Idol-Temple Empires.

I have got me all of these thoughts this morning.
But I just can't seem to put them into any coherent words yet.
Rather than attempting to give you something I haven't yet gotten myself, and failing miserably in my attempts, here is a verse I came across yesterday.
Luke 16: 15. And he {Jesus} said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God."

What is it we are chasing this Monday morning?

I think of all the things our culture tells me to run after, to achieve. Exalted things.
Money.
A rockin' body.
Relationships.
Success.
Notoriety.
A name for myself.
Connections I use for personal gain.
A set standard of living we are "too good" to live below.
Intellect.
Acts of "goodness" worth bragging about, or at the very least, worth telling others we did.

We all could add to the list.
Have you ever thought, though, that there is a good possibility the running after those is an abomination? That they, the exalted things, might in and of themselves be an abomination?
The word abomination means "Something horrible, something shameful, intense dislike."
Clearly God is going to intensely dislike something that is shameful and horrible for us. The word abomination is used in the Scriptures mostly in realtion to us having idols. Are we fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Eternal One, or are we running after idols, our temporal, functional gods?
Let's not take God's opinion lightly. Evaluate what it is you are chasing, wolfies. I don't want us to get before the throne of God and be told all of our lives were spent in not building the Kingdom of God, but rather in building an Idol-Temple Empire for ourselves.

They shaved their heads.

I love my hair. It’s long, dark, and curly. My mom calls it a mane. It has a lot of “bounce” to it.

I noticed the bounce especially over the weekend when I was at a wedding. All the pretty girls had all their pretty hair all dolled up and looking great. At the dance that night, as all the other girls were dancing, their hair would just kind of sway back and forth, hop a little bit now and again if they got really moving, but it all seemed very controlled. Very tamed.

Mine, on the other hand, could not have the same things said about it.
No.
Mine was….all over the place. Never what I would call “controlled.” More like organized madness (Which is probably why I am so fond of it).
I had it piled on top of my head with gobs of pins for the ceremony and dinner, but once the dancing started, well, that was the end of the coiffed bun and pins.
And then I couldn’t see anything clearly for hours what with my hair flying every which way, covering my eyes, and getting in my mouth.
As I said, it was….all over the place.
I’m sure I looked ridiculous. Luckily nobody could tell it was me…..because they couldn’t see my face.

While I will not say that most women love their hair, I will say that most women have a relationship with their hair. If our hair is feeling good one day, we will feel good that day. If our hair is not up to snuff, we will feel sick….or wear a hat. Our hair is our way of expressing ourselves, it is something that separates us from our peers, it is something about the way we look that we can easily change, manipulate, style, or control.  The Bible even says that a woman’s hair is her glory or her crown (I Cor. 11). For better or worse it is something that most of us feel defines us.

(Men, if you are reading this and are absolutely confused or bored out of your mind, feel blessed that I am giving you insight into the thoughts of women. And I promise I am getting to a point.)

When I was in Budapest I went to a Hungarian Jew Holocaust museum. It was harrowing, to say the least. I can’t see all of those pictures of people and objects that survived and not bawl my eyes out. Not mourn for their lost lives.

One picture I found particularly difficult to handle.

Take a good look at it.
Do you all see what it is?
Do you all know what happened?

THEY SHAVED THEIR HEADS.

Those are rows and rows of women. Women who had just been stolen out of their homes, taken away from their families, certainly some had watched their husbands or daughters or sons or grandchildren killed right before their eyes. They had been crammed into transport buses, or trains, never knowing if they would see any familiar sight again, and most of them wouldn’t. Not knowing what was coming. Fearing the worst and knowing that they had no idea how bad “the worst” was going to be.

They had gone through all of that, their homes, families, lives, dreams, and futures pried from their hands.

And then their captors shaved their heads.

And took with it the last shreds of their personality, differentiation, crown. Dignity.

Do you see the girl in the front row in the polka dot dress? The one too ashamed to show her face?

There was a courtyard behind this museum. Gorgeous.

