I Know Jesus and I Might Have Heard of You Too

Did y'all know there are whole websites devoted to uncovering the supposed-salacious details of Christian bloggers and pastors? I didn't until today when my inbox received a google alert that my name, lo and behold, was attached to some very salacious details of its own. Who knew? I didn't read far—my constitution is affected enough by truths about my own soul to bother with what strangers make up about it. Suffice it to say the underbelly is alive and well, folks, alive and well.

All this has me thinking about the ever shrinking neutral ground and whether it exists at all, or ever has. It seems nothing is out from under the watchful eye of bloggers and critics these days. Mostly because everyone has a platform these days and if not, they build one from crates, soapboxes, and grudges til they get one. I'm a peace-making sort, but even I feel the pull to build a Babel—even to just protect my own name and sense of peace.

What most of these watchdog sites and bulldog bloggers are doing, though, is attempting to make their -ism (whatever -ism and -ian or -ist they are) seem more appealing than the others'. And if they can't do that, or have already failed to do so, they'll do their darnedest to pull all the -isms down with 'em.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

One of my favorite passages in the book of Acts is when those seven silly sons of Sceva tried to cast out demons in the names of Paul and Jesus without any faith of their own. The evil spirits replied, "I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul, but who are you?" and I-love-that.

I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul.

But who are you?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So tonight, this small writer, writing from a dark bedroom in a small, dark house in Texas, my roommate asleep next to me, her mom asleep in her bed, a friend asleep on the couch, and the rest of my girls snug in bed, I think about how small our lives are. How very, very small they are.

Who are we?

Precious few of us are Pauls; most of us are probably Peters, running at the mouth and sinking after three steps. Or Thomas, that beautiful faithless skeptic. Maybe we're Mary, the whore with the hair at Jesus feet, giving much. Perhaps some of us are just shepherds on a cold night, to whom an angel appears with great news. Maybe we're Joseph, asked to do hard things. But at the end of all things, we are very small people living very small lives. I think that with every new twitter follower, every facebook like, every email that comes into my inbox, every new invitation to speak or write: who are you, Lore? Who the heck are you?

Because at the end of all things, the world won't care about my -ism or my name. They won't remember anything when faced with the all-encompassing God of the universe. They will Know Jesus. Every one of us will bow and confess Him alone as Lord.

And until that day, I want to simply do my best to preach the gospel in His name. That's all I am. And I hope, I hope that's all you are too.

An Apology to the Wounded Birds

I'm sorry.

You were sold the story, hook, line, and sinker. Do this, don't do that, build it, tear it down, cover it up, write it over—do it all and then this...

This will happen for you. Or this bad thing, that won't happen for you. Obey, honor, submit, then shut your mouth, don't ask questions, don't dare defy. Do all that and it will go well for you.

And then it didn't. It didn't go well and it went really bad. Really, really bad. On the other side you stood there with nothing. No morals, no laurels, no crowns of glory, all your delight in shambles and your hope in rags. They said it would go well for you and then it didn't.

This is a letter to you, you women who grew up asking how short was too short, how obedient was obedient enough, how submission looked on you, and if every single thing you did was right enough, good enough, pure enough.

This is letter to you, you girls who grew up with mothers barefoot in the kitchen, with fathers stern and unappreciative, with every boy a threat, and every girl a comparison.

This is a letter to you, liberated woman. You came out in college roaring. You threw off the shackles of fundamentalism, of second guessing, of moralism, of theology that bound instead of freed.

This is a letter to you, freed women, ones who are looking for the voices of your sisters, the ones who know it as acutely as you do. Who know the shackles, the questions, the fears, and the injustice of growing up always looking over your shoulder.

I'm sorry.

I am so, so sorry.

I am sorry that something beautiful was perverted by an enemy who steals, kills, and destroys. I am deeply sorry that you felt damaged, a cowering bird in a coyote's world. I am so sorry that you spent your life in front of a fun-house mirror, a distortion of who you truly are. I am not your parent or your pastor, but I am you, and I am sorry.

