It's amazing how 4
days can fly by. They literally
just come and then go. It's a
blur.
4 days of running
circles around the hotel and conference room. 4 days of fine-tuning the lighting and AC. 4 days of adjusting and RE-adjusting
the earpiece on my walkie. 4 days
with my new best friends Mary, Christopher, Paul, Rona = the hotel reception staff and porters. 4 days of "Who the DARN has the car keys?!" 4 early morning. And 4 late nights.
All that to say,
overall I think it was a success. And heck. The dance off was
EPIC. Success enough in
itself.
It's taken me a few
weeks to recover and wrap up my final tasks. But otherwise, it's over. Amazing how you can work towards something for 6 months ...
and then it's done. Complete.
But looking back, I
know that there were things that came out of the Awakening that will last and
bear fruit. And ultimately, I
guess that was the goal. Anyone
can throw together a bunch of hotel rooms, some music and speakers and call it
a conference.
I prayed a few months
back that the Awakening would be a vessel. That I would be a vessel. For the Lord to use and work through. That in the long run, those 4 days
would mean something.
As
much as I wasn't a "participant" of the Awakening, I know that the Lord was
present and powerful in Ireland. I
saw him. I heard him. I felt him in the love and presence of
those I was with.
Christ reminded me
all over again why I'm in this thing. Because I'm loved. And I
can't stay away.
"You can't stay away when
LOVE starts singing ... You can't stay away when LOVE starts ringing."
Registration is closed. The hotel
booking is complete. The shirts
have been ordered. The programs
have been designed. The AV Tech
has been hired. Transport is all
but finalized.
Hmmm ...
why do I feel like a million things will still come up between now and August
30th?! Ha.
Clearly I
haven't even had time to blog about my life lately. But for those who don't know (and are still reading -
*wink), I am essentially THE Event Coordinator for a 400+ person event
in Ireland at the end of the month.I've been working since March to put together the World Race's 2nd Annual Awakening worship conference. It is the one time of the year that ALL current World Racers are in the same location at the SAME time - 5 squads and
almost 300 Racers!!! Crazy!
So - needless
to say - it's been a lot of work.But I am to the point finally that I'm honestly excited to see how it
all comes together. This is the
first large-scale event that I've coordinated since my glory days as Student
Body President in high school. Something
tells me this is a BIT different than preparing for the school dance and
blowing up 1,000s of balloons for the massive homecoming decorative tree. :) But at the same time, I'm in my element. I love the details. I love the excitement and being able to
work with so many different people.And I LOVE what it's ultimately about.
4 days
for Racers to sit. And be
still. And pray and seek. And be poured into. And just be with one another. And play. And sing. And
dance. And love. And ... so much more.
I
am still in need of $2,000 for this project. I am 100% support funded and would love to raise this BEFORE
I head to Ireland. It would be one
small detail I could check off my absurdly long list of "Things To Do" :)
If you'd
be interested in supporting me - you can click on the link to the left. And as always, prayers would be
appreciated:
That the Awakening would be
meaningful for all participants - that our time together
would be powerful and impactful
That I would be able to ENJOY
my time with my WR family on top of all my responsibilities
That options would
materialize in my post-Awakening job search! :)
And ultimately, that I would
remember that the Lord is my strength and provider - that all of
THIS is only
going to happen by his hand and grace! Ahhhh!
Thanks
and I'd love to hear from you!Blessings. Michelle
Everyone is too busy all the time. We have become a nation of multi-taskers. By definition, multi-tasking means the mind is divided and not fully focused on any one event. A very simple definition of mindfulness is doing one thing at a time. If we are planting some turnips, we are doing it properly. If we are reading to a child, that is all we are doing.
