I met Bree Newsome at the Wild Goose festival this summer. That festival changed me. Not only did it challenge me to do the work, it showed me how. This is just a small part of the things I learned that weekend. 

When I was little, my daddy was friends with a street minister. If you were homesick, Brother Richard would pray healing over you in a phone call, and you almost always went to school the next day. My daddy used to say that he could see the Holy Spirit shining on Brother Richard, that when he was outside he would notice the gleam on his forehead and assume it was from the sun, but when Brother Richard would step inside he would keep on shining. Like Moses coming down from that mountain, the close encounters with God were literally radiating from Brother Richard. You could see the anointing.

I don’t know that I ever really believed in the shine of the Spirit, until I met Bree Newsome. The woman literally shines. Last month I was at a Christian festival with an emphasis on arts and justice, and somehow, someway, they got Bree Newsome and her accomplice James Tyson to come speak to us about taking down the Confederate flag in Charleston, South Carolina. She told us about the reconnaissance missions and the team of people behind her. She told us about the moment she knew this was hers to do.

But mostly, she told us why.

I LOVE writing for SheLoves and I am particularly proud of this one. Read the rest here. 

I bought my girls the Jesus Storybook Bible on a whim. I bought it because not everyone was white. I bought it because all my friends were talking about it. Mostly, I bought it because it was a great price on Amazon, under 10 dollars I think. That book is worth more than I can say.

My husband and I were in a major de-construction phase in our faith. We were pretty  sure we believed in God, we were pretty sure we were down with Jesus. After that we weren’t so sure. What the heck do we believe about all of the old testament? We didn’t know. We didn’t know if it was fact, or if it were metaphor, or how much the answer to that questions mattered. We didn’t know quite what to make of the passages in the new testament saying I needed to cover my head and be silent. We were surprised at how little the Bible actually said about issues we had been told were “clearly stated.”

We just had a lot of questions, and not a lot of safe places we felt like we could put those questions. We had a lot of questions at about the same time our girls began asking their own.

This is a guest post in a really cool series about books that contributed to your understanding of God. I was THRILLED to be asked, you can read the rest here.

I was in the second grade when I asked Santa for a remote control car. I didn’t really ask Santa. I gave me master list to my mom and she sorted out who to ask for what. This way there was no doubling up on the Christmas toy action. I put remote control car on the list, but I didn’t mention that I really only wanted Santa to bring me that one.

Christmas morning came and went and I did not receive the remote control car I had been hoping for. It was okay. It had always been made clear to me that Christmas lists were suggestions, and you were not going to get everything you wanted. I didn’t really think about it.

I didn’t really think about it until I opened the remote control car I had been hoping for in front of all fourteen cousins and numerous aunts and uncles. I didn’t really think about it until I burst into tears. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the car. I had asked for it even. It was that I didn’t want the whole family to know I wanted the car. I knew remote control cars were for boys, and I was ashamed that I really wanted one.

My family was supportive. The boy cousins peaking over my shoulder and telling me they thought the car was cool, my aunts and uncles entirely unconcerned that I had asked for a gender-non-conforming toy and only concerned that I was crying. My grandparents, ever generous, took the toy back at my insistence and I received something else. The next year in the privacy of my home, in front of only my sisters and my parents, I opened up the remote control car I had been hoping for all along.

I don’t know exactly when I got it in my head that cars were for boys. We had them in my house of only sisters growing up. One of my favorite toys in pre-school was the race car you could take apart with the giant plastic screwdriver. We had almost no barbies, and very few dolls outside of our beloved cabbage-patch kids. We were super into stuffed animals. But by second grade I knew, I was not supposed to think remote-control cars were cool, at least not enough to want one.

Somewhere between pre-school and second grade I learned that being a girl meant I was supposed to like certain things, want certain things, be certain things. Somewhere between pre-school and second grade I learned that I did not totally fit into the mold I was supposed to. I wasn’t that into dolls and I kind of hated Barbies. I learned that if I wanted to get the hot wheel instead of the Barbie in my Happy meal, I would have to ask for the boy one. Somewhere between pre-school and second grade I learned how to be ashamed of my desires. Even in a supportive house, with a generous and supportive family.

