FlowerDust.net

At least for a little while. Be back soon.

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. - Henri Nouwen

==========

My best friend got married last Friday.

Her husband Shawn has a Harley.

About ten years ago, I saw a guy get hit by an 18-wheeler on a motorcycle on I635 in Dallas (a HUGE highway). Then, my friend Denise fell off of one and had a compound fracture and now has six pins in her arm. I’ve promised I would never EVER ever ride a bike.

At her rehearsal dinner cookout, peer pressure got the best of me and I got on the bike with Shawn and he actually took me out on a highway. For like, fifteen minutes. In flip flops.

So with that story…caption please (for the picture below - not above!)

When I was seven, I “won” a trip to Schlitterbahn because I memorized all the books in the Bible and could recite them to our small, West Texas congregation. There is nothing quite like trying to say “Habakkuk” while standing on a milk crate (and three hymnals) in order to see over my dad’s oak pulpit. It was quite the balancing act.

Next up were Bible Drills. It was time to put that knowledge to use.

Ready?

Draw swords!

Proverbs 3:4 - Go!

Our classroom of fifth and sixth graders would flip urgently through the pages of our Bibles, scouring to find the called out scripture. There was nothing holy about it. Elbows were thrown, feet were mashed, voices were raised, tampers were thrown…but, by golly, did I ever know my Bible.

Fueled by competition, I went home to study, over and over again, where the books were located in my Bible. Trying to remember themes and stories and memorize the frequented verses so even if I didn’t actually find them in the Bible, I could ramble them off like I had.

Again.

Nothing.

Holy.

About it.

Over the last few months, I’ve had the opportunity to do several interviews for radio stations or by phone and I’ll think of a verse in the Bible I want to reference. I typically fumble around,

“Well, um, I think Paul said….”

(If it’s something in the New Testament, you’re pretty safe going with either Jesus or Paul).

“In the Old Testament, it says….”

(By narrowing it down to the Old or New Testaments, you have a 50/50 shot of getting it right).

I know these verses. I know a LOT of verses. I just have no clue where they are anymore.

I’ve realized the Bible I use most often for research is online. It’s so easy to search for a keyword or topic and be flooded with a variety of results. Which, when you’re researching something, is really quite efficient.

Gone are the days I am digging through cross references and skimming down chapters and chapters looking for a specific verse. And you know what? I kind of miss it.

There was something very life-giving that comes from sitting down with Scripture in its paper form. There’s something about scanning and reading through Scripture intentionally, yet never knowing what other treasure you may find along the way. Granted, it takes more time, effort, and patience, but I have to say in the end, it’s more than worth it - at least it seems to be for me.

What are your thoughts? Have you seen how your personal scripture reading habits or knowledge has changed with the use of technology? I know for many people it enhances the experience. I guess I’m just wondering if I’m crazy for wanting to go back in time.

You must decide for yourself to whom and when you give access to your interior life. For years, you have permitted others to walk in and out of your life according to their needs and desires. Thus you were no longer master in your own house, and you felt increasingly used. So, too, you quickly became tired, irritated, angry and resentful.

Think of a medieval castle surrounded by a moat. The drawbridge is the only access to the interior of the castle. The lord of the castle must have the power to decide when to draw the bridge and when to let it down. Without such power, he can become the victim of enemies, strangers, and wanderers. He will never feel at peace in his own castle.

It is important for you to control your own drawbridge. There must be times when you keep your bridge drawn and have the opportunity to be alone, or with those to whom you feel close. Never allow yourself to become public property where anyone can walk in and out at will. You might think you are being generous to anyone who wants to enter or leave, but you will soon find yourself losing your soul.

When you claim for yourself the power over your drawbridge, you will discover new joy and peace in your heart and find yourself able to share that joy and peace with others.

-Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love

At first when I read this, I couldn’t decide if I was convicted or turned off.

“But I want my life to be open to everyone.”

Alas, as I thought about it more, I realize he didn’t say “never lower the drawbridge and stay safely inside your castle.” Instead, Nouwen enforces the importance of emotional boundaries. Boundaries which need to be in tact to make you strong so you can accomplish your unique, global purpose. Jesus did it in Luke 4.

I think if we look at his context, maybe we can feel a bit more free to occasionally retreat and replenish.

How do you do at controlling the drawbridge? Do you agree or disagree with what Nouwen is saying?

