Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

I have worked and lived in Orange County, CA for the past 6 years, one of the most affluent, materialistic, comfort-seeking areas in America. I grew up in Littleton, CO, a beautiful, quiet suburban town outside of Denver. I have been upper-middle class my entire life, along with most of my friends, and lived under the idea that life should be that way. Of course, as Christians we shouldn’t prize our possessions too highly, or put too much worth on outer-beauty; and I would even say that I and the people I know have done a decent job of that. We try our best to put God first and never make idols out of material things or wealth. Yet I’m willing to venture that deep-down, we aren’t quite convinced that we really need God. We say we do and we think we do, and in many emotionally empty ways we know we do…yet I hesitate to say that we truly believe it. I mean in the way that we live, where every action and decision speaks to our dependence on God and his plans for us.

People like me grow up in nice large homes, full of more food than we can even eat before it expires; we dine out several times a week, we go out and buy new clothes whenever we feel like it. We attend church and youth group functions, maybe give a few weeks over the summer to missions trip. Go to good schools, study, work hard to get good grades and achieve our best. Of course this is so we can get into a good college, and then pray that our choice is in God’s will. We get jobs to pay for our nights out with our friends, movies, cell-phones, or the newest fashion trend. We network and go to special events to meet the right people in order to find the right jobs, and take internships to slowly climb the ladder and build our resume. Then we graduate and get jobs which pay for our bills, our homes, our food, our cars, and build up our savings for our futures, or to afford bigger and better things. We budget, we set aside money for vacations and 401k’s, nice retirements and work towards the perfect home, the perfect husband or wife, the perfect family. We get involved at church with children’s ministry or in small groups. That’s pretty much life. We strive, we work hard, we plan and prepare and make good lives for ourselves. I mean, of course we pray daily, we tithe, we study God’s work, we ask for His will and blessing, we strive to please him in all that we do, we hope to serve him with our lives, and we whole-heartedly love Him.

There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that path…I have plenty of reason to believe from reading God’s word that he desires to bless his people, that he wants to give to us and offer us joyful, peaceful lives. However…might I also be so bold to say that, just maybe, that was not all God had intended for us. That a happy home, nice job and serving God’s people may not be God’s ideal for our lives
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…” – Matthew 5

These are not the most pleasant of ideas when you really look at them. Mourning….meek…poor in spirit….hunger….persecuted. None of these seem to factor into my life, not really anyway. Now, these may have been directed at a certain audience in Jesus’ time who lived much different lives than we do. Perhaps they are not saying that we should be like this necessarily, but that if you are you will still be blessed. It may not be theologically correct to say that God is saying these exact things to us today, or telling us to be this way. However, I would say that there is something to living with this kind of mindset that still applies to us. Not just that it offers hope when you are down, but that there is something in this kind of hard life that brings us closer to Jesus, makes him sweeter than before, and teaches us true faith and dependence on him.

I used to read these “beatitudes” and think they were a nice idea, but didn’t fully understand them. A person who mourns, who is poor in spirit, who is meek – is a person like this truly blessed, fully at peace, enjoying a full life, or even find it easy to praise God all the time? I’d be willing to say no. But you know what? They need God…I mean, they really need him. He’s not just a nice idea to them, no, they actually know what it means to hunger and thirst for him…often because they are so low they don’t even have any real food to eat.

God has given me several opportunities over the last few months to spend time with these types of people in many different capacities. And I have to say, that in my 24 years of living, I have probably learned more about God from these people than anyone else.

One of my best friends is this type of person, due to circumstances that God has put him into. His life just plain sucks sometimes; but he’s dependent on God for everything. His heart is so willing and open to what God wants, no matter how hard, no matter how “poor in spirit” it makes him. But his faith is inspiring, it teaches me something new almost every day, and it shows me that I am far to prideful, too in control of my own life, and that I should be willing to put my own comfort on the line to sacrifice for Jesus every single day.

I talked with many homeless men in New Orleans last month whose lives are hard and scary most of the time. They are not always happy, they worry, they fear, but they are also utterly dependent on God. The repeat phrases of scripture to get them through the day. And if they don’t already know God, they know that they have need of something bigger, need of hope, and their hearts are open.

Just last week I was in Hollywood until about 2am spending my time with homosexuals, druggies, and transvestites. They know their lives are hard, empty, and full of hurt. The get caught up in vicious cycles of prostitution to pay bills, then drugs, then prostitution to support their drug addiction. When we talked, they shared their lives and their hurts and they know how depraved they are.

Of course Jesus hung out with these types of people! It makes so much sense. If I was Jesus, I would have hung out with them too, not Pharisees like me. There are plenty of days when I know I need God, but I don’t honestly feel it. I’ve spent years thinking I could handle it and that I was in control, and God was just kind of my backup and my buddy. Why would Jesus want to spend his time with people like me? People who barely realize that without him they are nothing? As I become more aware of my need, my sin and weaknesses…as I experience hurt and pain, and see others in the middle of it, I get it. Those are the times that I cry out to God, that I talk to him the most, that I need him the most, when I truly feel his presence and blessing, and when I learn what it is to praise him. That is when he teaches me compassion, love, and grace for others; because then I know just a little of what it feels like to hurt and need compassion and need love.

