Price Check

     Today's post will require a little bit of imaginative effort on your part, readers. So, I hope you'll humor me on this one. Imagine for a moment that you've been diagnosed with a very rare, very swiftly acting terminal illness (think Gwyneth Paltrow in Contagion). There is only one doctor in the world that has the skills and resources to save your life. What lengths would you go to to get this doctor at your bedside?  Now pretend it's not you with the illness, but someone you love dearly - your spouse, parent, best friend, or child. How much money would you be willing to pay, how many miles would you be willing to travel, what possessions would you be willing to give up for the assurance that this person could receive the treatment they require and survive?  What is the value of that human life to you? I'm guessing you don't need long to think about this one. You're thinking, "obviously the life of someone I love is worth more than anything to me - more than any monetary amount, physical possession, or personal hardship I must undergo". Good. Now, add one more twist to this scenario. Imagine that the ailing individual is someone you've never met. What is the value of a stranger's life?

     Lately I've begun investing my time in a local pregnancy crisis center. The center is a place where women facing an unplanned pregnancy can come for pregnancy testing, resources, and counseling. When I'm there, I am reminded of the immense, immeasurable value of human life. The women I've met there devote each and every day of their existence to promoting human life in its various forms and stages - the life of little ones still inside the womb, the life of the anxious mama who didn't plan to carry such a load at this time, and the life of the crushed woman who decided not to continue her pregnancy. Even the life of a young seminary graduate still trying to figure out her role to play in the "real world". It's challenging to witness a community that is willing to pay any price in any currency of money, time, energy, or resources to promote life. Particularly, the lives of those they haven't even met.

     So, these days I've been asking myself, "what does the way I live my life say about the value I place on other people?" Loved ones and strangers alike. I'm no Mother Theresa. I'm probably not even a regular Patch Adams. The harsh reality we all must face is that we make choices every single day that say something profound about our hearts toward others. These choices reflect our priorities, our convictions, and our beliefs about the inherent value of ourselves, and of others. In my life, it frequently plays out like this: I'm worth another Caramel Macchiato at Starbucks, but the guy who cuts me off in the parking lot is not worth the ounce of grace it would require of me not to honk the horn. I'll probably even honk it twice to ensure I win the last say in this battle, as if my blaring horn can communicate a final, "so there!"

    I'm working on it, okay? And, in full acceptance of my own personal failure, I am so relieved to relay the message that someone bigger than you and me has already issued the final decree on my value and yours. That's right, we've all got a price tag pinned to our ears. Thank God (literally) that someone decided that we were of the utmost value, in the moments we do and don't treat each other like this is true. Jesus Christ paid for the price for our lives at the cost of his. We didn't even need to exist before he decided our lives were worth all he had. And it's a sweet reality to know that there's not a single one of us who could lie on our virus ridden deathbed, looking as horrific and infected as Gwyneth, that Christ wouldn't be willing to pay any price to save. He already did just that when he found us in the filth and foulness of our disobedience and died so that we could be pulled from it.  It's a great thing to feel valued. And it's an amazing thing that God has told us we're worth any price.

Charting a Course

    Navigation is a highly valued skill in our ever commuting, traveling, jet-setting world. So, important, in fact, that GPS devices and mapping tools are installed not only in our computers but in our cars and cell phones as well. In modern society there is little need for the old fashioned gas station stop to ask a passing stranger where the closest diner is so we can grab a chocolate malt with Fonzie and the gang. If we'd like to go somewhere, anywhere, most of us can trace a path to our destination before you can say "doo-wop". As glad as I am that transportation has been revolutionized by Tom-tom, Garmin, and the like, I sometimes wonder why we can't take this technology and apply it more broadly than just to travel. Like for instance, to life.

