I am writing 31 fighting scarcity. I will be collecting them all at the starting point. I hope you join me this month. 

Speech team was a major part of my college career. A major part. Like art majors spend all day in the art studio, hang out with the other hyper creative types and the creative writing majors all smoke cigarettes outside the english building, I spent hours in the top floor of the communication department and all weekends with the team, even if we weren’t traveling to a tournament.

I am back at my college and judging now. I am the old stodgy person wondering why everyone is doing the events WRONG!

WRONG. It is really really easy to change, or have something change and decide that either the new or the old. must. be. wrong. I have changed a lot since college. I mean I hope I have. If you get from 22 to 30 without your thoughts evolving on something I am not sure you are paying attention.

And here I am, on my old stomping grounds, remembering. Remembering when I was in this coffee shop and taking classes in this building. Even just watching the generic white vans from all the speech teams across the midwest pull into the parking lot is taking me back,

Part of me is cringing, embarrassed by the way I used to think so clearly and strongly on nuanced subjects. How things were RIGHT and WRONG. And a part of me is wistful for the way it was so easy, how I didn’t hem and haw and say “it depends” when people ask me about what I think. I am embarrassed by how I wasn’t a very good listener.

Scarcity is telling me that I can’t like both of us. I can’t have affection for the girl I once was and be proud of the person I have become. But, as we are learning this month, scarcity is a liar. I don’t have to be embarrassed about the way I used to think or the things I used to say.

I had to be her to get to who I am now.

Abundance allows me to honor the people and places I used to be. Abundance says everyone does the best we can with what we have, and being different now doesn’t mean we can’t honor where we were, and that we were also doing the best we could when we were that person.

Abundance says that the Holy Spirit changes with the wind, and there is a lot of room for everyone to grow and change, without being embarrassed that they had to.

I can’t really pinpoint the moment I met Meredith on the internet. But I am glad I did. This is not the first time I have been very impressed with her writing. It certainly won’t be the last. Meredith is on my writers to watch list for sure. I didn’t plan it, or tell her, but I think this peice captivates scarcity thinking and the freedom of abundance perfectly. Consider this day 9 of my 31 days of scarcity.

The Kingdom of God is like a Line with No Order

A line curved out the door of my church and wrapped around the block. I hadn’t intended to stop at the church, but driving past this event, I found myself pulling over and parking on the side of the road. Frankly, I had never seen this many people here ever. Not even the Sunday my pastor preached a sermon from the roof (a story for another day). 

A few women pulled blue coolers and children along with them as the line inched forward, leading to something through the double red doors of the church; people were piling into God’s house. The June day paraded around like one in mid August, cloaked in heavy, humid air. The voices and sounds outside the church layered on top of one another, the sounds of caps popping off bottles joining low resonant voices, all punctuated by the high squeals of children’s laughter. Sweaty in my car, I watched out of suburban curiosity of the unknown, watching the citizens of the line.

I could not tell where one family started and another family ended, or which children belonged to which adults.  Kids wove in, around, and through the line, running and taunting one another, while the parents watched them together. A sign stuck in the church lawn announced the presence of the Mexican consulate helping with “los pasaportes.”

The body language of those waiting in front of our white-steepled church gave no tell of the stakes of the line, of what hung in the balance on this summer afternoon. I thought of the lines I had waited in at movie premiers or the Gap with crossed arms, policing my surroundings for budgers and those with over-complicated questions and demands taking more than their fair share.

I watched a boy being chased through the churchyard, his head not reaching the waist of most of the adults around him. Then, looking over his shoulder as he tried to escape, he ran right into an elderly man’s legs. At first the boy backed away, his eyes darkening with concern, but the man put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and just laughed, a full throated, head thrown back laugh, making the boy ease into a giggle too, which quickly assuaged the kid’s concerned mother who had come to fetch him. The man picked up the boy and began to talk with the mother, inviting her into his spot, earlier up in the line.

