Intentional Vulnerability

Yesterday we met with a financial planner.  Not because we have unlimited wealth and resources, but to help us prioritize and achieve some personal goals for our family.  Now just making it to the office was huge for me.  I have major panic attacks related to money discussions, but there I was sitting in an office discussing our budget with a financial planner.  I did great in the office and then on the way home in the car by myself I dissolved into tears.  I became incredibly angry with my husband over some innocent comments and I was so frustrated with myself because of my reactions.  It is only today that I finally realized why I had the reaction I did....  

I had made the choice to be vulnerable.

You see...

I set up the appointment.  We had tried doing this a few times before, but my panic attacks had ended up in us finally taking it off the calendar.  I was the one to re-initiate this meeting.  I told my husband I could handle it and then when the tears showed up afterwards I was angry at myself for a perceived weakness.  

I don't know about you, but letting someone look at my mess is something I avoid at all cost! 

I want to look like the ideal little family of four.  All put together and perfect.  I mean we all know it is not true for any one of us, but we still want that to be how others see us, right?  

And so comes our financial planner into the mess that is our budget.  We might not be swimming in debt, but our budget is the thing that we have wrangled with since we got married.  It feels sort of like trying to wrestle a greased pig....  Sometimes we have it and then it slips and gets away again.  So we decided to enlist the help of a coach.  

Enter vulnerability....

To invite someone in to look at how you spend you money, where you have debt and what you haven't even thought about preparing for is hard.  You open yourself up to fear of judgment.  

Theirs and your own.  

Recognizing the way this makes you vulnerable has made me look at my life to realize that this meeting yesterday, even with my meltdown which lasted less than an hour, was one step in a series of choices to be vulnerable.

The thing about choosing to be vulnerable is that you open yourself up.

Sometimes it is to rejection. 

Other times is it to new or deeper relationships.

My life lately has been a series of choices to be vulnerable.  

To let people into my story in a different way.

There were some who ended the conversation.

They walked away uninterested in understanding me better

 or going deeper in our relationship.

There were others though, who met me in my vulnerability.

They tackled the hard issues that I was wrestling with or just sat and listened and then shared part of their story.

Vulnerability drew us closer.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another:

'What! You too?

I thought I was the only one.'

~C.S. Lewis

Vulnerability is something that as humans we fear.

We fear the rejection that will come from some when we open up, but when we live in that fear we miss what happens when someone says,

"What! You too?  I thought I was the only one."

Vulnerability provides the opportunity for us to see who genuinely wants to share our journey and who merely is there because it is convenient.  

Vulnerability allows us to recognize when boundaries are necessary.

Vulnerability moves us closer to the heart of God.

One of the things I think we can miss in the story of Christ is that at the moment of his death he was stripped bare.  He was exposed to anyone and everyone.   

When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

~Matthew 27:35

There were people who chose to mock.  There were people who chose to desert him.  There were also those who chose to draw closer.  Vulnerability is tied irrevocably to the story of Christ.  Letting someone into our messy life is the only way we truly heal.  

If we let them the fears that keep us from practicing vulnerability will destroy us.  They will isolate us and restrict us to "safe" relationships that never challenge us.  If we push past our fears and begin to practice vulnerability though, we find those with shared experiences.  Some will join us where we are on our journey and others will show us how to make it through the parts that we are unsure of the path.  

Vulnerability builds community.

Intentional Communion

When you hear the word communion if you have any exposure to faith you likely think instantly of the solemn ritual of the Last Supper where Jesus shares his final meal with his small group of followers.  

Or maybe you think of it as some solemn "quiet time" where you spend a set amount of time reading Scripture.  

That one is torture for me!

Yep, I will own it, I am called to ministry.  Pursuing a degree in Biblical Studies and reading my Bible in some ritualist expected fashion is worse than the Spanish Inquisition for me!

I suppose it could be because I instinctively associate not "reading your Bible" enough or as expected with the threat of punishment it held for me as a child. 

 Seriously!  I remember as young as 8 or 9 years of age, sitting in "chapel" at the school I attended trying to determine which story I could pull from memory enough if someone decided to grill me on my "quiet time" that morning.  I do not really remember if that ever actually happened to anyone around me, but it was definitely a fear for me.

Sadly, that concept of being punished for not spending enough time with God has overshadowed a lot of my adult life.

Communion:

The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.  Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Joshua 1:8

Blessed is the one... whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night

Psalm 1:1-2

There are things that are starting to reshape my perception of what communion looks like.  Rather than a set number of verses or making my way through a year long devotional, I am discovering communion with God in moments of spiritual whitespace.

