boundaries

YOLO guarded by the Spirit

September 17, 2020 — Leave a comment

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. he has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know when I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you — guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

2 Timothy 1:6-14

What gets me is the see-saw I experience in life. One moment I am determined to live my life to the fullest, have a DGAF attitude and live in my power by doing things where after I can say, No one can judge me, but God. The next I’m reading this Word and there’s another kind of power that makes my life moments dim and the purposes of God so bold. Here Paul makes living for the gospel, living a holy life so worthwhile, so much bigger than us. And aren’t we all at least a bit drawn to living a life that exceeds beyond our little life?

It’s the marrying of these two moments — the DGAF, only God can judge me energy of being in this world WITH the big purpose, living for the gospel hope that makes every interaction, every word, every action meaningful. How does this play out in our daily thoughts, relationships, pursuits and paths?

In church, they always encourage us to measure all life by the Scriptures, but instead of leaning into a one way street where the Word of God sometimes halts all our behaviors and actions, make it more of a conversation. Yes, before acting and speaking let it filter through the bigness & goodness of the Word of God. But you have to come back to this world, too. What does it look like to still pursue those actions and honor those desires but with the refreshed & renewed sense of bigness, goodness and power of God? It doesn’t always have to mean, don’t do it anymore, give up your hopes. It could mean, boundaries, coming back to your immutable worth and not doing things just to please others and the world, or realizing that the standards the church has used to tried to shame you into a “holy life” may actually not align with the Word of God. Live a YOLO kind of life that honors the gospel.

CBG: Hardened

May 8, 2020 — Leave a comment

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come up and rain righteousness upon you.

Hosea 10:12

I wish integrity could always be felt. I want to feel genuinely and act from there. It’s as if an action can only be authentic if it’s motivated by a genuine felt experience. How often is this prerequisite an excuse for not doing, an excuse to skip out on things that make me feel uncomfortable, a justification for lazy covered up in the notion of “boundaries” and “self-care”?

Side: I am the biggest advocate for boundaries and I think it’s brave to draw them out. Do your boundaries honor your sense of worth or do they seek to make you feel more worthy? These are very close neighbors. Boundaries stemming from self-worth may feel uncomfortable, racked with thoughts of, “I feel bad,” “What if they think I’m…” However your self-worth will not be contingent on the response. On the other hand, boundaries that aim to impress your worthiness have whiffs of ego-building, self-centeredness and imminent fear of the recipient’s response.

Back to integrity of our actions: sometimes we cannot wait to feel before we act. What if our hearts are built on fallow ground? Are we going to wait for the ground to magically soften? Wait for someone else to tend to the plot of heart? Sometimes the only way to release our hearts from hardness is to act in love and do right. It’s refusing to let a hardened heart dictate your life. It’s taking action because even if you don’t feel the Holy Spirit at work, s/he’s at work. It’s a greater integrity than alignment between actions & feelings; it’s an integrity between actions & God in you. Break up your fallow ground! Throw down the rake hard. See cracks form. The season of tenderness is around the corner.

Prayer: God I pray for a tender and soft heart. God I pray for a dependence on the Holy Spirit when I feel paralyzed in my actions. God I pray for an integrity that is aligned with who you have called me to be: a child full of worth and purpose.

Character: Where are you seeking worth?

Grace: What does a tender heart feel like?

CBG: Judgment

April 30, 2020 — Leave a comment

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler — not even eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

1 Corinthians 5:9-13

My blood boils. The intolerance. The judgment. The contradictions in this compared to Paul’s previous statement about not judging. I keep reading the verses to understand. I read it again, through the “lenses of a good compassionate God.” I read the whole passage — okay, this was in the context of Paul addressing a man sleeping with his stepmom. Okay, okay? This passage still pisses me off. What about that plank in your own eye, Paul?! Church people?!

Can I toss this passage away? Why was it included? Because a set of old white men decided what should be the canon?! Why was this included? What does it reveal about Paul? About us? About God?

Look out: Paul was on the far, far other side before Jesus. He was a proud, angry, over-educated man of society. I wonder if he still carries those traits into his new self. I wonder if his “passion” and once-again certainty makes him say things without thinking about the emotional impact of others. I wonder if he’s so desperate for people to know a transformative Jesus that he himself is impatient when he doesn’t see how others aren’t already on the same page as him. Paul is flawed. Paul is imperfect. Paul can be wrong.

Look in: …name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler — Christian, you are that brother. How quick we are to point to that person whether it’s in pity or in disgust. How quick we are to judge and dissociate. Are we cutting others out to protect our image and flow? Or is knowledge of another’s behavior information for us to tailor our acts of grace and patience for them? Is knowledge of another’s behavior fuel for us to take personal responsibility to be less greedy, less manipulative, more careful with our words and more focused on God’s call on us?