My peers taught me from an early age that lines are about status. I have memories of my kindergarten classroom, waiting in line to receive a waxy Dixieland cup full of lukewarm water and a hand-full of Teddy Grahams. I peered over the shoulders in front of me to make sure Mrs. Cummings had enough for me, counting back to see where I fit in the line, losing track somewhere around ten. I oversaw the portions given to each of my classmates, no longer friends, but competitors making the level of Teddy Grahams go down, down, down in the plastic canister.

The woman with the small boy had made it to the red doors now, and she hadn’t moved back to her place in line yet. I worried that someone would embarrass her or ask her to move, the way I’ve seen old men do at Starbucks and deli counters. If they don’t shout it, they mumble to their party or whoever will listen, “Do you see this person cutting in front of me?”  Lines are full of the implied rules of justice and fairness, and we patrol those around us to uphold these laws. We make sure no one takes what is not rightfully theirs or, more importantly, rightfully ours.

___

It’s not just a problem of our capitalist society. The disciples worried about their spot in line too. Instead of watching their Jesus, who turned lines and hierarchy inside out, who washed their feet and insisted those late to work in the vineyard would be given the same pay, they worried about where their seating assignment in the heavenly realms would be.  

The line in front of my church did not stratify those gathered, but instead unified them. After all, people in line with you often want the same things. In that line, the order didn’t seem to matter as much as simply being there.  I often ignore this commonality in lines and stare at my shoes rather than connecting with those around me.

It reminds me of the stories I love about Jesus, the way he ignored the politics of lines and legalism of the pharisees and noticed the woman who grabbed his cloak, the man who asked for healing on the sabbath, and another who was lowered through a rooftop by his friends. He told the children to come unto him and noticed a snively little tax collector who climbed a tree, telling him he’d come over to his house for dinner.

The kingdom of God is like this, a line with no rules, a line that offends the righteous, those who’ve been in line for a while doing the right thing.

—

  I saw a man leave through the side door of the church. He held the hand of his son in one hand, and in the other, a packet of papers. His wife laughed, holding her pregnant belly. A couple of people clapped for them as they walked past. Sitting in my car, I smiled too, wanting to join the people, to get in line and walk away new or different, not by getting but by waiting together in the middle of it all.

Though at the time I gawked out of curiosity, the image still stays with me, deepening and fermenting to explain something I believe in my gut. It’s the kind of story I want to tell my kids instead of the fable of the grasshopper and the ant or the tale of the little red hen. I want them to see that to live out grace we must at times discard the vocabulary of “deserving” and “bootstrap-pulling” and instead usher the later-comers to the front of the line, sharing in the community of reaching towards the same desire. This. The kingdom of heaven is like this.

Meredith (Vosburg) Bazzoli is a writer and comedian living in the Chicagoland area. Meredith loves hearing and recording other’s stories, finding glimmers in the mundane,  exploring and collaborating creatively, making good food, and seeking what it means to love and follow Christ in the everyday. She writes about living the revealed life on this blog and performs at the iO and Playground theaters in Chicago. Meredith is married to Drew, a web designer and 6’4″ man with the self-described physique of a tube sock. Connect with her onInstagram and Twitter! And check out her blog.

I am writing 31 fighting scarcity. I will be collecting them all at the starting point. I hope you join me this month. 

This past weekend I went to the Story conference. While I loved the city, (Nashville, let’s hang out okay?) and I loved my company, I was a little bit underwhelmed by the conference (maybe a little bit more than a little bit). The bright spot for me was the opportunity to meet Seth Haines (you can get his tiny letter here) and buy a copy of his book. Apparently it doesn’t come out until October 27th.

In it Seth talks about sobriety, but also he speaks of healing. In fact this is the first place that I have read about healing in a way that honors the mystery of it all. And it felt like water in the desert, like a window opening, like pulling into your driveway. YES! Me too. I get it and I was finally more home on this earth with Seth’s witness right there for me to read. Me too. It was wonderful. It is wonderful. Buy the book.

It has taken me a long way to get here. Just a few months ago it would have crushed me that Seth wrote this thing that is just so true. I mean, I am thinking about a book about healing and if Seth and I think the same thing, and he got there first, then I am going to lose out. His witness to the Good news to the masses is actually bad news for me.