My Orange County / Littleton life does not lend itself, at least in my case, to a meekness or humility or mourning, the life that Jesus addressed in Matthew. That is a life about me and my comfort, not about him and suffering for his name and living in desperate need of him in view of his mercy. I want to know God the way that the poor and needy and orphaned do. I pray that my life would not be about me and filling my hopes and dreams and desires. And that’s hard, because even other Christians lead me to believe that’s what my life should be about. But instead, I hope that it would be used to show God’s love to those who don’t yet know him. That I hand out with those that Jesus did, and cling to him in the same way. These words from one of my new favorite songs sum it up perfectly:

“You sit at the table
With the wounded and the poor;
You laugh and share stories with the thief and the whore.
And when you could just be silent
And leave us here to die,
Still you sent your son for us;
You are on our side.”
-Bethany Dillon

Sad Day

Today is a sad day for me…a day of mourning and regret. It is the end of an era, the loss of a happy time….yes, it’s the TV series finale of my treasured Tuesday night vice, Gilmore Girls. I wrote in a previous post about Bavarian Sugar cookies, the idea of those little things in life that make your day, and add joy to the mundane. And now it as if I have been eating my Bavarian sugar cookies every Tuesday, and this time, someone came over, ripped it ruthlessly from my hand, and took a huge bite out of it. No more sugar cookie for me.

If you know me at all, you know that Gilmore Girls has a significant role in my life, as sick as that is. Some people watch sports, other gossip about Hollywood fashion and who’s dating who….but I watch Gilmore Girls. Every Tuesday night. And not just Tuesdays, oh no, that’s only when a new one is on. But when those aren’t playing, I am often watching DVD’s from previous seasons while I eat, or check e-mail, or just feel like doing relaxing.

It’s like…the ultimate show. Funny, dramatic, full of pop culture humor, and characters that talk faster than any normal person would ever talk, but with each line so full of wit and brilliance. The characters are unique and random, and you never know what to expect. It’s not forced, it’s not predictable, it’s not a lame sitcom or overly dramatic mystery show. In fact, it rarely has a really good point or deep lesson. But sometimes the characters do or say things that remind me so much of myself, I can’t help but find it humorous and be amazed. It captures daily life and unique, quirky people, and actually makes you think that living in a tiny town with nosy people would be fun. I say, it’s one of the best-written and most creative shows on TV. And it’s leaving me. I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. Cry, I suppose…whine…hold a memorial service…and then I think I will get on with my life like a normal person...

Failing Gloriously

I spend my days living in my own version of the TV show, The Office, and am often left with lots of spare time at work, unsure of what to do. Right now is one of those moments, in which I was randomly inspired to write, mainly for the sake of Erin, who just mentioned playing tennis.

And when she asked if we play tennis, I had a flashback to my days of “Ghetto Tennis”, which I played with my friend Lindsay on the dark, cool summer evenings in Littleton, CO. That thought prompted a reminder of something else my best friend often says, “If I’m going to win (or succeed), I’ll win gloriously. And if I fail, then I’ll fail gloriously.”

I have come to terms with the fact that I am just mediocre at many things. I was just not born with certain skills, or the drive to perfection in certain areas of my life. But with this realization comes a child-like joy in the fact that if I’m going to be mediocre, I’m going to be gloriously mediocre!

And so as an example, I will relive my days of “Ghetto Tennis.” I believe our motto was, “We don’t got no shoes, we don’t got no keys, we don’t go no skills….we be ghetto.” (and yes, this was coming from 2 middle-upper class suburban white girls of about 18 years old). Lindsay and I were both aware that we just plain sucked at tennis. Some random summer evening, we scrounged up some tennis rackets (who knows where, since I don’t think us or our families really played), a few tennis balls, and got the idea to go attempt to play. Attempt being the key word. And from this mediocre attempt, “Ghetto Tennis” was born.

Ghetto Factor #1: the tennis courts were locked after a certain hour, and we both had keys from around 1990, meaning the locks had been changed. So, depending on the time and our luck, we would either find a court that had been left open, or somehow climb into the court. I forget exactly how it worked, but it was something like that. So basically, we had to break into the courts in order to play.

Ghetto Factor #2: I think after we arrived at the courts (and since no one was around to look at us funny), we just took off our shoes and messed around. We took our stance on either side of the net, and began running around on the dirty court in bare feet. It’s not like either us really hit the ball, or hit it quickly, so there wasn’t much running back and forth to do anyway.

