Happy Ash Wednesday

 (www.nataliealfaro.com)

I hope that this Lenten Season is a beautiful journey in striving for a more Christ-like life and a stronger relationship with God for all of those who participate in this preparation for Holy Week. I like to think of Lent as a time to create a new good habit; a habit that strengthens character, if you will. I hope that it can be a season of reflection, prayer and guidance. I pray that in this season it is remembered who Christ was in his last days, what Christ walked the Earth for and ultimately died and was risen and ascended into Heaven.

Good-natured indulgence and casual acceptance are not forgiveness and love but an expression of indifference and sometimes hostility. Real love and forgiveness mean caring enough to be hurt, caring enough to put ourselves in others' shoes and sharing their guilt as if it were our own. Real love and forgiveness are costly--not in the sense that the guilty party must squeeze them out of the injured party but in the sense that the injured party genuinely sympathizes with the guilty and shares his or her pain. 

(Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine pg, 260)

Forgiveness is a theme that continues to bop about my life in conversations, in my readings and in my personal relationships. It can be hard to forgive and it is often to easy to pretend like you have forgiven. I hope to be more intentional with the forgiveness that I hand out with my words and my actions. I hope to not allow my forgiveness to make me feel powerful. I pray that by being forgiven I can humbly forgive others. 

A wise friend shared with me, from her personal experience, that it is important to forgive but in forgiving guarding one's heart must not be forgotten. Just because one may forgive another does not mean that trust has been re-instituted. 

Forgiveness is hard but forgiveness is necessary.

On my mind.

All night after mass yesterday and so far this morning I cannot get this scene from CS Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe out of my head:

"Is-is he a man?" asked Lucy
"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion-the Lion, the great Lion."
"Ooh!" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he quite-safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without ther knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver..."Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you ."

I know that this an often-quoted part of the book, but for good reason in deed. It is so easy for one to think about Jesus as safe and one's life with Jesus as safe, because that is easy. But a life in Jesus is anything but safe. But it is good.

It's hard to remember that being scared and not knowing is okay.

Holy Week

(RomanCatholicBlog.typepad.com)

It was nice to have an Easter that was more home-like than most of the holidays that I end up celebrating in Seattle. I went to an Easter Vigil last night at Blessed Sacrament, a beautiful, old Catholic church in the University District. It was a beautiful service that I got to share with some new-found friends here at Seattle Pacific University.
{I am excited to continue to go to Blessed Sacrament and get to know some of the people that make up the Catholic community here at SPU.}
This morning I got up and had a late breakfast with those that I have spent the last few nights going to mass with. We prayed together, ate some yummy food and talked about our Lenten season. Then, I headed back to my room and finished up some projects that I had laying around. Apart from the rain, today was pretty much all I could have hoped for. I feel so blessed to finally feel as though I have found a home in a community of followers!

Most importantly though, it was one of the most impacting and meaningful Holy Weeks and Easter Celebrations that I have experienced in a long time.

My realizations at the light on the Hill

Today I went to mass for the first time in a few months and it felt good. Before this morning I forgot why I used to go to church. I used to go because I actually liked it. And I am glad I remembered that.

But, that is not the point of my writing today. I had two much needed and humorous realizations as the priest at St. Anne Catholic Church began to introduce the congregation to the Book of Mark. As he started talking about John the Baptist and the scribes and the Jewish synagogues and the demonic spirit Jesus drove out of the convulsing boy, I felt my heart pumping harder and the wheels in my brain kick into learning mode. My hands wanted to reach into my bag and grab a pencil and paper and start writing. I wanted to start taking notes. This led me to my first realization: I am, more or a less, a Scriptures geek. I thirst for a deeper understanding of the Bible and its contextual histories. I cannot help but want to absord it all. And I laughed at myself because I have actually considered dropping my Scripture classes to focus on my major. Ha.

As the priest kept talking, a second realization quickly came upon me like a deep, cold breath of fresh air: here is a Catholic priest preaching the word of God to a congregation and supplementing the miracles, the teachings and the wanderings of Jesus with historical and contextual facts. How dare people claim that Catholics do not know their Bible. And come to think of it, there had previously been readings from the Old Testament. Of course there were because there are always readings from the good ol' O.T. I cannot tell you how many Protestant churches I have walked into without once hearing about the Old Testament. I cannot tell you how many times I have walked out of those same churches only hearing about how Jesus loves me and the lowest of the lows. That is really important but there is so much more there. And I will be the first to admit that Catholic churches are not perfect and not all Protestant churches only focus on the New Testament, but the Catholic Church is pretty freakin' holisitic.

