Embracing Easter

Well, if you're still reading this Lent Blog - props to you. You might be one of those people who have a difficult time moving on when time has passed. Okay, that might just be me.

So I was not ready for Easter this year - as you can tell from my last post. Sunday came around and I was not ready to celebrate the risen Jesus. This is not because I don't believe that Jesus really rose from the dead, but rather I was not ready to rise from my season of Lent. But here I am two days late and slowly coming around to embrace the fact that Easter is to remind us to hope.

As Nouwen puts it in the Easter Sunday reading, "There still is fear, there still is a painful awareness of sinfulness, but there also is light breaking through. Something new is happening, something that goes beyond the changing moods of our life. We can be joyful or sad, optimistic or pessimistic, tranquil or angry, but the solid stream of God's presence moves deeper than the small waves of our minds and hearts."

Yes, the season of Lent has passed (except for the Eastern Orthodox who celebrate it this coming Sunday - I probably fit in a little better with their calendar). But, I'm coming to a place of hoping in hope again and in allowing God's presence is walk with me through the mountains and the valleys.

It's been wonderful journeying with all of you through this season. I love you all lots.

Fighting off Easter

For the past two weeks, I've dreaded the thought of Easter coming. Maybe because I would rather moap in my world of greys, blacks, and browns than the happy pinks, yellows, and pastels that indicate that spring and new hope is here. Darkness has become my friend. It is familiar, predictable, and has become a place I can call home.

I have a love-hate relationship with Lent. I love that it's a season where I can travel to the deep abyss of my soul and have permission to deal with the ugliness of my heart. I can commiserate with those who are experiencing the same pains, sins, and woundings. I despise Lent because in my pea-sized brain I'm petrified that in 5 days I'm suppose to be coming out of this season and happily stuff my face with pink, purple, and yellow marshmallow rabbit-shaped Peeps.

I'm not ready to celebrate Easter and the thoughts of everything being wonderful and cheery because my heart is definitely not painted with crayola-colored pastels. Can I push the snooze button on Easter?

Palm Sunday in Tijuana

I hate driving in Tijuana.

I'm sure there are worse places to be behind the wheel, but anywhere that it takes you three hours to go a mile or two at least deserves an honorable mention. Take a roadside festival, a political protest, a couple of strategically placed stalled vehicles, and the ever-lovable Tijuana police department (who, as the running joke went, "in their infinite wisdom" closed down several roads, apparently at random), and it was neither a very restful nor a very worshipful experience of Palm Sunday.

But we did get the crowds. Hallelujah, did we ever get the crowds.

I did a bit of reflecting upon it today. (The experience itself did not greatly facilitate reflection.) I thought about the thousands and thousands of people cramming themselves into that dirty, ugly little city, all trying to get home. I thought about the beggars, street vendors, and crooked cops. I thought about the abandoned kids I'd spent the weekend with. And I thought about how if we really believed someone could come along and fix the whole fucked-up mess we've made of this place, we'd probably take our jackets off and lay them on the ground to make a road for Him too.

That week 2000 years ago didn't turn out quite how anyone in the crowd expected. A lot of what they thought was about to happen, we're still waiting for. Maybe a lot of what we think ought to be happening, we're still waiting for too.

Waiting is hard. Disappointments are hard. Inching along towards the goal, getting nowhere fast and sometimes just getting nowhere--that's hard too. And the thing about Palm Sunday is that you know the worst is yet to come.

But so is the best. Hang on, folks. We're getting closer.

no title

i just remembered that today is palm sunday.

It was this Sunday almost 2000 years ago, that Jesus entered into Jerusalem to a group of people hailing Him as messiah, yet it was these same people that would not stand by him (or maybe even turn against him) six days later and have him put to death.

and so i started thinking about Jesus and what he must have been thinking as he rode into Jerusalem,, hearing the praises of people that he knew would turn their backs on him at his darkest moments. how did he take it? was he grateful for their praises, even if it were for that time? did he despise them for their two-sidednesss and fickle hearts?

it's quite interesting because it makes me think about how he accepts me now, that one day I would be praising him with hands lifted high, and the next i would be consciously choosing to forsake who he is, his Lordship in my life, his relationship to me as friend. does he accept my praises of today even though he knows my sins of tomorrow? truth is that he loves me the same today and the day that I forsake him.

