barren

Woke at 3 am. Slept for a few hours, and then the kitty under our bed made her presence known - we didn't even know she was in our room. Out she ran, taking my ability to sleep with her. After ninety minutes of trying to lay there quiety, so that the husband would remain undisturbed, I finally surrended and got up.

I'm standing on a threshold of change. I'm twelve hours away from committing to something that breaks my heart. Shatters it all the way down to my shoes. Knowing this, of course I couldn't sleep. I laid there thinking about a passage of scripture I'd read a few hours earlier.

Isaiah 54 is written to the barren woman. And finally I was able to put a name to what I'm feeling: Barren.

I have friends who have struggled with infertility and it is so very painful. It strikes at the core. It is so deep. Cindy Fry eloquently spoke to this not long ago when she talked about the dispair that comes along with a monthly period, year after year after year. Isaiah 54 is a pretty painful passage when you're like Sarai, ready to scoff at the idea that a baby is on its way when you're eighty years old. An entire adult life spent in barreness would do that to a person.

This is not a pity party. It's insomniac solitude. I laid there thinking about friends who want babies and can't have them and
*words escape me*
*I cannot describe what it feels like*
*"stab-to-the-heart-twist-slice-to-the-navel" doesn't even begin to paint the picture*
*how dare I compare my situation to that*
*are you feeling sorry for yourself now?*
absolutel pain they feel. That's how I feel, right now, standing at this cross-road and watching my dreams blow into dust once again.

"I abandoned you for a moment, but now will draw you in with lovingkindness." Why did you abandon me? What did I ever do wrong, how have I failed, what the heck?!?! How does this serve any purpose except to cause me to want to quit? I don't understand your silence, I don't understand the abandonment.

The crazy, weird thing is I am grateful for what you do for me. I am thankful that, although you closed the door on my dream once again (SLAM! NO YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT) you've provided this alternative.

But do I really have to do this? I'm really tired of burying my dreams. It was just a few years ago you told me to start dreaming again. But all I get from dreaming is just a lot more pain. Isaiah 54 says to enlarge the tent, and think big, and it doesn't really jive with this place you've brought me to. From where I'm standing, the only option you've left open to me looks like a downsize.

I guess I just dream the wrong dreams. Which is probably why in the end, it's just preferable to stay awake.

Door into Summer

When Tom was a younger cat, inclined to spend more time outside than in, there was a day when it was raining extremely hard.

He had been in the house for a while and was ready to go outside, to do whatever a reformed street cat does while roaming the neighborhood. He walked to the door leading from the kitchen to the backyard. (These were in the days before Sophie came along, when Tom still ruled the front and the back.)

He could see through the window panels that it was raining outside. When I opened the door, he just sat there looking at the water. Finally, he turned away and walked straight to the front door. I opened that one as well.

What?! It's wet outside there, too!

Next, he took me to a door he never used, the door in the downstairs bathroom that led outside to the backyard. I opened it. He sat there, looking appalled.

Finally, he took me to the door from the house to the garage. I opened it and he tentatively stepped out. Then I opened the big garage door. I swear I heard hear him say, Dammit.

I thought to myself, he’s looking for the door into summer.



More than twenty years ago, Chum had me read an early Heinlein book entitled The Door Into Summer. I don't remember anything of the characters or plot but I do remember there was a cat involved. So, when Tom went looking for the elusive sun, there it was - this phrase borrowed from a book title - and so my fat, old cat and a sci-fi classic from the ‘50s have been inexplicably entwined ever since.

This is one of my fondest memories of Tom. Probably because I can relate on such a deep level. How many times have I gone from door to door looking for sun, only to find rain?

Something in my finite mind cannot grasp that all this rain is necessary and even natural. All I know is I want what I want, and this pervasive, inconvenient wateriness is interfering with my plans.

I wonder if God just smiles with a certain knowing and overwhelming fondness each time I walk up to a closed door, asking for summer.

Aptitude for Ministry

Last Sunday’s lunch consisted of four people around a table, sharing a cheesy fondue and discussing church work. Together we represented more than one hundred and twenty years worth of hands-on ministry experience. Part of the conversation expounded on the idea of developing a personality profile for specific ministry roles. In other words, for someone to be effective in some church-related jobs, certain personality and character traits are important.

