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.

come awake in 2012

Waking up was hard to do this morning, but smiling at this golden beginning to a new year was pretty easy. Yesterday was an exhibition in overflow. Yesterday splashed like crazy with “my cup runnin’ over.” God keeps pouring more of Himself (Romans 5) out through His Spirit and I can’t help but burst with joy. The more the Spirit pours out into my life, the more overflows everywhere else.

.gelato and coffee and conversations with cousins, with the right overdose of laughter
.folding up into a perfect sized hide-and-seek closet, awaiting the spirited search and discovery
.the other side of sunset – the expanse of sky gathering up all the reflections and hiding them in clouds
.hay bales piled on top of hay bales and warming in the unseasonable sun
.car rides riddled with conversation with my sister, where our friendship is given deeper, livelier roots
.a NYE celebration with new friends who live spur-of-the-moment and believe that laughter can be holy
.neighbors with open doors and friendly greetings and stories to share
.sweet sleep in a warm cocoon and a dawn that brings a fresh start

overflow

The burnt, lifeless leaves sweep up into a circling wind outside the kitchen window and shake away some of the Sunday afternoon reverie. The chorus from this morning’s service seems stuck in my soul,

Christ is risen from the grave
trampling over death by death
Come awake, come awake
Come and rise up from the grave

The bold dawn has cast out the shadows of this day, this year, this sickness, this fear, this life. We are living the already, not yet life where dawn claims victory over the darkness of night in prelude to the Forever song. Today is a post-Easter, pre-Eternity day where we can rise up from the grave of death because in Christ it has no sting!

Today, I’m praying my heart would come awake to God’s heart. I’m praying my mind would come awake to the Word. I’m praying my actions would come awake in obedience and my life would come awake in Truth.

I’m praying I will live 2012 awake, eyes wide open in search of blessings to name and receive and count and respond with a life of gratitude.

May you all be blessed in 2012 with awakened hearts and minds, that you would pursue the Lord with everything in you, knowing that He will be found by you.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
 in 2012!

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exhausted by joy

(First, I must admit that I’ve only just now recovered from a very colorful verbal exchange with my computer after it lost this entire post into the unknown cybersphere. As I go back and try to remember it, I can’t help but think it’s a little ironic.)

I have so many plausible excuses, really I do!
Chasing after early morning 2-year-old squeals and filling the night with laughter, for starters.

There’s something about Christmas that won’t let me sit down and spell it out, blog style. The rumble of excitement as family exchanges gifts with the lengthy explanations from every giver, the soaking in of silly faces with people who live too far, the together-ness that makes memories on it’s own… This joy can be exhausting!

It’ll park your eyes at a willing, wide-open stance. It will put dances into your toes. It will make you “poke the bear” until the bear revolts with a playful roar.

It will fill the air with delicious, contagious laughter that (I’m sure) seeped out from under the old wooden doors at my parent’s house and warmed the night trees.

Exhausted by joy.

I wonder if C.S. Lewis would say we are as likely to be exhausted by joy as we are surprised by joy. Well, I submit that it is so.

I wonder if Mary and Joseph were exhausted by joy. I wonder if, when Mary finally gave in to sleep, she felt more than just relief that her vagabond pregnancy had ended. I wonder if Mary’s soul was so full of joy at the coming of the Messiah that her heart got tired.

I wonder if receiving blessings and naming them in thanks can bring a good kind of exhaustion – one that wearies your bones into a prayerful posture.

I wonder at this beautiful Gift.
Christ, our Substitute for the debt our flesh owes.
Christ, our Provision for an eternal abundance of joy.
Christ, our Hope.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

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it’s a good, good morning

I just wanted to send this off before the day runs away from me.

Christianity Today named Love & War & the Sea In Between by Josh Garrels Album of the Year for 2011. You owe it a listen. Oh, and you can download the whole album for free on bandcamp.

Nothing like a good soundtrack for naming blessings today. The tree outside the window, begging for snow, the slightly sore muscles after a workout, the Christmas gifts I’ll be packing up before I head to southwest Iowa after work today. All gifts, these.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

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Let Us Not Forget

The story is not just about a babe in a manger.

This babe would pay it all – the price of our sin.
The babe would have crimson stains so that we would be washed as white as snow.

This is the babe we celebrate. This is the Christ child. This is Emmanuel, God with us.

Advent: God With Us from The Village Church on Vimeo.

