Foredated: September 11, 2013

I really wanted to post this on September 11 at 8:45 am EST, but life prevented me from being able to do that.  I suppose I should have typed it up in advance, but it wasn't a possibility; I'm sorry.  But these thoughts seemed poignant enough to me to type up and post for you anyway.

On September 11, 2013, 8:44am something monumental happened.  As the clock ticked down, Americans my age - arguably the youngest people on the planet to remember a pre-9/11 life - lived the last minute that they would while still having lived the majority of their lives in relative safety.

I'd like to say that we felt ourselves untouchable until 9/11, but that's a lie.  We weren't, and only the naïve believed otherwise.  Peal Harbor, Oklahoma City, Columbine... We knew better.  But it was something about September 11 that felt so different.  I think it may be because our own assets were used against us.  Whatever it was, America changed drastically afterward; rather than doubling down and coming up stronger, we signed away our rights hand-over-fist and reacted in fear.  I was with everyone else at the time, though... we may want to ask ourselves if it should really be considered an achievement to have a 12-year-old agree with the action our government took.  I remember my mother warning me against it all, and I replied that we'd deal with any problems that arose when we came to them.  Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've come to them (Read: Syria), but that's another story for another time.

My point is this:
I've no longer lived the majority of my life in a pre-Septemeber-Eleventh World.

I've no longer lived the majority of my life in a world where I can accompany my loved ones to their airplane.
I've no longer lived the majority of my life not having to worry about how complicated my shoes are before going to the airport.
I've no longer lived the majority of my life being able to be fully hydrated on a plane.
I've no longer lived the majority of my life in a country where Aladdin wouldn't be feared if he lived in it.
I've no longer lived the majority of my life in a time when I didn't have to worry if the person next to me started playing with their shoes.
I've no longer lived the majority of my life being unable to ask a flight attendant if the small person next to me (or, heck, I myself) could meet the pilot.
I've no longer lived the majority of my life without double, triple, quadruple checking everything I say while traveling.

I've no longer lived the majority of my life in a country that wasn't dominated by manipulation playing off people's fear.


And I'm not sure how to react to that.

Out of the mouths of babes...

I want to share with you part of my most recent letter that I received from one of my Compassion children, Estefany:

Hello, dear Anne, I write you very excited.  I received your cards and stickers.  I think and feel you are doing a good job.  My teacher in the project told me that G-d enables those He has called.  G-d has put you in this place because He believes you can do it.  I always pray for you that G-d will use you.  I dedicate this verse to you: Isaiah 1:17 [Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed.  Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.]...

The timing of her letter has been perfect.  In the face of uncertainty and a still undefined path, this is what I needed to hear.

My... how G-d speaks through children...

Sponsor a child today.

Be still.

My favorite book, Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine (Surprise! I want to hear from you if you actually knew that.) includes a passage that has particularly stayed with me.

"Mandy says there are two sorts of people in the world: those who blame everyone else and those who blame only themselves.  I place myself in a third category: among those who know where the blame really lies."

I think I like this quote so much because I particularly resonate with it.  I consider myself to be a "big-picture" thinker.  Ask me to choose a side, and, more often than not, I won't be able to, because I can all-too-clearly understand the various positions involved.  It makes life rather hard.  This same thinking has led me to be able to think my actions through to their possible ends, and make day-to-day decisions accordingly.

I think the best example of how this has played out in my life would be when we first moved to Maryland.  At the time, we moved into an apartment with the intention of moving into a house after a couple of months.  We knew the situation was temporary.  So I decided the best course of action would be to not make any close friends.  I had a couple that I spent a little time with; one even watched my guinea pig, but I don't recall ever spending time with people from school outside of the classroom.  I had church friends, for sure, but, even those I didn't allow to get too close.  I chose to live alone during that time, rather than allowing people to get close and having to say goodbye to them again.  It was the most convenient path.  It's been tempting for me to slip into this way of thinking while in Korea, too, and, for a period, I think I was doing it subconsciously.

