MPJ abides

A while back, when I was still in late high school/early college, I worked for a couple summers as a counselor at a girls' summer camp. The camp was located in the mountains of North Carolina, near Asheville, which is one of the most beautiful places on God's green earth. We spent our days hiking, singing songs, playing games, and building campfires. And I got paid for it. Pretty sweet.

However, the hours were long - as in 24-7, six days a week, nonstop mothering of a cabin full of little tiny girls. Making sure they were eating well. Brushing their hair because they wouldn't bother to do it themselves. Inviting all nine of them into my single bed with me every time there was a thunder storm. It was fun, of course. It was wonderful. But it could be extremely exhausting after a while. Which is why we counselors cherished so greatly that one day a week when we got to drive out of the camp gate and be free women for a few hours.

On one such particular "Day Off", I wandered into some friendly, hippy-owned music shop that smelled of incense and old records and began aimlessly digging through a pile of clearance CDs. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but I happened to come across a CD with cover art that intrigued me for whatever reason. The artist was Matthew Perryman Jones. I'd never heard of him before. I don't think anyone had. But I took a chance and bought the CD, listening to it as soon as I got into my car that day. And I absolutely loved it.

I still love that CD. It's my little mountain-find-treasure. I listen to it all the time. And sometimes I wonder whatever became of this guy, Matthew Perryman Jones...

Which is why I was so thrilled recently to be driving along, navigating my way through uptown Charlotte, and hear this on NPR:

MPJ abides. It's good knowing he's out there.

Jurassic Park 3

My husband, Jake, loves dinosaurs. I discovered this while we were in New York City last winter. We were in the city for an artists' conference, but toward the end of our trip there was a blizzard, and our flight out of NY got canceled. This gave everyone an extra day to go exploring, and somehow, Jake and I found ourselves wandering into the American Museum of Natural History.

We walked the "Mammal Halls"

and saw the dioramas of all the diverse, furry creatures in their natural habitats, looking so life-like you half expect them to move (and continually reminding me of Ross Geller - I couldn't help it!); we walked through a giant replica of the galaxy; and we gazed at about a zillion photographs of different birds of the world. All this was interesting enough...

And then we got to... the DINOSAURS.

Jake became a little boy again. You would've thought we had entered a theme park. I had never seen this side of him before, so it was kind of exhilarating to watch him come alive as he raced from exhibit to exhibit, pulling me along, touching everything he was allowed to touch, spouting off all sorts of random (to me) facts about dinosaurs of which I'd never even heard. Megalosauruses! Styracosauruses...Did you know their nose horns could be up to two feet long! Pteranodons! (The latter of which I actually did know once I was informed this was "Petrie" from Land Before Time.)

He couldn't get enough of it. And of course, the thrill hit its all time high when we reached the Hall of Saurischians. There Jake beheld his beloved Tyrannosaurus Rex.

- "You said you have a T-Rex? Say again?"

- " We have a T-REX!!!"

I'm teasing a bit, obviously. He really does love his dinosaurs, but it was fun for me, too, to see him so happy.

And that background knowledge will help you understand why, for his birthday a few weeks ago, I gave Jake the multi-disc collector's edition set of all three Jurassic Park movies, and why that was such an amazingly awesome gift, and why I happen to be the best wife ever. :)

So anyway. For the past few nights, we've been watching these movies together, in order. Last night, we watched the last one, Jurassic Park III.

I didn't think it was quite up to snuff compared with the other two, at least not from a screenwriting/filmmaking point of view, but that's really beside the point I want to make here. A line that Sam Neill's character spoke really stuck with me. It's been bothering me all day.

Sam Neill's character, Dr. Alan Grant, is talking with Erik, the little boy. A friend of theirs has just been carried off by a pterodactyl (I think that's what it was.), and they're kind of discussing their feelings about having lost this friend. During this bit of dialogue, Dr. Grant remarks to Erik that he believes there are basically two types of boys - those who want to be astronomers and those who want to be astronauts. The metaphorical astronomer (or, the paleontologist, which Dr. Grant is) gets to study all this amazing stuff from a place of complete safety. To which the little boy interjects, "But then you never get to go into space."

"Exactly," says Dr. Grant. "That's the difference between imagining and seeing: to be able to touch them."

Of course, they're talking about dinosaurs - studying dinosaur bones and imagining what these animals were like, verses actually getting to see the dinosaurs firsthand and touch them.

