We do not want you to copy or imitate us. We want to be like a ship that has crossed the ocean, leaving a wake of foam, which soon fades away. We want you to follow the Spirit, which we have sought to follow, but which must be sought anew in every generation.
-First generation Quakers

I've Found a Historical Soulmate! :)

writing by Eberhard Arnold. (http://www.plough.com/ebooks/pdfs/EberhardArnold.pdf)

Do not be surprised that I talk with you as if you were still right with me. For what does the present know of what is yonder? You are not dead; no, you are alive in the Spirit...

And now we are together again, my friend, at Sannerz, in the Rhön, and in my study on the banks of the Neckar:

The people come and go, young and old, looking for refuge in their need. They are wrapped up in themselves, unnatural, cramped and stiffened, exaggerated, without a goal beyond themselves. And yet your house has an open door; no one is first asked who he is...

We work in the fields and in the house. Together we toil for an understanding of the people and events around us. I see the roguish glint in your eyes, your mischievous smile and waggish beard, your cheerful laugh when the peculiarities of human life force themselves upon us. We are often wearied with dull, commonplace talk, but we also laugh freely and heartily, in gales of truly Homeric laughter...

That was your gift. Your wit was pithy, but free of poisonous hypocrisy. You had no love for stuffiness or sweetness. About you there was no penetrating smell of “Christianity,” no cliquishness, no sentimentality. To seek out heretics was just as foreign to you as was the addiction to straighten out everyone according to your own way. You valued other people as long as they were earnest, and you came to terms with the insincere. You found a way with the most pigheaded peasant and with the most stubborn “man of God.” You were a brother to them when they needed you, and your manner was at all times cheerful, genuinely animated by trust.

You lived life from the center and from the depths. You did not inherit Christ from others, but from out of your own inner experience and encounter. You were one who was truly freed by Christ, who was changed by him. You were free of anxiety. Your faith was no mere acceptance of truths, no flight of fear, but certainty. And therefore there was nothing of conventional Christianity in you, for you knew precisely that Christ was no “Christian.”
You opposed all appearance, all posturing and all self-righteousness. You were not concerned with dogma, but rather with the life of Christ, with the community of brothers and sisters in the sense of the primitive church.

You took humanity for what it is. You were as distant from illusion as from misunderstanding. You knew demonic powers and the weight of the age, but these things came to you not in isolated recognition, but as a binding call to help your brothers.
You knew the power of the church community within the great current of a completely different world. But you never recruited. Whoever was called, heard, and thus came to you; some to live with you and your friends in community; others, touched by your insight, to remain as good friends...

Let me embrace you, my friend! You are present - a witness of the new life in Christ; a man of kindness, a friend of freedom, a brother of knowing love - but yet one of such decisiveness that you discern and separate spirits.

We had no financial basis of any kind for realizing our dreams of starting a new life. But that made no difference. It was time to turn our backs on the past, and start afresh... to burn all our bridges, and put our trust entirely in God
like the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. This trust was to be our foundation - the surest foundation, we felt, on which to build.

-Emmy von Hollander Arnold

This past year has been an interesting chapter of my journey. One common thread that has shown up often over the last several months is the idea and practice of honor. I'm convinced that honor is a direct reflection of love, and that to the degree that love is present in my heart, that is the degree to which I will honor my fellow man, regardless of upbringing, appearance, race, etc.

Luke 10:25-37

The story of the good samaritan challenges me every time I read it. Stories have a way of sticking with us, so the percentage of remembering a story beyond the time of first hearing it seems higher than the hearing of straight facts. Therefore, this parable has a potency in its virtue that disrupts my life often, challenging me when I don't want to be inconvenienced because I've heard the story once...and it won't leave me alone.

When something won't leave you alone, it's probably wise to pay attention to what it's teaching you.