Y’all, scarcity is just such a LIAR. It is just a terrible LIE that because one person said it in their own beautiful way that I can’t say it too. Imagine, imagine if Luke or John had said, welp between Matthew and Mark, the life of Jesus is covered. Imagine if Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou were pitted against each other, told there was only enough room for one of them. Imagine. Just imagine. This is the dumbest thing I have ever almost thought, that just because someone else is saying something I shouldn’t say it either. I was almost a complete moron.

There is absolutely enough room for my voice, especially if it is something God places on my heart, especially if I feel called to say it. The fact that someone else is saying it only proves the point. This thing that God is doing is too important to just have one mouth piece. Everyone should join the chorus. There are an abundance of voices and stories, and mine is one.

I am writing 31 fighting scarcity. I will be collecting them all at the starting point. I hope you join me this month. 

There is this word on the internet. Basic. It describes mostly white girls and my teenage students are terrified of being it. Autumn seems to be the most loved season of the teenage white girl. I love autumn too. I always have. I mean, HELLO BIRTHDAY MONTH! I don’t love being hot, and I don’t love being cold so Autumn suits me well. I love apple picking and pumpkin patching. I love apple cider. I love fresh doughnuts. I love Halloween and I love Thanksgiving ESPECIALLY if I get to cook.

Some of these traits are being described as “basic” a sort of short hand for “All other white girls like that so you are a little bit boring and a little bit a joke for also loving those things?” Other things described as basic: Scarves, love of Starbucks, UGG boots, all other boots, brunch, coordinating Halloween costumes, anything Pumpkin Spice, expressing love for the changing leaves, liking s’more or bonfires, low pony tails. All of these things apparently fall under the category “basic” and should therefore be avoided. I only know because I Googled it. Pretty soon Googling will be basic too.

If scarves are basic, then I guess me and my cozy neck are that.

Y’all! This is ridiculous, first of all if you don’t like brunch or bonfires, or scarves, or s’mores or boots then what is there even to like in this world? I mean WHO DOESN’T LOVE BRUNCH?

But also, it is really hurting my students, and some younger friends of mine. They are afraid that if everyone else likes it, they shouldn’t like it too. But accusing someone of being basic, or fearing it yourself is just another way that scarcity gets to us. To all of us.

Just because you like the same things as someone else does not make you totally unique. My girls show me this most often. They both love pink, and Wild Kratts and dancing and waffles with syrup. They both love each other more than anything and bossing around our dog. They both love apple picking and boots and coordinating halloween costumes. But they are perfectly unique because THEY ARE. They just are.

Scarcity tells us that if someone else has all of our things, it makes us less us. It makes us less special, it makes us more boring. This is just a giant lie. NO ONE CAN TAKE YOUR YOU-NESS FROM YOU! It is literally impossible. Scarcity tells you that your own being is something that needs to be protected and secured.

What a load of crap.

Abundance says it doesn’t matter how many other things you have alike with a person, you are beautifully and wonderfully made and no one, NO ONE can steal your you-ness from you. Being basic isn’t possible, because you are a person.

Some of this stuff I am often reminded about by my friend Nicole who is also doing 31 days. Go see.) 

I am writing 31 fighting scarcity. I will be collecting them all at the starting point. I hope you join me this month. 

I almost quit this whole write 31 days thing yesterday. I started really strong by scheduling 3 of my posts and being aware that I was not going to blog in Nashville with my two awesome internet friends. (Dear 22 year old Abby, surround yourself with strong ladies, find them, meet them, hang out with them as often as you can. They are like growth hormones for your soul.) I had planned on coming home Saturday and cleaning up and then having Sunday to write. But I blew a tire on Saturday and got home for bedtime. Then I spent Sunday doing the “what exactly smells” kind of deep cleaning. Is there anything that makes us clean up a home faster than a funk? Not for me.

