In the Resurrection Scheme of Things

[adorable little packages tied up in string sent to me by my amazing friend & cousin, Sharon]

"...let me tell you something wonderful, 

a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. 

We're not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. 

You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, 

and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—

it's over. 

On signal from that trumpet from heaven, 

the dead will be up and out of their graves, 

beyond the reach of death, 

never to die again. 

At the same moment 

and in the same way, 

we'll all be changed. 

In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: 

everything perishable taken off the shelves 

and replaced by the imperishable, 

this mortal 

replaced 

by the immortal. 

Then the saying will come true: 

   'Death swallowed by triumphant Life! 

   Who got the last word, oh, Death? 

   Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?'

It was sin that made death so frightening 

and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, 

its destructive power. 

But now 

in a single 

victorious 

stroke of Life, 

all three

—sin, guilt, death—

are gone, 

the gift of our Master, 

Jesus Christ. 

Thank God!

With all this going for us, 

my dear, dear friends, 

stand your ground. 

And don't hold back. 

Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, 

confident 

that 

nothing 

you do for him 

is a waste of time 

or effort."

- I Cor. 15:51-58, The Message

Aaaaand we have a winner! (Or so.)

I do apologize for the delay in announcing this, and yet I don't. Because I was with my family for the past few days. I intentionally didn't take my computer because I wanted to get lots of face time with my dad, sisters, bro-in-law, and whatever they call a sister's boyfriend. And blogging is really a pain from a phone.

But... today...

I put all the names those who entered in a hat. Literally.

Because I was looking at all the names and thinking that using a number generator felt really sterile and cold for such wonderful people, and I remembered seeing a blog giveaway done with names written on paper... and it felt much more appropriate somehow.

The problem with drawings is that I can hardly bear to choose one winner. I wish I had unlimited resources. I'd give you each a print. I'd love to. Really.

But I closed my eyes and pulled out a name:

Congrats, Janelle! It makes me happy to mail the drawing to your far-away self... especially since I got a picture of your darling lil' daughter in MY mailbox yesterday. 

Then, because all the names still in the hat looked so forlorn, I pulled another one.

Anita, my dear friend, I'm thrilled to be sending "Greater Love" to Poland! 

Thank you to all of you who entered! I loved hearing from you all... both familiar and new friends. You ALL win at being awesome. 

a gift for Good Friday

Her normally quiet self was doubled in half, wrenched with grief. Her lungs wrung out ragged wails, and her tears bounced off the carpet. "My brother is dead! Why did they take him?" Her anguish was raw and tearing. It consumed her until I thought she would fall.

I pulled her into a chair and held her close. Helpless. What do you tell a sixteen-year-old girl whose brother was shot in the street, six times to the head? What sense do you make of violence what takes a seventeen-year-old boy because his friend is in a rival gang? What is left to offer? Only tears, an arm around her shoulders, and hands stroking her hair. And prayer.

But what prayer? What can you ask when a heart is broken beyond recognition? Mine was only a giant heart-sob. And in return, I heard Him:

"I am here. And I know."

When she was limp and emptied, I asked if I could pray for her and her family. And, even in my vicarious pain, all that came out was "thank you".

Thank you, Jesus, that You KNOW. You know what it is to cry over a dead friend. You know what it feels like to die. You know what it feels like to be killed. Her brother was not alone in that moment because You have been there already.

Thank you that You are HERE. You cry with us. You died for both the sins committed by us and the sins committed against us. For both, You writhed in pain, and Your blood soaked wood and earth.

Thank You.

It has been several years since I finished this drawing, but creating it remains one of the most deeply moving experiences of my life. It was a kind of sacrament, really. A profound realizing that I had a part in this. And this fierce, conciliatory, crucified Love is mine. And I am His. 

In honor of this Gift, I'd like to make a small one of my own. If you want to be included in a drawing for a print of the "Greater Love" drawing, leave a comment. If you want to let other people know about it, each time you share a link to this post on facebook, twitter, or what-have-ya, you can leave another comment to increase your chances. 