=====

I was having a little Twitter chat with a friend of mine yesterday - one who has been a big cheerleader in my life. After sending me a bit of encouragement about the roads I’m taking, and ones I am considering taking over the next six months to a year, he said this:

Go after the biggest dream in your heart.

I don’t know about you, but I know for me, the biggest dream in my heart is scary. It’s crazy! It doesn’t make sense.

I find myself asking, “God…is that really you?”

And yesterday I heard Him tell me, “If it doesn’t make sense, it probably is me!”

God asks us to do things that don’t make sense.

In fact, a preacher chick I admire once said to me, “there is NO NATURAL way a supernatural destiny can be mapped out….”

So as my friend said…Go after the biggest dream in your heart.

Especially the ones that don’t make sense.

God’s your provision. Get out of the way and give Him a chance to prove it to you.

What’s the biggest dream in your heart?

=====

One of my friends emailed me last week about the boundaries I’ve set for some of my online habits. He wanted to talk about them a little bit more, and jokingly said “I’m addicted to that stuff!”

His remark sent me into one of those little ADD brain tangents I frequently find myself in…(to which he received the brunt of in my return email).

We wouldn’t joke around about an addiction to porn, or to alcohol, but we do joke around about being addicted to technology.

And so I wonder…are we?

My friend Mike has a good, unofficial way of finding out. If you wonder if you’re addicted to something, take a break - cold turkey - for two weeks. See how long you make it. You’ll get a pretty good idea if you’re addicted or not.

Could you imagine taking two weeks off from Twitter or Facebook or your RSS reader or…?

More importantly, would you?

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I pressed delete.

Delete on this blog.

Delete on my Facebook.

Delete on my Twitter.

What if I ceased to exist in this online world?

Am I relying on the means too much instead of trusting the power of the message I feel I’ve been charged to communicate?

Isn’t the message, and the One who it came from enough on it’s own?

Is this life of online media the new normal, or is it a mutated form of normality I’ve come to accept?

Has this method of communication become an idol of mine that does things for God instead of the other way around?

Sometimes I wonder.

And I wonder if I’m the only one who is wondering.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little stressed, so I go back to the measurement of my time and see what the problem is  - my calendar.

And even with the boundaries I established at the beginning of the year, they weren’t specific enough to really help release me from my demon of overcommitment.

I’ve been away from home (give or take) 31 days this year.

That’s a MONTH.

Using some other tools to analyze my time, I realize I spend an average of 2-3 hours a day on social networking sites (checking Twitter, Facebook, whatever).

That would be almost 40 days SOLID in a YEAR!

And I wonder where my time goes.

The stress comes when the things I value in my heart (mainly my faith and my marriage) are not getting the time and attention they deserve. There’s a misalignment of values. What I say is important and where I spend my time don’t line up to a degree where it’s healthy.

It’s not that I don’t see spending time online, interacting, praying, caring, sharing, and learning with people as valuable. But when it trumps the things MOST valuable to my heart (faith, marriage) is where it gets sticky.

Yesterday at lunch I sat down with my calendar and my thoughts and my husband. I had to cancel two speaking engagements, not because they aren’t valuable or important, but because ultimately (due to a variety of circumstances) went away from - and not toward - making my faith or marriage stronger. Being gone at these specific times would have impacted those things negatively, thus causing unhealthy stress.

We also talked about my time online, and decided because I NEED STRUCTURE, I will be sticking to the following “boundaries” until the beginning of September, when we’ll evaluate and adjust if necessary. I’m not saying YOU should do this. I’m just putting in writing what is best for my faith, my marriage, and myself right now.

Twitter. Currently, I probably check it 50 times a day. Lord knows how many times I actually tweet. New boundary? I’ll check and update only three times a day - once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. NO notifications, except direct messages, ping me elsewhere.

Facebook. I’m not on it much anyway, but I’ll only log in to Facebook once a week. NO notifications at ALL ping me elsewhere.

Online Sabbath. Once a week (it’s looking like Saturday) I will be completely unplugged. I will not be checking email, Twitter, Facebook, whatever. If my computer is on, the only thing open is Word so I can work on writing. One day a week, completely computer free.

Stat-Ho. I am only going to check my blog stats, Technorati (as if that means much anymore) and Feedburner stats once a month. I can get obsessed by these numbers and sometimes measuring things too much is a bad idea. At least for me.

