Cleaning up your act?

I think I am definitely a people-pleaser. It makes me cringe.

I'm finding my kids on Facebook and letting them add me. I'm over shying away from 'no workplace' on Facebook. I guess I can't do things by halves and when I let people in, I let them in! And my kids are definitely 'in' :) In fact, I asked my mum to make sure I was awake one day when I needed to get to the airport ridiculously early and she said I woke up sleep-talking about one of my students. *I kid you not.* He's the kid that eats 'chocolate chicken' for breakfast and he deserves a whole blog post unto himself. He crackes me up! Well, that and he makes me want to tear my hair out but seriously, the two emotions co-exist.

I really came here though to write about God-time. I find when I blog I veer from making it a journal to writing for others to indiscriminately talking to God. My blog URL has assumed an amorphous, flexible identity that probably doesn't help readership. When has that worried me? Answer - always. I think I am a people-pleaser who is conscientious about being herself. It makes me cringe. Trying to please people is okay, you know. I'm not shooting it down. It's what makes social interaction bearable for those socially awkward of us. It's also what makes relationships happen. It's something God wants us to do in our relationship with Him;. But the coinage, 'people-pleasing', verb and compound noun is something else. It becomes our driving aim in interaction, the process which creates and maintains a facade that is rarely recogisable as self... And the horrible thing is I do that to God too.

Anyone hearing me out there?

You know, you walk up to your chair with your Bible/computer/other books for God-time and you feel distinctly unworthy. Fact. It's like this creeping, gnawing sensation of inadequacy. It's fine. It's actually pretty normal when you're faced with the God of the universe, I should think. Except instead of humbling yourself and surrendering to this God who waits longingly for your heart, you decide it's too shaming to go present yourself that way before Him.

Ever had that important meeting with your boss or principal or supervisor? Or if you are the boss, ever had that important meeting with a client or a prospective partner? Or if you're the top gun, have you ever had to meet the cutest guy you've seen this week and you kinda sorta think he smiled at just you that time when you were all walking? Well, what do you do? You do what any red-blooded, twenty-first century female would do (yes, yes, I'm subverting the cliches just a little) - you wash up, make up, pull the skirt down to perfect angles, makes those shoes gleam and wish desperately that the fly-away hair will repent.

But no, scrub that. All those examples don't come close to the magnitude of meeting your Maker. That's right - face to face, in the privacy of your room. And whether you're in your pyjamas or in your best suit, you still have that familiar inadequate feeling. What do you do? You do what any red-blooded, 21st century person would do. You try and scrub up. You put your best foot forward... and fall slightly flat. Because what's different about God is that we're never going to match up. With all those other people, we sometimes forget to understand that we are precious and valued as much as anyone else and equally able. And then with God, we forget to understand that we are precious and valued and God makes us able. He gives us righteousness, because our own is like filthy rags. Yet the righteousness He gives us is impeccable. No, we don't have the satisfaction of making a blood sacrifice, inflicting pain upon ourselves (as some religious systems do for penance) but He actually finds us precious enough to redeem us for eternity. And because His kind of holiness and just pure goodness is impossible to match. I have got to accept that instead of trying pompously to better His offer.

And this is His offer:
He "is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy"... W-o-w. To This God be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ, now and forevermore!

And yet, so often, I just don't get it. Before I can come before God for my God-time that I so desperately need, I try to clean up my act. Unsuccessfully. Of course. God, forgive me for the many times when my misplaced sense of responsibility has prevented me from coming to you just as I am. Help me to accept your love without condition, just as it is given. In Jesus' name, Amen.

With Love from Dubai

I am at the NESA conference at Maggie Moon's engaging workshop on Writing Workshops and making them work for you and the kids. Literacy - hurray! ;)

If you know what the balanced literacy model is, then this is something teachers and students worry about a lot - and learn from even more. I tried to put this up right after we had our own little balanced literacy workshop complete with mini-lesson. Maggie conferred with me and researched my clumsy writing, complimented it and taught beautifully... I had a false start. And Miss Maggie suggested I try being in the moment.

Anyway, as a souvenir from Dubai, here's what came of it:

I have a list of nouns running through my head and the one that sticks out is fear. How Greek of me, even being quite Indian! I think fear is different from nervousness because it cripples you. Nervousness is annoying but sometimes, possibly, maybe even energising. Its familiar buzz creeps up on you in an exam, and you think you just might pull this one off. It’s there when you’re playing a team sport and yet you’ve still got all your faculties working.

AFTER THE CONFERENCE
In the moment...

Looking up the trees, with their still leaves, I can see nothing except spots of sunlight here and there. I am wondering where they are and if they’re still floating. Do they have wings? Or do they just look like ghosts? How will I see my mum if she is shapeless? More importantly, I couldn’t talk to her if I wanted to. And I have so much to say to her. I want to hug her and bury my face in her skirt. I am mad at her and I want to yell back and cry and say it wasn’t fair to say ‘Get your homework done or else…’ or ‘Well, we’re inviting the neighbours for the party even if you and D don’t get along!’ And then I want to say sorry. But mostly, I want to cry except right in my chest, it’s too lumpy and knotty and tight for tears. Ugh.

