i have been on a bit of a rampage these past few weeks, so i am going to get on my soapbox for a moment (surprise, surprise). you see, in the last couple of months i have been an advocate for a few different friends connected to the refuge who have needed a little help navigating social services & standing up for themselves in various ways.  i wholeheartedly believe in the art of advocacy, a little extra support & strength, someone to help give voice to the voiceless & ensure that the powerless don’t get stomped on.  when it comes to social services, i honestly think that no person should ever, ever, ever have to go do that alone.  it’s just too hard and humiliating and beyond confusing to navigate.  i have a graduate degree & consider myself sorta, kinda, halfway smart, and the whole process, language, letters in the mail, automatic denials, hoops you have to jump through, have made me more and more angry as the weeks have gone by.  

and i think where i go with some of my anger is:  where in the #&~)*!@#? is “the church” in this process?  most everyone sitting in the social services waiting room is already in a tough & brutal spot, otherwise they wouldn’t be there.  and they’re there trying to figure out the system on their own with basically no one to stand alongside.   the last time i was there i saw a veteran get so frustrated on the check-in process that he threw up his hands & stormed out the door. i was so sad, i wanted to run him down and say “come back, i’ll do this with you!” but i was tied up holding another single mommy’s hand as she was having an anxiety attack at the thought of losing some of her benefits.   i thought to myself “everyone here should have someone else with them to be a support & strength, an in-the-flesh advocate.”

psalm 82:3-4 includes this cry: 

“defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.  rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”  

although the psalmist is crying out to God, because we are called to be a reflection of God’s image, i believe this verse is a call to advocacy.

and i’ve been wondering, more than ever, what would it look like if christians continually cultivated the art of advocacy so that our “neighbors” would have voice, support, and encouragement when they needed it most?  (ps: i need to add that i am very mad that anyone who is part of our faith community even has to access social services because we, as christian brothers & sisters, should be helping meet those needs together. but the harsh reality is that a lot of people with money & resource seem to be looking for programs for their kids & inspiring sermons & just don’t see themselves as equals with honest vulnerable strugglers so the resource ends up staying in systems that self-perpetuate instead of directly to care for the hurting. i always want to cry out: “i have a single mommy who needs that money so she can change her life, but instead you’re going to let it pay for printing costs & building overhead & salaries to keep your cool church’s worlds spinning ’round!“).  i really believe the resources are out there, they are just allocated in the wrong places.  sorry, i digress.  

but i’m not afraid to say, i think churches should be cultivating advocates instead of building buildings.

so what would that look like?

it always, always, always starts with relationship.  friends don’t let their friends do hard things alone.  period.  without relationship, advocacy just can’t happen.  this is why i am so passionate about incarnational relationships–in the flesh, face to face, heart to heart.  this means we have to invest deeply in the lives of each other so that we know when someone actually needs help, someone to stick up for them a little extra for a season.

a willingness to step into the mess even when we don’t have any answers. - advocates don’t have to have answers (this is what we always think). we don’t have to know the ins and outs of the system or what programs or resources are available.  the only thing we need to be willing to do is say “i’ll figure this out with you, you will not have to do it alone. you need to try to use your voice but if you can’t, i will be there to help you.” 

we need to get mad on others’ behalfs.  we must get in touch with injustice, what it looks like, smells like, tastes.  there’s nothing more healing for another person than to have someone say “this is not right!”  social justice advocate john perkins says, “when a person stands on the side of the oppressed, he decides to trade comfort for concern, apathy for action, violence for nonviolence, hate for love.” 

we can’t keep “leaving it to the professionals.” - we make assumptions all the time–”oh, i am not a professional, they need to figure it out with their caseworker, therapist, doctor, lawyer, you name it.” okay, that’s my point:  sometimes people need help navigating things with the “professionals”!   this crosses all socioeconomics.  “voiceless” takes many forms & has nothing to do with education or pay.  sometimes, because of shame & abuse & insecurities, people lose their voice and a 50 minute session once a week isn’t going to get it back.  we need people to help us practice standing up for ourselves, to be good coaches.

commitment to the long haul - if every person with margin was a tangible life-long advocate for a person without margin, i believe the world would be a radically different place. i know that’s overwhelming for some people, that thought, but i do believe that we need to take a much longer view of relationship.  we are called to be people’s mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters for different seasons & our adopted “family” means we are in it for the long haul no matter what.  one of the reasons it is so hard for hurting people to trust other people is that they continually get ditched & it becomes so difficult to trust.

the truth is, we probably all need an advocate now and then. when i was going through an extra hard time a few years ago exiting an unhealthy church staff, jose stuck up for me in a powerful way i will never forget it.   i had become voiceless, beaten down, and he stepped in and said a few things that needed to be said on my behalf.  in that moment, i got a picture of God’s heart for me. 

whether we are young or old, educated or uneducated, shy or loud, there’s always someone out there who needs us to stick up for them now and then, to be a voice when they have none, to restore a little dignity & offer a little hope for the journey.  that’s advocacy.

well, some of you already know i am on a summer movie marathon. it is all a little wacky and so out of character because i am seriously a person who does not have extra time to be watching movies!  if i hadn’t said i’d do it, i probably would have only watched 2 movies by now. plus, we have a friend living in our basement & she is a movie-lover like me so she keeps me on task, hahaha. there really is something so great about intentionally escaping now and then. anyway, i slowed down a bit after my two weeks out of the chute on memorial day but i am trying to find time here and there to chill for a couple of hours & soak in some good ones.  i thought i’d catch you up on what i’ve been watching; i always say that the carnival is sometimes like drinking water from a firehose, just a little too intense all the time! (i am not so good at little posts here and there) so here’s to a little refreshment break.   this is what i have watched since the last time i posted, kind of a funky mix:

becoming jane- it took me a while but then it really grew on me. i was so mad at the end, though. i won’t give it away but i couldn’t believe what a dumb move that was…

27 dresses - just good sweet fun.  a romantic comedy now and then is always worth it.

the sentinel - i like political thrillers and the twists & turns.  plus, kiefer sutherland is always good. 

the guardian - we all really liked it! jose was able to pull off that one & we all got into it.  a little on the perfect storm & abyss side of things.  it is fun because right after we saw it we found out the son of an old friend just joined the navy to be an air rescue swimmer. 

mad money - we all thought this was so funny, the kids could watch it too & it was just sweet and funny.  our favorite line was from katie holmes husband in the movie, a kind but not so smart guy:  “i want a lawyer–L-A-Y-E-R.”  for some dumb reason we all think that is so funny.

firewall - just another good suspenseful rental.   harrison ford’s always good.