So…there you have it. A few new rules in the life of Anne Jackson. I think margin is so important and will talk until I’m blue in the face about it, but if I’m not living that life myself, well, I’m just a big fat liar.

Is there anywhere you need to build in margin? What steps can you take to do it? Sometimes it just takes DOING it.

It had been a really long day.

6 am came too soon, and as usual, I was running late to the airport. Due to the extra few minutes I spent taming my hair, I was unable to stop by Sonic for my habitual Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper.

The tragedy.

The flight from Nashville to Houston was one of the bumpiest I’ve ever been on. And I fly. A lot. Several people on our plane threw up and one even passed out on our descent.

Evidently, April is Monsoon season for the state of Texas.

Once in the terminal, I checked my next flight on the screens.

My 12 pm flight to Dallas was delayed until 1 pm.

Then 2 pm.

Then 3:15 pm.

4:15 pm.

Canceled.

Fortunately my phone alerted me a good fifteen minutes before they announced it so I was able to get in line early and snag a seat on the next flight out.

5 pm.

6 pm.

6:45 pm.

7 pm.

7:30 pm.

Finally.

I have never been happier to be en route somewhere.

Dallas wasn’t my final destination though. After spilling Diet Coke on a very conspicuous area of my lap, landing, collecting my soaking wet luggage, and getting my rental car, I drove to Coppell to meet my mom and brother for a quick bite to eat before driving to Wichita Falls. Normally a two hour drive isn’t anything to fret over.

But I was tired.

Frazzled.

Decaffeinated.

Grumpy.

And my hair, which I so purposefully wasted time on, had succumbed to the humidity and easily doubled tripled in size.

At least I was in Texas.

I fit right in.

Shortly after midnight, I pulled into my hotel and knowing I would be sleeping in the same clothes I was wearing (as my PJs were drenched from the Monsoon), I rang the buzzer to the front desk.

A middle aged woman with few teeth and a bit of a scowl checked me into my room. Honestly, she kind of creeped me out just a bit. Enough that for once, safely inside my room, I actually locked all the locks on my door.

I looked in the mirror at my road-wearied face. My Diet Coke stained jeans. I looked like I had aged ten years in what was really just a ten hour journey.

The walls are a little thin at the hotel, and outside my room I can hear the scowly lady talking to someone. Immediately my heart sunk as I realized what a jerk I had been to judge this woman. I think it would be safe to assume a middle aged woman who looks like she’s lived a lot of life probably didn’t plan on making $6 an hour working the midnight shift at a small town, Texas inn. And in my hurried, cranky, spoiled interaction with her, I didn’t view her through the eyes of love.

Leaning into the mirror more to look into my eyes I prayed, “God. Help me see people the way you see them. Help me see people through the eyes of love.”

It’s so easy for me to judge. To compare, contrast, and separate the worth of humanity within my own mind, and by my own eyes. As if somehow I have the right to do that.  Yet I do it.

All the time.

I wonder what people look like through the eyes of love. I can’t say I’ve ever really set every agenda aside and simply narrowed my focus to see them the way Jesus would have seen them.

Beautiful.

Worthwhile.

Broken.

Child like.

Lovely.

And so it’s my hope this week that I can open my heart a little bit.

Open my mind.

And this week, may we all be challenged to look through the eyes of love.

Random question time.

Do you think it’s ever okay to be dishonest, or not forthcoming, for the end of a better good?

To protect someone else’s well being?

To save another?

Ever?

Ahhh, “situational ethics.”

I look forward to the conversation this weekend.

There are six billion people in the world.

Give or take.

Each with a purpose.

A dream.

A fear.

A place.

A place in this world.

(Cue Smitty video, circa 1993)…

And I’m learning that there is an increasing need for love and hope and faith in each of these six billion people.

And as someone once said…

“I can’t change the world…but I can change the world in me.”

In fact, by doing it the other way around, I’m actually quite hypocritical.

Plain and simple.

Serving the world while serving myself?

Heal the broken while I hide my own brokenness?

Impossible.

Inconsistent.

Action without personal transformation is empty.

And transformation without action is impossible.

===

At the National Pastors Convention, I had the chance to sit on a panel and discuss the use of technology and social media within the church.  You can actually see our pixel-shaped heads here if you’d like to see what went down (Thanks, DJ).