As of this week Target changed their policies and will no longer be labeling toys and bedding according to gender. Instead it will all be mixed together and the kids and parents can pick what they like. My friend Abi Bechtel wrote the tweet heard round the world, the one that caused Target to take note and change their policies. I am grateful to both Target, and Abi for making the change.

Some people are not so grateful. Denny Burke thinks it is silly to call gender labels on toys harmful, and the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood takes it one step further, saying that the Bible supports the idea that God hard wires boys and girls to like certain toys. It is biblical for girls to not want remote control cars. But I did.

It is harmful to label toys boy and girl. It does limit kids. It is dangerous to tell parents and children that gender conformity is God’s design. Kids get the message loud and clear, that they are wrong for wanting what they want, that they were in fact made wrong. 

As a child I was mostly gender conforming. I liked girls clothes. I liked to hang out with the girls. But I didn’t like dolls and I wanted a remote control car. That was enough for me to feel shame. enough for me to return a toy that I did in fact want. I am grateful to Abi for speaking up, and I am grateful to Target for hearing her. We have to stop telling boys and girls, children made in the image of God, that they are broken because they want what they want, because they like what they like. I don’t think God cared that I wanted a remote control car. In fact, I think God made me like that.

It is Monday, 8 am, and it is my last first day of school. I have told my principal, my department, some of the cheerleaders so word will get around. This is it for me. Nine years, it turns out, is enough.

I really thought I would do this job for thirty years. When a student asked me, my very first day as a a teacher, how long I thought I would last, I told her she would have to pull my cold dead body out of the classroom. I have lasted longer than the people betting on my departure at my first school thought I would, but I am 21 years short of where I was sure I would be.

I thought I was a lifer. Turns out, I am not.

I have big plans for my exit. As Christian graduates and Priscilla gets to go to school, I will go to seminary and prepare to be a pastor. A youth pastor I think, I still love teenagers, but I would like to maybe leave that possibility more open. After all, I thought I was going to be a teacher forever. So I guess anything is possible.

I spent last week unpacking my posters, my stapler, my literary action figures. I can’t believe I won’t need the parts of speech super hero posters ever again. I bought them my very first year. I don’t know an adult life where I am not a teacher. I don’t know a career where you don’t get a spring break or one where you do get a lunch break more than 25 minutes.

I don’t totally know who I am if I am not Ms. Norman, the crazy english teacher who loves and yells with equal ferocity so it is best not to cross her. But I do know that it is time, that all signs point to it being time to pack up the puppets and the intricate knowledge of Romeo and Juilet, Antigone, and Of MIce and Men, and follow the still small voice off into the wilderness.

I know a lot about education, and later I am sure (probably when the testing season begins) it will be time to explain clearly the policies of the day and why I can’t do this job the way the legislation says I have to. But that day is not today.

Today is my last first day of teaching, and it is so very bittersweet. At the end of this year over a thousand people will be able to say that I was there teacher. And even when some of those kids were a pain in my ass, it is an honor and privilege that I got to teach them. As I explain to my students on the first day of class, if you are my kid for a year, you are my kid forever. I reserve the right to holler at you any time you are doing something crazy, and you reserve the right to ask me for help. That is just the way it is. Forever.

What do you say kiddos? Let’s do this one more time.

I had planning all last week so I was at work. The kids arrive in my class on Monday and my girly goes back to school as well. We have both cried about that a little bit, me because summer is over, her because she isn’t allowed to go to school yet. But what a summer it was! I seriously had the best summer in perhaps my entire life. Two amazing Christian experiences, a trip to the lake, a visit from a dear friend who I had never met before. It was so incredible. I am hoping to keep some of that magic as I head into this school year. We did a LOT of awesome things this summer, but in hopes that this blog post is less than 7000 words I will just give you the highlights.

Weddings: We attended three beautiful weddings this summer. As we get older and the weddings become more reflective of people’s personalitites. I really enjoyed all three weddings, the state park wedding with the beautiful views, the wedding on a boat and the tour of the Detroit river, and the July 4 wedding where we all danced our hinies off. Bonus points to the Detroit wedding for being kid free and close to my sister who then took the girls to church with her kids (She got 6 children ready for church. Do you know how many hair bows that is?) and let us sleep in.

