easy math

there's a book i'm reading by a guy i think i want to be exactly like, not when i grow up, but right now. my dad got to spend some time with him and verifies - he's legit. it's called "love does" by bob goff. go and git yurself a copy. go'n, do it!

somewhere in the book he just says, "words launch us." (i'm not going to give you a junior high youth group speech on how words can be harmful or helpful - you do this math, it's not hard)

that is something that shot like a pang in my heart because lately my guy and i have been having a tug of war over this issue. i love crackin' jokes, ya'll. and while i don't feel like they're always at someone else's expense, i do know that i come from a family where we can really dish it up sarcastic style and sometimes that includes making fun of other people. of course there's always the lines i won't cross, etc... and i don't ever make commentary while also judging that person or thinking about their feelings or ANYthing like that. it is purely to get a laugh. from myself and the people around me. and it always does. it doesn't help that i'm naturally drawn to these types of people (the joke making type) and i just end up getting on this merry go 'round of laughter that i don't really wanna call quits on. even if i'm throwing up all over some people.

so yeah, i love doing that. and it sucks. but my boytoy hates it. he doesn't treat me like a jerk when it happens. he doesn't say, "NONO!" (i'd dump him). he doesn't "shoot me a look". he just tells me later when it's just us that it bothers him and isn't a good representation of the person i really am.

ugh. i'd almost rather him just yell at me so i could be pissed and brush it off and continue on my merry road of joke-cracking. but when we have a real conversation about it, it reminds me of all the conversations my mom used to have with us about it. but in a less disciplinary, more - "i like who you really are so you should represent that person the best you can" way.

isn't it funny how when God puts someone in your life, he wants to make them really different from you? i think the worst kind of church to walk in on is one where every person looks/acts the same. or is the same age. God's hands are different than his feet, and his feet are different than his legs, and his legs are different than his arms, and so on. how can we be the body of Jesus when we're all trying to be the arms?

i always talk about how much i love opposites. like how God is a bulging body-builder when i feel like a caterpillar. and when he is my sunny day at the park with your best friends and some fried chicken and lemonade (i went to black church growing up, it's ok), and i feel like a rainy tuesday after a three day weekend.

but i really love when he says, "here, i'll give you someone to have a relationship with, but i'm going to make him dress really different, talk really different, and come from a totally different background than you maybe ever expected." me: "ok, that's not that big of a deal." God: "haha, i know. but there's more. i'm gonna make him really strong in all of the areas you're not, so that you can actually learn and grow and be challenged by him in meaningful ways that i care about." me: "oh, you're really good." God: "i know."

chilly upper knees

i've been listening to 'the reward' by jonathan helser a lot lately and at the beginning of the song he says, "in a garden we fell, but in a garden He prayed". this got me thinking about the beautiful antitheses of our creator and his creation. i thought about all of the times i was in the garden - falling, while he was in the same place - praying. i honestly cannot even count how many times that has been the case. i'm thankful that i can trust in someone who is the opposite of me in every way. 

lately i've been struggling to wrap my mind around adoration, and have felt very caught up in past pains and feel a little bit like it's holding me back from future fun. reminds me of a song by kris gruen that i listen to from time to time that says, 'it takes no time to begin again - just stay away from where you've been ... it takes no time to heal the past, just remember where your heart was last."

so there's all these fears that i don't know how to deem legitimate or illegitimate. i don't know what's fair or unfair to put on someone you're in a relationship with and i don't know if fair even matters. so i sort of vomit all these doubts up from time to time and all i get is a kiss to the forehead and a "take all the time you need." which makes me feel just underneath charlie sheen and kim jong il on the worst person list for not being able to get my whole body into the freezing water that's sure to enlist a hell of a lot of rewarding times.

which brings me back to opposites. i love them. i also love having the freedom to speak, and the freedom to take my time getting in the water. let's admit: once you get your vulnerables in, it's all downhill from there. i'm at a-little-higher-than-my-knees-of-the-way in. and so far the water feels pretty dang good.

so tell me whatcha want, whatcha really really want

when i decided to move to new york city, i immediately started praying for great relationships. i asked God to give me a great community, but also a few key/quality friends that i could DO life with. i've had the same best friend for six years and despite life changes and moves and a marriage and la la la, we've remained tighter than tight. i wanted more of that.

i remember within the first few weeks of living here, sitting in my brother & sister-in-law's living room, crying because i still didn't have any prospects. ridiculous of me to think that those things would have happened over night, and in my head i knew that - but in my heart, i was wondering what inside of me made me leave my best friend to come to a land where it felt like i would never have another.