Look up, in & out: God can handle our questions and our doubts. God doesn’t fit in human wisdom. God’s grace and compassion are boundless. God warns to draw in. God love to change. God shifts our behavior, our thoughts, our whole beings.

Prayer: God help us move from anger to action. God remove the parts of us that want to be tribal. God help us work through uncomfortable relationships.

Character: Who have you been judging? What does your judgment reveal about you?

Grace: Where do you feel not enough for God and for others? How are those exact places your unique power for the community?

Sh*t Christians Don’t Say: Dis-honor Ma & Pa

July 12, 2019 — Leave a comment

Honor your mother and father. One of the 10 commandments. Growing up hearing this over and over again, against the backdrop of a father who tried to kill me with a chair and a mother who shamed me for how dark my skin is, was difficult. Honor your mother and father. I would look up passages and search and ask to see if there was any way around this commandment. How could I honor people who harmed me? How could I continue to honor those that made me feel invisible and small?

When I tell people I’m not close to my family, people say I get that, me too. Then those same people proceed to share how they’re going on vacay with their family or how their dad sent them an article to read. I am not close to my family. They don’t ask me questions. They don’t know when I’m sad. We sit quietly at home, like true strangers in the facade of relatedness.

When I tell people, I don’t like my family. I often get, they’re doing the best they can. If you want to, you can. They’re parents etc. I’m a grown woman and my drunk dad told me I’m a disappointment and he’s been tolerating me. I’m a grown woman and as I leave to go back to LA, my dad doesn’t make eye contact with me, but instead as I’m leaving, says I’m a liar. I have no integrity. Yeah. I had written him a card saying when I was in New York I would take him out to eat. I forgot and I didn’t follow through. That’s my fault. But instead of bringing it up, he aggressively calls me a liar and shamed me as I leave. And the only reason why I know it has something to do with this meal promise is because my mom later sends me 15 voice mails about how I failed there. Yes. I didn’t follow through and fine, I lied. I made a promise and I failed. But is the way to deal with me to shame me, yell at me and make me truly never want to take him out for a meal? Also why does he want that when he doesn’t even talk to me when I’m home? He does nothing but mutter under his breath how I suck and then drink. It’s not even 9am.

When I tell people, I hate my family, I feel judged. I believe people think I’m being dramatic and callous. My parents are immigrants who sacrificed so much for me. And now there is never room for me to hate them. At what point am I no longer held to this filial obligation for something I had no control over? How much shame, fear and anger must I endure for me to have enough reason to draw my boundaries.

Honor your mother and father. I feel shame around that commandment. I feel that I will never do that enough. Is me coming home every time even after such horrific times, good enough? That’s my version of forgiveness but I can’t forget. It’s in my body. I’m miserable when I’m home. I want to cry but there’s no where to cry and as I’m writing this on the subway, I have to be careful that the floodgates don’t suddenly open.

How do I DIStance myself and not DisHonor? Does that make you more comfortable? If I never see my parents again, I really would not be sad. They haven’t been part of my life. When I think of my blood family, I am filled with grief, hurt, sadness and fear. I don’t like who I become. I don’t like how trapped I feel. Am I allowed to DISHonor my parents? Truth is, they probably already see me as a dishonorable dishonest daughter.

Day 33: What goes in must come out

January 18, 2019 — Leave a comment

Leviticus 11-13; Psalm 33

There is nothing wrong with a kid who plays in mud and gets dirty. It’s normal. It happens to all kids who play in mud. It might even be a little cute. Until that muddy kid wants to jump right into your fluffy white comforter. Even the path he takes to get there — the muddy footsteps, the small handprints on the wall, The flinging of mud here and there — you get it, might get dirty. Being unclean isn’t wrong. It only becomes an issue when it comes in contact with something that reveals the uncleanliness by messing with what it comes in contact with, in a negative way. I don’t want a muddy white comforter.

Same with here. There’s nothing wrong with the unclean, unless it messes with the goodness of that around it. What makes us unclean is no longer eating this or that, but how we present ourselves. Do your speech and actions defile the good around you? Do your words negatively impact those who hear it? Does your silence and inaction harm those around you? Does your passionate unswerving speech condemn those around you? It is not what goes in that makes us unclean; it’s what comes out. But sometimes what goes in affects what comes out. If I eat a lot of garlic, my body smells like garlic. If I listen to the same kind of person talk, I might unintentionally quote them or phrase like them. Awareness!

So listen to your rap music, watch your Game of Thrones, read your romance Harlot novels, use your vibrator, eat your chips — I mean it. But if those things affect how you interact with those around you with less care, compassion and love, maybe reconsider? Is there a correlation? No judgment. Just curiosity and awareness that lead to potential change.

