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iHeartFriedOkra
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Name: Jennifer
Metro:
Gender: Female
Interests: love, truth, compassion, mercy, relationship, graciousness, wisdom, life-giving scripture, listening, the world, traveling, music, sleeping, reading, writing, history, good food, kids, seasoned people, people who can dance to hot beats, fried okra, laughing, sujfan stevens, africa, swimming, nature, poetry, art, sunny days, hospitality, the ocean, language, culture, hoboes, archeology, fairy-tales, memories, stories, the human body, and I love, love, love coffee.
Expertise: Drinking jello through a straw, tripping over my feet, encouragement, being silly.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
AIM:  RagmffnSojourner
Member Since:
1/7/2005
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| Lately I've been watching a lot of the show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". The stories always make me cry, and it always makes me so happy to see these people who have been through extreme circumstances recieve their beautiful new homes tailored exactly to their needs. I think it's one of the most Christ-like shows on television because it's centered completely around giving to those who are less fortunate. And not just giving grudgingly, or giving a few old odds and ends, but giving extravagantly. Sure ABC and Extreme Makeover can afford to give some stuff away...but just how often do you see a popular television show all about thinking about others instead of yourself? It's a pretty rare thing in our society. I hear a lot of really jaded comments about the show. "Those people aren't going to be able to keep all that up." "Why do I want to watch someone else get all that stuff when I'm struggling myself? When do I get a home makeover?" "They'll probably just take out a huge mortgage on the house after the show's over and lose it all." What is the situation of our heart when we've come to thoughts like that? Why is it so difficult to watch someone else be blessed and have a smile on their face, even for a little while, without being so jealous? Comments like that come from a heart who hasn't learned a really valuable life lesson: When you focus on others, your problems don't seem so big. Whenever someone made a statement in one of my missions classes like, "I can never raise all that money," or, "I can't afford that," or "It'll never happen." Dr. White used to always say, "I'm sorry you serve such a small God." People who can't watch others be blessed, serve a very small God indeed...in my opinion. | | |
| When I was younger one of my favorite shows was Touched By An Angel. I was a lot more naive back then, and kind of oblivious to it's major cheese-factor. It was one of the few shows on television that I could watch with my parents and not worry about blush-inducing content. Well recently, my mom has started watching the reruns of the show and I sat down to watch it with her the other night, for lack of a better idea. This happened to be the two-part finale of the series that I had never seen before. (I stopped watching it somewhere along the line and missed a lot of the later episodes.)
Despite the fact that the jaded spirituality of my post-college years has turned me into a major snob about religious programming, that night I was incredibly inspired by Touched By An Angel, of all shows. In this show, Monica was up for an angel "promotion" pending her performance on her very last assignment as an angel case worker. Her assignment was Ascension, a dying town that had lost it's joy. There had been a tragic accident at the town's only school, an explosion, which had killed ALL of the town's children. On the bus on the way there she met a drifting handy-man named Zack who told her he was looking to find some work in Ascension.
I won't go into detail about the plot, but Zack basically goes around the town, fixing things up, helping people with their problems... he's an incredibly kind and gentle soul with a lazy southern drawl and listening eyes. He makes a teddy bear for the sheriff's mentally handicapped brother who witnessed the explosion and hasn't said a word since. He convinces the piano teacher who lost her grand children in the accident to sit down and play Beethoven again. He finds a lost kitten and sets it up so the sheriff's brother can have it to replace some kittens he had that died in the explosion. The whole time I keep telling my mom, "He's an angel." Through a series of events, however, he gets blamed for the accident that killed the children, and is convicted of it. Monica decides to give up her promotion and become his guardian angel for as long as he is in prison, (like three consecutive life sentences!) because she is convinced of his innocence.
He escapes from jail though, and at the end of the show, we find out that he was actually...Jesus. He really was there on the day of the explosion, but that's because He was carrying the children to heaven Himself. There's a scene at the end of Monica bowing before Him, asking for forgiveness and asking Him why she didn't recognise Him. He says something along the lines of, "You would have done anything for me, but look what you were willing to do for a lowly man in need. Well done, good and faithful servant."
