Author: Caroline

When I'm not riding in the backseat of my Grandpa's restored vintage car "Mable," I'm doing other things like... rising to most adventure occasions my husband proposes / chasing our toddler around Brooklyn / enjoying neighbors, strangers, and friends / making countless trips to the laundromat / writing for various publications and for personal reflection / loving and serving our local church / cleaning the bathroom / hosting small and big crowds in our home / meeting up with a friend for coffee / thinking Vocation is my strange frenemy. Though I have worked and existed in many stations/places, I am convinced that each day has good work to be done and that I am equipped and prepared to do that good work. This blog explores the tension and the intersection of a constant vocational call - to good work, neighbor love, and living in the kingdom come. My favorite things are coffee and creating and laughing (preferably with company). I love to listen to sermons and read biographies and make tea before going to bed.

serious about sin | serious about joy

I’ve been accused of being too serious.

Does that surprise you, friends of the blog-o-sphere, with all my stories of falling down and loving laughter and chasing raindrops? Does it surprise you that people think I’m too serious?

I’ve learned that not everyone likes to read books stuffed full of long syllabled words and very few people want to ask if those long syllabled words would ever change my plans for the day. And I get it. Sometimes, I forget that “taking a genuine interest in the welfare of others” means doing things that matter little to me because they matter much to someone else. Sometimes, I act like the child who once told me, “Please stop doing anything that you like.” Sometimes, I find myself in a self-righteous wrestling match because I think, “Shouldn’t we all be serious about the things of God (even if it means strings of long syllables)?”

And then I think about the children who came to Jesus. They probably had a hard time pronouncing their Rs and words that started with C. Their understanding of love and grace and kindness didn’t come from a study of thick textbooks.

I imagine they did have a certain seriousness about them, but not the self-righteous and learned kind.

I’ve seen this seriousness play across children’s faces in the most solemn moments, when the line between right and wrong is being drawn on their hearts and in their heads for the first time. I can hear the nervous claims coming out from wide eyes,

“She took it from me and I yelled at her.”
“But Mommy said to never go in there…”
“Why doesn’t the man have food?”
“I hit my brother.”
“Laney took a cookie.”

You can hear them, can’t you? The confessions and questions come out slowly and with those little eyebrows arching high to scrunch the forehead.

There is a seriousness about children when it comes to sin that I think wears off as we age. We get comfortable with the idea that we fail and we get tired of the wide-eyed confessions.

But there is something very sad about being cavalier with our sin, an emptiness apathy and disregard can’t replace. Have you ever stuck around after a child does mini-battle with the questions/confessions above? Do you see what happens?

Freedom.

When they recognize how serious it is to sin, they are freed to be truly joyful. There is nothing hidden. Their (or human) failure is exposed and there is nothing left to rationalize – just space to revel in the gratitude that they are forgiven, accepted, invited, loved.

I’m currently reading both Leviticus and Galatians and the contrast is captivating.

We serve a serious God. Sin is not a Sunday School lesson. The hoops the Israelites had to jump through on account of their sin were certainly not neatly wrapped up in a 20 minute moral lesson. The rules and regulations set up a healthy fear of the Lord and a distaste for anything that divided their relationship with Him. Sin is serious. I cannot imagine living in that time. I mean, I’ve tried imagining it and I nearly always end up pleading with the Lord to be a little more understanding. But, the Lord keeps reminding my heart, “Sin is serious.”

Then, I flip to Galatians and just want to dance. If I have the right (serious) view of sin, my salvation is like dancing with the cast of Fiddler on the Roof as they sing, “To Life, to life, l’chaim!”

I am free. Free!

How is it that children get this – that we got this as kids – and adults don’t?

If sin is serious, then so is JOY.

We were brought OUT of serious darkness and INTO serious light.
Why is it so hard to understand that a frivolous position on the former means a frivolous position on the latter?

It’s true, I can be too serious sometimes and I’m rightly called out when I’m trying to puff myself up. But, brothers and sisters, can we agree to build up the Body of Christ by being serious about sin so we can be serious about joy?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

pictures, poetry and punctilious illustrations

I know I haven’t done a “this & that” post for a long while. It’s overwhelming, okay? That’s the bottom line. There is just too much to share! Here are a few bullet points for you to click on, read through, think on, look at. But, just so you know, it’s always the hardest thing to narrow it down!