But I have to laugh, because this is how the Holy Spirit works in my life. He chooses to speak to me in the most seemingly bizarre places, like through the lines of a mediocre (in my subjective opinion) dinosaur movie. I know Alan Grant was talking about dinosaurs, but I couldn't help applying his words to my own life (I'd say "to my own spiritual life" except that I'm coming to understand that everything is spiritual).

See, I'm an astronomer. I knew it as soon as he said it. I'm like Dr. Grant. I love to sit and study old things - church history, Luther, the Reformation, justification through faith, Calvinism, Wesley, etc., and I bury myself in doctrine and theology and theorize about what it all means and how it's all connected, and I eat that stuff up. But when it comes to going out and doing what I'm reading... I pretty much suck. I'm not cut out to be an astronaut. It's way, waaayyy too dangerous.

Or at least, that's what I tell myself. And that needs to change. Because deep down, in my heart of hearts, it terrifies me to think I could look back on my life at the end of it and have done nothing but sketch portraits of God on my walls. I want to go to the places where only few have been because most "sane" people dare not risk it. I want to be in the thick of where my wild God moves, to see Him firsthand. I want to reach out and touch Him.

Entry #1

Today is a monumental day. Today I became a blogger. I've been putting people off for about a year now when they've asked me about starting a blog. I wondered, what would I say? I'm not that witty. Honestly, I'm still not sure what I'm going to say, but I'm okay with that now because my reasons for blogging have changed. I'm not writing to entertain any phantom reading public. I'm writing for me now.
At the church I attend, Renovatus (Latin for "renovation"), Pastor Jonathan Martin recently did a sermon series based out of Exodus, when God's people were wandering in the desert, waiting to enter the Promised Land that flowed with milk and honey, and how that idea of being "in the wilderness" and the lessons the Israelites learned there can be applied to our own lives today. The idea, of course, being that there is a correlation between the physical wilderness that the Israelites walked and the less tangible wildernesses that we face - a job loss, a miscarriage, the death of a spouse, unrequited love, general uncertainty about the future, what have you. These are temporary seasons in our lives of greater intensity in suffering.

There is the idea, too, however, that all of our lives on this earth, from birth to death, could be considered a journey through the wilderness, with Heaven as our awaited Promised Land. (I'm not trying to be morbid. Stay with me. I'm about to make a momentary detour into Revelation, but hang tight. I have an eventual point.)

The small group of amazing women that I lead (I love these girls so much; here's a picture of us at my wedding...)

Anyway, a few months ago, we studied through the book of Revelation. To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it at the beginning - all that doom and gloom and symbolism, but as it turns out, Revelation is, above all, a book of hope! Who knew? It shows that no matter what happens on earth, God is still in control. It promises that evil will not last forever (the wilderness is not unending), and it depicts the wonderful reward that's waiting for all who know Jesus. Right now, just as Paul describes in Romans, we live in a time of expectancy, of a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout our world are simply birth pangs - the birth of a new earth. We yearn for that full deliverance, that restoration. And in rare moments, we catch glimpses of it. It happens a lot in nature for me... an intensely vibrant sunset over the ocean, the smell of rain through the trees in the mountains... Or when I find myself in moments of deep conversation with a friend - usually over coffee - that go on for hours into the night, and I feel like we've touched upon some higher plain of intimacy. Philosophers would call this the longing for transcendence - the desire to be part of something larger than ourselves, something that is good. I could go on and on about this and all the cool spiritual implications and how behind it all, at the core of creation, is the Trinity, the drumbeat of all things good, which existed before all else as a perfect dance of giving and receiving love, and how it was the nature of this divine love - the desire of the Trinity to share it - that got us created in the first place. And how that's why the deepest part of our heart longs to be bound together in some heroic purpose with others of like mind and spirit. But I won't go into all that. :)

Suffice it to say, those perfect moments of transcendence, those fleeting "God moments" when the world seems right and good and (forgive me for being flowery) your heart could nearly burst from the beauty of them - in those moments, we are feeling the birth pangs. We are getting a preview of the kind of living that awaits us. But for now, we remain in the wilderness of a fallen world.

We're not without hope, though. When Jesus left the earth, He sent us His Spirit, to comfort and guide us on our way. And that brings me full circle to my original point (told ya I had one... if anyone's still reading...)

In Exodus 16: 32-34, God instructs the Israelites that they are to keep a portion of the manna and preserve it in a jar in order that the people for generations to come might remember the faithfulness of God's provision in the wilderness. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason I've decided to blog. In my own way, blogging is how I hope to "keep a measure of the manna". It's how I hope to preserve (through the written word) a record of my own journey and God's faithful provisions for me as I continually explore Him and He tirelessly pursues me.

Enjoy the ride!