I am ten. I am standing on the pavement on a road in Madras, with vegetable shops lining one side and little hardware shops lining the other. We were walking along and we had had a pretty peaceful afternoon. There were actually clouds to alleviate the burning heat – yay! My mum had exclaimed at the great price for cabbages somewhere and I had managed to nod knowledgeably. We were talking about stories, after that. Little Women, maybe, and how I wished my cousin hadn’t spoiled the ending for me.

And then…. gone. Just like that. I have looked in all the shops nearby and I can’t see her familiar figure or the colour of her dress. I am convinced this is it. Something’s happened. If there’d been a kidnapping, it would have been noisy. This is something weird – the end of the world. And I cannot move off the pavement. Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh.

Miss Moments

I was going to write about something else entirely. I promise. But I was reading this article and the precociousness of the writer's son struck me... I'm thinking about all the other little kids that have said the strangest things to me. And after a good laugh, I find my nose tickles and my eyes are close to embarrassingly wet. These are my Miss Moments because ever since I started teaching, I've been called Miss ocassionally and, now, more regularly. My adult students called me Miss too, sometimes. But they weren't half as wise. Or lovable... ;)

Way back, when I volunteered as a teacher in Vacation Bible School for the first time, I had a mischievous little 8-year-old who was always yelling and being rowdy and running around drenched in sweat, when he was supposed to be in class. He had the cutest smile. *lip curl~* They always do! :D Anyway, Miss Me was giving Little J a lecture on how painful it was to be running after him all the time, how he was choosing things that weren't going to help him... then Miss Me got a little sneaky and decided to use the old conscience to prod him into good behaviour. So I said, 'J, do you know you're choosing to do everything else but hear the stories about Jesus and how very much He loves us??' I meant it. I truly prayed they would find the passion of God young, if that was what God chose. And then he looked really sorry and said 'Sorry' again and again! Poor little guy - but what made me cry was when I told him he didn't need to be sorry to me. I didn't mean right then, right there... But Little J took one look at my face and raced up to the altar. He stayed there for a good five minutes. And not one of the other kids who'd skyved could call him back or even get his attention.

They can be pretty funny too! I'm in the classroom teaching eco-systems and food chains. And a lot of hands go up. They're shaking those hands about hoping to get my attention before I call on someone else who might 'steal' their answer and say it before them. I look around measuredly. I pick one hand. 'Yes, K, you have a question?' 'Yes. Miss, is teaching your job? Are you a doctor in real life?'. Wow, didn't see that one coming ;)

Haha, and recess time one day, F came running across the playground to me in tears and flapping hands. '*Sob... gasp... heave SOB* Do you know what happened?' I put my hand to my heart, go down on my knees, widen my eyes appropriately and ask the wailing six-year-old, 'No, what happened?!' And in between those sobs, out comes a barely decipherable complaint: 'She's breaking (broken?) my heart!!!!' and he pointed accusingly. 'Break__ *gulp* ... what?! How?' I'm struggling to keep a straight face, by now, of course, and hoping they haven't got some wild maggot of an idea of love into their heads at this age. 'She kicked me in it'... The defendant had been letting go of some mighty kicks that landed in the vicinity of that organ... LOL much?!?!?! In the interest of fairness (although they both got time out because 'We do not hit!'), he'd been bullying the girls and she was part of a concerted effort to rally back ;) You go, sistas?!

Then there was a special needs child in a class of three who were under my care... This little boy refused to go out to recess. He stayed at the altar in the old, colonial church with the large marble slabs and the broad steps to the altar. He just kinda sat there and hugged himself, y'know? And usually, I would repeat myself patiently with the same tone and the same smile three times at least for these kids. Then they would often repeat instructions after me. Then they would move to follow them, and I would lead them along - whether it was to the water filter, or the snacks section or picking up the crayons. Well, I said it. Three times, just like I'd trained myself to. And M said no, and rocked. And I said it again, expecting and dreading a tantrum any moment now! Eek. So I said: 'Don't you want to go, play with your friends? Run and catch? See? It's fun! This is boring. It's snacks time!' Maybe I wanted to just get out, you know?! Out of that classroom for five minutes. And so I think, I repeated, rather like an idiot who knows she's not being heard, 'Play, go, with your friends...' And M said what I never expected him to say. It was the lesson the previous day, but of course, Miss Me thought these kids may not have 'got it'. M said to me: 'But Jesus is my friend'.

Inadequacy

All the reasons I feel inadequate and probably am:

1. My current boss doesn't want to give me a reference for something I want to do AFTER my contract ends because they don't want me to leave. But I really want to do college next year and go back to Oxford!