   Take my life, for example. After wrapping up ministry in Chicago, I returned to my home in the D.C. area armed with an M.A. in Counseling, a youthful passion and idealism not too tarnished by the grit and reality of the big city, and a zealous desire to love people on behalf of Jesus Christ. Now, it's my job to take these tools and chart a course for the path my life will take. What would be preferable, however, would be to simply pick up my Tom-tom and enter my destination: "successful counselor who specializes in work with crisis pregnancy, birthmothers considering adoption, and troubled teenaged girls", and simply follow the route it outlined for me. (Wait for it, this technology will someday be developed... most likely the day after I retire.)  

    That being said, here's the upside to these course charting days in which I live. I've got a greater navigator who is outlining my path through the murky waters of transition, change, and career seeking. I have found deep, abiding rest in knowing that my relationship with Christ is the single most defining and pivotal aspect of who I am, what I do, and where I'm going. If you know Christ and have experienced this yourself, then you're nodding and thinking, "Come on, Natalie, tell me something I don't already know." So, I'm really talking here to those of you who don't know Christ. I want to encourage you that if you find yourself in a place of charting the course for your life, and if you also find yourself overwhelmed and intimidated by this thought, then please hear me when I say we weren't meant to do this on our own Even more jarring is the reality that as much as we'd like to be, we weren't made to be the captain of our own ship. As we strive to direct our own path and find our own way, we are easily misled and misdirected. And a misdirected ship is one that usually ends up overtaken in the sudden storm, submerged in the heart of the sea, or shattered among the rocks.

     I tell you this honestly, because I want you to know that there is a very willing navigator, not simply for your life, but for your soul. Even in the tempests of this life, I find encouragement in knowing that these waters are transient and temporary for me. I'm being led to something bigger than this life. I'm being guided towards a harbor that lasts forever on the other side of this life. Maybe you've thought about what comes next, maybe you haven't. Maybe you're too busy thinking about what's coming tomorrow. But just hear me on this, Jesus is standing by ready to know you and let you know him, and he wants a relationship with you that will last longer than just a lifetime.

    When I remember this truth, I no longer worry about the fact that I can't let my Tom-tom plan my life. I continue making choices, decisions, and plans that I hope and pray will lead me where I want to go. And more importantly, I know that as I follow Jesus' leading in my life, and as I let him work out his design through those choices, decisions, and plans,  I will most assuredly end up where he would like me to be. And when I arrive at my end point, I'll be with the one who got me there.

    I'd like to leave you with with one of my favorite series of paintings at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. It's called The Voyage of Life by Thomas Cole. These four images trace a man from infancy to old age under the guiding watch of God. I never fail to see myself in the various stages that Cole so beautifully portrays. I'm not going to promise you a personal angel decked out in white, but I can promise you the same intentional care and guidance of the God who wants to know you. He's just waiting for you to invite him aboard, step back from the ship's wheel, and rest in the course he's charted for you.
                                    

                                         

  

A Real Good White Girl

A few days ago as I was walking with a few of the neighborhood kids, one of my girls holding my hand looked at me and said, “I ain’t tryin to be racist or nothin, but you’re a real good white girl”. I tried to suppress my laughter while graciously accepting her very unique compliment. I’m not sure what qualifies one as a “really good white girl”, but I’m pretty sure if this little girl could see how messy and selfish my heart is most of the time, she wouldn’t place me in this category. Lucky for her and me both, I’m able to mask my depravity behind a smile or a quick witted joke much of the time. On one particular day I spent with the kids a couple of weeks ago, however, I had a much harder time disguising the true nature of my heart.

It was our last day with our last mission team, and it also happened to be one of the hottest afternoons Chicago had seen in six years. I met the team, a group of Texas teens visiting Chicago on a choir tour, in the park and prepped them for the service project we were about to undertake. As I explained that we’d be visiting local businesses offering to clean their toilets for free, several of the younger street kids I know ran up and asked to join. Sure, what a great idea to let the kids take part in our service! Ha. Unless you’re as naïve as me, you can probably guess what’s going to happen next.