(And now I just had realization number two point five: I do not have to worry about leaving SPU and no longer having access to knowledgeable theologians because a good church should be teaching the congregation about the Bible and offering classes in order to go deeper with the Word.)

Lastly, I read this article from the BBC and it made me giggle. It is about the word "bankster" and is more or less criticizing Wall Street and the corrupt wealthy people in this world.

Peace be with you.

Yikes.

Lately, my father's native country has been consuming my every thought. My every day dream. I cannot stop Wikipedia-ing names and places. My Google toolbar automatically reads Nicaragua when I type the letter "n". I have seen thousands upon thousands of pictures via photo sites like Google Images and Flickr, taken by travellers, activists, artists. And my mind will not stop racing: Why haven't I been there yet? Why do I still not know Spanish? Why did my dad choose that knowing English alone was better than my being bilingual? These questions will not stop, but it's not like this is the first time I have had one these "episodes". Every few months I get this kick where all I can focus on is getting to Nicaragua, and when the right time to go would be, or if it would be better to go on a trip with friends and family or a program? Would it be emotional for me? If I went with a program, would I want the others to know the history of my family in Nicaragua?

And that's where my emotions dive deep into murky, dark waters and I come out and gasp for air. I decide I will think about it later. And then later turns into this all over again. Right now, I am wrestling with mind all over again. This time is different though. I have taken it a step further. I am pushing my doubts, my shame and my pride to the back of my head and I am doing something. I have researched and Googled and website-hopped for the last 24 hours and I think my mind and my heart have finally come to an agreement: I am going to Nicaragua as soon as it is academically and financially possible. To determine whether it will be an internship, a volunteering expedition, or a strictly academic excursion, I am compiling a list of links- a long list of links. Slowly, I will go through these links and cut the ones that do not give me "that feeling". I hope to come out with a few options, apply and pray. And pray like I have never done before. I obviously can wrap my head around this process.

But, then my heart starts beating and I get this sick feeling in my stomach. I am still ashamed. I don't even know what I am ashamed of, really. I loathe the fact that I don't speak Spanish. I am both embarrassed and hurt by this daunting fact. I remember lying in my bed as a little girl and not being able to fall asleep, so I would start praying about two specific things to a God that I was pretty sure existed: the first, begging God that He existed because in all my heart I really wanted Him to; the second, praying that I could wake up the next morning and be fluent in Spanish. That is the kind of longing and hurt that is embedded in me. I have no idea why I care so much about it. I just do. So, when I start thinking about taking on a trip to a country where I would be ashamed to claim ancestry to because I have no personal proof (because anyone will tell you that I don't look like your stereotypical Latina), I feel sick and anxious. In many ways, it would be easier to let everyone assume that I was some upper-middle-class-white-girl from California going to some expensive, private, Christian university in Seattle that just happens to have a heart from Central America. If I were to do this, I would not have to explain my terrible Spanish, nor would I have to reveal that I am closely related to the grossly unpopular Somoza lineage. It would be easy, yes. But, could I do it? Probably not. It would be such a misrepresentation of the life that I have experienced and the life that I continue to lead. It would be deceitful, but most of all it would be ridiculously difficult for me. My whole nineteen years of life have been semi-obsessed with my heritage. So, what makes me the most anxious, I guess, is the fact that I know that I will have to be truthful and deal with the embarassament and shame and judgement- oh the judgement. To be completely truthful, though, it would be worth the uncomfortable situations and I now feel incredibly at peace with the idea of going, and coming back and sharing my stories.

Absolutely nothing can change my mind at this point because it's not longer my choice. Now, it's God pulling me and pushing me and forcing me to follow His plan.



Yikes.

