The Margins

We have officially landed–back into life here in Los Angeles.

Mercy and Aaron are running around completely enamored by the toys they have not seen for six weeks; Mow Mow met us at the door, obviously happy to have us back; we were picked up at the airport by Juan and Stacie and Mercy got to have Juan’s undivided attention in the back seat of the van for the entire drive home (Juan was Mercy’s first love–she has made her peace with his marriage to Stacie, but he will always have a special place in her heart); and it was great to be greeted by Paul and Melinda as we unloaded in front of our house.

It is always a serious reorientation process to come back here after spending time up in the Northwest. It feels especially so having been gone for such an extended period of time. My sister calls it “re-entry”, and I think that is an apt description. Driving down Jefferson amidst all the “activity” there, and talking to Stacie about some recent killings reminds me what our lives are about here, and that it is not life lived from a distance. And of course it is New Year’s Eve, so the streets are filled with fast cars, loud music, and lots of (what I hope are) fireworks.

Pray for us. Pray for our homecoming and “re-entry”. Pray for our hearts to be quickly turned toward those we love and serve here.

Happy New Year.

Nobody falls down on their face before the god they wanted. Nobody trembles at the word of a home-made god. Nobody goes out with fire in their belly to heal the sick, to clothe the naked, to teach the ignorant, to feed the hungry, because of the god they wanted. They are more likely to stay at home with their feet up.

N.T. Wright, For All God’s Worth

Rick Meigs at Blind Beggar tagged me, so here’s my go at five things that people may not know about me:

1. I play the hammered dulcimer. I started playing when I was six years old. I asked my parents if we could get a piano and because we did not have room or money for one, they bought me a hammered dulcimer instead. I have taken lessons, played numerous weddings and worship services, recorded, and played at the Pike Place Market and on a streetcorner (which led to an imprompteau gig in a club) in Nashville.

2. I am horribly, terribly, irrationally afraid of spiders. It does not matter if they are large or small. Once I was home alone for the weekend and when I discovered a spider on the floor, I proceeded to pile twenty or so books on top of it to at least contain it until Doug came home the next day. Large seminary textbooks can come in VERY handy.

3. I hope to someday live in South Africa with Doug and the kids. Doug and I both visited the country (on two separate trips with our respective Christian colleges) during the weeks before the first free election in 1994. It was an amazing, life-changing experience for both of us.

4. I was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago after receiving the President’s Service Award in D.C. for my work with at-risk youth in Chicago. The limo came around 6am, hair and make-up were a trip, and I got to meet Juwan Howard and Billy Baldwin backstage. Oh, and her diamond stud earrings were as big as my head.

5. I pass out at the sight of blood. And at the dentist. And during eye doctor appointments. And in biology class (I got yelled at because my teacher thought I had fallen asleep). Any kind of medical discussion can get me, especially spines and eyes. I think I am getting better as I get older (and since having kids), and I find it interesting that my favorite TV shows are often medical dramas. Oh, and it is genetic! My dad, cousin and sister all have it.

So, there you go.

Now I’ll tag Tyler, Julie, Ted, Don and Jeremy.

Aaron got a set of dinosaurs for Christmas. Mercy has been very, very busy with them since…

My friend, Tyler Watson, has a great question posted on his blog today: if you had to name your “Top Five” books of the Bible, what would they be?

Here’s the answer I posted:

1.  Matthew: The book of Matthew has been my favorite gospel since the fourth grade. That was when I started reading the Bible seriously, and Matthew is where I began. God changed me deeply, even at that young age, through that text. I was also in the Matthew class with Beaton and it only confirmed for me my deep love for this book.
2. Revelation: As Darrell Johnson once preached, this book reminds me that, no matter how much things look to the contrary, “Jesus’ gonna win.” As an urban minister, this book is a lifeline for me.
3. Ezekiel: the images of moving from death to life by the grace of God
4. Isaiah: how justice and worship function together
5. Deuteronomy: how to live as someone who remembers

Yesterday was an excellent day.

Getting up and opening up our stockings with no showers or apple pie preparations intruding on this sacred event;

Seeing the living room quickly filled with dinosaurs and snorts of all shapes and sizes, with mommy and baby giraffes and elephants joining the fun;

Being blown away by my husband who continues to be more thoughtful and romantic than I could ever deserve.

And as always, the Staubs did not disappoint: the best coffee, one of my favorite cabernets with dinner, Kathy’s phenomenal cooking, and some nice Maker’s Mark;

Clouds that lifted midday to reveal the snowcapped peaks of “my mountains” (the place where Doug proposed to me);

Pop Pop and Mercy’s hot tub swim party;

Catching up with my girls and hearing stories about New York, SPU, and high school, as well as celebrating some of our favorite Chicago memories.

There are certain people who become for us the places where we find rest. Yesterday was rich with those people. In the last few years, I have realized how intensely precious these places are to me, and how deeply I want my children to know a life filled with them. To simply sit and be with one another and to laugh and play can feel like a lost art at times. Something reserved for special occassions with little relevence to our day to day. With all our busyness and achievement and commuting and distractions, the acts of resting and playing together can be forgotten, neglected, diminished. We are led to believe that these are indulgences to be enjoyed in moderation. I think that is a lie.