And so the story goes. A man who is beaten up and left for dead on the side of the road. People walk by, seeing him, but not really "seeing". They have no compassion for the man because, well, he's just not worth their time and in their minds, quite possibly, their thoughts tend towards "society is better off if he is dead." Maybe they have families at home on their mind or maybe they are in the middle of formulating their next sermon for church about how to become richer or how to feel good about yourself. Those self help gurus with all their expertise in religion and law and the betterment of society just walk on by. To be fair, maybe the two men who passed by were simply afraid of what would happen to them if they did help. But fear is the biggest enemy to life, so I'm not sure if that justifies their response...

In enters the Samaritan, who has earned the description of "good" throughout the ages. I'm not sure why Jesus chose a Samaritan to embody this lesson of kindness, except for that in making the compassionate one a samaritan, a race hated by jesus' target audience, Jesus was turning expectations upside down. To have a hated man become the hero of the story must have challenged mindsets. Yet, Jesus was showing the capability of man to walk in such deep love, that even when hated and rejected, he still chooses to honor and serve.

So he stops. He bandages up the man bruised and dying by the side of the road, takes him to a place where he can heal, pays for his expenses.

And in this lies the challenge that I feel--to live with honor towards everyone--even towards those who may hate me the most. because in reality, what right do I have to even be affected by hate, in light of the Cross? How can that be something that even permeates my mind when I am living in the Light and Love of God?

As love becomes the blood that courses through my veins, my thoughts are affected, and thus my behavior. A culture is created in my life, and it directs the way I behave, regardless of the inconvenience of the "situations" that present themselves to be Jesus to the broken. Why? Because the culture I carry is in essence who I am. I can't not be that person, even when the most heartbreaking things happen...

And in these thoughts I realize how cheap words are. I'm glad I could somewhat write out what has been stirring in my heart, yet it means so little as merely words. When it is lived out--that's the real mark of glory--the real supernatural.

I want to talk less and just live. Live from the heart. Live from a place of love and honor for all--where the Spirit leads me and my feet follow His. His feet are always moving towards the broken. His heart is always groaning with a longing to restore and renew.

And so I walk. Slow, steady, faithful...eyes on Him...knowing that one day I will stand before Him and I want to look into His incredible eyes of love with no regrets.

learning to be steady...

a brilliant consequence of slowing down.

To be Simple. [this man's words are changing my life]

To be simple, to be genuine, to have nothing to do with anything forced, unnatural, or artificial - these things have been of consuming importance to us from the very beginning of our life together. We wanted to live close to creation and nature. We longed to be so natural in our belief in God and in our understanding of His creation that no religious influence of any kind would be able to divert us from a childlike and simple way of living.

We realized that life in Church community is not possible unless it is completely natural. We knew that the common life would be lost if it were lulled into some form of artificial piety, if we were to adopt a language full of pious words that did not spring from deep roots, did not come genuinely from our hearts.

As with language, so it is with everything else. One legacy of the Youth Movement is our attitude toward nature. It was not just romanticism that made us rejoice in meadows and flowers, woods and mountains. To experience nature helped us to come closer to the beginnings, to creation itself. We would have nothing to do with anything that did not spring straight from the innermost source.

Now it is my sincere longing that our common life spring directly from the ground of the heart, just as it is given to each one of us; that all false piety, all hypocrisy, be ruled out and what is natural be allowed to grow. We ask God to grant us a life full of this inner vitality, as alive as the plants, the stars, and the animals; as full of vitality as the birth and development of a child. May this be given in the life of each one of us. Then we shall know true faithfulness.

We should appreciate work on the land, especially in farm and garden, because of its closeness to nature, its intrinsic genuineness. It provides us with our daily food from God’s hand, which gives us strength to cope with all that the heart and mind are called to do.

Eberhard Arnold - March 1935.