the namesake - everyone got mad at me on my choice for this one.  they tried to hang with it but i had to agree, it just didn’t cut it.  it was a bummer because the previews looked so good & i read the book and love indian culture. it wasn’t quite sure of what it should be–artsy or mainstream–and so it missed the mark.  my older two kids watched it and they kept joking that his name was “google” and the sister’s name was “yahoo.”

grace is gone - sad and simple and it really lingers.  i love john cusack and he is in a totally different role here.  sundance film festival something or other. i liked it but don’t look for happy or neat & tidy.

the savages - my movie partners get a little annoyed with me, all my downer movies (i get teased all the time about this!) but i really like realistic & this one hit it in terms of awkward & tricky family dynamics. laura linney and phillip seymour hoffman were great as brother & sister and all of the issues surrounding taking care of their sick father.  painful to watch but well done. 

charlie wilson’s war - i am glad i saw it but it was so painful to see the back story of how these things go down politically, and we kept saying “yep, this really happens.”  the washington insider sex stuff bugged me, too.  ick.

waitress - i had seen this in the theater way back when it first came out & loved it.  so simple & sweet & powerful.   i watched it with julia, she’s 14. there are a few things of course that aren’t for kids theme-wise but she is wise enough to handle it and the redemption is so there.  the fun part was afterward she looked up the pie recipes online and made us the “falling in love chocolate mousse pie” for after our house of refuge.  it was amazing, like really really good! 

the italian job - i’ve seen this a few times before but we watched it again. such a great heist movie, so well done. i am a mark wahlberg fan for sure.

charlie bartlett - oh i liked this one. we saw the preview when we saw “once” and it made me want to see it.  sort of like an updated ferris bueller’s day off.  the prescription drug scene with the kids, of course not to be made glamorous by any means, but that so wasn’t the big idea. just another reminder that everyone needs someone to talk to & listen to them.  

michael - probably funnier 12 years ago when it first came out but there is something so charming about the messed up smoking angel…

definitely, maybe - well i could have done without this romantic comedy.  it was okay, not terrible or anything but just didn’t go anywhere.  i liked isla fisher, though.

made of honor - julia and i went with our basement roommate to our $2.00 theater to see this.  we laughed, just your basic romantic comedy with some funny moments.  the glow-in-the-dark-thunder-beads on grandma really was the highlight.   

the final season - good sappy family baseball movie based on a true story of an iowa high school baseball team.  i love samwise gamgee from lord of the rings (sean astin) and he was the lead in a simple, not stellar movie that made us all cry at the end.  we watched it together on july 5th, the day after the kiddos watched the sandlot (our fav!), and i am glad we stuck with (at first we were like, is this going to be dumb, but it wasn’t).  remember, we have 4 boys in our house who fight over the sports page every morning (well, make that 5 with jose) so we like these kinds of stories.  jose was able to catch this one with us, too, so that always makes me happy.

rendition - good drama, and i always like it when someone takes it for the team to make an injustice right.  it had some good twists & turns and had me on the edge of my seat going “i wonder how this is going to really go down?”

hancock - i went with a few friends & julia to see this in the theater july 4th weekend. love will smith & of course a horribly flawed superhero is my favorite.  there were some things that i was like “why did it have to be like that?” but i am glad we saw it. we laughed and escaped and that’s why i go to the movies!

whew, that is a lot (kind of embarrassing?)  29 movies since memorial day. this week i have a lot going on so it’ll be a light week, maybe just 1 or 2.  i have city of God & gandhi (but that one is 3 hours & of course no one wants to watch it with me!). and the visitor & get smart are my next theater ones. well, thanks for all the recommendations last time, too.  my “to see” list is long!  thanks for sharing in the fun…

the old saying “money is the root of all evil” isn’t really that accurate.  we all know there’s something underneath money that is far more insidious–power.  i think about power a lot for all kinds of reasons. my free-fall out of the power-laden mega church i was part of probably was the icing on the cake, but i had been wrestling with issues of power long before then. my husband is hispanic and i have seen first-hand what white privilege looks like & how it affects his family & their friends. i have unfortunately also seen up-close-and-personal the dominance of men not only in the church but in abusive relationships where women “have their place” and lack value & voice & dignity. i have seen who gets promoted & who doesn’t.  my mom was a struggling single mom for many years & i experienced what it was like to claw and fight to pay the bills and keep the lights turned on while other people never thought twice about it.  i have seen what perpetrators can do to victims by abusing their power in all kinds of wicked ways.  and i have nursed many a wound of those hurt by the church & am continually disgusted by the things people do and say and get away with in the name of God.  basically, i am angry at how much misused power hurts.

power & control is in our DNA from genesis 3, and it continues to wreak havoc in our churches, homes, and world.  i honestly think we’re addicted to it, more than we think. like a moth to the flame, we are drawn to power. we tend to want more of it ourselves and are all-too-willing to bestow it on other people in all kinds of weird and bizarre ways that rob us of our God-given value, voice & influence.

i think power in the real world is a given. even though i am an idealist and wish they weren’t, i expect corporations to be power-hungry. they don’t exist to save the world, they exist to make money. i get that. the problem i have is how as christians we have unfortunately & probably inadvertently adopted the world’s ways of power into our church culture, our homes, the fabric of our lives. the upside down message of Jesus in the sermon on the mount is radically lost & basically we are sucked into the same old b.s. that the world thrives on.  last night i went to the jesus for president tour that came through denver. it was a good night, always fun to see people from around denver with belief-that-the-beatitudes-really-are-the-way-blood in their veins. i love the message that shane claiborne always carries because it reeks of Jesus’ love & hope & peace & a crazy diffusion of power.   every bit of power we get we are supposed to offer to others & use for good.  it’s that simple (and of course, easier said than done). when jim henderson came to denver last year with matt casper to promote jim & casper go to church he said something like this: “i can’t imagine God would want me to do anything else with the power that i have except give it away.”

i think what really impacted me last night is the reminder that throughout history, everyone was always looking for a king, someone to rule over them & sort of make everything right in the world. even when the israelites left egypt, it is always so interesting to me (and unfortunately terribly familiar in my own story) that they couldn’t accept their freedom & longed to go back to egypt. even though they were slaves there, they knew what to expect and it was somehow safer. for generations the israelites waited for their messiah. and did they ever get what they never expected–the long awaited king of all kings was an average guy with a crazy message that the first would be last and the last would be first and that power and religion and knowledge meant nothing in contrast to the simple & radical ways of love and generosity.  instead of powering up, he powered down to the lowest of places.  last night chris hawes, co-author of the book, said “it took 3 days for the israelites to get out of egypt, but it took a lifetime to get egypt out of them.”  the structure, the subservience, the predictability of power got into their skin. i think it got into ours, too.  we bestow so much power onto christian leaders, celebrity figures, the talented & strong, you name it, and basically keep them on a pedestal, perpetuating weird power structures because we think that is how things are supposed to work.  and we clamor for power in ways that we might not even recognize because success & importance in the world’s eyes (and for many, the “church’s” eyes) is so engrained in us as important to get. 