I know you are looking for strong female voices, women who will lead the charge toward full freedom, birds who have found their flight above the heads of squabbling coyotes. I know you are looking for women who will say that yes, that was wrong, what happened to you. That, yes, the reflection you've been shown is not a true woman, a woman who fears the Lord and loves His word. That, yes, the subservient cloistered crouching woman is nothing like what a daughter of the King ought to look like.

I know you are looking for her.

And so I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I haven't spoken up. I'm sorry that in the face of one perversion, I've let another extreme pass me by without saying anything.

The enemy's favorite tactic is to pervert what is good, and there is none good, no not one. Except Him. And the wholeness of Him cannot be perverted.

Here is my promise to you, my sister, my friend: I promise you I will fight on your behalf. I promise I will fight for truth, for the culmination of all things in the Only One Who Is Good. I promise I will wrestle with theology and that I will not let go of God. That I will not let go until He has changed the names of each of us. Until we do not find our identity in a name or label, but that we find it in the fullness of Christlikeness. I cannot promise we will not walk with a limp, each one of us, but I think our limp will be our mark, our Ebenezer, our fist in the face of the enemy.

I promise to wrestle with the One who promises to lead us through to the other side.

After much prayer, counsel, and time, I've accepted an offer to join the teams of writers over at the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Many of you are encouraged to have my voice there and I know many of you are disappointed in me. My promise to both of you is that my fight is not for equality or distinction, biblical womanhood or feminism, my fight is against the powers of darkness and my delight is to walk in the light.

I believe that CBMW recognizes the lack of a strong young female voices in the Church today and they care about the practical implications of a complementarian view. I am a complementarian, that hasn't changed, but I believe the answers many egalitarians have been pressing for have not been handled well. Unanswered questions, coupled with the distortion of truth many of us grew up with in evangelicalism, only breeds room for more distortions. I do not aim to answer questions, so much as I am to fight for purity of the Gospel. With the Lord's help, I will aim for clarity and consistency, that's my promise to you.

Broken Bodies

I wake broken today. It is barely light outside, my weekend, my rest, and I feel unrested and restless. I go back to bed. I read for an hour, then pull on a flannel shirt, find my way to a cloud covered lake and wish, like Joni, that I had a river to skate away on.

This brokenness, it is present in ways that prick and pin me against myself, against the mirror of my soul, showing me myself and the ugliness within.

I call a friend a few hours later to confess the brokenness, but she has had a hard day and she tells me stories for forty minutes and at the end I am too tired to say the simple words: I'm broken. And so I tell her instead the good news belonging to some friends and I leave my brokenness out. I am ashamed to be broken and ashamed to have it so tight around my throat, constricting and felt.

Tonight I am meant to stand at the front of our sanctuary, our place of rest and worship, and I am meant to serve the bread and the wine alongside another. And perhaps they will have felt their brokenness today too. Perhaps they will know their humanity constricting and tight. Perhaps their heart will feel as fragile as the wineglass they hold, as broken as the bread I hold.

Here is what I know of brokenness and here is what I know of communion: it cannot be done alone.

As He has entered into our sufferings, born a babe in a cruel manger in a cruel world, body broken and bruised, we enter into His. And as we enter into His, we enter into others. And as we enter into theirs, they enter into ours. We share the broken body, the poured out blood, we partake of Him but we do it with one another.

We cannot do it alone. Any of it.

But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. I Peter 4:13

Chasing David With All My Soul

We're talking about David and Jonathan in my Old Testament class. Sunday-School felt-boards, crackers and juice aside, I've never given either man much thought.

....................

A friend is thinking of leaving our church. She isn't the first and won't be the last, and I've left my share of churches in life, so I know whatever I say won't matter much. So instead I'm thinking of covenant these days, the Old Testament, grab the inner thigh, share the sandal, slaughter the lamb kind of covenant.

At my church we don't sign a membership document promising to agree with everything my church teaches, promising to never question authority, or to turn a blind eye to what seems unjust. We sign a Covenant saying we'll wrestle every demon to the ground before we turn our backs on these brothers and sisters. We'll turn over every stone before we'll call anyone a heretic. We'll come to our senses as quickly as possible and run from the pig's pen to a Father who meets us.

