We are only a few steps from worshiping something else. We are always just moments from finding another Lord. He repeats four times in the thirty minute sermon. The truth of it rings to so clearly I can see the waves of it hit my heart.

I used to ask,”how could someone do that?” I used to wonder how a person could walk so far down the wrong road, so far into the dark. Now I understand; one step at time. One more step never seems that much further, and suddenly you are at the point of no-return.

But, what in the eyes of my savior and God is the point of no return? “Your abundant compassion blots out my rebellion.” There is never too far, there is never too dark. The light can always be let in.

I taught with people once, who taught me that you had to beat the kids into submission, that the only way the students would listen was if you were the one yelling the loudest. And I yelled the loudest and brandished my stick and I told myself that it was out of love. I had to do, if I loved them, cow them into the right path.

Later I learned, simply by watching how love will always bring around a room. A teacher standing 5 feet tall with birds on her tights can be the biggest presence in a room full of boys who look older than some grown men I know. If you love them bold enough, they listen. Unfailing love blots away transgressions. I don’t even know if she had a blunt stick in her basket of teaching tools. Open arms and an inviting smile had her stray sheep following her happily down the best path.

I don’t know why I was so surprised. Isn’t that how my parents lead? Didn’t they learn that from our God? Compassion blots out rebellion, salvation washes away sin, love wins over blunt force. I am always a few steps from worshipping another, and yet He is always courting me back.

This post is part of a link up at Every Day Awe, many of us are reflecting on Psalm 51

Today I sat and listened to graduation speeches. I listened to girls, first and second in a class of over 500 students practice the speeches they will give to their classmates on the football field a few months from now. It is an honor and a privilege to speak at graduation, one that these girls earned by taking the hardest classes and still managing to get the best grades.

So why is it that both girls took their carefully worded speeches, and swallowed the back half of every sentence? Why did they drop their eyes and their voices at the exact moment they had the most powerful thing to say? Surely they knew they were doing this. We are talking about the two smartest girls in the school.

When they left the AP history teacher who is also on the judging panel remarked to me that he has a brilliant student who is constantly apologizing for saying smart things in class. He told me that even as recently as yesterday he had gotten agitated at this bizarre habit. Why would she apologize for saying smart things?

As he heard me talk to the girls about their bizarrely similar habit, he understood the pattern that had been happening in his classroom for as long as he had been teaching.

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It was my freshmen year of college in my first week of classes that she said it to me. It is an interaction that has moved across me like sandpaper scrapping away the bits that don’t belong. This one interaction continues to shape who I am and how I present myself. I was meeting with Mary, one of my speech coaches, about the events I was working on and what she thought my strengths were. Mary can see in and through people almost as soon as she has registered where they are standing. “You know that cute thing you do, where you up-end your sentences?” “Yeah!” I chirped upwardly, attempting to be adorable and disarming. “Yeah” she inflected downward, turning it in to something with power. “I am going to beat that out of you.”

And she did. Four years of speech coaching where every up-speak was questioned. Every time I threw away a line that mattered, it was picked back up and handed to me. Here, try that one again. Every sentence that came out of my mouth, my coaches wanted to know, did I really mean that? If it matters, say it like it matters. I learned which stories mattered most to me, and I learned how to tell them like they were important, to not apologize for them.

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I am in the eighth grad and not quite as ugly as I was in the seventh. My poorly chosen bowl cut has since grown into a bob and the retainer (weirdly enough colored like the american flag…why did I choose that? Why was that even a choice?) the size of my fist has been replaced with discreet upper and lower braces. (Perhaps not stand alone discrete, but comparatively there isn’t even a contest.) I am no longer mistaken for a boy. This does not mean that boys are interested in me. They aren’t, even on the days where my skin is mostly clear.