I have a long history of doing two or three or seventeen things at once. I am cooking, but planning my next road trip. I am talking on the phone, but wondering if I have a can of tuna handy for lunch. I am bird-watching, but worrying if I have offended someone. I am walking, but even as I smell the French lilacs in the air and notice the heron on the lake, I am thinking of presidential politics. Yet slowly I am discovering that life is best when I am one place at a time; that is to say that when I am cooking, I am cooking. Well, okay, maybe stirring and listening to the radio, but I am not planning a Father's Day party for the extended family. Sometimes inhabiting the moment is simple indeed. We hear Louis Armstrong or Chopin on the radio. We taste our lover's kisses, the pomegranate juice or the salt air. We smell the sage or the jasmine blossom.
Because children live in the present, we can join them in fresh experiences. Until they are educated away from living in the moment, that is their natural place. Just recently, I drove my grandchildren to the Ozarks for a family reunion. Eating a chocolate doughnut at our Days Inn and thinking about swimming with her newfound cousins, three-year-old Claire said, "My heart is snuggling inside me." Then she realized this didn't quite express what she was experiencing in her chest. She said, "My heart feels very big right now." Her life was not so complicated that she couldn't recognize the physical sensations of joy....
To create moments in our daily lives, we must have a new set of skills for making magic out of the ordinary. The more moments we find, the more we learn to find them.
I initially read Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott while I was on the World Race in 2007. I remember flying through it on a mattress on the floor of our church in Belen, Costa Rica. ha.
It's safe to say that I also love Anne. And I already feel like we're friends. And I want to be THAT authentic about my faith. Not just how I live it .... but how I TALK about it too. Give me the gritty, raw stuff.
So .... here goes. My faves. Sorry it's so long - I liked a LOT of them. :)
"My coming to faith did not start with a leap ... but rather a series of staggers."
"Only grieving can heal grief ... I'm pretty sure that it is only by experiencing that ocean of sadness in a naked and immediate way that we come to be healed - which is to say, that we come to experience life."
"I understand just enough about life to understand that I do not understand much of anything."
"Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure." -Rumi
"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." -hahahaha. so true.
"We in our faith work - stumble along toward where we think we're supposed to go, bumbling along, and here is what's so amazing - we end up getting exactly where we're supposed to be."
"Nietzsche said that he could only believe in a God who would dance, and I feel the same way." -me too. :)
"The world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less okay for now need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes. You sit with people, you bring them juice and crackers."
"Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says 'Well, isn't that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that woman over there some water, and I'll figure out what we're going to do about your stuff." :)
"The road to enlightenment is long and difficult ... and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines."
"Grace is having a commitment to - or at least an acceptance of - being ineffective and foolish."
"I think I already understand about life = pretty good, some problems." -Sam Lamott @ age 7
"I believe that when all is said and done, all you can do is show up for someone in crisis, which seems so inadequate. But then when you do, it can radically change everything. Your there-ness ... can be live-giving. So you come to keep them company when it feels like the whole world is falling apart and your being there says that just for this moment, this one tiny piece of the world is okay, or at least better."
" ... a person being herself is beautiful - that contentment and acceptance and freedom are beautiful."
"Ugliness is creeping around in fear."
"It's what we DO in families: we help, because we were helped."
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." -Rumi ..... I also think me and Rumi would have been good friends.
"Because Christianity is ABOUT water: 'Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.' It's about baptism, for God's sake. It's about full immersion, about falling into something elemental and wet. Most of what we do in worldly life is geared toward our staying dry, looking good, not going under.But in baptism, in lakes and rain and tanks and founts, you agree to do something that's a little sloppy because at the same time it's also holy and absurd. It's about SURRENDER, giving in to all those things we can't control; it's a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched."
"This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we're most sure that love can't conquer all, it seems to anyway. It goes down into the rathole with us, in the guise of our friends and there is swells and comforts. It gives us our 2nd winds, 3rd winds, hundredth winds.
Mark your calendars.
August 30 - September 2, 2010
We'll give you three hints and only ONE guess as to where we are headed...
Hint #1 - you might see rainbows with pots of gold.
Hint #2 - there will be little green men - or at least we're told.