2. I feel called to do something, and have no idea how I can. I don't have any academic knowledge in the area.

3. I don't know how to make sense of the past two years.

4. I feel I need to do this PD for the sake of the children. And my co-teacher cannot, and I can but intend to leave next year. And they hope PD-doing people can stay.

5. I always feel like I'm less than the other.

6. I'm always thinking self and other.

7. I just don't have what it takes to eat all the chocolate in the world.

8. There's not much I can do about 7.

9. My dogs are too heavy to carry around comfortably but they still look at me pleadingly. And I know what they're saying.

10. 2 Cor 12:9

Monday moods

There's a lot of talk about money. Even in Christianity. In fact, why not? The gospel is for all of life so we should be discussing wealth and/or the lack of it if it applies to our lives... and it surely does. The Bible is for how to live life, and a lot of our life deals with money management... huh?

That said, I have doubts about both sides of this argument... The hate-all-telly-preachers camp and the get-rich-quick camp. Prosperity is productive. Trials are productive. The purpose is God's glory and the way is God's will... But what annoys me is when we are afraid to talk about money because it is evil.

Here I'm going to say something. Wealth is good. Abundance is good. What do we do with it? Serve God, share it. Bottomline.

Now, on a completely different note, before I got sidetracked, here's what I'm thinking about RIGHT now:

Woooaahh, baby! huh?

Things I learned from my Father

I have a bad relationship with my father. I love him. But is there respect? I keep having to remind myself. Don't get me wrong - I am in awe at the way my parents have stayed together despite all odds, personality-wise, financially or family-wise. They belonged to a different era than now, better because 'compatibility' was simply not reason enough. Commitment was always the bigger word - defying arithmetic ;). I appreciate it so much. It's definitely what I want to do myself. But my father was never someone who knew me. He still isn't. That seems like a shameless plug of my own post, but it's not. Trust me.

I learned that knowing from my Father. I learned that discipline comes in love not in anger. I learned that when I make a mistake and am sorry, there are tears in my Father's eyes. I learned that to go to your Father with your problems means that you get a big, fat hug first. And He holds you until you're warm again. When I had a painful operation on my toe, I was old enough to be on my own. I was 21. But the power went out that night and all through the night, my toe throbbed in just the most cry-worthy way. I'm pretty stoic. I never cried when I fell off my bike and had a compound fracture - I insisted I'd go to church first because it was why I was on my bike in the first place. But this night... I cried. Also I didn't go to bed because there was a slight breeze in the living room so I tried to sleep on the sofa. This night, my father sat behind my crouched body (I couldn't lie down because I was jumpy with the pain) and bade me lean on him, so I could sleep. And I remember thinking Wow, this feels like Abba. It was strange that it should and just for those moments, I shut my eyes against the pain and stopped crying and leaned back for more of this unusual, lovely moment. But I already knew what it felt like. God has held me so many times. The first time He held my hand on a  long journey while I was thinking about a big decision, I didn't want to join the others on the camp bus. I didn't want to speak, to break the spell. It felt like... home.

My Father also taught me that He won't give up. By this point in my life, I know that He knows that I'm gonna stumble. We've got to that stage we can roll our eyes at each other about my little mistakes and nod. Unfortunately, they are not all little. But I know and He knows I know that He's gonna pick me up again. And set me right back on my feet and get me to walk again.

I learned that He's always going to ask me what I want, and why I'm crying. Even if He knows. Which, let's face it, He usually does. He knows I want Him. And - here's the amazing thing - He lets me know He needs me and wants me. Oh, not for support or to help Him carry the water back into the house or even to be there when He's talking to other people. He uses me sometimes then. Sometimes I actually get to translate - if the other person is waiting to understand. Sometimes someone else has translated for me. Still that's not what He needs me for. He needs me. And when I crawl back onto His lap after a long day, even if I'm late, He's waiting for that cuddle. I love Him. And He actually hurts when I forget. 

These days there's been a lot of relationship advice I've needed my Father about. I wonder sometimes if He smiles indulgently. Sometimes my eyes are so blurred with tears that I can't see. Happy tears, mind you. Thinking tears, about how it should be when it does happen. Still I always hear Him. Even with my headphones on, He makes sure... I don't ever remember my Father yelling at me. He's been stern though, firm, sad, decisive... No-nonsense... But no - I don't think He's been mad at me and not in love with me - ever. He never once raised His hand or any other thing in anger.

