confidence, gifts and outright denial...

Life is crappy but it has it's fab moments.
Or perhaps life is fabulous but it has it's crappy moments...

I've had stuff churning over and over in my head these last few weeks mainly about this thing of "doing". I feel like I have no right to be doing God's work, but at the same time, I'm more spiritually content than I've ever been in my entire life. I just happen to be aware of this tension that exists on a different, perhaps more human, level.

A couple of years ago, quite possibly even last year, I was sitting in a lecture on Spiritual Gifts. The lecturer is a guy I have an intense amount of respect for. He was talking about gifts and how we should seek them. I sat there thinking, "I have no idea what my gifts are. God, what are my gifts?" So my lecturer starts talking about the gift of evangelism and how evangelists are necessarily all outgoing and loud personalities, but rather warm and draw people to them. Then he turns and says, "Leilani, I think this is your gift." I remember looking around the classroom thinking, "what...?" We got together and prayed about stuff and he came over to me and said I had the gift of a pastoral heart.

Since then, I've known what my strongest spiritual gifts are but I've done so much to deny that I even have these gifts. Pastors and evangelists have so much responsibility and in a lot of ways, I think that scares me. I don't want to be the person preaching grace when the last thing I feel I am is gracious. I don't want to be the person with the big deep dark secret. My life is an open book for this very reason. But somewhere there has to be an element of "sucking it in" so to speak. I've always known that I'm supposed to minister to the broken people out of being a broken person picked up from the rubbish heap by grace enough to carry the weight of all my baggage. I know that there are tensions in being human and being like Jesus. I know that bad stuff happens. I also know that life isn't easy and it's full of tensions and dichotomies. I know that I can't define the problem of life with my ministry degree, just like you can't with your economics or your psychology or your sociology degree. Not even that simple bro.

So yeah... I've got to get over this stuff. I said to a friend yesterday and giving of yourself all the time just drives you to insanity. Not giving of yourself at all drives you to a different kind of insanity. I'm feeling pretty insane right now. I'm cynical and less hopeful because I haven't done anything "good" for anyone without expectation of something in return for a looooooong time. I need to go do something.

Let's do something! yeah!! I want Africa. I want the vibrance and the brokenness. I want to dance and to weep with people. I have no home. It's neither there, here or over there. So I'll just put my stakes everywhere and mould. yeah!! I want to go somewhere and do something out of the grace that picked me up from the garbage heap. Grace isn't something we have to work to earn. We work out of having already been given it.

I read "The Ragamuffin Gospel" again the other day by Brennan Manning. I'm a ragamuffin, you're a ragamuffin. Don't even try to pretend otherwise. Chances are, someone will knock you off your high horse. The Bible is full of ragamuffins who screwed up big time. Solomon let wealth get the better of him. The great King David was captivated by someone elses wife and just had to have her for himself. Jesus was seen as descending from the great line of David and who else should be worth noting in that line but the prostitute Rahab. Paul, the greatest evangelist, wasn't what we'd call great when he took on the name Saul. Likewise, the world is full of broken ragamuffins who try to get it right but fall short all the time. Story of my life really. Maybe we need to quit it with the idea of "trying" and simply live out of what we've already been given.

I have to quit with ideas of not being adequate: being too young, being too broken, being too lost, being too financially broke, whatever. I need to get over it because essentially I'm mocking of the notion that I've been given grace at all. May such a gift tie me down eh...

With love,
Lans

Being responsible...

I've been thinking a lot about the Nia Glassies of the world particularly after reading Rosemary McLeod's article) and I'm trying to think about whether or not I would have dobbed. It was an absolute tragedy and I feel passionately that it should never happen to anyone, but I'm just not sure. That said, I have dobbed about stuff before. If I feel a situation would put a child in danger, I'll dob, but I have this conscience that prohibits me from being able to nark without hesitation. At the end of the day, if I know a kid is in danger of shit that's just completely and utterly insane and irrational, I'll do what I can to ensure the safety of that child, but yeah... not without brain debates.

Something in McLeod's article struck me...

...all share some responsibility. It wasn't just up to the adults around Nia to look after her: it's up to all of us to look after each other, surely, and to act when we have reason to doubt anyone's safety.

This morning in church, someone talked about those big dudes in ministry who fell apart. They committed some huge sexual crime and "fell from grace" so to speak. Then there was that church going fella that shot up a school in America. Of course, there are also those whose lives just got the better of them and they fell apart, walked off the rails completely and came back on when they saw the train coming at full speed. It's often hard to imagine that these people actually exist within our walls.

I love Petra's song "Rose Coloured Stained Glass Windows".

Out on the doorstep lay the masses in decay
Ignore them long enough, maybe they'll go away

It's awfully honest about we who live in our bubbled churches. But maybe it's evolved. It's become more than that. Perhaps we're living in individual bubbles within our churches. So it's more like Casting Crowns' "Stained Glass Masquerade"

Am I the only one who's traded in
The altar for the stage?
The performance is convincing
And we know every line by heart
Only when no one is watching
Can we really fall apart.

What is community?
What is church?
What does being "community" entail?
How about "church"?
When does it get easier to keep the mask off?
Does dobbing ever get easier?
Can we really fall apart?
Will anyone like us, let alone listen to us if we do?


I'm tired and my allergies are driving me nuts.

Bonsoir,
x Lans

Love:: life:: why?:: regrets:: and grace...