My friend with the perfect bone structure is trying to help. Boys have been chasing her around since we played with the plastic zoo in the church nursery. “You know,” she tells me, flipping her stylish haircut her mother won’t yet let her highlight, “boys would like you better if you didn’t act so smart. Stop answering all the questions. Say you don’t know.” I explain to her that I am so smart, I do know all the answers, I am not going to pretend I don’t know something I do. I tell her that I am not interested in boys liking me if they can’t like me for being so smart. This is a huge lie. I am a 14-year-old girl. Of course I want the boys to like me, even if I have to pretend to be stupid. But I cannot understand why they don’t like me smart.

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I am standing at the doorway of my mother’s bathroom. She is putting on mascara and lipstick, Wine with Everything. She is reading my report card where all is proficient. She flips the card over to the back where my teacher has written her comment in cursive pen I am not yet fluent in. My mom reads the comment, about how capable and ready to move to the next grade I am and the part that comes after the but….”But Abby is very outspoken.”

I ask my mom what that means, outspoken. Why did someone assign that word to me? She   perses her lips and blots the extra lipsitck. “Well, it means when you have something to say, you make sure to say it.” I scoff to the best of my 9 year old ability. “I don’t think that is a bad thing.” She smiles at me, sees me. “It’s not.” I didn’t get the star girl award that year. That was for my friend who was a little more reserved. My mom told me she didn’t care, but I did. At least a little bit.

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I’ve noticed recently that I use mildly negativ adjectives to describe my girls. Hilarious, naughty, audacious. Endearing words, but not totally positive. I am far more likely to tell the stories of them growling, pretending to be monsters and chasing each other, or the stories where they find the patch in the yard where the grass hasn’t grown and I find them literally rolling in the dirt.

I recoil a little at words like sweet, nice, good. It isn’t that I don’t think my girls are those things. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate it when other people call out the goodness, the sweetness, the kindness they see in my girls. It is simply that I know how those words can draw a box around a person. I know how comfortable those boxes can feel, how a person will shrink herself up to stay in them, contort her words, contort herself.

I don’t want my girls to think that they have to be “a good girl” in order to be good. I know how often people throw those words around to mean pipe down, smile for the camera, don’t make waves. I know how it feels when someone tells you, you would be more attractive, easier to stomach, better somehow with less opinions. I know how the world feeds you those lies, and how sometimes you swallow them, even if you are being fed truth at home.

I don’t want to raise good girls. I want to raise girls who are wild and free, girls who hear the voice of their God and cling to the goodness He has tucked into them, and oh how His goodness overflows from their little hearts. But I hope that they aren’t good girls. I hope they are simply too out spoken for that. Turns out, it isn’t a bad thing.

Lately the voice in my head that my heart recognizes as the Spirit, is surprisingly, the voice of my  almost-three-year-old. It sounds weird, even to me. But there it is. In November she told me, correctly so, that the state of someone elses heart was “not you business.” The phrase has been showing up ever since. And she is right. All that junk is not my business.

What people think of you? That not you business.

Whether or not people believe you, that you are trying to follow God? That not you business.

That thing that is between someone else and God? That is for SURE not you business.

What is going to be the next step, once you finish this one? That not you business….yet.

As I put together this book proposal, edit chapters, send it to people whose opinions matter to me, I am inundated with thoughts that are not my business. What if no one wants to publish my book? What if everyone thinks I am lying? What if it flops, what if it succeeds beyond my wildest expectations? Right now, that is not my business. And in that phrase, there is freedom.

So today, let me be your not-quite-three-year-old prophet.

What people think, what you are supposed to be doing 5 years from now: That not you business.

Whether or not someone else is doing their job. How someone else is slacking: That not you business.

What that other thinks of that thing you tweeted at them but you meant well but what if they take it the wrong way? If they never bring it up: That not you business.

Stick to the things that are yours to have, but everything else?

That not you business.

When you tell me that my feminism is of the angry kind, I need you to know that it didn’t start out that way. It isn’t that way at the core. My feminist heart got tired of being battered and broken in a church that promised to love and cherish it. It got tired of being knocked around by the buts and only ifs.