May I offer you some advice?

Don't do this.

Sure, think about your future; make wise choices; but do not live in the future.  This is for the same reasons that we're told not to live in the past: You have no control over the future - you can't change it; just let it be.

I know this may seem counter-intuitive, and, technically, it's wrong.  Technically, you have a vast amount of control over the future, but, seeing as you can only guess at how your actions will pan out in the future (and you can only ever know for sure how you controlled the future after it's the past), I'm going to argue that we have no legitimate power over the future.  It only shows us the report card at the end of the semester, and lets us hang it on the fridge or hide it under a stack of bills.

Since that is the case, I would highly recommend employing a methodology that occurred to me in Germany:

"Be still and know that I am G-d." -Psalm 46:10

We usually interpret this to mean something along the lines of being quiet or calming our hearts, but what it the double play on the English words is a legitimate one?  What if this verse is also encouraging us to continue to be?  Look at it like this:

"[Continue to be] and know that I am G-d."

We are not designed to be walking around, living in dreams and what-ifs.  We are designed to thrive, to  excel.  If we are constantly debating how our actions will play out in the future, everything around us will pass, and all we will have is a life lived out in theory, a virtual life that is no better than the simulated lives we create for ourselves in video games.  We are called to continue to live, continue to focus, continue to be.

In Germany, I challenged myself to do something every day that I came to term "presencing."  If I were a dictionary, I would define this word as follows:

presencing - vb - the act of being fully aware of and fully participating in the situation around oneself.

Whenever I felt my mind start to wander from the amazing situation in which I found myself, I halted it in its tracks.  Whenever I started to close myself off because I would only be in Germany for a couple of months, I purposefully did something to open myself more to situation.  As a result, Germany became etched in my mind as one of the most life-changing experiences I've ever had.

I want to encourage you to try some true presencing.  Focus on the people around you; the laundry can wait.  Take a day off of work and go see that site you keep meaning to visit; a few less dollars won't kill you (in fact, a year from now, you probably won't even remember how much money you didn't make that day, but you will remember the trip).

Society calls this being "irresponsible"; I call this being alive.

"Therefore you shall not be concerned about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be concerned for itself. A day's own trouble is sufficient for it." (Matthew 6:34 ABPE)

Indonesia: Arrival in Jakarta

The Indonesia portion of my journey started off with an adventure.  I had noticed on my plane that I was nearly the only International person on it.  This was slightly unnerving for me, but I figured it was due to the late hour of the flight or something along that vein.  What I didn't realize was that Indonesia was in the middle of its rainy season and Jakarta, the city for which I was headed was flooded.  In fact, I didn't realize that until much later, the flood, obviously, being the first to catch my attention.

After landing and obtaining my Visa-on-arrival (wonderful things), I headed out, looking for the taxi service that was reported to be the only reputable one in the city.  I barreled past the drivers who were out of their cars and waiting in the luggage claim area (never, ever go with those guys; it'd be cheaper to connect your wallet to a vacuum.), and found where the other taxis were waiting.  The next obstacle were the drivers who were waiting on the sidewalk.  Generally, these are no better than the luggage claim area guys, but sometimes you get a good seed there.  Thankfully, I  had the good sense (and the blaring TripAdvisor warnings) to continue looking for BlueBird Taxi.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I found the correct taxi service.  It was the only one with a line, so I felt much better about it all.

It took me about half an hour to wait out the line, and never once did I waver in my resolution to take a BlueBird taxi.  When I finally got to the front of the line, I showed the driver the name of my hotel, and everything took a downward turn.  He got very disgruntled, even getting out of the taxi to consult with the attendant.  Assuming he didn't know where it was, I began to get frustrated.  I am notorious for picking bad hotels from the Internet, so I assumed I'd chosen yet another hole-in-the-wall place that only looked like it was find-able from a map.  Finally, after a couple of phone calls, we were on our way.

