future employers STAY OUT

*psst* this is my name if you met me at church and can’t remember and we’ve known each other too long for you to ask again because that would be awkward.

In a moment that managed to combine great thoughtlessness with great prescience, my parents gave me a name that sounds like several other names and then they spelled it like they wished we were Welsh. They have apologized for the ensuing confusion.

But really they shouldn’t have. Sure, I have a hard time introducing myself to old people; but my parents had me a little too early to recognize the genius in what they were doing, which was in fact making me extraordinarily Google-able. Once people figure out who I am, that is.

If you Google me, you will quickly find several pages that are actually directly related to me, along with other mentions of less-important Lyndsey Graves-es. It helps that I’m a fairly active participant in the Internet (in fits and bursts, at least).

Having, like most twentysomethings, little else to manage and interface with and delete emails from, I indulged in one such fit; yesterday I joined tumblr (find me so I can follow you!), and today I joined LinkedIn. I only wanted to follow people and save hipstery photographs (tumblr) and use other people for my own professional advancement (LinkedIn).

But that LinkedIn account sent me into a minor identity crisis here at my desk on Tuesday morning. I don’t know how to author one of those! I know how to write a résume - describe my mostly-adequate experience and accomplishments with aggresively grandiose jargon, prioritize experience most relevant to job applied for, and keep it out of the hands of people who actually know me. I also know how to write a blog post – be honest, and always include some run-on sentences (those are especially honest). And my Facebook profile is a hodgepodge of shared social justice articles and all the one-liners I’m going to put in my mockumentary someday.

Inviting my friends and teachers into my fledgling professional life, though – that’s something I’ve hesitated to do, and writing my profile I remembered why. THEY DON’T BELONG THERE, that’s why. Or, to be more accurate, I’d really just rather not have to combine the two. Where my LinkedIn profile says “Young Adult Ministry,” my friends have all heard me say “young adult ministry… whatever that means *snort*”.

The only reason I got an account is because I’m so Google-able. The care and keeping of one’s work life, online-writing-hobby life, and real-world-relationships separately is a quaint but unhelpful notion anymore. A savvy employer will find  me. I won’t get to print my information onto expensive heavy paper and hand in that version of myself. They will see all my snark, earnestness, controversial opinions, and personal celebrations, in descending order by popularity measured in page hits; and that will be the same picture whether they’re at a university, an online writing venue, or whatever coffee shop employs Ph.D.s in theology.

Every little piece of ourselves that we tether onto a corner of the internet becomes a dot that others can connect to form a picture of us – in most cases, an indelible dot. Another quaint but fairy-tale-ish notion from the past? Moving across the country and “starting over”. The activity from your past is recorded; your current whereabouts are in the searchable White Pages; and your online identity is a cloud made of thousands of tiny water droplets – every tweet, every like, every friend and “connection”.

Which makes it all the more difficult, even if you’re doing your best to be intentional about creating that identity. My coworkers are disconcerted that I wore jeans and only jeans in the winter, but have started dressing up in the summer. They need me to stay in one place once they’ve got me figured out. But it’s difficult, impossible even, to project a consistent image across multiple platforms, so they’re going to have to live with the uncertainty of knowing a dynamo like me.

In the end, though, I think I’m hopeful. I may never be able to convince a hiring manager that I’m a straitlaced, whitebread, grown-up individual with absolutely no slightly Communist ideals. But then again maybe all that overblown résume language, when it served to identify me, was actually as bad for my soul as it felt.

Maybe I am glad that where my LinkedIn account says “lead volunteer, Havenplace”, my friends are standing by, perhaps remembering the tears I cried over those kids and the ways I was changed by those kids. Maybe some of my connections will be those kids.

Maybe it is good that my name forces me to stand out a little, and I can choose to rise to that serendipitous, unlooked-for occasion. Maybe, even if I discover that everything I ever posted in my twenties was a gigantic appalling mistake, I’ll not forget that humility is the rarest and most endearing quality an academic – or a human – can ever possess.

