Why We Like Old Things...

As Jake and I were driving home the other night, we were noticing the moon. I think we'd been discussing the star of Bethlehem and our amazement at the sovereignty of God - that in the midst of scientific patterns and laws that mandate the activity of stars and planets, God knew, even at the dawn of time, when the universe was spoken into existence, the exact day and hour when His Son would be conceived in the virgin, when His Son would be born into the world, and when His Son would be executed and die, in order to mark each of those exact moments in the sky with a kind of celestial poem.

Jake and I talked about what it must have been like at the death of Christ, to witness a blood red moon, which got us to gazing at the moon as we drove along...

Jake said he'd never really thought of it before then, but it was a weighty realization that this same moon which we peered at on our drive home, this same moon which continues to rise on our modern twenty-first century nights, this same exact moon witnessed the death of Jesus Christ. And this same moon rose on Adam and Eve, back when creation was brand new and the moon itself was still young. And this moon watched the flooding of the earth, saw the rebuilding of civilization and the division of language, the scattering of peoples, the rise of mighty Egypt and all of the plagues which swept across it. Etc. Etc. etc... The moon has seen it all. The moon has witnessed the enduring, unfolding narrative that continues to be played out upon the earth as God moves to restore His creation to Himself.

As we drove along, gazing at the moon and discussing all of this, we decided that the weight of this realization - the realization of the ancientry of the moon - came from our deepest desires as humans to be part of an epic story, a story older and grander and much larger than ourselves. And it is things like a timeworn moon which remind us that the story of the Scriptures continues on, played out upon the earth today, and we are just as much a part of this tale as the heroes of old or the prophetic heroes (and villains) to come.

It is our story, too. It is my story. I am a part of it, and it is a part of me, and this makes me want to know the story well, because it is my heritage. And it is my future and only hope of glory. It is where I have come from and explains so much about why I am the person I am. And it helps me to know where I am going.

The other day I was listening to a sermon given by Scot McKnight (shocker), and he said that Bible scholars have found at least 35 allusions to specific Old Testament texts in the song of Mary, found in Luke 1. Here was a young woman who understood the Story and recognized her place in it. She knew the promises God had given to her people, long before her time, and she understood what was being asked of her in light of those promises.

I want to be a woman like Mary. I want to know the Story so I can recognize significant moments in it as they happen.

The Story continues. The restoration continues. I am reminded of other ancient things - not as old as the moon, but timeworn nonetheless. Ancient sites like the Colosseum, the Parthenon, the Pyramids. Though ravaged by time and weather and acts of history, reduced to mere shadows of their original glory, these ruins still awe us. Though they have fallen, their glory cannot be fully put out. This is exactly what I was writing about the other day when I went on a tangent about "kavod". Maybe we still like to see these ancient sites, maybe tourists still flock to them, for the same reason that Christmas continues to move us. They call us back to our former glory. They remind us of ourselves. Something in their desecrated histories resonates with our own. We sense we are connected to the stories of these places in a drama that continues to unfurl. For we, too, are "glorious ruins", except of course that unlike most of these grand monuments, we are being renewed and restored.

No longer are we called Deserted. We are called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord. We are called Sought After. (Isaiah 62:4, 12)

The King of the Universe continues to fight for, rescue, and pursue the hearts of his divorced beloved, and this is the great, unfolding Story of the world. A struggle toward final salvation. A sweeping epic of extravagant love. For that is how the Story first began: in perfect love. As I've said in this blog time and time again, our "Sacred Romance", as coined by John Eldredge, began in the intimacy of the Trinity, which is the dance at the heart of all true reality. And this is why our hearts crave to belong to a larger something than ourselves. We were made for it. We were made to be swept up in that perfect, Trinitarian, ever-extending love. That is the fairy tale of the Gospel - except , of course, that it isn't a fairy tale at all, because it's true. It is true and it is living and it calls us into itself. The Story of the Scriptures not only happened but has kept on happening and is still happening and will continue to happen until the last events described in the book of Revelation have come to pass, for I am convinced at the colossal and prolonged desire of God, throughout history, to draw us wanderers back into His arms.

