Living Paradoxes

This past week, there were two moments in particular that caused me to step back and laugh at my life. It was the kind of laugh that expressed both the absurdity of my life and also how truly fulfilling it is.

The first moment was Saturday night- I was out with my friends at this dueling Piano Bar. I was having a good time singing along with the well known songs, enjoying a Moscow Mule and even laughing at the slightly offensive humor (which was mainly directed at women’s sexuality). Not everything in my life has to be so serious all of the time. It was nearing the end of the night and I get a text from one of my best friends from Seminary telling me that she’s freaking out about the sermon she’s preaching tomorrow and she needs my help. I tell her I’ll call herin a few minutes on my way home. Yes, it’s true many of your pastors just like her are still frantically trying to figure out what they want to say the night before they deliver the sermon. She had a right to freak out though because her sermon was on the rape of Dinah and how we can honor Dinah by sharing our own stories of sexual abuse and dehumanization- She’s a pretty bad ass preacher if I do say so myself.

So as I am leaving the bar, I pull out my phone to call her and I just laugh because… well, I’m excited to get to talk about how we as women can use the biblical text to talk about equality and how we can do it from the pulpit (I am aware that not many people would find this conversation topic particularly intriguing). I’m also laughing because I realize as I am walking to my car and talking to her at 11:00pm on a Saturday night about theology, that the paradox of my life seems both absurd and yet oddly fulfilling. Within minutes I go from sitting in a bar full of people making jokes about their sexuality to discussing what it looks like to preach to hundreds of people about the beauty and worth of humanity- sexuality and all.

It would seem that these two instances might be at odds with one another but I actually think they are quite fitting. Sure it might be messy at times but I’m learning that messiness seems to be the status quo for pastors these days.

My second moment this past week when I had another laugh out loud moment at the absurdity of my life was during my first full shift at the coffee shop that I started working part time at. The manager had just gotten done explaining to me a lot of logistics including  what to do if the phone rings but he said no one really calls here so you don’t have to worry about that. Well… a couple minutes later the phone does ring. The manager answers it, asks who it is and who he wants to talk to and to all of our surprise the person on the phone is calling for me. The new girl. Remember this is my first real shift.

As he hands me the phone, I ask if this is some kind of joke to which he answers no. I answer the phone and am at the same time both very surprised and not surprised at all to hear that the voice on the other end is that of one of our well known homeless friends from the Table Ministry. He’s calling to ask me about the Essential Oils meeting that night at the church. After talking to him and explaining that he can’t call me at work anymore, we hang up. You have to know who this person is to know how hilarious this story truly is so for those of you who don’t, I’m sorry but the staff at the church sure got a good laugh.

I had a million questions about what just happened but my main question was,”Is this real life“? How did I end up as a 26 year old getting calls from homeless men in the coffee shop where I work? I certainly didn’t envision this life scenario when I was young and dreaming about what my twenties would be like… but yes, this is indeed real life.

Aside from embarrassment and hoping I didn’t make a bad first impression the fact that homeless men were calling me in this coffee shop was again oddly fitting. For some reason it just kind of makes sense in that… it doesn’t make any sense at all.

Both of these instances this past week show the paradox of my life but as Richard Rohr says,

“A paradox is something that appears to be a contradiction, but from another perspective it is not a contradiction at all. You and I are living paradoxes, and therefore must be prepared to see ourselves in all our reality. If you can hold and forgive the contradictions within yourself, you can normally do it everywhere else, too.”

This week I saw God in the paradoxes of life. The things that seem as if they would not work together but actually when put together make something much more whole, more real, more true. I want that to be my reality. I am part of the problem and part of the solution. I do ministry and I need to be ministered to. I enjoy hanging out at a bar talking about rediculous things and having deep theological conversations both in the same night.

I guess my point is to live into the paradoxes of your own lives because maybe they are more complimentary than you realize. I think if we are really living into the opportunities life throws at us we will be as Rohr says “living paradoxes”, after all in today’s world paradox is reality. And maybe by us living into our own paradoxes, we can live into each other’s paradoxes and even the world’s.

We Were Made to Shine

There is this thing I take part in twice a week. It is a community dinner. It’s where a good amount of my stories will come from I’m sure. When you put so many different kinds of people with different life experiences in a room, you’re bound to see some God moments. By God moments, I mean those moments that you can’t quite explain but you know something is happening. The something that is happening could be healing, communion, feeling, redemption or a myriad of other things God wants to accomplish within us.

At this community dinner, the guests slowly wander in around 3:30 with more and more people shuffling in as it gets closer to 5:30 at which point the meal is served. These two hours in many ways are more important than the meal itself. It’s in these two hours that the attendees of this dinner- the ones who show up at the same time every Tuesday and Thursday and sit in the same seats, catch up with one another. This is their time to ask about each other’s lives and gossip and brag and complain and do all the things you do with close friends. Because that is what they have become: close friends. Some play cards, others join each other in smoking their cigarettes outside while others cut coupons or read the newspaper.

Something extra special has been happening the past few weeks though. A certain attendee who has been known to be, lets say “difficult” at times has begun to play the piano during and after dinner. You would never know it by looking at him, but he is an excellent musician. I’ve found myself setting up the table of bread donations to the songs, Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley and Let it Be by The Beatles.

You know how in movies when there is a song playing in the background during a really intense scene and it makes it all the more meaningful and you wish there could be songs playing in the background of your own life’s meaningful scenes?  Well, that is what my life often feels like recently on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, like my life is narrated by song. It makes me stop and breath and look around and take it all in.

This man is hard to understand and even hard to have patience for. He doesn’t have many places in life in which he feels like he belongs or is wanted but there in that context- seranading the dinner guests with classics, he shines. In this context, using his gifts, doing something that he loves while at the same time providing enjoyment for others he has transformed from not quite belonging to shining.

It got me thinking that this is true for all of us. We need to find where we shine. If we are in places and situations that constantly feel wrong, situations in which we feel like we don’t belong than we owe it to ourselves and to God to go to the places where we shine. God has uniquely gifted us all to be able to make the world even a slightly better place and to give others enjoyment- we just have to find where and how that is. It will probably require risk and courage and it will be terrifying, but when you know you’re where you’re supposed to be- where you shine, the fear fades away.

Where were you made to shine?

The Stuff of Stories

I don’t yet know what this blog will become. What I do know is that people are not interested in reading my every thought in a daily journal entry ( although I do think many would get a good laugh if they were in my head). I know that my attempt to write about politics or even religion would fall short of the numerous bloggers out there covering every angle. And I know as Ecclesiastes tell us that, “There is nothing new under the sun”, even in the blogosphere.

Even though all the stories have been told, stories like memories, can never be experienced exactly the same way twice. We cannot have the same exact memory more than once because we have been changed since the last time the memory occurred, giving it if only a slightly different meaning.

I think the same is true for stories.

So for now, this blog will be that of stories. Stories that encounter God. Stories that show us at our darkest and at our best. Stories that show authenticity and sincerity.

I think this will be a spiritual discipline of sorts. It will require me to be present and aware enough to watch the stories unfold…