We sign up for Covenant, not a pansy pot-luck.

Not really.

But kind of.

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This morning in class we read the first part of I Samuel 18 three times. Three times is a holy number and so I listen close.

Three is also the number that made a covenant in those first few verses: David, Jonathan, and an unseen God who wouldn't leave them, not ever.

Three is also the number of times the author made mention of Jonathan's soul being knit to David's.

A soul is a funny thing. In my circle I never ask how someone's doing, or how is their heart. I ask how their soul is and people always turn their head sideways, maybe laugh a bit at me. Their soul? Their soul? Ask about my car, or my health, or my day, or my family, but not my soul. Not that precious, beautiful, broken bit of me. Not the bit of me that is secure and fashioned deep in the crevices of God, but oh, so tender still.

Souls are the one thing about us and within us that are truly lost or truly found, but all the peripherals crowd around and lie to that soul, telling us we are not okay and never will be. And sometimes our souls lie to us in other ways, telling us we are okay when we're clearly not.

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I think of my friend this morning, and myself, and all the others. Friends who have left the Church, been burned by the Church, can't figure their way around the Church. I think of David and Jonathan, and Jonathan's soul. And I think of God who cares about souls.

The Covenant I signed with my church is not a failsafe; it does not keep me from harm or knit me to the people there. It is not my badge of glory or my shame. It does not give me special privilege or grant me favor. The Covenant is a promise between them and me, us and God. It says we will chase, we will run, we will warn, we will fight, we will wrestle, and someday, some final day, we will win. Our souls are knit together, see?

And that is the God who Covenants with me too, and I can't get over this today: He runs, chases, meets me at the end of the lane, throws his cloak on me, and welcomes me at long last home.

....................

If you're interested, I'm also talking about covenant Church living over at Deeper Church today in a provokingly titled post: Mark Driscoll Isn't My Pastor 

Why I Can't Be Your Friend Today

Preface: This is some regular reader housekeeping.  If this is your first time here, I hope you're not scared off by me being the meanie I'm about to be, and that if you have thoughts, you'll send yourself over to the facebook thread for commenting!  My parents used to force me to buy milk or make a bank deposit. My mother would set her face, straight ahead, mouth pursed, case closed: I would make the deposit or I would be grounded.

I was an introvert and the only cure for introversion was doing daring things. Like buying milk from the IGA.

We all laugh about it now, but I'm grateful my parents persevered with a painfully shy daughter. I'm also grateful for the leadership of one who quipped often enough: "Be a 'There you are!' person instead of a 'Here I am' person." I have learned to see people, to not be afraid of buying milk or moving across the country, to build relationship easily, and to not care how much of a fool I have looked.

The tension for me now is to stay the line between intentional relationship building and understanding that it is okay that the number on the list of close friends rarely changes. Three, normally, sometimes four. I've taught myself to trust easily, but I do not entrust easily.

Can I unpack this for you, dear readers?

Four Groups of People

Those I do not trust and feel no need to. These are the people who have not seen the gospel as their breath and bread. The strange thing is, this group is mostly made of up unbelievers OR seasoned believers who haven't let the gospel permeate their lives. They've had opportunity to pursue relationship with others and they've continued to squander it. My friendship with this group is limited to evangelism and/or less intentional discipleship.

Those I do trust, but feel no need to pursue a deep relationship with. This is probably the largest group. It's nothing personal, but it's probably because they have a close group of people with whom they're walking. This is mostly church folk, blog readers, and friends from various seasons of life. I don't need another close friend, and chances are, they don't either. I love the small glimpses of the greater body they afford us, but I'm not going to invest my relational first-fruits in them.

Those I trust and with whom I would consider myself in relationship. These are the people in my most immediate community. Because I've moved so much, this group changes often and I've come to expect those changes, and not mourn too long when they come. This is usually the group of people (15-20) with whom I do things socially, the intentional discipleship relationships I'm in, guys and girls both who count on me for counsel and friendship. I enter into their mourning and their joy.