So I didn’t have a chance to set this whole shebang up like I wanted. So I am almost through in the towel. There are a million things I haven’t done because I couldn’t do them perfectly. I didn’t want to write until I was really good at it. But I wasn’t. For a long time I was just okay. (Please don’t look through my archives.) I didn’t want to start a manuscript until I had the perfect time for it. I don’t want to go on family vacation until I have the perfect vacation. I don’t want to have people over, I want to throw the perfect dinner party.

Scarcity tells me that if I am not going to do it this one right way (that I actually made up in my head) than I shouldn’t do it at all. There is only one right way to do it, so I may as well give up now because I am doing it wrong.

But abundance invites me to put away the perfection. It says, there are lots of right ways to write, to parent, to have community, to live well. The only thing I signed up for when I signed up to write for 31 days was to post something on my blog for 31 days. And I almost quit before I started because I didn’t have a fancy button (thank you Caris for hooking a friend up.) I thought I had to do this well organized, pinnable, perfectly in order to do it. But I can do it any way and still do it well. Abundance says, you are invited to do the thing, your well AND you are invited to call it good.

It is day five and I am still in this thing. I should have known that the second I decided to fight scarcity, scarcity would call to me. Not this time. You don’t win today.

I am writing 31 fighting scarcity. I will be collecting them all at the starting point. I hope you join me this month. 

I didn’t think I was the artist today at church. I don’t quite know what happened, but I had enough of an inkling that it still might be my turn to tuck my crochet hook into my purse and bring along a pair of scissors. (I am becoming one of those weird crafters with accidental weapons constantly in her purse.) But I thought I was done because I had run otu of fabric. I had been asking for donations of old t-shirts and stained sheets. I had been working them together to form something new as my pastors spoke about water into wine and healing of the dead. The miracles of the gospel of John. Today was loaves and fishes.

And the artists (mostly me) had about as much fabric as Jesus had food. That is to say, none. We had none. But one of the women brought me a sheet that had been in the donation bin for the community closet. It was a deep grey, like the sky has been for the past two weeks. It provided a perfect frame for the scattered colors in the works of the week before, and much like the passage being preached upon, after we were finished there was enough left over for me to cut strips for my next rug. There was enough, there was an abundance.

Near the end of the sermon, an interpretation of this miracle I had never heard before was mentioned. That while traditionally this passage is seen as a miracle, that Jesus created an abundance from a small offering, others say that the humble offering this boy gave inspired everyone else in the crowd to empty their pockets as well, and the food that appeared was just what was available when everyone shared and shared alike.

Normally I don’t go in for the explanations of coincedence to explain away miracles, but I am somehow attracted to this version. I like the idea that the abundance is available, ready and waiting to be inspired.

At the end of the service someone dropped a bag of fabric next to me, and in the back I found another bag of t-shirts that were intended for me (don’t worry, they are going to good use). I maybe would have seen them earlier but instead I found what I was looking for. Nothing.

When we train our eyes to look for the things we are sure we need, we limit our sight. When everyone is sure there is not enough, the abundance of generosity is impossible. But when we trust in abundance our eyes are open to all the ways we are already being provided for, our eyes are open to all the possibilities and our hearts are open to more giving.

Scarcity says: I will take and keep what is MINE because I need it.

Abundance says: This is enough, I have enough to share.

am writing 31 fighting scarcity. I will be collecting them all at the starting point. I hope you join me this month. 

Almost all of my negative emotions initially come out as anger. I loose something precious to me? I yell before I cry. I am at a loss at what to do about a relationship I care deeply about? I start using the f-word in all kinds of situations that have nothing to do with that relationship. I am lonely? I get generally irritated at my student’s (and my children’s) inability to listen to my directions. I am scared? I get mad about the traffic.

I know how to navigate anger. Anger feels safer to me than grief, hopelessness, loneliness, fear. I know what to do about anger. I know how to yell and be sarcastic. Anger I can handle.

I fear other emotions because I am afraid they will over take me. I am afraid that grief or loss or loniness, that I will get stuck feeling those somehow. That I won’t ever feel anything else again. So instead, I get angry. It feels safer.