for real change to happen in the church, our communities, the world, i believe wholeheartedly we need to rethink power.  at off the map live in seattle last year, i think it was richard twiss (don’t quote me on that) who said, “those with power never think about it & those without it think about it all the time.”  so how do we re-think power?  oh i can’t begin to touch on all the possibilities but here are a few on the tip of my tongue:

we must notice our power when we’ve got it. in the world i used to run in, i don’t think i even realized how much natural privilege i had because of my education, income, put-togetherness.  i came from a pretty poor broken family so i was determined to do whatever i could to shift that cycle (and boy did i try to do a good job of it!). now, after radical shifts in the way i live out my faith, i am struck with how many don’t have power & how much i automatically have.  socioeconomics, race, mental illness, education, gender, weird life circumstances that have kept people paralyzed all contribute to a lack of power.  please know that i don’t mean to pick on the boys intentionally (i have the utmost respect for the many humble men i am connected to & those who participate in this blog because i know the ways you are using your power to serve & honor others, it is beautiful) but i will have to say that i think a huge shift will take place in the world, in christianity, when men who have automatically held power for generations upon generations start to radically give it away in noticeable, tangible, crazily weird ways to those who have basically never ever had it before because of their race or gender or socioeconomic position.  i really believe there’s room for everyone.

we need to be careful of how much power we give to other people.  this is why i am anti-christian-hero’ish.  i am so not into the lead pastor thing where there’s a king and he uses his God-given authority and “spiritual gift of leadership” to put themselves above the masses.  i actually don’t think it’s all their fault (although i think some are pretty good at perpetuating it).   i think it’s people’s fault.  we do this to people–we give them far too much power. we make assumptions about them & fan into flame things that aren’t good for people’s souls.  i think we do a disservice to them, ourselves, by giving them (or taking for ourselves) too much authority & power.  sometimes people try to do this to me here and there, and i beg them “whatever you do, do not do not do not put me on a pedestal.  that would be a dangerous mistake, bad for your soul and mine, too.”

recognize how we perpetuate systems of power.  i also think we need to ask ourselves:  “how am i helping perpetuate systems of power where the underdog, the undervalued, the least and the last aren’t ever treated as equals in terms of leadership, value or voice?”  it is so natural to us to be part of systems where women & minorities & those with no resources are kept underneath, where the “recovery people” are in their own ministry set apart from the neat & tidies, where leaders never hang out with anyone except themselves & people like them, where lack of diversity is never questioned, where racial, sexual & gender inuendos and jokes are commonplace.  i think we’re so desensitized to it,  we don’t even notice how screwed up it really is. this isn’t just in churches, this is in the places we work, the places we give our money to. 

let’s do everything we can to give it away.  as i said before, this is easier said than done. we are all hoarders at heart.  it’s so hard to let go of power and all the things that go along with it, but i think that is where the greatest spiritual transformation might take place–when instead of taking power, we give it away.  we serve instead of be served.  we offer space & voice to the typically unheard.  we bend our knee instead of expecting others to bend theirs.  we give instead of take.

if we don’t have it in the world, we have it in the kingdom.  Jesus makes this so clear.  those with nothing have the most.  our dignity and value has nothing to do with what the world says, what weird measuring stick people are measured with.  yes, it sucks to see the system work so deeply against some people but remember that in Jesus’ economy power means nothing.

reflect on how we might have hurt others with our power.  i am sure i have hurt people unintentionally, and for that i am so sorry.  i hope we can be people who are continually soft and reflective about ways we may use or have used power to damage others.  there’s so much healing that can happen when someone in power actually apologizes (if you have been hurt by power you know what a gift it would be it would be if those who did the damage actually acknowledged it. unfortunately many of us will have to live with that never happening this side of heaven).

oh i know this is way too long but actually only scratches the surface.  there’s so much that could be fleshed out in so many other ways, but i had this on my mind and thought i’d dump it out.  i know what satan intends for evil, God can use for good.  and i fully believe that as christ-followers, as human beings, we can use the power we have to influence, help, love, and serve those without it.   the world is watching.  it’s time to re-think power.

as you all know by now, i have a lot of issues with “church.”  i love love love people gathered together in all kinds of ways to learn and practice loving God, our neighbors, ourselves.  it’s the programs, the inauthenticity,  the power b.s., the unnaturalness of it all that i can do without.   i believe wholeheartedly, in every fabric of my being, that without community and deep connection with other people (whatever that may look like) we will never be able to live out the ways of Jesus and experience the fullness of relationship with God. i am fairly convinced typical church systems that feed inspiration addiction provide a false sense of spiritual maturity where learning “about” certain things becomes enough and we are never forced to actually be in meaningful intimate connection with the people we sit next to week after week.  lives need to be rubbed up against other lives.  that’s where the real action happens and we learn what it means to really love & be loved.  

after spending last weekend at the 3rd annual refuge camping trip at jackson lake i walked away with this thought: church should probably be a lot more like camping!  really, it has all of the elements that i love & value about “church” the way i dreamed it could be:

all the cover-ups are stripped away - camping is a great equalizer.  a tent’s a tent.  no one cares about what you wear or what you look like.  every person trying to pull themselves up on a tube in the middle of the lake looks awkward, no matter how much money they make or what job they have.  in a good way, camping (especially when there’s water because that means bathing suits!) exposes us in a safe container because everyone else is equally exposed, too.  

everyone shares - that is one of my favorite things, when we are camping there’s an incredible sharing of “stuff” with each other.  we had 14 sites all to ourselves and there was zigzagging all over the place… ”need an extra tent? want some eggs? i’ve got some bacon! come over to our place and we’ll cook up the food.”  needs get met.  openhandedness abounds. 

conversations flow - fire, time and space creates a container for relaxed & meaningful conversation. no one’s rushed, hurried, has an agenda, or always has the floor.

playing & more playing - little kids playing with big kids, big kids making new friends, games around the picnic table, balls getting tossed, splashing in the water, silly songs around the campfire, people trying things they don’t normally try, laughter everywhere.   that’s worship.