Those I trust and entrust. This is the smallest group, never more than three or four people, all of whom live in separate states (these relationships have little to do with proximity). This group includes those to whom I entrust my confession of sin, the deepest things the Lord is teaching me, the deepest sorrows and joys of my heart, struggles of my flesh, and most of all—my time. I seek this group out regularly for their counsel, I trust it when it comes, and this is the group to whom I give my counsel freely.

Let me say that I firmly believe in responding to the Holy Spirit and so there is flexibility in each of these groups, and some overlap, but I do that at the Holy Spirit's leading and nothing else.

My Struggle

Time is something that whenever an inventory of my life is taken, I find to be the greatest struggle for me. Finances and belongings are rarely difficult for me to give, but time is. This is because time is what people ask the most from me—and contrary to the old milk buying days, saying "No," is one of the most difficult things for me to do.

If I've said "No" to you, or given you what seems to you an unreasonable timeline for when I'm available, or have clearly not pursued a deeper relationship with you, I'm truly sorry for how that comes across. It's not you, it's me. I promise. It's me. I understand you long to know me more, want to understand my heart on some issues, or just want to hang out sometime, but I'm afraid, for today, this blog is going to be the best place for both of us to have that happen. I did not set out to have writing be my primary means of ministry, but more and more the Lord makes it clear this is what today's portion looks like for me. The amount of interactions that result from this blog and other writing keep my inbox topped in the hundreds most of the time—and I still work a full-time job and am deeply involved in the life of my church.

Your Struggle

If you're longing to be known—there are so many people who are longing for the same thing and I am not one of them. Reach out. Befriend someone. I think you'd be surprised to find out their hearts beat with the same passion, same depth, and same love mine does.

Someone you know struggles to make deposits—not bank deposits, relationship deposits. Seek them. Find them. Pursue them. They are often times not at the center of the crowd, but on the outskirts. Make yourself at home on the outskirts until one day you find you're at the center, with two or three people to whom you entrust yourself.

Lives are changed this way.

I promise.

Heaven

Last night a friend of mine shared her desire to sit down and chat for a bit and then we both laughed. She's busy and she knows I'm busy—because we are not one another's primary ministry focus these days. She looked me right in the eye and said, "Hey, we get to spend eternity together. That's way better than coffee and what a relief." I almost cried.

Folks, we get heaven. An eternity with one another and most importantly Jesus Christ. He's where our focus should be today and for all eternity. What a joy to abide in that! 

Project TGM: Theology, Gospel, Mission

There was a new kid on the block in 2012 named Project TGM: Theology, Gospel, Mission, and they recently asked to make me the newest kid on the block (and the first woman to join their team.) I jokingly said to them yesterday that I have seven brothers and ain't skeered of them, but I'll be honest, it's a solid line-up over there and I'm humbled they asked me. I hope you'll join me over there today, but also make a habit of heading over there for some great pieces by regular writers (Owen Stracham, professor of Theology and Church History at Boyce College, Logan Gentry, pastor at Apostles Church in New York, and others) and occasional guests.

My inaugural post is up today on how the greatest need for women is not parenting/marriage/singleness advice or tactics, but gospel realignment. Please hop over and give it a look! 

The Battering That Takes Us All

I have a friend who has made a seeming mess of his life. This is nothing he wouldn't tell you himself and already has, in a way. Whenever we talk he makes it no secret that the path behind him is strewn with destruction.

But here's the thing about my friend: for one brief moment and then twenty more, in ways that wouldn't be known to him until nearly a decade later, he was leaving a indelible mark on this writer's life. It was his words, yes of course, editorials in the Wall Street Journal or evangelical news magazines, sentences crafted with poise and prose and pointed statements. But it was his beautiful self-deprecating confessionals that truly won me over.

"If a Christian can be a writer like this and a sinner like this, there is hope for me," I remember thinking one day after one such editorial rife with confessions of failure.

There are two camps of writers from where I stand: those who love words, who craft sentences that go down as smooth as brandy with a burning aftertaste, and those who love truth or opinion and wield it every which way no matter how it sounds.

To marry the two is an awful and beautiful call, and it's done so rarely, see?

One only needs to read twitter or the myriad of blogs in the world to see that opinions are never lacking. But insight and beauty? A paragraph (And who reads paragraphs anymore? But that is another post altogether.) that knocks out and draws close in the same moment? A rarity. Gold, if you ask me.

