visual memories from the north country

needles highway


montana sky




the badlands at sunset




holly and elizabeth, and one majestic buffalo


yellowstone hot springs


tree in yellowstone


i miss you and i miss home
i love it here and i'd love to be gone
when i return, make me be brave
make me be weak, and make me be grave
help me dance in Christ's joy and weep with creation's pain
until the return of Christ our redemption, who forever will reign

corner of chicago and ashland

Pennies, face up, are good luck. Slight good luck in our economy, but luck itself is a precious commodity akin to hope. And hope, whether valued at a cent or constructed as a rainbow, is one of only three things that actually remain.

There was one such heads-up, hopeful penny on the corner of Chicago and Ashland where we met Robert. Within an acquaintance of two hours, our time with Robert would challenge some of our limited conceptions about urban homelessness.

Robert and I spotted the penny at the same time, but it was Robert, himself asking for pennies, who forbade me from picking this one up.
“It’s heads up. Good luck. Leave that for somebody else.”
We did, and Robert, Nikki, Casey, Elizabeth, and I walked the two blocks from Robert’s corner to the local coffee shop with WiFi access. We shared drinks, and he shared his sandwich with Casey and Nikki.
Mostly, though, we listened.

Listened to Robert, three months new to Chicago, speak on such varied subjects as the twelve tribes of Israel and the perils of excessive gold teeth. Not at all the type of conversation our preconceived notions would have envisioned.
In special ed since 4th grade, Robert’s ability to be just as conversant as us was humbling. Often, there is an arrogance among formally educated people where condescension colors even sincere kindness.

So four subtly shocked suburban girls sat speechless for a more proper education.

Robert panhandles because he is schizophrenic and hears voices and must deal with people on his own terms which themselves are highly dictated by his medication. Even accompanying four non-menacing white girls to a coffee shop on a sunny Sunday afternoon was unnerving for him. Paranoia and anxiety mark the mentally ill and to ask someone to “trust us and you’ll get dinner” suddenly seems very unfair.

And the alcohol on his breath is no more than what I have smelt on my own friends’ breaths, yet never critiqued their choices.

We figured Robert’s childhood contributed to his situation on the streets, but six years old and raped? A mom who bore him at 14? Best friends gunned down just hours after you saw them? Poor decisions borne of poor conditions.
Robert never made excuses, but retained a dignity that says one shouldn’t have to.

Mozart was one of our final topics and he exited unassumingly with his bags.
He wants a job, but needs an ID.

I have a strong desire to dissect here, and the questions are worthy of discussion…
Why should a stranger trust you enough to go anywhere with you? Where do people with mental or physical impairments go if they have no family? What else can you do if the streets are literally all you have ever known? Where are the second and third chances? Why are people in shelters when so many Christians have spare rooms?
…but internal reflection seemed more befitting our encounter.
Issues have faces, and statistics drink Iced Raspberry Mocha’s and sometimes you just feel as if Jesus would have handled things differently. So you just remain silent.

There is a penny, face up, on the corner of Chicago and Ashland. Robert left it there, and maybe, just maybe, hope remains.




(holly)

afterthoughts on the altar (i am not like my Jesus)

I am not at all like my Jesus.

My worship has been convenient, slight.
Ephemeral and immaterial--a good girl with a limited glory.

No--my Jesus is GLORY.
He stands at the threshold of time ushering it away--He will come. A sweeping return and the storms will cower at His majesty.
Beautiful and terrible to behold.

No--I am not at all like that.
Hiding under the bed, crying at the storm, my distrust weakens my vision and I no longer see that I was fashioned thunder, lightening, and rain.
Glorious, my Jesus WAS and IS and IS TO COME.
The very voice of God calling to one still deciding on her voice.

There are roads and maps and signs and I am too stupid to find the way.

No--I am not like my Jesus.
Opening doors, tipping well, hoping for greatness, yet my deeds condense into a small box labeled self.
Having never really died nor lived.
Lukewarm is the venomous adjective best describing my treachery.
My Jesus went to the people fixed on ripping and shattering and butchering His body and encouraged them “take, eat.”
I just take.
Eat.
Consume.
Devour.
Ravenous, there is good I will not do, but none I will not take.

No--my Jesus loves widely, wildly with hands stained by dirt, tears, blood, and hope.
If I were like my Jesus, I would cup the widow’s head in my hands and say--”tell me your story. Let my heart break with yours.”
And I would find the one every time and forget the rich, easy beauty of the ninety-nine.
My Jesus sees.
And He sees me.
I stand beloved despite my infidelity and adultery. He winks at me with stars and creates for me new colors.
My selfish hands meagerly offer leftovers and litter. Afterthoughts at the altar.
Flesh and divinity, I am too soon the harlot and too much ice to embrace either.

