Month: February 2010 (Page 2 of 3)

jj and i had a family christmas on saturday night over by urbana. the actual location, according to google maps, is “middle of bufu ohio”. but have no fear, i married mr. gps himself who jotted down a few road numbers but took a “mental picture” of google maps.

we saw the same stretch of 33 no less than 4 times.

at first i was frustrated. i wanted to smack something. but when we saw 33 for the 3rd time jj finally let on that perhaps his mental map was a bit fuzzy.

then it got funny. it was manageable. we called my dad, he gave some directions that were impossible to follow, we turned right instead of left and all of a sudden we were where we were supposed to be. go figure.

the older i’ve gotten, (and if anyone is counting i’m about ready to step over one of those “old people” line markers in several months), the more i need a simple acknowledgement that things just aren’t wrapped up in nice, neat packages. the postmoderns of the world would talk about the lack of black & white and the need for gray (or grey, depending on if you have brittish blood). it’s not even that so much. for me, i’m realizing more and more the need for a humility that allows for the fact that i just. don’t. know. i don’t know what life will bring or how i will react. i don’t know why we turned right when the map said left. in the same vein, i don’t know what life is like for others and how they *should* act. i just don’t know.

we talked about this briefly on sunday with this new group of people i chat with at 9:15. some biblical scholar of counseling shared that at the beginning of the story of Job, he (Job) was in a position that somewhat felt he had a control over God. he knew how to work the system. he had it figured out. the smart guy on the video made a statement similar to “there’s nothing God hates more than when someone thinks they have it all figured out.”

so tonight i really enjoyed hearing from anne lamott in her book (plan b: further thoughts on faith): i remembered something Father Tom had told me – that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort and letting it be there until some light returns.

now i know the verse that the good Christian will recite to me from hebrews about faith “being sure of what we hope for, things we have not seen”… but dare i revert to the hebrew meaning of “hope” which is, more literally, “wait”? if so… faith is simply waiting on things to come to fruition. it’s not knowing what you know. it’s knowing what you don’t know and being confident in a God who is bigger than the unknown.

the season of lent is rapidly approaching and i’ve begun the process of pondering upon what sacrifice would be fitting for my season of life. i made the mistake of doing something interesting one year (though very fruitful in my life i must say), and now my cousin calls to find out what i’m giving up.

for some strange, sadistic reason i look forward to Lent. i love challenges, i love “personal growth” and i’m idealistic enough to think that perhaps by making an effort, things in life can actually get better.

this morning for the new sunday school (thoughts on that later) class i’m helping to gather we watched one of don miller’s new convergence videos on disappointment. it was wonderful conversation and the video talked about our times in “the desert” which is antithetical to the garden, the very place where we’re designed to be. but it’s in the desert in which we can fully experience the goodness of God. it’s like you can’t fully experience joy until you’ve also experienced some pain and suffering.

(valentine’s side note: jj asked me why i once said that i was never a crier until i started dating him. i referenced a quote that i’m not able to give verbatim that basically said that leprosy, a common disease of which jesus frequently healed, was the inability to feel. it’s very dangerous because you could cut off your hand and never know. on the flip side, you can’t feel good sensation either. so, as i explained to jj, with the experience of love you also encounter tears, but it’s a good thing – it’s a part of being able to truly feel).

[return to main topic]. i really appreciate the disciplines as a way of exposing myself to the desert. that’s what the 40 days is supposed to identify you with: Jesus’ time in the desert. when you deny yourself, when you suffer, you can then also catch glimpses of joy that you wouldn’t have otherwise experienced.

i think there’s a camp of people out there who don’t appreciate the disciplines because they think it’s works-based. i disagree. it’s participation, not causation. so, on a similar note, i read donald miller’s blog today about faithful living (i know, i’m a walking don commercial today):
Our faith is not about magic, it’s about partnering with God to see remarkable things happen through faithfulness and consistency over a long-period of time. If we buy into the instant-results mindset of our culture (that is depressed and confused itself) we will become very frustrated with God. God has a system for growing food. If one farmer does no work, but prays and sings to God, and another farmer does work, and does not pray or sing to God, then the farmer who prayed will starve and the farmer who worked will eat, because even though the second farmer didn’t acknowledge God, he understood God’s ways and he adhered to the principles God created. The first farmer was just looking for a magic show.

so now i have just a few short days left to pray and consider what field of my life i’m looking for God to cultivate – and what i need to do to work the land so that something might grow.

i work with a pretty smart guy, DW*. today i beckoned him to my cube, touting cookies as a bribe, so he could tell me how to deal with a particular situation. without getting into work-speak, i had put in a request for a department to complete a task, and the person assigned to that task didn’t necessarily complete it to the standards of which i’d hoped. now, i used to be a part of this department, so i have somewhat high expectations of what can be done. long and short: i was ticked.

but DW is a man of logic and humor. i really did ask him so that he really could tell me how to handle – if i wanted ONLY to complain, i probably would’ve IMed JM or KM, folks who aren’t tied to the department. but i want to make things better, so i asked The Man.

he gave me a wise bit of wisdom that i believe is going to transcend my need for qualifed ASE technicians in nashville, tennessee. as i asked him how to effectively communicate my frustrations, he said, “it’s not your job to tell us what to do, it’s your job to tell us what you want.” huh. how about that.

not only is it quite catchy, i think it’s also true. i think that’s where the frustration of micro-managing happens: when we’re given a task and not given the freedom to have creativity and ownership of its completion. even in marriage and other relationships i think it could be true. we must communicate what we want or need from our counterpart without necessarily telling them how to do it. this is something i find incredibly difficult. when i find a way of doing something, i like to think it’s the best possible way – and thus, all people should be doing it this way. but that is not always necessarily true. yes, i did just admit that. baby steps, you see.

so that was my learning curve of the day. how to communicate effectively what i want (X number of people at this status, please, with at least one certification and a background in Y) but give people the opportunity to do what they’re good at in an effort to meet those expectations.

*really, this guy DOES know everything.