We love you Abby, all of you, but only if are a little less loud, only if you are a little less bursting with your ideas. We let you serve in your bold  seventh grade way, but only until the boys want to do it. When no one else wants to do it, your desire is from a servant’s heart. When others do want to, you need to learn to submit. In high school you are too close to woman, and them to man, and then your gifts are too loud and too bold. Then it will be their turn, and you will need to sit down. We will love your whole heart, but only if you are willing to submit it to any man who comes up and wants a chance to lead. We will love your whole heart only when no one else volunteers.

I know it surprises some when a girl as loud and as occasionally obnoxious as I am is also very sensitive. I know it seems strange that someone who speaks as boldly as I so often  do is scared most of the time. But there it is. You see, I am afraid that my sad, crying heart will bleed out one of these days if I let it rattle around in the church. It has gotten hurt there before, I best not leave it out. I am afraid of the mourning clothes, so I clothe my heart in anger. I encase it in anger, so that it will stop bleeding, so this heart of mine won’t stop beating. Like most, I have learned to be more careful with this heart the hard way.

When you tell me I have lost the heart of servanthood, am neglecting the heart of submission, the gentle back and forth of a dance led a followed, flowed from the Father, I need you to understand it was only in the submitting I learned to dance at all.

It is in my nature to submit, to roll over on my belly and expose my weakest part of myself to you. I’ll even pee a little bit, embarrass myself like a dog trying to declare my undying allegiance to the authority in front of me. When I am asked to pick an animal to represent myself, my patronous, my soul animal, I choose a sheep dog. I am a pack animal, and I am better at rolling over than I would care to admit. We can do it your way. It is fine. Really. I don’t mind.

Here’s the thing about sheep dogs: They know who their master is. They know who their flock is and they know who their master is and they care for their sheep as they follow their master. Amidst all the shouting of women and submission I mistook a lot of voices for the voice of my master. I was on my back, legs in the air, belly up to anyone who was yelling. A sheep dog on her back is useless. She cannot care for the things she was designed to tend when she is busy submitting to any voice that she hears.

I am learning to heed only the calls of my master, even when others are calling out in his name, “sit!” “stay!” heel!” I can hear his gentle voice, “come, run, tend what I have given you.” Listening to the voices that are not my father often leave me cowering with my tail between my legs. It isn’t always safe, this calling in this body and listening to people who are not my master has only compounded the situation, and left me distracted from my work.

When you see me rising from my stance of submission, you need to understand it is the master’s voice I am submitting to. I would never stand up on my own. If it were left up to me I would live my life belly up, legs in the air. It is time for me to use these strong legs, to bark a little bit in a voice that surprises even myself, to feel satisfied when I see that all is well with the flock that is under my care. I need to get out of this loud barn, and go with my master into the wild flower fields. I understand it doesn’t look like submission to you, but it isn’t you I am answering. My master is calling. I have sheep to tend.

There was a time when I would have scoffed at a memorial service in a bar. I would have shook my head at the idea of celebrating a life and mourning a death with friends as people took turns singing words from a screen. Now, I shake my head at that girl, she didn’t understand, in all of her knowing. Now, I am just grateful to be there, to be invited, to know the man whose memorial service packed a bar on a Monday night. I am grateful to have called Bobby Byrne a friend.

I met Bobby when my friends from work invited me to karaoke night. He was a friend of theirs. Bobby had a beautiful voice and could have used it to intimidate the rest of us into not having anything to sing. Everyone knows the local karaoke guy who uses the stage as a personal platform, wields his voice to show everyone else they do not belong. Bobby could have been that guy. He was good enough we would have gladly let him sing all night. Instead he used it to invite everyone to have a turn, to ensure everyone was having a good time. Need the night to pick up, the bar to perk up? Ask Bobby to sing. Need to feel like someone wants you to sing? If the most talented man in the bar says you can have one, then you can have one.

