In the Midst of Immortals

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit.

- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I read this the other evening and was horrified as I thought about how I had interacted with people all throughout the day. It wasn't as if I had done something terrible--crushing a person's spirit* for instance, or spreading vicious rumors about someone. But I was disturbed by the apathy that had characterized my interactions with people. I realized that all day long, I had mostly been concerned with myself: how I looked, how I felt, how well I managed to converse with the new people I had met. It was all about me, me, me.

You see, when it comes to realizing the value of human beings, it doesn't take much convincing for me to realize my value. Afterall, to me my life feels very important. But value isn't something that is singular to me. I'm not valuable because I am a beautiful or costly container, but because inside this container of flesh I carry the image of God. Being made in God's image is a treasure that is common to every human being. If only I had the eyes to see the people I come into contact with each day as precious individuals, bearing the image of our Creator! If I saw them as creatures that are so dearly beloved by this Creator that he went to the greatest of lengths to make a way for them to experience eternal communion with him! If I saw their potential to be the people they were created to be, if I recognized that they were immortals destined either to "immortal horrors or everlasting splendors," as Lewis puts it. If I saw these people as they truly are, would I continue to watch their lives so apathetically? Would my words to them be so careless? Would my attitude toward them be one of annoyance? I think I would not dare.

Oh Lord, thank you for valuing us creatures of dust. Grant me your eyes to see the people around me. Grant me your heart to love them as you do. Allow me to glorify you with my attitudes, thoughts, actions and words. Help me to walk in love and humility and show me ways I can serve your image-bearers each day.

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* In this context I mean "spirit" in an emotional sense, not a theological one.

P.e.a.r.ls of Wisdom?

Guess what I have been craaaaving?!
It all started six weeks ago when I was in Missouri. I remember my cousin cutting up a pear for us to eat with our lunch. It was very yummy, but I forgot about it, because, well...it was a pear. Who remembers a pear?

This weekend however, I was at a friend's house and she put out a plate of freshly cut pears for the group to snack on. Oh my. Have pears always been this good? Tender and juicy and sweet...mmm. I remember liking them well enough when I was a kid, but these were amazing! So amazing that this week when I went shopping, they were the first thing I was looking for to put in my cart. Now the pears I bought are a little firm, so they are now sitting on my counter in a paper bag ripening. This morning when I ventured to find something for breakfast I eagerly opened the bag hoping for an overnight ripening miracle. But alas! My pears were still firm, so I had to settle for a banana.

You know how sometimes you can become so infatuated with something that if you can't experience it one way, you'll find another way? (Like how when I was little I couldn't be on Punky Brewster, but at least I could mimic her amazing sock-layers!) Well, I decided that since I still couldn't eat the pears, I would photograph them in all their delicious beauty. (I know, I know, I really need to get a life.)
Nom I'm starting to feel stupid about blogging about pears. And ashamed at wasting the time you spent reading this. Maybe I can salvage your time yet. I'm pretty good at slanting things, so I could probably come up with some analogy or lesson to be learned. Give me a second... How about this?:

Eat a pear! It's the chocolate of fruits.

Or maybe....

Enjoy the simple things in life. Like pears.

Hmm...maybe something deeper:

Sometimes in life I want what I want and I want it right now. Thankfully, God (in his wisdom) doesn't operate on my timing. This morning I wanted a pear for breakfast. You see, I could have eaten a pear this morning--but it wouldn't have tasted nearly as good as it will if I wait a bit longer. Sometimes when I want things for my life--a job, a car, a relationship, a position in ministry--I think that I need them right now, and I get impatient when God doesn't acquiesce. But if God is a good God (which he is), then I can be certain that in withholding something from me (whether for a time or permanently), he is doing what is best for me and that when I wait for his timing I will be satisfied.

There. See, pears DO relate to real life. Kinda. At least, what I said is true even if I it has nothing whatsoever to do with pears.

Church Hurts

So there are some things I really enjoy about visiting churches. It's nice to hear a variety of sermons and to just be able to listen without having to worry about audio/visual equipment. I like seeing different ways that different groups do certain things. I love learning new songs of praise. Most of all I love, love, LOVE being able to sit in a room full of peope I don't know and feel a common bond with them--we all share a deep love for Jesus!

