What the heck?

In August, I had the glorious aspiration to write more.  On the 20th, I started a job and that pleasure vanished.  I have been vigorously focused more on purpose.  But, there is a balance. There is a place where our very purpose is to understand that God loves what brings Him pleasure.  He’s that loving.  I just now have to silence the voices that tell me to put up a thousand posts to make up for the months I didn’t.  I guess I’ll just settle on enjoying that this is another start.  Ahh, the challenge of imperfection and releasing condemnation!

The Shack of My Own: Introduction

        Literature is a mirror of our lives because the stories speak to and from our daily interactions and internal wrestling.  The starkest reality is that often, characters give life to the words that have been resting in our bowels.  We realize that these words have never been spoken or processed until we read. 

        I am reading William P. Young’s The Shack.  So far, I have found myself anxious, trying to absorb profound challenges.  With healthy hesitation, I still turn the page and continue reading even when it hurts too much to confront a version of my reality that the character Mack is confronting.  I have allowed me to be gripped—even if it has meant that I have had to stop reading in order to weep, grieve, or writhe.  I know that when I let go, that grip gets tighter and it is then that I am held by “Papa.”

        I begin a little journey with Mack because dancing with literature is so fun, and letting “Sarayu” take the lead is always dangerously exciting, and good. Thus begins this adventure to The Shack of My Own…

True Love

            Today I am realizing that there is no way I can fulfill my call.  I used to think that my call was solely about positional leadership in the political realm.  Sure, I am called to politics and I am called to be a different kind of politician.  However, that is not the propelling, overarching call. 

           I recount January 2007.  On January 14, 2007, Lola died.  She was the last of my surviving grandparents, and even though she was already 96 and it was her time, I believed that I had more time to spend with her.  She was invincible.  However, on January 11, while vacationing in South Carolina, I received a phone call from mom.  Lola was going in for surgery.  The doctors were hopeful that she would pull through despite her pleadings against the surgery. On the 12^th, while in recovery, her vitals were not consistent.  Immediately, in the morning, my cousin, friend, and I rushed back, arriving to Maryland in 6 hours to be with Lola.  I drove directly to the hospital.  When I entered, my heart sank; our Esperanza, our Hope, was frail, breathing heavily through the support of the oxygen machine.  At the moment when we walked in, she began to whimper—as if she was sorry that we had to see her that way.   I slept at the hospital with my aunt and cousin, taking over for those who were there the night before.  In between naps throughout the night, we would pray aloud, talk to her, and sing.  Every moment was fragile and marked by the deafening beeping of the oxygen machine.

          The next day, my sister Christina and I facilitated a discussion surrounding life support.  We gathered all Lola’s children and grandchildren present and listened to everyone’s thoughts.  It was evident that everyone wanted Lola to be in the least amount of pain.  Also, Lola herself believed that when it was her time, that the Lord would take her. 

          That evening, all the female grandchildren slept in the hospital.  Again, we alternated leading prayers and songs.  At 2 am, we all fell asleep. I was crouched in a ball, lying across two chairs next to Lola’s bed.  As I was dozing off, I turned my back away from Lola because I could not bear to face the reality that she was dying.  I was saddened as sleep overcame me. 

          I had the most vivid dream.  In my dream, Lola was sitting upright in her hospital bed, as strong as can be.  I was facing her at the edge of her bed, but would not go near her because I was scared.  Isn’t she dying? How is it that she is sitting upright?  She sensed my confusion and said to me, “Why are you scared? Come here.”  I hesitated, but approached her.  She gathered me in her arms and said, “Angela, If I love you this much, imagine how much God loves you.  In your life, your call is to love like God loves.”  I had a tremendous excitement and peace as I hugged her back.  I said nothing, but was content right where I was: happy in her arms.  However, somehow I remembered she was really dying. I was grieved because I felt like I finally go to know Lola personally and she had to go.   My cousin Jet woke me up because I was physically crying in my sleep.  I opened my watery eyes and turned my back now towards Lola.  There she was—now off the oxygen machine and time shortening.   I ran out of the hospital room because I did not want Lola to hear me weeping. 

          Yesterday, as I struggled with all my schoolwork and the stress of finding the perfect job, I cried out to God, “Lord, help me! What is this all about?”  God prompted my heart to write this blog because He knew that as I processed this I would come to the conclusion that He wants me to realize in the midst of challenge:  There is no way I can fulfill my call.  The truth is: He must fulfill my call.  I can never love exactly as God does.  It is impossible.  However, I will still be called to that standard until the that he fulfills His perfect plan—which is when I join with Lola in the promise of eternity. For now, I can be compelled towards Love and still obey my call until the day of Christ.  By myself, I am nothing and can do nothing, but empowered through Christ, I can love extravagantly.  As my mentor Raycenia told me today, it is time for this world to rest in knowing that God loves us.  He ministers His love to us and we minister that back to others.  Perfect love casts out fear; God is perfect love.  Therefore, the more I rely on Him, He will overcome the perils about me.   

           Today, I remember Lola fondly and cherish the lifelong lesson that God gave me through her.  I choose to receive Jesus’ love and accept myself where I am.  I can embrace the fact that it is not about me fulfilling anything.  It is about Him being an all-powerful, all-knowing God, Love.  It is about Jesus loving me and allowing me to simply give from the abundance of what He gave me first.   

           Have a wonderful week of True Love.

So Close…

           I attribute my lifelong desire to live out my days of radical, devoted service to the unmerited favor of God upon me.  Simply put: I have responded to the tugging, the aching, the burden that has welled within my soul since I was a child.  There have been desperate times that I have run from this “call,” and there have been many an awful attempt to turn my back and call it quits.  Recklessly, I have distorted morality and have outright abandoned any notion of absolute truth.  However, out of the denying and hiding, the faint ember of faith has compelled me back to take ownership of that very call. 

            What compelled me to politics? My politics were shaped by Jim Wallis’, God’s Politics, and by my missionary experiences in Ethiopia.  I have come to embrace that social issues are moral issues.  As Wallis emphasizes, “There is no spiritual transformation without a personal God, and no power that can really change our lives beyond mere self-improvement” (34).  Therefore, it was God that inspired my vision in the first place, and it was God that I relied on to believe in what seems impossible.  I know that to truly see transformation, it is vital that we prostrate ourselves into the position of absolute keenness to God’s immutable will. 

           This country needs a different kind of politician—one who is not afraid to have the knowledge of and faith in a public God.  This does not mean that the outspoken intellect who can speak a sermon on demand is automatically “God’s candidate.”  It does mean, however, that a person thrust into politics has permission to hold on to God’s love so as to never attempt to separate policy from person.  Further, a person who understands Jesus’ willing availability is a step closer to understanding that God is God and that he/she is not.  A public God is one who cares for all—including the privileged and disadvantaged, poor and the rich,  and the outcasts and the in-crowds.  God, who has already seen the inevitable and worked out the unimaginable, might just have a plan that aims to include rather than exclude, honor instead of devalue, and provide instead of abandon.  

           I cannot scrutinize our politicians without evaluating myself first.  I do not dare to make conclusive remarks of candidates’ capacities based on their rhetoric.  What I will do is pray that each candidate learn to distinguish a push from God from a change in political winds.  As i pray, I will continue to own my moral outrage and dare to speak with humility on behalf of the unheard.  I hope I will be one among many aspiring and seasoned politicians who will operate as the second-in-command and remember that the worlds’ needs supercede any nonsense that comes from the ego. 

 

Musings

Welcome to my blog!

I decided to have a central place for thoughts, articles, poetry, and general musings.  Enjoy!