On one side of the garden was a wall that had names of people followed by dates.

1893-1945
1912-1945
1904-1945

Anna Vidor

1921-1945

1921-1945?

But that’s only 24 years old. That’s pretty close to my age.

She was someone’s daughter. I am someone's daughter.

There is no doubt that she had dreams and plans and crushes on boys and all kinds of hopes for a house and babies and all the other girl stuff we think about. Pray for. Plan on.

She was like me. She was like all of my friends.
She was a 24 year girl.
Who knows, maybe she was one of the girls who had her head shaved, too.
If it was me, at that point I would have wanted to die.
What else would be left for me to live for? They had taken everything and then they had erased me.

When I see those women, those girls, in that picture, and their names with those dates on that wall, it puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

How often do we complain about stuff? How often do we sweat the small stuff? How often do we take for granted the fact that like, I don’t know, maybe we still have a house, or, I don’t know, maybe we still have food, or, I don’t know, maybe we haven’t seen all of our family murdered before our eyes, or, I don’t know, maybe we haven’t had our heads shaved by cruel, cruel people?

Do we take that for granted?

I know I do.

I know I am guilty of thinking my issues and my problems, which in comparison are not issues and problems, are the end of the world. But after I see this, it gives me more of a perspective on what the true end of the world---the end of my world---might more closely resemble.

Everything taken away. Then a forced shaved head. With nothig you can do about it.

Having a reality check brought in by the outside world is good for me. It pops the “bubble” that I live in and teaches me that, unless I find myself in their shoes, I haven’t got much of a leg to stand on if I think I have something to complain about because, well…I still have all that crazy hair on my head.

Jubilee.

If anybody has known me for a period of time, they will most assuredly know I believe very strongly that adult women need to play dress-up more often. Life is serious. Serious things happen, hurtful things happen, damaging things happen; we need to be reminded that there is still good in the world. That there is still beauty to behold. That, in spite of our trials, hope will prevail.
With that, dress-up photo shoots are something that I practice with my girlfriends pretty often.
In honor of the Queen’s Jubilee, yesterday my sister-in-law (who was in town for the weekend) and I decided to celebrate: We set up a dining room table in a field and put feathers in our hair.

Happy Jubilee, your Highness. 60 years of doing anything is quite the feat.

Not quite one of those "fascinators" for the hair, but we do what we can with the articles in my closet.

I don't really like cats anyway, so a cat in my photoshoot will not be tolerated. You can see the cat's struggle here.

Whenever you wear this dress to a wedding you inevitably get asked to dance during the song "Lady in Red."

Definitely her paparazzi photo of the day.

My brother decided to join our little photoshoot!

Just in time for their anniversary.

Congratulations, QE2.

New Creations {A Journal Entry}

Lord, I haven’t been consistent lately in my time with you. Vacations and being on the go isn’t good for me. I always think I can run on fumes, but that isn’t true. I always think that since I have been a Christian this long my days shouldn’t need to be as dependent upon you as they seem to be. But, again and again I prove to myself that I am a desolate wasteland without you.

Hmmm. I have never thought about it that way before.

Without you, I am a barren place, full of only sand, dirt and tumbleweed. Blown along by the wind, evidence of desertion.

Funny, the word “desert” and “desertion” and “deserted” all have the same root word. Things that have been left alone become deserts.

Wow. What a picture. I suppose even the fact that you would take something or someone who starts as a barren wasteland and make it lush into a garden or a growing soul is a proclamation of your greatness. Goodness. You are unable to do anything apart from your glory and the declaring of it. And I love it. A life changed by Jesus is a telling of your glory. A telling of your love.

Before you created everything, I imagine it was desolate.

Doesn’t it say it was formless, void, and empty? It does.
But then you spoke and it teemed with life and vegetation and light and moving things.
You created us, in that glorious arena, and we, too, teemed with life and light and moving parts.

But then we chose to sin.

And you gave us what we wanted.

And we became again desolate.