I'm confused because i can understand how it would be hard to accept the love of someone whose love for you seems to be constantly changing and inconsistent, but i wonder then, why is it so hard for me to accept God's love for me, which never changes?

My Lenten Journey (or lack thereof)

I feel like I’m not really observing Lent.

I apologize if this sounds irreverent to anyone reading, but I think for at least half the Lenten season I’ve forgotten it’s Lent, but I was soon reminded of it when I literally got a rude awakening last Saturday morning when two Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door handing me a flyer. I actually thought they were Christians at first, but then I looked at the flyer which read something like this: “Jesus- The Greatest Man that Ever Lived. Join us as we discuss questions such as Who is this Jesus?, What did he do for us?...” Then at the bottom I notice that the meeting is at Kingdom Hall in Costa Mesa…. I throw it away and crawl back into bed.

I don’t have any profound epiphanies to share during this Lenten Journey so far. In fact, I hardly feel like I’m really on a ‘Lenten Journey’ at all. I’ve been disobedient, indulgent, self-focused and I still feel like I’m on this journey of darkness in my life. As much as I hoped and thought that I was being led out of it, I feel like I keep getting sucked into the darkness. Just when I thought things could not be any worse, what do you know? I honestly did not know whether to laugh or cry. I asked God, “Are you kidding me? How much more of this can I take?”

I think I resonate with Becky’s sentiments in her last post in secretly finding joy in recounting how much pain I’ve been through. It's so much easier to whine and wallow in the pain instead of letting God bring you out of it. Maybe in some ways I am the one holding myself back from being at a better place.

Someone prayed for me once when I was really low. She said that she saw an image of me drowning in quicksand. At the time, I interpreted that quicksand to be external forces such as other people and other things out of my control. But I realized later that it was my own pain that I was drowning in, and I did have control of how far I wanted to sink into it. It’s not easy to get out (I’ve never actually been in quicksand but I imagine it isn’t an easy thing to pull yourself out of)… but not impossible either.

I think through the bad and the ugly though, God has shown me something good. I think as God brings up the difficult situations, I have learned how to respond. It is through this process that God is able to show me that He has brought me much further from where I was before, that in the face of some of life’s ridiculous moments, I can see them for just that and not as an excuse to jump back into that quicksand of pain.

The Stinky Side of Suffering (Today's Lent Reading)

I'd like to believe that I use to have quite a high threshold for pain and suffering. I would hold out and refuse medication for as long as I could if I had a migraine headache, fever, or sore throat. It was my way of proving that I could overcome suffering and pain and limit it to a battle of the will. The same sentiment was applied when I was faced with pain that dealt with feelings and emotions of the heart. In fact, I would secretly find joy in the fact that I could count the number I cried in college on one hand or how I was the kleenex-passer in movies that everyone else was sobbing in.

As I've gotten older, that mysterious threshold somehow disappeared. I pop every type of medication I can when I start feeling achey and find myself getting misty-eyed when something stirs my heart.

I cannot explain why suffering happens. In fact, it's has been the greatest mystery to me recently. I find myself despising with a passion when I hear others or the voice inside my head say it's "the will of God". For if God is for us....why is he still against us? (yes, I'm sure there's some long textbook theological answer someone can give me...but I'm not really asking)

Nouwen writes, "Therefore, instead of declaring anything and everything to be the will of God, we must be willing to ask ourselves where in the midst of our pains and sufferings we can discern the moving presence of God....We are poor listeners because we are afraid that there is something other than the love of God...We doubt what presents itself to us as love and are always on guard, prepared for disappointments."

I think that hit me between the eyes. That means we cannot "experience love without jealousy, resentment, revenge, or even hatred", which also means we will not experience suffering without these feelings too. When I experience vertigo, GERD, stiff lower back pain, heartache (boy, I sound like I'm 107 years old!), my initial feelings of resentment surface. I forget that in the midst of the physical or emotional suffering, I still remain in God's loving presence.

For me, that's the harder place to be. Yes, I'd rather monku (japanese slang for complain) so loud about the cards I've been dealt and allow my heart and mind to be filled with noise.

Yet, God calls me to commit to listening and to soak in His love without fear. It's a scary thing.

Update on Lent Group Meeting

Hi Everyone,

As I looked over the original dates, I realized that we planned to meet this upcoming Sunday, March 25 and not Palm Sunday. Let's plan on doing so...that way we won't run into the issue of meeting thrice the following week.