I've been thinking about stuff a lot lately, particularly with regards to how this year has panned out. Quite honestly, it's been quite the year from hell. It's funny because prior to this year, if you asked me if I could go back and change anything about my life, I wouldn't have changed anything. Everything that happened, regardless of how shitty it was, I thought of as something more to add to my experiences. But, as it happens, if I could go back and start this year over, I really would. I'd convince myself that home is where my real family is and go whereever they were. Maybe if you asked me in a couple of years whether or not I'd change all the happenings of this year, I might say no, but right now, I don't want it.

Such is life I guess. Maybe I lacked all the discipline in the world. Maybe I lacked the humility I needed to get on with what I needed to get on with. Maybe I lacked 'need'. I've always been a bit headstrong. Some people mightn't notice it but those who know me well, know that I'm quite stubborn. It comes from my mother.
I can walk with people for a while but for some reason, I always feel this great need to venture out on my own. It pisses some people off because one minute I'm with them, and the next I'll have disappeared (most probably across town). Then I get a text message, "DAMN LANI!!! WHERE THEY HECK DID YOU GO?!?! I HATE WHEN YOU DO THAT!!" "uh... sorry. I got distracted. I'm coming." It was really quite an empty apology because I'm not usually sorry. It's just what I do.

I was reading "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning yesterday. He retells Morton Kelsey's story of a traveller who comes to the edge of this huge abyss. There's nothing but a tight rope across it. Then suddenly he sees this acrobat dude coming across the tight rope. As the dude gets closer, the traveller notices that he has a wheelbarrow with him. When the acrobat gets to the end and the traveller finds himself standing side by side with him, the traveller applauds.
"Did you like that??"
"Yeah!!"
"Do you believe I can do it again?"
"Yeah totally!"
"Ok, get in the wheelbarrow."
So what does the traveller do? I'm not actually sure. I've never read the story.
It seems so easy to say I trust God. If he were to wheel me a wheelbarrow on a tightrope, I'm not sure I'd actually get in. It's really quite the story my life. My non-christian friends know I'm christian. But I find myself disliking typical christians so much that I try my best not to act like them. My opinions of everything are actually quite moderate but I express them in absolute extremes. I imagine myself with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. God's walking around trying to find us. I come out of hiding when God calls out, "Where did you go?" "uhh sorry God, I got distracted." And then I imagine myself walking home alongside the prodigal son. We've both tested the waters and found them too murky to swim in. And our old man welcomes us home.

I think these last couple of weeks have been the first time I've actually felt any sense of remorse about the last year and what's happened. I guess I had some things to learn. I guess I learned. I guess I learned what isolation is. I learned what it is to have people actually hate me. Some of it was with good reason. Not all of it but some of it certainly was. I recall lying on the shop floor in Samoa crying my eyes out and screaming at God, asking him where the heck he went. I get this picture now of people at a gym.
"Ima do some weights. Will you spot me?
"Yeah sure."
Perhaps God's something of a spotter. We have to carry the weights because that's how we get stronger. But he spots us. It feels kinda cheesey thinking about these analogies but maybe that's what God is like. He's pretty damn gracious.

I'm ok. I have a lot of regrets about this year. I regret allowing myself to fall apart. People always tell me, "Lani it wasn't your fault that stuff happened." No I don't take all the responsibility for all that happening. But I do take definite responsibility for losing my composure. When bad stuff happens, I tend to lose my head, and turn to all the wrong things, whatever I can get my hands on. Why is this not a good idea? Then I isolate myself for a few weeks and I don't want to see or talk to anyone. My friends are pretty gracious people. I walk away and I come back and it's like nothing has ever happened. Always they say, "hey Lani! Welcome back!"

Yay for::
God:: grace:: friends:: love:: wheelbarrows:: acrobats:: spotters:: learning:: welcomes:: ragamuffins:: open communication lines:: adventures::...

Apathetic thoughts...

I've been thinking a lot about how little I care. Lately, I've been plagued by the disease of apathy. I don't actually care about many things. That could well be a lie because maybe there are things I care about but I dunno... I really don't care about a heck of a lot. I want to but don't. Well I kinda do care about things but not to the extent that I used to. And that worries me. I need someone to kick my arse.

SO things I've been thinking about...

• *Africa: She has stolen my heart. I want to dance there.
• *The ghetto fringe: she holds my heart captivated. Well the idea of her anyway.
• *Teaching: a much more marketable qualification.
• *Politics: IT has invaded my thoughts. I hope John Key and his caucus do ok... for all our sakes. Mr Key, I offer you my hope (but with it comes fear too).
• *Social interaction: I do more with the TV than with my friends.
• *Endings: I like them better than beginnings and middles.
• *Roots music: there's a history and it created the now.
• *God: for some reason, he loves me.
• *Hope: how so many people invested hope in me and I feel like I let them down.
• *Cynicism: why are New Zealanders so cynical?
• *The American dream vs. the Kiwi dream: Own your own home, earn a decent living vs. Win the Rugby world cup.
• *Poverty: It sucks.
• *Being brown: what does that even mean????
• *Futures: apart from it being a good 'Jimmy Eat World' album, what does it entail?
• *Relationships: what is it about '23' that makes people so pushy about marriage? and why are 12-year-old kids "going out"???? Maybe I'm too old.

I'm going to go study. One more exam and then it's over red rover. Trying to think if working next year would be better than studying. I like the idea of work but I don't want youth work. I'm denying that it would be me in any way or form. I'm pretending to be good at something that's not what I should be doing with my life. How sad is that? That's Lani. I deny that I have any leadership qualities and yet I know I do. Denial in the life of Lani. I deny a lot of things.

I need to find myself and be happy with that self. Someone kick my arse.

xx Lans