Let us not forget, for He did not forget us. He engraved us on the palms of His hands.

let LOVE fly like CRAZY

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let the winter come

A fan favorite
Tilt-A-Whirl

“Let the Winter come, for it is the only path to Spring.”

Still recovering from the intellectual and spiritual shock of One Thousand Gifts, I’ve jumped into another book where wide-eyed wonder has center stage.

When I read, “This book does not go straight,” in the preface of N.D. Wilson‘s book Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl, it was like meeting someone for the first time who also happens to love imagination stations, homemade musicals, and the back issues of Real Simple.

It was almost too good. Wilson writes, “This book is built on that pattern [a car on a Tilt-A-Whirl] – spinning small and spinning big – and follows the earth through the seasons of one orbit.”

YES!

Someone finally admits this is all craziness and we have no choice but to step in and delight in the madness that is music and look reverently for the Conductor of it all.

This morning as I sat in church and listened to the message from Luke 2:1-20, I marveled that God chose to make the birth of the Messiah known by a stunning display of musical genius.

Can you imagine how this announcement would put all our cute little refrigerator photos to shame? A celestial choir in perfect harmony filled the sky with a music too pure for words, too perfect for description.

But, the announcement never made it to all those houses and all those fridges who expected to know of such an event.

God orchestrated the single best (and only) opening night production of, “Messiah has come to earth!” for a group of humble shepherds out in the fields, away from the city and the noise. There was no billboard, just the heavens collaborating in great joy – an indescribable gift for every one of the senses.

We are wrapped up into this mad story of cosmic romance where nothing makes any sense. Unless, of course, we hear the song of the angels. Unless we believe that our filthy, desperate lives can be redeemed. Unless we allow our eyes to travel upward and focus in on the grand production of the universe, orchestrated by its Creator to announce the coming of Life and a way out from misery and into great joy.

If you have been audience to such a performance, to whom are you now declaring this message – this production that now lives inside your heart as a follower of Christ?

For we are surely singing in glory with the angels that Hope has come down. And this Hope will not [can not] disappoint.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

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the blessing and the mess of it

How is it that the political push for presidency has made a mad rush at the Advent stage?

I have friends – good friends of mine – who have reasons and schpeels and thoughtful arguments about who I should support in the next election. After being out of US politics for three years (not that there wasn’t plenty going on in Honduran politics to keep me occupied), walking around inside its borders feels like another case of the blind leading the blind.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful.

I’m thankful I don’t have to worry if the policeman pulling me over is legit.
I’m thankful there aren’t men with large guns guarding every fast food restaurant.
I’m thankful I can open my Bible in a coffee shop.

But, it’s not perfect.

Liberties, freedoms, greed, possibilities, money, truth, defense, cause… sin – the blessing and the mess of it are mixed together like a good, Midwestern casserole and sometimes it’s hard to tell what ingredients were thrown in.

Reminds me of the human condition – the blessing and the mess of it.

We’ve got people occupying Wall Street because there’s a bunch of money they don’t have.
We’ve got people marching in support of our troops, who are marching in other countries.
We’ve got people rallying to bring those troops home – for good.
We’ve got people protesting abortion clinics and people protesting the elimination of them.

We’ve got a bunch of sinners in this country, can you believe it? I don’t know how that happened.

Wait, yes I do. And I know the way to redemption. His name is Jesus.

God knew, before the foundations of the world, that we would make a mess out of His perfect Creation. He knew we would kill our brothers and hate our neighbors; that we would spit in the face of His provision and throw away manna like it didn’t just fall miraculously from the sky. He knew and He still provided a way.

His name is Jesus.

Nowhere in history can we see a glowing story of human victory over evil. Nowhere in history have we ever been able to redeem ourselves or pull ourselves out of the deep, dark pit called evil with our own strength.

There is a way.

His name is Jesus and God planned that He would be born into the blessing made mess called Creation, so that He might restore us into right relationship with our Creator.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

God, come and be with us. Show us the way into beautiful. Come, disperse the gloomy clouds and put death’s dark clouds to flight. Bring the brilliant light of salvation.

Jesus is the only way to truly see beauty in the blessing and the mess of this life.

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this & that

What a week.

So many thoughts. So many reasons to give thanks.

Here are some links for laughter and thinking and love.

Senior Citizen Flash Mob This is a group of elderly folks who think they can have fun, too. I gotta give ’em props for the effort. It reminds me of the documentary Young at Heart – but less cool. You should definitely watch the documentary if you haven’t seen it!