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." - J.R.R. Tolkien

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." -Acts 1:8

I have always been a "to the ends of the earth" kind of person, always wanting to travel and go to places I've never seen. This longing for other lands and people will never go away, I'm positive, yet this summer it is my "Judea" that has been growing in my heart. God has been showing me my city--my "land"--and giving me a heart that loves the place of my roots. It needs life just as bad as any other place. And even more than that, there is such a vibrancy to this city that I never noticed before. Maybe I missed it due to familiarity, which was rubbed off my eyes while away for two years. I'm not sure. All I know is that while I still have a desire to fly, there is a more present desire to love my land and to invest my life in the portion that God has given to me at this point.

what is my destiny?

simply this:

to become a son of God. In becoming a son, I am becoming love. In becoming love, I am becoming an ambassador for a Kingdom that turns the table the changes the climate...darkness to light.

that's it.

So...be a son. Be passionate about the things God has gifted you with and allow Him to develop His character in you. And never ever ever dishonor another person just because you do not understand the things that stir their heart. For too long, giftings have been shut down because the church cared more about control than about releasing people, more about their way being right than about going low in order to serve. We need to change that culture.

Because the condition of your heart is reflected in how you think and that=the culture that your life carries (the presence that you carry when you walk into a room). How you think is directly reflected in how you treat people. Judgment and condemnation are not the spirits I want to walk in. Sons honor and restore...

just some thoughts.

Lend me your eyes...

"...I can change what you see."

My heart is overflowing with stories today. I was reading an article about Faith Church in Budapest, Hungary and how God is moving in a former Communist nation to bring freedom from the past. I read a story about a family who was known through Hungary for being one of the cruelest crime families, yet when God got ahold of them, they were changed--even unto their very name. No longer is their last name one that evokes terror. God totally changed the definition that they existed from. That's the Gospel.

I've been thinking about the way the decisions we make have such strong consequences. I wrote a few weeks ago in my journal:

"There are some journeys you embark on that never let you go back to what once was. There are some doors you open and enter that destroy your identity and take your name. Only Jesus can restore your name."

He is the one who can come and restore identity and redeem a name that has been wrecked by sin and shame and guilt...which means that we all are in need of restoration. But I think it is so incredible that a whole family in Hungary is no longer known for their crime, but for their love for Jesus. That's amazing.

I think that when we give God our eyes, He does change what we see. He changes how we think and how we live, and then as our lives begin to take on His character and likeness, everywhere we go, His presence is bringing life and light. It's true. I know it.

arm linked with legacy

My grandma and I went on a trip to the bank today right before lunch. As we left the house, she put her arm inside of mine, and we proceeded down the sidewalk. Slowly I helped her get into the car.

As we finished up our errand with the bank, she asked if there was a McDonalds close by. We drove across the street for some food and caffeine (yep, she definitely drinks just as much coffee as me). As I helped my almost 90 year old grandma get out of the car, she once again linked her arm inside of mine, and tears welled up in my eyes. In the flash of a second, the blink of an eye, I was struck quiet by the realization of the immense honor I've been given to have this woman in my life. In her there are stories and experiences that stretch to a time in history that feels so distant from today--and yet here she is, her arm in mine, the sacredness of her story right beside me and now inside of me.

I am in awe of this woman and her strength--I am in awe of God and His goodness to allow me to have this opportunity to have her arm linked inside of mine.

Summer holds so much happiness, like lightning bugs, swimming pools, outdoor porch sleepovers, late night movies, shorts, no-make-up days that last for weeks, tanned skin, natural pedicures, outdoor concerts, random camping trips, ultimate frisbee, enough time to read good books and spend time with good friends...

Yet, even in summer, sadness occurs. There are still things that happen to prompt grief...

A few weeks ago my dad was the on call clergy for the city detention center. Every year he volunteers for two weeks and rotates with other pastors. While on call, he received a phone call from the jail.

A 21 year old boy found a way to hang himself.

From what I hear, he was a good kid with a really sweet spirit--lots ahead of him once he kicked the drugs. And my heart broke for his family--and for a kid my age who didn't find life worth living anymore.

My response was, "That's it"...whatever it takes to give at least one person hope and a chance to believe that their future can be better than their past...

God, break my heart for the things that break Your heart. And as You do, give me the faith and courage to obey.

remembering

Tomorrow morning, one year ago, my little sister woke me up with the words,

"Caitlin, get up. Mr. Booth died."