Ghetto Factor #3: Feeding off of the last factor, we really had no skills. We could both serve it over the net at least (probably making up our own technique), and from time to time the other person would actually hit it and send it back over the net. Although I recall several times when Lindsay would hit it to me and it would bounce 2 or 3 times before I actually hit it. Or the best were the classic moves where one of us would swing the racket with all of our might, and completely miss the ball. If I recall correctly, in the midst of this, there was a lot of making fun of each other, jokes about how our thunder thighs were cracking the ground beneath us, and a lot of laughter about how we sucked. Of course, there those rare moments when we would hit it back and forth, maybe 10 times (of course we would count, because it amazed us both), until one of us would eventually mess it up (probably me), and then we’d go back to 1 or 2 hits at best before it flew past our racket, or got caught up in the net.

And after about 15-20 minutes of this, we would both start moving slower, hitting carelessly, and eventually we’d both be sitting down on the court, talking about the latest happenings at school or in our friend’s lives. And so we’d sit for another good 30 minutes or so and just chat and make fun of each other some more, discuss boys, and laugh. And of course, that was when we came up with our slogan: “We ain’t got no keys, we ain’t got no shoes, we ain’t got no skills…we be ghetto.”

So yes, we were both mediocre at best. But we were gloriously mediocre – we made a big joke of it, we laughed at our lack of skill, and we made some dang good memories together. And to me, that’s much more significant than a really good round of tennis.

Tears

Her vision becomes blurry as small drops of water form,
Gradually growing until they spill over onto her blushed cheek,
Down past the crevices of her mouth and fall onto her lap.

She closes her eyes, the beads of water becoming steady streams;
She lifts her hands to her damp face and drops her head into them.

They fall continually, until it becomes hard to breathe;
A slight gasp, a groan, and then her cries are silent,
so intense that she cannot make a sound.
Her whole body begins to ache as they support her quiet tears,
And she wonders if they will ever stop.

For a moment, perhaps, but they will continue with no immediate end in sight.
They hurt, her body hurts, and her heart breaks.

Her face is now drenched, her hands full of water,
her eyes becoming swollen and raw,
even her clothing is moistened from the tears.

And then He speaks to her, into the silence, out of nowhere.
He doesn’t say that everything will be okay,
He doesn’t tell her to stop, He doesn’t tell her not to worry,
In fact no words are spoken at all.
But His hands stretch out underneath her chin,

And she watches through cloudy eyes,
As her pool of tears trickle down into secure, steady hands.
They are big, and they are weathered, and they are there to catch her tears.

And though the tears keep coming, and the hurt still stings,
His Hands catch every drop that falls,
and it is well.

Love

Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."
1 corinthians 13:4-7

Irreconcilable Differences

"In the United States it can be one ground, often they are used as justification for a no-fault divorce. Any sort of difference between the two parties that either cannot be changed or the individual does not want to make the change can be considered irreconcilable differences."

Irreconcilable Differences….what does that mean? Why is it that hundreds, maybe thousands of people, break their wedding vows and use the lame excuse of irreconcilable differences? Did God say: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate….unless they have differences that they just can’t resolve".

I often wonder what this means, as you hear this as the basis for so many celebrity divorces. Britney and Kevin, Nick and Jessica, Elizabeth and Hugh….What was so hard that they couldn’t fix or work through? Or did they just lose “that loving feeling” and are out to find it again in someone else?

I find it very interesting that part of this definition states: “or the individual does not want to make the change”. Wow, really? I mean, ok, if your husband wants you to become a porn star, or the wife wants her husband to be a drag queen (I mean, what girl doesn’t want that?) then okay, maybe those are things you shouldn’t want to change. And I’m not exactly sure what God would have to say about that, either. And yes, there are some terms for which divorce may be the best answer….physical abuse or a partner that can’t stay faithful…then divorce may have potential. After all, a relationship is intended to glorify God.

But if one person just doesn’t want to change…I just don’t understand that. There may be things that are hard to change, or take time and willingness…but for someone to simply say they don’t want to make a change, and therefore their own personal comfort and happiness is more important than keeping a bond together that God has formed…. It’s a bit of a mystery to me. I guess we all have a tendency to think that we are right, and we want everyone else to think and act like us. Or God has revealed something to us, and we assume that anyone who hasn’t had that revealed to them is worse than us?

Marriage is supposed to reflect the relationship of God to the Church. Does God just give up on the church, and stop trying to work with it? Does the church just say, “I’m over it God. This is too hard and I just don’t want to change to be more like you. Peace out!” Well, I guess lots of people do that, but hopefully the church as a whole doesn’t. We constantly strive to be more like him; and we fail, oh yes we fail miserably. But God waits and he helps us with his Holy Spirit, and slowly that change happens. And sometimes there are consequences to our failures, but God still loves us, he still chooses us.

So are there really differences that can’t be overcome? I guess if at least one or both of the people involved just don’t want to put in the effort necessary to overcome them, then yes, it’s possible. After all, God created us all very differently. But I would like to think that just as God demonstrates his love and faithfulness and abounding grace in our lives, that we can live our relationships in accordance with that model.