We became again as we were before you spoke. Void. Formless. Empty. Spirit hovering over, but no longer IN.
We went back to the prior state- rendering us as if you had never spoken at all.

As if you had never touched.

As if you had left us alone the whole time.

When we sinned in that garden, in essence we asked you to leave.

And you did. Sort of. You made us back into what we were-when all was without you-VOID. DESOLATE. EMPTY. Because we asked you.
We asked you to remove your touch, your presence from our lives. And we were returned to whence we came.

See, what we didn’t realize is that YOU are the life and light and vegetation and moving things. In you we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). So if we ask you to go, all of that leaves with you.

With you gone, all is desolate, void, and empty. Life ceases to exist.

We live on a deserted planet. Because we asked you to leave.

But again, you didn’t leave us alone. You saw our emptiness, the void in our eyes, the agonies of parched lands, and you came. AGAIN.

As I John says so poignantly: THE LIFE APPEARED.
This time when you came you spoke again and said to us, “I will make you a new creation again.”

But this time you didn’t have to start from scratch, you came to give us the opportunity of the Garden again, of life again, of light again, of growth again. You came to undo what we did, as much as could be undone.

When we sinned in that Garden, all was subjected to the curse of sin (Romans 8:18-22). Every flower and light ray and moving being. All was crushed. We all walk maimed now because of it. Every human being now has the need to be remade.

You being hung on that cross said for the second time, “let there be light” (I John 1:5-10). The Spirit will come back IN, now no longer just hovering over.

We can give you our curse! This time, rather than you giving us what we wanted, you will give us what we need.

II Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.

Wow! All of the sudden that verse holds so much more meaning!

We are not a new creation, as if "new" means something that was just made right now; that just popped up for the first time. But a creation, as in the Creation account---AGAIN.

Jesus came to give us a re-do. About our choice that asked him to leave he came to ask, "Think you're ready to change your mind yet?"

We know the void. We know the “deserted” we asked for.

He came to reconcile that. The lost relationship. That we asked for.

He came to save us from that. The eternal separation. That we asked for.
He came to recreate that. The you and me with life in it. That we told him we didn’t want in us anymore.

THAT is what “new creation” means. Life before the first “mess-up” because every “mess-up” after that was just a murmur of the first.

 No wonder the devil hates the creation account! No wonder he pushes his “evolution” agenda so forcefully! Because without creation, Christians have nothing.

We can place no value in New Covenants (Noah, Abraham, David, Christ) because we had no original covenant. We have no concept of being a “new creation” because we had no first creation! Jesus’ coming, his SPEAKING on the cross. Speaking life into people, HAS NO MEANING, no restoration quality, no hope to it without creation. It is no fulfillment of promises without initial creation and the initial loss.

We talk about reconciliation and being reconciled to God all the time; it’s what Christians proclaim, but without creation, and without our Fall, what is there to reconcile?

If God didn’t back out because we asked him to, taking all of his life and light with him, then what is there to reconcile, to bring to life again, to make a new again?
Nothing.
Evolution says that Jesus didn’t make anything right by dying on that cross, by being raised again to life- the firstborn of new creations; the ones who have overcome death, who are no longer under that curse.

Wolfies, if you are a creation-again, put value in that fact. All the earth was waiting in expectation for you to be made new (Romans 8:19).

Hospitality as Habit. {And a bit on Memorial Day}

There is something to be said about a good cup of tea. Or is it cuppa?

I guess that depends on where the “spot” is brewed.

When I was in Ireland it was virtually impossible to not notice their voracious appetites for the beverage. I mean, they drink it like 5 times a day. Why don’t Americans do something similar, apart from our Mt. Dew/Diet Coke addictions?
Anyway, because of this tea-ness they have over there, it opened up a few very eye-opening experiences for me.
The first one was brought on by a rainy afternoon and a change of plans. Rather than going to the Titanic museum (which we did end up going to days later and is amazing! If you are ever in Northern Ireland….GO!), we went to a friend’s house for afternoon tea. Mind you, this friend was a 23 year old single, male friend (who also had an exceptionally clean apartment), so I don’t think we were quite expecting to be asked almost immediately upon arriving two questions:

1.       Would you take some tea if I made it, and

2.       Do you take it with milk?

Yes and yes, we all chimed! Clearly we were the enamored Americans who view every new culture as if it were a shiny new toy. When he brought out an entire tea service on a tray, though, with cookies and crackers to boot, I knew that this most certainly WAS a shiny new toy.