Maybe the internet, this weirdly ephemeral medium that once flooded the world with concerns about anonymity, will finally make us better people by exposing us so.

May my own Facebook photos reveal integrity – a life actually lived the way my blog claims I hope for.

And may those two blog posts I tried to hide please dear goodness really stay that way.

I’m back at On Pop Theology again today, with my two cents on Tony Jones’ article. For better or for worse.

It’s called Let’s All Talk About What We’re Tired Of.

when the homeless guy is me

“Middle class Christians talk of sin, repentance, and forgiveness. It is a very orderly, sanitized process. Sin is when we are unkind in word or deed, repentance is when we say “I’m sorry”, and forgiveness is the expected response to anyone’s “I’m sorry”. There is no cosmic battle here, no spiritual warfare.”
-Ministry With the Homeless, John Flowers and Karen Vannoy

But shouldn’t sin, repentance, and forgiveness be the wildest words in the world? Perhaps we are so bored and lackluster precisely because we are too prideful to believe our addiction to television or the grudges we hold against our parents are actually separating us from God and poisoning the world around us. What if we really saw ourselves in comparison to the life we were made for? Would we not understand our respectable, comfortable, over-processed lives to be the mud-wallowing, pitiful farce that they are?

We wonder how the homeless could get so comfortable with homelessness, with alcoholism, we wish they would dream bigger. But the “dream” we have for them – the acceptable minimum of an apartment and some groceries and the heat on in the winter – is not an objective reality of happiness or prosperity; it is nothing more than a cultural norm we’ve accepted as the standard for “success”.

In truth, the homeless, the mentally ill, the addicted person lives closer to reality than most of us, precisely because he or she experiences life as a cosmic struggle for survival; while the middle-class mediocracy has already lost the struggle. Neither person lives an abundant life. But the second, who simply settles for what is before him, doesn’t even know it.

And the point is not that this vanilla, moderately successful guy should be ashamed and try harder; the point is that he is missing out on an incredible gift, the life that is truly life. He is missing out on the kingdom of God, the restoration of relationships into their right order, all things made new, and the realization that every moment, every breeze, every person is an incredible gift. The God of the universe died for all these, and we count them as ho-hum occurrences? The God of the universe gives us the power to defeat death, and we cower in a corner, insulated from any risk?

This is what we cannot get our heads around, that we are all the most gorgeous, elegant, promising of creatures, and all have fallen short, all are truly worms when we see every selfish action for what it is – sin, horrible and insidious and life sucking. We cannot begin on the path towards life until we understand the tragedy of this, even though deep down I think we know it. Might it be that pity makes me so uncomfortable, because I have not come to terms with the fact that I should rightly pity myself?

For months, maybe more than a year, I lived in a haze of mild depression. It was never diagnosed, but now that I am on “the other side” I can see very clearly: I cried for no reason nearly every day, slept and ate too much, and withdrew into a shame and hopelessness I could not understand. Most people describe depression in surprisingly similar ways; it is like suffocating in darkness, and all the thrashing about you can muster only tightens the blackness around you.

Emerging from that pit was like a second salvation, when over the course of a few weeks I realized that I was finally and rather suddenly free. Simply feeling “normal” again was so foreign that there was a brightness to everything I’d never noticed before. For a time, I truly did see every breeze, every moment, and every friend as a spectacular and breathtaking gift, because I was free somehow to enjoy it. I finally understood what a monstrous thing it would be to waste any scrap of those marvelous things – ironically, at the very point when I felt free from the senseless guilt and shame I’d experienced. And there, in that freedom, the very greatest gift of all: that God’s gratuitous grace was ever poured out broader and deeper than my own infinite monstrosity, inspiring a gratitude that covered over all the rest.