the little ones are a part - kids & grownups together is really important to me.  we’re supposed to know each other’s kids & look after them & help them & love them instead of keeping them safely put away while we “do our thing”.  when we’re camping, we’re all together, eyes and hearts and hands all over the place making sure everyone’s known & taken care of. 

relaxed instead of rushed - hurriedness is what messes with community. rushing in, rushing out, going from one thing to the next and never being able to be present in the moment.  the stress of time and responsibilities and pressures really rob us of peace & connection.  when we’re camping, we’re chill.  we’re present.  we’re unwound instead of wound up.  we’re glad to be here instead of thinking where else we have to go next.

i could go on and on about all the cool parallels and i am sure i missed some other big ones, but you get the point.  yeah, to me, camping really is “church” at its finest. 

ps: below is a photo collage from my camera only.  i missed a bunch because i was on the boat most of the time & so i didn’t get any pix from karl & april’s.  yeah, we are a water family & our boat is called ohana! which means family in hawaiian (if you watched lilo and stitch “ohana means family & family means no one gets left behind”. that sort of sums up what i think the church should be).  the only bummer from this year’s camping trip is i didn’t have jose there. he had to coach jamison’s (that’s my 12 year old) basketball team for a tournament.  i did have an amazing ohana crew (all girls, yeah!) who helped pull tubers, run ropes, and manage tons of kids & grownups in and out and all around.  we saved a few lives here and there (not really but it felt like it) and really had a blast!

pps:  happy july 4th! i am thankful for our freedom. let us never forget that many many others have none and keep fighting for theirs, too, with the same passion we fought for ours.  

“we all blossom in the presence of one who sees the good in us and who can coax the best out of us”

–desmond tutu

 * * * * *

yes, there’s no doubt in my mind, we live in a genesis 3 world.   created in God’s image in genesis 1, things went awry for adam & eve, and here we are, God’s children, generation upon generation later, struggling to make sense of our humanness, God’s God-ness, with shame & pride & control & doubt & hiding & all kinds of wacky things messing with our heads, our lives.   the reason why this is so clearly on my heart today is that the past 4 days or so have been filled with people and more people.  and where there’s people, there’s a glorious mess and yet another reminder that the human struggle to believe we are good, that God is good, feels pretty universal. 

we had our 3rd annual refuge camping trip this past weekend (more on that in a few days, whoa, it was lovely & fun & filled with the typical and wonderful refuge riff-raff). we came home to two days with a friend from australia, sheena ryan, who has the gift of prophesy and offered some words of encouragement for our community.   she is connected to some dear friends on the refuge team who are constantly reminding us that God is big, like really big, and to not let our weird spiritual baggage & american christian experiences limit God’s spirit.  one of the things i love about the refuge is the diversity of christian theology & past spiritual experiences & ways of living out our faith all under one roof.  when sheena visited us at the end of 2006 i was being my typical skeptical self and felt very protective of my friends who had experienced God woundedness over the years and didn’t want anyone messing with their journey.  of course, i was utterly wrong and the time she spent with us was healing and beautiful and God truly spoke not only to me but to many others, too.  now, almost 2 years later, she was back in the states to share and encourage.  i admit that, again, i got a little worried.  safety at the refuge is a really high value and i know how fragile some of my friends are in their faith but i drew on the reality of last time–this was a kind and gentle and simple woman with no agenda, no power to gain, absolutely no benefit that i can think of other than knowing that she made herself available to people in need of God’s touch (i am always faced with what a jerk i can be about God stuff that i am not as comfortable with or used to. yes, God, i get it. i so easily forget how big you really are!).

we’ve been talking this month about the beauty & mystery of the trinity (you can read more about it at the refuge blog here and here) and the timing couldn’t have been better since this was the week focused on the holy spirit.  so out on the patio this past sunday evening, the breeze blowing through, we laughed & sang together and listened to sheena speak for a short time about prayer.  then in a humble & gentle way she prayed publicly for those that came forward. the most lovely part was that as a community, we got to hear out loud what God was saying through her to each other.  because i know pieces of almost every person’s story at the refuge, i was a tad bit overwhelmed at just how accurate & specific these words of encouragement were for each person.  friend after friend after friend receiving kernels of truth & hope into their lives.  when she got to me, well, the tears sprang forth & i tried to just receive (i’m not the best at that).  i can’t recreate the moment but i will just say that i was reminded that this crazy battle i am in, fighting for a theology of brokenness & equality to pervade the church, is worth it despite my insecurities & fears. 

we spent a little more time with sheena yesterday and it was good for my soul, the place i am at on the journey.  i am at a point in my life where i am no longer addicted to spiritual highs or caught up in demanding something from God the way i need it, the way i want it.  but i was reminded that God is always trying to speak to us as his babies, his children, so that we will know the truth about who we really are.  that he hasn’t forgotten us.  that he wants to reveal himself in weird and mysterious ways to help us on the journey.  i think the big bottom line is that God wants to clear some of the rubble that’s been created over the years so that the essence of who we are, the image of God in us, will be more clearly reflected and others can then see the image of God in themselves, too. i believe wholeheartedly that he doesn’t want us to stay stuck, to let the rubble keep us paralyzed from living. 

i get so angry at the rocks and obstacles and weights and barriers that have been placed into our way.  things we’ve done, things done to us, spiritual & emotional damage, messages and lies we’ve taken into the deepest places of our heart and we can’t seem to shake, a core belief that we’re really unlovable & unworthy of good things.  as a parent, it is the absolute last thing i would want my kids to be stuck with.  these rocks cut across money & education & geography & race & spiritual experiences and tend to be part of every person’s human experience to some degree or another.  the sick, the marginalized, the outcasts, the desperate were drawn to Jesus. in weird and bizarre ways, he called out the good that was buried underneath.  and as Christ-followers we are told to follow his example. 

there’s no doubt in my mind, we can’t clear the rocks by ourselves.  they are just too damn heavy.  sometimes we need two or three of us on our hands and knees pushing with all our strength, not giving up, even though it feels like any minute the rock will just roll right back to where it was before.  sometimes we need a random person to speak some words of encouragement & hope into us from out of the blue.  sometimes we just need someone to listen to the carnival in our head and remind us that it’s time to get off the ride, if even for a few minutes. sometimes we need prayer. sometimes we need laughter. sometimes we need a kick in the tail from a faithful friend.  any clearing we can get, we must take.  a pebble at a time, a rock at a time, a boulder at a time.  clearing the rubble so that the beauty and dignity and value of people can be discovered, our goodness-because-we-are-made-in-God’s-image revealed.   