Over the past few days, I have been thinking through that conversation, not only as it applies to supervisory roles but more broadly, as it pertains to any individual in vocational (or bi-vocational) ministry. As I chewed it all over, I settled on three things I believe are essential to effectiveness in ministry: Fortitude, Servitude, Solitude. I don’t just like them because they rhyme but because they are, I believe, the bottom line.

Because "Attitude" seemed to go along with those three, I did a word search on it as well. I was surprised by what I found. “Attitude” originates from the late 17th century and denotes the placing or posture of a figure in art. It is from French and Italian attitudine, which means ‘fitness, posture.’ It stems from the Latin, aptitudo, or ‘fit.’

Not too long ago, I was in a meeting at our Bible college when someone asked, “What can we do to stem the attrition rate of those who graduate from Bible college and go into full-time ministry, only to eventually leave?” That question has been rolling around in my mind. Why do people leave the ministry? I finally decided a better question is, Why do some people stay?



APTITUDO: Suitability or fitness
Talent, gift, ability, proficiency, capability, potential, capacity, faculty. An innate component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level, that is not based on knowledge, acquired skills, or achievement.


FORTITUDO: Courage in pain or adversity
Courage, bravery, endurance, resilience, mettle, moral fiber, strength of mind, strength of character, backbone, spirit, grit, steadfastness.


SERVITUDO: A slave completely subject to someone more powerful
Historic usage - Serfdom / an agricultural laborer bound under the feudal system to work on his lord's estate.


SOLITUDO: The state of being alone / a lonely, uninhabited place
1 loneliness, solitariness, isolation, seclusion, sequestration, withdrawal, privacy, peace.
2 (solitudes): wilderness, rural area, wilds, desert, emptiness, wasteland; backcountry.



Attitude/Aptitude: An artist places a certain figure in a particular pose for a specific reason. That exact figure is needed in that exact place and that precise action to complete the piece. They fit. To take a still life into real life, however, not only should the placement be fitting, there should be a fitness of soul as well. Pose and posture. Like a puzzle piece, we fit. We continue to fit when we are not damaged, or missing, or refuse to be placed. If you are called to a certain ministry, chances are you will have a natural affinity for it.

Fortitude: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. If you’re going to make it in ministry, you need to be strong. Athletes, Soldiers, Cowboys - pick an image of grit, mettle and tenacity. Look, strength comes from resistance with repetition. Ministry requires strength of mind and character. Spiritual fitness. Start small and build up. Stop whining about the pain. Limping is ok, and so is laughing about it. Giving up is simply not an option.

Servitude: One church made every pastor start on the janitor crew. The idea was, If you won’t clean a toilet, why would we trust you with a pulpit? We look for leaders among those who volunteer to help put away the chairs or pick up trash or drive the elderly woman home. If God has placed you somewhere, told you to do something, and you know it, you’re gonna do whatever you have to do to stay in that place - even if it means cleaning bathrooms. A lot of ministry is cleaning up other people’s messes. Might as well learn that one now.

Solitude: Those in ministry need to understand and appreciate solitude. Both in the context of taking time to be alone with God - to commune with him, to hear him and be heard by him, and in a deeper more desperate sense, being able to survive when taken to a place of solitude - the desert, wilderness, barren backlands. The wastelands is where our idols crop up - those things we turn to for comfort, succor. Our coping mechanisms. Are we going to kill those things or not? Are we going to master them or be mastered by them? Til the day you die, is it really and truly just you and Jesus, no matter what?



I can think of several vocations that require a sense of calling if you’re going to stay in it for the long-haul: doctors, teachers, police, military, to name a few. So in coming up with this list, understand it is simply my own assessment, born from my own experience and observations. There is an old question, an important question: “Can you do anything else in life besides full-time ministry?” The follow up statement is, “If so, go do it.”


Perhaps one way to stem the attrition rate of those leaving the ministry is for fewer people to sign up for it in in the first place.




LUKE 14:25-35

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”



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it's the little things that count

Sometimes we set goals and work hard to achieve them, and in the end, we still can't quite make it. I heard a saying once, "Goals are those things only you can accomplish for yourself, Dreams are what only God can accomplish for you." It's amazing to me how many of my life-goals have turned out to actually be dreams and I just didn't know it.