But to craft such words, the author has to be willing to wrestle. Not just wrestle with himself, but wrestle with God. And not just wrestle with God, but wrestle in full view of the world. And not just wrestle in view of the world, but do it in such a way to make the rest of us know it is a beautiful thing to wrestle well in the light of a God who sees and knows already.

Few are willing to sell tickets to that show.

So when you find such a writer (and please find one at least? They are rare, but they are there. Scour the internet, read the last article in every magazine, ask a friend with good taste in writing and truth.), tell them, if you can. Tell them their words changed you, shifted something inside of you. They will wave it off and talk about the unsanctified deeps of their soul, but tell them.

It is no easy task to craft a sentence, especially in a time when so many believe they're writers just because they have something to say. Saying something and saying it well are two different sayings, and we would all do well to remember that and keep our tongues still. So tell the ones who have said something and said it well that they have done so.

And maybe someday, nearly ten years after you first read their article, you will find yourself friends and fellow admirers of one another, and—which is more beautiful and humbling—you will find that it is now your own written wrestlings that comfort and encourage them in the battleworn deeps of their soul.

Drinking Often

This morning in class we read through the last few chapters of Matthew, including the final supper. I couldn't help the tears that pooled in my eyes while our campus pastor read the words in that small paragraph. The last supper, yes, but the inaugural supper, that too. The first supper. The first communion. I love that.

So it is fitting, I think, that today I've written on that supper over at Grace for Sinners, the blog of Matthew Sims. I hope you'll head over there and read about a Savior who fulfills the law and uses the word "often."

"He knows us so well to use a word like often.

We need this, with our hearts so prone to attempting and trying, to sacrificing the modern lambs of our time, our tithe and our truant hearts.

We need this, we who do not understand that the kindness of God draws us to repentance and anything less is a marauder of faith and a shortcut to legalism."

Continue reading... 

Swimming in the Shallow Waters

Do you have a few minutes? I'd like to sit down, share a cup of coffee, chat with you. I'd like to look at your face, see you eye to eye, know the way you shift in your chair and the way you brush your hair back from your face. I want to know the sound of your laugh and the things that make you feel insecure about yourself.

I want to know you.

____________

When I set out to write in this space it was 2001. My life as I had known it had fallen apart or was being ripped apart. I didn't know the first thing about blogging. Certainly never thought a stranger would read what I wrote and never had any illusions of grandeur. As the poet Adrienne Rich said, "I came to explore the wreck, the words are purpose, the words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done, and the treasures that prevail." That was the first tagline on my blog and it remains an important one to me.

Diving into the wreck, using words to find purpose, to find my way, to see the damage and the treasure—this is why I write. This is why I have always written.

But the past two years more and more people read here. Strangers. People from all over the world are reading these maps, these purposes. And the deeper the numbers go, the more I want to swim in the shallow waters. It feels safer to not come out and say how I really feel about some things. To keep quiet on matters about which I feel strongly. To omit needless words, as E.B. White said, but sometimes to omit needed words. Because I am afraid of the wreckage—not the one that has already been made, but the one I might make with my words.

I have never wanted to be a confrontational writer and I still don't want to be. But I had a conversation recently with someone and his words sit heavy on me: your faithfulness to the craft of writing, the poetry you spin with your words, must never come before your faithfulness to the truth of what you write.

In other words, pick a seat or get off the ride.

____________

So I'm going to do something a bit scary: I'm going to come clean about some things in the coming weeks. I'm going to tackle some subjects that never make me squirm to talk about in real life, but make me all sorts of uncomfortable talking about online.

Because the truth is that I have picked seats on these rides, but I just didn't want anyone to know where those seats were.

____________

But here's what I want you to know: I want you to know that I wish I could sit down across from you, so I could know you and you could know me and we could be real people with real thoughts and real stories and real lives. It's really easy to write things on the internet and cast people in pale shallow lights. It's easy to create a monster from a man and to polarize politics. It's easy to assume we're right because these days it seems less and less about authorial intent and more about how that piece made the reader feel.

