I Need Everything But Whole

Global Perspective. It's been a consistent message at the church I attend. The company I work for goes to great lengths to value it and ensure that the communities that fuel America's caffeine addiction are adequately supported. My friends, for the most part, value it and the guys that I date typically live their lives in service to it. So why is it that such a perspective can often be such a hard concept to understand and grasp?

I remember finding some 1,000 dollar shoes in Cherry Creek once and being really pissed off. First cause there even exists such a thing as 1,000 dollar shoes and then cause there was some deep dark hidden recess of my id that kinda wanted them. They were actually quite ugly so I'm not really sure what intrigued me about them. Though my parents are amazingly humble people, I guess I was still raised in suburban Denver so expensive taste and the desire to appear more affluent than is actually calculated in my bank account comes somewhat naturally. Kind of a battle sometimes. Anyways, I also hate my car. But what I really hate, is that I hate my car. It's a piece of shit in truth, but it still runs from point 'a' to point 'b' quite nicely and I don't really have to pay regularly for anything on it so I should be grateful for the freedom from one more bill, right? I still worry though. I worry that I wont be able to find the money to fund my future travels or a health care bill should something happen that my insurance wont cover (thanks a lot Michael Moore!). I worry that I wont be able to find a couple of new trendy shirts for the upcoming winter season.

Every once in a while I hear from friends overseas who experiences real poverty and financial stress on a very real level. I visit a website like www.globalrichlist.com or read an article out of Nat'l Geographic about the Dharavi slum in Mumbai and the reality of money and wealth and what it means to truly have a Global Perspective comes rushing back into my life. Suddenly my concerns about health care and new shirts take on a new form in relation to the context that billions of people in this world die from something like the flu because of lack of medication and don't even have two shirts to their name. As the assistant pastor at my church so aptly described last week, often as a person still living pay check to pay check it is easy for me to say "Get 'em Jesus!" when he rants and scathed the wealthy for their hearts and their love of money. It's easy for me to think he's talking to Britney Spears, Sam Walton, Bill Gates and Oprah. A truly Global Perspective however, forces me to recognize that Jesus is speaking directly at me with his words. Hmmm.

Why is it hard to maintain a Global Perspective? Because having such a perspective requires Global Responsibility. One that is convicting, counter-cultural, complicated and confussing. One that will be the subject of my next few blogs, and hopefully, my life.

How to Entertain Thousands (?)

Authentic Community. Those are the latest buzz words circling around my church as we try to develop, what we hope, to be the first successful "singles" ministry in the history of the Christian church. We all know there are plenty of sources of community out there available to single folk, like the bars and e-harmony, but truly how many of those sources are authentic? It really is a challenge to sit through long meetings with people of all ages with all kinds of opinions and baggage and try to figure out in which way we can satiate the need for the hundreds, possibly a couple of thousand single people who call that church home. People who are seeking out, not just a community, but one that is authentic and exceptional to what they may find at a bar or on-line. (Yes I go, at times regretfully and at other times thankfully, to what could be coined officially now a "mega-church").

These extensive meetings have got me digesting what is considered to be authentic community in my life and what is just plain ole' community. So far I have come to the determination that everything is to some degree my community. The levels of authenticity, however, varies in many ways. For instance, there's my community at work. I can always count on the fact that at some point during my shift, I will laugh. My community there is hysterical and I never ceased to be entertained by the daily interactions with the people who, at the end of the day, I probably spend the most consecutive hours with on a consistent basis. I also have my on-line community according to myspace that is currently 197,678,629, of which only 138 might even come close to any degree of authenticity, and one of my closest to authentic communities that is the two people in my life who I would consider to be my "best friends." Even though I have little or no direct interaction with these two girls regularly because of geography, they certainly are among the people who know me best. But then again I don't know that "knowing me" well is what would determine the authenticity of my community anymore than "making me laugh" would. Part of knowing me well is knowing all aspects of me and there is always community of my family, both immediate and extended which is certainly one that I would consider authentic because of how much we care and love, but not necessarily people who I would rank all of the guys I've made out with in the same way I would with, say the community of my roommates who know that context of my life the best. I'm not really sure which to be more authentic, but I have a feeling that how well a person "knows me" isn't necessarily the best indicator of authenticity of the relationship.

So I realize that I don't have the answers to what would make a successful community at my home church because inevitably, someones needs will not be met no matter what we decide. Someones (maybe 50 someones) feelings will get hurt or they wont agree with the way things are being run. I would say that it would be easier if I went to a smaller church, but I'm someone who has be burned by a smaller church in the past so I know that numbers really has little to do with the success of a community. Knowing each other, making each other laugh, and loving each other all really don't provide clear cut solutions either, so what is it that makes a group of people feel like the community that they are in is worthwhile and truly authentic?

