how much happier

How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!
-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

hope

The kids don't love each other today. Understatement. They're saying in cold, deliberate voices "I'm going to kill you." (which is worse than screaming it)

It makes my heart fall to pieces. What do you do when they hate each other, when what God has done for them means nothing to them, when they're stubborn and irrational, when they're deliberately and spitefully cruel? What do you do when they can't see past the smog of their anger? When their sinful hearts crawl like nasty little monsters out of their mouths?



What does God do with us? Does he squeeze our jaws until apologies wheeze out as if from a dying organ? Does he turn up the radio and focus on waiting for the light to change?

I know it's not either of those options. He is neither aggressive nor passive. But I'm not sure how to mimic him. I know he is patient. I know he repeats truth to us, even when we refuse to listen. I know that even in our ugliest moments his love for us is steady. I know his heart breaks too.

So after a long conversation that got nowhere, I sit in the car, enveloped by dark rain, and pray. God, help me show you to them. We need you.



I come inside and start writing these words, and in the middle of the third paragraph, E walks in. He runs up to me and hugs me tight around my waist and says simply "Megan, I'm sorry I was mean to you, and I already apologized to her, too." And I'm weak in the knees at God's kindness, and at his reassurance that he is pursuing their hearts. I have great reason to hope.

the first birthday

The year in pictures!
Check out the ways that God has been faithful to Downtown Cornerstone in 2011! Maybe I'll springboard off this and collect a few photos from the past year showing what God has done this year for me. Check back later. (But no promises.)

nightmares

It's 3:28 am, and I am awake because I just had a nightmare. I hate those.

One of the things I hate most about nightmares is that the effects linger. For example, this nightmare was about a vampire. Stupid, right? I don't believe in vampires and I'm not scared of them. But after I wake up from a nightmare about a vampire, I'm terrified. Even though my mind tells me that I won't be scared at all come tomorrow, the fear lingers tonight. I'm by myself, but I think I'd be even more scared if I was with someone, because I'd be scared they were a vampire. Even though I don't believe in vampires.

The other thing I hate most about nightmares, or at least mine, is that they always strike at the deepest chords of what is scary about a thing. For this nightmare about a vampire, it was the idea that a person you love and completely trust would get this weird look in their eyes, lie to you, turn on you, and then try to eat you. Sick, huh? Even though I'm awake now I can't lose the worse image of the nightmare, the moment when that happened.

It seems like every kid goes through a nightmare stage, which is so sad. That would be heartbreaking for me as a parent, because I know nightmares and I know how they're only scary if they happen to you, and then they're paralyzing, no matter how stupid they might sound over breakfast the next morning. I remember when I went through my nightmare stage as a kid, I would pray desperately to God every night that if I trusted him enough to fall asleep and make myself vulnerable to nightmares, he would protect me from evil in my mind while I was sleeping. (Thing number three I hate about nightmares: they jump you when you're vulnerable; there's no way to protect yourself against them.) God was actually really faithful in that in a really sweet way to little kid Megan. God is not a magic formula, but every time I thought to pray and ask for his protection, I was protected.

I've been the recipient lately of a great deal of very sweet, elemental faithfulness from God. The kind where I give up to him a very basic, immediate, even tangible need, and he provides in an obvious way. This has been the case with money, housing, a job, clarity and wisdom, safety, and my car. I feel like a small child being provided for by my father, and I feel both so taken care of by God, and so reassured that God's desire is to take care of me. He does not want to dangle wisdom out in front of me and snatch it away at the last moment. He does not want me to go hungry, or weary, or have nowhere to sleep. I believe those uglinesses about him sometimes, but they are such lies. He is a good God who loves to give good gifts, quickly, to his children.

So with that in mind, I think it's time for me to ask God to come sit in my bed with me and protect me from evil dreams tonight, and I'll go back to sleep.


“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:9-11

is facebook killing your soul?

I picked up my new issue of Relevant recently (Heck yes, Relevant magazine. Don't judge me.) and as I scanned the front cover my eyes alighted on "IS FACEBOOK KILLING YOUR SOUL? p. 72"

I was so excited.