So here's what I want you to know, and I'll restate this many times in the coming weeks: this is not about making you or me or anybody else feel anything, it is about the intentions of my heart—and so too the intentions of your hearts.

You can't know mine and I can't know yours, so come play, but play nicely, because we're all walking out of a wreck and we're all walking into one—let's find the purpose, the map, and the treasures in them all.

Yeah?

Deeper Church: Thirty Blackbirds or More

I've had a love/hate relationship with the Bride of Christ most of my life. In the times I have needed her most, I have felt failed by her, and in the times I have felt myself stray far from her, she has pursued and loved me. These are strange words to use about an entity, a full body of individuals, imperfect men and women stumbling through life and the Bible as clearly as they can, but they are true words. There is nothing on earth I love more than the Church. 

I have felt her failings near and I have chased her down in desperation—and there is no other place I would rather commune, break bread and share wine, than within her haven.

Ephesians 4 speaks of building the unity of the Church and oh how that resonates.

To see a whole body purified, strengthened, and grown into full maturity, ready to be presented to Christ—this I love.

And so I'm grateful that I've been asked to contribute monthly to a publication that pulls from every fold of her robes, every particle of her skin, and every joint and marrow, to build up and unify the Church as best we can with our earth encrusted words.

My first column is up today:

Bearing the Weight of Thirty Blackbirds or More

I pass a field of blackbirds every morning on my way from class to work. There are a thousand of them wide in a Texas spread and I can’t stop trying to count them with my mind. Thirty of them are perched on a shrub close to the ground, but its branches do not bend or weep. I marvel at its strength. I marvel at the lightness of the birds, all thirty of them.

This desert shrub carries the weight of the blackest birds and I think of Jeremiah 17 while I drive. Continue reading...

OIL, WATER, and the LIES we tell ourselves

I’ve got layers of lies that I don’t even know about yet. Sara Groves

Here’s what happened:

A friend told me something and I believed her. I do that. I’m a believing, trusting sort of person. The thing is, what she told me was only half true. Not half true to her—she told me the truth as best as she could, but it was only half of the whole truth. I didn’t know the other parties involved, so what could I do? I believed her. This is what friends do.

But the water has sunk to the bottom and the oil has risen to the top and with it all the floating particles that are still coated with enough water that I can’t look into that cup without seeing more of the whole story.

And my heart is sick.

Because her true-to-her story was only half of the story and now I know the other half, and the other half is my friend too, and when you love oil and water, even if they hate each other, what can you do? You believe them both with as much grace as you can muster. This is what good friends do.

But at some point the whole thing gets shaken up again and it takes a while for things to settle and while it’s still shaken you feel sicker and sicker still because there are always three sides to every story, hers, his, and the horrible, awful, honest truth. With a choice so divided, what can you do? You choose truth. This is what the truest friend does.

To choose truth, though, means to lose other things, namely trust.

Today trust was lost and I mourn that. I mourn it so hard and so deeply because I have been lied to, though neither of them did the lying.

I was the one lying all along. And that is the most heartbreaking of it all.

Paul admonishes the Thessalonians to “aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you.”

I’m stuck on that today because I didn’t live quietly and I listened to the lies. But the lies were of my own making and they said something like this: You are big enough to handle the heartbreaking details of someone’s life all by yourself. You are big enough to have an opinion on lives that aren’t your own. You are big enough to discern truth from lies and from opinions and cries.

The truth is that I am not a part of the problem or the solution here; I am only a particle that floated to the top of his story, coated in the residue of her story. Just one small particle.

And if God did not give me the grace to handle this (at least without some amount of bellyaching), then it is probably best for me to simply bow out.

YOU, ME, and EVERYONE we know

Imagine with me a kingdom. A palace set on a hill with a town below littered with small homes of people—and a Troubadour making his way from Palace to People, back and forth. In the palace there are servants, kings, footmen, princes, cooks, and taste-testers; there are seamstresses, children, queens, and teachers. In the town there are servants, fathers, children, mothers, cooks, teachers, sellers, and tailors. And there is a troubadour making his way from Palace to People.