I know from my Father's eyes that He thinks I'm pretty important. Baby, does that work wonders for my self-esteem! He's kinda that parent rooting for their kid every event. He knows what grade I make, He knows what I want to do next - yet He's not the nosy kind at all. He'll wait for me to tell Him because He knows I trust Him and He expects it. But still He just knows, y'know... Perceptive, my Dad. But when I'm ready to talk - I can just tell He so wants to listen. Of course, He has different ideas from mine. Often. But what's weird is that I talk to Him and I know that I just want to make Him proud. Then again His ideas are so much better - He's known me and the world for longer than I have ;) Sometimes I've been stupid enough to dump His idea completely and do just mine. All these hormones ;)! I've never regretted anything as much. Sometimes what people said has been more important than my Father - He knows now that I am so so sorry. It was wrong for me and it hurt Him. I wouldn't be surprised if the first caused the second. Usually everything I have wanted to do from the bottom of my heart comes from a childhood passion. That passion comes from my Dad's passion. That glow in His eyes when He talks about it. And I know that I know that I'd be good at this - because I'm getting the vision from the wisest, most intimate person I've known in all my life. My Father isn't an old fogey - He's got my name tattooed on His hand. The only tattoo that doesn't turn me aaaalll the way OFF! ;) 

I learned that all this is what Fathers do. I learned to look for these things in my father here. And to remember them. I learned that I have to keep remembering to forgive myself and everyone else because I'm nowhere near as good at it as He is. I learned that if I ever have children, I want my husband and me to love them like my Father did and will. He'll be simply awesome - as always - when they're around, if that should be a blessing I will one day have! I just know this! I learned that who I am grows in Who my family is. I learned that no one else will ever be able to define love for me in the way that my Father does.

No Shadow of Turning

I'm copying my random Oswald Chambers' reading today because it ties in to what God's been whispering gently into my heart this Saturday. Desensitised to sin anyone? Some sins become normal, don't they? Oh, that's not so bad - look at this! Or she's okay but look at him! I cringe when I hear people saying things like that - am I hearing myself?

THE MASTER ASSIZES "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." 2 Corinthians 5:10 Paul says that we must all, preacher and people alike, "appear before the judgment seat of Christ." If you learn to live in the white light of Christ here and now, judgment finally will cause you to delight in the work of God in you. Keep yourself steadily faced by the judgment seat of Christ; walk now in the light of the holiest you know. A wrong temper of mind about another soul will end in the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment, and the end of it is hell in you. Drag it to the light at once and say - "My God, I have been guilty there." If you don't, hardness will come all through. The penalty of sin is confirmation in sin. It is not only God who punishes for sin; sin confirms itself in the sinner and gives back full pay. No struggling nor praying will enable you to stop doing some things, and the penalty of sin is that gradually you get used to it and do not know that it is sin. No power save the incoming of the Holy Ghost can alter the inherent consequences of sin. "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light." Walking in the light means for many of us walking according to our standard for another person. The deadliest Pharisaism to-day is not hypocrisy, but unconscious unreality.

Mary

I was reading this today and my heart leaped. Hearts leap, I think, every time there is an instinctive recognition! My heart does this for the clear voice of God, when I stop to listen; for rain and snow, for as long as I can remember; for babies; and for puppies and other little things; for missions; for ideas and stories that have been mine and I see in other people's writing... When I was 14, I remember describing this in a composition assignment as the germ of my idea having taken root and grown in someone else's imagination...

My heart leaps for many things (chocolate comes close, ladies!) It leaps for that unmistakable presence of God that comes in worship at church, in the process of cleaning out a stubborn stain on my jeans, or even when I'm singing barefoot in my classroom during planning time! That's a good expression. I admit to being a geek. I looked for something to tell me the background, the story of a Hebrew idiom, what it meant when the babe in Elizabeth's womb leaped for joy. The other place it's used in the Bible is when a woman is pregnant with twins. The story is that they definitely jostled each other and mummy knew it. The twins were going to be pretty important in history and they were fighting for their places! Leaping = strong emotion? Definitely. But I found no contextual interpretation. It is quite literal, I suspect.

Here's the background. An expectant Mary visits her cousin, Elizabeth, who is now pretty darn pregnant! Elizabeth has been waiting for motherhood for a really long time (if you know how that feels, back me up here!). There is joy in the encounter. And baby John kinda skips a little when the ladies are saying hello. He knew who he was meeting. Not his pregnant aunt, but someone else. Inside that cocoon of his mother's womb, he recognises the Spirit of God, now made flesh... and John's giving a little gasp and a stutter and screaming in his head 'There he is! That's him!' and wants to get out. Like your heart kinda flips over and knocks on your chest to reach out to the one you love.

Well, so here I was, my heart leaping, my head thinking about the beautiful account of the resurrection by this amazing blogger and trying to make connections. And I was struck by how another Mary's heart must have leaped on that Sabbath day.

Mary was in that dreadful waiting place with all the others when we just don't know. We think we're facing irrevocable loss. Something as final as we believe death is. Most of us haven't taken God seriously when he said he was going to raise up that temple in 3 days, anyway. We've become used to interpreting statements outside God's vision, inside the most-likely box. Some of us haven't even heard that there is more to the story. We think we've just read the last chapter and we've lost. Some of us think there might be because there is hope but it comes and goes. I know I have to hold on to it with every last ounce of strength some days. I know you all have those days. So we're... what is that word? Oh, 'coping'.