No--I am not like me Jesus.
But He loves me.

He calls this vagabond, princess.
His beloved, baby girl, daughter.
He loves me unfairly, extravagantly.
He sees more in me than my mirror-enslaved eyes can fathom.
He leads me to still waters even as I chase the waterfall.

No.
I am not like my Jesus.
My words do not drip life.
My fragrance does not heal.
My touch is more sandpaper than velvet.
I am so marred.
He is so clean.

But I have been bought at a great price and my limitedness is redeemed.
He is, so I can be.
All my wretchedness enveloped in a new inexplicable beauty.

“When Christ, who is your life, appears,
then you also will appear with Him in glory.”
Colossians 3:4




(holly)

pictures from milwaukee and a quick word

church at holy hill


steeple of church at holy hill



we're leaving again tomorrow for the rest of our trip. we're focusing on the cities of chicago, seattle, and portland so that we can glean and serve with communities and people for longer periods of time, instead of moving quickly from city to city. the others and i don't do well with writing in here, and i think the majority of our communication about the trip will be done in the emails, so this most likely will remain more of a personal notepad and sketchpad of sorts.

i look forward to seeing you all in august.

snapshots

just a few pictures from our trip so far.
for more go to http://flickr.com/photos/treeswillclap
enjoy!

our faithful ride


reba place fellowship


view from a place in evanston


the bean in chicago


view from millenium park


view from the navy pier


the metra


building by the river

we have only just begun

i apologize that we have not yet posted a blog about what we have been experiencing. we still have much to process and discuss, and this blog will surely provide little of what we wish to share.

our first few days in chicago were spent with reba place community in evanston, illinois. we were humbled by their hospitality and humility. while we were there, we were welcomed many times to share meals with the Clearing, one of the most organized and diverse homes within the community. we also shared meals with several different homes within the community, enjoying the knowledge and encouragement of many different reba people. we worshiped at reba place church with the entire fellowship, we conversed with many members of the community about the function of each home and the role of the community within the surrounding neighborhood, we worked in gardens, visited the recyclery, and witnessed and heard of their work to generate social change by actively seeking change and by serving and loving their neighbors. but most importantly, we experienced the incarnate body of Christ.

we left reba place on tuesday and have been staying with a friend of a friend in arlington heights, outside of chicago (thank you, brad). here, we are still experiencing hospitality and the kindness of the body. we will be here until friday. we spent all day in downtown chicago yesterday. i can't even begin to tell you how much we walked. we enjoyed the busyness and vastness of the city, and also the city's quaint familiarity. we all love chicago.

as i said before, holly, casey, and i have a lot to continue to pray about, discuss, and process. our hope is to be able to share that with you as we are able. thank you for your continued prayers, encouragement, and concern.

Nikki

p.s. i had every intention of posting pictures today, but my camera cord is back at jimmy's house, so i'll post them later.

we're in chicago! (evanston, actually)

hello all! i just wanted you guys to know that we arrived in chicago safely on friday night at 2 am.

we have been interacting, working, eating, and speaking with members of the reba place community in chicago. they are wonderfully kind and hospitable people. tomorrow we will be given the official tour and talk, so we will surely have much to ponder and discuss tomorrow. already the trip has given us much to think about and pray about.

we love chicago and we love the city of evanston. it's fantastic. right now we're sitting at a coffee shop in downtown evanston, not far from the lake. the shins, radiohead,and regina spektor were playing earlier. gooooooood.

we hope you all are doing well. we will be posting more soon. we thank you for your prayers.

be the light, be the hands, and be the grace of Christ.

nikki

personal note- i seriously miss you all. i would love if you guys texted or called to say hello, and i will do the same.

and we're off...

lift me up and take me out of here (part 2)

most people who know about our trip to chicago also know that our plans have changed slightly- at least where i am concerned. as i explained, or at least attempted, in my last post about chicago is why we are going. i communicated some of my hesitations and unrest about going for a year. i had been trying to shake the feeling by talking to others about it and by chalking it up to fear. however, after talking to others, i grew more discouraged. finally, i talked with holly and casey, my two beautiful friends with whom i am making the journey. here's the change- i will be returning at the end of august instead of next may. i have a strong desire for a home, for stability, for a community. and that is why i will be returning early.

when i return, my hope is that i will be able to move into east atlanta and live as a small community with people whom i love dearly. there is a community of people there who love each other and love their neighbors, but most of all, desire to please the Lord. if i am unable to move in there, i will seek to be content with living where i can, with whom i can, doing what i can.

there are the huge details of where i will live and where i will work, as well as when i can enter graduate school. perhaps i should be more worried about these details, but for the time being, i simply am not. ok, i am sort of.