My brain retains concepts rather than exact information.  I connect concepts in Scripture to real life and I am starting to recognize that I do this in a way that is supported in Scripture!  From the early days of Israel's inception as a nation, Joshua is reminding them to mediate on God's word.  

Just reading it, only creates a mere string of words.  Meditating on it creates opportunity.  Opportunity to share and exchange thoughts and ideas with the God, who created us.  Opportunity to ask how any one verse of Scripture applies to me personally.  Opportunity for self-discovery as we allow ourselves to find pieces of our story in the stories of David, Paul and even Jesus.

For some the ritual of reading a set number of Scriptures each day for a certain period works.  It ensures that they have moments of time set aside to connect with God.  For so long I have held myself up to that model, feeling like a complete and utter failure because for me it doesn't work.  The reality I am learning is that there is no magic formula for connecting with God on a daily basis.  It looks different for all of us.  I can read one passage and dissect it for two weeks!  Others need to get the idea and move on.  Still others need to commit the verse to memory word for word.  

The thing I am learning in this season of life is that communion with God looks different for all of us.  There is no perfect model.  It has a unique look and feel for each and every person because God meets us where we are.  

Mine looks like a marinade.  

What does yours look like?  

If you don't know if yours is working or want to try something new, I would like to invite you to join me in reading Whispers of Rest by Bonnie Gray.  It is a 40 day devotional and there is even a book club you can join!

Intentional Community

I'm discovering in our season of life that having a toddler, who just happens to be an extrovert opens the door to endless possibilities.  

Our Myka loves people and she loves for her people to feel connected. 

I become the recipient of that when I pick her up at daycare and she needs to introduce me to her friends and their mommies and daddies.

On our family walks in the community nearly every adult we meet must be mommy or daddy's friend.  It's an interesting perspective to have, but not exactly new.  

There are no strangers here; 

Only friends you haven't yet met.

~William Butler Yeats~

It seems like a lot of the past few years for me have been a search for community.

The places I thought I once belonged no longer have space for me.

The relationships I once held dear did not survive change.

And so my community was turned upside down and inside out and my life started to feel a little like Alice in Through the Looking Glass.

Through my daughter I am starting to realize how narrow my view of community had become.

When I worked as a nurse in downtown Indianapolis, I had diverse friendships.  I regularly interacted and shared life with people, who were different from me.

They were different races and cultures.  

They had different political and social viewpoints.  

My community was diverse and I learned and grew as I shared life with people much different.  

Then circumstances changed and I instead found myself for about a year and a half surrounded with people who saw the world in a very similar fashion.  

On the backside of that I see the danger that is present in that scenario.  

I became stale, unchallenged.  

It was not necessary to think too far outside of the box I was in and was even discouraged at times if I tried to go too far outside of what was familiar.

In my safe group of like minded people, I became comfortable.

Then something happened and I no longer fit in.  

I still am not entirely sure what happened that caused a break.

Maybe it was job loss, maybe it was becoming disillusioned.

What ever it was, close relationships gradually disappeared and I had to search for what was important in my life.

After my second daughter, Eden, was born, I remember distinctly recognizing that I had begun to once more find myself challenged by relationships with people who were not like me and in doing that I once more found true community.

When we look for community in only like minded people, we run a risk.  

We risk losing our souls for the sake of belonging to a particular group.  We will eventually sacrifice what holds value to us to remain a part of this group.  We create restricted community, you only "fit" if you "fit" our idea of community.  At the end of the day it doesn't matter how much you say you want to engage others, your choices show by the blend of the community with which you identify.

The last six weeks of school have had me digging in deeply to the book of Acts.  Examining the first church and the leaders in that movement have had me soul-searching.  I suppose in some ways it made me open to the lessons God was using my nearly three year old, Myka to teach me.  The first church without the Gentiles was at risk.  If they only remained a community of Jewish believers, they ran the risk of traditional Jewish culture distorting the message of Christ.  So God moved the leaders of this fledging group to reach out to the Gentiles.  Peter, Paul and even James end up advocating for the Gentiles to be included.  They begin to challenge the "Jewish way" of doing things and instead focusing on the message that God desires to spread to the ends of the earth.  This creates a radical change in the first church and broadens the sense of community beyond the boundaries of the Jewish culture.

When we live in community the way God intends, it will look messy.  We will be surrounded by people who see the world differently.  We will be challenged by people from different cultures and with different customs.  We will find people who are on different sides regarding various political and social issues.  We might find our beliefs challenged.  

That is a good thing!  

When we allow it community will grow us and if we let it, community might even become family.  

