Love...

"Love Is Not Against The Law" - Derek Webb

politics or love
can make you blind or make you see
make you a slave or make you free
but only one does it all

and it’s giving up your life
for the ones you hate the most
it’s giving them your gown
when they'’ve taken your clothes

it’s learning to admit
when you’'ve had a hand in setting them up
in knocking them down

(chorus)
love is not against the law
love is not against the law

are we defending life
when we just pick and choose
lives acceptable to lose
and which ones to defend

‘cause you cannot choose your friends
but you choose your enemies
and what if they were one
one and the same

could you find a way
to love them both the same
to give them your name

(chorus)

I've been thinking a lot about what Love is and what it is not. I can't say that I've got it figured out, but it's something I've been thinking about. For instance, Love is not passive. It doesn't just put up with whatever nor let someone do that which will hurt them, for fear of coming across the wrong way, or fear of rejection. Love has no fear. Love is bold. Love speaks truth and is good.

Love is patient and kind and chooses to see the best in people, but is also not naive. It is not oblivious to the cost of loving, nor is it unwise. Love sets boundaries and at times chooses to love even though it is the harder, more risky, more dangerous road. Love is active. Love does not stand idlely by while another suffers. Love doesn't settle. Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Yet love is not just a fairy-tale feeling that is based merely in hope. Love has foundation. Love never fails because there is One created love and sustains love. He is love.

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or pride or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT)

"love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear... We love each other as a result of his loving us first." (1 John 4:18,19)

Poverty, Injustice, Apartheid,...

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about injustice in the world. Over the past few weeks I've been talking with some other staff about creating a community of students focused on looking beyond themselves to the needs around them, looking to the fact that more world exists beside them. The first step is just finding like-minded students and then beginning to create a community where we ask the question of "what kind of fingerprint am I leaving on the world?" and "how can I both individually and in this community leave a mark?" We want to have projects both for the students in this community persay, but also for the campus as a whole. That's the simple version of where we're going with that...

But going back to what I've been thinking about... injustice, how the world is somehow not the way it should be, something is horribly wrong and horribly broken. Not too long ago I watched "Hotel Rwanda" again and was reminded of the tragedies that not only occurred there, but which occur everyday around the world - maybe not in my backyard, but still in the world in which I live. Monday, I went with the group from campus to give out sandwiches to the homeless downtown and to talk to them, valuing their existence and being. I talked to a woman from Romania who can't get a job because she doesn't have papers to be here. I talked to a man who seems perfectly content, wandering from place to place. He seemed very well educated and read, but lives on the streets. Then we ran into a group of guys that are nearly always in the same place, who are fun to talk with and who I really never know what they say is true and what they say is not.

As I walked home, I was reminded of a woman I met on Sunday morning, as I walked from the metro on the way to church. She asked for money or for something to eat, so I bought her a ham & cheese sandwich and a coke - that's what she said she wanted. We talked for a bit. She said her name was Rosa and that she is from NW Spain, has a baby, doesn't feel like she can go home, probably some other things have happened, and is having trouble finding work. I know I've given food to her before, but it was the first time we talked for very much time. I asked her if there was anything specific I could pray for her and she said for a job. She didn't seem to be without hope, just in a hard situation. I can remember seeing her for at least the past 6 months on and off. That fact, the fact that most people I see begging on the street are the same people I've seen for at least the past year, if not longer. I've asked some of them whey they are on the street and such, but still don't quite understand the "why" behind it.

I recently was looking at a friend's pictures from South Africa, pictures of an Apartheid museum, which again brought me back to "Hotel Rwanda" and the atrocities that occur around the world. Sometimes our discrimination has to do with race, sometimes with class, sometimes with other things, sometimes it seems more "sophisticated" but it always seems there to some degree. Why are we so quick to put ourselves above another? Why are we so quick to take care of ourselves and pay no attention to those around the corner? Why are we so quick to judge? so quick to hate? so quick to hurt one another? I say "we" because as much as I might like to think that I can be excluded, I know that isn't true.

