On the road again... and love...

I've been thinking a lot about love lately. I know I know when am I NOT thinking about love? But seriously now....

Recently 3 friends flew into Salt Lake here and chilled for their Spring Break. Abigail, Rachel, and Hawk. Abigail came to see some friends and her boyfriend, Hawk came to chill out with me because he's one of my closest, and Rachel came with
Abigail to just chill and have fun. We all had a blast while they were here and I miss them since they have left. During Hawk's visit he, me, and another friend from SLC named Tyler went down to California to go to Facedown Fest for a day and see one of my best girlfriends, Lauren. A ten hour drive to see a few bands play and chill with lauren for 30 minutes is well worth it. Well worth it.

Anyway so it amazes me when someone comes all of the way out to Utah just to visit somebody that they love... be it Abigail visiting James who she loves as her boyfriend or Hawk coming out here to visit me who he loves as his sister in Christ. It amazes me that driving 10 hours to California and ten hours back just to see some bands we LOVE and so I can see a friend I love is like a no-brainer. Go to CA for a day? duh.

What is it that makes us long for someone's presence in our lives? What part of love makes us feel connected to people even through we live sometimes thousands of miles away? What kind of love can continue to develop in a relationship or just a friendship over that kind of distance over time, space, whatever? What a miracle, eh?

So this past summer at Cornerstone Festival I really started to feel the ache of love for my closest friends. I had, earlier that summer, been on an extended road trip working on a documentary, then went to school where many of my friends were elsewhere taking their summer break, and then went to Cornerstone where I got a chance to see some friends I haven't seen in months, even years. All of this separation and reuniting and meeting people here and there over the course of a short period of time and not being able to develop any really tight relationships like ALL SUMMER LONG really got me thinking. I spoke with a new friend I had made at Cornerstone during this whole whirlwind about it on one of the festival nights. His name is Josh and he has been one of the only ones that I met this past summer that I have still been able to keep up with here and there. (side note: check out his band Sivan.)

Josh and I talked about Paul the Apostle and about how the Lord sent him out as a traveler of sorts... just like the musicians I know who tour 9 months out of the year, or the people I know who make documentaries and narrative films who feel like they never have a home. Paul ministered to the Gentiles and planted churches along the Mediterranean Sea. The thing is, though, that Paul dind't just go hand out pamphlets and start churches in a week or so and then leave, no... Paul would live with the people he was ministering to and love them and befriend them and build the community through the relationships he had. When Josh and I were talking about Paul I realized that I felt like I could relate to Paul in a very big way.

Lets continue with this passage from Acts:

"But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles." --Acts 18:6

I am not one of those Christians that has ever been involved in ...well... lets call it "door to door evangalizism". Like usual, I can understand why people do that and I will never bash anybody else's methods of loveing people who aren't Christians because God can work through anyone willing and he DOES.... BUT- as many of you know of me.. that type of teaching is just not my calling. My calling, as the Lord has made it clear to me, is to those hurt by the church or uncertain of their faith and the way He has called me to approach that calling is through relationship, not "door to door". The Lord puts people in my path who I befriend and in the course of our friendship He reveals his reasons to me. This is my evangalism. This is one of the ways in which I am personally called to spread the Gospel.

Paul would fall in LOVE with the people and the culture he was ministering to and then God would call him elsewhere. It's not exactly the same situation with me but I can relate and I know many many many people who travel so much that feel like they can relate even more. I guess this is just God's way of keeping me humble and saying "ok I'm going to use you a little bit here and then take over completley and use other people in this person's life... good work here's the next one." Sometimes that is seriously how I feel and it makes me angry at times because I want to be like "no God let me stay let me help more let me love more". Sometimes those things just don't make any sense until later, sometimes they don't ever make sense at all.

The fruits of the decisions and moves... it's the fruits of the situations that give me peace about where God puts me in life. I see so many good things come of the tasks given me and so many good things come to the people He's allowed me to love. Paul would start his letters with "Beloved," and I know why. He loved them for real just like I love the friends I've made over time that God has put infront of me, good and bad. People who know me well understand these people in my life to be what I call "my personal kingdom of God". I take the words written "THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND" probably the most serious of so many things written in the Bible. The Kingdom of God is at hand. This is my Christian friends and my "gentile" friends, the young and the old, the ones here and the ones I've left in Georgia, Michigan, wherever. We are the kingdom of God and my love for them continues on.

The band Beloved has a song in which it is sung: "If we live in hearts we leave behind, then we will never die... we'll never die."
I think this is a way killer way of explaining the kingdom of God. Think about it. If we continue to love eachother through the love God has allowed us and for the people God has put in our paths, our personal Kingdom of God, then we will stay in union with God. Love God's people, love God. *sigh* I miss so many people....