that’s really what happened here the past few days.  a little bit of rubble got cleared so good could be exposed & what was already there can be released, even if in just a small and simple way.  i love what karl, my friend & teammate at the refuge, said at the end of our evening together:  “this is not extraordinary. it feels extraordinary because we are not used to it in such a powerful dose, but this kind of calling out the good in each other’s lives should be an ordinary part of our life in community together.” 

i have a feeling we just need a little reminder now and then that we are more equipped than we think to heal, to gently love, to clear some rubble, to call out the good.  and i believe our families, our neighborhoods, our cities, the world, are crying out for people willing to look beyond the rubble, see the good, the beauty buried down deep, and stay in relationship with them to coax it out…

“we are always getting ready

to live but never living” 

- ralph waldo emerson

i get completely random and weird thoughts here and there (more like all the time).  yesterday when i was sorting laundry (yeah, just imagine how much we have with 7 of us in the house and everyone playing sports) i was thinking about church stuff and life stuff and how utterly entangled they can be.  what’s true for one is probably true for the other.  and here’s the simple (i’m not trying to profess it’s profound) thought i had:  when it comes to church, most leaders don’t know how to live in the “now”.  when it comes to life, most people don’t know how to live in the “now.”  we are almost always looking toward something in the future.   it is somehow much easier to do that than to live in the present, notice what is right before us–the good, the bad, the ugly–and be willing to stay there instead of avert our eyes and heart and time to what’s ahead. 

with all this talk about missional church the past few days i have been thinking about my church ministry experience over the years. here’s what i noticed:  almost every conversation and meeting was most always about something in the future….”where are we going? what do we need to do next?  how do we find new leaders that can start some new things in the future? how do we develop that next group? when can we launch that next program?  where do we want to go with this ministry?  what is happening in the fall?…”  almost never have the conversations been about what was happening NOW.   we would maybe do a check in here and there on “how things were going” but then the conversation always went toward “what was next and how we could make things better, bigger, more strategic.”  ugh! argh! how sad!  what happens in this oh-so-typical model is that we miss out on the beautiful and powerful presence of God’s work in the moment.  we become insatiable, like what ”is” isn’t enough and we must do whatever we can do to get “more.” 

i was thinking about this “what’s next” attitude in the context of relationship–it’s kind of like saying to the people our lives now–”umm, i am glad you are here, but i really will like you more when you do this or that or that or this”  instead of saying “hey, i am so thankful for you in this moment, you are beautiful and amazing just like you are.”  churches subtly (and directly) do this to the people who are part all of the time.   

i noticed something wonderful today.  i am in a community that doesn’t focus too much on the future. it drives me crazy sometimes, i will readily admit, but i think the refuge is teaching me an important lesson that will serve me well if i can stay with it instead of run too far ahead.  now is enough.  celebrate what’s right here.  notice the beauty of relationship right now, even if it’s not all i wish it were.  right now is all we have anyway, so why not stay with it instead of missing it all by looking to the future?  (isn’t that a piece of what Jesus was getting at when he told us not to worry about tomorrow?)  again, i know good leaders out there are going “but it’s our job to look ahead for people!”  i am not dismissing that we have responsibilities that include vision, but i am just wondering how distracted and frenzied so many church leaders are because they are never able to live and enjoy the now.  and i am also wondering if focusing on the future is a way of avoiding living in the present, in the reality of current relationships that need tending to that have absolutely nothing to do with strategy or the future.  let’s face it, loving now is way harder than planning & strategizing.  hmm, just a thought.

when it comes to our own personal lives, i think the same things apply.  so many of us are not satisfied with our current life. it’s not quite what we had hoped and we are always wishing for something different.  so we start dreaming (which i am obviously a huge proponent of!) but instead of our dreams being something good–treasured and held in some kind of wonderful tension–they sometimes turn on us and make us feel worse about our current situation.  we become painfully aware of all we “aren’t doing” instead of celebrating all we are.  this is where i land a lot.  i like my life, i really do, but sometimes it just feels like i missed something along the way.  “how in the #*!&!^!)@( did i end up here?” is a question i ask myself a lot.  yes, life’s good, but definitely not what i thought it would be and i sometimes consume my thinking with the “what if’s” and “what else’s.”   clearly this thinking distracts and consumes me,  and i miss out on the beauty and glory and wackiness of “what is.”  i am not saying we are supposed to settle and not dream and wish for more.  but what i’m wondering is how much i miss, we miss, by living life in our heads, in the future, instead of living life with our hearts now.  yep, sometimes the now sucks, no doubt, it’s not all that we want it to be and sometimes it’s just downright gnarly.   i am always neck-deep in the reality that life is far from easy for most people.  but i still believe we need to strain to see the beauty in the pain, the glory in the ugly, notice what’s good, true, noble, trustworthy in the midst, and stay in instead of run & avoid.

i have been chuckling today, thinking about what would happen if church leaders took one year and practiced the presence of the now, not doing one thing to look ahead or strategically plan a single ministry or program but spent all of that energy, money, and time noticing & cultivating the relationships that were right in front of them.  yeah, i am smart enough to know that is utterly impossible, but it does make me smile to think about. 

but i really can’t be finger pointing at the moment.   it is so in my nature to wonder and wish and plan and regret and miss out on what’s blaringly good right here, right now.  so the challenge to myself really is: can i do it?  can i quit looking ahead and just be satisfied today, with all it’s craziness & all it’s beauty?  can i celebrate the goodness of what is?  of who is?  

please, God, help me, help us, live in the now. 

NOTE:  this is part of the missional synchroblog organized by rick meigs at blind beggar, over 50 bloggers participating, reclaiming the now fairly over-used and ever-popular word “missional.”  although i don’t talk about it much, i consider myself a friend of missional and highly respect their work & heart to infect the kingdom with missional values. i encourage you to check out the other links (i listed them all below to make it easy) and hear what a diverse group of people across a wide strata of experiences, geography, and perspectives are sharing about living in the trenches as Christ-followers.  the question was “what is missional, really?”