I enthusiastically set off from the park, holding the hands of four sweet kiddos ranging in age from 4 to 8, with a group of about 30 teens trailing behind me, feeling something like General Grant leading the troops. Did I say Grant? I meant Custer. We were immediately halted by a film crew that had blocked off the street we were on, inadvertently trapping us in the scene, and the director wasn’t too excited that he would now have 30 kids in matching bright blue mission team shirts in his shot. So, we waited and looked on as a stunt driver sped a police car past us. We waited. And we perspired. The sun beat down and I watched as my team’s spirits wilt in the heat. Finally, I persuaded the director to let us move on and we marched onward. Armed with their potty polishing weaponry, my group split off and began making their way from business to business offering their free services. 

By this time however, my little tagalongs were feeling the heat and getting restless. Four year old Richi tugged on my arm over and over in an effort to make me acutely aware of his discomfort. The girls initiated a three-way competition for my attention, clamoring for my free hand, or my arm, or my back. When they realized that the mission teams were getting a brief respite from the heat by entering air conditioned businesses, they rushed into an upscale clothing boutique on the heels of one of the groups. Within seconds Dooka was in the display window pounding on the glass, Richi was dodging beneath racks of shirts that probably cost more than my car, and Toochie and Tee-tee were jumping on a couch. I wish I was exaggerating. I frantically grabbed their little wrists and attempted to direct them back out the door. When that didn’t work I started begging. Store owners took one look at my little clan of hooligans and anxiously looked around for the adult responsible for these street urchins. Their gaze landed on me, the unexpected leader of this ragtag crew. As I apologized and urgently hauled the kids back outside, I was hit by the stark realization that no matter how much Gilmore Girls I watch, I am not ready for motherhood. At least not if it involves adopting four small children all at one time and parenting them entirely on my own.  Needless to say, the next hour involved much re-enacting of this same scene as we worked our way down the street. By the end of the afternoon, the mission team was exhausted, the kids were dehydrated, and I was exasperated.

As we trudged back to the park, I passed an actress walking through the set, and we made eye contact for a brief moment. Suddenly her flawless make-up and perfect hair made me painfully aware of my sweat drenched face, frizzy hair, and cotton sundress which no longer seemed as chic as it did when I put it on that morning. She sauntered off towards stardom, and I looked down at the wet plastic bag and used toilet brush I was carrying. Cue Bananarama’s "Cruel Summer".

I am positive that in that afternoon, my mask of being the capable, compassionate leader was utterly shattered with every stress-filled sigh and short response to a team member that I uttered. Anyone within ten feet of me must have felt tension and frustration radiating from me like heat waves. In fact, I’m pretty sure that no matter how hard I tried to disguise it, it became pretty evident that day that I’m human, and not a particularly “good” one at that. I’m thankful that the Lord gives us days like these and somehow gives us a desire to repeat them. I don’t particularly enjoy being reminded of my limits and incapability, but I’m thankful that the Lord reveals them so clearly to us anyway. And I’m very thankful for the hearts of the kids that came up to me later that afternoon and apologized for being so difficult. Sometimes they do a better job of imitating their Father than I do. Glad the Lord gave me enough sense to take a hint and learn from them. 

My Chicago Kiddos

 The city is an exciting place to be, but as I've learned, after a few weeks that excitement settles into the comfortable routine of every day life. There is one thing about Chicago, however, that has yet to cease exciting and enlivening me, and that is the kids I've gotten to know and love while living and ministering in the neighborhood of Wicker Park. Most of these kids live in apartment complexes nearby and spend much of their days at the park or out in the streets. Our church has held a series of kids' clubs at the park in the evenings, and through these events we've gotten to build relationships with the free-spirited, independent, and sometimes wandering children of our community. I wish you could all meet these kids in person to experience just how irresistible they are. I am in love. That being the case, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share some photos and a few snipets about these faces that help define Wicker Park for me and undoubtedly add some spice to this church staffer's life.

