yaconelli - say it - it'll make you feel better.... :)

wow - check this out - two posts in one day. is this like extra credit??

so, today i really wasn't sure what i was going to do with myself all day. i had sort of assumed that there would be people getting together some time today...but i asked around and some people are going out of town and others said, "i'll call ya if i hear anything..."...so really, nothing to count on.

at first it really bummed me out. talking to people about hanging out before i leave - everyone wants to try for tuesday (too bad the couldn't spread it out ...but it's nice to be liked i guess :) anyways - since this discovery of pretty much no more financial ties to g'ville (except the school loan stuff)...it was totally ok for me to dream about putting a little gas in my car and driving to fairview to spend the day in borders, surrounding myself with books and perhaps buying a cheap one. then i remembered it was Memorial Day and they'd probably be closed...so i called...and to my pleasant surprise - they're open!! woohoo - it's totally on (on like Donkey Kong - as Lappe would say)

so, i spent a LONG time in borders...a couple of hours (which i guess isn't really long for some people...but that's a long time for me to consider doing anything by myself) well, i had a GREAT time - though i'm sure the borders staff (that kept doing circles around me - much like some sort of stalking animal, waiting for it's prey to make a wrong move). i thought it was probably fairly shady to actually sit in a book store and read a whole book and then put it back and leave the store without buying it - but i made an attempt...haha - the task was too great for me. so, after finding out that borders has that stupid tmobile not-free internet crap...i made my way to st.louis bread co and i'm enjoying just relaxin with FREE wireless and remembering the great stuff i read all day...i'll share...

i was looking for Mike Yaconelli's book "Dangerous Wonder" because i had to give it back to the friend i borrowed it from before i finished it...but while i was looking for it i came across another Yaconelli book (ps - it's a fun thing to say - Yaconelli - try it...it'll make you feel good:) "Messy Spirituality" - the title caught my attention immediately - and then this from the back roped me in "God’s Annoying Love for Imperfect People - this book is for those who are caught in spiritual perfectionism - think they don't read enough, pray enough, know enough - and forget about God's affinity for the imperfect" here are some excerpts that caught my attention (sort of random - but they're good) :

"Messy Spirituality unveils the myth of flawlessness and calls Christians everywhere to come out of hiding and stop pretending. Messy spirituality has the audacity to suggest that messiness is the workshop of authentic spirituality, the greenhouse of faith, the place where the real Jesus meets the real us.

“When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn’t go off and leave us – he enters into our trouble and saves us.” Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Incompetence – Messy spirituality describes our godly incompetence. No one does holy living very well. Spirituality is the humiliating recognition that I don’t know how to pray well. I don’t understand God’s Word or know how to navigate it properly, and I don’t know how to competently live out my commitment to Christ. Messy spirituality affirms our spiritual clumsiness.

I grew up in a church where dancing was frowned upon. As a result, four decades later, I still can’t dance. Even worship dancing causes my heart to race because I am desperately afraid of anyone seeing my stiff, awkward attempts to make my body move. Because I am a lousy dancer, I avoid any experience in which dancing is a possibility.

When it comes to the spiritual life, I am amazed how many of us don’t know how to dance, we stand before God, the music starts playing, and we are embarrassed by our incompetence. The church has communicated that competence is one of the fruits of the spirit and that, therefore, spiritual people are supposed to live faith competently. So many people are afraid of embracing the spiritual life because of the possibility they might say or do the incompetent thing."

oh, and one more thing - this story he tells (really he's quoting a story Anne Lamott tells in her book Traveling Mercies...) it's kinda a new way to think about God. she's pretty liberal and i don't nessesarily agree with everything she writes...but it was a neat pic in my head about God's pursuit of us- i don't know - i just liked the story - here it is:

Jesus is not repelled by us, no matter how messy we are, regardless of how incomplete we are. When we recofnize that Jesus is not discouraged by our humanity, is not turned off by our messiness, and simply doggedly pursues us in the face of it all, what else can we do but give in to his outrageous, indiscriminate love?

Anne Lamott, a fellow messy Christian, describes perfectly what happens when Jesus pursues us. In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne recounts her conversion to Jesus. Things were not going well in her life: addicted to cocaine and alcohol, involved in an affair that produced a child whom she aborted, helplessly watching her best friend die of cancer. During this time, Anne visited a small church periodically. She would sit in the back to listen to the singing and then leave before the sermon. During the week of her abortion, she spiraled downward. Disgusted with herself, she drowned her sorrows in alcohol and drugs. She had been bleeding for many hours from the abortion and finally fell into bed, shaky and sad, smoked a cigarette and turned off the light.

She writes: “After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of something there with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there and of course, there wasn’t. But after a while, in the dark again I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

And I was appalled…I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, “I would rather die.”
I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn’t help because that’s not what I was seeing him with.

Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning he was gone. This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever…

And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling—and it washed over me. I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said,…”I quit” I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “all right, you can come in.”

So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.

so, i think i'm gonna need a little more time to process all this...but something to chew on for a while...i'll get back to you on this one...

whelp, guess i should probably get going. i'd like to believe that i'm going to be productive and do the final cleaning stuff in my apt - but i probably won't til late tuesday/wed morning...o well...off to find good war movies or read my new book (which by the way is about the life of Corrie Ten Boom - she's amazing - i heard a talk she gave and it was great (besides the fact that she's dutch and sounds/looks like i imagine my great-grandma was) so i'm excited to learn more about her life)

- yes, today i revelled in being sort of nerdy :)
jenn