The Collegeville Institute: On a whim because my friend suggested it I applied for a writing retreat in Minnesota. Then I promptly forgot about it and went about my business. Then I got the YOU ARE IN email and had to tell my hsuband he was solo parenting for a week, over Father’s day. I really had no idea even what Collegeville Institute even was. I didn’t know that it was on the same campus as a monastery, that it has an incredible long history of writers who I deeply respect learning and writing there. I spent an entire week having to only think about writing. I didn’t even have to think about my meals or anyone elses for that matter. As someone who didn’t start writing until I had a baby, this was like an out of body experience. The people I met were incredible, the things I learned and the ways I was poured into is a gift I still don’t have words for. Then on top of all of that, the last night I saw the most spectacular showing of the Northern Lights. It was amazing, just an embarassingly lavish gift I will treasure forever. The people, the place, the history, the learning, everything was incredible.

The Wooden House: 24 hours after I came home we re-packed and headed to my family’s cabin in upstate New York. The girls call it the wooden house, and even though there is a beach, and a motor boat, and swimming and tubing, the most important thing to them is that their cousins are there. Every day with thier cousins, what could be better? We had a great time as usual, going to get icecream at Stewarts and trying out knee-boaridng (Juliet) and wakeboarding for ten seconds just to make sure I can still get up (me). I am very close to my cousins so it is awesome to see Juliet and Priscilla forming similar relationships.

The Wild Goose Festival: 24 hours after we came home from the wooden house, I picked Esther Emery up from the airport. This is a big deal y’all. We had been friends and writing partners for a couple of years, and told each other pretty much all of our secrets.so it was really really exciting to meet in person. We are exactly the same in person as we are on the internet and that is amazing. I loved having her sit at my table and tell my girls about herr chickens and ducks and kids. It was so great. We started our togethereness by sitting in a car for four hours and heading to the Wild Goose Festival, a festival about Jesus and Art and Justice. Sometimes I feel like my charismatic side and my progressive politics side cannot be together or inter-connect. There I found my people. It was really amazing and the experience will likely leak out for a couple of months in my writing. If you have the chance, you should absolutely go next year. I will be there. Hair: I dyed my hair purple for the festival. I like it so much I am keeping it. Sorry mom.

ABD!: Christian, while watching the kids for weeks at a time while I ran off here and there also managed to complete his perspectus and become officially ABD! He just needs to finish his dissertation to become Dr. Norman.  This means we have one more year of graduate school in Atlanta, and then who knows where we will be. Prayers appreciated as we discern our next steps and prayers especialy for an early job placement so there is plenty of time for the next dominoes to fall. Summer

Hanging out: We hit the pool a lot. A lot. So, both girls know how to swim and Juliet can swim across the pool with zero problems. There has been some, but not enough back yard grilling, and we went down the slide into the pool at Aunt Jill’s house, and also the slip and slide. We went to cheer camp for three days and had an awesome time even if we didn’t quite know the moves at the end of the week. We went to Sonic a lot. We celebrated national hot dog day. We hit the splash pad and the hippo hop. The girls thought that a day where they did not get to do anything fun was a totally wasted day. I quite agreed.

Stained Glass: I found out that you could fake stain glass and finally had a thing that I wanted to do with the windows I pulled off the street a couple of years ago. I really really love the way they look and have NO place to hang them. What the heck do I do with these gorgeous things? I did have a truly amazing and remarkable summer that I am deeply grateful for. This next year is likely to be a year of major transition (more on that Monday) and I am hoping to cling to the summer magic to get me through.

What did you do this summer? Is your summer still going strong? I am too late to be linking up with Leigh but I do love this idea, and wouldn’t do it without her invitation!

I introduced this series last week with, the kingdom of God is like the pool toys. I am thrilled to introduce this next post, a gorgeous and heartfelt post from a very very dear friend. She asked me if writing about dinosaurs was too weird and I am so thrilled that I said bring it, because she did. If you are interested in writing for this series shoot me an email.

Faith Is Like the Dinosaurs

Growing up, my faith was a lot like the dinosaurs—or at least, the dinosaurs according to young earthcreationists.