Never in my existence have I ever been brought tea and cookies by any 23 year old man before.
Wow.

The second experience came from a friend’s mother. We had just spent the morning traipsing all over the country side, hanging out with castles, and albeit we had become a little famished.

“Mum, we’ll come for tea, yes?” my friend placed a phone call and asked his mother.
Naturally.
And what a lovely wee visit! There were cakes and cookies and sandwiches and tea and coffee if we wanted. We offered to help and she would only let us carry stuff in to the living room. She shooed us away as if our claim of “Don’t go out of your way for us! Seriously we are fine!” was something of the ridiculous.
I sat back and enjoyed my afternoon, pondering, over a perfectly placed wee spot of tea, what “mum” had done for us.

I couldn’t help but think that maybe our claims of not wanting to be a burden really were something ridiculous for them.

 Here at home I tend to feel almost like a nuisance sometimes. As if I am that girl that always happens to come over around dinner time, you know? I don’t think the people I drop in on tend to feel that I am a burden, by no means do they give me that vibe, but here at home I feel we are trained to never assume: never assume that they wanted company. After all, they might have been busy doing something else.
When I was in Ireland though, in both said instances, and the countless things our B&B host and hostess did for us (from driving us into town at night, to driving us to bus stations, to folding our laundry, to picking us up again in town and at bus stations), it never felt like a burden. But not even that we weren’t a burden, it almost felt as if that was what they expected to do for us. Almost as if it was habit. As if not doing it would have been the closest thing to ridiculous, for we needed those things, and they were in the business of fulfilling needs.

The New Testament talks a little bit about hospitality, pretty much always telling us to “practice” it (Romans 12:13, I Peter 4:9 III John vs8). I have wrongly heard some people say the phrase, “Oh, well she has the spiritual gift of hospitality,” and use it almost as cop-out for them to not be hospitalbe.  I always want to raise my little hand and say, “Ummm…actually….hospitality isn’t a gift. It’s a command. We are all called to be hospitable.” Now sure, some people seem “better” at it than others, but it’s not as if that’s natural! No one was born knowing how to make a cup of tea. Hospitality is a LEARNED trait. And more importantly it is a commanded trait. We are told to PRACTICE HOSPITALITY. Straight up. No excuses.

So what is it about those Irish people and their showings of it that stood out to me the most, for certainly I have been acted upon very hospitably here in the States? It was the fact that it seemed as natural as breathing to them. They had trained themselves to do good. They had made a habit out of the art of sustaining another person.

Sounds a little bit like the character of God doesn’t it? What if he sometimes didn’t feel up to providing for you? Or just had “better things” to do?

Hospitality is not only the tangible way to care about someone else, the most basic way to provide for someone’s needs, but I believe it is one of the most touching ways that Believers can show the love of Christ. A way they can show this truth of being in Christ: God sustains.

A very good friend of mine worked for some people who had cause to have a lot of visitors. While the people she was working for were lovely people, one thing they lacked was a “greeting” to their guests. My friend said she would be going about her work and eventually realize that the guests, who may have just come from very far, “hadn’t even been offered a glass of water!” She said she decided right then and there to be The Water Girl. “I have made it my job to at least ask, ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’”

I was struck by the simplicity of that.
I was also struck by the similarity to when Jesus says “I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.” (Mark 9:41). Maybe we all should be The Water Girl.

 Isn’t showing hospitality simply a way to tell of the character of God? Hospitality says, “All are welcome here.” “Be at rest.” “Let me serve you” (For Jesus came to serve). “Find peace here.” “Let your needs be met here; your wounds healed.”

