Please Pass the Cheese

I saw an old and dear friend in the O’hare airport this past week. A flow of easy, poignant conversation crammed our two hour limit and I left incredibly filled up and thankful for the good in each day.  There is much to be celebrated, and lately, I’m the one that gets to celebrate others. Austin had a golden birthday, Katie got into her dream school, Jaymee got engaged, Jess landed a new job, Karly’s current job wanted even more of her time and talent, Kathi ran a marathon, Chase is graduating, Allie’s officially full-time, and my sweet neighbor, Madeline informed me that she can do a full turn in her ballet class. I mean, come on… a full turn? Let’s get ice cream.

If I learned one thing under the Trayser family roof, it was how to celebrate others in their times of triumph. So much so, that we’ve officially coined the words ‘good job’ as our family motto. Celebration was everywhere. It was cheesy, all-out, and glorious. My dad would bring home vehicles that needed to be driven from work, and before we could say “Dairy Queen,” the Willow Creek Community Church short bus was picking up neighbors and going through the DQ drive thru.  

This past Sunday, we had close to twenty high school and college-aged girls in our house. What others might deem nightmare, I deem dream.  Stories of prom, future, graduation and favorite parts of summer swirled around the room. The personality generated by this group could provide our little house electricity for the next three years. I have learned great lessons from them. I’ve been honored with the trust they so willingly give, and have prayed countless prayers over them. They are to be celebrated, not just because of what’s next, but because of what’s behind. I have sat on the sidelines of God’s coaching in each of their lives over the past several months and found myself growing by osmosis.

Even though I grew up a Trayser, I’m still often shocked by the value and importance of intentional celebration.  Moments stop. Joy is no longer fabricated, and the good that is available from God in the everyday is maximized. So even if it feels unnatural, overboard, or cheesy, we all need to celebrate the true gift that is buried beneath the hurried, worried, seriousness of today. God gave us freedom and delights when we are delighted. True abundant life demands the magnificent gift of Emanuel. God with us.  Forever and most vibrantly in the art of celebration. 

al fresco

Sometimes I think I need a lot more than I have.  Whether it is money or looks or popularity or intelligence, all too often I'm searching for ways to get more...

And then on nights like tonight, when it is six o'clock and still seventy degrees outside and we clean off the patio table and bring the pasta outside, I sit in awe of what I already have.  For a few moments tonight, everything felt so peaceful, the kind of peace that demands a sigh of wonder and a gentle thank you, Jesus.

It's funny how simple it is.  A box of pasta, some leftover chicken, a little cooking creme, and a few sauteed tomatoes.  Water and Arnold Palmer.  Mumford & Sons in the background.  I could have sat outside all night looking at my husband, talking with him about anything that came across our minds.  And it took so little money, no fancy clothes, no important company, and certainly no special degree in anything.  In between all the big things in life- the announcements, the new relationships, the dream home purchases, the promotions, and the celebrations- I want to remember that the thousands of moments that come before and after those are equally as beautiful, and equally as important.  In those short moments in life when you really believe you have all you need, something magical happens... because you understand for a minute that it has nothing to do with things and everything to do with love.  God and people.  All we need.

In the wisdom of Mumford & Sons... where you invest your love is where you invest your life.

I should have included this in my wedding vows: Alex, I promise to eat al fresco with you anytime, anywhere.  

          

Queen Kristin: dethroned.

I have been actively poking at and experimenting in the struggles and triumphs of the with God life. I explained last time about how hurry is frequently and tragically the substitute for God in my own experience. Hurry is a common culprit of life emerged in the lavished grace of God.

And here, my friends, is the second culprit. It’s called the ‘with me’ life. I have found in the recent weeks that my brain is constantly centered around, conscious of and attending to the will of someone. Ideally, in life eternal, that someone should be and would be my creator: the loving God of the universe, whom spoke in light and deemed me worthy of breath. But in all irony and sad contrast, the person whom my thoughts and actions attract back to is… me. Creator of nothing, covered in darkness and ignorant of breath except if it is in need of freshening up with a mint or chewing gum.

There is a little kingdom of the temporary that I rule over. In this kingdom, life is about me. My wants. My desires. My needs. Me. I am an expert of operating in this kingdom. In this land, I fight for control, I nod my head in approval of my self-sufficiency, and I parade around in invisible garments of fulfillment, productiveness, and contentment, much like the emperor in his new clothes. I am often under the impression that I have it all figured out, or in a momentary slip of control, I will quickly find the way back to the reins. This is how our world works. It’s how it operates. And it’s scary because it’s fake. It’s invisible. It’s embarrassing.