One More Sleep 'Til Christmas!

Nearly every Christmas, I watch The Muppet Christmas Carol. It's just not quite Christmas without these furry little characters. What can I say? They bring me joy.

And since it's Christmas Eve, this song seemed particularly appropriate:

Merry Christmas!

Aston Martin DBS Volante

If anyone recently won the lottery and was wondering what my dream car is, in order to surprise me for Christmas, of course, well wonder no longer. Cause here it is.

I know I don't typically post about stuff like this, but ya gotta admit, that's a good lookin' car.

On Loving God, by extension

I've been thinking a bit lately about what it means to love God. I think probably it means a lot of things. People have probably written whole encyclopedia-sized books on it. But I'm trying, for now, to keep a simple approach. And I keep coming back to the fact that Jesus seems to have said, "To love God, love people."

To love God, love people. True religion is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress.

I keep thinking of how when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He gave two commandments, not one. It's as if the two could not be separated. Someone asked him, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment?" And Jesus responds ,"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." And then He continues with a second, "And love your neighbor as yourself. The rest of the Law hangs on these two commandments."

Interesting. It's as if Jesus is saying you can't love God fully unless you're also loving the people around you. Loving your neighbor.

And then Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, to further illustrate just what He means by "neighbor". Apparently, my neighbors don't stop with my group of friends, or even the acquaintances I can manage to get along with decently.

No, Jesus seems to be saying that if we are to truly love our neighbor, we are to love in an all-inclusive sort of way - something I'm not very good at, I've noticed recently. I have a particular circle of friends that I've grown incredibly close to over the last year, but lately that group has started to change. New people are coming in. The dynamics are changing. And I am NOT okay with this. I want those people to go back where they came from. I don't want to share my deep friendships with these "others". I don't want our group to change.

But, oddly enough, that is exactly who Jesus has called me to love. OTHERS. (And yes, I did just think about LOST, ha. But hey, I don't think it's a stretch to say that if, in fact, Jack and Kate and Sayid, etc. were real people, Jesus would want them to love the strangers they don't understand who co-habitate their island. Unfortunately, Jack and Kate and Sayid and the rest of the gang are not real people, nor is the island a real place. Sadly. Because if it was, I'd want to go there, I think. But anyway...) My point is, we are to love others. All sorts of others.

The strange. You know who those people are in your life. The different. The awkward ones who don't seem to have ever "gotten the memo". The ones that drive you bananas. The ones who are perfectly nice but you don't want them infringing on your perfectly wonderful status quo. The really mean ones, too. The manipulative ones. The "others" who tear you down and hurt you and make you cry.

Jesus says, "Love them. Love them all. For in loving them, you love Me."

I wish that wasn't the case. I wish I could just love God. And screw everybody else. Or at least, screw the people I don't like. (Is that too harsh? I'm just being honest.) But God has been gently showing me lately how much it means to Him for me to love those He has placed in my path, no matter who they are or what they're like. I don't get to choose who my neighbors are.

I think the whole thing is wrapped up in the idea of community. Because God is a community. (I know. I know. I've talked about the Trinitarian nature of God before, but I can't help it. It's just so central to everything, I keep having to come back to it.) God is tri-une. He is in some way a community of love and grace and peace who people are then enveloped by and embraced by and invited by. God is not isolated or detached. He has always had in His midst beauty, strength, and love - self-giving, self-sacrificial love. This is the fundamental nature of the universe. The universe is not static. At the center of it is the Trinity, with each member circling the others in perfect giving and receiving, harmonious, interconnected relationship.

And that, I'm convinced, is why sin is such a big deal. It's not that God gets mad that we're not following His rules for the sake of having rules, in some dominating sort of power hungry way on His part. It's more that what we call "sin" is, in fact, simply a term for describing a cracked relationship of community between me and God, me and others, and me and creation. It's just that sin gets in the way of that perfect communion of giving and receiving love between all of us and us and God, which we were created for. And that's why God hates it so much. And that's why He begs us, He exhorts us, to orient ourselves around the strange, the different, the unintelligible, the hateful, the overly happy, ha - to circle around them. For in our frustration and pain of trying to serve and love them well, we inevitably come face to face with what it's like for God to love us and to have grace for us.