Hint #3 - it's the birthplace of Guinness - the beer of old!
IRELAND.
Yes. Believe it.
And... if you come, you might just be able to worship to the musical stylings of... JONATHAN DAVID HELSER.
The Awakening is a Prophetic Worship Experience & World Race Alumni reunion.
We're planning for over 500 in attendance at this year's event - current World Race squads, World Race Alumni, and friends & family of Alumni are all invited!
Check out www.theworldrace.org/awakening for more information and to begin planning!
More details to come. Stay tuned and spread the word!
It was the last week, and Jesus had been talking about the revolution and so forth, and his disciples were all excited. And they were wondering whether they were going to have a press conference, take over the airport and the telephone exchange, and there was excitement in the air. Perhaps the revolution was about to burst out immediately with overwhelming force. And to answer that kind of thinking, Jesus told the parable of the talents.
I've heard so many sermons preached on this idea, "Give your talents to the Lord." They got that thing backwards. The Lord gives his talents to US. A talent is not some skill. We go around saying, "He's a great athlete. He should consecrate his talent to the Lord. She's a great organist. She should be an organist for the Lord." But this isn't what Jesus is saying.
What are these talents? It's his ideas, his concepts, his teachings. He leaves them to his followers. All these three years he has been "talenting" them. Now he's saying, "You want me to come in here and pull some angels out of the sky and set up a revolution? Oh, no. I've been giving you, over all these months together, the currency of the kingdom, and if it comes, it's gonna come by your doin' business with what I've turned over to you."
Source: Cotton Patch Parables of Liberation by Clarence Jordan
"... it has not yet been revealed what we shall be ..."
(1 John 3:2 )
Our natural inclination is to be so precise-trying always to forecast
accurately what will happen next-that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing.
We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature
of the spiritual life. The nature of the
spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty. Consequently, we
do not put down roots. Our common sense says, "Well, what if I were in that
circumstance?" We cannot presume to see ourselves in any circumstance in which
we have never been.
Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark
of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all
our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with
a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We
are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we
abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins
to fill our lives with surprises.
When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a
particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God-it
is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, "... unless you ...
become as little children ..." (Matthew 18:3 ). The spiritual life is the life of
a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do
next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of
self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that
our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right
relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and
expectancy. Jesus said, "... believe also in Me" (John 14:1 ), not, "Believe
certain things about Me".
Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously
and graciously uncertain how He will come in-but you can be certain that He
will come. Remain faithful to Him. -My Utmost for His Highest-
Bizarre when
you find God in the strangest of places.
In college we often
discussed the concept of truth. And the idea that "All truth is God's truth - wherever it might
be found." The quote is most
recently attributed to author Arthur Holmes, although there is evidence that
dates the concept back to the early church and Clement of Alexandria as its
source.
So - before you
judge me for reading Twilight (and
liking it) .... Hear me out.
This is the
quote I ran into (or that God slammed into me) while finishing up the last book
in the series, Breaking Dawn.
...
I had not been born to kneel to him.
The
bonds fell off my body the second that I embraced my birthright.
Did anyone else just get chills, or was
that just me?!??
I don't really
need to take you down the Twilight
trail - but these lines come out of a realization of SONSHIP. And AUTHORITY. The character, Jacob, finally decides to claim
what his rightfully his - his birthright.
Come on Church! Is that good or is that good?
Where was the
craziest place you've seen God lately?
There have
been a lot of tears lately. My heart is
a mess.
I have
purposely placed myself in a city that values everything that I hate. I knew it walking in. The Lord was very clear to point out how difficult
it was going to be.
But yet over
and over again I'm surprised by how hard
it has been.
After all,
it's tough to tell a perspective employer that you don't really care about building
your "career." Or that your resume has
about a year and a half gap in it because you were on a "missions" trip. Or that the only real direction in your life
is the Sprit's day to day leading.
Let alone all that talk of "Kingdom."