The print is 18"x11", unframed, and black-and-white, as the original was done in graphite and charcoal. The print is an archival-quality, professional copy by my friend Tim Kirk. I'd be glad to mail it worldwide to the winner, so if you connect with the drawing and want a chance to have have it, comment away! I'll randomly draw a winner a week from today.

And make space in your time and heart today to ponder the awful lengths to which God went to prove His love for you. For us all. 

we belong

If you follow the news at all, chances are you're tired of hearing about the Trayvon Martin tragedy. Everyone's talking about it. Hey, the incident already has its own Wikipedia entry. Yup, that was the link I gave you. Sorry. And when everyone's reacting and re-reacting and every political agenda out there is trying to use it for their angle, it's easy to develop tinnitus. Underneath the hype, though, there is usually a problem that deserves attention, not a deaf ear.

Here, it is my intent to share the things I think command a long, hard look by us all. I want to honor the memory of Trayvon, help us realize that his shooter is just as human as you and I, and to remind us again that violence does not end when the larger power brings out the biggest gun. Violence ends when two people look each other in the eye and see someone just like them. A person with dreams, with fears, with family. With a life ahead of them that no one has the authority to take. 

First off, I think it's far too convenient for everyone's conscience to demonize Zimmerman and paint him as a racially prejudiced, power-hungry opportunist. I don't know him. Maybe he is. But, because I don't know him, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. We all have errors of judgment and results we regret. If we demonize him, we don't have to face that we often see things as they aren't and do hurtful things.

But I do in no way think it is demonizing to Zimmerman to say he was wrong. I don't care if Trayvon was suspended from school on drug charges. I simply don't care. That is totally irrelevant to the case, as there is no way Zimmerman could have known so. Even if he had, that would have been no reason for him to confront Trayvon for wearing a hoodie and carrying Skittles and an Arizona iced tea. I don't care if Trayvon scuffled with Zimmerman when he was confronted. I wish he hadn't, because he likely further jeopardized his safety. Not only is responding violently to a threat not the way of Jesus, but (like I tell my teens all the time), it's more dangerous. Science proves that the instigator gets an adrenaline rush when he is met with returned threat. This actually makes him stronger and sharpens his fight/flight impulses (sorry about the psychology term). So, while I'm not saying Trayvon was right to engage in the tussle, I can understand why he did. If, in fact, that is what happened. I know a bit of street law, but I know my teens better. And I know that every single one of their reactions to an armed, un-uniformed big dude of a different race's following them and yelling would be this thought: "I'm fighting for my life." Even if Zimmerman didn't go into that situation wanting to kill Trayvon (which, God have mercy, I hope he didn't), I can understand how it happened. But it should not have. Should not. I'm sorry, but, in terms of self-defense, Skittles are no match for a gun. Neither is an Arizona, no matter how delicious.

Trayvon is gone. Horrible. Tragic. But fact. Instead of long focus on who was right and who was wrong, we need to ask "what now"? How do we do justice for Trayvon, his family, his friends? Incarceration or any mistreatment of Zimmerman will not help them heal. It will not bring about a world where teens can walk home without fear of being followed and shot.

Since the can of worms words called "racism" has been opened over this tragedy, I'm diving in. Whether or not it shaped Zimmerman's choice to confront Trayvon, it's not as far from home as I'd like to think. When I was living in the city, an incident happened on my street that still makes me cringe to think about. An argument between neighbors attracted the attention of the police patrol. They arrived, waving guns and yelling. This really didn't help anyone calm down, and my friend walked out to talk to the neighbors and see if he could be of help in restoring peace before things got out of control. He strolled up, hands in pockets. When the police saw him, they lowered their guns, stopped yelling, and very respectfully said, "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to step back." My friend felt sick to his stomach when he realized what could have happened and what did. He was white, well-dressed (as he had just returned from Bible study), and the police were white. Why did they treat him differently than our neighbors? If he had been black and walked up with his hands in his pockets, the sad truth is that he probably would have been shot on the spot. His death would have been ruled accidental because the police would have assumed he was armed. Did the (white) police have a conscious hatred of African-Americans and Latinos? I'd like to think not. But what kept my friend safe is this: they identified with him. As a result, they acted sensibly.