Enormous and terrifying.

Unchanging and unyielding.

Created or handed down by God complete in their final forms.

Faith and dinosaurs were both used as ammunition in an ideological war. God used the dinosaur sagainst Job (“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook?”); we used the Bible against our teachers(“Were you there?”).

We were taught to set faith against our own budding sense of reason. The God who would do that would stop at nothing to make us his, even if it meant destroying our fragile humanity.

He was a being of teeth and claws who loved by force and exclusion while claiming to walk beside us as a friend.

***

Science tells a different story about the dinosaurs.

It’s more fluid and painful and redemptive than the tale I was raised with. I’m learning it late, now in my 27th year, as I fight past the programming that still makes me cringe every time I hear the phrase “millions of years.”

When you take the time to look, and listen, and learn, there’s faith to be found in an old earth, too.

***

The science of today tells us that powerful, majestic beasts roamed the earth long before our history began. They were diverse and powerful and dominated the world for eons and eons.

Perfectly tuned for their environment, they were the kings and queens of nature.

Then nature changed.

The world became harsh and inhospitable to the beings it had fostered. There was suffering and dying, fear and loss, mass extinction of a way of life that had persisted for—yes—millions and millions of years. The great ones died; the Tyrannosaurus Rex with his skull full of teeth; the Apatosaurus who could no longer find enough good green things to eat; the Ankylosaur whose armor was not enough to save it from the breaking of the world.

But even in the breaking, all was not lost.

The small things grew smaller. Some took refuge in the oceans; others took to the skies.

Tough leather hides gave way to soft skin. Feathers warmed beating hearts against the growing cold. The raptors learned to sing in the dark.

Maybe faith is like the dinosaurs.

***

The dinosaurs didn’t die. We know them still.

They are the Sparrows God watches; the Vultures who eat death and are reborn; the Canaries who warn us when all is not well.

They are the Songbirds, the Ravens, the Parakeets, the Chickens, and the Condors.

They are the Eagles—majestic and free, but born from eggs fragile enough to be destroyed by human industry.

Maybe God is like the dinosaurs. They gave up their strength, their armor, their fearful power to become our friends.

***

I’m still afraid that my bird-faith isn’t worth much compared to the dinosaur-faith I was taught.

But the birds outlived the dinosaurs.

I think there’s hope in that.

By Elizabeth Kays

Find more of Elizabeth right here.

After four years studying Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a year working on a solar power prototype in Germany, I realized I enjoyed writing lab reports more than doing research.

And nobody should enjoy writing lab reports.

Now, I write for media outlets, websites, and blogs on topics ranging from science and big data to culture and religion. I also write scripts for informational videos as well as characters and branching dialogue for mobile and alternate reality games.

I am sitting in bed and I am tired. It is ten-thirty on the first full day of school. How did it get this late? I woke up at six and I have been pretty much running ever since. It is the start of the school year and there is just no other way.

I am sitting in bed and I am wired. I had writer’s group at the coffee-house and I needed a little pick me up. Did I mention I had been up since six. I probably shouldn’t have ordered a large. But I do not at all regret the brownie. That junk was delicious. So now I am going to stay up way too late, need coffee all day to keep me going, and then continue the cycle all week, I figure I need to break the cycle, but not today or tomorrow. Thursday is freshmen orientation….I guess we are looking at the weekend. It will have to do.

I could have cancelled writer’s group I guess, but I am learning to speak clearly and protect what matters to me. Is it a little nutty to keep the writer’s group date on the first day of not-summer-vacation? Maybe. But I am learning to speak up for the things that I declare matter.

I was given the gift of a week to discuss writing and get feedback. I came home wanting more. So I messaged the four other writers I knew in my area if they wanted to be in a writers group. To my utter surprise they all said yes. Every single person said yes. A few had been meaning to find a group like this for awhile. I was even more surprised and pleased when we all worked beautifully together immediately.

I just needed to ask.

One of the women in the group and I are on parallel journies. Both with book proposals we have been encouraged to continue with. Both of us with book proposals we have been sitting with for a few years now. Both of us with the idea that if we just keep blogging someone will find us, and ask us to write the book we already know we want to write.

If we just wait and want long enough, some day it will happen for me.