Bobby lived his life the same way. Inviting everyone to have a turn; giving people permission to sing their own song. Bobby recognized the worth in people, simply because they were people. He had the capacity to love as he did, so freely and easily, so thoroughly accepting, because he knew and loved himself.

In high school a group called Plumb sang a song about a God shaped hole, a desperate searching soul. I’ve known that God shaped hole, been made whole by the space being filled to overflowing. But what do you do with a hole the size and shape of a man no one ever had an unkind thing to say about? How do you fill the space he left in so many lives?

On the way home from the bar I put in the CD with his big and beautiful voice. I cried as his voice sang the theme of every church banquet of my youth, Michael W. Smith’s Friends are Friends forever. I think the last conversation we had was the one where he told me he was enjoying my blog, specifically my easter reflections. It had never occurred to me he thought more of easter than bunnies and jellybeans. I wonder what else never occurred to me, what I will never get to know.

There was a time when I would have beat myself up over not having this conversation. Grieved the opportunities I may or may not have had. But when I think about the life that Bobby Byrne lived I can almost hear him whisper to me, “It is okay, you are doing the best you can.”

I sat at that bar last night, with this book proposal hanging over my head. Spring Break is the deadline I set for myself, and here it is. I have it written, and today begins the messy process of editing. Somehow this scares me more than the writing. It means I am taking myself and my message more seriously than I ever have. I have a lot of myself in my book, parts that I have kept off of this blog, parts I am not sure I have wrestled out with myself.

Bobby Byrne would tell me that those messy parts are okay, he would smile at me in a way that would remind me that there are people in this world who will love my messy parts too.   Bobby knew himself and loved himself, and because of that he had the space to love, really love, all of us, even the messy parts.

Here’s to you Bobby Byrne. I am taking the invitation to sing my own song the best I know how. Even when I am off-key, even when I don’t know all the words. Thanks for the invitation to share this stage we call life. I can hear them telling me I’m about to be up. I know you’ll be cheering for me. I know you’ll think I did a good job. Bobby Byrne, you made this world just a little bit safer for us all.

There was a time I would have scoffed at a memorial service that packed out a bar on a Monday night, where everyone took a turn with the karaoke night. Now I am grateful to have known a man who could inspire such amazing performance.

Jesus is Risen

He is Risen Indeed!

Jesus is Risen 

He is Risen Indeed!

WARNING WARNING WARNING

This is not a metaphor

This is not an analogy

It is good news

It is, in fact, THE good news

Jesus is Risen

He is Risen Indeed!

WARNING WARNING WARNING

This is not a fairy tale

It is the ultimate happily ever after

Forever and ever after.

The Prince of Peace has come

Has defeated the dragon of death

The people will live happily ever after

And this is not a fairytale

WARNING WARNING WARNING

The ressurection will not be contained to the tomb

It will spring up from the ground

The rocks will cry out

The same man who defeated death 

Wants to do it all over again with you!

WARNING WARNING WARNING

The ressurection will not wait

It will not be one and done to the physical realm

That relational death

The Lord can ressurect that

The financial ruin

The Lord can redeem it

There is nothing too far gone

There is no such thing as too late

He wants to roll away that cold stone heart of yours

Replace it with a living word

WARNING WARNING WARNING

We are talking about a man

Crucified and died

Walking out of his very own grave

Belief in a living God

Will alter a human life

Destruction of death is for us and in us

It is completed and coming 

Jesus is risen

He is risen indeed!

WARNING WARNING WARNING

Existence on this earth

Will never be the same.

The Kingdom of God is coming

It is coming on a donkey

The Kingdom of God is coming

You will be expecting a stallion

A noble and pure white steed

Don’t miss it, The Kingdom of God is coming

You will go to a palace, a princely abode for the king

The Kingdom of God is coming

You will find Him in a stable, a humble space

Not surrounded by luxury, but livestock

Don’t miss it

The kingdom of God is among us

You will look to those who are bold and brash

You will find it among the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is among us

You will look to those who rejoice in happiness

You will find comfort when you sit with those who mourn, don’t miss it.