Maybe it sounds cheesy, but it touched me. It really touched me. I haven't been thinking of Jesus like that in so long. At school there was a lot of talk in my religion classes about social justice, and how God cares about whole races and we need to look at everything in big picture form. And look at Jesus in this historical light. And look at him in that scholar's view. And study the Greek, and the syntax, and the grammar. And I think there's a time and a place for all that stuff...
But Jesus came to a small area as a lowly carpenter. He touched individual people. A little dead girl brought to life. A blind man given sight. Lepars cleansed. A woman looking for love in strings of husbands and lovers, given Living Water and a fresh start on life. He built tables...and stables...and watering troughs. He ate bread and drank wine and He laughed and He loved.
And He was God. He was the very Voice that created the universe, humbled, in the body of a man.
It also brought to mind something I read in a book a while ago called Spirit of the Rainforest. The book is a true story told through the eyes of a shaman in a tribe in the Amazon rainforest. The tribe this shaman was from had a belief that when little children died prematurely, they were carried into the after life by a good spirit that they believed was very powerful. After the shaman became a believer, he saw Jesus in a vision. He later told the missionary that was living among them that he had seen Jesus before. He told him that Jesus was the spirit who had always carried the babies to the after life.
Every time I think about it it brings tears to my eyes. Jesus is in the business of caring for the least of these. He carries the babies of mommys and daddys in the farthest corners of the earth. He is so Good. So Gentle. So Powerful. So Beautiful.
I am so, so, humbled. | | |
| Jars of Clay has a new song out that I really like called "Two Hands". The lyrics go like this: I've been living out of sanity
I've been splitting hairs and blurring lines
I am a house that is divided
In my heart and in my mind.
I use one hand to pull you closer,
The other to push you away.
If I had two hands doing the same thing,
Lifted high, lifted high... I have a broken disposition,
I'm a liar who thirsts for the truth.
And while I ache for faith to hold me,
I need to feel the scars and see the proof. And if we just keep digging we can reach the foundation
Of our souls.
And if we just keep cutting all the chains from our hearts
We'll lose control. And it feels like giving in,
It feels like starting over,
It feels like waking up, and you know it's coming,
It feels like a brand new day.
Open your eyes... The first time I heard this song on the radio I laughed out loud. It sounds pretty funny at first, especially after just having watched an episode of House where a guy had "alien hand syndrome." One of this guy's hands had a mind of it's own because of a brain surgery he had that split his right and left brain. The hand would do silly things like slap his girlfriend and throw his deoderant across the room. Definitely one of my favorite House patients of all time. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized how true the lyrics are. I often have spiritual "alien hand syndrome." Like the song says, I'm a liar that thirsts for the truth. I ache for faith to hold me, but I need to feel the scars and see the proof. Sometimes I feel like I have a split personality. It's like Jekyll and Hyde or Niki and "Jessica" on Heroes. In the Bible Paul said that he often didn''t do what he wanted to do and he usually did exactly what he didn't want to do. I think we all feel like that at times. It's a part of being human. It gets exhausting sometimes though. And sometimes I'm afraid the cynical, doubting, needs-proof me will take over for good. I know it won't, but sometimes I'm afraid it will. Today in Church I kept asking God to kill my split personality. Kill the skeptic, kill the cynic, kill the jaded person that was created from a deadly cocktail of intellectualism and pride. I don't want to become naive, but I don't want that part of me to dominate anymore. I want two hands doing the same thing. | | |
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“Lois, you say the world doesn’t need a savior, but every day, I hear people crying for one.”
-Superman (Superman Returns)
It’s no secret that I love superhero movies. Spiderman, X-men, Batman…I revel in the exciting, action packed, romantic escapism of these kinds of movies. They also often have a lot of symbolism that applies to real life and the spiritual aspects of our world. I was watching the newest of the Superman movies, “Superman Returns,” on TV, and I found myself inspired by this particular quote from the man of steel himself. Sure in the world where Metropolis and Smallville exist, Superman is the world’s savior. But I found so much wisdom in the fact that Superman knows that humanity can’t do it on their own.