But I miss the sense of community. I used to have one--a community, I mean. We were very close-knit, and very intune with one anothers' lives. Now I slip in and out of a pew, my presence barely noticed, in a building where no one knows my name.

And there's the pain. Experiencing the death of our community was one of the most painful experiences in my life. I trust that time will soothe my wounds and dry my tears, but right now the pain is still very fresh. I am so thankful that God poured his grace into my heart in a very real way, freeing me from the bonds of bitterness and resentment. That grace has made it possible for the healing process to begin. Even without the anger, though, it still hurts.

Every church I visit serves as a poignant reminder of what we once shared together. A passage of scripture is read and I think about something that someone once shared during our Communion service at Cascade. Someone thanks God for the nursery workers and I relive moments spent soaking up the love of adults who cared for me in Cascade's nursery when I was a little girl. We sing a song and I remember the joy I experienced leading the congregation in worship of our amazing Creator. It makes me sad to think that I may not get the opportunity to serve in that way in the future. I miss ministry. Since Cascade was so small, I had many chances to serve in various capacities that will not be available to me in a larger church where there is more talent to choose from. Since for years I felt that God wanted me at Cascade to serve, challenge and encourage the body of Christ there, I left much of my sense of purpose behind when I left Cascade (not that I no longer have purpose , but that I'm disoriented and unsure of how God wants to use me now).

Thankfully, the busyness of the week usually takes my mind away from what I've lost, but there's no escape from it on Sundays.

This Sunday at Hinson Church we were singing "Blessed Be Your Name" by Matt & Beth Redman. Not only did this flood my mind with memories of playing the song with the worship team at Cascade, but the words resonate with my heart as well. The second verse says:

Blessed be your name when the sun's shining down on me
When the world's all as it should be, blessed be your name
And blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering, blessed be your name.

As I sang those last two lines, tears began to stream down my cheeks. These past months have been difficult, and yet as I've sought comfort from God I have come to know him in a different way, giving me yet more reasons to trust him and to praise him. Although there's pain involved, I know that without the pain I wouldn't be seeking him in the same way, and so I'm thankful for it. Just like a sliver in my nephew's hand sends him running to someone to take it out, so my pain sends me running to the arms of my Father in heaven for comfort. And as many of you who have walked through much deeper valleys than I have experienced know, the arms of the Father are a good place to be.

You give and take away
You give and take away
Still my heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be your name

Put A Leash On That Thing!

Oops, I did it again. And no I didn't play with your heart; I said something I shouldn't have, and it had the potential to hurt some people. I'm disappointed with myself that I was so careless with my words, and I'm also embarrassed by the immaturity of my rude comment. Yes, that's right folks, in case you weren't aware of it before now, I'm definitely a work in progress.

And since I can't change what I said, I'm going to take it as a mindful lesson to think before I speak and then I'm going to focus on the progress part. When I was rehashing the "crime scene" in my mind, I realized that this sort of thing used to happen much more frequently--me tearing people down with my words, that is--and sometimes even intentionally. The fact that I'm so mortified by my actions now encourages me in that it indicates growth on my part (and I always get so excited when I can see evidence of God working in my heart!).

God's book says that our tongues are powerful tools, capable of producing blessings or cursings. I'd like to have the blessing kind of tongue, so I'm going to keep working on controlling my speech. It'll be difficult; the Bible also says that although people have succeeded in taming all sorts of wild beasts, we have yet to master our tongues. But since it also says that God works in me to cause me to will and act according to his purpose, and since he's already grown me in this area, I'm confident that through dependence on God and self control, I will be able to continue to improve. I guess it's time to get a shorter leash.

Carter Medina is Here!

Being an aunt is one of my favorite roles to play. When Trisha and Mark adopted Gavin last year, my siblings and I were submerged into the wonderful world of auntdom and uncledom. And last night we were blessed with a second nephew: Carter Lee Schelden Medina.