[Before going any further, I have to say this: I use this space like a journal to write down my private thoughts. It releases pent-up tension, helps me think out loud, and provides a means of sorting through my always-complex-and-often-conflicting feelings. (Let's just say my emotional range is slightly larger than a teaspoon.) I post it because I figured out a long time ago that sometimes others need a sort of permission to admit they are are struggling, or less than perfect, or confused and doubtful. I'm happy to share my neurosis if it helps someone else feel better. All that was a precursor to the fact that I'm about to commit a major social faux pas and talk about our finances. People will talk about their sex lives, politics and religion but no one - NO ONE - talks about their checking account.]



While pastoring Grace Place, things got the point where it became difficult for me to navigate and manage the emotional fall-out that comes with some interpreting jobs, alongside the deeply-felt emotions of helping our church family members bear up under their own crisis, trials or sorrows. I loved both interpreting and pastoring, but it was emotional-overload for me to be in so many heavy situations all the time. Something had to go. And I chose interpreting.

Chumley not only agreed, it was his idea: After years of me being the bi-vocational, secular-income earner, he would take a turn for a while at working a second job and let me just work for the church. I dropped my interpreter's certification and "retired." (This was a risky move on our part because we always put his education and career first, recognizing that his wage-earning potential was greater than mine, since we chose to have me stay home with the kids at various times over the years. I never really had the chance to build a career. I just sort of "fell" into interpreting and it was great income. Giving it up was like giving up a security blanket.)


David worked at the Apple Store for a short stint, then worked for eighteen months at Life Pacific College. When that job ended, we thought we would just down-size and simplify our lives. If that didn't work, I could always go back to interpreting. It was still our standby. But, things didn't quite work out that way.

Instead of downsizing and staying in Fresno, we ended up downsizing and moving here. We both had a lot of outside-income-potential in Fresno. (Here, Chum doesn’t have the time to pick up outside work, so it falls to me again.) In Fresno, even without certification, I was a known quantity and could still freelance. ("Retirement" is a loose term in the interpreting world. Very few interpreters manage to get out and stay out.)

Since moving here, the option of just getting back into interpreting is not really available. No one knows me, I don't know anyone. I don’t have clientele or contacts. Oh, I could get back into it, but it would take a lot of time, effort and expense to go through the whole process of re-certifying, just to find myself in the same boat again -- slowly sinking. Because this is still true: I can interpret, or I can pastor, but I can’t do both. (I would make a horrible Buddhist. Detachment is so hard for me.)


When we got here, I was not offered a paid staff position and so took a year off to rest. When the year was up, I hit the ground, running. A few months ago, I read this in Forbes: "A man is hired for his potential, while a woman is hired for her proven performance." Rather than getting frustrated by the unfairness of it, I decided to work myself into a job. I was going to pretend I worked at the church until they started giving me a paycheck!

Which happened. I was recently hired at church, part-time. You know, if I went back to interpreting, my hourly wage would be at least five times higher. But the thing is, I know that I know I am called to full-time ministry, and sometimes you just have to put your money where your mouth is. I told my best friend the other day, "People have the lives they want. They go after what they want. This is the life we have chosen. We haven't gone after money because it's just not that important to us." Still, you do need money to live.

This idea that we have the life we want doesn’t prevent me from feeling reams and reams of guilt over the fact that I walked away from a stable and sufficient income source just so I could have my heart’s desire. We are treading water, and as we struggle to keep our heads above the surface, I wonder if I'm just being stubborn and stiff necked and unwilling to do something other than a ministry position, or if I’m being faithful to do that which God told me to do? (Going back to serving tables has also crossed my mind a time or twenty.) I feel like I’m trying to hold onto an elusive dream, a dream that I seem to just touch briefly before it scampers off again.



We are living on 75% of what we made in Fresno but the cost of living here is Oh So Much Higher. (There is something so humbling about living on a salary that comes from other’s tithe. I can’t even express to you how much my heart appreciates that good people dig into their pockets and give so that my children can be clothed and fed.) It feels like we’re just killin’ ourselves to stay afloat. Forget saving, we’ve been slowly eating up our savings. We are so stressed, all the time. (I know I've been horrible to live with this "Christmas" which has sent my stress-level over the top. I'm sorry, family.) We’ve looked at moving out of Danville to a nearby city but it’s about the same, everywhere, unless we want to move to Oakland (which, quite frankly, looks pretty good to me but, for some reason, Chum says, No).