As for Good Friday, I recently learned that some of the House churches are planning to observe Good Friday together. If you are part of a Friday House Church, please do participate in that community, though I also realize that not all the House churches meet on Friday.

For those of you who are available and interested in meeting together on Friday, April 6 to observe Good Friday, Paul and I are open to your ideas of how to observe this day together. We are also open hosting a Seder Meal and having a time to share our reflections on this past Lent season. We can also worship as we have in the past Sundays through liturgy & Scripture reading. Please have a think about it and we can make a decision together at the end of our Lent meeting this upcoming Sunday.

I hope you are well and look forward to seeing you Sunday.

Lotto and Lent

I'd never purchased a lottery ticket in my life until recently when I purchased seventeen. Wait, actually, sixteen (Paul bought one of them) and this all started just before Lent season. Blame it on Lunar New Year's Eve when I was feeling rather auspicious and bought my first Lotto ticket, ever. Paul and I were at 99 Ranch Market, strolling around after lunch when the ticket machine outside the market caught my eye. I asked Paul whether he wanted to purchase a "Lucky Lunar New Year Lotto ticket" and he said, "sure." We pulled out our money and inserted it into the machine that quickly sucked in our delicious dollar bills.

Out printed our tickets. 6 random numbers on each. We made a mental note of whose was whose and I tucked our tickets away in my purse. Initially, we had no idea how to find out what the winning numbers were, so I looked up the California Lottery website and discovered that the numbers would air on TV in a few nights. We waited, then watched the drawing only to discover that we were two dollars poorer than we were the weekend before.

That was just the beginning.

With no jackpot winner, the Mega Millions jackpot continued to climb into the hundreds of millions and there I was, already late to work the following week, but pulling over to a local coffee shop to purchase five more tickets. A rush came over me as I thought about all the things I could do with the money. Things that I thought would certainly make me a good and worthy steward of those millions: give some away to charities, tithe (ahem, of course), invest in socially responsible companies, build safe-houses for survivors of human trafficking with job-training programs throughout S & SE Asia…yadda, yadda, yadda.

Needless to say, no jackpot for the Lucky Rabbit. Nope, not even for the Lucky Rabbit with ‘honorable’ intentions. If you do the math, you’ll figure between the second purchase and last week, there were 10 more tickets purchased before this burgeoning gambling addiction came to a halt. You might be thinking that I’m sharing this story in hopes for virtual absolution…and that could possibly be true. But what really hit home was thinking about my Lotto experience in light of Nouwen’s thoughts yesterday in Show Me the Way.

“There was nothing spectacular about Jesus’ life. Far form it! Even when you look at Jesus’ miracles, you find that he did not heal or revive people in order to get publicity. He frequently forbade them even to talk about it. His resurrection too was a hidden event. Only his disciples and a few of the women and men who had known him intimately before his death saw him as the risen Lord. Now that Christianity has become one of the major world religions and millions of people utter the name of Jesus every day, it’s hard for us to believe that Jesus revealed God in hiddenness. But neither Jesus’ life nor his death nor his resurrection were intended to astound us with the great power of God. God became a lowly, hidden, almost invisible God…”

The idea that Jesus reveals God to us in hiddenness challenges me. What I forget is that Jesus wasn’t looking for power or publicity in His ministry. That’s not how God revealed Godself in and through Jesus. That’s probably not how God wants to reveal Godself to and through me. Yet in our culture where “great notoriety means big money, and big money often means a large degree of power, and power easily creates the illusion of importance” I feel ashamed to admit that my hope of winning the jackpot betrayed my subconscious hope of gaining a large degree of power. Whether it’s power to make a good deal of positive change doesn’t seem to matter. What matters is that during this Lent season God’s presence isn’t going to be found in power as the world understands, but in weakness. God, help me accept and enter the paradox of Your hidden way in order to be set on the road of the spiritual life.

Usefulness ≠ Worth

Yesterday's reading about measuring our worth made me reflect upon how God truly values us. God doesn’t equate worth with pure usefulness. The meek will inherit the earth, Jesus said, right? Yet in this season as a first-year teacher--and this season of lent--I often identify my self-worth with what I can offer to someone else.

Am I only useful if I am a good husband? Does my value rest in my accomplishments as a teacher?