  • I loved this article, “Poetry and the Common Good,” from Qideas. Here’s a little sneak peek: “Learning to love poetry could prove a valuable counter-practice to scientism’s language of certainty and its assault on the wholeness of the human. Truth, whether scientific or other, needs beauty to keep it from becoming harsh and dogmatic. There is a mysterious depth to the art of poetry that is designed to pierce the illusion that we see the world directly, and it does so by sinking into the deepest depths of consciousness, into the kardia of our being, showing us how imprecise our certainty can become.”
  • Do you LOVE the snapshots of life – especially when they’re done well? Then you’ve got to check out these photos from March from around the world. The Big Picture from Boston.com lets us travel around the globe through a bunch of camera lenses.
  • Sometimes we don’t call a spade a spade – which is pretty silly (I mean, how long can we kid ourselves? Spades will always be spades). Idols are that way often in our lives – we don’t call them what they are and then we’re upset when they don’t give us what we want. Read this article by Justin Buzzard, “That Idol that You Love, It Doesn’t Love you Back” and you’ll be blessed. Promise.
  • I’m becoming more and more a fan of illustration. I think because I recognize the power that it has in our culture and the strong messages it can convey. Here are some great examples from graphic designer/illustrator Mike McQuade.
  • I could probably write a hundred posts on the new music I’ve been listening to, but I’ll just post a few here and hope that you can fill in the blanks.

Okay, friends. Now let’s all go out and

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

satisfied

I am satisfied in you.

It’s a hopeful statement, yes, but it very much ends with a powerful period. This morning, I am forgetting not His benefits and I am satisfied.

Psalm 103:2
Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits

When there are ripples of discontent or rumblings of doubt, God reminds me that He responds to my questions with an answer always as full and lush as Spring.

He satisfies.
He satisfies.
He satisfies.

So, today I’m hoping that I will…

“Let my sighs give way to songs that sing about your faithfulness
Let my pain reveal your glory as my only real rest
Let my losses show me all I truly have is you”

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

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grapefruits and what we do with good gifts

Today I ate a grapefruit for lunch – with Saltines, just like my Grandpa Nichols. I used to try to eat a grapefruit like an orange and that never ended well. I’ve since learned a method that wastes little of the delicious fruit.Grapefruit (half)

As I was cutting into the pink today, careful to not waste any of those sweet, pink pockets, I realized that enjoying a grapefruit is a commitment. You’ve got to be willing to work in order to enjoy membrane-less, tangy goodness.

I started thinking about all the reasons I don’t choose good things – all the times I’ve passed up a grapefruit for a granola bar just because it’s easier. I know what’s better and sometimes I can even taste it because I’ve chosen it before, but something dreadful inside of me attacks my knowledge of “better.” And I end up settling for less effort and less goodness.

God promises to not withhold any good thing from us. In Christ, God lavishes an inheritance I can’t comprehend – gifts that won’t run out even if I open one every moment of my life. God promises, in Christ to withhold no good thing from us, so the choice for less is on me.

Psalm 84:11
For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

I wondered (cutting up that tasty giant took some tiempo) if we learn to recognize the good things, but are never held accountable to do/use them. In college I sat in study groups and wrote papers and made passionate presentations about all the good things we should be/could be doing, but the doing of those things is just too hard and everybody knows it. Now, I go to bible studies and post facebook links and wax philosophy at coffee shops about the best ways to change the world, but the doing of these things is just too hard and everybody knows it.

Everybody knows we’ll end up ordering Little Caesar’s instead of planning a homegrown spread from the garden. Everybody knows those ideas about loving others and living like Jesus are like climbing Mt. Everest – we can feel the rush as we raise our hands in victory on the summit, but we’re never going to train for it.
It’s just the way we do life.

I sat down to enjoy my juicy prize at my desk and thought, “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 3

is theology unmixable?

I just read this article yesterday, “Why Theology and Youth Ministry Seldom Mix” and now I’m wondering what we would say Theology does mix with? Or does the study of God always hang out in its own category – in the same coffee shop where people who study God hang out?

Is the solution to our watered down youth programs more theology? Is theology something we can add in to the recipe of various ministries where some have enough, others too much, and others not enough?

Maybe theology is about living. Doesn’t it make sense that the more we study God the more we know what pleases Him and the more we delight to do it? So, our ministry (whether formal or otherwise) is not about balancing out the messy games with the exegesis of Romans. Ministry is just about inviting others into our study of God – finding out what pleases Him and delighting to do it together.

I once tried to come up with a word for this: viviology.
I know it doesn’t make sense and thank goodness I don’t work at Webster’s. But, as I read through Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas several years ago, I struggled to come up with a way to describe the kind of life Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived. He was so serious about theology. I mean, brilliance ran in the guy’s family so he would have excelled in whatever field he chose to pursue. The interesting piece is not that Bonhoeffer was brilliant as a theologian, but that he was brilliant as a mentor, friend, and pastor.

To Bonhoeffer, theology wasn’t something that he worked in to a lesson plan. Theology happened when he played soccer and wrote letters and read for hours. Theology happened when he was in prison and when he struggled through sin and when conviction led him to take a stand against injustice. Theology wasn’t an additive.