* * * * *

i honestly do not use the word for one primary reason–the people i know who are really truly “missional” don’t talk about it too much & the people who are trying to catch the latest church-trend use it a lot.   when we were planting the refuge a little over two years ago i had a few church leaders share with me how “they were becoming ‘missional’ and were we going to be, too?”, like it was the latest and greatest thing that no one had ever heard of before and surely we wanted to jump on the bandwagon.  oh how that taps into all my church institution craziness!  there i was, sitting across the table with leaders who had been in ministry, making decisions for churches for years and years i thought “you don’t even know, like really know, a poor person, do you?  you have never ever been in close relationship with a single mom who just got beat up by her ex and is trying to raise her babies on $1,000 a month, have you? you have never held someone’s hand when they relapsed, have you? because if you had, you wouldn’t be asking me that question!” (sorry, but these are the things that get me a little amped up).   Jesus was never about words without actions, hip & cool, or the latest trends.  he was always about just doing it. he came for the sick, not the healthy, and he demonstrated what it meant to be in the deepest ugliest parts of people’s story and call out their dignity and value.  

i do think it’s great that the “missional” movement is catching hold and that many people are getting out of their seats and into their communities in more intentional ways (i wonder how much we owe to bono & oprah?)  i think why i shy away from the word is that it gets hoisted on the shoulders of church leaders as ”see, look at us, we actually do care about the poor!” and then somehow everyone feels a little better.  missional is much more than some cool service projects and short term mission trips here and there while everything else structurally, programmatically, you name it, is exactly the same that it always been–focused on serving the people in the pews (or in the newest and most comfortable chairs) and making sure they are happy, bringing people “to us”, and not having to really engage in sacrificial life-on-life in real, authentic ways that get under our skin, make us feel uncomfortable, and change our hearts forever. 

to me, missional–individually & corporately–is:

• a way of living. it is a way of the heart, and is something that is better left unsaid in words and promotional materials and said loudly in humble, simple, natural actions that actually don’t get any press. 
• the upside down inside out and beautifully uncomfortable ways of the kingdom that are completely counter-intuitive to the worldly principles of business school that have infiltrated our church culture.  
• messy, chaotic, situational, and in many ways utterly unmeasurable.
• embracing not only in action but in the core DNA of our hearts the values of the beatitudes in matthew 5 (spiritual poverty, the ability to mourn & feel, humility & gentleness, advocacy & social justice, mercy & compassion, and sacrifice at great costs)

Jesus uses these guiding words from the sermon on the mount to powerfully demonstrate that his ways will be hard, sacrificial, intensely counter-cultural.  my theory related to church ministries is “if it looks good, feels good, and helps you sleep well at night, beware!”  the ways of the kingdom are radically uncomfortable. 

i think missional means that these core principles from the beatitudes are woven intricately and deeply into the fabric of our hearts, our communities:  

spiritual poverty, an honest realization that we really need God - we realize we can’t do it, a program can’t do it, our skills and abilities can’t do it.  i think many churches teach that “we can do it if we just add the right ingredients here and there.”  when it comes to being in the darkest parts of our cities, our neighborhoods, people’s hearts, i think one thing is clear–we’re not one formula or book away from being able to do anything.  missional means we’re radically humble, painfully aware of how complex real life is and that we are in desperate need of God’s spirit really showing up.

an uncanny ability to feel, comfort, and enter into others’ pain.   we give up self-protection and allow ourselves to feel, care, weep with others, weep for ourselves.  we are painfully aware of the human struggle not only in others lives but also our own.  we aren’t about quick fixes and simple solutions but rather the long hard journey of relationship with other people where we cry together, celebrate together, feel each other’s pain and offer each other the comfort and hope we’ve received from God.  this means that we actually have to be in relationship with others, like really in relationship. we can’t cry over a story we don’t know.  we can’t know a story without really getting to know another person.  to me, missional is all about incarnational relationship (ah, yes, another lovely buzzword, but without incarnational i don’t believe there’s really such thing as missional)

incredible humility.  let’s face it, on the whole, christians aren’t known for our humility.  rather we are often known (and often valued by others in the club) for our pride, self-sufficiency, exclusivity and one-upness.  missional means that we don’t just have something to give, we have something to receive.  we have so much to learn from other people but sometimes we get caught up in being the savior, the more squared away ones, that we think we can do something “for” or “to” people instead of “with” them.  ”with” relationships means we must humble ourselves and actually receive instead of distract ourselves and protect our hearts by only giving. 

a deep passion for advocacy.   to me, a missing piece in so many churches and communities is the tangible practice of advocacy.  Jesus was and is our advocate, and we are called to be like him. this means we must stand up for the underdog, risk our position and pride for the sake of another, refuse to support systems that hurt our friends & neighbors, and actively use any power we have to be a voice for the voiceless. missional means we are actively participating in standing up for those that for one reason or another aren’t in a position to stand up for themselves.

motivated by Christ’s love, not power or prestige or weird christian kudos. we must always ask ourselves what are our motives? is our motive to feel good about ourselves and be able to say at the end of the year “see how cool we are because did all of these great things for other people?” or is it about being so in tune with Christ’s heart not just for us but all people that we are compelled to love naturally?  is it about converting people or just simply loving with no agenda?  do we have to drop our name to get the credit or can we just serve and love anonymously? 

active networkers & bridge builders.  missional means we work for peace and partnership among not only our friends but also our so-called “enemies” (aka people who don’t believe the same things we do but do an amazing job taking care of people in our cities, the world), we involve others in the bigger kingdom story, and model open handed generosity instead of hoarding and flaunting.  we are known as mediators, facilitators, counselors, conduits.   

viewed as stupid, slow, non-strategic & crazy.  we take a hit for loving the unlovely when loving the lovely gets so much bigger bang for its buck.   people worry about us that we have bad boundaries and are “ministry cowboys” (thanks, ken loyd), we never have money or security or all of the things that would probably make us (and our loved ones) feel a lot better at face value but will no longer satisfy us because we’ve tasted and experienced the mess & glory of humanity & divinity mixed together and can never turn back.   

yeah, the world, our cities, our neighborhoods, our hurting friends couldn’t care less about the word “missional”.   the only thing they’re wondering is:  “who will bring some love & hope into this darkness?”   Jesus started his public ministry with the words of the beatitudes and ended it with this reminder, in his last night with his disciples: “love each other in the same way i have loved you. there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”   will we be people, communities, deeply committed to the upside down inside out ways of great sacrifice or not?  i guess that’s the question.