But most of the time, I see myself as neither a very wonderful and beautiful, nor a very horrible and dangerous creature, when in fact I am in most moments both. Still I catch glimpses of both selves, even as I believe the Spirit helps me every day to tip the balance a little farther to the former side. I see my own brilliant potential when I am cooking a spectacular dinner or making a friend laugh, when I am completely present and completely grateful in those moments. And I see my shadow self, too, when I am being manipulative or petulant with my boyfriend, my family – or even the people I serve at the Friday pantry. The more aware I become that my own life is an epic drama, the more I do recognize these two realities at work. As I look back to my own past, or face new and humbling challenges in the present, I am reminded of my own proclivity to stray away from what is best towards my own selfish will. And as I trust God’s slow stirrings within me, I find the joy of sharing my best self with others.

The more I learn about my own incredible capacities for both creation and destruction, the more clearly I can see both in other people. And the more God’s work appears in my life, redeeming what I have destroyed and making me into a better creator, the more hope I have for others.

And this is why I, who have always enjoyed relative prosperity and the appearance of a squeaky-clean record of conduct, relate better most days with the addicts and the victims I find among the homeless than with the self-righteous and boring among the upper middle class. I’m not an alcoholic, but I’ve self-medicated with my own little addictions. I’ve never gambled my life away, but I’ve sure wasted some precious things. And I’ve never been physically abused, but I’ve dealt with my own kinds of wounds; I know what it is to need an understanding ear and a gentle challenge to keep moving forward. And here, over institutional food and a paper plate, is where I find the few people I know who are willing to be honest about how broken and childlike we all remain behind the band-aids and defenses.

So as I point people toward the clothing closet and the free clinic down the street, may I honor their wild humanity and their deepest needs by pointing them also towards the God who loved me beyond my own wounds and my own self-destruction. May I never dare to believe that they need my food or even my listening ear more than they need my Lover and his restoration into the kingdom that is coming. May I never dare to believe that anyone needs him more than I.

sunshine and strawberry scones

I keep sitting down to write and throwing it all out. Really unpublishable drivel.

But there’s a new recipe over here. If you’re interested, go ahead and subscribe to the other blog separately, and if not, that’s OK because I won’t keep linking there from here.

Happy May!

 

to wend a way

It was a wilderness I didn’t quite know I was entering, a tenuous in-between space that turned far more strange and wandering than planned. This whole year, far from home, is so incredibly different than I expected, I cannot untangle and describe all that is good and hard, frustrating and valuable. Not even to myself. Not even – especially – not to God.
—
Did that pillar ever disappear? Did they ever just sit a few days because the pillar had gone missing no matter how much they believed? That was most of my wilderness. Just an unfamiliar landscape to be survived without direction, without purpose; subsisting on yet more that feels foreign, yes, even the blessings. Falling in love, free time, manna? (what is it?)

But God comes back, God reminds us who we are. I may never understand these forth-and-back movements, except to name them “seasons” and seek peace in the midst. Yet we sing and pray and keep faith, because the other gods “do not dwell among men” but the God of Daniel teaches us to prophesy and follows us into the fiery furnace – a wild journey indeed it is, to go with this God who returns.

God returned last week, nodding over my shoulder as I read Daniel, and soon I fell to begging all the harder for answers – “Where are we GOING?” – and God said nothing, maybe a whispered patience and a hope that I would find the pillar in the woods.
—
And I went to the real wilderness – at least, I went to the New York countryside. I drove south, and I went whatever way looked promising. I took the side roads that made their ways into forest, but I found only farms and homes. My feet longed to traipse the earth, my heart to find real solitude. And I prayed, and I drove on.

And then I knew where I was going, like I remembered the way; I passed some roads, rounded a bend, and hit the brakes because I knew to turn here. A couple miles past more houses, some posted trails, and there the sign: New York State Forest.

Have you ever come home and cried? I stepped onto the trail and I cried for how much I needed the trees and the walking alone, no pavement, no sirens.