Theology – the truest kind, I think – is always mixed. In fact, it’s mixed so much that it can’t be pulled apart from all the pieces of life it connects. Ministry is about drawing others into a study of God so that we know what pleases Him and are delighted to do it together.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

breathing in moments

As I walked Ellie today, I was especially aware of our pace. Ellie was trying to tell me that “walking the dog” isn’t meant to be rushed.

So, we went through the alleyways and peeked in backyards. That’s where real life happens, you know – in backyards. That’s where people tuck things, store things, and create things. That’s where experiments happen and “Marco Polo” is shouted from different hiding places.

Every once in awhile, Ellie pulled at the leash until I let her squirm in the shade while I soaked in the sun.

We breathed in the moments today, Ellie and me.

And I think these songs were playing in my heart.

Posted on by Caroline 3

making plans

Call me crazy, but I had a vision.

I was sitting at my dining room table and city maps, plane tickets, and blank journals had spread themselves open on its worn, oak surface. I was cupping a strong mug of coffee in my hands and listening to my husband get animated about our plans. My feverish, excited voice would sometimes overlap his as we finished sentences (as lovers do) and confidently claimed the world could not handle the love we would unleash.

But my heart mostly swelled to match the passion I saw in him to reach the broken world and live in abundant joy in the process. It was about adventure, sure. But, my heart lept like mad at the thought of living alongside my love, being drawn into the things that he loves.

I was his and he was mine. And it was Christ, my bridegroom.

The more often I reflect on this vision (I know, crazy), the more giddy I feel. Christ desires nothing less than to sit down with me and make plans to love the Lord and love others. I wonder if it makes Him giddy that it makes me giddy. I hope so.

Lately, as I dive deeper into the Word, the Lord’s jealousy is real. When I sit down at the dining room table with all my other loves – children, travel, ministry, writing, relationships – I can see his sadness. But, his sadness is not just for my distance and making plans with others. His sadness is for all the ways I could be living abundantly but choose to live half full. His sadness is that I am not living this life as He intended; as I could be living it if I was with my Love, loving what He loves.

The Lord’s jealousy is like a coin I keep turning over in my fingers. He is jealous that I would love Him and Him alone, but in doing so my life explodes in great joy – the kind of joy that cannot be contained; the kind of joy that has to overflow; the kind of joy that rises above even in the most painful of circumstances because it’s anchored below in the sturdiest Love.

When I left high school and then college and then my first job, I was supposed to grow out of the lopsided, willing, “I’ll do anything for you, Lord.” It’s just not practical; not… advised. We see “happiness” and “God’s will” as slippery, future somethings we meander towards while maintaining more “practical positions” in this life.

But, God desires we make the lopsided, grinning statement, “I’ll do anything for you, Lord” every single day – whether butcher, blogger, or banker. Whatever our station, God desires that we would walk alongside Him – loving what He loves as we love Him.

I pray, as I meet my Bridegroom at the dining room table, my heart will rise to love Him more. I pray I will love what He loves and our life together will be one that overflows goodness wherever we go.

And I know the joy that follows will make sunshine look like a night light.
He’s just that good.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

no other shelter

I will run and not grow weary
I will walk and not grow faint
You will be my shelter
protection from the rain
and when the waters rise,
I’ll stand and sing Your name
(from Hallelujah by Preson Philips)

This morning, the Lord calls out to me, “Take shelter. But take shelter in Me alone.”

I nod my head in gratitude for the shelter God offers and then duck under the closest, flimsiest umbrella. I recognize the beauty and mystery and grace of a covering that shields from the (often self-inflicted) storm, but then stand anchored beneath my own shoddy shelter. Christ promises shelter, but He doesn’t promise it apart from Him. He is the shelter. No other covering will do.

Why do we so often cling to the promises of the Bible, ask the Lord to be faithful, demand He come through in our time of need without understanding where all those promises are revealed: under His shelter.

Ray LaMontagne (brilliant musician) aches out his song, “Shelter,” and every phrase sings broken. He sets up a desperate need for shelter in the midst of terrible relational storm and then presents his best offering: one another. It’s beautiful and my heart hurts for it to be true so Ray can find some resolve. But, in the end he stands under his own (beautifully written) flimsy umbrella, convincing himself that it is enough.

Adam and Eve, exposed by their sin and separated from the perfect relationship they had enjoyed with the Father, scrambled to find something to cover them – to protect them from the shame they’d brought on themselves.

They forgot who made them. In an instant, they forgot who loved them, walked with them, and cared for their every need. They ran from their provider and rigged up their own covering.

They ran from the only One who could shelter them, hold them, love them through the shame and provide a covering that would satisfy.