Many a time in my life have I learned more about the character of God around a dinner table in someone’s home then any sermon ever taught me. As Christians, we are called to be walking sermons. Let your home and your habit of hospitality be a walking sermon, a walking declaration of truth, a walking show of your obedience to God.

We need to train ourselves to have hospitality as a habit. The sustaining of someone else needs to be as natural as breathing, because we know it needs to be done, we know we are capable of doing it, and because we know that every breath we have was given to us by God.

I love this passage in Isaiah. It shows most clearly that if you are in Christ, you are there because God was “hospitable” unto you; he called you into his house.

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me that your soul may live.”

(Isaiah 55:1-3)

~~~~~

I pray that you all had a memorable Memorial Day. After being in Budapest and seeing the history of how war-torn it has been over the centuries, scars still there from WWII and beyond, I am overcome with thankfulness for soldiers who fight for freedom; true freedom, not some idolized image of a so-called paradise on earth, but real freedom, liberation if you will.  So thank you, if any of you reading this are soldiers or are families of soldiers, today, and this is going to sound cheesy---but I mean it!---I salute you.

And here is a picture of some people who I am sure also felt very thankful for liberating soldiers.

 And others who weren’t reached in time.

Here is a memorial tree behind the Jewish synagogue in Budapest. Made of iron or steel it is quite large and has an inscription on every single one of its leaves.

The inscriptions are names of Hungarian Jews who lost their lives at the hand of brutal men who were attempting to create “utopia.”

This is Adolf Hitler shaking hands with the president of Hungary. Just remember, not all who say they come in peace are talking about the same peace you are.

Ebbs.

The last move I made brought me back to where I grew up. Same county, same city, even the same street. I live right close to my parents. It was a welcomed sigh of relief when I didn’t have to learn anything new. I know all of the haunts, I know all of the roads, I know where to go to get the best groceries. I find myself walking in the same fields and biking the same trails every day.
Most things look the same.

Same sunset...although these windmills weren't here when I was a kid.

But somehow I am noticing it’s not the same.

I have grown with and seen the changes happen in my family over the years, so they don’t seem new or different at all, but other things….other people…..well, there I can tell.

Isn’t it funny how your life ebbs and flows? Almost like the tides. For the longest time you can find yourself in the same job, the same social circle, the same church, the same routine. Then, all of the sudden, almost without recognition, you realize those aren’t your jobs, social groups, churches, routines anymore. All has changed, all has moved, even if YOU haven’t moved. Physically, I mean. I am convinced that Believers in Jesus Christ are constantly being moved and changed spiritually, emotionally, mentally, but what if you haven’t sold your house? What if your geography hasn’t changed? What if you live, like I do now again, on the same street you have for what seems like forever? How is it that your home-base can stay the same while everything else has moved just like the tides? In, and then out. Back, and then forth. Shapes changing, moving keys and players with ease.

I think I am seeing this change the most in my social circle, or the one I had when I lived here. The collective “We” have moved away, or gotten different schedules, or gotten married. We have changed our beliefs, we are going towards different goals, we now lead different lifestyles. Who knew that how others live their life can have such a shaping, or influencing, effect on your own?!

The ebb and flow in this aspect of my life almost makes me feel like I am “the new girl” again. As if I either need to A. Get to know them again, or B. Get to know others.
How strange!   

Seeing things with new eyes probably doesn’t help the situation either. I won’t harp on the fact again (and again) that I am different now than I was years ago, but it is a factor in this whole “The New Girl” equation.

I was telling Wren on our trip to Europe, “You know, we are the sum total of all our experiences. Every day that something happens, or every day that nothing happens, adds something to who we are, or weeds something else out.” This being the case then, it would be silly to think that you can go somewhere and all of the sudden be new, be different than who you are, or be exactly the way you were way-back-when.
Days have happened to all of us. Experiences have been played out. We have been changed.

I can find myself being overwhelmed, or feeling as if I can’t catch my footing. Questioning what it is I am doing or where I am going. Do you ever feel that way? Wondering how “the new normal” is going to look for a while?

