I’ve been asked to be on the board of directors for a new non-profit. I’m very excited about it all! I’m excited about its mission and the possibilities it will have as well as getting to be a part of its initial process, the ground floor as was, as it begins.
During our first board meeting this week we had a long discussion on the meaning of the word "justice." I and another member had one meaning fixed in our heads, while most of the rest of the board had another. The more we talked, the more obvious it became that none of us was willing to concede our views to the other. It wasn’t a contentious discussion, nor even in the slightest bit heated. Just nine people with two very definite pictures of justice. It got me to wondering…
What is your definition of justice? I’m not looking for the "official" Webster’s definition. I can look that up for myself. What I want to know is, when you here the word "justice," what do you think of — and perhaps even what do you think of first or overwhelmingly? What comes to your mind and why?
Let me back up a moment. I’ve been fascinated with the MBTI — Meyers Briggs Temperament Indicator — since I learned about it in the early 90s. I’ve had more people go glassy-eyed on me as I carry on about dominant, axillary, tertiary and inferior preferences, desperate for others to see the amazing, complex, dynamic pattern I see when I look at those four letters that indicate one’s personality preferences than the economics teacher in "Ferris Bueller." I love this stuff!
Okay, so I’m weird.
Here’s the thing that’s got me so excited tonight that I went from falling-over tired to wide awake with excitement. I should know by now never to check Joe’s blog just before I go to bed. He makes me think and can induce insomnia faster than a Venti Chai Cream Frappuccino. But sometimes I’m a slow learner, so I checked. He posted his indicator results from this MBTI website I’ve not heard of before. He’s an INFJ. Now, that’s the personality type I’ve come to call my own for the last four years, so I thought it rather cool that we shared it.
However, I also realize that the last couple of years I’ve been "testing" as an INFP. Most of these are those fun little quizilla things that are way too short to have any real value or meaning. They’re just fun ways to say, "Look! I’m like Dumbledore." or whatever. But I also began to recognize a growing preference in my life to live more spontaneously, or at least less structured. So I knew I’ve been shifting preferences, but I didn’t realize it was enough to truly throw me into a different MBTI type.
Turns out it is. The crazy thing is, at least to me, is that I not only scored solidly on the "P" side (though it does seem to be balanced with the "J", which is good; balance is what you want to achieve, I’m told) but when I read the profile for an INFP I see myself completely. Almost as if I’m seeing myself for the first time, or first time in a long time. This is really me. The me I am inside. The me I’ve been afraid for anyone to see since I was a small child.
INFPs never seem to lose their sense of wonder. One might say they see life through rose-colored glasses. It’s as though they live at the edge of a looking-glass world where mundane objects come to life, where flora and fauna take on near-human qualities.
INFP children often exhibit this in a ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ fashion, switching from reality to fantasy and back again. With few exceptions, it is the NF child who readily develops imaginary playmates (as with Anne of Green Gables’s "bookcase girlfriend"–her own reflection)…
Lord have mercy. If that’s not me I don’t know what is. As an aside, I have to say I love the idea of having more in common with Anne of Green Gables than red hair. I love her drama queen ways and see a lot of myself in her passion and imagination. As a child everything was fodder for my imagination. Everything had life and meaning and mystery and I saw it all come alive and dance for me while everyone else just saw "stuff." I ran around with Jesus as a playmate and Will Robinson as a brother.
I don’t think I ever lost the wonder of life but I learned to bury it deep within the older I got. Most people, I’ve learned, don’t see the wonder of life with such awe as I do. I was often teased, laughed at, made fun of and otherwise tortured for my way of viewing the world. So I learned to hide the awe, the Lu-in-Wonderland of the real me in favor of the sensing-thinking mentality that so dominates our world. I can fake that pretty well, amazingly enough. I thought one particular sentence in the profile was incredibly helpful in my understanding of this "gift": "INFPs can even masquerade in their ESTJ business suit, but not without expending considerable energy." Surprisingly very true. I can. To the point that I sometimes questioned if my awe and wonder were really me, or just parts of someone else that I’d stolen because I secretly thought they were cool. But it really does suck the energy right out of me.
For so long I tried to be who I thought everyone else wanted and expected me to be that I lost touch with who I really am. My re-commitment to Jesus in 1993 and my time at Mosaic seemed to bring me back in touch with that wonder and awe, and slowly I began embrace who I really am. I think that shows in the shifts of my MBTI results over time: INTJ to INFJ to…. now INFP. The last last three years in particular have been incredibly significant in finally rediscovering and reconnecting with my true self.