Racism's bottom line is a lack of empathy with people different in some way from me. Color, socioeconomic status, lifestyle choice, religion, gender, political preference, size of family, brand of clothes... the list is endless of things that make us look at each other and say, "He is not like me. And I like me better." Instead of viewing diversity as the one of the biggest things that gives color and interest to our lives, we feel completely justified in blocking ourselves off from those who don't look like us. We feel justified (isn't this senseless?) in not having to try to see ourselves and the world from their perspective. This justification is prejudice, and prejudice makes us, thoughtlessly or intentionally, do heartless, senseless things.


Prejudice is ugly, but we all have our little ones. Or not so little. We don't naturally empathize with others, especially if we don't take the time to know them. To understand them. What conscious effort are you taking to push back the boundaries of your understanding? Who can you befriend that broadens the scope of your identifiers? What places can you frequent that help you connect with people you tend to avoid? What books can you read that help you realize your world is much, much bigger than you and... while your culture and your individual have much to offer... you and your culture have a lot to learn from the vast spectrum of diversity in your world?

What can you do to show you identify with others?

I walked to the gas station wearing a hoodie. I didn't wear it as a statement, but thought about all the hoodie-wearing demonstrations for Trayvon Martin as I put it on. And I tweeted something snarky like "I hope I don't get shot." Forgive me, but sometimes I make cynical jokes about things that really disturb me. I passed a guy wearing a hoodie even bigger than my guy's-size-large, could-almost-be-a-dress, epitome-of-comfort hoodie. He was black. I was white. He was a guy. I was a girl. His head had a doo rag. Mine had a veil. But we looked at each other in recognition and smiled.

[source]

"Keep it Classy"

I say that to my teens a lot. That, and "You aren't trash...", which I say so often that my girls often finish it for me: "... so don't talk trash." They tell me I'm weird and cheesy sometimes, but I hope those phrases and the concepts behind them become embedded in their semi-conscious psyche. I hope they form the way they see themselves and interact with other people.

My biggest reason for pushing my teens to handle themselves with respect is because it works on their behalf. In a culture that says you may punch, swear, yell, and throw things because you're upset, it's hard to explain this in a way that makes sense... but I've seen it played out often enough to know it's true: If you're yelling, you drown out what you have to say. If you're disrespectful, you only prove you aren't mature enough to stay respectful under pressure. Your immaturity discredits what you have to say, and no one feels obligated to listen to you. Whether motivated by vicarious embarrassment or glee over another's spectacle, other people's response to you is not dissimilar to shoppers' reaction to a two-year-old having a meltdown in the candy aisle.

And my teens have something to say. They have too much to say in one sitting. Wisdom comes from pain, and my teens have a lot of both. They deserve to be heard because they have a lot to offer. Because, simply, even if what they offer isn't apparent, they are people. And people deserve to be heard. People deserve respect. When God breathed His own breath into the first man He'd made in His own image, He gave each of us a birthright of dignity that demands recognition.

Election year always wears on me. After the first few debates, I don't watch them anymore because they depress me. I love to debate ideas, exercise the logical side of my brain (which sometimes goes on hiatus and I'm extremely abstract and paint a lot), and learn from other people's viewpoints. Conflict in the form of topical debate doesn't stress me out. It invigorates me. But when anyone resorts to personal attacks or the point of the debate becomes winning the argument instead of presenting a viewpoint, I'm out. That just smacks of immaturity to me, or, more darkly, of some ruthless need to dominate another person mentally and emotionally. It feels twisted and wrong. That's why, even though I have a passing interest in economics and a rather vested interest in judicial law, politics and elections depress me. I don't know why we make so sacred a system where success is rated and obtained by belittling and attacking your opponent. The best political jokes and punchlines far too often rely heavily on stereotypes and personal attacks for any would-be content. And I look at the cheering masses and wonder why we think this is so wonderful... and start to analyze why we idolize one person, waving their banner like we expect them to be the answer to all of our problems, and feel completely justified in spewing all manner of verbal garbage at another... and I get depressed about us all. This isn't the way we were meant to treat each other.