"There's a lot of water, so I'll need to take the highway," the driver said.  I agreed.  I'd looked at the map, the highway passes straight by the waterfront, leading to the center of Jakarta, where I had booked my hotel.  I also had learned from my trip in Thailand that this probably meant there would be a toll.  I was okay with these things, and I told him so.

Just as we were about to get off the highway, the driver pulled off, into the median, and said to me, "There's a lot of water, we probably can't go there."

Now, I was confused, and, once again, a bit nervous.  We went back and forth on it, until I realized what he meant.  There had been a flood.

"Can you just try to get to my hotel?"  I asked.  "I have reservations."

The man hesitantly agreed, asking the men at the toll-booth for the status of the neighborhood past the exit.  They assured him that it would be okay, and we plowed on through the puddles.  Unfortunately, those puddles began to get deeper and deeper, until I could feel the water vibrating against the floor of the car under my feet.  The taxi stopped.

"I'm really sorry, missus, but we cannot go this way.  There is too much water."  I secretly breathed a sigh of relief.  I didn't like us driving through the water.  But then, as quickly as the relief came, it left; I had no idea where to go.  Then, my driver turned to look me dead in the face.

"Missus, are you a Christian?"

My heart leapt to my throat.  All of my friends' warnings about Indonesia being a Muslim country didn't seem so trivial anymore.  I looked around outside the car.  The houses looked to be little better than those of a slum in the 1am gloom.  Everywhere, there was some amount of water.  I had nowhere to go.

I took a breath.

"Yes.  I am."

The man started speaking very fast.  "Good.  I am a Christian, too, and, in the name of Jesus Christ, I promise I will get you safely to a hotel."

I'm ashamed to say, I wasn't convinced.  "A nice hotel?"  I asked him.

"Yes, missus.  A nice hotel."

"Okay.  Let's go."

We pulled away, and I felt my deposit stay behind in the deep puddles of the neighborhood.  I had already had one instance of booking for the wrong dates and being charged for the room when I didn't show up.  Now, it was going to happen again.  I sighed and resigned myself to it.  There was nothing I could do about it at that point.

The first hotel we came to was a name I recognized; I had researched it in my hotel booking process and seriously considered staying there.  I paid the driver, thanked him, and ran inside, but he followed.  After a short conversation with the concierge, he informed me that there were no rooms available.  Later, that made sense to me: All the people displaced by the flood would have to go somewhere.  But, in that moment, all I could think about was how very much I wanted to sleep.

I got back in the taxi, envisioning a long night of hotel hopping and paying and repaying the driver.  Within, five minutes, however, he was pulling up a long driveway.  One look at its towers and circular driveway told me that I was going to need to switch hotels the next day.  There was no way I could afford that place.  Nonetheless, dear old Benjamin was going to take one for the team (the team that connected my eyeballs and my cognition), and make new friends with the people that ran the hotel.

When I walked in, I was greeted by a bell boy, who took my bag from my hand and my backpack off my back and led me up the escalators, where I came face to face with two large arrangements of Oriental Lilies, one of my favorite flowers.  In that moment I said to myself, You know what?  This is vacation; let's live a little.  After all, I did just get paid.  I decided to stay in the Hotel Santika Jakarta for the duration of my time in the city.  Much to my wallet's surprise, it only turned out to be ~$130/night for the exclusive suite I was given (they were pretty booked up, too), which included a breakfast buffet, complimentary mini-bar, and evening snack bar (which I turned into a dinner buffet).  Considering that that's roughly what I would pay for a night at a Wingate Hotel in the States, I gladly agreed that it was worthy my money.  Thus began a series of events that led me to several unexpectedly luxurious hotels.  For now, I'll leave you with pictures of the Hotel Santika:

Lobby

Breakfast buffet area

My room and incredibly soft bed

Exclusive lounge where I ate my dinners

Truly, though, the pictures don't do this place justice.  It was an amazing hotel, with excellent amenities, and a wonderful masseuse.  This was the perfect answer to the stress that came with my unfortunate timing in landing.