Jesus talked about what goes on in our head, hurtful thoughts, hurtful words being like little murders. (Matthew 5.21-22) He talked again and again about our not judging one another because we really have the very thing we see in another in our own heart. I want to love as Jesus loved, and at times I do, yet I need him to change me from within or I am not much better than the people who commit the atrocities I see. Maybe I wouldn't do it actively, but by passively doing nothing I in a sense condone the same thing.

This morning I listened to a sermon from my pastor at home. His sermons really are like honey to my soul. He talked about in Acts 2, when the people heard about Jesus and were "cut to the heart." He talked about this phrase "cut to the heart." They were affected in a way that they encountered God. They saw the God of justice and truth, the God of love and hope. They saw him and saw that their lives didn't match up, that they were in a messed up, drastically broken world and that they were part of the mess. Yet they also saw the one who would make things right, the One who is just and good and true. While the world is broken and I need to be part of the change, some of that change can only begin within each of us. And, while that makes it seem even more impossible, particularly when I think of how far I still have to go, I also see the One who gives me hope and the One who makes it possible for the impossible to take place, the impossible to take place in me, but also in those around me. I have a lot more to say about all of this and hopefully will, but for now let me just write some of the HOPE that I do find, not in our messed up world, nor in myself, but in the One who made us and the One who redeems us...

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end." (Isaiah 9:6-7)

"The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him - the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord - and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth... Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat, and the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them... The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11:2-9)

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread,a nd your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare... Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near... You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands..." (Isaiah 55)

Faith - Fe

"Tener fe es tener la plena seguirdad de recibir aquello que se espera; es estar convencido de la realidad de cosas que no vemos. Nuestros antepasados fueron aprobados por Dios porque tuvieron fe.

Por fe sabemos que Dios formó el universo mediante su palabra, de modo que lo que ahora vemos fue hecho de cosas que no eran visibles." (Hebreos 11:1-3, Dios Habla Hoy)

So... this year is for sure turning out to be harder than I expected. Somehow, I'm not surprised. And... it's affecting me more than I had hoped. BUT with that said, I'm finding that the Lord is teaching me a lot about what it means to walk by faith. Surprise, surprise. :-) After going to the evening service at a church that is just a 10 minute walk from my apartment, I put on "The Holiday" and began to read part of Ney Bailey´s book, "Faith is Not a Feeling" (which by the way is a great book). I've read most of it before, but it was timely for now. In chapter 8, which is where I began, she recounts a conversation she had once with a counseling friend. Let me quote a little bit of it:

"One day his secretary, Carol, was telling him about all the difficult circumstances she was facing. When she finished, Don said, 'Carol, what you have just told me is not unusual. Seventy-five percent of life is made up of struggles, concerns, frustrations, and trials. That 75 percent will always be with you. You need to let that 75 percent be characterized not by unbelief but by faith, by believing God and hoping in Him.'"

Ney then talks about what she does in her difficult circumstances. (As a side note, forgive my horrendous spelling, which despite being almost entirely in english is a bit of a spanglish mess.) She says divides a sheet of paper into 4 quadrants, one listing the good, positive things she likes, one listing all the things she dislikes, the third listing her responses and reactions, and then what God might want to teach her and Bible verses to meet her in her need.

Now before continuing on about Ney Bailey's book, let me go back to the church service. In the sermon, the pastor talked about the fact that what is in our heart will come out sooner or later and that often in difficult situations we see things we dislike (or wish weren't there). Instead of excusing them as "not being who we really are," we should see that the Lord wants to bring them out so we'll actually see what is in our heart and allow him to change us.

So... going back to the book, as I read these words, I thought back to the sermon and began to make my list. Most of what I wrote wasn't brand new information about myself, but did shed some light on how I've been dealing with feeling in over my head and a bit alone. It also was encouraging to see what God IS doing in me and to be reminded of what is excited about being in over my head - that He has to be the One to work. It will be obvious that it is Him, not me.