True reality reveals one true kingdom, with a God that is so above us that he is without need. Talk about self-sufficiency! He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need love, or honor or glory from us. He has all the glory the universe could offer, because he created glory. He has love that’s deeper than the vastest ocean because his breath first spoke it. He needs nothing. He is one hundred percent without necessity, and yet, he wants us. He desperately, achingly wants the hearts that he created to want him back. So, like any good-hearted Christian out there, I claim I want him back. I sing in church about my desire for him above all else. But do I need him? Do I live in a way that demands an all-out frantic need for my savior? Or am I proud of my naïve façade of self-sufficiency? Every single time I place myself back on the throne of my life, my conscious need for God dies a little bit. A life with… me? Is this broken, shaken, temporary girl truly the ruler of all that is?

A life with God requires an accurate view of his grandness and majesty. In turn, it means mandatory head tilts towards my own frailty and inability. A life with God is more than stating once that God is on the throne. With God life means actively, repetitively, dethroning myself day in and day out. A life with God means falling to my knees, overwhelmed by my thirst and fainting need of the God that will never truly need me. It means sitting in the mysteriously impossible truth that he still wants me. Rulers need not apply. There is but one kingdom to be sought, and may that kingdom come.

necessary new

 Monday morning after resurrection Sunday… I wonder what this day was like 2000 years ago?  The word was spreading, some had seen him, others could not possibly believe it, but Jesus of Nazareth was alive!  I imagine this Monday— as the hours passed and more and more people touched his hands and heard his voice— was one of unmatched celebration, of joy too grand for words, of a reality nobody knew how to live in quite yet other than to fall on their knees…  because Jesus, he really is Emmanuel, he really is the King of all Kings, and he really did all He said he would do.  He loved his children enough to make all things new. 

There has not been a more beautiful Monday in all of history.

And this is our Jesus today, as much as 2000 years ago.  He shows up in our lives when we are in desperate need of new.  All too often I live like it is still Friday, as if darkness overwhelms light in the world, as if I have more to be anxious about than grateful for.  But hope is stronger and faith is greater than anything.  Friday passed.  The disciples waited.  Sunday came.  And Monday followed.  If God can redeem death, he can redeem me.  He can make my heart new.  He can make my eyes new.  He can make my words new.  He still loves his children enough to make all things new.  And I desperately need new.  Don’t we all?

It will come.  Oswald Chambers writes that, “The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives.  Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us…”

Thank God for new, because we can’t stay where we are, we were made for so much more.

After a long Northwest winter, the freesia still blooms and smells like Heaven.  But we have to wait through winter to see the colors of spring.  I know in life that the Fridays will come and the Saturdays will be awful, but I believe too that Sunday always comes and Mondays always follow.  For purposes so much greater than ourselves, in ways so much more elaborate and creative than we could ever think up on our own, we are being made new.  And like the people who saw Jesus on Monday, I am still learning how to live in this reality.  New but not perfect.  Free and yet sinful.  Faithful but anxious.  Loved by a gracious God and always battling discontent.  And still, his mercies are new every morning, because every morning, we find again that we need them.

Today is new, and I am so, so grateful.        

getting half done in twice the time

Austin and I have a home in Illinois now. A home with creaky floors, neighbors we only could have dreamed up, and no garbage disposal. A home that fits us, suits us and gives off a sweet aroma of limitless potential. This home housed memories of a family before, and is now the inviting space that will weave and link our lives together as the backdrop to our combined story. Moving, as it sounds, produces a life in constant motion. Purging of the old, replacing with the new, taking apart, putting back together, arranging, re-arranging, lists that get together and seem to reproduce more lists, and endless trips to the store, all in an effort to stop the moving and eventually graduate into ‘moved.’ Motion and speed look so shiny and inviting in their emptied promises of productivity, but I’m learning and re-learning that there’s no room for God in a tornadoed life of movement.

I’ve been diving deeper into what it looks like to live, breathe and operate in a ‘with God’ way. Thanks in large part to Brother Lawrence and the man I lovingly refer to as my ‘old man crush’, John Ortberg, I have been experimenting with just how many moments during my day I can spend in awareness and surrender to God. I’ve taken note of the what steals my attention, I have embraced the sights, sounds and people that bring God beautifully back to the forefront of my mind, and I’ve been broken over how easily I replace the well-spring of my life with empty, meaningless folly. Nevertheless, victory has come in small steps, often in the form of acknowledging the culprits of the ‘with God’ life.