Somehow, scarcity has told me that I am only allowed to feel so many things, that I am only allowed to feel so many things about a particular thing. If I am sad it is over I can’t be grateful it happened. If I am overwhelmed by the opportunity I can’t be happy about it. If I am jealous of someone’s opportunity I can’t be thrilled for them.

Y’all. That right there is a LIE from the PIT. THERE IS NOT SUCH THING AS A SCARCITY OF FEELINGS!

Abundance says FEEL ALL THE FEELS! You are allowed to feel all of the feelings. Feelings are complicated and if you are feeling jealous that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to feel anything else. Deep sorrow does not negate deep joy. In fact, I am pretty sure it invites it. You are absolutely one hundred percent allowed to feel whatever it is you are feeling, and when you get to the end of it you are allowed to feel whatever is next.

Scarcity of feelings isn’t real. There are so many feelings, and this life is so mixed up and complicated. Feel whatever it is you need to feel. That is the only way to abundance.

Today I get to bring you the word of Idelette MicVicker. Y’all when I say she is the REAL DEAL, I mean she is the real deal. When she says she wants a sisterhood, she means that. When she says everyone is in, she means that. When she says she wants to live in a better world she means that. Then she works her butt off to make it happen and get it done, and the most amazing thing is she does it humbly and totally self aware. I LOVE SheLoves magazine, a space she has created that is just beautiful, and I love that it totally reflects her amazing heart. I love this particular piece because I resonate so deeply with it, and because I think you will too.

The Kingdom of God is like a Driver

By Idelette McVicker

We need dreamers and we need drivers.

These days, I do a bit more driving than dreaming.

I get to sit behind the wheel of our sexy silver minivan for several hours a day, several days a week, driving kids and friends and students to where they want and need to go.

I pick up our student from her hip-hop class. I drive Gabi to her basketball practice. Telah gets a ride to soccer practices and Shay and I drive to hockey on Sundays where I get to lace up skates and sit on a cold bench for an hour.

We have three kids, one international student and a full life. I wouldn’t have it any other way. We sit down for meals at a real table mostly every night. But we also drive a lot.

As a family, we have officially entered what is known as The Driving Season. My kids are old enough, so they participate in sports, but not quite old enough to get there on their own, so I get to drive them where they need to be.

At first, I resisted this new season, wanting to guard our home time like a dragon Mama. And then, one Tuesday morning, I drove a young friend to her new residential treatment program. She was excited, but mostly nervous to start the program. A dear friend who had also gone through the program was sitting next to me in the passenger seat, helping to talk her through her fears.

Suddenly, around 9am on an ordinary Tuesday, we entered into holy time.

Sitting in that minivan, I realized driving this one girl to this appointment and the start of a new season in her life, was the most important thing I could do in that moment. On many days, driving may seem mundane and without much purpose, but on that day the Kingdom of God broke through somewhere between the steering wheel and my bum on the driver’s seat.

I was participating in the work of Freedom. I was participating in the work of Purpose. I, too, was participating in the work of Restoration.

I may not be the one doing the work, getting the healing, being restored, but my participation in her story, is glorious in the Kingdom of God.

This kind of invisible service? Jesus sees it.

A few days earlier, I drove a friend to a meeting with a brother she hadn’t seen in eight years. This meeting was her attempt to connect, cross a dilapidated bridge and restore a relationship.

I got to be the driver.

We drove 502 kilometers on that day, so she could go see her brother. I was on the sidelines all day. I was not the main player in the story. But I got to watch the rekindling of an important relationship.

That’s when I knew: These wheels turn for reconciliation and restoration. These tires burn for healthy hearts and strong souls. This body will sit and stay and carry the ones who need to walk into the future.

My life cannot be about my own life alone.

Driving is investing straight into the future.

Driving is saying, “You’re welcome!” to the generations to come.

Driving is laying down our own lives on behalf of others.

It’s not martyrdom. It’s not the only thing. Seen through the right eyes, driving others to their future is a beautiful participation in the Kingdom of God.

These are not about my dreams. These are about my kids’ dreams for the future, my friend’s desire for family, a young girl’s hope for freedom.