To be restored to the people we were always meant to be, representations of the very image of God (or Eikons, as Scot McKnight calls us. [Read his stuff, by the way. It'll blow you out of the water. He has a bunch of good books out, and he blogs, too.]), we must be in community. We must be one, just as the Lord our God is One. This is the Shema, which is a Jewish term I learned in a college religion class and am proud to still remember so I thought I'd show my knowledge off now. Basically, from what I recall, it is a centerpiece of Jewish prayer, taken from Deutoronomy, a reminder that the Lord is One, and that he/she who recites this prayer should be intending to "die into God", to take part in His oneness. Which maybe sounds a little bit I'm realizing like Buddhist Nirvana. But not the same thing, I assure you.

What I'm saying is that God is a community in harmony with Himself, so to reflect His likeness, like the true "Eikons" He created us to be, we as humans must be a community in harmony with one another! We mirror His perfect union. We are created in the image of a generous, personal, communal God of Oneness. This is why we crave connection with one another, coffee with friends, a game of flag football, Christmas parties... It's why co-workers take smoke breaks together, why college kids take long walks around campus with a buddy, talking about life, why we get together to cook meals, or to see a play, or to go out dancing or to a bar. We are hard-wired for this connectedness.

And it isn't always easy, either. I just listened to an interview of a Rwandan man who lived through the horrific genocide there in 1994. The things that happened to him seem like accounts of nightmares, not real events, they were so terrible. And yet, what did this man choose to do in response? It seems impossible, but he loved. In this case, his neighbors were, in fact, his enemies. They tried to kill him, they stoned his young son. And what did he do in return? I kid you not, he went to his neighbors and begged their forgiveness for the awful things he'd said about them while they were stoning his son.

WHAT?!

I know. Such love seems absurd, unachievable. And on one hand, I suppose it is, on a purely human level. This Rwandan man, when asked how he was able to not only forgive his neighbors for what they had done to his son, but also go beyond that in reaching out to them in humility, he said quite simply, “It was God. God allowed me to love my neighbors in this way. When I realized God was not giving me a choice – this is a command from Him - I knew what I must do.”

That’s some kind of love. And I think I have it hard? I have to love perfectly nice people who are infringing upon the dynamics of my friend group. Gee, I’m not selfish.

And I suppose to my credit, I’m trying to get better about this. I would love to get to a place where I don’t even have to make myself love the people in my life. It just happens naturally. Wouldn’t that be awesome? To start loving people with such a drive, such a passion, that eventually it just becomes second-nature?

I have a friend like that. She is probably the most open-armed, welcoming, non-judgmental, all-inclusive people-lover I know. Her circle of friends has no walls. No criteria. No number limit. She just goes about living her life, and whomever she happens to interact with along the way, she loves. She listens to. She cooks for. She invites along on whatever adventure she’s currently in the middle of. There is no one unwelcome.

I wish I could be more like her.

The other night at the Andrew Peterson thing, I sat beside this friend. And she was telling me about another girl who she’s been trying to love lately, and how this girl has sort of latched onto my friend in a way, as if she’s really needed someone to talk to, needed someone who will love her. Jake was listening in on our conversation from the other seat beside me, and he remarked to my friend that she’s very much like a people-magnet.

I wholeheartedly agreed.

My friend smiled and thanked us for saying so. But then she said something that surprised me. She said she didn’t feel very much like a people-magnet.

This astounded me. Time after time in the history of our friendship, I’ve watched this friend servant-heartedly love people, expecting nothing in return from them. And time after time, sometimes many years into their relationship, I’ve watched as these same people have chosen to come to my friend with their spiritual questions, been vulnerable to her about the emptiness they feel, expressed to my friend their interest in going to church with her, deciding to take a look into this Christ who my friend claims as her ultimate reason. All these lives changed because of one girl’s patient, unobtrusive, self-giving love. I don’t know anyone else who loves their neighbor quite like she does. So I wondered, that night at the Andrew Peterson show, how in the world my friend could be blind to this fact? How could she not see that she’s the greatest people-magnet I personally know?