And we do have something to say. I personally don't vote because I don't feel the need to be part of a system I can't endorse. I don't want my name signed to the ballot of a person who will wage war in office, among other things I oppose. Many Christians feel strongly otherwise about their level of involvement in government, and I respect that. This is where I stand, based on my understanding of what it means for me to follow Jesus. Huge subject for another day. But I don't think those of us (ahem, Anabaptists and Mennonites, most of us, anyhow) who take this position are cleared of any responsibility to think about pertinent government issues and talk about them from our cultural strengths of nonviolence and community. Those strengths are relevant and needed in our world, and the change they can effect most definitely isn't limited to the voting booth.

Howard Zehr is an Anabaptist and visionary who saw how his understanding of Jesus' teachings on reconciliation could heal the perpetrators and victims who aren't well served by the current model of crime punishment and started the Restorative Justice movement. His model works. I talked to the director of a Restorative Justice organization actively involved in dealing with crime, and his face lit up with pride as he told me that their organization is now receiving compensation from the state of Pennsylvania. The state is realizing how much money one little organization, led by this kind, soft-spoken man, is saving it because the repeat offender rate is almost nothing compared to the 60% repeat offender rate in the judicial system.

Zehr is just one example. My friends, Clair and Anna, do all sorts of cool things: befriending people that are at risk of (or entangled in) a life of crime and helping them live more wholly. Shane Claiborne (since I heard him with my own two ears declare himself a "brother" to the Mennonites), went to Iraq as a petition to the government to refrain from bombing Baghdad. He stood with people in a park, looking up as the sky cried missiles, and heard the outrage of the woman who asked him, "Your God does this?" More recently, he's continuing to feed the homeless in Philly even though it is becoming illegal .

Being put into office doesn't give any human the inerrant handle on solutions. We have solutions to offer, but offering them in a way that is disrespectful of the person in office won't only distract from our offering... It is also wrong for us. Everyone but the speaker always seems to know that raging diatribes become a reflection of the speaker. It looks like hate. It fractures the human in us. It labels as "nothing" the human in our target. The God-image in you and the God-image in others deserves your respect.


This is what I dream for us this election year:

That we have opinions. Well-informed opinions that fuse current events with a constant focus on how Jesus wants us to respond to laws, leaders, and injustice. We have to live with them, and it's important that we know how to relate to them. It's important that we discuss them. Because we live out of the way we view our world and our humans. Having our heads in the sand gives us the worldview of an ostrich, which means we will act like ostriches, which means... Well... yeah, that's all rather awkward.

That we neither idolize nor demonize the candidates for office. They are human, and they are neither the final answer to all that is wrong nor the catalyst for the Apocalypse. Or was that Apocrypha? (Sorry. Old, lame, inside joke.) Either way, real change to real people most often happens in a very daily, very dirty manner. More rarely, and in a more inhibited fashion, in white houses on white paper, signed by white collars.

Be informed of change. Be change. But, with all that lieth within you, keep it classy.

a haiku

From Earth's fertile womb
Dew paints all the waking world,
Each bead its mirror.

Whole & Broken

It always seems to me a wee bit tragic to crack eggs open.

Whole, they are perfection.

I love their shape, their range of calm colors,

the way their matte shells play with light,

their smooth roundness in my hands.

But,

whether they are fertilized and warmed

or cartoned and chilled,

they only fulfill their destiny of nourishment 

when they're broken. 

I've been thinking about forgiveness.

My friend Julie told me that I need to forgive someone.

She's right. 

We often hear how we need to forgive

in order to be whole. 

That's true.

But why does forgiveness feel like 

breaking open

when someone has really, really hurt me

and hasn't asked for pardon

even when I tried to move

toward restoration?

Maybe my silent breaking

will nourish a chance of new life

for that person.

Maybe that freedom from who I want her to be,

my making peace with who she is,

is as much about 

her redemption 

as it is 

about mine?

I'm thinking,

maybe,

it's good to be 

cracked.