Mary's there (I'm assuming she's also the woman caught in adultery). And then there is a 'But God' moment. Mary sees him and knows in that moment, that Jesus lives.

Still that isn't what made my heart leap today. Those moments when I recognise my God, when I look and find that I'm looking into His eyes - they're beautiful. Heart-stoppingly, undeniably beautiful. And you can't but smile or grin or laugh in joy. But what made my heart leap was thinking about what made Mary's heart leap.

This - Jesus said to her, "Mary!" (John 20: 16)

He knows my name. He knows me. He knows that I sinned and pushed my limits so much that I was the black sheep of my little Magdalene community. The one that nobody really talked about at weddings and feasts, the one that everyone whispered about. He saw my demons. He cast them out. He knows. 


But He also knows just how very, very much I love Him. Because He was looking into my eyes as I faced death, and He was willing me to live. He was there daring everyone else to so much as touch me before He cold reach out and save me. And He saw the light change in my eyes, when I felt it and knew I would never be the same again. And with that one word, He turns my life around. Again. Mary. Just the sound of his voice.

And that's what really amazes me. Love so big that it hurts. That He died for me. That He knows me inside out, better than I know myself, and loves me. I am constantly learning about this God who loves me.  Despite my pastor who keeps telling us more about who God is every meeting, and God Himself who reveals more every day, I will never fully know Him because He's infinite God. But thank God that I do know Him. And this vast, this infinite, endless God with no limits, this Man who simply died and rose again because death had not a finger's hold on him... this God is my God. And this God knows me. Little, insignificant me. And because of that, I am who I am. I have my identity in Him. I am the person He made and loves and I'm growing into who He wants me to be.

And I still can't get my head around this - He knows me intimately. And when I don't see Him because I've forgotten to look, He's gonna call my name.

Not quite an essay

Ray Boltz used to be one of my favourite artists. Some of his songs still strike a chord in me. But there has been so much polemic tugging on both sides that, predictably, another evangelical Christian finds it irresistible... Yes, there - I said it. I am an evangelical Christian. And contrary to current thinking Christianity which cringes at this word, the Greek word was used in the new testament to mean the gospel or the good news of salvation! And there is a part of me, that part that engages with culture and society, which responds immediately to say 'But it's sometimes bad news...' It is bad news for sin, for lawlessness, for... well, for lack of a better word, convenience. But on the other hand, it's incredibly good news. The kind that makes you weep out of the intensity of God's love.

This is a post I am very reluctant to make. Yet I feel this (stupid?) need to articulate because whether or not I'm so presumptuous as to think it contributes to any kind of collective consciousness, I think it contributes to mine! Invariably on topics like this where subjectivity runs at its highest, there is bound to be labelling, if people do stumble upon this blog! But my journey from immediate shock and disappointment to continuing disappointment has been... interesting.

As a good little church-goer and more importantly a good little Indian girl, I first met with the hype about homosexuality a little later in school. And was disgusted. I think, as Christians, we are very likely to rank sins. It's okay to lie about not being available for a phone call, or pull off several tax evasions, but sexual sin? Eek. Inside I have conflicting thoughts on our emotional reactions to this issue. Purity in relationships is something I have kept very carefully and closely guarded, and over and above any cultural conditioning, I'm sure it has all to do with God's amazing Holy Spirit walking every day with me. But that is exactly the kind of statement that earns us a reputation for self-righteousness and easy condemnation, isn't it? And I admit, we are judgemental. But that's not just Christians. People are judgemental. However, as God's ambassadors, I suspect it kinda comes with the territory to be more harshly criticised for the wrong attitudes. 


I am with my evangelical brothers and sisters on this, even if I don't sound like it. Truly. The world would much rather have any other fundamentalists than Christian ones. It is a measure of globalisation, in which research (note how I do not take the blame!) has shown considerable American dominance, that post-modern thought is interpreted as rejecting only homegrown (American-grown) absolutes. It is also a measure of our media-dependent times that Christianity is and has been seen as Western at all. Both of these measures are ironic in so many ways that it's laughable! But let's not go there today... What I was trying to say was being God's ambassadors (despite how maligned we might feel) it is our responsibility, not to the world at all but to God, to try and truly be His ambassadors, not our own. We are messengers. We are not the tools of judgement. God, in his amazing way, has chosen to give us the responsibility of loving our neighbour. Imagine that??

Infinite God, a God of both justice and mercy - "For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep My commandments" - gives us only one job, to love Him and love our neighbour. And then He says 'Judge not, that ye be not judged'. That's a pretty clear picture. I would do well to remember that...

On the other hand, there is that other part of me, anxious in a rather Jude-ish way to save the others "with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh". But it is in love we are called to do that as that passage in context makes clear. I believe, as the Bible says, that we are made in God's image. Maybe that's why there is a sense of justice - that natural, moral law, CS Lewis talks about - that we sometimes want to use in overblown proportions. God is perfect. We're not. Let's just stick to what we're called to do!