My first thought was, "No way. I was just with him in Nicaragua." I figured that if everyone just went back to bed, when we woke up later in the morning we'd all realize that it was all just a dream and that he was still at home with his family, enjoying a nice meal and some pleasant laughs.

It wasn't a dream. Early that morning, he was in a helicopter that hit an electric line. An explosion occurred instantly and no passenger made it back home alive as the copter spun down to I-70, under an hour car drive from Mr. Booth's home.

And we were left with the question of why.

Since that question will never be answered here on earth, I'm just left with an ache that misses a friend--and that still grieves for the family members who are left to grapple with the pain.

Challenging Spoken Word

Click Here

Rinneadb Aisling Duinn--We Saw a Vision

In the darkness of despair, we saw a vision. We lit the light of hope. And it was not extinguished. In the desert of discouragement, we saw a vision. We planted the tree of valor.
And it blossomed.
In the Winter of bondage, we saw a vision. We melted the snow of lethargy.
And the river of resurrection flowed from it.
We sent our vision aswim like a swan on the river. The vision became a reality. Winter became Summer. Bondage became Freedom.
And this we left to you as your inheritance.
Oh Generations of Freedom, remember us, the Generations of the Vision...

-Liam MacUistin, 1976
Inscription on the wall of the National Garden of Remembrance, Dublin, Ireland

my inspiration for today

"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."
Chinese Proverb

J.B.Phillips on the early church

“It is impossible to spend several months in close study of the remarkable short book, conventionally known as the Acts of the Apostles, without being profoundly stirred and to be honest, disturbed. The reader is stirred because he is seeing Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history. The newborn church, as vulnerable as any human child, having neither money, influence nor power in the ordinary sense, is setting forth joyfully and courageously to win the pagan world for God through Christ. The young Church, like all young creatures, is appealing in its simplicty and single-heartedness. Here we are seeing the Church in its first youth, valiant and unspoiled -- a body of ordinary men and women joined in an unconquerable fellowship never before seen on this earth.

Yet we cannot help feeling disturbed as well as moved, for this surely is the Church as it was meant to be. It is vigrorous and flexible, for these are the days before it ever became fat and short of breath through prosperity or muscle-bound by over-organisation. These men did not make "acts of faith," they believed, they did not "say their prayers," they really prayed. They did not hold conferences on psychosomatic medicine, they simply healed the sick. But if they were uncomplicated and naive by modern standards we have ruefully to admit that they were open on the God-ward side in a way that is almost unknown today.

No one can read this book without being convinced that there is Someone here at work besides mere human beings. Perhaps because in their very simplicity, perhaps because of their readiness to believe, to obey, to give, to suffer, and if need be to die, the Spirit of God found what surely He must always be seeking - a fellowship of men and women so united in love and faith that He can work in them and through them with the minimum of let or hindrance. Consequently it is a matter of sober historical fact that never before has any small body of ordinary people so moved the world that their enemies could say, with tears of rage in their eyes, that these men "have turned the world upside down"! (Acts 17:6)
J.B.Phillips: Preface to "The Young Church in Action"

--
"To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." (Yann Martel, "Life of Pi")
--
"But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I'm not about to let his grace go to waste."

"Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it--because it does." (Paul, 1 Corinthians)
--
"Let the great rebellion of our generation be one of purity...to see beauty with our hearts and not our eyes, to see love as a virtue and not a feeling, to value mankind equally, to be fearless, radical and transparent." -King Charles
--
"The best journeys answer questions that in the beginning you didn't even think to ask." (-Jeff Johnson, 180 South)

missionaries, physicians, storytellers. I was thinking back on my childhood, and those were the people who inspired me the most. I think it has something to do with the stories I heard being full of invention and adventure--stories that painted a picture of people who refused to live within a box or take the safe route through life, who wanted to help others and live from a place of deep love.

poem by Carl Sandburg

The Road and The End

I SHALL foot it
Down the roadway in the dusk,
Where shapes of hunger wander
And fugitives of pain go by.
I shall foot it
In the silence of morning,
See the night slur into dawn,
Hear the slow great winds arise
Where tall trees flank the way
And shoulder toward the sky.