And then almost as soon as I’d wondered it, I knew why. Loving people has become so second-nature, so involuntary to my friend, she doesn’t even think about it anymore. It’s just what she does. It doesn’t seem out of the ordinary to her anymore.

It’s like driving a car. When you first learned to drive, everything about it was difficult and unnatural and required a lot of focused, purposeful thinking and a lot of energy. And it required a lot of practice. And (admit it), you got really excited when you started getting the hang of it.

But now, driving a car is no big deal. It’s just what you do. You’ve done it so much that sometimes your brain can switch to autopilot and you can think about all sorts of other things while your body keeps driving. No biggie.

I’m convinced this is how my friend has come to love people. Probably at first it was difficult and unnatural and required a lot of focused, purposeful thinking and a lot of energy. And she probably had to actively practice a lot at it, too. But now, loving people is just what she does. It doesn’t seem out of the ordinary to her. It’s no biggie. That’s why she kind of shrugs when others call her a people-magnet and why she says she doesn’t see it.

She’s gotten to the point where her left hand doesn’t even know what her right hand is doing. *

*Matthew 6:3

Gloriously Good Times

Jake and I and a group of dear friends went to Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God tour a couple of nights ago, and it was awesome. It was glorious. It declared to me the glory of God in a way that only Christmas-y type things can. You know what I mean. There's something special about Christmas that fills our hearts with a breathless wonder, a heaviness of awe deep in our chests that cannot be replicated at any other time of year. So I got to thinking about what that might be. What's behind this feeling?

It's such a weighty feeling. It's a feeling of being very small, in the middle of something very, very grand.

Which made me remember a sermon I heard several years ago about the glory of God. I think it was a Rob Bell sermon. He talked about how, in the Hebrew, the word for "glory" is "kavod". And something with kavod is something that's here to stay; it's something significant, honorable, heavy, majestic, weighty. It actually comes from the word "kaved", if I remember right, which is another Hebrew word that might be used to describe the heaviness of a rich person's jewelry, weighing them down. So is the glory, or kavod, of God. It's like the bass drum at the core of creation. It's that deep rumble in the universe of the things that aren't going anywhere.

The heavens declare the kavod of God. The starry night sky drips with His glory. We gaze up at its vastness and are reminded of our place in a very great, epic story of the world. We are reminded of beauty, mystery, sacrifice, love, depth, reverence, perspective. And there is something about this, something about coming face to face with a cosmic weight and significance that is so much larger than our own... I'm convinced it's good for our psyche. Or at the very least, good for our pride!

God is drenched in glory. But God has crowned us, His children, with glory as well. He has placed us over the created realm. He has fashioned us in His image.

Yet, Scripture tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the kavod of God. We have been crowned with glory and honor. But we are also not as we were intended to be. So we must live with the tension between the two, between who we are and who we could be. And oddly enough, I'm beginning to speculate that that might have something to do with why Christmas moves us.

Perhaps the power of Christmas is that we know we need saving. We know we have fallen short and need help. And the birth of the Christ child announces to us that God has not given up on us, that God wants to rescue us, save us, redeem us, forgive us, wipe the slate clean, give us new birth, new life! Christmas is God's way of not giving up on us, and that, I hypothesize, is why it moves us at such a soul level. We can reclaim the kavod we were crowned with.

Anyway, these are just my musings, for whatever they're worth. Take them or leave them. But what I actually set out to share with you when I started this post was something much less serious/philosophical. I was just gonna say that I went to the Andrew Peterson show, and it was awesome, and that there was one singer/songwriter of the bunch (Andy Osenga) whose stuff I particularly enjoyed, so I looked him up afterward. And found this.

Good times.

I'm not one to extensively rave about any movie, but Avatar is seriously awesome.

I will probably have more to say about this movie at a later date, but for now, I leave you with a simple mandate:

SEE IT!

Official Avatar Movie

And be sure you see it in IMAX-3D. A lot will be lost if you don't.