As sad as it sounds, how we googled in 2011 is an interesting litmus test of our priorities and it turns out we are all mixed up (big surprise).

Christopher Hitchens died. This outspoken atheist passed away from cancer in Houston and it just might be the perfect time to reflect on some of the beliefs (yes, atheists have beliefs too) he held onto so tightly.

Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens

The Gospel Coalition calls the Coming Catholic Ad Blitz “among the largest religious media blitzes in U.S. history.” This campaign is one calling Catholics to come “back home” – to find their local parish and learn (or re-learn) what it means to be Catholic. This fascinates me. I wonder what your thoughts are?

Its been said, “If you don’t expose your secret, your secret will expose you.” This article by Rebekah Lyons called, “What’s Your Secret?” is refreshing as it looks at the secrets we bury down deep and the relief when they are uncovered.

Well, it’s a short list and I’m processing so much these days – taking in the beauty of everyday, reading about grace and gratitude and moments. I’m trying to step in to every moment thankful, as I read through One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.

It’s painting the world in beautiful hues.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

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what if life was a program

So, I woke up groggy today – the kind of groggy that takes a few groans and stretches to successfully escape morning’s clinging clutches.

Walking around in this new slightly-less-nomadic skin has it’s beautiful charms and strange discomforts. My clothes are folded frumpy in a sweet smelling wooden dresser, my suitcases sit empty in the closet, and my car eddie is almost a local on these streets.

Settling in feels like crawling out of an old skin – one that knew many houses and couches and faces in this in-between phase of transition. I might have become a little addicted to “never a dull moment” and “expect the unexpected,” even if it meant never having a routine. Continue reading →

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spinning around inside a story

Not that long ago, I watched the film Tree of Life with some friends and promised myself that I would give it the mental attention it deserved. These are the notes I had to work with:

So… when I finally got around to writing about the film, it was too big to smoosh into a single blog post. I pushed it to the place cobwebs creep in my mind and agreed it was something to “come back to” when it didn’t feel like the philosophical dump truck unloaded on my brain’s front stoop.

Yesterday, the Tree of Life found it’s way through the cobwebs by way of another film – a bookumentary. Notes from a Tilt-A-Whirl has been on my “to do” list for an impressive long while. My motivation to see this “idea film” greatly increased when the time on my iTunes rental was running out. Last night, I finally found some kindred spirits who would commit 51 minutes to run after an author’s ramblings. With the storytelling fervor of Donald Miller and cinematography resembling Rob Bell, N. D. Wilson takes you through each chapter of his book, “Notes From a Tilt-A-Whirl” in a way that simultaneously appeals to your mind and your heart. With Creation as his backdrop, Wilson wrestles through topics like philosophy, academia, suffering, and why every person should view life as an art appreciator.

Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl Movie Trailer from Gorilla Poet Productions on Vimeo.

In the hours after Wilson closed his last chapter, I realized why I appreciated the Tree of Life. It wasn’t for it’s overt declaration of Truth or it’s objective dealing with the meaning of life. The most valuable message was one of beauty.

The world is a beautiful place. Scarred, true, but oh-so-beautiful.

Once one makes this admission of beauty, there are more questions to answer.
Where does it come from? Does it always win? Why does it lose? Do we control it? Who decides what beauty is? How many beauties are there – just one kind?
(C.S. Lewis dealt with this subject masterfully in his book, “Abolition of Man” when he discusses the miseducation of children)

All these questions, bound together by the tension in the nature vs. grace conflict, demand resolution. Whether Tree of Life sufficiently answers these questions never concerned me, because I was too busy being impressed by the way beauty and tragedy were communicated so clearly.

But, last night, as we watched Notes From a Tilt-A-Whirl around my 13 inch Mac laptop screen, I marveled that there is more beauty. We were never meant to be satisfied merely admiring the beauty of the Ultimate Artist. We are meant to live the beauty – to interact and understand and breathe the beauty. We are meant to do what is impossible through the One who makes impossible things happen (see Ephesians).

We are meant to look at what has baffled philosophers and tormented academicians and take in all the beauty of Truth with the humble reverence of a child in the dreamiest of castles.

The castle is very much real – there is no use arguing otherwise. We waste much time and miss much beauty by arguing its existence.

More to come… meanwhile, watch the film so I have more people with who I can process its merits!

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