As I sat with a still soul yesterday, I thought how much easier it is to be this person when there are ferry boats and mountains outside the living room window; when there are other people playing with your children; when someone else is bearing the brunt of hostessing. And of course that is true. Yet we are called just as strongly to be a people of rest and relationship in the midst of graffitti and drug deals, and sirens, dishes, and diapers. I think about the ways that sabbath rhythms defined God’s people for so many years, regardless of their geography or circumstance. And I think of how battered and blown about we are today by the winds of a culture of production and consumption that threatens to drive us further and further from those things that make us human.

As we drove home last night I wondered: what would it look like for us to become a sabbath kind of people again?

Merry Christmas from Doug, Erika, Mercy, and Aaron Emmanuel…and baby Jesus.

May your joy be abundant.

Christianity is not a belief system…Your core values tell me nothing…

If you found a religion on beliefs, how you think, very shortly the people who will be in that religion will live and act no differently than anybody else in the culture. And that is exactly where we are today…

Religion is a relationship system. It is not a belief system. That is the essence of the Judeo Christian tradition…Jesus did not die on the cross to give us a set of beliefs. He died to restore us to a right relationship.

Len Sweet, guest on The Kindlings Muse with Dick Staub

Last night around 10pm, Doug and I gave in to the epitome of consumer lust at Christmastime: we went to Toys ‘R Us. We had been looking for a set of Snorts to buy for our daughter, and my mom had a toy item she was in search of as well. I had never been inside of a Toys ‘R Us before, and it was an eye-opening experience. I had no idea how many strange toys were out there, and the bleary-eyed, desparate parents digging through bins were exactly as I had imagined they would be. We found the gifts we needed and we were happy to get out of there.

I started thinking back to my own childhood and how incredibly exciting Christmas morning always was. I didn’t sleep much as a child anyway, but asking me to sleep on Christmas Eve felt cruel and impossible. I am not sure what my parents’ limit was of how early we could actually get up but I am pretty sure I began lobbying sometime around 4am.

There is something significantly different about stockings and gifts on Christmas morning with kids present. There is an urgency and impatience and raw delight that infects everyone around them. I distinctly remember when Christmas morning started to change in my house growing up. As my sister and brother and I got older, there was a slow cultural shift where showers and sleeping in began to creep into our morning ritual. And then my Mom started to begin meal prepartions for the day BEFORE STOCKINGS. I was devastated. I was still of the mind (yes, in my mid-twenties, I believe) that the only acceptable behavior on Christmas morning was to wake up and go directly to the living room to begin stockings. I grew increasingly annoyed with my family’s desires for taking showers or rolling out pie crusts or whatever unneccesary diversion they could concoct.

My child-like attitude toward Christmas morning had enough of a reputation that the first Christmas I spent as a married woman with Doug’s family, they pulled a family-wide practical joke on me. As soon as Doug’s mom called us all together to open our gifts, one by one, each family member made up some excuse of something they needed to do before we could start. Someone had to use the bathroom. As soon as they got back, someone else had to feed the dog. Once they were done, another person had to make a phone call. And so on. I was absolutley dying inside, being tortured so. But these were my brand new in-laws so I was clearly not going to say anything. Finally, as I wasn’t cluing in to the joke, one family member decided to take it to the next level: “Why don’t we go for a walk first?” they said. That was it. I could stay silent no longer. I erupted in some sort of protest, when everyone around me fell apart laughing.

All that to say, I am looking forward to Christmas morning with Aaron and Mercy this year. As much as I join in the chorus of voices that beg for recognition of what this season is about and what it is not, I delight in the act of sharing gifts with people I love. I think too that there is something to be learned from watching children on Christmas morning; something about joy and anticipation and urgency that overpowers concerns for other things. As an adult, our list of concerns and resposibilities is often so long that there is simply not room for joyful abandon.

I think too about the church and how it should feel to gather to worship in singing or to join one another at The Table, or to speak words of confession and forgiveness to one another. Do we do these things with a sense of urgency as people compelled by something with the power to take us from death to life? Do we come at these corporate activities with the kind of joy and delight that makes taking showers and preparing meals seem irrelevant by comparison? What would it look like for us to recover a sense of hunger and urgency and delight in our life together that is fitting for the feast that awaits us?

So Aaron decided that he was not to be outdone by his sister on this trip. This afternoon he stuck his fingers into a wall heater in the basement of my parent’s house. At the advice of our pediatrician in Pasadena, we took him to get checked out by a doctor.

My mom got us an appointment at the same pediatric group where I went as a child. It felt so strange to park the car, walk up to the door, and sign in as the mom of a little one. It honestly felt like not so long ago that I sat as an adolescent in the very same lobby.

It turns out that the burns are not third degree, so unless they split open in the next 24 hours we should get by without being forced to bandage his little hand. This trip has certainly been a vacation to remember.