Christmas Town, USA

My husband surprised me when I got home from work today. I had planned on making chicken and some veggie sides for dinner - something easy and healthy and run-of-the-mill. Jake, however, informed me that he had made other arrangements for us tonight...

We would be venturing out. To where, I did not know. But I like surprises. And so the night began...

First, we stopped off at Sonic to pick up some food (which, if you don't know, Jake and I share a mutual and deep-seated love of Sonic Drive-Ins. I've always felt there's nothing that compares with a good ole, artery cloggin' chili-cheese coney, onion rings, and a vanilla Dr. Pepper. So when I found a man who agreed with me on that, I married him.)

After Sonic, we headed up the interstate. I knew Jake wasn't going to divulge where we were headed, so I didn't try to figure it out. We just talked about this and that...

...and then...

We reached the McAdenville exit.

And it suddenly became very clear what the surprise was. I should say, it was bright and clear.

As far down the road as I could see, every tree, every

house, every pharmacy was lit up

with twinkling red, green, and white lights.

Apparently, back in 1956, the McAdenville Men’s Club had the idea of using lights to decorate a few trees around the McAdenville Community Center. With the permission of town officials, nine trees were decorated that first year. The reaction was so favorable that each year since then the number of decorations has increased. Now, it's an all-out, town-wide festival of lights. It's incredible.

I couldn't help feeling charmed, in an old town, transportive sort of way, to see lampposts adorned with lighted wreaths,

carolers on the steps of the church, front doors transformed with ribbons and bows into giant Christmas packages, sparkles of light and color all around, and from every person whose path we crossed, an enthusiastic "Merry Christmas!"

When we arrived back home, I looked up the history of Christmas Town, as it has affectionately come to be known. I found it quite interesting that they claim outright on the town's official website that they desire for McAdenville to be "a special place at a very special time of year where almost every home and evergreen tree proclaim the birth of Jesus."

Huh. No wonder it felt so welcoming.

Celestial Jam Sessions

For those who don't know, I'm a nanny to an 8-year-old boy named Charlie. He's a funny little guy. Very, very smart. Sometimes too smart for his own good, if you ask me, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, if you asked his mother, she would probably tell you that they are people of faith. They don't go to church regularly, but they believe in God, in being good, in helping your neighbor, all of that. I certainly don't think they are opposed to religion. In fact, they would probably call themselves Christians. It's just not a big priority for them.

Now a big part of my job consists of driving Charlie to the various places where he has afterschool appointments each week, so we spend a lot of time in the car together, he and I, going this place and that. Which can lead to interesting conversations.

And let me just say, children really are like sponges. They soak in and retain everything around them. I can't count how many times I've been off in la-la-driving-autopilot-land and Charlie has piped up from the backseat with some deeply thoughtful question or comment over a remark

just spoken on the radio. Which is why I've made it a conscious choice to keep my radio tuned to the Christian station anytime Charlie is in the car. It's "safe for little ears", as they say. But it's more than that, too. It's an opportunity, even if a small one, for the story of Jesus to reach his young heart and possibly take root there.

That hasn't happened yet, but we have had some pretty fun conversations, nonetheless. Like the one we had yesterday:

I was driving him home from school, and a particularly upbeat version of "O Holy Night" came on the radio. Something with drums and electric guitars and a lead singer with a cool, raspy voice. I didn't think anything of it at the time and didn't realize that Charlie had, either. He sat silently in the backseat throughout the entire song, forehead pressed to the car window.

Then the song ended, and he turned from his stare at the passing scenery to find my eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Meagan?"

"Yes, Charlie?"

"It's kind of weird to hear holy music turned into rock."

I was silent for a moment, digesting the comment. I decided to probe. "Why do you think it's weird?"

"Well, because it's holy music. I mean, it's holy. You're supposed to sing it how God would like it."

Now I smirked. "Oh," I baited him, "You don't think God likes rock music?"

He gave me one of those looks he gives people when he thinks they've said something stupid. I could tell that in his mind, God was old, and old people don't listen to good music. So I continued...

"Oh, I bet He does! After all, God created music. He's bound to have good taste."