* * * * *

other bloggers participating. check out their wide perspectives (and some much shorter posts, ha!):

Alan Hirsch *  Alan Knox *  Andrew Jones *  Barb Peters *  Bill Kinnon *  Brad Brisco *  Brad Grinnen *  Brad Sargent *  Brother Maynard *  Bryan Riley *  Chad Brooks * Chris Wignall *  Cobus Van Wyngaard * Dave DeVries *  David Best *  David Fitch * David Wierzbicki *  DoSi * Doug Jones *  Duncan McFadzean * Erika Haub * Grace *  Jamie Arpin-Ricci *  Jeff McQuilkin *  John Smulo * Jonathan Brink * JR Rozko *  Len Hjalmarson  * Makeesha Fisher * Malcolm Lanham * Mark Berry * Mark Petersen * Mark Priddy * Michael Crane Michael Stewart * Nick Loyd * Patrick Oden * Peggy Brown * Phil Wyman * Richard Pool * Rick Meigs * Rob Robinson * Ron Cole * Scott Marshall * Sonja Andrews * Stephen Shields * Steve Hayes * Tim Thompson * Thom Turner

this past saturday the refuge hosted a grafitti art workshop at joshua station, our friends near downtown denver who provide transformational housing for struggling families.  it was a perfect spot for our gathering and sam trujillo, who works for milehigh ministries (they are the umbrella organization for joshua station), did an amazing job facilitating a wild and crazy afternoon.  we had 30 participants, about 1/2 from the refuge, 1/2 from joshua station, with a wide range of ages (from 8 to 69 years old!) and backgrounds (the best part).   the common thread that wove us together was a desire to express ourselves in ways that some of us aren’t used to, to connect with our artistic side, our story.  grafitti, as we know, has both good and bad sides. there’s the part that’s beautiful and powerful, the free expression of people longing for a canvas to create and then there’s the weird gang tagging part.  we watched a few videos to connect with all sides, stir the pot, and make us think.  then we walked the grafitti wall that they have at joshua station (a while back sam invited some of his grafitti artist friends to come express themselves freely)  you can check out some of the pictures below, but they won’t give it justice.

a significant aspect of grafitti is a sense of identity, a mark, a “this is who i am”.   sam lead us in an exercise to help us connect with who we were.  everyone took time to write an “i am…” poem or piece to use on their creations.  you can check out the template here:

• i am template

people did all different variations of this, but most used this as a guide that i think helped them really go there and not get all hung up on creating a poem on the fly.  i honestly think this is an exercise worth doing just personally or corporately in a small group or ? (if you take time to write one, i’d love to see it…)  i had the privilege of typing everyone’s poem after they were finished writing it so they could be printed and added to their piece.  i was utterly and completely blown away by the depth and power of the words people, young and old, from all different walks of life, shared about themselves.  my son jared is 8 and is mr. artistic. he wrote an amazing poem that made mama cry (you can check out his piece below)  here’s mine:

i am beautiful and messy

i wonder if the carnival in my head will ever leave town

i hear a crazy mix of lies and truth

i see glory and healing all around me

i want to feel more comfortable in my own skin

i am beautiful and messy

 

i pretend i’m stronger than i sometimes feel

i feel the breath of God on my face now and then

i touch wounds

i worry that i have become a little trapped

i cry over the mountains that never seem to move

i am beautiful and messy

 

i understand that God is big and alive and cares about his children

i say that community is healing

i dream that the invisible will be made visible

i try to love

i hope i will never give up on Hope

i am beautiful and messy

i am kathy

people then had the chance to gather images, collage items, and experiment with all kinds of other mediums to use on their boards.  then we went outside to spray paint.  way fun. the colors, the “you can’t really mess it up because you can just start over”, the “let it rip’ness” was really a blast.  it was amazing, the variety and diversity of each person’s piece.  afterward people put the finishing touches on their boards and used the paint & other medium in all different ways. some had sam tag their names, others did their own. 

in these kinds of moments, i am always reminded that art is healing. it helps us get in touch with some part of our hearts that our brains just can’t “figure out”…it is a suspension of time and stress and worries and an entering into some weird sacred space that helps us grow, connect, and most of all notice the beauty.  the beauty of God. the beauty of my story. the beauty of my friend’s stories.  yeah, art is healing. 

one of the hardest things about all of the tossing & turning & churning of spiritual growth and change is that it sometime can just feel so confusing and disorienting.  when others around you are perfectly fine with where they are on the journey with God, church & life, but something feels awry in our spirit, we can get a little insecure and sort of wonder “what’s wrong with us?”   in one of the spiritual direction classes i had at denver seminary 6 years ago we read a book called the critical journey: stages in the life of faith (by janet hagberg & robert guelich) that was probably one of the most helpful tools i have come across to give language to the spiritual journey. i sometimes tell people that the tuition money i paid was worth this one tool because it was the first time i saw in black and white exactly what so many of were experiencing but didn’t really have a framework to put it in.  i created a cliff notes version in a chart for a retreat we did way back when. it’s kind of handy and you can check it out here: (important note: this post won’t really make as much sense without reading it first)  

• stages-of-faith.pdf 

grace blogged about it a few weeks ago and it made me want to flesh it out a little more so that those who have hit the wall and are feeling a bit dizzy can get a little reminder that it’s a good thing, a great thing, a wonderful thing to take the journey inward and intensely wrestle with God, themselves.  the hope is always that we can find our way to a new place of freedom, hope, connection, love.  i also think it’s really helpful to remember why other people are where they are.  sometimes i need to revisit this to offer a little grace to those who aren’t as dissatisfied as me & are still perfectly fine with towing the party line.  it’s just where they are on the journey.

i am not going to reiterate everything that is in the chart in the copy of this post because it would be too long but here’s a quick re-cap so you get the idea (purely from my perspective, you might read the book and get a different take):

this chart really highlights the 6 primary stages in our spiritual journey: 

1. recognition of God - starting to believe, there really is something bigger than just me

2. life of discipleship - beginning to learn more ABOUT God

3. the productive life - serving and doing things FOR God

THE WALL - things stop working for one reason or another…

4. the journey inward - figuring out a new way to do relationship with God, ourselves, others

5. the journey outward - learning to live, serve, love out of a totally different place

6. life of love - so poured out it’s kind of wild

a few important notes about these stages:

you can’t skip over them initially. there are no shortcuts or workarounds.  you don’t go from 1 to 4 or 2 to 5.  it’s a 1-2-3-4-5-6 process but once you have gone through them it is possible to skip around and revisit certain stages during different new seasons.  

we can get stuck at any of these stages on our journey.  they call this getting “caged”.  the chart details some of the ways we can get caged at each stage. at the same time there are things that we can do to keep moving.

none of these stages are bad or right or wrong or better than another. they just are.  i think an important piece to remember is that we couldn’t have gotten to where we are now (i am pretty sure that’s bad grammar?) without the first stages.  sometimes i forget that without my season of learning scripture, becoming part of “the church”, and discovering what i had to contribute and working my butt off to do it, i wouldn’t be where i was today in my relationship with Jesus.

the majority of christians live their entire faith journey in stages 1-3.  these first three stages keep churches in business.  it is what produces workers, people who sit in the pews and learn, tithers, and volunteers who pull the ministry off.  