One of my favorite photos: meet "Dooka" (nickname) whose real name is much prettier but much more difficult to spell.

    Dooka's big sis "Toochie", whom I just call "O", and their one-year old cousin. She looks pretty angelic in this shot, but let's just say that O will keep you on your toes.

This is one forward little toddler. She approached a sweet Ukrainian grandmother at the park (who didn't speak English and whom she had never seen before) and began demanding the woman's personal stash of cherries. The soft-hearted grandmother conceded and gave her the whole bag and...well, you can see what happened when she tried to fit one too many in her little mouth. Priceless.

    


 A little dancing during music time and then a back-to-back shot of O and Tee-Tee...(as you can see O is incapable of doing anything without a little bit of attitude)

        

              Meet the four year old love of my life, you can call him Richi. He loves to ask me: "Who I is to you?" To which I whole heartedly reply, "You're my boyfriend Richi. Who am I to you?" To which he slyly smiles and says, "My girlfriend". You can't even see the grills on his teeth from these shots, but take my word for it, this boy has to be the coolest four year old ever.

   There's no better way to end a day in Wicker Park than pushing Richi and Tee-tee on the swings before walking them home.


  One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus intervened: "Let the children alone, don't prevent them from coming to me. God's kingdom is made up of people like these."     
                                                                                                  Matthew 19:13-15

Passion and Pride

       Let me just go ahead and lay my cards on the table now. This post was unabashedly inspired by Billy Joel’s “Vienna” and I hope you’ll forgive me if I quote the lyrics repeatedly throughout. Go ahead and listen to it when you get a chance, because this man speaks truth. I’ve been addicted to this song lately, and I can’t stop thinking about the difficulty of actually taking Joel’s advice and “slowing down” when the ambition and zealousness of youth is such a powerful driving force. Sometimes we, or should I say sometimes I, get so excited and inspired by an idealistic goal or a perceived good thing, that we (I) just jump right in headfirst. It’s good to have passion and I hope I never lose mine. But, my passion has an ugly twin named pride. And sometimes it’s not simply my desire and heart for something that drives me, but it’s also my sense of self-efficacy and personal accomplishment. For me, the trouble is that most of the time it’s tough to distinguish between the two.

    Since I’ve been in Chicago this summer, I’ve been frequently confronted by both passion and pride. I came to this city to help out with a few new churches that are getting started, serving as summer staff with one in particular that is just getting off the ground. The goal is to help this church become more established and more firmly planted in the rocky soil of Chicago’s Wicker Park community by the time I leave. I love this church and I love the people of Wicker Park. There is no doubt that I’ve fallen in love with the city of Chicago (I keep a mental list of all the reasons this place is incredible and it grows everyday). I’m so happy to be passionate about the work that I’m pouring myself into and the way I’m spending my summer.

     The sneaky thing about starting a church, however, is the pressure that you tend to put on yourself. I’m constantly thinking through our strategies and methods for reaching the community: What could we be doing better? What should we change or do differently? What can I contribute to this process? And there’s a constant questioning of time: How long does it take to start a church? How long should it take to make an impact on the community? How much can I help in the limited time that I’m here? I start to feel rushed and suddenly I want to jump to action and work double-time. When passion and pride join forces, an irresistible whirlwind of ambitious and romanticized visions take over the rest of my sensibilities.

      I think this is the part where Billy might say, “you’re so ahead of yourself that you forget what you need”. And suddenly I’m reminded by this still small voice to “slow down”. Chill out, seriously. When I take a moment to breathe, and to pray, I am miraculously reminded that I didn’t come to Chicago because I loved the city or because I thought it was within my power to spearhead a spiritual revolution or even to start a church for that matter. I came here simply because God was telling me to. For those of you that don’t know God, I know that sounds crazy. But for those of you that do, I think you know what I’m talking about. God told me to come here and be a part of the work that He was already doing. This subtle reminder that God doesn’t need me to do anything is a necessary blow to my pride. As if that isn’t enough, I’m also reminded that God loved Chicago first. God loved Wicker Park first, and He was the first one to decide that a church should be started here.  The only reason I have a passion for this place is because He has a passion for this place. And I’m going to need His help and direction pretty much every second of every day that I’m here, because this was all His plan in the first place.