I followed the Spirit off the trail – that direction, there is something there – and found another, higher trail. I followed the Spirit to water and to stillness and to peace. I followed a deer to the morning’s rut. It was Earth Day.

The Answer was not in that forest; I may never know The Right Thing To Do In The Future with certainty. This has never been the way with me. Only sometimes I know with certainty what I am to do here, now, and the path winds up and around; it makes little sense; and there is an indescribable peace in following this inscrutable way. Then I try to discover the reasons, or look into the future, or simply get distracted, and I have stopped listening; and I have aimed myself at something in the distance; and I am following no longer.
—
I used to know a lot about myself, my convictions, and my desires. Now I know less; I am less ambitious; less confident. I know the wilderness is bigger than I, and God yet larger and more untamed, but Her mercy is without measure. Even as the hazy vision of a way appears in the distance, the point of this journey remains unclear; this new humility uncertain; the desert uncomfortable; and I still don’t know what I am becoming.

We usually hope someone will come along to show us the shortcut out of the wilderness, or at least assign some meaning to its twists and turns and especially its pains. But my wilderness is my own, and I know only that I am not through it yet. You will wander for your own reasons, and neither of us may ever know them.

I can say only one thing. God is with us. We can be lost without being lost, and in all our wanderings and searching anxieties still God sees us, there in the palm of his hand. When the pillar is gone, when you can’t see the way, when you’re left to walk alone on legs that will not hold, still. Know that God was with our fathers and mothers in faith, and God. Is. With. You.

We will be found. We will be led, into trust, moment by moment. Grace is near, and there will be water; may we of little faith, we of little strength, we the broken, stubborn, and confused, all find rest.

the everyday, or, an announcement

I’ve concluded that I’m not much of a blogger.

I’m a writer, and I write on a blog. But I’m really not cut out for the “blogging community”. I don’t have a posting schedule. I don’t have the stomach for the endless hair-splitting, and side-taking. And I feel icky doing the kind of relentless self-promotion and hot-topic-mongering that seem to garner views and followers. Even when great opportunities fall in my lap, I’m pretty bad at following up.

This is really, I promise, not to disparage blogging or bloggers. I read a lot of blogs, and I really do admire those who have put lots of work into gaining an audience and producing quality stuff. I just don’t have the passion to do that much work myself.

I like real life. I like my real life friends. I feel awkward on twitter. I don’t have a manifesto.

I’M NOT LEAVING THOUGH. You couldn’t make me. Really… it’s a love/hate/love/love relationship.

What I am doing is adding something new…

 

Yes! It’s a food blog! Because there is a dearth of recipes on the internet!

Not two weeks ago I asked Nate why he thought anyone would start a food blog, as if there aren’t enough people making comments about their recipes for everyone.

The next day, I realized that my yogurt-and-berry parfait was a thing of overwhelming beauty and the world lost something important the hour I ate it without photographing it at dramatic angles.

But really, it’s just for me. Because this is going to be fun. Because my thoughts on being poor and trying to eat never seem to fit here. Because it’s a place to celebrate the everyday even when every day there’s only $4 worth of food. It is more than enough, even as I try to work out all the complexity of food and poverty and governments, sin and beauty and contentment.

Want to check it out?

(there’s apple-blueberry french to-oast…..)

because it’s not my tragedy

Today I’m back at On Pop Theology with the only thing I could possibly write this week. It was strange, having something planned and then watching its meaning change so radically in light of events.

I am suspicious of people who know what to think.They knew the answers long before we asked the questions – Why? How?– or else they aren’t thinking at all, at least not about anyone but themselves.

Even now, I wonder what I could possibly add to this conversation; especially since this post won’t go out until a few days after Boston, and you will wonder why OPT is harping on about this while everyone else has moved on.

Like everyone else I’ve talked to, I struggled at first, trying to feel sad, and then realized I can’t; I am only a little shocked, and afraid, and ashamed that I don’t pray more often for those who live their lives shocked and afraid every day in other regions of the world. And I’m angry. That’s the thing about terrorism, isn’t it? Disease and tragedy and disaster happen to people all the time, and someone chooses to add to the chaos. Now suddenly people can’t run a foot race on a minor holiday?