Aren’t you glad, then, that God doesn’t change?

That he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8)?
I love the fact that God is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Beginning and the End.
And now, more than ever, I am convinced he must be the Middle, too.
Wolfies, I am thankful for that.

Be encouraged. He started you, He will finish you, and today? He is walking with you in the middle.  

Values.

My friend, Wren (who went to Europe with me), asked me for some advice while we were on our trip. She will be going through something pretty soon in her life that I have gone through in the past. She wanted to know how I made it all work.

“Well,” I answered, “People spend time and invest themselves pretty much only on things they value. So this new situation will work---if you value it.”

Seeing different parts of the world shows you that people value different things. Some of it is cultural, some of it is geographical, some of it is economical, whatever the reason there are about 40 million things a person can value on this planet.

I sat looking at these different things and couldn’t help but ask myself what it is that I value.

Do you feel like you know what you value, or is it all some vague inclination you don’t think about much?

Some people run around in life seemingly flitting from one thing to another. I have wondered before whether they care about any of it at all.
Some people claim they value certain things, they just don’t have time to do them. Or they say that something is important to them, but their lifestyle would never reveal that.

When I worked in the wedding industry it is safe to say that I also worked very closely with the alcohol industry. I was always so shocked when I would get those parties that never even asked what their bar-bill was. They had racked up thousands and thousands of dollars that night in an alcohol tab, and without even looking at the bill, or asking me what the final tally was, they would just hand me their credit card. And smile. And say they had a great time.

America was supposed to be in a recession, for goodness sakes!! Weren’t people supposed to be spending less money, watching their pennies? I asked myself this question all the time, dumbfounded.
Then I thought, “Maybe these people are watching their pennies----in other areas of their life. Areas they don’t value as much. They value this; they will spend money on this.” Time and time again that concept was reinforced in my brain, so much so that today I am absolutely convinced of it:

                                PEOPLE SPEND MONEY ON THAT WHICH IS IMPORTANT TO THEM.

People put effort into things they believe in.

If they don’t believe in something, value something, care for something, it gets no attention, no time, no money, no care.

I always come back from a trip and ask if something that happened to me, or if something I saw, will change who I am. Will change what I value. Should some things change what I value? Is somebody else doing life better than I am?

I am still thinking over these things. Processing how lessons learned will transcend cultures and pre-set ways of doing things in my life. But I want you to think about it:

 What is it you value?

What do you say is important to you?
And if you say something is important, does your life actually give evidence of it being true?
I have made a little list and such things like, “My relationship with Jesus,” or “Family, both natural and chosen,” or “Experiences that shape my character” or “Beauty” all come on my list. I can see it evidenced in where I live my life, spend my time, and give my money.

Here is a little challenge for you: take a look at your credit card or bank statement; write out for one week how you spend your time (don’t plan how you are going to spend your time, just keep track of what you actually DID) ; take an inventory of the activities you involve yourself in.

Do you like what you see? Are you happy with the values your life shows?

If not, my only advice is to pray; get in the Word and pray. Only Jesus can change hearts, and he usually only changes willing hearts.

As hard as these lists may be to look at, be honest. Come busyness or recession or vacation or daily life, we spend time on what we value. We spend money on what we value. Typically no more, and typically no less. We must never believe the lie that what we value can somehow be different than to what our lives give evidence.

~~~
In Ireland, my friend Pete told me we were going to be staying at a B&B that was "quaint."
I wonder if Northern Ireland has a different definition of the word than we do here in the States.

Fortwilliam. Not quite what I would call "quaint."

Fortwilliam has curtains next to his front door.

Fortwilliam has gardens and Thoroughbred horse stables behind him.

Fortwilliam makes girls really excited for breakfast.

Fortwilliam makes this butter-loving girl very happy about the Irish butter on her bread.