No "profile" or indicator result can truly define all that a person is. There’s so much more to me than my personality preferences; things like my strengths, passions, experiences and spiritual gifts. Yet reading this profile tonight I felt like God was tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "This is kinda cool, isn’t it. This is a picture of who I created you to be; who you were early on. Look how far you’ve come: full-circle. Not changing, just maturing into who I made you to be."
Who knew that when I took this thing tonight with no other motivation than to have a little bit of fun and prove that Joe and I are "special" together (we are!) that God would take the opportunity to remind me of the wonder and awe of life in all it’s seemingly random craziness.
The weekend was insane. I pulled an all-night-er — my first as a full-time college student — to get two papers completed that were both due Saturday at midnight. One of them was late (obviously). I finished the paper just in time to watch the sun rise Sunday morning. Beautiful!
I’ve been desperate to catch up on my sleep ever since. I know. It doesn’t work that way. But still, I’m trying. I’m going to bed much earlier than is normal for me and still feeling quite tired throughout the day. I’m obviously not as young as I think I am.
Work is not helping me here. It suddenly exploded for me. It’s good. I much prefer being busy — even insanely busy — than idle. I hate being idle at work. Hate. It. So this is good. Just quite tiring. I’m glad I’ve got a bit of a break with school — but also wondering how I’m going to balance everything when we get into September, our busiest month at work, and at the same time start a new class.
Both my classes ended Saturday and now I’m just waiting to hear if I passed. With my next class not until Sep 5th, I’ve had my evenings free for the first time in almost a year (when I started back to school). I gotta tell ya, it’s really odd to not have to spend my entire evening studying. Very nice, don’t get me wrong! I’m loving it. But it is odd. I feel like I ought to be studying something.
I’ve spent my weeknights staying off the Internet and away from the TV (for the most part). Instead I’m reading books I’ve been trying to get through for months: Abba’s Child, TrueFaced and No Stones. All powerful, challenging books that make you think, evaluate, wrestle and dig deep. So to balance them out and give me a little fun reading, I’ve started to re-read the Harry Potter series from the beginning. It’s been probably been since 2002 since I read them all. Goodness I’d forgotten a lot of details!
I’m also spending time just breathing. I’ve gotten into yoga lately and a large part of it is breathing deep and focusing on your breathing as you stretch and strengthen. And emailing a friend the meditation exercises I’ve learned to do — deep breathing, relaxing and meditating on the names and attributes of God — reminded me that I need to do that more. So I have.
It’s amazing how quickly I forget how to breathe. I really do. Oh, I inhale and exhale. But I don’t really breathe; those deep inhalations and exhalations that cleanse and relax and calm the soul. Today during yoga I was amazed to discover that even during the course of the class my body forgot how to breathe deep. I got distracted and forgot to keep my deep rhythmic breathing, which I’d managed to get up to a 5-count inhale and exhale on each. When I realized I wasn’t breathing deeply, I went back to it only to discover I had to start over at a 3-count and work my way back up to 5.
I wonder if that happens in spiritual things too; if perhaps it takes our spirits a while to work back up to our 5-counts when we lose our focus.
But when you get it back, when your body says, "oh yeah. Now I remember this!" And suddenly takes a big gulp of air and then moves easily into a 5-count, it is A-mazing! The whole body starts to relax and shift into its proper place. Your back straightens, your shoulders go back, your arms and hands (and jaw!) relax; all your muscles let go of the tension they’ve been holding so the body can put all the energy into whatever movement you are doing at that moment. Simply amazing to experience. I didn’t know my body could do that on its own.
Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! — Gal 6:15
Pleasing God was the ultimate goal of my life for as long as I can remember. Yet I always seemed to come up short. No matter what I did I could not find the magical ingredient that allowed me to feel I pleased Him or was worthy of His love. It never occurred to me that trusting Him with all of me was far more important to God than all my striving to please Him. Yet over the last few years God’s persistent question to me has been, "do you trust Me? Will you trust Me?"
Recently Jesus began applying this question to my sin. Do I trust, will I trust, that His personal specific sin-intervention also applies to every sin I have done and will do as a follower of Christ? This is a difficult concept for a woman who grew up believing she bore sole responsibility for keeping herself from sin. Moreover, that when I did sin it separated me once again from God, building a wall between God and me that only I could tear down (through repentance). Turns out that was a lie from— well, you figure it out — that even my parents and Sunday School teachers seemed to believe. For they drilled it into me over and over — "sin separates us from God."