Thank God we will all be together again someday. haha I know that's an intense though but it's true. I know someday we will all be in the same place, at the same time, marveling at our faith, at our Lord, at our love together as one Kingdom. That day will rock fo sho. Until then I'll keep one foot infront of the other and keep my friends in prayer and hopeully a few phone calles here and there... oh yeah and maybe with the help of a few random encounters in road trips and music festivals we'll keep the stitching tight and the bonds strong. Praise God.

Salt Lake Fo Sho.
-Chelsea

I love forgiving you!

What? You love forgiving me? I should love forgiving people? eew.

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy an to walk humbly with your God."
-Micah 6:8

As you can see in the above verse, the Lord is calling mankind to "love mercy". This blew me away. I understand that we are supposed to be loving and forgive people over and over and over and not hold grudges BUT... love doing that? How on earth am I supposed to LOVE being merciful to the people who treat me like crap every day, to the people who abuse me, to the people who just plain suck in life? I'm supposed to not only be merciful but LOVE doing it? When I read this verse I was like "um... you have GOT to be kidding me. It's hard enough already much less to love doing it." I have the being merciful part down for the most part... i think... but no. I do NOT love doing it. ugh.

Ok so the other day I was at Taco Bell snatching some hot sauce because we, here at the Globe (the Globe is what Jenee, Emily, and I call our apartment complex), really like the Taco Bell hot sauce. The current trend is to put it in stew. mmm.

haha. Anyway, when I was there waiting in line for my Burrito Supreme I started to understand this verse more. It was lunch time and there was a line of like 15 people waiting to order and pick up their Taco Bell. This line was made up of many different kinds of people- there were 5 super punk rock kids who looked to be about high school age who were obviously playing hooky on their lunch break, some business men, some construction workers, some business women, and a family of people who looked like they were of mexican descent and spoke perfect spanish. There I was somewhere in the middle thinking about how genius Jenee is to put Taco Bell hot sauce in the stew at the Globe when I noticed something interesting.

The reason the line was so long wasn't because there were an unusual amount of people craving Taco Bell. The reason the line was so long was because the kid behind the counter taking orders was new at what he was doing. Every time someone ordered something it took him a little bit to find the buttons on the register and send everything through the computer system. You can imagine what it was like for him to take the super long orders of the two women in front of me- they had to like hold the beans and add extra lettuce and then add an extra side of cinnamon twists, etc. He was doing a good job, just taking wayyy longer than usual. I started to time it and, as it turned out, was in line for about 13 minutes before I even got to order. Usually 13 minutes is all it takes to order, get your food, eat, and peace out of Taco Bell. The kid was slow.

The cool part about this, though, is that not one person was grumbling about how slow everything was going. Nobody complained, nobody even frowned. All the kids behind me with their moehawks and chained wallets just goofed off and made jokes and high fived while the business people, families, and everyone else just talked with each-other and seemed to actually be enjoying the wait instead of dreading it. Upon their individual turns for ordering, everyone was polite to the kid. Some of them even made sure to tell him he was doing a good job. All the wile they were smiling and carrying on with each-other.

Although this is a really simple example of "loving mercy" I think it's a good one. Things get a little tricky, however, when we have to constantly show mercy over and over and over to those who are burdens in our lives. What about the woman who has to, every day, deal with her elderly hospitalized mother whose mental problems prohibit her from acting normally and treating the woman with respect? What about the teenager who has to go to school with a past friend who, every day, torments him and publicly embarrasses him? What about the young adult who, after going through a break up with her beloved boyfriend, has to deal with how to love and respect him as just her friend and coexist every day while he continually emotionally abuses her and mistreats her as a friend? What about the parents whose children seem to be going off of the deep end, only thinking of themselves, and never recognizing the sacrifices that their parents have made for them? What about the old woman whose even older sister makes it known daily how worthless she thinks she is because of their different views on religion yet still expects her to wait head and toe on her every need?

What about all of those situations? What about them? How on earth am I supposed to find joy in forgiving someone who constantly wrongs me. How am I supposed to find anything but anger in that? How? AHH. It makes me pissed that God even wants us to do that. hahaha. ...and the fact that I'm getting so worked up makes me laugh. What a cycle. *whew*

Ok so this week I'm trying to be grateful that I even HAVE people to forgive. what? Does that sound backwards? yes. But ok, here, thank God I am learning to embrace forgiveness. Thank God I am beginning to understand that love should be unconditional. Thank God I am learning about what it truly means to be a follower of Christ and LOVE Mercy. It's hard... freakin hard... but thank GOD I know what is right because if I just kept up with my anger and kept "forgiving with a grudge" then I'd only be doing what my mom used to always call "half-a-job". She'd say "You did a really good HALF-a-job... now when are you going to clean the REST of the bathroom?". She'd say these things when we kids would try to deceive her by only doing the surface work of the chores she gave us... organize the counter but don't scrub it down- you know, that type of thing. I think that is why the Lord has been trying to teach me all week- forgiving someone without joy in the forgiveness is only doing a "half-a-job". We are called to be joyful. We are called to LOVE mercy.