Yesterday also marked one month since the death of an 18-year-old whose family I am close to.

I know what I feel, but I don’t know what to think.

Predictably, now that I’m at a loss, the only thing springing up to fill the void is the post I was already intending to write.

the rest, here.

P.S. I’m working on a project. You can see it when it’s done.

go there

I usually think there are far too many people running around the Internet saying “you’re privileged so shut up.” But if I were ever willing to risk being seen as one of those people, it would be about this. About all the thousand invisible things separating class from class from class.

I read this post last week, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Really, it’s been on my mind ever since it came out. The basic premise is, the author doesn’t “want diverse friends”, because searching out “diversity” is kind of using people; instead, she just has friends for various reasons, and they have turned out to be pretty diverse.

But I’ve tried and failed not to be annoyed by this one paragraph. Here it goes:

“I want to be open to friends. Just…friends. The kind of friends who gets excited about the new season of Arrested Development. The kind of friends who can argue about feminism with me and then go for coffee. The kind of friends who stay up late at night quoting movie lines and sharing a bottle of wine. The kind of friends who know what pictures on Facebook will crack me up and is sure to tag me in them. The kind of friends who see what I’m not saying and don’t let me get away with that.”

Arrested Development, feminism, going for coffee, movie lines, bottles of wine, and the right pictures on Facebook?

All. So. Middle. Class.

—

During Lent I led a discussion series on poverty based on the Sojourners video series Justice for the Poor. I watched Jim Wallis talk for twenty minutes every week for five weeks, and there is one thing I remember, the thing he said that struck me as powerful and true and world-changing. He said if you want to do justice, if you want to see things change, if you’re ready to break out,

then you have to go to the places you’re not supposed to go.

This world is designed to keep you where you are. It is stratified and segregated so that you do not have to feel uncomfortable or out of place, to keep you satisfied and sedated so you will not bother the people in power. Do I sound Marxist enough for you to dismiss me yet? I’m just saying, the places you live and play and work and buy are probably set up so that you do not encounter people much richer or much poorer than you because either way, that could be embarrassing. If they are there, they are not “normal”.

Giving money and volunteering to serve people turkey on Thanksgiving are real nice things to do. They’re also real easy things to do, and they are calculated decisions you make to enact a Good Deed. They can also, if you squint long enough and hard enough, be just the balm you need to stop worrying about the poor. And then again, if you do a lot of those kinds of things, you can wear yourself down to a little nub of striving anxiety, wondering if you’ve done enough yet.

Do the words “social justice” light a fire in your heart? Do you really want to buck the system? Or even – do you want to know what you’re talking about when you talk about welfare moms?

then start being friends with the poor.

Do you want to fall in love with the oppressed the way God does?

then you have to go to the places where you’re not supposed to go.

There are about a hundred catches, though. At first – and by that, I mean for weeks or months or years – you won’t be in any kind of control, you won’t be any kind of comfortable, and you may not even be particularly welcome. You will be confused, angry, sad, shocked, and offended. This is because you are experiencing culture shock. You have entered a different world.

Bad things – mean words at the least - will most certainly happen to you, because that is how relationships are, because they don’t understand you any more than you understand them, because the poor do not live lives of safety.

But I’ve also seen beauty and life and laughter, and I’ve wondered if I could ever stand so resilient, I’ve admired a kind of resourceful smart you don’t see anywhere else. I’ve cried with my friends and been hurt by them and laughed and laughed and laughed, and I’ve learned everything I ever knew about honesty and authenticity, swearing when I’m upset and standing up for myself and being loyal like nothing else to those I call my family.

