket, and those good things, and the word evangelical will be synonymous with a person following Jesus, sharing the great news of his grace, and salvation for all people.

You can  read Roger Olson's portion of the discussion to learn more of the real history of the evangelical movement here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/03/my-talk-about-the-future-of-evangelicalism-at-george-fox-evangelical-seminary/ and check out Rachel's story and her wonderful blog here. http://rachelheldevans.com.

I have no monkey, but I like what I've become!

A certain person told me the other day that I was not young anymore, since my thirty fifth birthday recently came to pass. I bit my tongue and didn't let the expletive leave my mouth, nor did I remind this person that they are just a few years shy of twice my age. It's really not the inference of my age that offended me.  It's more the idea that I might become as seemingly irrelevant as the person making the comment, and out of touch. Or it was the idea that this person has suggested to me multiple times that my life is going to start declining now. Here's the thing, if it is, if I am on the road out, I'm actually ok with that, because my life has been so very full. Saying my life is on the decline is a load of crap.  Really I'm not done and I'm not going to go trudging into middle age or old age with complacency and boredom. I was thinking how I really am the person who I wanted to become and then there was the sketch this weekend, on SNL, which I included below, that confirmed for me, I am happy with who I have become.

 I am the person I wanted to be when I was younger, even though some things are missing and some things aren't quite what I imagined.  There are a lot of things I wish I could improve about myself. I'd for sure have less debt, my arms would be toned, there would be ten less pounds on my frame, I would keep my big mouth shut more. There are a lot of mistakes I have made, words that I have said which I so wish I could take back. Tragically I don't have a monkey or a house in Santa Cruz, I don't even live in California, things that used to seem so essential to the perfect grown up life. There are other things I really am disappointed in though. I haven't been back to Uganda in 14 years. I never was able to build a tree house for my kids, I don't even have a real backyard. I have no guest room for my parents to stay in.  I don't have a sister I call everyday, or even once a week, a month or a year. I rarely see my nieces and nephews, and my kids don't know our East Coast roots at all. Then there are the things that seem to disappoint others or become the object for their criticism or jokes; everything from my hair, my minivan, my tattoos, my townhouse on the wrong side of town which people refer to as an apartment, to my career that has never grown to a giant church. All of these things may disappoint me and others, the mistakes, the debt weighs me down at times but in the grand scheme of things, they seem silly, obnoxious even. 

I'm pretty much the person I wanted to be when I grew up. I mean, I don't have a monkey, or a house in Santa Cruz, but those things aside, I have been beyond blessed to be able to live out my dreams and kick through my bucket list. It is not lost on me how incredibly awesome that is. I am very,very grateful. I have an amazing family. My kids rock, even if my daughter wanted a boring belt without studs or skulls on it the other day. They are caring, funny, adventurous people, and I get to raise them with my best friend. I am graced with the joy of living with Valentine everyday of my life. I am humbled by that alone, and yet there is so  much more. I live in a very tall house, taller than the trees I used to want to be in. It's a warm home with running clean water, so much that it can overflow and damage the thing. The house is filled with human monkeys and crazy dogs, including the giant dog of my childhood dreams. There may not be a swingset in the non existent backyard but there is one in my kitchen, and although there is no guest room, the house is often filled with friends. I got to have the career I wanted, the one God called me to in junior high. So many students have allowed me to be a part of their lives and their journey of faith, and some of them are having babies now. It is incredibly humbling to have been allowed to speak into the lives of young people for over seventeen years, and challenge them to chase after Jesus. So what if I drive a messy minivan to cram all of them in, my kids, and the kids that come into the doors of the church, it is great! I may not be working at a big name church, but I have heard of the big impact that I have made in the lives of students, which is unbelievable to me. God has given me so many adventures, friends and fantastic memories.

I know how I got there too, and it wasn't just because I'm awesome. It was often in spite of who I am, and it was due in large part to God and the people He has graced my life with. I followed Jesus as close as I could, and when I lost my way He brought me back and gave me second, third and fourth chances. He turned my mistakes and heartaches into opportunities, eventually. I was also born into a family with amazing parents, and had a village of friends that helped me grow up, or get as close to grown as I ever will. I had multiple mentors that challenged me to pursue the passion God gave me. I don't talk to my sister much, but I have adopted a bunch of brothers and a few sisters that are there for me everyday.  I am incredibly lucky to have had all of this and I became the person I wanted to become because of God working in my life and so many wonderful people. 

So I may be thirty five, but I am not depressed that half my life may be over. It was a really good half, enough for a full life, so who knows what the next part will bring. Now I get to dream up who I want to be when I am 70, if God let's me make it that long. That is cool. That is so exciting. My hair could be white then, so it would be so much easier to put colors in it. I could get really bright colors without bleaching! I could get a monkey when the kids move out (because they seem messy, and two kids, Val and I are messy enough) and be the crazy old monkey lady. I could do youth groups and lead retreats from my jazzy power chair with an entirely new generation of kids! The millenials kids, I can't wait to see how they turn out!!! I will continue to spend time with young people, helping them to see God's love for them and be who he created them to be. I'll just sleep for the day or two after the all nighters at church, or the snow retreats. I will continue to listen to new music (except dub step). I could play pictionary with my grandkids as they try and guess what my tattoos used to be. I will get to have those medical tests the hypochondriac in me has always wanted. I will get to see the inside of my colon, and really cool pictures of the inside of my boobs. We will get to freak nurses out with Val's more comedic tattoos. Maybe I will have finally been to Hawaii and checked off the last of the fifty states. Who knows how many great danes I will have had by then.  We could put a saddle on a great dane for the monkey! I'll be older, so people won't question my sanity, they will just assume it is gone.  If I could have all of those great adventures, before  gaining the wisdom and knowledge that comes with age, what is stopping me now? 

What is stopping you? Are you the person you wanted to be years ago, or are you someone even better? Seriously, you might not be that person, but the person you are could be so much more. You may have had better experiences and grown through more amazing challenges, than that childhood person you dreamed of ever could.  What life experiences have you triumphed through to be that better you? What heartaches have shaped you for the better? Maybe it's not the life you thought you wanted, but what adventures have you had that you never even dreamed of? Is there a new dream, a new turn your life could take? Who says your age has to stop you?

Maybe my grandkids will visit me in my treehouse in Santa Cruz someday, or a village in Uganda. If that's the case, there better be a monkey.

http://youtu.be/ve80DrDB2Yg