Anyway, over the last couple of months, the brain contained in my own pixel-shaped head has been doing a LOT of thinking. A lot. And if you were to have seen the interview I did at the I3 Conference, you’d see that I literally contradict myself within a week’s time.  Cynthia asked if I believed in the phenomenon of Online Community to which I eagerly argued, “yes, yes, a million times yes!”

At the NPC panel just a few days later, when I met Skye Jethani (remember, whose book Divine Commodity is the most profound thing I’ve read in a long, long time), we continued this “online community” conversation on the panel.

Out of Ur, which is a Christianity Today blog, posted a video of Shane Hipps (author of Flickering Pixels, another brilliant book) talking about virtual worlds and suggesting physical proximety is a factor in community.  Scot McKnight responded with a slightly differing opinion.  Skye asked me to respond as well.  And so I did.

Here is an excerpt…I’d love for you to post your thoughts over on Out of Ur, so I’m closing comments here.

In some instances, these online conversations have translated into personal communication (by email, chats, or phone) and some have even turned into face-to-face meetings. The platforms of social media certainly give these personal interactions a “jump start” so to speak, because you do, in some regard, know bits and pieces of the other person’s life.

But this is where it gets muddy for me. Is it community?

Given my experience living in both worlds, it may be surprising to hear, but I am beginning to lean on the side of no—what happens online is not community. Before you send me an army of frowning emoticons, please hear me out:

I believe what happens online is connection—not community.

People can be vulnerable and honest online. And at times these online connections can be more life-giving than many of our offline relationships, but they are not the same.

You will read an announcement in the full post on Out of Ur that might surprise you.  Once you’re done over there, come back over here and you’ll get the full scoop.

See you over there!

Then back here.

Phew! I’m getting tired with all this running around.

In November, I have the amazing honor of speaking alongside Don Miller & Francis Chan (yeah, how the heck did THAT happen?!) at the incredible Right Now Conference.  If you live near Dallas, please come to this conference. I have gone as a volunteer before, and it was amazing.  If you don’t live near Dallas, you can simulcast the event at your church.

Marc, who heads up the gig, emailed me today and is trying to help shape this event.

You see, we are on this weird generational edge of transition of thought and action.  And we want to process this together.

So here is a list of random questions for you…feel free to answer as many or as few as you’d like.  We just want to get in your head a little bit.  Because I have a feeling we’re feeling alone in some of these things, when really, we’re not.

1. What do I wish to be remembered for?
2. Is this really as good as it gets?
3. How was it that I could be so successful, so fortunate, and yet so frustratingly unfulfilled?
4. If your life was absolutely perfect, how would it look to you?
5. What is my passion?
6. How am I wired?
7. Where do I belong?
8. What will I do about what I believe?
9. Who am I?
10. What do I value?
11. What gifts has God given me? How can I use them?
12. What would I be willing to die for?
13. What injustices do I see in the world, that I simply cannot stomach anymore?
14. What is it about my job that makes me feel trapped?
15. When you are in bed at night staring at the ceiling, what questions are you asking yourself?

Which ones from the list below stand out?  How would you word them differently?  What questions would you add?

What have you done today?

i’m guilty of name dropping.

i’m guilty of only feeling confident when (insert important person’s name here) tells me i have value.

i’m guilty of saying one thing and doing another.

i’m guilty of not following through.

i’m guilty of being so self absorbed, i make you think i care…but i only care because i’m getting something out of it too.

i’m guilty of saying i’m going to pray for you and i don’t.

i’m guilty of pretending i don’t know the answer, when in reality, i just don’t want to help you.

all this to say, i’m guilty of being selfish.

a lot.

and it kind of hit me today, when pete was talking about whoever is the least…

i know i can get caught up in the junk of caring about who i’m associated with.

because the right people take you to the right places.

and those right places will leave you satisfied.

which is a load of bull.

and i think of who jesus associated himself with…

failures. sinners. the outcasts. the sick.

the untouchables.

nobody that would ever win a popularity contest.

or help him win a popularity contest.

but that’s why he was here.

that’s why we are here.

to be

and to be with

the least.

that is when i started bawling. i dare you to watch.

ht: zak

This morning I was skimming through the conversation on this post and there were several people who seemed to think that to question God is out of line.

