Reflections on the Summer, Part 2: What I Learned About Church

          Today, as I began to reflect on the summer once again, I kept coming back to one night in particular. On our last off day in Wingate, NC, we spent the day by the pool relaxing. That night, a small group of us decided to eat in the cafeteria for dinner to save money. As we sat there eating, it began to pour. By the time we were ready to leave, water was rushing past us on either side. As some staffers ran back, Sara and I decided to walk through it. As we were walking, a calm draped over me. As the rain fell over us, so did a sense of worship. A few moments later, I began a prayer of Thanksgiving. How lucky we were to have the rain. How lucky we were to have one another. How lucky we were to even have a cafeteria to walk back from. Laughter and dancing soon took over as Sara and I enjoyed every step back to the dorm.

          Once we returned, we joined a few other staffers in a time of puddle jumping. As we jumped from one pile of water to another, I experienced something extraordinary. We were laughing, playing, jumping, and being rowdy. However, it seemed so much like worship. In fact, it felt more like worship than some Sunday mornings. With each stomp, I could feel the rain run across us, uniting us all. We were tied by the bonds of this water, by this time of enjoying God's creation together. 

          At Selah Vie, a reflection-filled retreat at the end of the summer, we were asked the question, "Where did you see Church/What did you learn about Church this summer?" As I sat there, I went over all of the beautiful moments we had this summer in worship and with churches. However, that night in Wingate kept rushing back to me. The more I sat there, the more I became frustrated. Suddenly, I realized why. 

          Why does the church so quickly miss the point of worship? When did we decide as Christians that worship only counted if it followed a specific model? Who decided that the kind of songs we sing and the need for a sermon at the end was more important than the sense of holiness that surrounds the moment?What I learned about Church this summer is how beautiful it is to be a part of a church that finds worship in everyday life. Although Sunday worship is crucial to any form of Life Together in a Christian community, so is time to play and get to know one another. What if getting to know one another, if playing together, also became conscious parts of our sense of worship? What if we took the time to define beautiful moments of our Life Together not my secular words, but instead by holy words? What if we defined every moment, every second of our lives, as worship? If we are constantly defining our time together as worship, something beautiful might happen. Everyday interactions will become moments that connect us to one another. Relationships will become deeper. Our love of people will become closer and closer to the love God has for each of us. By redefining worship, we are taking away the restricting box we tend to put church in, and instead letting that feeling of love and acceptance become our lives. How much more beautiful would life be if we all took away those boxes and just let love and acceptance flow? 

Reflections on the Summer, Part 1: A World of Understanding

          As my summer wraps up and I look forward to the adventure that is coming next, I have decided that there is no better way to spend my time than to prepare for the future while taking a moment each day to reflect on the past. This summer, I had the opportunity to serve Passport, Inc. as the Assistant Director of the Passport Kids East Team. As Assistant Director, I was in charge of several different areas of camp, but I mostly dealt with communications-- the AD serves as the catalyst of sorts between the adults at camp, the facilities we are using, the National Office, and the team as a whole. One part of my job each week was to do the money orders. With these orders, I got to see up close the dollars, quarters, and many pennies that campers brought with them to camp, only to give a portion of what they had to the people of Malawi. Chances are, these campers will never meet those they helped. Yet, that did not stop them from providing someone else with a better today, tomorrow, and future. 

          

          One week in particular stands out to me. The first session of camp, we served in Hartfield, Virginia at Camp Piankatank. In general, during this week of camp, we served with children of very different socioeconomic statuses than the children we served with the rest of the summer. There were several campers that were refugees, inner-city children, or from parts of the United States that were less fortunate economically. Being our first session and smallest session of camp, staffers were nervous, nothing was quite perfect yet, and some things just did not go as planned. However, in spite of our nerves and apprehensions, something beautiful happened that week. Everywhere you turned, you heard a camper talking about Watering Malawi. Campers that spent a good deal of their lives in refugee camps or moving from one country to another were talking about how they could help the children of Malawi get clean water, have better bathrooms, and be able to wash their hands. This spread throughout the camp. I watched camper after camper come into the store and make sure to buy items that benefited Watering Malawi. I saw them add up how much money they would have left to give to the offering if they bought one t-shirt instead of six other items. 

          That week, the mission offering was the most it was all summer per camper in attendance. It was not anything we did, nor was it anything other groups didn't do. After reflecting on it throughout the summer, I realized that it came from understanding. Refugee campers from Tanzania and Nepal referred to the people of Malawi as their brothers and sisters. By the end of the week, I saw more and more campers that have never been outside of the United States see the people of Malawi in the same way. They asked questions and wanted to know answers, not just facts or percentages. These campers knew what it was like to not have everything they needed. These campers got it in ways that others couldn't. 