that's all for now. i will post our chicago letter later. i ask kindly, yet pleadingly, for your prayers. now and as we set out on our trip. thank you.

all things new

i have been renewed and encouraged, as well as challenged. the body has functioned as the body.

amen.

weak

today and last night are probably the lowest i've felt in a very long time. please don't offer me your pity, just listen to what i have to say. i'm writing this because i know i'm not the only one.

there are these creeping emotions and insecurities that circle me and poke at me tauntingly as if i am a defenseless child. they circle and scream and laugh viciously as i stand with my head hung. they get in my head and dance around, and when i try to shake them, the resistance just makes me weary, and by then, they have won. i know i am not the only one they taunt.

there is the life-sucking, ever-present sense of "you're not good enough for...". you're not pretty enough. you're not fun enough. you're not serious enough. you're don't love the Lord enough. you're not talented enough. you're not smart enough. you're just not enough.

satan attacks where i am weak and when i am weak. and i am weak. i'm mentally vulnerable, spiritually vulnerable, and especially emotionally vulnerable. Jesus Christ, may we find our hope and our worth in you, always. may we not settle for the lie that we are not enough, because we are created in your image, the most Worthy, and we have been redeemed by you, the most High. may our sadness humble us and push us to crawl to You. in our sadness may we still joyously praise.

writing this renders me vulnerable, but so be it, because that is what i am. we all need to be more vulnerable.

lift me up and take me out of here

i have been trying for about two weeks to put together a paragraph (!) about exactly why i am going to chicago. it's been tough; it's hard for me to articulate exactly why i'm going. i've been doing a lot (a lot a lot) of talking about it, especially in the last three months or so. when i first began speaking about it, i felt ridiculous trying to explain something that i couldn't even grasp in my mind. well, now i have a clearer idea of why we're going, and yet, still the words escape me.

perhaps first i should explain what this journey is for; what we hope to do, experience, and see. two friends (holly and casey) and i are traveling to chicago beginning in june. we are going on this trip to learn about and experience christian community development. christian community development combines components of community (shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ), simplicity, and social justice. we will be staying and serving with already-established christian communities (see shane claiborne's irresistable revolution for more details), churches, and families. we say we're moving to chicago, but actually, we hope to be able to travel to other communities across the nation. we hope to glean much knowledge and heart from such developments such as lawndale and reba place in chicago, christ the servant king in oregon, and the simple way in pennsylvania, just to name a few. we are all interested in experiencing how each community interacts with the members of its community, its neighbors, and the living God.

the end-goal (besides the richness of such experience) is to bring back our knowledge and experience to georgia. holly and casey will most likely return to newnan, and implement their experiences and knowledge with village hope, an organization based in newnan that works to "generate hope by empowering individuals and creating interdependent communities." i most likely will not return to newnan. i love atlanta, i love being in atlanta. i know my desires may change and direction can be redirected, but as far as right now, i'd like to return to atlanta, be closely and intimately involved with the community at Trinity, and live as a community with whom i am able.

so sure, that sounds great. then why am i so scared? this trip is going to require a degree of simplicity and raw trust that is honestly extemely tough for me. i am scared of what i am leaving here, scared of what i'll see, scared of being broken. i will see things that will beg me to surrender and repent, and i am terrified. i will see things that will expose my vanity and selfishness. i will see things that will require me to change, and if not, i am running from grace and restoration. i will be face to face with God- in his glory, in his magnificence. i will both long to curl up in his hand and at the same time, desire to run as far and as fast as i can- back to 'normalcy' and ignorance. i am scared of how the stripping away of security and comfort will reveal how flawed i am. i desire that, but at the same time, i am utterly terrified of it. i pray that the trip breaks me, shapes me, and restores me.

let's be fair here- there are lots of reasons i want to stay. most of the reasons are in the faces of the people that i care about deeply. some of the other reasons aren't quite so clear or palpable. i know that i desire stability, and i know this trip will provide very little of literal stability. i desire to be in a place where i know people intimately and they know me intimately. i desire to serve whole-heartedly in a local church. i desire to know my neighbors. i desire to be in a flourishing and beautiful relationship with someone (yes, i said it). all that will come and will have it's place, Lord willing.

yet, despite all i say about my fear and hesitance, i know that i need to go. despite all uncertainty and all of my doubts, i will go.

i will go.

i am pretty sure that i have communicated very little of what i really set out to communicate here. that's ok. these words, for now, must be sufficient for me. i'd love to dialogue about this more with anyone. and yes, thank you for your patience in reading this. your prayers and spoken wisdom are beautiful and would be greatly appreciated.