The Kingdom of God is among us

You will look to those who boast that the world is already in the palm of their hand.

But it is the meek that will claim the inheritance

The kingdom of God is among us, Don’t miss it

You will look to those who are filled, satisfied in their righteousness

You will find it among those who are still hungry, still crying out for thirst

Don’t miss it

The Kingdom of God is among us

You will look to those who wield their will in the name of the Lord

You will find God’s will in hands that extend mercy

Don’t miss it. The kingdom of God is among us

You will look to those who present perfection as the work of their life

You will find the kingdom among the pure in heart.

The pure in heart see God Don’t miss it

The kingdom of God is among us

You will look to those who wage war, who divide and conquer, who mobilize and colonize

The kingdom is among those who make peace, who break bread and not bones, who make brothers and sister from enemies, who seek communion not colonies

You will find the kingdom among the children of God

The kingdom of God is among us

You will look to those who are bold and brash

You will find it among the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God is coming, You will be looking for a stallion

It will come on a donkey

You will look to the palace

It will come to the stable

Those who ask, receive

Those who seek, find

The kingdom of God is among us

The kingdom of God is coming

Don’t miss it

Today I am guest posting for D.L Mayfield’s blog for her series, War Photography. It is an amazing series, and I am very honored to be posting on a site of a woman as talented as she.

What Teacher Movies Don’t Teach

When I was in college, I borrowed my boyfriend’s car to take myself to the movies on a Tuesday night. I sat in the middle of an empty theatre in Muncie Indiana and wept and cheered for Akeelah and all her spelling glory. I left that theatre inspired. I would be that teacher. I would grow my students to their fullest potential. I would change the world, one student at a time. I could not wait to get into my classroom.

This was not my first foray into the teacher movie. Not only had I seen Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pfeiffer, when I was 12 I read My Posse Don’t Do Homework, the book the movie was based on. I loved Finding Forrester and Freedom Writer; any movie where the teacher was the hero was a movie I wanted to see.

I suppose I was attracted to these movies because they made me feel special. They made me feel like what I was about to do was important. They promised me that if I wanted it badly enough, if I just dug deep enough, I could be the change I so desperately wanted to see in my future students’ lives. My career would be a teacher movie and I would be the star!

Three months into my first classroom experience, I despised these movies. Every. Single. One.

Want to know why? You can read the rest here.

We sit together, stand together.

We bow our heads and close our eyes.

We speak into the silence created in this space.

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done

We leave together, into the world.

The loudness of the world breaks the silence of this space the world.

We leave together hoping to see…something this week, something different, something more than the ways of the world.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

We hear of jobs lost, of bills not covered.

We come home weary, and only Monday has passed.

We long for peace, for soothing, for a string full of Sundays where peace reigns and stillness is not broken.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

Phone calls in the night speaking grief unspeakable

Teeny-tiny coffins, holding bodies barely breathed

Silence in the wake of deafening grief

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

Where are you Lord? Our souls cry out.

The darkness so cold, the silence so still

Where is your Kingdom? What is your will?

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

Surely this world is beyond your reach,

Surely beyond your help.

Surely we could never find your kingdom here.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

We sit in our Sunday space and pray.

We call for your Kingdom and will.

We sit and pray in anticipation.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

We feel the weight of the wait in our bones.

We see the Kingdom and will in our hearts.

We hold the anticipation of Jesus.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

It is our hearts and wills that we are praying for,

Our hope that we are naming.

It is our own selves that stand against the darkness of the world.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

We stand and leave together.

We open our hands, our hearts, our eyes.

Our lives will speak to Jesus, who we are sure is coming.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

Amen