For those who haven't participated in this minor drama in my life, I am a non-Facebooker. (I really need to come up with a more interesting name for this phenomenon.) I have waffled and wavered, I've hemmed and hawed, I've even lied about it, promising friends "I'll get one at the end of the year..." or "I'll get one when I go overseas..." or "I'll get one when I graduate..." But they were all flat-out, if useful, lies.

I wrinkled the pages all up in my rush to get to page 72. The main argument was that Facebook changes the way we think and the way we perceive and interact in the real world as well as the cyber-world. The author explains it simply: "Our thinking patterns begin to mirror the things we use to think with." Some of the changes seem to be neutral, some not so good, and some just interesting. Consider these suggestions by the author:

We now think in webs rather than lines.
We value flexible, fast intuition over hard, slow, laborious rationality.
We prefer short, simple messages over lengthy, uninterrupted essays.

He also has some more concerning observations:

"While there is a little voyeurism, there is a lot of exhibitionism on Facebook... Voyeurism is what happens when you steal glimpses into people's lives they don't intend for you to see. The people I'm looking at want me to see everything I'm seeing. They want me to know what they're eating, wearing, feeling and thinking in each moment... Such exhibitionism has an unusual effect on us... We become fascinated by the image we project. It's like having a mirror on your desk or in your pocket. And every so often, you pull it out to gaze upon your own image. Perhaps you want to adjust your hair or find postures of the head to smooth out the double chin. This kind of regular self-inspection eventually gives rise to a subtle narcissism."

"We endlessly noodle, refine, create and consume a digital projection we want others to see. However, we are rarely what we project. This image approximates reality, but it is not reality... This is hardly new, of course. In any social situation, we seek to control the impression we give. The problem is that in real social settings, there are limits to what we can hide... Over enough time, [Facebook's] subtle effect creates a minor split in us. A split between who we are, and who we think we are. This tiny fracture may seem insignificant, but if we remain unconscious, it leads us away from a life of wholeness and integration."

And finally, Facebook (and Twitter) "begs me to step out of the stream of experience long enough to record it... This may seem insignificant. But our presence matters. Our brief but increasingly frequent moments of absence add up. Imagine a father who flickers in and out of a child's life every time he checks his iPhone. He might be there physically, but he may as well be at the office or on a business trip. People can feel our absence... It is a ghost-like condition. It diminishes one of God's greatest gifts to us- a body. There is a reason God made us with bodies. There is a reason God became a body in Jesus. The incarnation is about becoming a body to bless the world through physical presence in the lives of others. To hold the hand of those who grieve, to feed and clothe those who are poor, to love those who are alone by being with them. Many of these technologies create a condition of absence in a world desperate for our presence."

I think the reason the first one hits home for me so much is that I have experienced a gentler version of this just by blogging. When I blog I am clamoring for people to look at me, look at what I'm doing and what I'm thinking and where I'm going and who I'm with. Obsessing over my image, even in a blog, is a huge temptation. I want to shape who I am into who I want to be. Which is not a bad thing. The problem is that when it comes to social media like this, who I want to be is not the image of Christ, but rather a cooler version of Megan.

This is why I can't get Facebook. I think some people can handle it fine and use it well. I'm terrified I wouldn't be able to, that it would suck me deeper into a self-absorption and insecurity I've struggled with all my life. I don't think I'm strong enough for Facebook, pathetic as that sounds.

The third point I think goes both ways. Yes, technology like this can make us absent even when we're present. But at the same time, it can also make us present even when we're absent. If I don't see a close friend all day, I can text her just to let her know that I'm thinking about her and I love her, even when I can't be in her presence. But I have to be very cautious and wise that when I am present with someone, I am fully present with them, and not darting away to talk to someone I find more interesting.

So I'll just leave you with a promise: I will try to be aware of my lurking self-obsession so that I can fight it back and be real with you and truly interested in you. Please give me grace as God sorts out this messiness in me, and know that I love you, even if I'm really bad at loving you.

Oh, and one final amusing, but insightful, snippet: "Updates may be profound, but more often they are mostly a twitch of the brain- a mental fidget adding to the static of the universe."

as yourself

I still love that rowing thing, but it kicked my butt this morning.

On a happier note, I was the one dominating at my tutorial yesterday.

Life lesson: you try as hard as you can, and at the end of the day, you give yourself grace.