Carter was born by c-section at 11:19 PM on February 22nd and weighed in at 8 lbs 6 oz.

Carter and his mommy are both doing very well, although they looked like they could use some good rest.

His skin was very red (except his feet which were purple), so I'm thinking of calling him "Edom" just for kicks. :-) Look at those toes!

When Gavin got his first glimpse of his baby brother, he was asked "How many fingers do you think your brother has?" "Ummm....I think four," he replied matter-of-factly, "Because I have five and I'm big!" Later on, we were commenting on how Carter's face looked a little like his mom's. Mark said, "Oh yeah, I guess I can see Trisha in his chin." Gavin looked up and said reassuredly, "I think his chin will get cute."

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* If you'd like to see more pictures of Baby Carter, check out my photo site at http://picasaweb.google.com/TruShoe/BabyCarterMedina.
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Valentines Day

My routine is pretty much the same every morning: wake up, go to the bathroom. Apparently, they know my pattern. The bathroom I use at the Smart's house is also their laundry room--so imagine my delight when I wandered in there yesterday morning to discover a bag on the washing machine.

Aww, it was a bag of valentines from the each person in the family. They are so kind to me!
Well, this year I actually had the will and the time to get stuff for people, so I spent the day buying balloons and little gifts and writing cards for my family and the Smarts. I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea for Bethany and Chris.

See, tomorrow is their first anniversary and Bethy had mentioned how sad Chris was that he didn't get any cake at their wedding (besides the feed-eachother-bite), and how much he wishes that they had a frozen part to bring out for their anniversary (I know, yuck). Anyway, sometimes I suffer from over-confidence in my abilities and so yesterday I decided, "Oh, I'll just make them a little wedding cake for Valentines Day and their anniversary." No problem, right? So I went to the store and I got some white cake mix and some eggs and a white deco-tube of frosting. I bought some frozen strawberries that I was going to use to make a filling. The only problem was that I don't know how to make filling. I opened up the strawberries and added some powdered sugar--but that barely thickened them at all. I added some vanilla pudding mix, but barely noticed a difference. I vaguely recall my friend's mom making candy and so I decided that since there was sugar in it, I could just cook it and it would thicken as it boiled. Well, needless to say, nothing worked so in the end I made some frosting, flavored it with the strawberries and just used that for filling. It tasted good (we were all eating the scraps). But it kind of looked....pyramid-ish. In my head, the three tiers of cake were very straight and symmetrical and weddingesque. Instead the top layer of the bottom tier cracked and kept splitting when I put more frosting on it. The second and third tiers were then sitting on very VERY thick frosting, and they soon began to slide toward the side. The end result was a not-very-beautiful, not-very-symmetrical cake that looks reminiscent of the ruins of an ancient civilization.
I wish I could put a picture up of what I was imagining in my head so that you could compare it with the actual result. It was really a very beautiful concept. :-)

At least my whole family and I had a good laugh at it.
But Bethany was very gracious...let's hope for her and Chris' sake it tastes better than it looks!

Small Talk Should Be Banned

Small talk makes me feel uncomfortable. First you greet (and perhaps introduce yourselves to) one another. Then after a couple perfunctory questions comes the big pause, where my mind races in circles around what has just been said trying to grasp any comment, connection or follow-up question I should ask. If I can't think of any way to continue to draw the person out, I fall back on a comfortable time-filler for me: I tell them stories about my life. Or at least, I used to. See, when you work with youth there are always lots of fresh stories. Right now, though, my life is pretty boring. These days my story would be something like, "Yeah, so I built a lincoln log cabin with my nephew yesterday and then he knocked it down." Or maybe, "Hey I just made $64.00 selling useless stuff on ebay!" I can feel my social stock plummeting with the mention of ebay.

Small talk is especially awkward while unemployed. The first question that we ask one another in our culture is "What do you do?" I used to think that was a sign of our culture's obsession with material success and so I tried to find something else to ask, but "How old are you anyway?" is kinda' frowned upon and "Tell me, how are you feeling about life these days?" is a bit personal for someone I just met. So I'm back to asking "What do you do," but I dread the moment when they finish their response and return the question: "How about you, what do you do?" Then I get to pick whether I think it's worse say "I don't do anything; I'm unemployed," which will cause them to ask questions and I will have to explain the whole story, or if it's worse to actually tell them what I do: "I live in my friends' basement and look for a job inbetween babysitting gigs." Either way I know that my answer will make them feel uncomfortable.