- - - - - - - - - -

Sun, shine a light
Someone take me, teach me how to fly
And onto something for which I would die
But I just don't know what
And know I can taste the fear
Lift me up and take me out of here
You make it all concise and clear
You know I'm gonna fade

as springtime lifts its sleepy head

first night to sleep with my windows open
first night to sleep in shorts
first day to wear sandals

springtime, i relish you,
but do not hasten away too soon.

p.s. thoughts about chicago to come. i think?

war

emory is holding a remembrance vigil right now since today marks the 4 year anniversary of the war. they are reading the names of iraqi and u.s. people that have died during these four years. this does not include the names of people who have been lost, displaced, injured, tortured, or emotionally scarred. one of the most jarring images was a field of black flags displayed on the lawn near the center of campus. each flag represented 150 deaths, and the lawn was covered. it was shocking. here are some numbers.

50,000-65,000 iraqis killed so far
3,180 american people killed so far
25,000 americans wounded so far
$400 billion spent so far
2 million iraqi refugees outside iraq
1.7 million iraqis internally displaced



what do we do?

i fought and fought, but i should have just gone outside

i've been trying very hard to formulate into words all the scattered, yet substantial (to me, at least) ideas and conflicts that both my mind and heart are tossing around. i'm trying so hard, they just won't come. so i am just going to write. who knows what may come.



i'm starting with this picture. here's why. it's me. it's me doing what i enjoy. me with no pretense or sense of my need to be beautiful or to fit in, or to be successful or mature. it's me. as a child. nature has a way of breaking me of my false sense of coolness or success. outside, i am a mere fragment of creation that is far more beautiful than i could ever imagine a human to be. i am as a small child, full of wonder and appropriately humbled. may i never forsake what my heart delights in to do what the world acknowledges as productive or successful. this idea, it's implications are huge, but i have only begun to understand.

but i do know this. i am sitting on my back porch, with the breeze and the warm sun. my favorite song by clem snide drifts outside and delights my ears. i hear birds, and i hear cars. there are two large bees in the corner of the porch buzzing feverishly. here i am free to write, free to commune, free to think. this is what i love. my job allows me such conveniences, and for that i am thankful. i know it won't always be this way.

but wait, that's exactly what i'm talking about. i desire to work and serve people with whatever i choose as my "career," but never ever do i want to lose sight of our timelessness. i will not have my life be about waking up, going to work, coming home to a family (ah, perhaps), and going to bed, just to do it all again the next day. in no way is anything in the previous statement intrinsically bad, but Lord have mercy on me if my life ever becomes centered around a particular job, a particular goal, a particular person. as my kindred says, nothing is urgent except Christ. what i'm saying is that if i get to a point where i have lost sight of the Kingdom first, loving God and loving people, and have replaced such things with shadows and concrete, i have failed.

i'd like to write more, but i feel as if what i've written is all i need to say for now. i will write more when i can, when i'm not trying to force it.

p.s. go to a park or something. seriously. do it.

bear with me

i have many thoughts these days that i'd like to share, but they seem to evade clarity when i attempt to form them into words, written or audible. i will update soon, with my own thoughts, my own words.

perhaps i am just writing this to make a covenant with myself. it is very possible i am the only one who reads this. (if you do read this, this is not a plea for recognition or for pity, really.)

p.s. these kind of days bring me to life. beautiful.

come incarnate Christ!

i pray that his very real flesh would clothe you
molding around your skin
may he be your new wineskin
may he be the glow on your face
blushing with with weakness
made perfect in his strong beholding hands

liberal saturation of his spirit
inundation of mind body and soul
water damage
come Dear; ravage

he is so very near
and our hands so savage

drowning your insides
in intoxicating adoration
longsuffering
the promises held out
far
before our birth
of an invisible reality
unveiled to us
the adulterated
blinded by
our assurance of his faithfulness

[a written prayer of a beloved friend: jm]




so we say, "Christ be incarnate in us." not for our own vanishing glory, but so that we, as the body of Christ, would actually be so. the tangible, fleshy embodiment of Christ. let us be.

lenten prayer

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.

St. Ephrem the Syrian.

[more later, i promise.]

"what do you say?" [thank you]

today i am quite thankful for my warm sheets and for chai, for the one bird outside my window this morning, for friends that call to invite me to lunch, for the elderly man who kindly smiled at me today, and for text messages from my kindred.

the confession of the body, and one hand

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Father, I pray for the grace to relinquish what separates me from you, the heart to serve and love your body as you have, the boldness to be faithful, the wisdom to be gentle, and the humility to reside with you.

Not me, but Christ in me.I seek what elevates me, and what proclaims my glory.
Humble me, Father, What a terrifying thing.

Amen.

inaugural words

i am a person of few written words, and sometimes, few spoken. however, i realize the immeasurable value of the written form. so this is where i attempt to scrounge up the adequate words and relay the hesitant emotions that i find- in me.

so here we go.