what happens to a lot of people, though, is that somewhere along the road they hit THE WALL. this can be a personal crisis, a faith crisis, anything that basically begins to make stage 3, the productive life, stop working.   most everyone, if they are honest, hit the wall somewhere along the line in some shape or form (some of us slam into it a little bit more dramatically!) but most christians are taught and trained to dance around the wall and then get back to stage 3 as fast as they can.  i really believe a lot of christians don’t know quite what to do when people hit the wall.  the typical response i have seen a lot: read the latest spiritual book, get into a quick-fix workshop, get an accountability partner as soon as possible, or if it’s really bad, go to a counselor for a few times to fix what’s wrong and get back to ”normal” as soon as you can. 

far fewer people actually do the hard courageous work of going THROUGH the wall because it requires entering into stage 4, the scary place where it feels like everything is up for grabs.  all that we once knew  is somehow gone or just doesn’t bring life.  we don’t feel safe or satisfied or energized in the system we used to give our heart and time and money to.  the way we used to experience God just doesn’t seem to be working anymore.  we have way more questions than answers.    we allow ourselves to feel pain & let God into some places we have not wanted to go before.  sometimes we are bleeding, wounded, and wondering if we’ll ever be whole again. it is the most confusing stage and also the most glorious because it is where we begin to let go of some of the comforts that protected us so well but kept us from deeper, richer, more mysterious relationship with God.  it is also the stage that most outsiders will look at us and say “what in the $#*!^!+@ is happening with them?” others will think we are crazy, heretical, lost, stupid, unfaithful & a little (or maybe a lot) like the prodigal, hoping we’ll come back home as soon as possible.  i think stage 4 is when we need good guides, fellow sojourners who will stay with us and remind us this is a critical stage in our faith journey, to remind us to listen deeply and not lose hope when all that we once knew feels stripped away. 

the hope is that we will transition into stage 5 where we are serving, loving, living from a new, free place that gives life not only to us but to others.  in the journey outward we live from a more whole, integrated place in our faith and personal lives.  we are more vulnerable not only with God but with other people & we are deeply committed to community, a slower pace, and begin to serve and love other people out of deep desire and passion instead of duty or obligation or attachment to an organization or institution.   2 corinthians 1 and 1 john 4 take deeper root:  we comfort others with the comfort we’ve received and we love others because we’ve experienced Christ’s love like never before.

i believe that some of us pop out of stage 4 here and there along the way, not all at once (that is what we expected of ourselves in stage 3!).  movement between the journey inward & outward are a little more fluid. it’s not like one day we wake up and go “okay, it’s all clear now, here’s my new purpose and there’s no turning back.”  i think we live in stage 5 with a greater sense of freedom, compassion, depth and a willingness to not know. my professor described stage 6 as a little on the mother teresa side.  pretty hard to do when we have kids at home, mortgages to pay, and some of the practical things that tie us down.

as you know by now, i am not a big formula person. i am not into “this one idea will make all of the questions of the universe perfectly clear.”  so don’t think for a moment that i am ascribing this chart is 100% accurate and will change your world.  i just hope it stirs up a bit of what it stirred up in me when i first read it a long time ago:  a little reminder that i am not crazy.  the wall is real.  the journey inward is worth it.  the healing, freedom, and love that springs forth from all that hard work is beautiful and worth holding on for.  our spiritual walk is long, wild and important and at many turns impossibly slow.  and there’s no doubt, we need patient, safe, challenging people to remind us that God is big, alive, and present with us even in the darkest, most loneliest of days.   

i’d love to hear your thoughts…

i have said before, i really, really love the movies! it’s a way i connect with God & life and is my most favorite escape. well, this summer i set a little goal to watch as many movies as i possibly could for the next few months and to not feel guilty about it.  this will be a more relaxing summer than usual.  with 5 kids at home, jose studying for the bar (he takes it on july 31st), and the refuge foundation a little more solid, i decided to limit my schedule a bit and be a little more chill for the next 10 weeks (we have the shortest summer ever, my kids go back to school august 12th this year!).  i haven’t really watched TV in years so i decided to make up for all that lost time–from memorial to labor day it’s my summer movie marathon…  

here’s what i’ve seen so far.  yeah, 11 movies in less than 2 weeks…decadent, fun, and good for my soul!

1. indiana jones & the kingdom of the crystal skull - jose, josh and i snuck away for a morning matinee the day after it came out. we liked it, just good ol’ indiana jones fun

2. the station agent - got the recomendation from brian & tracy. we really liked it. very simple & sweet.  our favorite character was joe, the guy who ran the snack truck.  his longing for connection & for friendship was the cutest thing.  and of course patricia clarkson was amazing.  it was a sundance film festival winner & i hope to watch as many of those as i can.

3. prince caspian - we all went to see this one, the whole fam.  it was great, loved it.  still thinking about so many scenes…better than any sermon or church service hands down.  

4. into the wild - wow, that was intense.  excellent music, too. i had been wanting to see this for a long time. disturbing on so many levels and such a telling example that without people to share life with, it just doesn’t work.

5. enchanted - cute!  amy adams was great and i thought it was so well done for a kids movie.

6. the squid and the whale - oh boy, i would never in a million years tell anyone to watch this movie. it was so disturbing, my jaw was locked and my stomach was tight the entire time and i was yelling out loud at jeff daniels because his character was such a jackass.  the unfortunately too-real-and-raw story of a family experiencing divorce and the fallout to the two children was just a little bit too intense for me.  i saw it with my dear friend who loves movies like i do and we both felt a little sick.  i must admit, the acting was amazing. 

7.  once - so sweet, so good.  only reason it got rated R is for the f word. loved the story & the music and the simplicity and the beautiful story being told underneath. 

8. ps: i love you - julia and i watched that together (she’s my 14 year old).  i got sucked in.  we cried. it made me want to write notes to jose and all my kids just in case i die suddenly…

9. what about bob -  ”i need, i need, i need, gimme, gimme, gimme”  so funny on so many levels.

10. reign on me - wow, that was a tough one, but i love don cheadle & it really came together.  no way not to cry at certain moments when he is telling his story & i think it illustrated the power of community, believing in what others can’t see and staying in even when it’s tough.

11.  must love dogs - i always love john cusak & once in a while a good ol’ sappy romantic comedy is just what the doctor ordered.

well, there you have it, my 2 week recap.  i am not sure if i should be embarrassed or proud???  i have to say, wish i could have the same commitment to working out & eating right, ha!   next up:  the namesake, charlie bartlett & we’ll re-watch the great debaters together as a fam.  going to see the visitor & iron man at the theater.  any great recommendations, send them my way!