Granted, I am no theologian, but I personally disagree.

I think if we don’t question God - if we don’t ask Him why he does the things he does sometimes - we will never come close to understanding the nature of God.

Because why he does what he does reveals His character to us.

I think about some of the things Jesus asked.

“If this cup can be taken from me…”

“Why have you forsaken me?”

Will we find all the answers?

Not in this life.  But I do think it’s important to ask, and to be open to exploring our faith on a much deeper and personal level.  Sometimes, maybe even a desperate level.  Because I truly believe God wants us to discover his character.

What do you think? Should you question God?

Can we have a serious conversation for a moment?

I realize this post may be controversial in nature, but that is not my intent.

The other day I was having a conversation with a girl I know. She’s a believer, and she’s gay.

She realizes what the Bible says about homosexuality, and she has decided the gay lifestyle is not for her. It’s a struggle. It’s not like she can flip a switch and all of the sudden “be straight.” She even started blogging about what she’s wrestling with. You can read it here.

As we were talking, she asked…

“Why?”

“Because the Bible says so” isn’t the answer she was looking for. That’s kind of a given.

It’s pretty easy to see why sins like murder or adultery or what-have-you-that’s-evil are sins. It’s because they ultimately involve hurting someone.

Why is being gay a sin?

“Because you’re hurting yourself” isn’t the answer either. When you’re gay, you love, just as straight people love. You want the best for someone.  Someone wants the best for you.

I told her outside of these plug and play answers we kind of just hand out when we discuss these things, I didn’t have an answer. Because I don’t. I can talk circles around hypothetical circumstances but when it comes down to it, I simply don’t have an answer for her. Neither did another friend who was with us.

And maybe sometimes there aren’t answers. We talked about that too.

So I asked her if I could pose this question to you. She said yes. And she’ll be reading these answers, so please keep that in mind as you write your response. If anyone gets out of line I will delete your comment.

So…why is being gay a sin?

I told you that you wouldn’t want to miss this.

It may not be cash, but it’s $6,100 worth of books and Bibles and research…all for your computer (PC…sorry, mac people!)  This software costs $630 normally - so it’s a huge deal.  And it’s amazing software at that!!!!

I’m giving away a copy of the Logo’s Scholar’s Library! About it:

Scholar’s Library is a value-priced collection of texts and tools for serious Bible study using Greek, Hebrew, and English resources. It is the best value in Bible software today with more than 330 Bibles and Bible Reference titles worth over $6,100.00 in equivalent print editions!

The Scholar’s Library software doesn’t just “speed up” the process of studying with paper books, it actually acts as your personal research assistant, doing everything from looking up relevant articles and automatically collecting material to generating tailored reports and organizing content around your specific target passage. Logos Bible Software Series X is so easy to use and powerful that all you have to know how to do is type in a Bible reference, or a topic and click the “Go!” button. Scholar’s Library provides an amazing wealth of resources at your fingertips, giving you everything you need for serious and comprehensive Bible Study, no matter what your focus. The value-packed Scholar’s Library makes digging deep into the truth of the Bible easier than ever!

You can read ALL that it has here.

HOW TO WIN!

Leave a comment with your most meaningful Bible verse or passage…THEN it would be great if you blogged about the giveaway from your blog.  Ask your readers to come and enter!  I’d really like to see how far this giveaway can go!  And I know there are a lot of pastors who don’t make tons of money or have the resources to purchase a $630 computer program.  Many of those pastors probably don’t read my blog so let’s make this a group effort!

This giveaway will run until midnight on Saturday (12:00 am Saturday AM CST). I will use random.org to randomly generate a comment number and that person will win as long as they followed the rules! Please don’t put your name in more than once!

if any one person on this earth is responsible for pulling me out of my “dark” years and encouraging me to get back into my faith, it was kristi. you’ll read a little bit about her in mad church disease. she was the first person that ever held me accountable to anything in my life. she was my coffee date. my late-night movie friend. she was the maid of honor in my wedding.

then life took her to wichita, ks and me to dallas and then finally we are here in nashville and she is in south africa with her husband doing anything. anything at all. whatever is needed.

she wrote this on her blog today and it was too powerful to not share.

i have no action steps to give you. no thought-provoking questions. just read kristi’s words…and tell me what your heart tells you.