So as I experiment, I will share the schemes and devious ways of these offenders. I will line them up along the wall, measure them against the grandness of our God and squash them by the power of the resurrection. So here’s culprit number one: hurry. I have recognized that unless I make some major changes in my life, busyness may not be practical to fight or give up. I love being busy because usually that means I see and talk to a variety of different people. I learn boatloads about myself, my world and my God from the people I daily interact with, and if busyness means learning, I’m planning on staying busy. Hurry, on the other hand is the vicious and untapped force behind my busy life. It robs me of the joy in between meetings and turns a gathering into nothing more than quick, rehearsed interactions. Lifeless and ordinary as opposed to what they could be: fulfilling and divine. Hurry would make the moment I’m living right now a disengaged deadline, but take a look with me at what can happen when thirty seconds of hurried life stops to notice in a ‘with God’ way…

There’s nothing like a big desk to spread out on. I swear the bigger the desk, the bigger my thoughts become. I adore my Aunt Cheryl for giving me these heavenly French chocolate bowls from Anthropologie. She seems to embody generosity. There’s so much I can learn from her. I’ve never noticed that when strawberries are this fresh, they burst in my mouth. How great is our God to give us these hues of spring. A tree that buds in violet? Wow. Good one, God.

How deeply I long for the with God life. Want to know the perfect day to practice the slowed, ‘with God’ life? Sunday. This past Sunday, Austin and I went to church early and then went to the gym together. After I had finished my workout, I stretched in the corner and marveled at how badly I’d taken advantage of the Sabbath. In my own pride, I often think I’m exempt from this important spiritual practice. So, on my yoga mat, I made a commitment that for the next five minutes I’d do everything I was already planning to do, but at half the speed. I gave hurry the finger (in a Christ-like way) and intentionally operated in slow motion. I’m not kidding, this is super uncomfortable at first. I walked by strangers and put weights away at an elderly speed and battled the thoughts that tried to convince me of the sheer annoyance I was putting off to all those around me. How inconsiderate of me to move at a speed that invites and recognizes God to be the true Lord of a moment. Nice try, culprit.

Peace. Perfect, uninterrupted peace followed. Peace to know that I was on a schedule that was not my own. Peace to take in. Peace to give out. Peace, precious peace.

So I’m embracing my rebel side like never before and vowing to get half done in twice the amount of time. I chuckle to myself thinking of that last sentence on the cover of a magazine at the grocery store. I’m taking this vow because in the heavenly realms (true reality) I know that I’ll be getting twice as much done for eternity while quietly removing myself from the buzz and lure of the temporary. I’ll gladly take last place in the race of this world if my speed towards heaven is steadily increasing with each passing breath. So with the burst of a strawberry and time to spare, I invite you to walk alongside me. There’s room for us all in the ‘with God’ life.

bread over walls

Contrast might be a good word to describe the last few weeks. 

In the beginning of March I was in Olympia, Washington, the State’s Capital and center of all dignified (or not) government activity.  We ate breakfast with the State Representatives and had lunch with the Senators.  We listened to Attorney General Rob McKenna and Governor Christine Gregoire.  We wore our business formal attire, I even put heels on.  We heard talk of unity, positive change, an improving economy, a different future for our generation.  And I swear, if I heard the phrase “reaching across the aisle” one more time…  But it was politics, with all the formality and hand-shakes and business card swapping one could expect.  Still, there is so much to learn from watching men and women— really not all that different from you and me— trying to govern people with quite literally thousands of perspectives, beliefs, and wants.  I have no desire to be in politics, and I so admire those of you who do—we need amazing leaders in the public sphere more than ever.

A mere ten days later, I was walking the sidewalks of Skid Row, Los Angeles- the largest concentrated area of homelessness in the United States.  No formality here.  Be as understated as you can, wear old tennis shoes, don’t stare.  No less than half of the men and women in Skid Row are battling some kind of mental disorder, like schizophrenia, and those that are not are more than likely bound tightly by the chains of addiction.  Alcohol, crack, marijuana.  The streets are loud, crowded, lewd, and to be candid: gross.  The smell of urine and trash is overwhelming, a lifetime of belongings for many people stacked against walls and park fences.  In some places it is hard to tell if there are human beings under the blankets or not.  One woman yelled at us in what sure sounded like anger as we walked through, “did you come here to look at us, or help?”  Good question.  I can’t help you; you need something I don’t have.  Did I come here to know, did I come just to look?  Does knowing more change anything?   I am broken in so many ways by the images.  The beautiful brown faced baby with big eyes held by a woman- probably his mother- with one of her hands and a cigarette, maybe a joint, in the other.  Two bodies moving under a blanket on the concrete, one coming out only to put her pants back on.  Just a block up the street is downtown Los Angeles— one of the most stunning dichotomies I have ever seen: sheer and utter hopelessness and squalor within eyesight of an animal-boutique.  The deepest human suffering and a dog manicure, to my left and to my right.  How do I even begin to process this?  This is not fair.  It should not be this way.  But it is.