In the Palace everyone has a role and no one without a role is allowed in the door. There is a code of conduct within the castle walls and any outsiders are known, and all the insiders have things to say about them when their backs are turned.

Among the People outsiders are common and welcome, travelers pass through, sick people rest for a while, everyone earns his own way and they get there by the sweat of their brow. There is no protection out here and it is every man for himself. No one dares cross the threshold of the Palace.

And there is a Troubadour who goes from Palace to People to Palace to People.

From the People to the Palace he brings his stories, his lore, his songs, making melody from their harmony. He represents the town-people to the palace-people and they all clap their hands, their cheeks red with laughter and strong drink, they point and beg for more, more, more!

From the Palace to the People, he brings his secrets because who doesn't trust the ears of nearby troubadour? Plans and propositions fly mightily across the tables in the great hall when the wine flows freely and the kings toast in the presence of a mere entertainer.

The Troubadour never belongs in either place and carries with him the residue of both places, the People and the Palace. But kingdoms will rise and fall on the shoulders of this Troubadour, this ambassador, he who is never at home wherever he is, he who is just another person to the People and just another participant at the Palace.

Are you from the Palace or the People? Or are you a Troubadour, easily slipping in and out of both places effortlessly? There's no right or wrong answer here. I've just been thinking about cliques and culture and the people we trust to let in and the people we don't trust and, most of all, the people who purposefully don't fit anywhere.

KNIT ALL TOGETHER

He said I was too submissive and she said I wasn't submissive enough. What is a girl to do with a heart like mine, whose depths are filled with big ideas and fragile sensitivity? Everything natural in me fears and succumbs, because it is what my flesh does—it is only flesh, see? But when the cream rises to the top (and sometimes when the dregs do too) it all tastes of leadership because I have been knit of strength and foresight.

And I ask myself, why have I been knit together like this? Why so strong, so capable on top? But underneath, why so timid, so fearful?

"You knit me together in my innermost parts."

I ask Him often: what does it mean to be knit?

You know me. You made me. You put each gift inside of me and you are not unaware of my fears or tendencies. Each part of me knit to bring You glory. Each part there to draw me more deeply toward You. So what does it mean that you have knit me into a conundrum?

I have found a place of rest among a people who embrace a complementarian theology, but I also find a place of influence and friendship too, among those who embrace egalitarianism—and, oh how I feel this tension among people I love. I know where I land and I land there joyfully, happily, but I only land there because, hear me, because I have been knit here.

If we talk of experience only, I would tell you that every relationship (familial, church, or romantic) in which I've been where there was egalitarian leanings has been abrasive to me. I would tell you that I have never experienced the abrasiveness that others talk about in places where the roles of men and women are defined in complementarian terms—in fact, my specific gifts and leadership have been more widely used in these places. But this is my experience alone and I cannot share it with you more than to simply say it.

Here is what I want to say today, though: I want to say that though theology is the way we see God, my theology on gender roles is never the lens through which I see God, but instead I ask, I plead, I beg the giver of all good gifts to show me theology through His character alone.

This means that when I look into my experiences, my church, my theology, my personality, my flesh, my past, and my future, I cannot see it without first seeing that He is a good, good God, who creates good, good things, and intends them for good, good measures, and I can trust that regardless of the terms we paste upon our ways, His way is always best.

Not culture's way. Not a reactive way. Not an abusive way. Not an abdicating way. Not a domineering way.

Not any way that takes my eyes off of Him and onto an issue.

He is better.

So this isn't an issue for me. I rarely think about the roles of men and women, egalitarianism or complementarianism. I never feel undermined or afraid of speaking up at church, at work, or among friends. I feel heard in every avenue of my life because more than anything I know I am heard by the God of the universe.

That's enough for me. He knows me best anyway, He knit me that way.

This post has been brewing in me for months, but I felt that this week would be a good week to pull it out because Rachel Held Evans is holding a link up to her series on mutuality in the church. I think Rachel and I would be friends even if we disagree on some key issues, mostly because as I stated above, many of my good friends are more toward her camp theologically. I'm okay with that, really. I think that the beauty of life on earth is that we're not finished yet—all of us blind beggars asking for more of God until He unveils the fullness of the new and perfect earth. 