An old college friend was a breath of fresh air the other day as he wrote me and said just that. Sadly, he's one of the few friends who has said that, instead of acting as if I'm insane to still be here. So... walking by faith and not by sight, trusting in God's greatness and that He is bigger than the obstacles I see around me, really trusting God and being courageous to step out in faith.

So, I have a litany of verses I'm going to begin reading and memorizing. But to begin, Joshua 1:9; Hebrews 11:1; and Hebrews 13:5-6 - "I am the one who tells you to be strong and courageous. Do not fear and do not be dismayed, for I, the Lord your God, will be with you wherever you may go." "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the certainty of things unseen." "(God said) 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' Thus we can say with confidence, 'The Lord is my help; I will not fear. What can man do to me?'"

Beauty, Goodness, and Friends

A few days ago I decided that I needed to get out of the house to get some work done. I went to Starbucks, as it's right around the corner and has predictably good atmosphere to get work done in it (and unlike most other cafés, there actually are other people getting work done, or at least reading). So, I get my tall cappichino con soja and sit down. As is not uncommon at all, the guy in a chair closeby struck up a conversation with me. He was probably in his early 70s and told me that I looked like I just stepped out of "Friends." Now, I don't think I've ever been told that before.

Well, we began to talk a bit and he told me I should sit down with him to talk for awhile. I told him that I actually came to get some work done and began to pull out the stuff I needed to work on. He proceeded to ask if he could give me his e-mail, website and I don't remember all the other stuff he wrote down on the napkin I gave him. Apparently his website has poetry and pictures and such.

He told me that he has begun a new life. He has decided that he needs to spend more time with young, beautiful women. :-) He has decided that beauty and goodness go together. All things beautiful are good, or so goes his line of thinking. I mean, take for instance, Blancanieve or Snow White. Who is the good one and who is the bad one? This was his proof for his theory after I told him I didn't think that was the case. He asked me to give him an example of one case where this wasn't the case. And, while it took me a few seconds to think of one, I don't think they are far in between.

Anyway, I was obviously flattered that I was included in the "young and beautiful" category, which by the way is one great benefit of living in Spain - being called "guapa" on a regular basis. So, this man told me that he hangs out in Starbucks and at least recently has talked with quite a few guapa girls from the US.

Turning over a new leaf

So... I've been playing around with the whole idea of blogs and, honestly, can't say I've become fully convinced that I'm made for blogging, but I like to read other people's blogs after which I always think about my lame blog and how I should try to keep it up. I mean, really, there are plenty of interesting things to write about in my life or at least in my city. So... here is a new go at it. And, if it works, maybe more than just a handful of people would actually know that I have a blog. funny.

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God..."

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, 'This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ahs surpassed me becasue he was before me.' ' From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus chrsit. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (John 1:1-18)

Somehow, as the beginning of the semester is drawing near, and, as a new and challenging year is beginning, it is good for me to be reminded of John 1. It sets my compass to the right place, it reminds me of who I am and what is true. It reminds me of Jesus's great humility to come to earth and live amongst us, but also of his majesty. He was with God in the beginning! He in fact is God. And, it says here, that nothing was made that didn't come into existence through him. That means a lot! That means that not a detail goes without his notice. That means that He does in fact have power over nature, power over my life, power over the details of my life in Madrid, Spain, power over even the things that seem far out of my control. That is very good news!!!

I need to be reminded that the rock I am clinging to will in fact hold me, that it's not just a nice thing I tell myself, but it is a firm and reliable foundation. And this Word, this Light, this Jesus, is the one who gives LIFE. That is why I'm here. That is why I have given everything to follow him. Oh, that I may be reminded of these truths every moment of every day, so that I would have confidence to encounter the winds and waves of life.

John 1