MOTh: Day 5

3 Gifts Acorn-Small

I'm really excited about today's post, even though I've only thought of one answer, currently.  I'm a big fan of acorns, you see.  We had this massive oak tree in our backyard when I was younger, and I used to look up at that thing and absolutely  marvel.  Think of what that tree has seen!  Think of the people who climbed its branches when it was young.  Think of the storms it weathered and the hot sun it deflected.  Think of the red clay it overcame.  Think of the tiny acorn from which this giant came.  The acorns that came from this tree would invaribly be the bane of my existance when I ran through the yard or when I was outside and hungry but unwilling to go inside (nothing is worse than watching a squirrel happily eat an acorn when you're hungry).  But, I'd always end the experience with remembering the wonder of the acorn.

1. I'm thankful for my faith.  The Bible talks about being able to do miraculous things with the faith of a mustard seed.  Personally, I'm never sure if Christ means a faith the size of a mustard seed of a faith like that of a mustard seed, but, for the purpose of this blog post, we'll just go with the common opinion of the comparison of size (because, frankly, I think a tiny mustard seed must have tremendous faith to grow into such a hearty, pungent plant).  Sometimes, my faith is so tiny it's invisible even to myself.  Sometimes, I fancy it's so big that I could fill houses with it.  But, mostly, I figure my faith is tiny-acorn-small, steadily growing toward mighty oak-dom.
2. I'm thankful for the tiny paper crane that sits on the shelf next to my kitchen.  I wish I had a picture of this thing to show you, but I don't; sorry.  This is the smallest piece of origami I've ever seen - probably also tiny-acorn-sized - and it was given to me by one of my students at my last school.  Written in the tiniest handwriting I've ever seen on the wing is a message: "I love you."  "Don't forget me, teacher," the child said to me when she placed it in my hand.  That was always their request: "Don't forget me."  It seemed strange to me that this is what they would ask, but, as I sit and think about it, it begins to make sense to me.  I'm not going to do them the disservice of trying to explain it, but I'm sure that if you think about it, too, you'll begin to understand.
3. I'm thankful for each and every square on my calendars... all three of those bad boys are incredibly important to my life.  I used to mock people who were so dependent on calendars, not because I could remember things, but because I didn't like the idea of being so confined to something like that.  I liked being able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  Unfortunately, that usually meant that I ended up doing nothing at all, because nothing got planned.  My calendars help keep me organized, so that I can spend quality and effective time with the people I care about, and that makes me thankful.

Crazy Love: Brother

"Dare to imagine what it would mean for you to take the words of Jesus seriously.  Dare to think about your own children living in poverty, without enough to eat.  Dare to believe that those really are your brothers and sisters in need."

                                      From Francis Chan's Crazy Love 

"Sell your possessions and give to the poor."  -Luke 12:33

"Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." -Mark 3:35

If I truly thought of these people as my brother, my precious brother, my mind would be made up before I even knew the extent of the situation.  I wouldn't look at my bank balance.  I wouldn't check the calendar against my next payday.  

I would empty my entire bank account and sell everything I owned to get him what he needed.

Without thinking.

Without debating.

Without hesitation.

"But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'..." -Luke 10:29

Crazy Love: Reality Check

"Whether we admit it or not, every one of us has offended G-d at some point.  Jesus affirmed this when He said, 'No one is good - except G-d alone' (Luke 18:19)

"So why does G-d still love us, despite us?  I do not have an answer to this question.  But I do know that if G-d's mercy didn't exist, there would be no hope  No matter how good we tried to be, we would be punished because of our sins.

"Many people look at their lives and weigh their sins against their good deeds.  But Isaish 64:6 says, 'All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.'  Our good deeds can never outweigh our sins.