Pioneer Square

Earlier this week I met Rebecca. She was huddled under the entryway of a Quizznos with some cardboard boxes to make up a mattress and a Bartell's reusable bag as a pillow. I had emerged from a comfortable studio where a friend of mine, Thomas Starks, was recording his newest album. I had spent the late-afternoon hanging out, eating M&Ms, Jelly Bellys and downing water bottles of water (I was feeling a little dehydrated). So, when I climbed up the stairs to street level and Thomas introduced me to Rebecca my night was turned upside down. See, Thomas had befriended Rebecca twenty minutes prior and immediately was at her service. He gathered a muffin, water and Excedrin and did not stop there. When Rebecca mentioned the need of a blanket, Thomas responded with a blanket and a pillow. As we got to talking to Rebecca we learned that it was not easy to find food in Seattle because shelters have funny hours and are scattered around the city. We also learned that most shelters cater to men, and with so many men around sometimes she felt intimated and vulnerable. When Thomas and Malissa, it was Malissa's blanket and pillow that Thomas handed over, started asking about womens' shelters in the Seattle area Rebecca answered that there are a few, but the main one is controlled by a demoness. For the next five minutes or so Rebecca started to reveal her faith in God and her fear of the demons and demonesses that she sometimes saw and felt around the city. An example of this was the woman who had control over the women's shelter. In consequence, Rebecca did not like going over there for food. Shortly after, Rebecca explained that she was viciously abused as a child and now, also, has a mental illness. Her mental illness does not discredit her fears, but it explained a lot about her and what she was saying.
I am sure that in some ways we blessed Rebecca that night, but in all actuality she probably will not remember us. Rebecca said that part of her mental illness is amnesia, so "probably" is probably an understatement. But, as I was sitting on the edge of her cardboard mattress, listening to her stories, and her fears, and her hopes, and her aspirations, I found myself on the verge of tears. Those tears never spilled out because I was head deep in prayer. Prayer that I had not felt in over a year. Over two years, actually. As Malissa and Thomas headed back down the stairs into the studio, I sat with Rebecca a little longer. I handed over my jacket and asked her if I could pray with her. As I grabbed her hand and started thanking God for her, I realized I will never know what she really needs, but I could offer the one thing I knew had power-- prayer. So the first two things Rebecca did for me that night was that she humbled me in a way that has not been done in quite a long time, and she helped me remember the art of praying. Now, forgive me for the tangent, but two nights ago a friend of mine called. He had just gotten back from Bosnia and was recapping a few parts of his trip for me. He briefly touched on the hopelessness of the people he encountered. He said that the hopelessness of the Bosnian people was similar to the hopelessness of the homeless he had met here in the States. My mind raced back to Rebecca. As Rebecca was sharing what it was like to be homeless, she said that she loves the morning because every morning she gets to smile and say, "Good morning, Lord" and then go through the rest of the day. Sure, Rebecca was not too willing to hold a job so she could maybe get into that little room she hoped to have some day, but, shoot, when was the last time I woke up smiling saying, "Good morning, Lord." Rebecca is much more hopeful about the beginning of the day then I ever am. That's one of the other things Rebecca showed me that morning: I am not thankful for my life in the way that I ought to be and I rarely acknowledge God in the morning. Oh, and I really am not a morning person.
So to you, whoever is reading this, I hope you meet a Rebecca. A person that may never remember you, but you will always remember her face and all that she was able to teach you in one short meeting. I hope that you are able to meet a Rebecca that will turn your every-day-normal-activities upside down and remind you of what it is exactly you are passionate about; to break your heart all over again and prepare you to go out and be more gracious, more giving, more loving and more accepting. Thank you Rebecca for energizing me back into my broken hearted buzz. I am ready to turn this world upside down. Again.

I know. I missed the point.

I was reading an article earlier today from washingtonpost.com about all of the rumors flying around about Barack Obama. You know, the ones about how his Muslim faith, his plot to illegally bring his African family to the United States and, of course, that crazy-racist pastor of his. I know you've heard them. We've all heard them. Unfortunately, according to this article, many people are being fooled by these rumors and are willing to base their vote on their next door neighbor, rather than doing some research on their own and seeking the truth. As much as this article repulsed me as I looked at it from a not-as-educated-as-I-could-be political view, it broke my heart as I looked at the article from a Christian stand point . And it broke my heart all because of one measly, little part of a sentence: "...a Buckeye tree decorated with Christmas ornaments celebrating Americana..."

As I read this article about the lack of knowledge, the inability to be open-minded and the down right lack of respect the voters in the United States have for the election process, I found myself having a heck-of-a-time getting through the rest of the article after the afore mentioned sentence. The first thought in my head was, "wait, what does Christmas have to do with America? And why are the ornaments 'celebrating Americana'? Shouldn't the ornaments at least have something to do with that Jesus character that was born in a manger?" Apparently, in Flag City, USA it's totally acceptable to turn any celebration into an American celebration. Even if that celebration happens to be a religious holiday.