it wasn't long after that i started digging my toes in more and more into my neighborhood and church and holy... dang. every time i hang out with one of my friends i think "yes". just "yes". exactly what i asked for. and i really do get to DO life with them - almost all of them live in my neighborhood. what? that is crazy. i know.

what happens to you when you doubt God? in my case, it usually looks like this:

• i doubt God
• God says, "you are stupid." in a very God-ish way
• God laughs at me and then shows me why i shouldn't doubt him and calls me ridiculous
• i say, "duh." and then wonder why i ever doubted him in the first place

rinse & repeat like every week.

i just think that we need to be careful. because God isn't a genie in a bottle. he's a smart & merciful dad who knows what we need versus what we think we need. so when you sit around asking for a husband, but can't quite figure out how to love God and the people around you well - he's probably not going to give you the responsibility of a marriage yet. or ever. or when you sit around asking for a ping pong table, but your arms were amputated some years ago - he probably just sees that you're secretly asking for new arms and doesn't like that you're playing games with him.

that last one was theologically, socially, and intellectually inappropriate - i understand.

all that to say:

"faith is not the 'yes' of getting what i want, when i want it. it is the 'no' and the 'not yet'. waiting. working. walking on." - gerard kelly

let's go back to the beginning

i spent some time in seattle last week - you know, gotta munch on those niece & nephew cheeks and spoil them just a little bit. i've often talked about my unhealthy obsession with my babes, but really - it's crazy how much you can love little people that didn't even come from you. blows me away.

lately i've been walking blocks and holding babies and squishing in sand and riding trains and holding hands and singing and laughing and talking and in all of it the theme song of God's faithfulness has been playing on repeat. holding my niece and nephew is a reminder of all the things i doubted coming to fruition. i used to always think something would get in the way of big things happening in my life. like i would die before i got my license. or before i would get to see my brothers get married and have kids of their own. so when i have ava or landy in my arms i'm thinking about God's constant renewal of all things and how he goes the distance to give us things just to put a smile on our face.

 i think of the dry spells - the times when i felt like God was so distant i hardly knew who he was. and in believing that he was the one causing me so much heartache, not even wanting to really find out who he said himself to be. but i think out of shear persistence and carrying the knowledge that he really was g-o-o-d - somehow, someway - i found out that he is indeed good. too good.

being stuck in the compartmentalization season is just plain terrible. sorting all of the different aspects of your soul into shoe boxes and asking God to bless the coffee you already got a brewin' doesn't work and limits the most creative guy we could ever know to our own boring ambitions and sort of tells him, "beige." when he's thinking, "rainbow."

i always felt like God flipped me the bird when it came to my plans. and walking in the creativity of a standing invitation to Jesus and his direction in my heart, i must say that's one middle finger i don't mind getting. i can't even remember the last time i asked God what his will for my life was because i feel like i'm in the middle of it, and i'm in a constant conversation that includes direction giving and watering and cutting and pulling back and how many more weird analogies do you want me to try and create a list out of?

i loved asking ava: "ava g who's auntie joy?" and she would do the double pointed "gotcha" fingers to my face. and then i would ask her: "who's ava?" and she would get this look of pride and point to herself. and i thought - there's something to that; someone being able to ask who you are and you just smiling and pointing to yourself. there's something to not welcoming insecurity into your story. and there's something beautiful about knowing yourself, knowing God, and loving both.

mistaken 'onyms.

ever see someone who is so obviously just going through the motions? better yet, ever see someone like that and feel like you know exactly how they feel? there was a girl on the train today who just stood there with these big tears in her eyes that just wouldn't fall. but it's like everywhere she looked caused her pain and what's worse is there was a familiarity with her own pain. like this wasn't just one day of this, but that her pain and her present are old pals.

i've been there. and it sucks. when our ideas of love and sex + happiness and unhappiness become so muddled, we end up with this bird bath that is filled with refreshing water but flawed with nasty bird turds and a few dead bugs. beautiful, life giving things gone awry.

it was super tough to sit on a rock last night in central park with such a dear friend and see the tears pour down her beautiful face as she expressed that it really didn't feel like God gave a crap about her in the way of this specific topic she's always wrestled with. and i remember feeling like God told me, "oh you have plans? great, F those and i'll come up with something else." i heard ELSE, but he said BETTER.

it's like i was sitting at the table, rubbing my neck after being bent over a puzzle for three years - trying to squeeze the wrong pieces together and coming up with lumps. like God was hiding the right pieces in his pocket and was just waiting for me to go, "ok! i give up trying to make it work on my own - help me!"

my babe theo is one and talks more than i do. that's a lie, but i think he talks so much because i talk too much. i have about a million favorite things that he does, but one of my very favorites is how he tries a few times to do something on his own but instead of throwing a fit or freaking out over not being able to figure something out, he'll come over to me and say, "hep, peas. peas hep." and every time that happens, i say, "ok, i love helping you!"