      Well, that’s humbling. But it’s also a relief. It’s good to know that the fate of this city, or even of another human life, doesn’t rest in my incapable hands. Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to spend the rest of my life putting these feeble hands to the plow in an effort to labor for the truth that I know Jesus Christ offers. But, the harvest won’t belong to me. The results are all up to God. 

Sirens

     Tonight I’m sitting in a neighborhood in Chicago’s Westside listening to the high pitched wail of sirens blaring past the open windows of the apartment. I’ve only been in the city four days, but it occurred to me a couple of days ago that I’ve never heard so many sirens in my life. Monday night as I fell asleep to the sound of rap music, people shouting in the street, and police sirens I considered it my induction into the city. Somehow I’ve always assumed that’s when you know you’ve arrived in a real urban metropolis – when the chirp of crickets is utterly non-existent and the sound of sirens is the typical evening lullaby in every neighborhood. Tuesday night I lost count of the sirens after about three or four.

     I used to have a little ritual related to sirens – every time I heard one, regardless of whether it was the police, an ambulance, or a fire truck, I said a quick prayer for whoever was on the receiving end of this urgent assistance. Having once seen my own father wheeled away and rushed off by an ambulance, my heart went out to whoever that siren was headed for. Sirens signal an emergency, a dire situation in which immediate aid is required. Many times, the arrival of help means life or death to whoever sounded the alarm. Sirens mean someone is in trouble.

     I started thinking about the city, and I started wondering: “What if there were alarms that went off, not only when someone was in physical peril, but every time someone was in spiritual danger?” At least here in Chicago, the whining cry of sirens would never cease. This city is a dark place, it’s a dangerous place, and not just because of the crime rate. It’s a dangerous place for the soul. There are a lot of people drowning and very few lifeboats pulling people aboard. If there was an audible reminder every time a soul in this city was going under, how would Christ’s followers respond? How would I respond? We would be quicker to tell people about Christ, and urgent in our desire to let them know that they could know him too, wouldn’t we? Spiritual sirens - what a great idea, I can’t believe God didn’t think of this first.

     Ha. NOT. After only four days in the city, I’ve recognized that the noise of sirens has begun to fade into the background of my consciousness along with the hum of buses rumbling down the street and wind whistling through the trees outside. I’ve soon forgotten to consider the one that the siren is going to. I’ve certainly forgotten to seek God on their behalf and offer up a prayer. I guess God knew that even if he installed spiritual sirens all over the earth, his people would quickly adjust to the noise and soon neglect the urgent need they implied. So, he gave us something better and much more powerful than any siren, he gave us his word and he told us himself how serious and immediate the need is of our world. And still, we continue to let our neighbors and communities and cities drown in their desperation.

      But, let’s not forget that the message of a siren is two-fold. Sirens don’t only signal trouble, but as I learned when an ambulance pulled into my driveway and ushered my father off to the hospital (and a life-saving emergency operation), sirens also signal that help is on the way. Assistance is imminent. Rescue is within reach. When we hear the sound of sirens, we’re reminded that in our time of desperate trouble we’re not on our own. There are others who’ve been appointed to come to our side and get us to the hospital, put out the fire, take care of the bad guy. Sirens tell us that something is wrong, but they also tell us that someone is coming to help make it right. From now on, when I hear sirens, I’d like to think of the many people I know who are relentlessly bringing the hope of Jesus to those that need it. I’d like to celebrate the fact that even though so many people in our world are in trouble, God has graciously appointed his own to bring help. I’m praying that this summer Chicago would be filled with people who know Jesus rushing to side of those who don’t and offering them the real rescue for their souls. I’m praying that in the many cities where I have friends scattered the same would be true. I hope that we can all take a hint from the siren’s cry and remember the urgency of the job before us. 