Wait, doesn't the good 'ol U.S. of A have a belief called Separation of Church and State? So, tell me, why is it OK to mix Christmas and red, white and blue ornaments? I think it's because many in this country have forgotten that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and with that Christianity-- a religion. I shook most of my frustration about all of this off, until I later sat down to read Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. And within the first page of full text I found the following:

...And so we're hardly able to distinguish between what's America and what's Christian. As a result, power corrupts the church and its goals and practices. When Jesus said, "You cannot serve two masters," he meant that in serving one, you destroy your relationship to the other. Or as our brother and fellow activist Tony Campolo puts it, 'Mixing the church and state is like mixing ice cream with cow manure. It may not do much to the manure, but it sure messes up ice cream.' As Jesus warned, what good is it to gain the whole world if we lose our soul?

So, I may not have gotten the full political statement the Washington Post article was trying to make, and my sinful assumptions of the Mid West may have been reinforced, but I did take something profound from the article (with the help of Claiborne, Haw and Campolo): There should be a separation of the Church and State because if there is not a separation of the two, the Church is going to lose its soul.

So, I decided to listen to Rob Bell...

I decided to listen to Rob Bell's podcast and I just happened to be moved by the way he approached his sermon and how he put it together. He speaks as though he is Paul, imprisoned under Caesar, and addresses issues that I feel as though I can identify.

"We say Jesus is Lord. We don’t buy your government’s propaganda… So we’re essentially try to create a whole new community under right your noses. Not about violence and greed but about love and generosity and grace… I just say come join our community and see how we care for each other. Our God isn’t the God of the powerful and sword. Our God is the God of the oppressed. Our God is the God of the poor and the widow, the broken, the stranger, the refugee, that’s our God. So we say to everybody who has the boot of their empire on their neck, we say, 'Come on in can. We help you? Here’s some bread why don’t you dip it in the wine? Jesus is Lord.' And what happens when people see us is we simply say to them, 'Who do you think is lord, Caesar or Jesus?” That’s all we are doing. Is we simply ask a question, 'Whose way is really the way of God? The sword, the spear and weird hat with the brush on it? Or the way of Jesus?… Our God is the God of the oppressed, our God is the God of the underside. Our God is a God who understands suffering, who understands pain, who understands when you’re not the winners but you’re the losers. That’s actually how you understand our God. If you’re still convinced you’re the winners, if you’re still convinced you’re good enough, essentially, to earn God’s love that doesn’t work. It’s only when you are broken that our God even makes sense… I love free speech. Free speech is awesome because it means I can say anything I want. And when you all oppose free speech, when you censor, when you put someone in prison like me because I am simply speaking my mind, well, that’s weak. What are you scared of?… We appear quite weak but we’re actually quite strong. See what you have to understand about this movement is you step on us and we multiply. You crush us and we grow stronger. Do you realize that because you put me in prison 10-20-30-40 of my brothers and sisters are all the more courageous...Do you realize that now that you put me in prison that you just started something I don’t know if you can stop… You make a martyr out of me and the moment gains even more momentum. Do you realize that? You step on this Jesus movement and all we do is multiply. We just explode, we thrive in suffering. Put me in jail, flog me, fine.
Well, actually, what disturbs me, is in some of the places that I’ve been when it becomes easier to be a Christian the Jesus movement kind of loses it’s steam. I actually get really concerned about the future, about areas that it becomes easier and easier and more comfortable. The worst thing is when Christians get comfortable. When there is no suffering. That’s when the Jesus movement isn’t at it’s best. We do best underneath the empire, we do best in the margins, we do best when your boot is on our neck. Cause then we are totally dependent on the grace of God. It’s suffering where our God shines. When everything is fine we don’t really need God. Actually, what terrifies me is if the Christian movement ever became enmeshed with power structures. Like, I will tell you what would be terrifying is a Christian nation. A Christian nation that would use the sword in the name of Jesus. That would be anti-Christ in it’s origin. Because Jesus said to put away your sword. What terrifies me is that you would have a Christian nation that forced and compelled people...The only way our movement works is we take the bread and dip into the wine and we say to each other, 'Jesus is Lord, do you want to join?' It only works with desire, it only works with love, it only works ‘cause you’ve glimpsed something you want more than anything else. If it ever became compulsory, it ever became, like, be a Christian, or else, if being a Christian ever became synonymous with being part of the empire or the nation, that would be the worst thing ever. If there were a group of Christians who thought they were right and tried to void and use their power to influence and to simply dominate over everybody else that would not be what Jesus had in mind. You’ve got to understand that this movement thrives when it is on the underside of power. This movement, we thrive when we are weak because then God can be strong. You guys understand that you can put me in prison, you can deprive me of food, you can take away my rights, you can lock me up, you can chain me to a wall, you can flog me, you can beat me, you can physically harm me in any way until I’m drenched in my own blood. You can do anything to me but you can’t take my heart…"
Rob Bell