Boxes, Hashtags and Community

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

~ Frederick Buechner

As humans we seem so often to be in search of something.  We want to discover ourselves, find our passion, our purpose, the meaning of life... The list goes on.  

We often search for the thing that will define us in a revelation.  We want something dramatic.  The truth that I am learning is it is the ordinary everyday things that define us.  They are where our passions can be found.  They are the things that weave together to make up the fabric of our lives.  

I have lived a lot my life out of boxes.  It's like moving at some point and never truly unpacking.  You need clothes? Go to this box.  You need a plate?  Oh it's in that box over there.

In my life that has looked something like this....

Church?  Oh here's the outfit I wear for that.  

Work? Oh here's the attitude and talents I pull out for that.

Play?  Oh, Here the box I hide from everyone except a few people that will not judge me...

The boxes always remain separate and I run from place to place when I need something from one of them.  If you have church, work and play all in the same day, well than you wear yourself out juggling the boxes!

I find myself stopping lately and asking the question...

What if life is not supposed to be lived in the boxes?  

What happens if I start to believe the things that bring me great happiness are actually my way of meeting a deep hunger in the world around me?

When I start to ask those things I find myself volunteering for ReadUp at a local elementary school because of my deep love of books and reading.  Because I see books as the door to endless possibilities celebrating with students as they perfect this skill becomes a place God calls me to.

One of the things I have struggled with the most over the past few months is the sense of call I feel to the community we live in.  It is a call that becomes stronger each day.  It's become even stronger as fall days and evenings have allowed our family walks to resume.  As we walk I feel connected.  You should in the community you live in, right?

But I've felt torn...  I also go to church, meet up with our short circle (small group) and work on my volunteer plan for the church we attend and I feel connected.  Only this connection is to a community 30 minutes away from the place I call home.  In my world of boxes, I need to keep them separated.  I need to distinguish the two.  

I think my realization came this week as in posting a picture of my daughter on Instagram I found myself adapting the hashtag that gets used by our church, The Southeast Project or #wearesoutheast.  As we wandered through our town, I found myself thinking about the meaning that particular hashtag carries with it. 

We Are Southeast.  

It defines the church as not a set location, but a body of people.  This group of people happens to meet on the southeast side of Indianapolis.  They work hard to connect with their community.  They are teaching our family amazing things about what it means to connect in a meaningful way with your community.  What it means to be invested in a school, relationships and why you should always rock out to the music being played!  Because we are part of this and building our own relationship here #wearesoutheast.

As we wandered the streets of our town though, I found myself thing about the idea that while #wearesoutheast, we are also part of this community called Mooresville.  I thought about how being Southeast means that we have a relationship with the elementary school in the district that the church meets to worship.  It means crazy fun movie nights, Spring Flings and Easter Egg Hunts all on a community level.  It means being a part of the life cycle of the community.  

I found myself pondering the idea of #wearemooresville.   I honestly haven't been much for hashtags in the past, but something about having a 2 year old is bringing out a more playful side of me that I put away in one of those boxes a long time ago.  You can never truly love something you refuse to be part of.  As long as you hold yourself back you will not get hurt, but you will not live either.  

When you give your heart to something as C.S. Lewis so beautifully states:

 To love at all is to be vulnerable.  

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. 

As we walk around town I realize that 3 years ago as we became part of the community when we opted to go to the laundry mat to do our laundry.  I gave my heart to the community we call home.  I have had my heart broken as circumstances beyond our family's control meant God moved our place of worship 30 minutes away, out of the community I felt called to.

And then something beautiful happened...

I fell in love again.  I fell in love with the amazing, broken, messed up people just like me that make up #wearesoutheast.  

If our deep gladness is what God wants to use to speak to the world's deep hunger than God wants to use the things we love.  The things we give our hearts to, the things that bring us joy have a deeper, holier purpose than we let ourselves believe.  

The Southeast Project, the town of Mooresville, the Benedictine monastery I discovered this month, my ReadUp kids and even the coffee shop I love to visit so I can read in the corner are all things that I am realizing are places of deep gladness in my life.  These are the places that prepare me to best meet the world's deep hunger with my gifts, talents and strengths.  

So what do hashtags and boxes ultimately have to do with deep gladness?  

Well... I am discovering it is a deep gladness to be part of #wearesoutheast, but I'm also discovering that as my love for Southeast grows my love for this quirky little town called Mooresville grows with it.  Southeast gives me a tangible vision for what a life lived in community should look like.  As I learn and live out that vision with #wearesoutheast I find myself more and more believing that #wearemooresville is true.

So if you would like to follow our family's adventures on becoming #wearemooresville and #wearesoutheast they will make their way to Instagram!