Yesterday, I prepared a resume and began actively looking for a job. I started thinking maybe there’s a ministry-related job nearby just waiting for me. Non-profit? Daycare for a deaf child? What is it??? I don't know. But my resume looks pretty darn shiny, if you ask me. There has to be a perfect, second, part-time job out there somewhere. I just have to find it. Or maybe there's a punch-the-clock-and-get-'er-done job. Who knows. Something will be "right."

Remember at the start of this blog (I know, that was a long time ago) when I talked about Goals and Dreams? God reminded me this week that He's still on the throne and He sees those things in my heart which are valuable to me. He also knows I'm pretty confused right now about what direction I'm supposed to be going in, and offered a small light for my path.

About six months ago, I knew it was time to finally apply for my minister's license. I've never held one in all these years because I think Foursquare hands them out a little too easily to people without a Bible college degree (opinionated much?) and I'm one of those people - three years of Bible college but no degree. But after twenty-five years experience, I decided maybe I should stop being quite so stubborn on this issue and, besides, my gut was saying, "Now. Now's the time." So I set for myself a goal: apply for my license.

Then two cars broke down within the span of a month and we had to put $1400 into repairs. My application was finished and sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting. Waiting. We didn't have the money to pay for the application fee. I would walk by it and plead with the LORD, “Please! You told me to do this! Please provide the money for this, please! Please!”

Two days ago, we had our staff Christmas luncheon. I wasn't expecting any kind of bonus/gift because I was just hired. But Pastor Cliff handed me an envelope. Guess how much was inside? Yup. Just enough to cover the application fee. It might be one of the nicest gifts I've ever received. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving; this one will impact me for the rest of my life.

That little envelope was enough to put hope in my heart, to give me the courage to fill out a resume and hold out for the right job. I believe there is a perfect, challenging and satisfying job out there for me, one where I am needed, one that will fill my soul instead of draining it. I know if God can handle an application fee, he can handle my future. I will do as much as I can, and He will have to take care of the rest.

three dreams

This week has brought three interesting dreams:


DREAM ONE:
I was on a Danville hillside, which was also Disneyland, and was showing a "newcomer" (anonymous guy, but possibly the person I sat next to on the plane home from VA?) how to get around. On the ground was a maze (you know, like those papers you used to get in fifth grade, find your way from the outside to the center) we had to navigate. We had to walk exactly on the line, except in the places where we had to jump around the other people who had already reached the end of the maze and who were now in line for "the ride" at Disneyland. That line stretched in a straight line down the middle of the maze. It was left up to us to jump around them. It was actually pretty fun, following the maze. Every time we jumped past someone, though, it left a broken place in the maze, with frayed, red ends (the two ends looked like they were dipped in a shiny paint - wasn't blood).


DREAM TWO:
We were in a military-like mess hall for a presentation, and it was packed with people. Warriors but not soldiers. Lots of people, some I knew, some I didn't. My brother, Eric, introduced my brother Brian, who was sitting in the front row. Brian began telling the story of his life, with a slide show of pictures from his childhood and life being shown on a big screen in front. About every thirty seconds, the crowd would CHEER! I kept looking around at my family (David and the daughters were all there) and smiling.


DREAM THREE:
I was at a table, in a tent, in a bright desert, taking an English test about the Shakespeare play, "Peresphone." I had completely forgotten there was a test coming and had not studied. Meanwhile, two college professors who taught at the school - a man and a woman - were sitting on either end of the table, having a disagreement. The woman was blaming the man for doing something which had caused her to leave their relationship years before. (The woman was the blond, older actress Sally Kellerman and the man looked suspiciously like Paul Newman.) I piped up with, "We all make our own choices. Don't you see he has a broken heart?" Then I turned my attention back to the test. I had to guess at all the answers, racking my brain to try and remember the story of Persephone. I was pretty sure C.S. Lewis wrote a book about it and I was trying to remember what he said. The last question was an essay and I felt pretty confident I would be able to bluster my way through that one, using my skills as a writer, and maybe not completely fail the test.