I have always been sensitive. Always. I cry at simple commercials, I laugh easily, I am more likely to embrace rather then give a handshake. That’s just me. But I am never really ready for the shock of seeing somebody dying…every time I walk into a room when it’s happening, I never really get over it even though I have been practicing now for 2 years.

Nosakhe, one of our Community Care Workers told me she got a new “patient” this week and wanted me to meet her. She needed my help to assess the situation. She said she was very sick and suffering. She was right across the street. So we walked over and I was drawn to this woman. She was probably 35 or 40 years old with a few stray gray hairs mixed into her head of black. She was facing the wall as we entered the room and didn’t stir as we made our way in. I became immediately aware of the stench of her urine and body odor, even though I understood immediately she was the only one to be left alone in this huge room for quite sometime with two beds. I left the door wide open and forced open the window beyond the limits till it creaked. She stirred. She was incapable of speaking her aunt/mom/sister told me. So I got close to her ear and told her my name and that we were there to love her.

It must have been 100 degrees in there and she was naked but covered in 4 blankets that reeked of waste. I put my gloves on and started removing the layers. She was sweating and rolled her eyes towards me. I started praying in my head and removed all offensive jewelry so not to scratch her sensitive skin. My watch, rings…anything that could be abrasive on her sweet body. I knew I would be here for hours. The people in the house started watching and I asked for a bucket and all of the supplies. She was gritty and neglected. I asked a hundred questions. After I stripped the bedding I instructed that they needed to be washed and dried at least every week, I started showing them how to bathe her. I never stopped talking to the woman. My eyes never left hers. I told her how beautiful she was and that we both were going to get through this crazy.

I showed them how to clean her raw bed sores and how to dress her wounds. How long has she been in this condition? I then changed her adult diaper and for the first time in my life didn’t really know what I was made of. I walked the people in the room as well as myself through the process…as long as I kept talking I figured I wouldn’t pass out from the smell or from what I was seeing. Her whole back side as well as her delicates were covered in sores and swollen. How long has she been left to rot? I brought with me baby wipes and prayed that they were sensitive enough. She was full of puss and heartache. She was so brave. I still was talking to her and tried my hardest to keep my eyes on hers and not only on the task. I kept speaking to the other woman as they were the ones to clean her from this day forward…I was merely training.

So I tried to turn her and noticed one more sore and I could then see into her body and the tissue within. My stomach turned and I prayed once more. How long Lord? Please heal this woman. I told the ladies watching me that it was essential to clean this wound. I could here the flies in my ears. I finished and then put the new diaper on. She weighed so little, we could have been using one designed for a child. The only reason I struggled was because she was tall, not because of weight…I assumed she weighed 60 at best. I changed gloves and gave further instruction to the woman watching my every move. I then used aloe to soothe her skin and spoke tender words to love and unlock her joints. I never broke eye contact. She started following me with her head and I was so gentle.

In my former life before mission work, I was a licensed massage therapist…but this was beyond all of my training there (draping, keeping the clients modesty…) but since she was already so exposed and nude, I just rubbed her down. I assumed she wasn’t being touched or cared for and by her response, I am fairly certain I was correct. Her ribs and naked breast all sucked to her body because her skin clinged tightly to her. She was so dehydrated. I was so careful and slow and worked my way, head to toe with the aloe…working between all the sores and ribs and places I thought she was hurting. She never dropped my gaze. I then put chap stick on her and she opened her eyes wide and I put more on.

Relief.

I stared telling the woman how we had to be careful as to not to overwhelm her and not to feed her too quickly as to damage her delicate stomach. I started with the water. She clearly couldn’t sit up…so I spoon fed her water. She was so thirsty. We stopped to let it settle and then I gave her more. We then gave her some watered down porridge and I told them that her body would most likely reject the nutrition and that we had to be super careful to feed her a little at a time at first so her body could adjust. I also instructed them to get her out of that room. She needs air, she needs people, she needs to live. We talked about being around people and how important it was to read or spend time with her. I was smitten by this woman because she is somebodies daughter, mom, sister, aunt and I loved her immediately.

there are a lot of books out there.

a lot.

as i was browsing the shelves at borders and barnes and noble this week, i noticed a complete lack of books on poverty, injustice or social awareness (excluding the consumeristic sociology kind — there are plenty of books on food, technology, and pop culture).

there was one book i saw which captivated and challenged me. it is a photo journal called what matters.