But the truth is, once we are followers of Jesus nothing, nothing can separate us from Him. Nothing. Not even our sin. He is stuck like glue, like green on grass, and never, ever leaves. Did you know He stays with me and talks to me even as I’m sinning? Okay, that’s just weird. Don’t you think? I never imagined God would do such a thing. Yet He does. Perhaps He always did and I was just hiding so far back in the dark that I couldn’t see Him or hear Him whispering, "please stop! Please don’t hurt my little girl!"
This whole idea is difficult enough for me to digest but there’s an even more perplexing question Jesus has started asking. "Will you trust me with your temptation? Maybe next time it hits you could bring it to me, talk to me about it. We could fight it together."
Shut. Up.
Jesus wants to be a part of my sin-resistance process?? He actually wants to help me "resist" or "flee" temptation? But wait. Doesn’t Scripture say that I must do that myself, that that’s my job? Turns out it doesn’t and I was never meant to do it alone. Who knew? Trying to do so actually negates Christ’s work on the cross –didn’t think of that, either.
Yeah but I thought He gave me power through the Holy Spirit so He wouldn’t have to get personally involved. He did, but it turns out that that "power" comes in the form of His personal presence. He actually personally shows up to help in the resistance. He wants us to resist together, using His power and my willingness to try. That’s kind of like asking for an autographed picture of George Clooney and having him personally show up for dinner instead. —-Mmm… let me ponder that image a moment longer… — Too cool for words!
Side note: I realize there is a contradiction in theology in the above paragraph. I know the Holy Spirit is God. So if He gave me His Spirit, it naturally follows that it’s really God that I have. But here’s the thing: that knowledge never made it from my head to my sin-entangled soul. And I think this is rather indicative of how most Christians live: thinking one thing in their head while living out another with their lives because their souls never got the message. I always knew the Holy Spirit was God, yet I still believed that the Spirit-power within me was really only an extension of my own salvation, not truly "Christ.In. me." I certainly did not view it as God personally showing up in and for my every sin, or aiding me in resisting it.
Here’s the bottom line. If you get nothing else out of this series, hear this: God’s greatest desire is that you would trust Him with every part of you, no matter how ugly or ungodly you may think it is. He wants you to trust Him with your life, yes, but more than that, with yourself; with who you are at the core of your being and in the darkest, most secret places of your soul. He is tireless in His efforts to convince you of His trustworthiness and relentless in His pursuit of your trust. And if you will trust Him with you — even just a little part — you will find a full partnership that brings freedom to be who you really are without any masks or any fear of condemnation or judgment. Even when you sin.
Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? — Gal 3:5 The Message
I grew up believing that pleasing God is the ultimate goal of every Christian; that it should be the be-all-end-all of our existence. Church, and my parents, taught me that I am here on this planet to give glory to God. And the only way to do that is to do whatever it takes to please God. The problem is I cannot do anything to please God no matter how much I strive. Whatever I do falls short. Believe me, I’ve tried. I tried my whole life.
I grew up in church. As the daughter of a minister my life was a daily Sunday School and I was expected to be the best student. Don’t get me wrong, I relished the role. I’ve always liked being the teacher’s pet. So I took everything I heard, quickly applied it to my life and tried hard to be that perfectly pleasing "living sacrifice" for God. I believed that I must work hard to be holy and not sin and that when I do sin, even as a follower of Jesus, it hurt Hims and separates us and that it is up to me to make it right and get our relationship back on track. But I always completely failed.
If I heard that same thing from a non-Christian — that she couldn’t stop sinning or be holy — I’d immediately comfort her by pointing out that scripture clearly says you cannot do it; you cannot cleanse yourself of sin nor keep yourself from sinning. And I believe that is true for everyone who does not have a relationship with Jesus. But for all the good teaching I got as a child, I still came up with a screwy idea that Christians are somehow different and those scriptures don’t apply. I was convinced that once I was "saved" I now had the power and responsibility to keep (or save) myself from sinning, to make myself holy and pleasing to God. Turns out I don’t and I can’t. And this is where trusting God comes in.
This Easter God began reshaping the way I look at the cross, at redemption, forgiveness and grace. That day — and every day since — Jesus insisted that His death and resurrection, forgiveness, grace and redemption were meant specifically for me, and not just for everyone who believed — a surprisingly hard idea for me. I’d been trained since birth to "think about others" and to "consider others as better than" myself. That translated to me as: godly and holy things like salvation and redemption are not personal, not personally inscribed with my name on it. Rather, they are for everyone in general. But it turns out that’s not true. It is personal. It is specific. It really does have my name on it. Here’s the truth:
Every last one of our names has been personally carved into the cross by Jesus Himself and if we were to look closely at it we would see our own name — Larry, Marti, Joe, Niza, Dorcas, Emily, Art, Katherine, KatRose, Lu…. — carved into the wood and covered in blood, forever marking our redemption.