          In that moment, I realized more than ever the importance of understanding. If we want others to become passionate about a cause, it will not come out of just stating the facts. It has to come out of a moment of walking in the other person's shoes. Extending grace, love, and hope arise from empathy, not sympathy. It is not enough to state the facts-- we have to show how it's personal.  It's our job to first understand ourselves, but we cannot stop there. We are called to serve as a catalyst for others to embrace the same understanding. We are called to be the bridge that connects those in need to those that can help. The most beautiful thing that the world has to offer us is the understanding that we are all united. Once that becomes our vision, we can create a world in which love abides.

Read Sara's post: A Blessed Journey: water is heavy...

Everyone should read my wonderful new friend (and staffer) Sara's blog entry below. She put it in better words than I ever could the power of three simple words: Water is heavy. 


A Blessed Journey: water is heavy...: As a disclaimer I just want to thank everybody for bearing with me as it has been a month and a half since I have traveled to the blogging w...

What I think about when I read...

Where do we encounter spiritual and ethical questions in our everyday life?

While on a retreat this winter, I reflected on the idea of spiritual and ethical questions that find their way into our everyday life. As I was on the Baptist Women in Ministry of Georgia retreat, there was a beautiful, spiritual presence throughout the weekend. However, it did make me aware of the question why. Why are retreats necessary if spirituality can be found in our everyday lives? When looking at the time I spent surrounded by other amazing women, I realized that retreats are not meant to just heighten a sense of spirituality. If they are done well, retreats are meant to remind us that it CAN be found in our everyday lives. There is nothing that happens on a retreat that I cannot do on a regular basis. Therefore, why not?
           Sometimes we just need a reminder of the importance of seeing our spirituality in everything we do. For me, faith is absolutely a practice—any practice requires practice, redundant or not. Therefore, why should we think faith and spirituality are things that we do not need to encounter every day? When I am reminded of this, I find myself seeing my spirituality in literally everything—my reading, other people, and the trees. Even the birds have something to say about spirituality. Retreats should not be mountain top experiences. Instead, they should prepare us to find spirituality in our everyday lives.

This idea reminded me of reading. For me, reading is absolutely a spiritual experience, regardless of the topic. The reader is becoming in tune with a part of them that is not always released. Their personal encounter with the book is shaping them intellectually or at times ethically. This is a form of spirituality. The reader is having an encounter that transforms who they are, a key to any spiritual event. As I mentioned in my previous journal entry, each book is like a part of our DNA. This DNA helps us to make decisions and live our lives. The same is true for spirituality.

When it comes to ethical questions, I feel as if they are always a part of my day to day experience. I tend to question the ethics of every choice that I make. Maybe this is because I had the teachings of logic drilled into me at an early age, along with logical fallacies. Either way, I try to think of ethical agendas before making any decision. This becomes drastically difficult whenever personal ethics conflict with the ethics of others. Following the idea of personal, non-communal ethics being based on personal values, this becomes even harder when two personal values seem to conflict with one another. What happens when two parts of yourself are at odds with one another? Which do you choose? An example of this is loyalty vs. honesty. If those are both values you hold dear to you, what happens when your honesty leads to not being loyal to a close friend? These situations seem to happen pretty regularly. For me, this is where personal ethics become a gray area-- the reason that life cannot be judged in black and white.

In my creative writing course, we had to write a bad story. As I read my way through the worst pieces of literature I have ever seen, I realized something. What was missing from these stories? Yes, they are all missing any form of logic or any meaning, but there was something more. They are all missing emotion. Emotion is vital to creating a relationship between the character and the reader. The character has to be vulnerable for the audience to feel a connection. Therefore, why would we expect something else in relationships between us and other people? Each of us has a “story” about every friendship, every family member, and every person in our life. When we look through those stories, are any of them bad? By “bad,” I don’t mean ended poorly—a relationship that ended in a devastating way had an impact on our lives. As much as you love someone is as much as you can be hurt. However, in hurt is where we find growth. So if that’s not the case, what makes a relationship “bad,” or not fully developed? Maybe we laid framework and then left them to build siding on their own. No matter how great a frame is, it’s only an outline. We need to build onto that frame to create something. No two pieces of wood will out stand harsh weather; however, a roof will do the job. Why then would be settle for a frame? Maybe it’s because it’s hard to get hurt that way. At the same time, we cannot expect to have relationships full of love if we leave them with just the basics. This question to me is directly related to ethics. 

Is it ethical to not put everything we have into the things we begin? Is it ethical to start something with no intention on finishing it? It reminds me of campaign speech promises; when you are running for office, would you promise to do something that you knew was impossible? Are we not doing the same thing when we start forming relationships that we know we cannot put effort into? If the difference is only in it being a relationship instead of a new vending machine or new legislation, should it not be more important ethically? There are questions that I think we should all look into. Who are we to the world if not the actions we are a part of and the relationships we have? Where is the integrity in that if we are not putting our best foot forward?

What Does it Mean to Serve?

What does it mean to serve is one question that seems simple, yet is extremely difficult to answer.
As I was filling out an application earlier today, the dreaded question appeared. I love serving, but I am not fully sure what that means. This is what I came up with:

What does it mean to serve?