So what was wrong with my first reaction to the Boltz story? What was wrong was my emotional reaction. It was not one that sought God. It was one, instead, that assumed superiority. It was a repulsion that set myself and my morals above another - 'how could he do that?!' Wrong question. But that did not last long, I am grateful to say. Again it's the Holy Spirit. And that's not another attempt to be holier-than-thou. Trained to rationalise, I sought for what God would want me to do in this situation. I only learned of the story a couple of years after, being cut off from any kind of celebrity gossip and not having looked up Ray Boltz in years!

What I looked for immediately afterwards for the few minutes in my break that I came upon this story, and what I have looked for intermittently since then - and failed to find - is for the story's redemption. What actually still does shock me is the lack of intellectual integrity in the public face of this story. Ray Boltz, whose songs were inspired, now seems to find his identity in his sexuality. His songs are not about being Christian anymore. They are now about 'being gay'. And, ironically, being 'a gay Christian'. This is what disturbs me. That he lives what he calls a normal life in that context. Are Christians ever, in any context, called to live a normal life? What happened to Romans 12?? What happened to daring to be different?

One of my favourite songs is 'In Christ Alone'. We sang it at church this Sunday. And it's also one of my heart cries, if I can be that cheesy! But hey, my space to abuse ;) Honestly, I have struggled with this for long. I find my identity in Christ. Shouldn't we all? I don't understand being an Indian Christian. I don't understand being a 'charismatic Christian', a pentecostal Christian... These labels that we give. We are all entitled to the amazing faith that God gives, the gifts he pours out on all flesh, the knowledge of His word... I often wondered at it in my old, multi-cultural church... Where we came from was such an important thing for some people! It's how they made friends, it's how they read people, it's how we got the boxes that we lived in for the rest of our acquaintanceships with them. And it really annoys me when what is right and wrong, in Christian circles, comes from culture and social context rather than from the Bible. BIG TURN OFF. This sounds so much more authentic in Tamil and hilarious because of some of the dialectal quirks that come out too... and of course, because of the viewpoint!

அவ நல்ல பொண்ணு... அவ சாமிய நேசிக்கிறவ... அவ லவ்-ல எல்லாம் விழ மாட்டா
Rough translation: She's a 'good' girl. She loves the Lord!! She's not going to go out with a boy (literally: she won't fall in love or anything like that)



A few years ago, this was SUCH a common thing to hear. From older people. I'll put it in context for you. Arranged marriages = tradition = socially acceptable = good = Biblical. Note how those last few jumps happen on a slippery slope?! Falling in love, on the other hand, wasn't conventional much like in Victorian England. Therefore scandalous. Therefore, of course, Biblically wrong!

Of course, it doesn't take me to tell you that this isn't Biblical at all. Neither is the other viewpoint that anything arranged is unbiblical but that, also, is a story for another day.

But false logic like that is exactly what makes us less than accountable. What bothers me, like I said, is their identity in their new defensive (and therefore aggressive) state and not in Christianity, and their lack of intellectual integrity. And I'm not sure why it's there. I am just not sure how that is an accountable witness. Surely Boltz and his erstwhile family had dealt with these questions in their personal and public reflections before? Surely the answers that they gave themselves then had some intellectual argument in them? Or were they really holding on to a set of beliefs that weren't tested in any way at all? If they were, and that is what they might want us to believe from the 'I don't want to downplay it' part of his public speech, then why on earth are they now Christian any more or insist on being called Christian? Additionally, Ray's statements make that little girl who used to watch in awe the first ever gospel singer she'd heard live cringe for more of these doesn't-hold-water type attitudes. I think evangelical Christians are very susceptible to them and those in the public eye, more so. But Boltz in his volte-face is surprisingly naive in some ways - and that hurts. He/they lacked intellectual/spiritual integrity before 2008 and seem to still lack it. I am wary of his ideas of 'love' and 'acceptance'. When I love someone as they are, that doesn't mean I agree with everything they do. Neither does it mean that I will endorse and promote something I once held sin as something which ought to be gloried in, except in that Christ's strength is made perfect in that very weakness. I would not deny the weakness itself. Boltz stopped recording in 2004. He started back up in 2008. Disturbingly after that statement. Disturbingly his records since then have been for the alternate sexuality cause, despite him saying he doesn't want to be a poster-boy for it. But undeniably, he and his ex-wife are a find for the let's-reconcile-homosexual-practice-to-living-for-God school of thought.