The broken boulders by the road
Shall not commemorate my ruin.
Regret shall be the gravel under foot.
I shall watch for
Slim birds swift of wing
That go where wind and ranks of thunder
Drive the wild processionals of rain.

The dust of the traveled road
Shall touch my hands and face.

But Grace, we all know, can take the place of all we owe.
So why not let's Forgive everyone everywhere everything all the time...

-mewithoutyou {Bullet To Binary (pt. Two)}

In Your light,
I learn how to love.
In Your beauty,
how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest
where no one sees You,
but sometimes I do, and
that sight becomes this art.

-Rumi

Joshua Slocum

Joshua Slocum was the first man to sail around the globe alone. This is an excerpt from his book Sailing Alone Around the World:


No one can know the pleasure of sailing free over the great oceans save
those who have had the experience. It is not necessary, in order to
realize the utmost enjoyment of going around the globe, to sail alone,
yet for once and the first time there was a great deal of fun in it.
My friend the government expert, and saltest of salt sea-captains,
standing only yesterday on the deck of the _Spray_, was convinced of
her famous qualities, and he spoke enthusiastically of selling his
farm on Cape Cod and putting to sea again.

To young men contemplating a voyage I would say go. The tales of rough
usage are for the most part exaggerations, as also are the stories of
sea danger. I had a fair schooling in the so-called "hard ships" on
the hard Western Ocean, and in the years there I do not remember
having once been "called out of my name." Such recollections have
endeared the sea to me. I owe it further to the officers of all the
ships I ever sailed in as boy and man to say that not one ever lifted
so much as a finger to me. I did not live among angels, but among men
who could be roused. My wish was, though, to please the officers of my
ship wherever I was, and so I got on. Dangers there are, to be sure,
on the sea as well as on the land, but the intelligence and skill God
gives to man reduce these to a minimum. And here comes in again the
skilfully modeled ship worthy to sail the seas.

To face the elements is, to be sure, no light matter when the sea is
in its grandest mood. You must then know the sea, and know that you
know it, and not forget that it was made to be sailed over.

I have given in the plans of the _Spray_ the dimensions of such a ship
as I should call seaworthy in all conditions of weather and on all
seas. It is only right to say, though, that to insure a reasonable
measure of success, experience should sail with the ship. But in order
to be a successful navigator or sailor it is not necessary to hang a
tar-bucket about one's neck. On the other hand, much thought
concerning the brass buttons one should wear adds nothing to the
safety of the ship.

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;

I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads....

-sara teasdale

excitement!

a good friend of mine just found out she is going up to NYC to work on a film set as the 2nd AD (applause is in order) and it is a...PAID...job! woo-hoo! (after working on unpaid student sets for 12 hours a day, many days in a row, that's a really big deal) :) Dreams do come true. I'm super happy for her and for the fact that all of her hard work and passion is finding an outlet "out there" in the "real world".

well done you. :)

when i congratulated her for the second time today, she told me that she put a wallpaper on her phone that says,

"NEVER GIVE UP on something you can't go a day without thinking about."

♥ ♥ ♥

who has my affections,
what shapes the motivation of my heart?

society? a society that has no feelings for me, that wants my time, money, affection, in exchange for a chance to run around a rat wheel in an attempt to climb the ridiculous ladder of success. right. that incredibly secure ladder--the one that will fall over at the slightest blow of wind.

not worth it. at all.

"But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." -mt. 6:20

why serve a dead idol when there is a living, loving God who is madly in love with me, longing to be the One who forms my affections and shapes the motivation of my heart...

See how the fearful chandelier
Trembles above you
Each time you open your mouth
To sing. Sing.

-donald justice

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

-T.S. Eliot

"...sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness."

-Galway Kinnell