"The literal interpretation of 'filthy rags' in this verse is 'menstrual garments' (think used tampons... and if you're disgusted by that idea, you get Isaiah's point).  It's hard to imagine something more disgusting that we could brag about or put on display.  But compared to G-d's perfect holiness, that's how our good deeds appear.

"G-d's mercy is a free, yet costly, gift.  It cannot be earned.  Our righteous acts, just like menstrual garments, certainly don't help us deserve it.  The wages of sin will always be death.  But because of G-d's mercy, sin is paid for through the death of Jesus Christ, instead of the death of you and me.

"The very face that a holy, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, merciful, fair, and just G-d loves you and me is nothing short of astonishing." 

                                                           From Crazy Love, by Francis Chan 

I know, that's a vastly long quote to start this off, but it's only a fraction of what I read from this book today.  I spent a lot of time on trains and subways today, so I got a had a lot of spare time for it.  Mercifully, I tend not to get motion sick when I don't have a window seat.  If you haven't been keeping up with my blog, it probably won't occur to you why this passage stuck out to me so much, so you should probably read this post before moving forward. 

Now that everyone's working from the same page, let's talk about this long quote.  I'd had a hard time imagining good deeds as dirty rags before, no matter the illustration.  I'd always looked at it and said, "But how could anything good be like dirt?  Yes, it's not as good as G-d, but shouldn't it still fall under the realm of goodness?"  But, somehow, Mr. Chan made it click for me.  I think it was that a few pages before the one that features this section, he had been writing about pride.  Having those two so close together made something click into place in my brain.  But I knew it wasn't the full thing that needed to click.  I felt like I was on the tip of the iceberg, so I looked around the subway, and my eyes landed on the red, plastic handholds that were hanging from the ceiling.  Watching them sway with the movement of the subway made it easy for me to imagine them as used tampons, as Chan suggested I do.  As I watched, I began to understand the magnitude of my pride.

These things that I do or have done, they're nothing compared to the goodness of G-d, and they're still performed by a flawed human being.  They're tainted by things like my pride and ulterior motives.  I am a sinner, and, as such, my actions will always be less than what was originally planned.

BUT

Jesus loves me anyway.

Let me type out the rest of what Chan says about Christ's love:

"The wildest part is that Jesus doesn't have to love us.  His being is utterly complete and perfect, apart from humanity.  He doesn't need me or you.  Yet He wants us, chooses us, even considers us His inheritance (Eph. 1:18).  The greatest knowledge we can ever have is knowing G-d treasures us.

"That really is amazing beyond description.  The holy Creator sees you as His "glorious inheritance."

For a girl that really hasn't ever felt beautiful in her life, this being wanted idea is a big deal.  Nothing I do is going to earn me that place with Him (think about it - the best we end up giving are these "dirty rags"), but it's not something to be earned, anyway.  He wants to be with me just as badly as I want to be with Him.  That's a big deal.

So, I'm thinking that while all of you are out, eating  chocolate and buying flowers on Tuesday, I'm going to be have a date with the One Man who has always pursued me, always wanted me, and always loved me.  Yes, I know I'm sounding über cliché right now, but - you know what? - I DON'T CARE.  This has been very, very much needed.

I'm hoping that you're reading the joy into this that I'm feeling.  This is not a down on myself post.  This is a post about a mindset that's changing.

Lots of love to you all.

Controversy in what matters most

It seems like I'm always struggling with one writer in the Bible or another.  For a loooooooong time, it was Paul.  In fact, I spent a lot of time in which I refused to read him, harbored bitterness and angry toward him (I know... totally not a waste of time... yeah right), held him responsible for the misinterpretations of his writings, and so on.  It was ridiculous, to be sure, but I do maintain what I think to be the most important part of that long-time exercise in disbelief:  You should not quote Paul (or any Epistle for that matter) without also quoting Jesus (and I would prefer Torah and a prophet... wisdom literature for a bonus point) in agreement with him.  Paul is far too easily misrepresented, because much of Christendom has forgotten the context in which it was written.  Like Kierkegaard, I think this is a most heinous loss, and while it will not separate anyone from Christ, it will separate their minds from His.  People miss out on so many true meanings and liberations in His words by ignoring the context into which they were spoken.  Additionally they (like I) miss the agreements between Paul and Christ without first knowing intimately that context.