I know that is the story for some, a lucky few. But more and more I am learning that story that I have been told, that I have told myself, just isn’t true.

I need to ask.

If I want something, I need to ask. I need to ask to be published, I need to ask to get a writers group together. If I want it, I need to ask.

But somewhere along the way I was fed the opposite story, if you are good enough they will just come, if you are supposed to do it, it will just happen, if you want it bad enough you don’t actually have to do the work, the universe will conform around you. This is a lie. And it kept me silent and waiting for years.

I’m all done with that now. I don’t know if I will ever become a traditionally published author, but I am sure going to try like hell. And I am going to ask for what I need.

What if you stopped waiting for permission and just gave it to yourself?

What if you let yourself figure out what you needed, and then asked for it?

What if you stopped waiting for someone else and decided to be in charge of your own dreams?

What if you didn’t have to do it alone?

I designed this e-course, because I believe that you are capable of making your own dreams come true, regardless of the life that you live. A mom with a full-time job and two kids in diapers isn’t supposed to write a manuscript while her husband works for the summer, but I did. Mostly I did because someone else made room for me. I found a tribe who told me I could do it, but just in my own way. I stopped seeing what I didn’t have and took advantage of what I did. I made it work, and so can you. 

Room for dreaming starts with the premise that the life and the dreams that you have right now, are meant to fit together. Together, we figure out how. Sign up before August 17 and get the early bird rate!

This class makes when ten people sign up. I would greatly appreciate you sharing it with your people. The content is completely written and I promise, it is good. Really good.

I go back to work tomorrow, and I am not ready. I left the school year last May burned out and washed up, crying uncontrollably as I got a manicure before graduation. I was so, so tired, and wondered if I could ever be restored. It had been a long time in this desert season, would rain ever come?

Then it did. At two beautiful weddings, and in a place where people said, I don’t really understand what you are doing but I respect that you seem to need some space, I was reminded that I am enough, that my friends and family love me fiercly, that it is good for me to rest. It rained in a perfect week on a writing retreat where more than just my gift for writing was affirmed. My whole self, how God built me, I was told it was enough, it was good. And I rested well. Everyone else handled the details, including loaning me the money for the mug I wanted to buy. I came home and took off for a family vacation in New York at the lake, and came home to a whirlwind road trip with a dear friend who I was meeting for the first time. We were everything we already knew we were, and a book idea that could only ever really be mine to write came out of her brain. Tailored like an expensive garment, to fit my story perfectly.

If that wasn’t enough, I started a writing group that has gelled immediately and am dreaming again about where ever life might take us when my husband graduates in the spring. I was telling my friend all about it, when she jokingly referred to my summer as a “vision quest” and an owl showed up in my back yard. I have a thing for owls. They see into the darkness, and I have one tattooed onto my left foot.

After all of this I still wonder, is it enough? Am I enough? Is this totally magical summer enough to get me through one more school year? Will this feast sustain me? For how long? I don’t ever want to be where I was last May. Is this summer enough?

I struggle with the enough question a lot. I have learned to do all my Christmas shopping before Halloween. If I don’t cut myself off I way over spend because in the holiday frenzy I do not ever feel like what I bought was enough. If I don’t carefully plan before I go to the grocery store, I buy at least double what I need for dinner parties. I just want to make sure there is enough. Enough. What is enough anyway?

Scarcity turns me into a hoarder, an overspender, an over-commiter, a mess. Scarcity says, there will not be enough for you so don’t give anything away, and YOU are not enough so you better figure out how to buy/do/go to one more thing. This summer was an abundant gift, but scarcity tells me it is not enough. I am not enough, that there isn’t enough of me so I better stretch myself just a little more.

But when you look at the lies of scarcity, through the lens of an abundant God, it is totally ridiculous.

Do I really think that an abundant God would give me the summer of a lifetime and then not hold me through to the school year? Would my family really think Christmas was ruined with 3 presents a piece instead of 4? If I ran out of food at the dinner party, what am I afraid would happen? The friends I have in my home would hate me? This makes NO SENSE. Scarcity simply does not hold up to the fierce love of an abundant God. It just doesn’t.