Charlie's look told me he remained unconvinced. So I went on. "Plus, He's

God, so He deserves the very best right? I mean, if the President gets to have private concerts at the White House, imagine what God must get! I'd bet you He's got the very best bands of all time playing in front of His throne. And they're not playing lame-o harps, either. They play the good stuff."

Charlie laughed. But it was a happy laugh, not a sarcastic one. It was the kind of laugh that comes out of discovering a delightful new possibility.

He was quiet for another few moments before speaking up again.

"It's weird to think of angels playing electric guitars." I watched him grin as he pictured it. "Weird and cool."

"Weird and cool," I repeated with a smile of my own. My sentiments exactly.

He loves us

Lately I've felt very mediocre. I can't put my finger on exactly why. I've just felt second rate. I feel like I'm not doing all the things a "good wife" is supposed to do. I'm not being very available to my friends. I'm not exercising or eating particularly well. I'm not using my time wisely. I'm definitely not investing it in growing in my knowledge of God. I just kind of suck at life. Or at least, that's how I've felt.

And it sucks to feel that way. Especially when your pastor is doing a series on relationships and devotes an entire Sunday's sermon to addressing how wives should be loving their husbands. I'd known it was coming all week. And I was prepared to get blasted. If I'm honest, my defenses were already up before I stepped into church this past week. (Which makes it kind of hard to worship.)

I was ready to get thrown under the bus, revealed as the mediocre wife that I was convinced I am. And yet, strangely, that's not what happened at all. Jonathan delivered one of the gentlest sermons I've ever heard him preach. It was full of love, grace, encouragement, exhortation. (Not that he normally preaches damnation by any means, but he also doesn't sugar coat the truth, so I was prepared to hear some hard truths about myself.) The message I heard instead was completely liberating. The message I heard instead gave me permission to step out from under all the expectations I have for myself and for how my life is "supposed" to be. It called me to simply allow God to love me - to get away with Him and be quiet and vulnerable enough that He can present Himself as the kindest, gentlest lover my soul will ever know. How freeing!

Sometimes I forget how much God loves me. I think about all the things I'm supposed to be doing for Him and all the character traits I'm supposed to be gaining and clearly I don't measure up to the standard, so I become convinced I've disappointed God and I start avoiding Him. And then, when I've beaten myself up to the point I can no longer take it, I finally, cautiously, glance over in God's direction again. To my surprise, He's waiting there, not ready to strike, not angry or punishing, but with eyes so soft and gentle you can't look away from them. There is a twinge of disappointment on His face. But it is not born out of frustration at my failures. Rather, it is a sadness that comes from times he waited for me, to love me, but I never showed. It is a sadness at my lack of trust in His goodness, His mercy, His heart.

Let us not forget the love of our Father. He wants so much to give us all He has. He has already provided us with everything we need for life and godliness. How? Through knowing Him. Through knowing the One who calls us - not by any sort of shame or coercion, but who calls us by his own glory and goodness. He loves us! Oh, how He loves us! And because of this, He has given us His precious and very great promises, that we are co-heirs with Christ, participants in the divine nature, and thus able to escape the corruption of this world!

Sometimes I daydream about the person I'd like to become one day - the type of wife, the type of mother, the type of friend, the type of ministry leader. This week Jesus reminded me that this woman, this totally awesome future me, is completely possible! I already have all the potential inside me to become an amazingly Godly woman. It's just a matter of spending time with Jesus. He has already given me everything I need.

So how much do I want to change? Am I willing to make every effort to act on my beliefs and to take advantage of the life offered me? To strive after purity and courage of character. To discipline myself to go deep in the Word of God, to meditate on it day and night, to internalize what I learn so that my knowledge informs my actions. To develop self-control and moderation in every facet of my life. To endure in the midst of really difficult times so that I can build up perseverance and Godly character. To become a person of true compassion, who celebrates with those who celebrate and cries with those who cry, filled with tenderness and the love that comes from God in me. How much do I really want to become that person? Because if I want to live that kind of life, the adventure is waiting for me.

And the best part of all? The only requirement is seeking to know God - who happens, as it turns out, to be crazy about me. :)

"Therefore, I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her." -Hosea 2:14