People don't like negative information in small talk. That's why when someone asks you "How are you?" you automatically say "fine" even if your life is in shambles and you pillow is still drying from last night's tears. And that's what the other person wants you to say--that you're fine or great or even fantastic. I know this because I went through a phase when I decided that being a person of integrity required a whole-hearted honest response to the question, "How's it going?" What I discovered is that 99% of the time people don't actually want to know how you're doing. Why they ask, then, I'll never know. But I do know that if you're not doing very well and you honestly reveal your struggles to the inquirer, they will get very uncomfortable and begin glancing around the room seeking an exit from the conversation. My new take is that I only answer the question honestly if I think a person is asking honestly.

Another popular topic in small talk is relationships. "How is your family?" works if you actually know about their family. Or if you know they're seeing someone you can ask about the significant other. When people ask me it's usually "So, are you seeing anyone?" At the point in the conversation where I have revealed to someone that I not only have no job but I also do not have a family or any hopeful prospect of having a family in the future I notice their attitude change toward me. They're afraid to ask anymore questions lest I burst into tears and reveal yet another level of patheticness in my life.*

It's a challenge for me to keep conversation light and peppy. My two biggest blunders in small talk are either monopolizing the conversation to fill the empty pauses or revealing too much of myself too quickly. No joke, a couple months ago I somehow revealed in a short conversation that my mother had miscarried prior to my birth. Kristi, what in the world were you thinking!? Appropriately enough, death is conversation killer. How that conversation picked itself up and limped forward, I still don't understand. But even short of bringing up my mother's personal loss, I still have a hard time not sharing on a level that makes people feel awkward. I can't help it; I run out of "light" things to say--and the things that I really think and feel deep down, those are the things that I want to share and discuss. The weather and the superbowl can only penetrate so far into a person's soul. And I guess unless I connect with someone's soul, I don't feel as if I've really connected with them at all.

Well, seeing as how I haven't heard any of the presidential hopefuls promise to propose a small talk ban, I guess I will have to get better at it. Here's what I'm thinking: instead of asking someone "What do you do?" or "How's your family?" I'm simply going to say, "So, tell me about yourself." This will give them the opportunity to share with me whatever they think is valuable about themselves whether that be their job or their family or their collection of teenage mutant ninja turtles. It will save them the discomfort of sharing something they are embarrased about and it will save me the discomfort of wondering if I brought up a sore subject since they get to pick their own subject. Hopefully, it will also help to minimize the awkward pauses that usually precipitate my anecdotal rambling, since it is a much more open-ended inquiry and can be followed up with all sorts of questions about whatever information they choose to reveal about themselves (i.e., "Cool! So which turtle is your favorite?, etc.).

I've also decided to strike a happy medium when it comes to personal revelation. If people ask me a question that ties into something real that I'm dealing with in my life (whether it's good or bad or inbetween), I'm not going to drop an E-bomb (E is for emotional, not electronic!) on them, but I'm also not going to pretend that my experiences are divorced from my emotions or that my faith is easily contained instead of permeating the various aspects of my life. I should be able to find a healthy balance between stoicism and overrevelation, right? The hard part for me will be discovering that balance in real conversation.

At least I'll get lots of practice. That's the worst part of looking for a church to become a part of. There's often this part in the service where someone instructs us to "stand on up and introduce yourselves to the people around you." For years I thought this was a nice, friendly practice. Now, as a visitor, I dread it. But next Sunday I'm going to take it as an opportunity to try out my new guidelines for small talk.

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*Although I wish there were universally accepted fonts for sarcasm, facetiousness, etc., in their absence let me assure the reader that this blog is written in a playful, humorous spirit not a bitter, self-loathing one. In fact, despite my states of unemployment and singleness, I find I like myself more days than not. But thanks for your concern. ;-)