That's seriously enough calling for me this week though. I'm out to go get abused and hated and beat up (again and again and again) so that I can struggle even MORE with loving the forgiveness I'm called to provide each villain in my life. woo!

This week is a good week... can you feel it? <3
-Chelsea

Star Wars Faith

I really should have named this first "real" entry "Star Wars Faith and Why You Should Chill Out" but I didn't because I hate when the archive section of the blog has names of entries that take up more than one line. haha. What a great way to start.

I'm going to add a photo before I write any more. I know it's blurry... I snapped it really quick while leaving a church service in California. Yes, you heard me right. That there is a photograph of a painting that is on the wall of a church. I wish I could fully explain why this almost made me keel over and die but it would take wayyy too long to explain the whole thing here. Lets just say that you can find that painting on the wall of a church called Ththemi in Redlands California. Everybody in the world should check out that church at least once in their lifetime. It may be easier to check out the free Tithemi pod-cast on iTunes. Just search "Tithemi" in the iTunes music store. Anyway...

During the last few weeks that I was living in Savannah, Georgia, this awesome young man named Tyler and I started meeting up once a week to talk about "faith". He was seeking the Lord and I guess chose me to help. It was seriously the coolest thing ever to be part of his initial journey to the Lord. Anyway, Tyler would often times bring up things he's heard about different forms of Christianity or ask about different rules and regulations. A lot of the things he asked about he did so because they didn't make sense to him. He knew that Christianity was based on LOVE but he just couldn't see how some of these issues fit into that mold. Whenever her asked one of these questions or brought up one of these topics I would point out that whatever the thing was... it boxed the Lord in and made an absolute. I'd say
"Only Siths deal in absolutes."

To which he'd laughingly reply "STAR WARS FAITH!". It became a running joke for us... for example- Tyler would point out that he observed someone telling someone that they were going to go to hell and he'd ask me what to say to that condemning person if it happened again. I would tell tyler to politely tell the man that "only Siths deal in absolutes" and he'd start laughing "STAR WARS FAITH!".

Real quick: for those of you who aren't nerds- a SITH is one of the bad guy characters in star wars. Siths are like a cult of warrior priests who are devoted to the dark side of the force. I got that from Wikipedia.. you can click on the word SITH above and the link will take you to the Wikipedia definition. In Star Wars Episode III, Bin Kenobi makes a statement to Anakin (who would soon become Darth Vader) on the volcano, "Only Siths deal in Absolutes." He was acknowledging, out loud, the change in Anakin's mind set. Remember, Obi Wan was not BASHING absolutes... he was talking about dealing in absolutes. Obi Wan Kenobi was a very very good guy. If you still have no idea what I'm talking about PLEASE go watch the movie and stop acting like you are too cool for Star Wars. puh-leeez. so..

"Star Wars Faith" became out way of saying "chill out". We recognized that there are many many differences between the hundreds of denominations of Christians and we recognized the fact that many take those differences as being absolute. The great thing about Tyler is that he understood from the get-go that Christianity was nothing without your own personal relationship with the Lord. When we spoke of a personal relationship, he understood that everybody's individual relationship with God needs to be personalized. To go even further, the cool thing about THAT is the fact that, in most cases, it takes a community of believers to help you personalize your faith in God. This is what many people call their "church". Now while developing your personal relationship with God inside of your church is definitely encouraged, Tyler and I recognized that this community of believers that help shape your personalized relationship with God should maybe start at the church that you may (or may not) be going to but, then, stretch right out the doors and onto the streets of the city that you live in. It should include not only Catholics but Baptists, Methodists, Nondenominational people- other Christians. This faith community that helps you shape your personalized relationship with God should include the young and old, black and white and hispanic and well.. everyone that you encounter in good faith and bad. If you only let God work on you and get to know him through studying, conversing, reading, whatever, through the handful of people that you feel comfortable with at your church... then chances are you are limiting the relationship that you could have with the Lord.

"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves..."
-Colossians 1:13


It was a beautiful conclusion and a very needed reminder that we, as the kingdom of God, NEED each other. We need to get outside of the walls of our church and get together. He brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves so that we can explore our relationship with him and the other communities and believers out there that He also loves. Some of us Catholics need to start hanging out with more Baptists, more Evangelicals, even more atheists. Some of us churches need to start communicating with other churches, communities, people outside our "norm". We need to reach out and try to understand the similarities in our brotherhood instead encourage absolutes within our differences. Open up the doors, PLEASE, so we can avoid Star Wars faith because... only Siths deal in absolutes.

-Chelsea