I grappled with this tension between worth and usefulness this week. Tuesday in a class discussion about modern-day slavery, one student said, “I wouldn’t help people enslaved in Africa. I don’t think they would rescue me if I were enslaved.” It was an honest comment that I appreciated, although it reminded me of some cold, harsh attitudes that exist.

After reading through Nouwen’s observations about worth, I returned to class Thursday to challenge my students. Is that what a human life is worth to you? Is that how you want to be valued? Are we only worth what “services/talents” we can offer somebody?

Many students answered with resignation. “That’s how our marketplace is set up,” one student said. “In our jobs, we only get paid for what we can do.” A few students disagreed. “If any of us have a heart, we’d do something to help that person who’s enslaved.” I shuddered at the dim display of compassion in my classroom. I hope and pray that God will touch more of those hearts.

He touched mine this week. I am thankful for the reminder that my value in Christ does not depend upon my teaching evaluations. I’m grateful God doesn’t equate my worth to my usefulness. As a newbie teacher, I feel inadequate at times, especially as papers pile high, stress rises and my patience grows short.

But God’s love for me is a pure gift. I did nothing to earn His favor. Sure, I have this crazy workload, but it is His abundant blessing. How many first-year college teachers get this amount of experience? How many people have a 10-minute commute to work? I have encouraging friends and family, and the most loving and supportive wife that anyone could hope for. He has deemed me worthy. God calls all of us worthy.

Winter

Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity—the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven’s artillery—but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence.

All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice...

Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance. And the fear of death, or God, of the universe, comes over him—the hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence—it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.

-Jack London, “The White Silence”

(Warning: this will probably turn out to be more of an exercise in free association than coherent thought. But that's how it goes when you're trying to write about something you don't really understand yet... You either try to capture some piece of it, however little sense it makes, or you just shut up. I'm bad at shutting up.)

I have lived 26 years in Southern California, and two in Washington. Which means I've experienced two real winters. Washington's still a good long way from the Arctic Circle, so neither of them really lived up to London's description. But it was cold, there was snow.

But the idea of the White Silence resonates with me... and to know why, I have to turn inward. One of my favorite writers describes the soul as a vast interior landscape, and as I go I am coming to see the truth in that phrase. Deserts, forests, mountains, cultivated farmlands and bland Suburbias... I've spent at least a little time in all of them--as has everyone else who's been at this for very long, I'm sure.

I think that for Lent this year my path lies Northward. (I don't think that I want to go, but that's not really relevant.) So far it's cold, and empty, and a little sad. There is a terrible beauty to winter, though. And it is where I have been led.

Easter seems a long way off.

True joy and the First Commandment...

Did anyone else find today's reading capitivating? After spending some time mulling over it, I was reminded of how much I try to control what parts God is allowed to love and what parts He's not entitled to. I know that sounds silly since He IS my creator and knows it all. But the quote about letting God love me the way God wants... "through illness or health, failure or success, poverty or wealth, rejection or praise"... sometimes I don't see illness, failure, poverty, or rejection as ways He loves me. Sometimes I feel like yes, it's fine and I feel comfortable with Him having the "servant side" of me, and yet horde the "lonely side" of me-embarrassed and even ashamed. Oh....that God has grace for what seems like such a bi-polar mess!

I have recently been called to something new in my life. It wasn't something I sought or asked God for, and it certainly is not something I feel I have any ability or talent in. In that light, I feel like it has been one of the hardest things I've been asked to do. And I have complained, poured out my heart, begged God at times to take it away. But today-and if I have to take it one day at a time I will-today I choose to say

..."I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you;
I am ready of all, I accept all....
Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve
and boundless confidence
For you are my Father." -Charles de Foucauld

Late notice for our first Sunday morning liturgy & prayer meeting

Hey everyone,
We will be meeting at the church office tomorrow morning, 2/23 from 9.30 - 10.30am before the Sunday morning service. The hour will consist of worship in song, liturgy and prayer. Sorry about the late notice on this, but hope to see you there.

Reflections on Ash Wednesday Mass

I stumbled into Ash Wednesday Mass yesterday frazzled from studying and rushing into the building after fighting the traffic to get in. The church was filled, people lined up against the wall, and the latecomers packed the lobby. I squeezed myself into the main sanctuary so I could get a glimpse of what was going on. I found the last pew and bashfully gestered to those sitting there so I could squeeze in. I've been to a mass before and I knew I better grab a seat.