For Adam and Eve, God did something they couldn’t have imagined – shed blood. The only adequate covering for their sin and shame came by way of sacrifice. This animal sacrifice was to point to the ultimate covering – Christ Himself – who would be the sacrifice that establishes our permanent shelter under the eternal roof of God our Father.

We reside underneath the covering the Lord built by way of His son, Christ. Christ is our shelter. All that is promised in Scripture is discovered, experienced, and enjoyed under this shelter. There is no other.

Why, then, do we remain obstinate? Why do we run about, scrambling to find the kind of shelter that won’t tumble in the storm?

The Psalmist writes in Psalms 103:2,

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

Our short-term memory sends us searching outside the Shelter. We forget the benefit of His protection and provision and we venture out into the storm with our arms covering our faces.

With Christ as our shelter, our arms are free to raise. We don’t need to worry about being exposed or weak, for we are under His shelter – covered by His protection. We are free to make ourselves most vulnerable in praise to our Deliverer who is our covering.

under His shelter I will
let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

more than life itself

“Jesus was not passionate about suffering – He wasn’t gifted in death by crucifixion. Jesus was passionate about the will of His Father.”

I know – we’re not all good at the same things. Some of us are painters and others of us are mathematicians; some are poets and others are scientists; some are silly and some are serious. I’ve heard about “personality profiles” and “strengths tests” and I get it. We are all made differently and we do different things well, some exceptionally.

But, when Brad Buser said the above at Perspectives on Sunday, it was like the last puzzle piece fell into place to create the picture of my uneasiness about the way we “find God’s will for our lives.” It’s pretty simple, really.

We start here.

We say, “Self, what do you like to do? What are you good at?”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, hours before the appointed hour of his death, Christ said, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Not as I will, Lord, but as you will.
Not as I will, Lord, but as you will.

I used to love Frederich Buechner’s quote, “The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Now, I think it’s simpler.

The place God calls you is to be about Him.
It means treasuring the Lord more than my closest friend, choosing the Lord above my family, loving the Lord with an intimacy the earth cannot touch.

It means wanting the will of the Father more than life itself.

And there’s a tension in my bones that says making such a bold (albeit shaky) declaration in my soul must mean 20 years with a tribe who has never heard the Gospel.

I must go, now, toward a love that’s more than life itself. I must shake off everything that so easily entangles and run the race with one prize in mind.

I want so desperately to believe my calling is to be about Him.
Not as I will, Lord, but as You will. 

Posted on by Caroline 0

Occupy Life: he bought a corvette

He nodded at the two young men “in charge” on Sunday nights at the soup kitchen and then pointed toward a crooked, framed certificate on the wall, “Those two boys got started here with him, Jeremy Benton, back in 2007… Yep, he was a real neat guy – consistent.” Don paused and looked at me under sagging eyelids, letting the silence add weight to his next sentence, “He got himself a good job and went off and bought a corvette.”

He was still looking at me, both of us standing there admiring the crooked certificate hanging just above the stainless steel industrial sink, “Guess he wanted to see how fast it could go… it, uh, it didn’t end well.”

Don washes the dishes every sunday for the program that feeds anywhere from 30-80 people in our community every night in the basement of a downtown church. When I first got there, Don was methodically preparing for the night – quietly setting out trays and arranging his washing area just so. When I was assigned the “reheat meat and make sandwiches task” at a counter not far from his work area, I knew we’d be friends before the night was over.

He’s the kind of man whose face begs you to ask his story.

“I wear these nylon pants because they dry real fast,” he told me just loud enough to make sense over the appalachian banjo playing on the stereo. Everything served a specific purpose for Don.

He hadn’t always been a dishwasher for the soup kitchen on Sundays, but he wasn’t the type to establish credibility or elevate his status on the scales so many use. He asked questions to the rhythm of his dishes and wondered how I got to Ames. As it turned out, he had a roommate from Honduras while he was in graduate school at Iowa State for civil engineering.

“Guess I didn’t learn it the first time around… had to hear it again,” he said with the surest twinkle in his sage eyes.
He would wash and dry and sort and then pause for conversation – all calculated.

So, when he wandered over to the crooked certificate hanging above the stainless steel industrial sink, I wondered why he chose that story for that moment. Why did he say “corvette” the way he did and why did his eyes say the story wasn’t so simple and how did Don manage to honor a memory and mourn folly at the same time?

___

Just another night lived…This is another in a series of posts called Occupy Life. Each day you and I occupy physical time and space, making bold statements about what is most important in this life (whether we’re holding picket signs or not). Other entries: Stones, Spanish at an Irish Pub, pancake batter, tying ribbons, Alejandra,  Lunch Hour, Delaney and Roland or the original post Occupy Life: Things One Might Do While Unemployed.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

“everything’s crooked but it all seems straight, cuz everyone’s looking sideways…”

Posted on by Caroline 0