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Yesterday evening, I texted my brother, Brian, to tell him my dream about him and he asked, "Where were we?" I described the scene to him and he texted back: "I think we were in Heaven."



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Preacher Lady

There have been a few hard adjustments in this transition to Danville. One of the hardest on me, personally, is I lost anywhere to utilize what is probably my favorite thing to do in ministry - prepare and preach a good sermon. Looking back at our time in Fresno, within about six months, I landed in a ministry situation at VCC where I had a place to exercise this gift: the college group. Tim Clark would have me preach whenever he was unable to. Later, we took over that college group and I handled 3/4 of the preaching for three years. When we turned that group over, we had Saturday Night Service where five of us split the preaching. Then, we planted Grace Place, where again I handled a quarter to half of the Sunday morning teaching/preaching depending on the series or the schedule, and also taught the mid-week Bible study for two years.

Then we moved here, and I have not preached a sermon in sixteen months. That's like not having people over for dinner. It is very similar to cooking - I love the planning, the preparation, the product (hey Larry Powers, look I alliterated!) and the sweet happiness that settles in my soul when I know I have been allowed to provide nourishment for someone. I. Love. It. Cooking and Preaching.

(BTW, Pastors Cliff and Mari have made room for me in other, amazing ways and I have been given a lot of freedom to express other parts of my soul at EBF. I am allowed to speak freely, for one thing and Cliff just laughs and says, "I love it that you're a straight shooter, Lu." I am NOT complaining! Just trying to articulate something about my heart and the things I love.)

This has become a very painful thing for me - it sort of feels like I've had a hand cut off - so the Lord and I were discussing it this morning. Because I always come back to this thought - it must be He who provides the platform for me, not me seeking it out for myself. He said to me, why not write those sermons down? SO... Every-once-in-a-while, I might blog a sermon here at The Town Crier. For my own enjoyment, and if someone along the way gets blessed, all the better. At least I will be keeping my "cooking skills" sharp, because who knows what lies around the corner?

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holy moment

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Yesterday morning in church, our worship leader, Marco, had me teach the congregation the sign for "Hallelujah." It was a word repeated several times in the last song. The sign has three parts: First is the sign for "Praise," second is the sign for "Celebrate" and last is a gesture that signifies a releasing or even throwing these praises up to the Lord.

When I sign worship, everything else just fades away. I can't really explain why this happens when I am signing in a way that never happens when I am singing. All I know is, I'm before the Throne and caught up in the dance. I always feel, "This is the real me." Maybe it is because sign language is the deep language of my heart. It allows me to express what I could never say out loud. Always, my eyes are closed.

When we reached the part of the song with, "Hallelujah," I knew people were signing because I could hear gentle clapping in rhythm. (The first part of Hallelujah - Praise - involves clapping.) Marco lingered on the word; it repeated and repeated: Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Clap, clap.

I opened my eyes, and looked around.

There was a sea of smiling faces and upraised hands. Every single person was signing. In that moment we were all musicians and dancers. It was not hand motions, it was worship. I stopped signing and started crying. I turned to Pastor Cliff, who was standing next to me on the platform. He saw I was overwhelmed and responded by turning towards me, walking near and signing over me. I closed my eyes and soaked it in. Hallelujah, Clap, clap.

When I had first opened my eyes and saw what was transpiring, my immediate thought was, "This is what Heaven will be like." The second thought was, "There may be some here raising their hands in worship for the very first time." It was the unison that made me cry.

Pastor Cliff's message yesterday was from Zechariah. In my Bible, the end of Zephaniah is on the page opposite the first chapter of Zechariah. During the sermon, a passage caught my eye. Little did I know these exact words would be illustrated in within a matter of moments:


Sing, O Daughter of Zion;
Shout aloud, O Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
Oh Daughter of Jerusalem!
The LORD has taken away your punishment,
He has turned back your enemy.

The LORD, the King of Israel is with you;
Never again will you fear any harm.
On that day, they will say to Jerusalem
"Do not fear, O Zion;
Do not let your hands hang limp.

"The LORD your God is with you.,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing."

Zechariah 3:14-17

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