Talking small

God doesn't do small talk.

He doesn't get around to the deep subjects eventually and He doesn't skirt around difficult issues. God always goes after the heart.

Sometimes it doesn't seem like this, like when He asked Adam where He was in the garden. "Adam, where are you?" (As though He didn't already know...) But in the heart of that question, He was holding a mirror to the deepest inclination of the natural man: to hide.

This is what small talk is. It is a hiding of sorts behind a series of the day's events or offering a partial glimpse into a very real and very raw life.

There isn't one of us who when confronted with exposure welcomes it fully, openly, and with humble honestly. We run from it. Even if we don't physically hide, like Adam did, we hide behind what often feels like forced smiles and half-hearted answers.

God doesn't do that.

He asks. He probes. He wrestles. He answers. He withholds when it is for our good, but only when it is for OUR good. He is interested in the complex details of our lives and He isn't afraid of the answers we're often too feeble to offer up.

In community this is difficult at times. Because we are self-preservationists by nature, hiding in gardens and schedules and busyness and children and jobs, we sometimes feel too exhausted to ask questions or to give answers that will expose us.

Truth hurts. We hear that but most times we are thinking of other people's truth about us. The truth is that truth hurts in all circumstances. Your truth, your story, your sin, your weaknesses, all of these things hurt me because I have love for you, not because you intend for them to hurt me.

As we live and love community, seeking to reflect the gospel and grace in every circumstance, we are going to be faced with hurts of the deepest kind. Sickness, infidelity, depression, doubts, lust, all of this is raw and real and hurts whomever it contacts--but we, who are children of the Light, must walk in the light. We must not expose for exposure's sake, but for love's sake. For discipline's sake. For Christ's sake.

We gently draw out, we ask the difficult questions, we probe, sometimes lightly, sometimes more pointedly. Because deep inside of you and deep inside of me there are things which must be said. Not for the sake of saying, but for the sake of Light.

Why are you hiding?

Come out, come out from wherever you are, from  your doubts, your fears, your concerns, your wild longings, your broken hearts, your deepest dreams, sit and tell me. I won't be surprised and I won't be turned off. This is the heart of God toward you. This is how He longs to commune with you and longs for you to commune with others.

Come out!

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touched

It is hard to explain to someone in English how to make coffee if they only speak Portuguese. I suppose the irony of that is that the Portuguese probably know how to make their coffee blacker, bolder, and better than we ever will. But you understand the point. We, all of us, go through life trying desperately to help speakers of other languages understand what we are so certain of in our own. It is a climb that weakens even the most resolved.

I speak in the language of touch and I hear best when words, any words, are accompanied by a hand on my shoulder, arm against arm, or heads close together. I do not know why this is the language I speak best and I understand less why this is the language I receive best. It is not the language of the suburbs and I feel that acutely here. I take my hugs whenever I can. I give them, hard and long, because I want you to know that I love you, but I also want to feel that you could love me too.

Cards, gifts, time spent talking or a surprise task finished, these bless me, but I quickly forget. Like all the times I've tried to learn Spanish. Whole semesters of conjugations and tutors and rote memorization and my grasp is still medial, at best. It is not my language and it does not come naturally to me. It does not even come unnaturally to me. It dances circles around me, taunting me with the secrecy of its word-speak.

A hand on the top of my head, a thumb rubbed into my weary shoulders, feet touching beneath the table, and my ache for love subsides. This may seem hyperbolic to you, and perhaps it is, but we are speaking different languages, that's all.

I want to love well. I do. But I also want to be loved well.

There is a part of me that would like to believe that the creator of the universe, the one who designed love and is love, that he would be beyond the need for our earth-encrusted affection and dirt-laden offerings, but it was he who pled before his father "take this cup from me" and then found his brothers asleep on their watch. "Could you not wait with me? Keep with me?"

I wonder if that perfect Christ, the sinless man, the creator in flesh, if he felt in that moment of abandonment, his utter humanness.

I wonder if it is in our need for love that we are most human. Here, with our knotted muscles, tired from the work of life, we know our need.

(le love)