Hope for a New Soul

A few weeks ago my Pandora station introduced me to a song that stopped me dead in my paper-writing tracks. As I stopped whatever assignment I was working on to listen to the lyrics, my immediate and overwhelming desire was to exclaim a resounding “amen, sister” to the artist. Yael Naim, a musical philosopher of the soul in my opinion, hit upon something profoundly true about the human experience (or atleast my human experience) when she recorded this song. These are the words to the first verse:

I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

  I don’t know about you, but the part about “making every possible mistake” hit home with me. I feel like a screw-up pretty frequently. At the end of any given day, I can look back on the events that unfolded and see my glaringly obvious flaws with obnoxiously pristine 20/20 hindsight. A careless or misspoken word to a friend, a mishap at work, a missed opportunity to ask a needed question in class, the list could go on. I’ll conclude my time as a seminary student in three weeks when I graduate, but I think I’ll still feel like a student – a student of life. I’m constantly inundated with new experiences, situations I don’t know how to handle, emotions I’ve never felt before, questions I’ve never thought to ask before now. I often feel like I’m trying to sort out the cards I’ve been dealt within the context of a game I don’t fully understand. And just when I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of things and I somehow do something that leads to a minor victory, an unforeseen obstacle or setback deflates my proud ego. As Naim puts it, I’m just a new soul. In a decidedly strange world.

   So, maybe you don’t relate to anything I’m saying. But for my fellow newbies out there who are with me on this, I’d ask this question: At the end of the day, how do we know if our triumphs outweigh our failures? There’s the cliché saying about learning from your mistakes, but is any error really excusable by just dismissing it as a “learning experience”? And, when we lay down to go to sleep at night, who are we? Are we just the culmination of the decisions we made that day? For example, if I make a mistake at work does that make me a terrible employee? If I blurt out an overly-critical remark to someone I care about, does that make me a bad friend? If I do poorly on a test am I a failure as a student? These are the kind of identity defining questions that can keep us lying awake for hours. Perhaps at the root of all of this is the very basic question, “by what standard do we measure ourselves and our lives?” Our standard of measurement will determine how we view ourselves, how we interpret our actions, and how we define mistakes versus successes.

  Ok, I’m getting a little philosophical, I know. This is just a blog, not a manifesto (but I’ll let you know when I decide to publish a response to Kant or Nietzsche). But, as I thought about Naim’s song, I asked myself all of the questions I listed above. And this may sound simplistic, but I’m going to go ahead and give you my honest answers. At the end of the day, who am I? Well, I find immense relief in knowing that I am a follower of Jesus and a daughter of God, regardless of anything that may have happened over the course of the day. And by what standard do I measure myself and my life? By God’s standard- which is found in His word to humanity, aka the Bible. In my last post I talked about God’s justice, and I am fully aware that when a rightfully earned guilty verdict was headed my way, Jesus stepped in. He applied my guilt to himself and he suffered the penalty that would have, should have, been mine when he went to the cross. And then, to show that he was not only a man, but actually God in the flesh, he came back to life – actually defeating death and serving as a physical picture of the power of God. Call me crazy, call me a total newb who needs to get her head on straight. But, when I lay down to sleep at night, I rest peacefully knowing that I have been rescued from the death penalty and adopted into God’s family. So, even though I’m a new soul, I have the benefit of a relationship with the one who created this strange world. And as I continue to make messes on a daily basis, I have the relief of knowing that no hole I dig myself into can undo what Jesus has done for me. Because of that I can listen to songs like these and laugh as I see myself in their lyrics. I know there are plenty more mistakes waiting for me down the road, but I think there is grace up ahead as well.