I am reminded of the story of the friends who carried their friend on a mat towards Jesus. They lowered him from the roof and basically insisted on his healing. Their commitment and tenacity became part of his freedom story.

I like that idea of insistence. Showing up for driver’s duty can become like a prayer—an insistence— cutting away brush and making Way for another’s future.

There was a season in life when everything revolved around me. It was all about my dreams, my hopes, my vision of the future. It was all about what I wanted for dinner, where I wanted to go, what I wanted to choose.

I still carry my preferences and hopes and dreams in this body and heart. But I can see now how the Kingdom of God is like pulling up the minivan and throwing open the doors and filling up the seats, so we may travel together to something greater than our own one life. We get to multiply. We get to carry the ones who come along into the future they hope for. We get to love others, the way we would like to be loved.

Driving is tiring. Sometimes it feels like there’s no accomplishment.

Driving Gabi to her basketball game isn’t nearly as fulfilling as being the one out on the court, making a good play, scoring a basket. The glory lies only in the other.

But I see how this is also good. This sitting on the sidelines and investing into the future of another, is also beautiful.

I am deeply moved when someone listens to my dreams and helps take me where I want to go. I imagine I am not the only one.

Sometimes the work of dreaming and hoping and building a good life is hard and the journey is long. What a gift, then, when a friend jumps into the driver’s seat and says, You want to go there? Come. I’ll take you.

That dream in your heart? Let me take you.

That future you hope for? I’ll go with you.

We need dreamers and drivers.

Dreamers can imagine beautiful new futures and lead the way. Drivers are the ones who say, I see that too. Let’s go. I’ll drive.

_____________

About Idelette:

I was born and raised in South Africa during Apartheid. That story has forever shaped my life and how I experience the world. I’ve lived on three continents and I like to imagine myself now as a global citizen.  Sixteen years ago, I married a cheeky Canadian and moved to Vancouver. We have three children (11, 10 and 8) and SheLovesmagazine.com is my fourth baby.

I bake bread, wear mostly black and love big shoes. I am a charismatic contemplative and my happy place is both around a big noisy table and alone by the ocean. I love Jesus, justice and living juicy.

This Chinese proverb shakes me in my soul: When sleeping women wake, mountains move.

Twitter: @idelette

Instagram: @idelettemcvicker

Facebook: Idelette

Website: SheLovesmagazine.com

Blog: Idelette.com

I am writing 31 fighting scarcity. I will be collecting them all at the starting point. I hope you join me this month. 

I have sort of a big personality. A big face that has repeatedly described as good for a cartoon characted. A voice so loud my sisters invented a shorthand where they just turned an imaginary dial down and I knew I was talking too loud. I had to teach it to my carpool mate yesterday. I was just excited. All of my feelings are big. Happy, sad, frustrated, I experience all of these in the extreme.

Until I turned about 26 I was often told that I would grow out of this trait. That one day I would grow up and settle down, and I would smile and think of the women who came before me. My great-great Aunt Ruth who remained a big personality for 103 years, my Grandma France always the life of the party, my Grammy Michael who preferred all things  mauve and had her whole house decorated accordingly. Big personality runs through my veins. I am not growing out of it.

The more I grow comfortable in my own skin in fact the bigger I seem to grow. There is no way to deal with my feelings but to feel them all the way through them. Sometimes that happens out loud. Sometimes in the copy room when a co-worker asks if I am okay. Sometimes in small group. And I am learning that that is okay. That it is an authentic way to live, and most importantly that my bigness, my wholeness, my feelings don’t push out anyone else’s. There is enough room for everyone to feel everything they need. There is enough room for me to be my whole self. 

The lie scarcity tells me is that in order to leave room for other people I need to shrink myself. I need to be less of who I am or else there won’t be enough room. But that is a lie from the pit.

The truth is that free people free people. People who are their whole selves (whether reserved or over the top) only invite other people to be their whole selves too. There is NO SUCH THING as not enough room for us all to be ourselves. There is space for you, as much space as you were designed to take up.

You don’t have to shrink yourself; the world needs all of you.