—

Let me say, I’m 80% in agreement with Alise. I don’t think her friendships are wrong; in fact, you have to have a support network of people with whom friendship is easy and safe. And even when I decide who I want to be closer with from the food pantry and soup kitchen, I don’t choose people who I don’t already like for some reason – any reason. In some ways, I’m even repeating one of Alise’s own comments after the post – she writes: “we need to put ourselves in situations where we could meet someone who is different.” I appreciate that.

But when we stop crossing cultures – when we get too comfortable saying “I like people who are just like me” – we lose big. And eventually? Maybe we stop looking like the God who left, the God who became us, the God who likes people who are very, very not like him -

God who went where God was not supposed to go.

—

[other people write about this better than me. My favorites are J.R. Goudeau, D.L. Mayfield, and Jamie the Very Worst Missionary.]

and what are you going to do with that?

If you are younger than twenty-five or have a job titled “intern”, people will always, always ask you about your future. When you are feeling OK, you will take this in stride, as you probably should. You imagine people need a narrative to understand your transient self, that they are triangulating your position – where you’ve been, where you’re going, ah-ha, there you are.

And if you’re not feeling OK about this, as a great many of us at any given time are not, you imagine people cannot fathom that you might be in this moment for its own sake, not as a step somewhere else on a path towards the ambiguous  idea of “career” – which would be crumbling quickly before our generation even if we hadn’t mostly rejected ladders and trajectories. You imagine they are really asking you when you will become a real person.

You did?
Theology.
What’s next?
A Master’s.
In what?
Theology (I chose my major on purpose, thanks)…
Then what?
A doctorate.
And what are you going to do with that?

I tell them I want to teach and write, always wondering what else they would expect someone to do with a doctorate in such an abstract field and also wondering if they know what they’ll be doing eight years from now.

But that’s not what I want to tell them at all, not what I would tell someone who seemed to really care what I wanted out of life.

I would tell them that an education is not an instrument and I may never do anything at all with it. I have no way of knowing where I’ll be in eight years. But I can’t imagine regretting the years or money or work or tears because when I’m studying theology, I am worshipping in the deepest part of my being, and when I’m reading and writing, I feel God’s pleasure fierce, and I can’t pray too well but I am thankful for the world and I am broken in intercession for it and I am communing with God when I am thinking.

I would tell them that I want students like most people want babies. Not to make them parrot my pet theories and not to shatter their egos and worldviews, not even to mold them into some ideal critical-thinker, social-engager, like some teachers seem to think they can create by being iconoclastic enough. I want students so I can serve them, ask them to open their eyes and see what Jesus saw, invite them into a bigger vision of God’s kingdom, make a space safe for their questions. I want to see more people live like Christians, no less than that; but not out of fear or guilt, out of love and freedom and trust in the wild in-between.

I would tell them that there’s something in all this about the poor, and hopefully about traveling, and reconciliation between races and classes and everybody, really, because we’re all so fragmented even if we’re not supposed to be as wounded as someone else – we are all always healing, such is life.

But what I want to do with my degree, my stuff and my time, my life? Yes, I’d like to achieve some lofty goals and undo some bad stuff, lead some things and write some books. I even want to end slavery and poverty and partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

And I think they can only end if it starts at my dining room table. That’s my Big Plan, inquisitive middle-aged people: if I never do anything else, I hope I will serve a lot of meals to my friends in my life. I want a huge table made of really heavy wood and lots of tablecloths. I want to make meals out of real food and serve it in great heaps so people know there is enough, they can rest, I want to welcome everyone. People don’t learn love and service and simplicity at conferences or blackboards. They learn them in the rhythms of life, in the gentleness of friendly conversations, in the let-your-hair-down comfort of a meal among friends, even among students and homeless people and people of different races and immigration statuses and lifestyle choices. You know what I think evil is? I think evil is people using each other. I think evil is people looking at each other and seeing something other than people. That can end at my dining room table.