But apparently Jesus didn’t stop with a one-time redemption; it wasn’t a once-only intervention of sin that leaves us, His adopted children and followers, now on our own to solve our sin problems. That personal specific sin-intervention seems to also apply to every sin I have done and will do as a follower of Christ. Many times since Easter I’ve brought my sin to God, broken and remorseful that "I did it once again," fully expecting Him to be disappointed or annoyed that I haven’t yet gotten it right. Only to have Him gently, lovingly declare, "that’s what the cross is for. Don’t worry about it anymore. But maybe next time you come talk to me when temptation hits? We could fight it together." What a completely foreign idea.
Actually, what I initially heard was "a PC’s like a band-aid" — as in a PC is something that you put on a boo-boo to stop the bleeding until you can get a Mac and solve the problem. 🙂
That, however, was not the speaker’s actual meaning. He meant the term PC is like "Band-aid"; a brand name that’s now commonly used in a generic way to encompass all personal computers regardless of maker.
I gave into blogger peer pressure… sort of. Several of the blogs I read regularly have been doing this celebrity look-alike thing, so I thought I’d check it out. However, I must admit to cheating a little.
My sister took a picture of me Monday morning that I absolutely hate. It makes me look like my face was stung by bees till it swelled up bigger than a hot air balloon with a nose and big mouth, and this big turkey neck thing hangin’ down. [shudder] It is definitely not the face that stares back at me in the mirror every morning. I refuse to put that picture anywhere near the public. So obviously using it was out (even though when I finally got up the nerve the list included Julia Roberts and Evangeline Lily). So, I went back in time a little.
Or maybe a lot… Six years (and 60 pounds) ago…
Seeing Helen Hunt and Candace Bergen gave a huge boost to my confidence. So I tried a more current one, sort of. Taken two and a half years ago.
Finally, I tried one of my favorite photos. Its from 2002, taken by my first web cam. I love that I suddenly went from Helen Hunt to Angelina Jolie. And Gene Tierney? Too cool! 🙂
Well, that last post was a bit odd wasn’t it. At least that’s what I keep thinking today…. you can always skip the rambling and just enjoy the videos. Welcome to my mind. It’s a scary place.
My good friend and co-worker left our office for the last time early today. She’s off to a new adventure in Atlanta. She made our office a bright and happy place for me to go; she was my ally in an office environment that can leave a girl feeling quite on the outside. I will miss her greatly.
For some reason today a particular piece of music from "A Knight’s Tale" kept coming to my mind. One strain of the melody, a particularly powerful trumpet line, kept reverberating in my head. It is the herald of the battle; of good versus evil. The possibility of triumph or tragedy. The bad guy cheats and injures our hero, William. But good and virtue win out in the end and William the thatcher’s son proves he really is Sir William the Knight.
At first I couldn’t understand why this music was in my head, and persistently so even though I haven’t watched the movie in months. The thing is, music is an integral part of who I am and how I think, how I remember moments in time and lessons learned. I think I’m just wired this way, to have a "soundtrack of my life" always playing in the background, recording lyrics, music and music cues from movies as they impact me and pulling them back up when I need to remember that lesson. So I knew this must be coming back to my mind for a reason. I just couldn’t think what.
After watching the final scene of "A Knight’s Tale" tonight, and crying all the way through (I am such a mess right now!) I realized what it is. The truth of the theme of this movie, that "one man — one woman — can change her stars," as well as the heroic measures William uses to change his.
But before I get to that, let me back up share with you a minor epiphany I had earlier in the day. Because I don’t own the soundtrack to "A Knight’s Tale," and I wasn’t going to buy the song on my iTunes at work, I thought I’d bury myself in some of the more melancholy music I did have in my iPod. I was, after all, feeling quite gloomy and sad with my friend’s departure. However, as I looked through my song choices, I had this powerful realization:
I need to stop being so morose about loss and learn to celebrate life even in my pain/grief.
Here’s the thing: For far too long in my life I have either denied the
pain of grief or wallowed in it. I have rarely used it to
catalyze me, to propel me into a new phase of life. I don’t say I’ve never done this, because I think I did use mom and dad’s deaths as catalysts to launch me into this new life, this Living the Dream Abundant Life I have now. And I’m sure I’ve done the same with some of the grief I faced as a child. It’s the smaller pains, the loss of a friend at work or a lost job opportunity that seems get me stuck in a huge mud puddle with a bunch of pigs.