Maybe I do wish summer would hold on for a few more weeks, but I can rest in the knowledge that what I was given was enough. I am enough. It is enough.

This is my LAST love bomb for the summer. #Wholemama runs through August, but this portion is coming to an end. There is a piece of me that worries the weeks we did do isn’t enough, but that is scarcity talking and it is a lie. I have LOVED doing lovebombs with you guys. Seriously one of the highlights of an awesome summer. Don’t think this is an end to lovebombs. You can do them whenever and to whoever you want. I highly encourage it.

Leave a comment on this post to let me know you are in, then I will send an email Thursday that tells you who and how we are going to lovebomb them. Either blog comments or Twitter! Play along! Last chance!

I am really excited about this next series. I started thinking about it at the beginning of summer and put out some feelers. The two responses I already have are so good I am sort of jealous I didn’t write them. Also, I am way open for submissions, so if you have a modern day thing that reminds you of a Spirit thing, send it my way. I would love to host it.

The kingdom of God is like the toys at the pool.

I found the pool toys in the bottom of my pool bag at the beginning of the season. It was on my list to do, to buy pool toys, but there they were, already waiting for me, I only needed to look to find them. This was not because I had been intentional last summer, or because I am well-coordinated or well-organized. I did nothing to deserve these pool toys, and yet here they were, waiting for me if I only had eyes to see. They were there, waiting for me to discover them.

I took the toys to the pool feeling as though they were a gift from God, but that didn’t even last a day. Pretty soon these toys were mine. They were mine. I spent the next two days trying to protect these things that were once gifts as something I needed to protect. I hugged them to my chest and told the girls to keep track.

Leave it to children to better understand the pool toys, they are after all like the kingdom of God. The girls handed the pool toys to anyone who wanted them. “What mom? We aren’t using them!” The pool toys were pretty soon all over the pool. How would I ever get them back?

The yelling didn’t really change the girls behavior. Nor did the stomping and threatening. It did make the other mothers at the pool give me a knowing and sympathetic look. I just had to let it go. I did, but I was annoyed about it.

And they all came back to me. They always did. When the kids were whistled out and it was time for adult swim our toys would be waiting for us by the sides of the pool, or patiently at the bottom easy for me to pick up in the silence of the waiting water. Often, our toys would come back to us with new friends attached. What good is a pool toy if you can’t play with someone else with it? A grateful mom or a girl or boy about our size. Sometimes Priscilla would make friends with older girls when the pool toys slipped into the deep end. I was afraid they would be annoyed, but having something to retrieve and being able to impress a three-year-old these are fun things to do at the pool.

A few days I did not trust the way the pool toys managed to come back to me and I hoarded them in my bag. I would not let them out of my sight, and my possession rendered them completely useless. What good is a pool toy if you will let no one play with it? Rendered useless because I believed there was one right way to play.

Sometimes we don’t come home with the exact kind and number of toys that we left with. We lose a squirter and gain a ring. And I could be mad that we lost our fish squirter, I could be annoyed that things were different from what I had originally. But that would mean forgetting that all of this was a gift in the first place. And if I am too annoyed that we have lost the fish squirter, I do not recognize the gift that the yellow ring is. We don’t need the squirters this year. My girls have taught themselves out to swim and we really could use an extra ring. But I can’t see that until I loosen the group on what I lost.

The kingdom of God is like the toys at the pool, it is a gift, but one that I must not hold onto too tightly. A kingdom of God that I do not share is completely missing the point. One that I hold too tightly is one that I am hurting. The yelling and screaming about the right way is not going to do anything. The kingdom of God will come back to me, and with friends, if only I will let it do what it is designed to do.

if you would like to participate in these modern day parables email me accidentaldevotional @ gmail dot com. They will be happening every Thursday until I run out. 

Faith is like the Dinosaurs

The Kingdom of God is like a Big Blue Pickup Truck

The Kingdom of God is like a Long Awaited Baby

The Kingdom of God is like A Hand Written Letter

The Kingdom of God is like the Prairie

The Kingdom of God is like Mama’s Mini Van

The Kingdom of God is like A Line with No Order

The Kingdom of God is like a Squeaky Hamster Wheel

The Kingdom of God is like My Little Lady