Serving is based in love-- a love of self, humanity, and the world. To serve is to realize that the needs of the world are a part of your own needs and to live the good life also requires humanity to have the same. To serve is to understand that the world is a web of connections and that each decision we make can affect multiple others. To serve is to take the time, energy, and passion behind that understanding and use it to make the world one step closer to what it should be-- a place filled with a love and compassion that leads to true understanding.

This definition has changed each time I have typed it, but I think this is what I am going with. I would love to hear other people's ideas on this definition as well. :-)

After all, what is service without love and true understanding?

Quick Thoughts on Peace, Love, and Literature

There is something about literature that can bridge gaps, create catalysts, and build boats to get us from one side of thinking to the other. This is vital for any type of peace, love, or joy to occur. First, we must understand each other. Books can take us into a world where this is completely possible.

            Literature escapes reality. While reading, the physical world around you no longer exists (unless you are sitting completely uncomfortably). Instead, you are transported to a world of different possibilities with different rules and different regulations. With new rules and regulations also comes new freedoms and abilities. A lower-class, Caucasian Atheist and an upper-class, African American Christian can be united by the ability to enter the same world, if only temporarily. Both can join Harry Potter’s fight against Lord Voldemort or relish in the minds of each character Virginia Woolf created. Therefore, my question is this: How can we transfer this skill into another setting, a setting in which we use it to understand one another?

While reading, we can be anyone, whether that is a boy wizard fighting evil,  a courageous African American maid from decades past shedding light on the truth, or even a little girl who is transported to a new world through a wardrobe with her brothers and sister. If we can relate to a character enough, we can momentarily become them. Once we are attached to a character, we understand their thoughts, actions, and motivations. I find myself becoming easily attached to characters who have little parts of me inside them.

On the surface, Ginny Weasley in Harry Potter, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Katniss in The Hunger Games, and Skeeter in The Help have little in common. However, in me they all have something in common. I can relate to each of their stories because I can see parts of myself inside of them. Therefore, I can dig deeply into their thoughts. I want to hold on and find out something new about myself, and more times than not I do. 

Every person who reads has a web of characters like mine, and no two webs are completely the same. Therefore, all persons have insight into a different kind of thinking. If we would stop long enough to see this, we would see how easy it would be to do the same in "the real world". We should not have to be transported to a fictional place to be able to make peace happen—we can use the tool of reading to find parts of ourselves inside each person we meet. It is so much easier to understand another human being if we can see our similarities instead of our differences. With understanding comes a true caring that is so strong peace is bound to follow. If we treated people with the same respect we give to books, we could cause a revolution of love. 

New Year, New Beginning, New Mindset

      At first, I was unsure about the need to blog, and I am amazing at excuses. Clearly, homework is more important than blogging, along with reading, sleeping, and really anything else that doesn't end with me sharing my personal thoughts with other people. However, I am stuck in the Gainesville airport for at least three more hours, so I have no excuse. I always start a blog, yet I never finish or keep going. Maybe it is because I don't think I am witty enough to be sharing my thoughts on the internet, but I am pretty aware that God was extremely generous when giving me the gift of humor. It has more to do with my complete fear of committing to anything that does not have a 100% chance of coming up Tara, even something as simple as writing in a public space. In truth, the same can be said about goals that I set for myself. I always start them, and I even start them well. Yet once I realize they are attainable, the flame goes out and I move on. I don't even get upset about not finishing them-- I find a new dream as quickly as I found the last. Up until the last few months, I have been completely okay living like this. I have been able to explore parts of life that few ever touch, learn more about myself than I thought possible, and read at least the first twenty pages of hundreds of books most people will not open in a lifetime.
   
      However, if you only read the first twenty pages of Peter Pan (and live under a rock completely unpenetrated by Disney), it is a story about a perfectly rich, bratty family--with a dog-human as a nanny--that is held together by a submissive, and borderline robotic, mother. If that is what you get out of Peter Pan, you have clearly missed the point. It's probably because you stopped reading 200 pages too soon. You missed the magic that happens when that perfectly rich, bratty family is turned upside down by a boy in tights that refuses to grow up (I am a firm believer that Barrie imagined him in tights long before Walt did).
     
      If you don't finish the book, you miss the faith, trust, and pixie dust. Goals work the same way. Without seeing them through to the end, you miss the heart of why you had that goal in the first place. Finding the heart of the goal is what creates individual growth. You don't have to succeed; sometimes it is better if you fail. Instead, put faith, trust, and even some pixie dust into each and every goal, regardless of the foreseen outcome.

      With all of this in mind, my new goal is to view each goal with the same three ingredients that Peter Pan references when he breaks down flying for the Darling children. After all, who doesn't want to fly? I am not sure if there are rules about having a goal about goals (seems a bit redundant), but there it is, starting with this blog post.

So until the next time I gaze into the magic mirror (yes, the same one that says I am the loveliest of them all on days that I have not been on a plane since 4 AM), that's all I've got.

With faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust,
Tara