I found myself sitting between an old woman with a walking cane and a young teenage girl who was mentally and physically challenged and blind in one eye. I also found myself mumbling nonsense under my breath when everyone else knew how to respond with a "Praise Be To God" or "And To You", or having delayed reactions to lifting of hands or kneeling. I tried to blend in as best as possible, but I felt a thousand pairs of eyes staring at me. I felt like a foreigner and so deathly out of place.

The priest spoke on the season of Lent and how we can get wrapped up in what to give up in this season. What should our alms be? How about chocolate? Or smoking? I felt convicted as I too was consumed in my thoughts this week of what I needed to give up to make this a true Lent season of misery and torchure. But, he spoke about the Lenten season as a time to be healed of our brokeness and where we can find true wholeness in God. I sat there overwhelmed with emotion.

I looked around me. The room was filled with men and women, young and old, newborns and grandparents, those who were broken on the outside and those broken on the inside. I looked again at the old woman with her walking cane to my left and the blind and handicapped girl on my right. I felt at home between the two.

We all were there seeking after the healing and wholeness for our bodies and our spirits for this season of Lent. We were all hoping that maybe this Lenten season a miracle of the body and spirit will happen. We stood up for the last prayer before the communion was handed out. Hands were raised and the young girl took hold of my hand. At that moment, I was reminded that Jesus came for the hurting, the broken, the destitute, the lonely, the outcast and marginalized.

He came for me.

Ash Wednesday Service

If you are looking for an Ash Wednesday Service, here are a list of Roman Catholic churches in Los Angeles.

http://www.laokay.com/RomanCatholic.htm

The one in Rowland Heights:
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church
1835 Larkvane Road, Rowland Heights, CA 91748
626 964-3629

Has Ash Wednesday service at: 8:30AM, 12Noon, 6PM, and 7:30PM (spanish service)

Thoughts about Ash Wednesday

With Ash Wednesday (AW) coming upon us, I wanted to remind folks who were interested in gaining the full experience of the Lenten season to attend an AW service tomorrow. AW marks the first day of Lent and offers an opportunity for us to recognize that while we enter a season that prepares us to experience the depths of sorrow and darkness in journeying with Christ to the cross, there is an ultimate celebration that awaits with an empty tomb and a risen Jesus on Easter morning.

While Lent can be a time for a personal journey with Christ, it is no less a communal one. I still remember a few years ago when I attended an AW service at St. Elizabeth's in Rowland Heights. It was a rainy evening and Paul and I made our way to the local parish to participate in their AW mass. It was our first service at this particular parish so we arrived early (for once). We found the sanctuary and some empty seats. Soon afterwards crowds began filling the pews. We looked around and noticed the community was made up of Hispanic, Asian and Caucasian families, young and old. There were hundreds of people awaiting the commencement of the evening mass and it didn't take long for the entire church to fill up.

The service began and while the Father exhorted us to appropriately position our hearts for the Lenten season, I couldn't help but notice the distractions. Babies were crying, children were ancy, others came in late with their wet umbrellas and jackets looking for any available seats while those already seated shifted around making room for them. Then towards the end of the Mass, we lined up and moved towards the front of the church to receive our ashes.

I'd noticed that by that time, there were lots more people who were standing in the back because there were no more seats available. With close to one thousand of us trying to get our ashes, it was clearly not going to happen without a bit of choas. Yet standing in line, tears began to fill my eyes. I sensed that the presence of Jesus was there, inviting us all to follow Him to the cross...and here I was, wanting to respond to that invitation but feeling so distracted by what was going on outside of me and feeling so divided by what was going on inside of me.

Paul and I talked about it later and he commented that it seemed symbolic to him that it was exactly this chaos that Jesus chose to come into. And then it struck me. All of us, who were wet, tired and cold on a Wednesday evening, Jesus came for. All of the peoples who were represented--young, old, black, brown, white, working class, barely-making-it class, those in poverty, Jesus chose to die for. All of us divided ones, distracted ones, crying ones, Jesus chose to be among.

It is a picture that is still so vivid in my memory. All of us herded along in that line, responding to the invitation to follow Him to the cross. I hope you all have the opportunity to experience this invitation in community as we enter into the Lenten season.

Welcome to the Lenten Journey 2007

Welcome to the Journey Through Lent 2007!

We want to use this as a medium to share our experiences and thoughts during the next several week. We're looking forward to sharing this season together with all of you.

~ Your Fellow Soujourners