So if you’re trying to triangulate my coordinates, here’s where I am – I’ll be among books, food, and people. I’ll usually be doing old-fashioned things like holding hardbacks and chopping onions and writing letters and being kind. That’s where I am now, and it’s where I’m going, and it’s where I find God, and maybe someday a silly degree will have been a part of it all, too.

where i am these days

these days i’m in the middle all the time, and i don’t think i have the courage or the stamina or whatever that takes because i’m exhausted. and that’s hard, really hard to admit, because i don’t think i deserve it, to be exhausted.

here is a secret: i came from the rural evangelical South to the urban mainline North because i thought i’d see a way towards  reconciliation between the two expressions of Christianity. but i don’t. what i see is all the stereotypes perpetuating themselves. At home i attend an extremely conservative Reformed evangelical church, 15 years old; in New York i’m at an extremely liberal Methodist church of 120 years; and they’re both exactly like you’d expect. Meanwhile i travel between, and the Presbyterians tell me how misguided the Methodists’ theology is while the Methodists tell me how intolerant the Presbyterians are. and the very most frustrating thing is how wonderful and beautiful they all are, these people, and how imperfect and blind they can be at the same time – in short, that they are breathtaking frustrating humans like all the other humans, like each other. If they could separate the person from the position, they’d be delighted with one another.

and it is all compounded here, online, how desperately in-between i feel. everyone sees themselves Defenders Of The Good in their pet debates, pet accusations, pet proof-texts. my twitter feed scrolls past – feminism, prostitution in Southeast Asia, thoughts about diversity, and arguments about welfare, all of which are extremely personal to me. i have something to say about all of these things; but i can’t muster the energy to say it, not least because it’s never to take a side and Defend The Good but always to weigh both sides, devil’s advocate, no-man’s-land. And the children of God go on fighting like, like children who can’t see that The Good is not in nearly as much danger as they think.

That’s where the blog here keeps getting hung up; i have things to say but i need a lot of words to say them, and the energy keeps getting sucked out of me by all the stupid arguments i encounter from the very best of well-meaning people – again, online and in real life.

it’s tempting to just get out. you know what i want? i want a good long backpacking trip in the real world. but when i got back – here’s the scariest part – this would be waiting here. my vocation. i can leave the blogosphere, but somehow i’ve decided to entangle myself in the absurd world of academia; i’ve embarked on this cross-cultural experience as some kind of idiotic ambassador from the South; i love my evangelical roots but i see a desperate need for some changes. so i’ve got to find some kind of place here, in the middle.

but right now, it’s hugely uncomfortable. it’s the airplane seat you’ve been in for too long. i’m irritable and distracted all the time, because i just can’t find a single place that feels normal, comfortable, OK.

can i tell you what i’ve been waiting for someone to say?

I love the Bible with all my heart and read it every day, but I can’t pretend there’s always a straightforward interpretation of it.

I worry about making concessions to The World. I also worry about being close-minded out of fear.

Being a liberal in a conservative place affords more opportunity to feel self-righteous than being conservative in a progressive place.

Speaking of which, “progressive” is a silly term; our generation has no more and no fewer blind spots than any other age.

Anger is a helpful tool, but it shouldn’t be a place to dwell. Hope is a greater motivator.

Blogs and online arguments have their place, but almost everyone doesn’t read them. You have to do things in real life to change the world – or people’s minds.

You can’t know your “enemy” until you know them. Whenever you make unfair caricatures, straw men, and attacks you remove yourself farther from the truth; from a solution. People don’t change their minds and attitudes because you shame them. And you don’t know your own argument til you’ve entertained someone else’s. You don’t know poverty til you’ve been here for a good long while. You don’t know rich people til you’ve seen under the surface. You don’t know the North til you’ve been here. You don’t know the South til you’ve been here. You don’t know young people til you’re friends with us.

The point of “telling your story” isn’t just to speak and argue and talk and “own things” and fight and claim authority because of what did or didn’t happen, what you did or didn’t do or feel. The point is to add your voice to all the others, because in the storytelling we should become better storylisteners.