2 + 2 = God's will?

As my plans for departure to Thailand in May seem to be falling into place smoothly, I cant help but be a little concerned about the math involved in embarking on such an adventure. First and foremost is the math of money. I just got an estimate from my missions coordinator down at Navs headquarters in the Springs and he guesses that I'll need quite a bit more (by the thousands) than I was expecting. He claims that raising money is far easier than I might expect and that I will be amazed and humbled to see how God "shows up" in this area, yet I still remain fearful. Maybe it's the American in me, but the math of money seems overwhelming at the moment. Another mathematical concern, and this should come as no huge surprise to anyone who knows me or has ever read any entry to my blog, is that I want to get married someday and that I'd rather it happen in my 20's or 30's and not my 70's or 80's. And of course a couple of nights ago I was laying in bed realizing that if I spend up to a year in Thailand, that will definitely postpone my meeting, courting, engagement, marriage hopes for at least another year. Another mathematical disaster.

So at what point do we give up on the numbers floating around in our head and just turn our fear and concern over to the God who is far bigger than the American dollar sign and the undeniable "biological clock" of a woman? He created the universe after all, yet is still loving and personal enough to work through the math in all aspects of our lives. I have no doubt that the context of my fears about money and marriage is not what He intends when I look forward to this new adventure with the eager anticipation of His work in a relatively untouched region. He cares and has plans for the math in my life, certainly, but I know that in no way should my fear of math ever inhibit my journey of response to what I see as His will to serve in foreign lands. Stay tuned as I continue to solve for 'y' during the next few months.

"To the Bandana Republic!" -J. Timberlake

Yvan eht Nioj. What does that even mean?
-Lisa
It's meaningless. Like rama-lama-ding-dong, or Give Peace a Chance.
-Homer

Odd. That's how I would describe this weekend. Disturbing might be another apt description. For the past 9 years August drill weekend for the Army National Guard has always involved shooting M-16s at targets. It's a routine and like it or not I've had to endure real Army tasks on occasion, and for the most part, this time around at the range was no different. Hooah. The odd bit about the weekend, though, was the living conditions for the past two nights. Typically we've stayed in "open-bay" style barracks and have had to endure wearing shoes to the shower and MRE's for meals 3 times a day. Given that our unit is used to hotels that give you warm cookies upon check-in and mountain bike rentals at group rates, for the band, living in tile floor bays with wall lockers and community showers during weapons qual. weekend is really roughing it.

Way back when, Dwight D. Eisenhower was injured in a big world war. Then he was treated for his injuries, at Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs. Because of this, the hospital building that doubled as the mental ward in the 80's, is still in existence and also happened to be the barracks, ummm....rather ward, that my unit and a few others had to stay in the past two nights. The floors were disgusting and probably hadn't been swept in years, the beds stained, and the bathrooms untouchable. So I don't sound like a princess who cant stand unusual sleeping facilities, I must state that I've spent many nights out in the woods and I would have much rather been camping outside using the La"tree" rather than the sick Latrine in this nasty place. I've never seen a building so decrepit and unkempt and I cant believe that the Army/government expects their soldiers to live in these conditions right here in the US. I've talked to many soldiers coming off of deployment and I know that the accommodations overseas are better.

Anyways, I also call it a ward because of the crazy things that happened in the night. Though I slept through the whole ordeal, apparently a girl from another unit wandered in late at night and sat right down on the bed next to me, which was occupied with one of the women in my unit, and proceeded to drop her pants and pee. When the woman in my unit woke up and noticed what was happening, she pushed the girl who then tried to kiss her, (ohmigosh this is a disgusting story) and cursed at her to get out of her bed. The girl got up and the woman in my unit watched the girl pace the room flicking a lighter and talking incoherently for the rest of the night. Weird. I know. And I slept through the whole thing. We're giving the girl the benefit of the doubt and determining that she's probably suffering from a bit of PTSD from Iraq. Otherwise she's just crazy. Needless to say she peed on the wrong bed and the guys in our unit threw a fit the next morning and found us little ladies a new living situation for the next night. Thank goodness.

I don't know what you want call it. Some would say bad karma, others would say it's some sort of evil presence because of the history in this military barracks, turned hospital, turned psychiatric ward, turning national guard housing unit for weapons qualification. I just want to call it used up and ready to be demolished. Maybe I slept in the bed that Pres. Eisenhower slept in when he was rehabilitating from his injuries, but I really don't care. I'm just happy to be currently sitting on my couch watching, ironically, the episode of the Simpsons where the Navy uses subliminal messages through "Project Boy Band" to recruit kids. And tonight I'll be sleeping, comfortably in my own bed.