My suggestion?  Find an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and soak up what he says.  But you don't need to take my word for it.  Ask this guy about the benefits.  (Incidentally, he's the one who was able to start me on the road to reconciliation with Paul.)


But, believe it or not, this posting isn't about Paul and me.  It's actually about John and me.  John, John, John... So many people have a hard time with you, and so did I... until G-d spoke clarity into my mind.  Ironically enough, my name comes from the name John, routing through their Hebrew equivalents.  The coolest part is found in their meanings, which deal with Grace.  Don't believe me on the connection front?  Fine... you shouldn't just take my word for it, anyway: John.  Anne.  And, just in case you wanted another eerie connection: Saul.

So yes, lately, I've been having problems with John.  But, instead of letting that fester this time around, I immediately began seeking out those wiser than myself.  I prayed, I read, I talked... but it wasn't until I finished John and started again that G-d spoke into all of it.  I had to prove my faithfulness on the subject.  I had to show my commitment to truly seeking Him and not discounting what He has given me as a witness to Himself (scripture, in case you missed it).  This is what he gave me:

November 6, 2011

This is John's testimony.  Every testimony will be affected by a person's opinion and circumstance.  John very probably wrote this after the Temple was destroyed, and it was clear that Jesus woud not be coming back to "establish" His Kingdom in their lifetimes.  Therefore, John is probably writing with the mission of reassuring people of Christ's deification - that He is, in fact, G-d, and the fact that He wasn't doing things the way everyone wanted or expected (still) was not reason to discount Him.  (Hebrews was most likely written around this same time as well.)  John starts this illustration at the beginning of the world and goes up through Christ's time on Earth.

He's writing many years after all the events happened, so it's likely that he did not write in perfect chronological order or with perfect quotes from the people in the stories (especially since that was perfectly acceptable in the day), but he does write, capturing who Jesus IS.  He urges us to fully understand Jesus' situation as a deity and, consequentially, writes a very different Gospel from that of the Synoptic writers, who focus on the incredible revolution that Jesus brought.

And yes, you will hear John's emotions come out at times (especially in reference to Judas or the Pharisees), but it is important to remember the setting and who John was:  John is referred to as "the disciple whom Jesus loved."  That is, of course, his own testimony, but the writers of the other Gospels also acknowledge that Peter, James, and John were considerably closer to Jesus than were the rest.  That being said, John would reasonably feel rather more passionately about the people to whom he assigned responsibility for Jesus' death.

John writes with a very interesting perspective.  I would encourage you not to dwell on the differences in format, but to drink in what a member of Jesus' most inner circle has to say about Him.

And really, that's all I have to say about that.

What do YOU have to say about that?  I'd love to hear from you!

<3

This will be quick.

Good news! There's a backup plan in case my VISA doesn't come through in time: If that turns out to be the case, my departure from the U.S. will be pushed back a month. However, I still plan to leave Nashville on July 17, as I have to be moved out then anyway, and my cousin (who just sent me yet another game request on Facebook... too bad I can't access that game unless I'm off campus.) and his fiancée are patiently waiting for me to sell them my car, and I really don't want to keep them waiting. Not to worry, though... my bedroom has yet to fully turn into a storage room at my parents' house. Soooo maybe, just maybe, I won't be in a rush to say goodbye to all my HoCo people... Of course, a month does seem a little more than necessary, but I'm trying to trust in G-d's perfect timing (as I remember that I have yet to check the mail today... I'm going to go do that)!