And just 36 hours after that, I was in Westwood, California, on the outskirts of the UCLA campus, looking for a new warm scarf in the American Apparel store.  Irony personified.

And now I am home, in my comfortable little townhouse surrounded by great people and plenty of good things that make life pretty, and fun, and joyful for me.  My amazing job brings me to the feet of influential politicians and also to front lines of real social issues— and I get to do these things with bright, articulate, engaged, and much-smarter-than-me young men and women.  I am just so, so blessed. 

This tension—the one between meeting the change makers who promise so much, seeing the hugely important necessity for change, and then feeling so helpless to do anything about it that I merely put it all into words and then go back to life as usual—it is eating me up.  I see pain and poverty and injustice and I want so badly to do something about it, but I either don’t know what to do, or what I do know seems too hard or too crazy to actually live out.  As one of the students who shared this journey with me said, “We learn about things, but it seems like we build a wall to keep these people out and then just throw a loaf of bread over to feel better about ourselves.”  STOP.  Are you kidding me?!  Not only is that my most favorite metaphor ever, that’s it, that’s the tension: throwing bread over the wall is not enough anymore.  We’ve got to tear the walls down, walk right into the messiness and with dignity for every human being, give our love, our time, and some bread.

Y’all, I do not have this figured out, not even close.  But I know that my very basic and essential needs are no different than the woman in Skid Row—and the fear that comes when I feel like these needs won’t be met, that is the same fear the addicts, the homeless, the widows, the orphans feels.  Same needs, same fear.  And I know that Jesus didn’t build a wall and throw over the option of some legalistic pattern of life that would get us to him.  He actually broke down the walls we ourselves built, and he joined us in the madness of life in this world.  He brought us bread in the form of his perfect life.  He gave us everything we need, and he hugged and held us and said it’s ok, be still, I’ve overcome all this chaos. 

I don’t want my solution to injustice be to merely toss something I have at the issue so that I can move on with my life relatively guilt free.  I want to bring food to the community collection place and actually stay and meet the people it is passed out to.  I want to hold the babies wearing the diapers we donated.  I want to have lunch with the young woman who feels like she just cannot leave her pimp.  And I so desperately want the courage to respond with my life and not just my wallet.  I want to meet, talk, hold, hug, ask, listen, pray… go. 

Same needs… same fear.

This kind of life was modeled perfectly by the man I call the Messiah, the Hope of the world. 

Let’s go break down walls.      

why the name Norma rocks

There’s this woman. Her name is Norma. Yes, Norma. She’s in her seventies, her hair is the most uniquely blended red-orange color, and she grazes into the carpeted lecture room each week in a fur vest, trimmed with more flair than Elle Macpherson and more dignity than Grace Kelly. She is petite in statue, humble in speech, but ferociously fiery in spirit. Somehow she’s managed to age in wisdom without weathering from the harshness of life.  I’ve known Norma for a little over a month and I am already better.  She is the mother of four, and grandmother (some great) to nineteen and the encourager and servant to countless blessed passerbies along the way.

I spoke two weeks ago of a class I’m taking that covers the book of Judges. I sat by Norma at our table on the first day and can remember thinking how deeply I desired to be a grandmother one day with a ever-increasing thirst for my God and his word.  Later, she sat, almost pristine, in our small group and waited for the silence to grow long enough to lovingly clue in us in. We, spiritual youths, still and attentive to see what real trust, persevering prayer, and true gratitude look like, embodied.

Norma reminds me every Wednesday from eleven- noon that a life spent with God, surrounded by his promises and saturated in his spirit generates the most grace-giving well, which beautifully overflows into this world in a way that washes away fear and sorrow with the divine simplicity of the gospel.  Operating daily in the freeing truth and illuminating radiance of the good news of Christ is not only trickily simple, it’s profoundly possible.

Tonight,as my eyes bounce from photograph to photograph around my desk, melodies in the background lengthen each moment with enough vivid memories to make me feel like I’m in my own, personal, musical montage.  I stop to stare at the places and people that demand the simplest reactions out of me. Simple in the form of faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these, the simplest of these is love. This loving relationship with the living God has a tendency to get over-complicated. In all my intellectual rebellion, I am naïve to think that unpacking the complexities of God lead to the greatest spiritual discoveries. In reality, it is nights like tonight, accompanied by nothing more than a flickering candle, the instrumental station on Pandora, and the gentle buzz of my computer that tears the veil of complicated to reveal a simple truth. The covenant that God made available to me is more than enough.  It’s enough of a promise to fill up countless entries on a blog, and yet simple enough to tie every closing paragraph. Jesus came to rightly route all my wrongs. He counted me worthy, he beckoned me as his own, and to this day he’s crazy about me.  And that is a delightfully simple truth I will never grow weary of living out.