I don’t want to
live this way anymore. I don’t want to wallow in my pain. I want to celebrate the friendships I have while also
grieving the loss of their close proximity; to grieve the lost opportunities and at the same time celebrate the advances I’m making in my education and the investment in my future. I want to stop being
an either/or person and start being a both/and one (Barney, it wasn’t
planned, but that one’s for you!).
But here’s the other thing: I have a tendency to believe that everyone but ME can change their stars; that I’m stuck with the ones I was born with. Or at least that’s the way I live, even if I say otherwise with my lips. But what I apprehended tonight is that I really can change my stars. Me. The youngest of the Everetts. The last in everything. I can trade in my either/or life for a both/and life. I can change my stars. But it’s going to cost me something. And maybe its time I paid that price.
The hero of "A Knight’s Tale" is William, a thatcher’s son, who takes on the
persona/identity of a knight when the knight to whom he was squire
suddenly dies. Eventually his ruse is discovered and he is imprisoned. But not before winning pretty much every jousting competition he enters, as well as the hearts of not only the public but also
Prince Edward, who sees William’s character, his valor, honesty,
integrity and graciousness and recognizes the heart of a knight. The prince frees William and knights him Sir William just in time for the final
jousting competition where William faces his arch rival, Count Adhemar.
After struggling through a second round with his injury from Count
Adhemar’s cheating in the first, William strips off his armor, which
while offering protection, is so bent up that it restricts his breathing. His injury makes it impossible for William to properly hold his lance, so he has it strapped to his arm so he won’t drop it. He
will either suffer major pain and die in this last joust, or he will
enjoy an unprecedented victory. He patiently waits as Adhemar charges,
finally charging himself at the last second. As William closes in and strikes Adhemar, he shouts,
"Williiiiam!" his own name, which up till now he hadn’t used because he
was just a thatcher’s son. Now a knight, he can be who he always was. He unhorses Adhemar, soundly defeating him
and forever changing his stars.
Did you see it? William had to strip of the very armor that was meant to protect him and strap his lance to his arm so there was no chance of dropping it. It was a unhorse-or-be-killed-moment and William wasn’t leaving himself any outs; any last minute exit strategy.
I have worn an armor over my heart most of my life. Yet, just like William, I still end up injured. I’m not saying I should not ever guard my heart, but you know, I think that armor is, right now, keeping me from changing my stars. I think it’s time to lose it, at least for this particular joust, strap my lance to my arm so there’s no chance to drop it and charge into my future, my both/and life, shouting the name my Father gave me.
———– This first video shows the final joust. The trumpet calls you hear are the ones that echoed in my head all day today. This first one ends just before William charges. The second one picks right up at his charge and flows through the credits. There is a "reward" for those who watch till the end of the credits (or fast forward to the end). 🙂 I love this movie!
God is not interested in changing you. He already has. The new DNA is set. God wants you to believe that he has already changed you so that he can get on with the process of maturing you into who you already are. Trust opens the way for this process… If you do not trust God, you can’t mature, because your focus is already messed up. You’re still trying to change enough to be labeled godly.
The goal of my whole life, since I was first saved at the age of six, has been to "change" or transform into the person God wants me to be. I’d never heard, not until I moved to Nashville and began counseling here, that I already am the person God is pleased with.
Perhaps I’m getting this wrong. Perhaps I’m not reading TrueFaced or Abba’s Child correctly. At least, I still have trouble believing my eyes as I read the words. And yes, in true Lu form (which I stole from my friend Bing), these books sail across the room rather frequently because of what I read within. It just does not seem possible that 42 years of lessons deeply ingrained into my soul could be so wrong. But then there it is again:
A healthy response to the question, Who am I? is, "I am a person already deeply pleasing to God."
Could this be true? Do you believe this about yourself? Could this possibly be real? Does God delight in me just because I am, and not because I do?
The funny thing about me asking this even now is that the last five years have been non-stop experiences that drive this… truth?… home. Over and over God has shown me that His love and pleasure have nothing to do with what I do and everything to do with who I am. Yet even now my spirit resists such a simple yet life-altering idea. Maybe its because it takes control (such as it is) of my life and my sin out of my hands. It means I am no longer responsible for my own goodness, righteousness, loveliness, holiness. And it means I can no longer take credit for, or solace in the credit for, such things. God is the one responsible for what is in me and who I am. Because He made me.
This is a hard one for a girl like me, who’s lived all these years outwardly claiming a grace-based life in Christ but inwardly trapped in a works-based paradigm.