It just
doesn't translate.
In a city
of plans and goals and promotions and ladders and networking and busyness ...... there's a girl who just wants to retain a
bit of her identity and sanity.
It's a
battle every day to claim the truth. That I am chosen and loved. That I
have value far greater than what my "title" offers. That I serve something and someone far better
than self-interest or wealth or pride or gain.
I know that
I am not OF this world or this Kingdom - but it's still hard
while you're IN it.
The new
year. It almost came and went. I was sick and practically in a drug/medical
induced coma. And to enter back into
work/normal life this past week was hard. "Hard" hardly seems the right word.
I knew
somehow on Sunday that I needed to not lose the "monument" that was New
Years. I had barely recognized it. But there's something in reflecting on the
old year and looking into the new year that gives structure .... or a bit of formatting. At least for me. A framework around these small days - that
add up into our lives.
For
whatever reasons, I knew I needed to specifically make time in my life, just
this week at the start of the year, to let the Lord speak. A fast
was in order. But immediately I also
knew it wouldn't just be a regular fast. Let's be honest - right now meals in my life consist of grilled cheeses
and cereal. The budget just doesn't
allow for much. Cutting them for a time
of prayer didn't seem to be that much of a sacrifice. Ha. And
to be real - I knew that when it came down to it, there was something else in
my life that consumed much more of me
and my time.
I always
scoffed at the fasting of "technology." Really people? You can't NOT check email for 7 days?
I officially
retract every opinion and quick judgment I EVER made. :)
No email -
no Facebook - no Google Reader - no constant stream of WR blog subscriptions to
keep up with (I love you people, but you blog SOOOO much!) All of it gone for one week - with the added
element of prayer in its place.
I wish I could
tell you that it's been an enlightening adventure .... That days without email
and the distraction of social media has simplified my life - that I've
experienced peace and serenity in
deeper and newer ways - that I've come out of with the vow to use snail mail
and call old friends.
Mainly I miss
email. And feel really behind. And just want to update my Facebook status.
We are
wired. It is, I believe, a very REAL
part of who we are. Good? Bad? Neither. It is the way it is. I will say though that it's been just as hard,
if not harder, as a regular fast. And in
the same way - the Lord HAS spoken.
The "Ah-Ha"
moment came when my fingers were literally twitching to tap my Gmail
iPhone icon. After the recent purchase
of the (amazing, life changing, no-I'm-not-an-Apple-lover-I-just-think-it's-a-great-phone)
device, the world wide web is LITERALLY at my fingertips. Anytime and anywhere. And in that moment, I heard my own voice
protest rather pathetically in the back of my head ...
"but it's
my go-to."
It took
about 2.5 to realize what I had just said. It was my go-to. I'm sitting there, nothing to do. And the normal thing would be to grab my
laptop and check email. Or click to
Facebook and check my Newsfeed. Or go
surf the WR blogs. It's just what I do. It's just what we do.
I know this
is not a new or brilliant revelation - I think we all know very well just how much time we waste on these things .... but it
just hit me pretty hard. To realize that
I have a "go-to." And it's not in the
least practical or productive or uplifting or meaningful. It's just filler. And it really
is my go-to.
How many
hours do we forfeit in our boredom? All the
while claiming we need direction and wisdom from the Lord? And proclaiming that we hardly have any time
to spare in our busy, stressful lives? I'll
speak for myself here, but I've seen quite clearly that the 2 minutes here and
the 10 minutes there really add up. Positively. Or negatively.
Granted, I don't
think I can substitute ALL of my email time for prayer time in a normal life ....
But moving from this fasting week, it's only a small hope that I can remember
this experience. That perhaps a bit of
that mindless filler time would more and more regularly be committed to prayer
and seeking His presence.
-----------------------
(luckily,
that is not a screenshot of my gmail account. upon first checking today,
i'm thankful to say it was only at 118. probably a record for me, but
much better than 994.)