I cannot say what the Boltzes ought to have done and how they ought to have reacted at the time of hearing and dealing with all this. I can only imagine the pain and the shock and the sense of bereavement. Divorce is something God hates. And that too is sidestepped in this claim to not feel that God hates the person any more. This also hurts! Because God doesn't hate the person. If anything, it is the sick he loves more. I'm not sure I would be a Christian if that wasn't the kind of God He is... I'm pretty sure I wouldn't. I can also imagine the difficult struggle that it must have been both leading up to and at that time. I appreciate the growth and the learning involved. But in hiding from the questions with convenient answers, and worse, making capital with it, the body of Christ is hurting. This then is what disgusted me - the hype about certain sins, the fashionableness of certain questions... In a career, in research, that is all well and good ;) It brings you the funding and the positions. Even though, there too, I baulk at making that slightly unethical statement! But when it performs the same function in our relationship with God, that's far far more dangerous.

I cringe at the Boltz story. But I also cringe with closer shame at people laughing at homosexuality - not just teenagers, since I've returned to India, I find it happening shockingly in the churches... Adultery did not make the woman more of an outcast than the Pharisees themselves. Dealing insensitively with a problem that people in your churches might well have is crass. Is that what the Boltzes did before they found out 'what was wrong with dad'? Hard to believe. Is it what we're doing today?

There is something to be said for consistency. If the God's word says God puts his word above his name, and that heaven and earth will pass away but his word won't (and God's word is the Scripture, something Jesus himself shows through his time on earth), then if I choose to believe this God, I choose to follow his word. If on the other hand, I take it as a text of ancient wisdom just like any other in the (?) literary canon, am I a Christian? There is enough to tell us, within the Bible itself without outside interpretation and information, that if we love him, we will obey his word, keep his commandments... I'm using the particularly Christian term for the Bible - God's word - to show up the fallacies to us, Christians, in holding on to too many philosophies together and forgetting the exclusivity that Christianity sometimes reveals. Jealous God, remember? You love him in an all-or-nothing kind of way. God would be the only reasons to drive your behaviour. When I use the word 'moral', I mean a Biblical sense of right and wrong. Human understanding of morality and human logic isn't operative - so whatever your conclusions are, for or against, they simply don't matter. There is logic in choosing an ideology or a framework for your life. When you once choose the Christian one, it's all-encompassing. He is the reason for not indulging in sin, whether that is adultery or a surfeit of TV (!), or gluttony or lying on the phone about your availability and state of health! There ought to be nothing else driving my choices. You just don't do it. And redemption will come. Healing or a using of the platform for God's glory! One must believe that because it is promised.

But it is with this sense of God, this sense of Biblical right and wrong that one should react, not from a socio-culturally or socio-religiously righteous standpoint! CS Lewis, in Mere Christianity, he introduces this idea of a moral law, a sense of right and wrong... This sense is not necessarily convenient to oneself. Our reaction to 'wrongdoing' is not one that conforms with what we are most comfortable. Therefore, objecting to something is not necessarily a self-motivated act and can sometimes shoot you in the foot. This then is the only reason to object, not for self-motivated reasons, not for doing things our way. 

A man occupying the corner seat in the train because he got there first, and a man who slipped into it while my back was turned and removed my bag, are both equally inconvenient. But I blame the second man and do not blame the first. I am not angry - except perhaps for a moment before I come to my senses - with a man who trips me up by accident; I am angry with a man who tries to trip me up even if he does not succeed. Yet the first has hurt me and the second has not. Sometimes the behaviour w-hich I call bad is not inconvenient to me at all, but the very opposite.

In another passage in the same book, Lewis, with customary sarcasm, writes about the intellectual compromise between evolution and intelligent design, between commitment to God and commitment to the world.

If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being on-ly a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that trou-blesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tam-e God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you.  All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thin-king the world has yet seen?

Succinct. Much more articulate than I.

I, sadly, am less than lucid or cohesive but hope I have been at least half-way understood. I must get back to work now! Goodnight, world.

What's on my heart, Saturday night

Father,

I Love you so so much. But there are so many times I forget how just how much I love you! Maybe I am stupid – in fact, I am pretty foolish. God and your wisdom is so abundant that it rescues from my stupidity.

Sometimes I am almost afraid to admit my mistakes – to sit down and face you and face my inadequacies and my sin. Is this because I am afraid of the potter’s wheel? Of being slung onto the wheel and beaten into a shape that is beautiful? Lord, you don’t do the beating but when it happens, you simply love me and maybe you allow it. And in my life, it has not been terrible – you have always walked by me. Every footprint, Lord, every footprint has had another by it. Right beside it. I’m standing here in tears and as I raise my hand to wipe them away, I’m not feeling my face. I realise it’s someone else’s hand. It’s yours – you’ve been holding me all along. And my heart breaks with how much you love me.

Do I know how to respond to love? To being pursued? I am afraid that I don’t. How, Lord? How do I respond to someone who always thinks I’m beautiful? How do I know that you are the One who means it? The One who sees? El Roi. And that for you, it’s never phatic communion. It’s not everyone’s eyes that are beautiful – it’s mine. It’s my heart you desire. My love. My eyes you’re looking into when your body is broken. Me. Part of the church. Me. Broken, undesirable and yet so passionately, single-mindedly desired, because nothing is impossible for God. Me. Every single broken member of your bride. And it’s you that is beautiful, you that is glorious – and yet, I am the pursued. Father, I want to seek you and to be found by you and to know you and the power of your resurrection and the fellowship of your sufferings. This is my meagre response. Ecce, Dominus.