the past couple weeks have been filled with great conversations, fun weird things, and new beginnings. it's fun to go back and look at all the things you wanted to work, evaluate why they didn't, and think about how you'll do things this time around.

i'll tell you that for me invitations are huge. INVITING people, Jesus, and unfamiliar people & things into your mix are staggeringly beautiful in the way of transformation and love. i love God for all of his stark contrasts, not calling it quits at basic provision but adding blessings on top of blessings, and for his grace in my absolute ignorance.

so don't assume you know what things mean when you've still got a lot of living left to do, joy.

self-portraits

the other day someone found out that my church has homosexuals in attendance, and she asked if my church had "one of those church programs where they try to turn gay people straight"? at first i laughed because i thought it was such a ridiculous idea - but then when i revisited the interaction later, i realized how sad it really was. what a poor reflection of church-going folk. but maybe an accurate self-portrait. eesh.

sometimes i feel like in the way of us being the body of Jesus - we 100% miss the mark. all the different parts, working together in this beautiful movement of love and purpose. intentionally giving food, time, and life to people who know God or don't. and then sometimes i feel like we nail it. i've gotta tell you - i'm doing life with people who nail it. feeding the poor in non-dramatic ways. playing basketball. doing art. talking. adding an extra minute or two to each grocery trip.

i get a rash thinking about someone wrestling with the idea of coming to one of our meetings (http://trinitygracechurch.com/heights/) because they feel they would be judged, but at the same time - understand so well that christians get all jumbled together in the context of pain. kind of how girls usually hate guys for a while after they get dumped. even though i don't totally understand that idea.

basically everything would be solved if we would own scripture. like the verse in romans that says, "let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't. if you preach, just preach God's message, nothing else." (12:6)

we may not preach from a pulpit, but when we ignore the needs of others or make sure to shake our head no at the slow poke in front of you on the stares that made you miss the train, we're preaching something we don't want to. or that we shouldn't want to.

whatchya preachin', ya'll?

henri nouwen + late night songwriting

"forgiveness indeed heals memories." - henri nouwen

when i wanted to move to new york city, it had a lot to do with my love for the city, my passion for the young people here, my desire to have a new start somewhere, and the alive feeling i would get at the very thought of living in such a badass city. it also had a lot to do with a desire to remove painful memories of past relationships - romantic and not romantic at all.

when i would drive past that starbucks, i would remember some off-their-rocker church leaders sitting me down to inform me that i was a liar and needed to step down from my position of worship leading. when i would pass by that park, i would remember fun dates spent in the sun - lounging around for the afternoon talking about future plans/hopes that revolved around each other.

little did i know (emotionally - because logically, i'm not a moron) that moving to a new place doesn't really mean the shedding of awful memories. it probably wasn't until six months into my new life here that i realized a change of scene was only a super helpful addition to the process of memory healing.

i remember the day this realization hit me. it was like God threw the ball at me and instead of saying "check" he said, "FORGIVE". ugh. easier said than done, big guy. i spent the day dreading the fact that it had taken me years to get to the day of just realizing what was still yet to be done. but i took the realization as step one and began to prayerfully consider what the heck that looked like in my heart.

that night i got into my bed and said one more thing to God re: FORGIVE. i asked him to make the process quick. i told him super honestly that i didn't feel like spending another couple of years wandering around the land that is "almost forgiveness".

as a side note, i've been asking God for years on top of years to make songwriting something second-nature like to me. i've written songs before, but it's usually a grueling process that i don't totally enjoy and therefore don't practice.

ok so back to me laying in my bed, requesting ridiculous things of God like he's a bellhop, not a savior. speediness? who the hell do i think i am? right then and there i felt something (presumably the holy spirit, but don't slap a "hello my name is morningstar (NC)" sticker on me please) tell me to hop out of bed and grab my guitar. so i did. i clicked record on my jankety phone recorder and busted out a pretty decent song the very first try. melody, lyrics, everything.

but the coolest part? the words were chalk full of weighty forgiveness. the kind that makes you go - ok, obviously this isn't me. there's nothing about my human self that desires forgiveness. in fact, everything in my flesh wants to be right. especially in the instances where i know i really am (like when those church leaders were telling me how i'm a liar).

i gotta say - henri knows what he's talking about. because i could go any of those places now and not be affected at all. take me to that starbucks and buy me a drink (actually i did go last time i was down in the south). let's go for a bike ride in that park.

my friend lyds was so helpful in always wanting to create new memories in places where i held bad ones hostage. who's doing that for you? and how are you posturing yourself to be open to forgiveness and in turn, healing?