I don't exactly know why I'm writing this entry. It's been so long since I've posted that I doubt if anyone still reads this. Only tonight I received a comment that someone wrote anonymously about one of my very earliest posts and I wish I knew who that person was.

I re-read the old posts. I was so sure back then, writing so confidently about faith in God. I wrote with so much conviction and resolve, throwing all of myself into the search. I loved proclaiming all of the wonderful things that God was doing and all the things that I was figuring out in my head.

There is some of that person left inside of me, but I am so different on the outside. So much has changed in four years. I can no longer speak with certainty, but it is not because I have given up, it is because there is so little certainty apart from personal experience. I no longer ask loud questions, because the questions I want to ask are the ones that receive quiet responses. I no longer defend the things my head knows because my heart has so little knowledge of them. I have journeyed inward and downward. Deeper. I have turned in on myself to a quieter place where it can all be real in the outward turning.

I wish I knew who you were, and I hope we meet again someday.

standing

I have been searching lately for the reason why I want to be a follower of Jesus. I don't know right now. So much of faith has been obscured by the life I'm living. I wonder what the point of it all is.
I ask the questions that I need answers to. I wait for answers.
Tonight I'm going to an evening event designed to increase awareness and fundraise for women in the Congo who have been brutally raped and abused and are invisible to much of the world. The things that happen to these women are so horrid that I can't even believe that we are allowed to print the words in a magazine. I can do so little.
I realize in my unbelief that faced with this reality of women in the Congo, Jesus is one person who won't stand for it. He asks us to stand up and face the truth and he doesn't give us so many reasons why it can be ignored. That's something I need to sit with. Who else sets enough of an example that we should follow them? Who else really cares for these women apart from a sociological, political, human rights perspective?
I've been watching too much tv. Too many episodes of Friends, House and CSI. Who cares about that when there are women being blown apart because a soldier wants to exercise power and destroy their soul, all for the fun of it?

Justice

I've been exploring the idea of social justice. Not only intervening for victims of injustice in terms of faith, but also for their quality of life. This is a growth process for me. I can't say honestly whether I'm prepared to avoid certain stores because of their history. It feels impersonal; as much as I tell myself that it's a responsible thing to do, it's hard to follow it up with actions when I have no faces and stories to go with injustice. I pray that God brings them to me.

Nonetheless, here are a couple of websites that will help us to make responsible choices when it comes to consumerism and blindly and ignorantly supporting injustice.

Coop America - Responsible Shopper
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/companies.cfm

Social Justice and Hunger Action
http://www.crcna.org/pages/osjha_lifestyle.cfm

Responsible Investing
http://www.socialinvest.org/

Global Exchange
http://www.globalexchange.org/

Living Simply
http://www.simpleliving.org/

In pictures

Reflections on Banff

This past weekend I was in Banff as part of a worship team at the BUWC assembly. It's hard not to be excited about Banff.
Leading up to the conference, I was feeling drained emotionally and was dealing with some big spiritually-charged life questions. I knew that I needed solitude, and I needed beauty. These past months have been a journey of discovering the growth that happens with the presence of God, the small changes that come unexpectedly without effort when the Spirit shows up. I needed the Spirit to show up.
Here are my unexpected blessings:

• The wonderful display of weather - bright sunny days and bright snow-capped mountains, the sweet smell of rain and the soft sound of droplets on my clear umbrella, the peace that comes with snowflakes that fall, fluffy and unique, in a steady blanket of white, fog that mystifies and veils and settles among the trees.
• A perfect match to my ocean experience in St Vincent. I remember the first time seeing the vast ocean and while singing The Love of God, realizing that God's love was powerful beyond measure. And since, really seeing the mountains, the unmistakable size and perfection of them. The quiet strength that called rock to rise from the earth, towering above the rest of the world, yet the whisper that causes them to melt like wax before the Lord.
• Sitting in a meadow, surrounded by mountains, in perfect stillness. I am continually struck by the life and perfection of the created world without interruption. I wondered at its praise of God, in stillness being fully alive. And the extravagance of God to lavish his creativity on something that may go forever unnoticed. And yet his excitement at sharing it with us. Bursts of color. Blue-purple rock, turquoise water, rich bronze algae that explodes into water like ink.
• A long trek. Endless time. Following behind the footsteps of another, afraid to look up at another hill. I wondered what it meant to follow closely in the footsteps of Jesus- trusting that he is going in the right direction, and remembering not to lift my head and take on more than I can handle.
• A wonderful, wonderful session on good news for the sinned against. The kind of wonderful that makes my heart pound at the truth that is being spoken. How does good news need to be different for those who are hurting, for those who have been sinned against? Out of this time my mind burst with hope and ideas for redeeming and restoring those who are broken.
• An addition to my growing understanding of the beauty and need for community. I've been pondering community, not as a chance benefit or side-effect of following God, but as a deeply valuable and inherent part of God's design for us, of God's own nature. Community in a way that makes God tangible and reflects parts of his character that wouldn't otherwise be visible. A community that has God's word on its lips, one that is a witness to God's goodness for and to each other. And now, a community that intervenes for a God who hates injustice. People who represent a God who is omniscient and omnipotent - and demonstrate God's character in a real way for those who are searching to believe that God knows all injustice, despises it, and promises to rescue.
• A beautiful, soul-wrenching version of Great is Thy Faithfulness by Steve Bell. The silent word that God is indeed faithful...while we're busy looking the other way, he keeps on making leaves. And God is faithful in life, not as a promise of smooth sailing, but a promise of underlying strength and a flowing of goodness through all life.

All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.