other than that, zilch.

someone once said that people don’t pay attention to missions or justice because it’s not controversial enough.  not sexy enough.  why do you think that is the case? what would make a book on these issues not only attractive, but motivating?

i stole this from my nashville-book-publisher-ceo-friend mr. michael hyatt, who asked this question via twitter yesterday:

What would you do if you were brave?

i’m still working on my response.

what would you do?

friday i had the chance to hang out via conference call with some of the staff of the international justice mission, including their president and CEO gary haugen, and euphrony from the blog inspired to action.

i have a lot to write about this (after i process through the three pages of notes i typed), but i wanted to throw you this quote that stands out to me and get your thoughts.

“the oppression of the poor isn’t driven by the power of the oppressor but the vulnerability of the oppressed.” - gary haugen

discuss.

what does this mean to you?

about poverty, injustice, and how the church should respond…what would you ask?

i’ll tell you why next week.

it was unseasonably cold in baton rouge, louisiana, last thursday night.  when i arrived wednesday, it was 75 and muggy.  by the same time thursday, it was 32 degrees and windy - a cold, damp, biting wind that messed up all of our hair and left us shivering in the shuttle which drove us around the most dangerous areas of town.

after making the rounds at several adult establishments to hand out roses to the ladies who worked at them, we visisted the almost condemned alamo motel, home to pimps, drug lords and prostitutes.

the cold air kept the prostitutes indoors, but we managed to stop by one motel room where we knew we’d find a lady the team i was with had gotten to know over the last few months.

she answered the door in a house robe and hair net.

we’ll call her miss ella.

miss ella lives in a motel room no larger than 300 sqaure feet.  some of the surrounding rooms still have boarded up windows and are missing pieces of the roof, but miss ella’s room managed to weather the rounds of hurricanes that hit baton rouge over the summer.

the thing that surprised me about miss ella wasn’t the fact that she’s a grandma.  but that she is a grandma with six (usually seven) kids (and a dog) living with her in her small, god-only-knows-what’s-happened-here motel room.  as i peered in a crooked door frame, mattresses covered the floor and baskets of clothes were scattered around.

this was miss ella’s home.

we gave miss ella a rose and some candy to her grandchildren. a lady i was with asked why one of miss ella’s granddaughters stayed covered up under some blankets, and why she wasn’t coming to the door for her candy.

“is she sick?”

“she doesn’t have no clothes,” miss ella said.

as we talked more with miss ella, what appeared to be her eldest grandson came to the door wearing a light purple windbreaker (circa 1984) and matching running pants.  evidently he had recently returned to miss ella’s care after getting into some kind of trouble.  we asked him if he’d go back to school soon.  he said no, hiding behind his grandmother.

“he don’t have no clothes to wear to school,” miss ella replied, matter of factly, her arm pulling him close.

alliece, the brilliant and beautiful woman who heads up the baton rouge dream center, as well as this midnight outreach we were on, told miss ella to come by the center for some clothes on sunday.  they would take care of him, and make sure miss ella had anything else she needed.

after we prayed with her, i climbed back in the shuttle, headed back to my own hotel room, which was probably the same size as miss ella’s, if not a tad bigger.  but i had my room all to myself.  perched high up on the 18th floor, i was far removed from any pimps or prostitutes or drug deals or rats or roaches or mold.  i didn’t consider latching the door behind me because subconsciously i knew i was completely safe.

it was a contrast i’m far from forgetting.

a quick bit of shut eye and five hours later, i was sitting on an airplane reflecting on miss ella and her grandbabies.  i was left with a feeling very similar to the way i felt when i first visted annette, a mother with five children who lived in one room in an african slum in uganda.

how? how does this happen?

it’s easy to try and rationalize a slum in uganda. it’s not easy to forget, or easy to accept, but it’s easy to put it in a third-world point of view.  it hasn’t been easy for me to process miss ella and her motel room.  her six (or seven) kids (and a dog).  her lack of basic needs.  the danger that surrounds her day in and day out.

from a completely american context, it just doesn’t make sense.

i know there are motels like the alamo in every town.  i know there are mothers and fathers and grandmothers and aunts who are going without food or heat or clothing today.  and it’s moments like thursday night and people like miss ella which are divine in nature, giving me far more in perspective and hope and faith than i could possibly ever offer in return.