Meesai Machismo

So such a serious blog name doesn't mean I am usually a serious person. Maybe INFPs are the intense kind generally. But maybe being a joker is a defence strategy I've developed over the years to a fine art ;) This preamble simply to say you're going to get no soul-searching outta me tonight. If any of you are reading, and are committed to handlebar meesais, you should probably not read any further! Coming up: one full-blown rant on unfashionable facial hair types.

I call them meesais and not moustaches because they are prolific in the motherland. And I associate them with the oh-so-Tamil man - and woman, for that matter - and self-satisfied smirks of fatal attraction possibilities! Get this for example:

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=S7C_5NB4bSU&feature=related

Ha! My dad had a pretty big moustache and other people I respect do - and my mum swears that without a moustache every weakness of the mouth shows so that one can only giggle in response to 'hello'. My poor mother. Still I am scarred by encounters with the meesai.

I walked out of school one afternoon, blazing hot 1 pm sun. And I walk circumspectly edged against the wall that lines the long, narrow driveway into the alma mater, knowing every incoming car knows the schoolgirl comes first. I was 11? 12? Anyway, I'm swinging my starched, A-line not-long-enough, not-short-enough skirt, holding my unwieldy lunch basket and shifting 13 kilos from one shoulder to the next (such troopers we were) until I'm nearly certain I don't have any more shoulders. And I'm glad school's done for the day, when who should come along but Biker Dude, in wanna-be black sunglasses and all-black shirt and jeans. He only gets classified dud in retrospect though - so I don't know how coloured my historiography is! At the time, I chose to name it The Curious Incident of the Uncle in the Afternoon. He must have been a little younger than the going rate for uncles generally, with handlebars that vied with his bike's for symmetry and attention. And he tried, from a distance of several yards in a harmless attempt at humour, to block my path. You know it - you go left, they go right, and you do that little dance, so often unintentional. And then he grinned - and oh sorrow, he waggled that meesai at me. I crossed the road. Dance over. No, 'hello, uncle, I'm studying in 3rd standard' opp for you, bud.

Scarred.

Again, switch slides to another after-school journey back home. What do we have here? Policeman combing his badge of honour down either side, twirling it manfully in the face of a police bike's rearview mirror. Guffaws of laughter in the backseat. More tarnishment of the poor meesai.

Not so scarred, but etched for life.

Upward curls on pot-bellied policemen. Tarnishment - check.

Prerequisite for the upswung lungi, symbol of extreme proprietorship, Mallu and Tam landlord images, swaggering but uncreditable machismo. Like, check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aCShcWz5XQ&feature=related The moustache is what you get ID-d on. No entry into Kerala's hottest and most exclusive, or TN's for that matter, without.

More tarnishment. From a colonised, conditioned, Peetru. If you don't know what that is, embrace your identity in Madras terms.

Headless Driving ;)

Ever heard that expression '... like a headless chicken'?? Well, I think I know its equivalent now. I've never understood, always thought it was a heartless comparison, and it usually put me off my curry ;)! Now, however, I feel like said chicken. Decisions, decisions.

Someone wisely reminded me a couple of days ago that God has these questions already answered in his perfect plan. It is comforting to remember that... That however much 'headlessness' I encounter in my everyday decisions and interactions, He's got it covered. So tonight I am going to put my goals down on paper. These are my goals. Some of them I know that God put on my heart. Others I can simply trust him with. Much of my wondering boils down to this one question which I wrote down in a blog post, on another blog.

What is it about missions and worship that makes me cry and hurt so much both with happiness and longing?

I sometimes wonder if this decision-making process would be easier if I weren't in India, in Chennai. Some day soon I'll blog more about this - hopefully it'll make you guys laugh! It almost seems as if one is answerable to everyone else but God and oneself here. Suggestions, opinions, ideas - they all become quite categorical, and turn into moral issues. And I have to struggle hard within myself to focus on the One person who must influence all my decisions, to whom all my answers must point, in the final instance. I've taken a pretty major career decision on that one pivotal idea. Now to stick it through! Whether I choose a job in the corporate sector with a fat enough pay-check for those goals, or go the teaching route on this school contract and gain the international corporate management experience in the evenings, or take up a position abroad, I'm hoping pretty hard to choose the shortest way possible to be doing both those things.

D'you know that involuntary cringe when your patient but ever so slightly annoying SatNav lady wheezes: 'Tu-urn missed! Go 2 miles and take the 2nd exit off the roundabout!... Tu-urn missed. Go 1 mile and...' Lol, and everybody in the car groans harmoniously... Uh. I'm switching on my SatNav, cranking up the volume to max. Ecce, dominus.