Day 25: Move your body

January 10, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 25-27; Psalm 25

The tabernacle is REAL specific. Parts have to be an exact length. Materials need to be of a certain kind. It’s like building the Star Wars or Harry Potter sea of LEGO’s. The place where God dwells isn’t a haphazard place. It’s a unique, specific, sacred space that requires awareness, care and a vision of what’s to come. Thank Jesus we don’t have to make tabernacles to have the presence of God among us. Because of Jesus and his love, we get to have the Holy Spirit that can dwell in us because we are the temple.

Do we treat our temple with as much care, awareness and vision of what’s to come? Is our temple in constant process? Is it already perfect for God to dwell? It’s both. We are already holy to host God in us, yet have room to keep becoming the holy place where God dwells. How can we treat our bodies, our minds, our souls with a celebration of what is present and a desire for growth to what will come? May we know our bodies, all its specifics and sacredness. May we honor our bodies and see its power and beauty. May we bring our temple to places to make them radiant and not make the place worst. We don’t do that by doing, but by being whole and loved without pushing the place where we’re at to love us. If we can act and live as if we are already enough and holy and loved, how much less will we take and demand of everyone and everything and how much more will we simply want to give of ourselves?

Treat your body like a temple. Nothing that comes in it will defile it. But don’t be taking that for granted. Don’t devalue it by disrespecting it. You know that ick feel when you do that. Or when others so unjustly do that to you. But what can your body do for others?

Day 24: Wild wild country

January 9, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 22-24; Psalm 24

The Israelites were in Egypt under oppression with rules created by the Pharaoh. Here they are in the wilderness and God sends them commandments and a way of living. Being in the wilderness without boundaries and direction would not have been freedom. God needed to be so specific on relational and moral issues as if the Israelites didn’t know these things. His specificities with animals and money and people reveal an intimate God who knows what our daily dealings are like. God cares about those day to day things because those all connect to the 10 commandments which in turn connect to loving God and trusting God.

But I can’t imagine life in the wilderness like this. Was this better than being in Egypt? Free but not sure what the next day would look like? Is freedom and faith better than living in a society where I know what each moment will look like? If yes, then why do we often live in the latter? We choose pain over the potential of fulfillment/disappointment. We choose settling over the potential of loss/gain. We choose knowing over possibility. Is it the control? Is it fear? I’m trying to figure this out so I choose the scary hope over the unhappy secure!

Day 23: Rules, Rules, Rules

January 8, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 19-21; Psalm 23

Here comes the rules. Rules are a imperfect manifestation of wisdom and social justice and goodness. It’s a way of making sense of a less tangible sense of holiness and right way of living. It’s an asymptote to living for God. If we follow all the rules but without consent and knowing the heart behind them, it’s not love. It feels like prison and a system of trying not to cross the line. I’m not saying rules are bad. If you look at the rules and commandments and understand this helps us prioritize God before self, this helps us trust our provision, this teaches relational goodness, and you agree with the foundation of these said commandments, then you’re not following out of obligation but rather living according to a good way. So don’t fall pray to a need to follow 10 commandments and 52 other ones to be a “person of God.” What do the commandments say about God, you and people? How does each commandment help us live in just relationship with God, others and ourselves? Because when Jesus comes he revamps these rules, not by abolishing them but actually by revealing the impossible-like heart of God’s way. Do not lust? Damn that covers a lot of ground and makes us really think through our ideas of intimacy, relationship and love. Forgive fully? Damn that makes us rethink reparations, revenge, Grace, mercy and endurance. Those ideas are big and broad and require wisdom and freedom and a continual conversation with God. I can follow rules; now living a life where each moment is surrendered to God’s wisdom and freedom? That requires faith.

Day 10: Purity culture

December 26, 2018 — Leave a comment

Genesis 32-34; Psalm 10

When they talk about sex, the Bible refers to it as “being known.” That’s sweet; the intimacy and connection that is at the heart of sex. The OT has so many stories of non-consenting sex as well. Women are often raped. Dinah here is defiled, because she was raped and treated like a prostitute. The lack of consent and the using of another’s body are where the injustice exist. Has the Christian world drawn the boundaries for sex too close-minded? Rape, non-consent are wrong. We cannot cross to that. But where is the line between that and being known? Is the purity culture created out of fear because it lacks a trust in people to act out of wisdom? Yes, we should value our bodies as if they are sacred like temples. How do we define value? Upholding Consent and choice? How does the purity culture create more fear and bitterness rather than freedom? What is good in the purity culture that we can learn from? Is treating our bodies with respect the goal? Who gets to define that?

God I pray for the peace and knowledge of knowing how to honor my body without strict fearful boundaries. I pray for fear to go away when it comes to my body and sexuality. I pray for a freedom with wisdom when it comes to my body and sexuality.