Lois Lane represents a lot of people in this world who say that we have it all under control. If only mankind would stick together and work hard at fixing things, we could make our world a perfect place. Lois wrote a Pulitzer prize winning newspaper story about how the world doesn’t need Superman anymore. I guess Lois’ problem (aside from the fact that she felt betrayed by Superman, but that’s another story) is that the cries of the world had become voices just to tune out in the background of her life. She watched them on the news, and even covered their stories, but she didn’t hear their cries…not like Superman.
We can never hear the world’s cries like Jesus does. I think we can hear enough of them on a daily basis though, if we pay attention, to show us that our world does need a savior. Every charitable organization, every health care plan, every good intention of man is never going to heal the problems of this broken world we live in. It’s just too big. Too big even for Superman to fix.
I had a professor once that hated the fact that people tended to equate Jesus with Superman. I completely agree with that. However, sometimes it felt like that same professor often made Jesus seem less than Superman.
He’s so much more and He doesn’t even need a cape. He’s the savior of the world, but He didn’t save it through brute strength, or even super intelligence. He saved it through one selfless, beautiful, terrible act of love. He spilt His own blood for those cries across the world.
My dad and I watch country music videos together sometimes. It’s just something that we share. For some crazy reason, Kid Rock, decided somewhere a long the line to be a country singer. He has this song called, “Amen” that talks about the problems in the world. It’s a somewhat religious song, and the problems he points out are really important problems to address. My dad always brings up though, that Kid Rock (and a lot of others) are really good at pointing out the problems, but they don’t ever come up with the answers. My dad and I share the same motto: we don’t believe in no-win situations. (To make this entry even nerdier…we got this motto from Captain Kirk in the old Star Trek haha!)
The good news is, we aren’t stuck in a no-win situation. There is an answer to the world’s problems. In the end love will triumph over evil and apathy.
Jesus is the answer for the world today. (Even if He’s not the answer for “what’s furry and has a tail”!)
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| I went to Ben and Kami's house last night for dinner and some much needed catch-up time. It was really great to spend time with their family and get reacquainted with the kids. I think it had been over a year since I had actually seen Hannah and Ethan. They totally melted my heart when they each snuck downstairs and gave me a goodnight hug before they went to bed.
Actually, Ethan won my heart when I babysat for them a while ago. He and Hannah both went upstairs to take their naps. I heard some movement from Ethan's room a little while later so I went in to check on him, and when he saw me he popped up in his play pen and looked at me with his big blue eyes. I said, "Are you ready to get up Ethan?" He nodded yes eagerly and stood up, ready to jump into my arms. So we went downstairs and played with some toy cars for a while before Hannah got up.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the young people that those two grow into in coming years.
We were looking through some old photographs from youth missions trips in years past. It struck me how whenever I see a picture of myself on a missions trip, I see how totally nerdy I looked, but also there's this pure joy. Like... I don't even care that my hair is a mess and I'm wearing a skirt with tennis shoes and it was probably 120% humidity when that picture was taken. I'm where I always wanted to be. And where I want to be for the rest of my life.
I'm not that same naive little girl...but in some ways I am. In some ways, I think that's absolutely, and completely okay.
My friend wrote a blog about trusting in God. She said that she used to trust Him and love others with her heart, but lately she's been trusting Him and loving others with her mind. I can relate to that. Somewhere a long the way I started analyzing everything. I've always been analytical, but I used to have faith. I know I still do, somewhere, deep inside, but I lose touch with it so often now. Sunday, the African Children's Choir sang at church. I started crying the minute they walked on stage, and I didn't stop until they danced back off the stage. Even in the most happy, energetic songs, I was standing and clapping with tears streaming down my face.
I was loving with my heart for the first time in a really, really, long time.
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