Oh to live a ” deliberately chosen spirit of risk, adventure, courage and openness…a spirit of insecurity, the embracing of an unknown future in an attitude of honest questioning.” [Jean Vanier, Becoming Human]
Tag Archives: Passionate Justice
Beautiful Freedom
In tandem with not letting myself worry this Lenten season, I’m also following along with World Vision’s Lent 2011: Relentless Acts of Justice. [You should sign up too. 🙂 ]
Task 1: put down on paper all the ways I am privileged when it comes to freedom.
Surprisingly, when I really think about it, my life is overflowing with grace abundant in this area. And I haven’t been grateful nearly enough. Here are my top 28. Â
Â
Mobility
- I am a citizen of a country that is among the top 10 best to live in the world (according to International Living Magazine.)
- My Canadian passport allows me to travel freely anywhere around the globe.
- I can go home whenever I want.
- I can go to the market and to work and to meet up with friends without fear or threat of bodily harm.Â
- I chose to move to Cambodia.
- I have the keys to my house and can come and go as I please.
- I have the freedom to drive.
- I don’t live in a war zone.
Identity:
- I grew up believing that girls have value because my parents and my society taught me that.
- I finished high school and have the capacity to think critically about current affairs. There is a lot of freedom in that.
- I chose which university to go to and which program to major in.
- My whole life has been free of all forms of abuse.
- I always have and still do have, the freedom to dream about the future.
Family:
- I chose to marry my husband because I love him.
- My husband respects and loves me.
- Both of us were equally involved in family planning [contraceptives and otherwise].
- We share domestic activities 50/50
Work:
- My parents never had to sell me to pay off debt.
- I have the freedom to find work that is well paid, without coercion.
Association:
- IÂ am a part of a church community where we have the freedom to associate and fellowship together without fear of retribution.
Voice & Justice:
- I can advocate for myself.
- I grew up  understanding the democratic process and believing that I do have a voice.
- When I turned 18, I voted. While living in Asia, I was still able to vote in the last Canadian elections.
- I still believe the police are on the citizen’s side because that is what I grew up understanding.
- I have the freedom to read newspapers and watch the media and form opinions about politics and current affairs.
- If I don’t like what a Canadian politician does, I can voice it without fear of retribution.
- And then I can write the editor.
- Or blog about it.
All in all. Pretty free. Pretty lucky.
And as the band Starfield puts it, “let the blessings you’ve poured out on me not be spent on me in vain. Let this life be used for change.” [I WIll GO]
Amen.
giving up my life
Just read Eugene Cho’s latest blog post on lent. It shed some light (and wisdom) on my own last post about what I’m giving up this lenten season.
He says…
We need Gospel.
And by Gospel, I’m not speaking of self-help, pop spiritual psychology, but a Gospel that cuts into the heart of humanity with a grace that compels us to not just merely to salvation but a life committed to justice, reconciliation, and redemption.
Isaiah 58 speaks of fasting but fasting that God is not pleased with. It’s a fasting that caters to our own eyes, flesh, and pleasure but not the kind of fasting that God invites us to:
a life broken and transformed by the things of God
(italics, mine!)
the last thing I want is for this Lenten season to become my 3-step program to an anxiety-free life. What I really desire is what Cho talks about. That my self-denial over the next 35 or so odd days will make me more mindful of Jesus, his Life, and his Kingdom. And give me a platform to shoot forward with freedom and with grace.Â
if IÂ actually really believe what Jesus said, then I shouldn’t be afraid. Right? That is the beginning and mark of true faith. Fearing God first and letting other things fall into their rightful place below that.
That’s what this season is for me.
feeling uninspired
but this sparks a little something…
“Christ has no body now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth, but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world. Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world.”
– Teresa of Avila
earnestness
Two thousand years ago three wise men purchased gold, frankincense and myrrh in order to honor our newborn king. Years later Mary spent a year’s wages on a jar of perfume that she used to wash Jesus’ feet. So let our redeemed and renewed shopping begin, but shopping that promotes shalom in our relationships to God, others and the creation. Todd Steen [“Born to Shop?” in Comment Magazine, Sept. 25, 2009]
This is one of my New Year’s resolutions, if you will. My husband in all his rational-ness, of course, thinks that New Year’s Resolutions are baloney. They are for people who aren’t disciplined enough to make practical lifestyle changes in real life, he says.
But I still like the time to reflect on a year gone by. On the ways I’ve grown and changed. The areas in which I’ve failed or compromised. And how I can bring renewed optimism and discipline into a New Year. Of course, like all things in my life, it is much, much easier to set lofty dreams and goals, to start projects and plans, and then never actually finish them.
Yet, this is one area where I know I need to make some changes if I am to become the person I want to be and a person who is living in crucified conformity to Jesus. [It’s also particularly relevant as Steve and I embark on this crazy new parenting adventure. This is something I desperately want to be living out – joy and appreciation for what we do have – so we can pass that onto baby Gosselin. I don’t want to raise a brat you know!]
So, confession.
I buy waaaaayyyyyy too much stuff.
And most of it is crap.
And most of it I get bored of within a week and then it sits on a shelf and I never use it again.
I’m impulsive to begin with and shopping just plays into that. [Living in Phnom Penh where everything is so inexpensive sure doesn’t help this problem. It is much easier to rationalize dumb, needless purchases when it will only cost a couple of bucks].
And that’s where my challenge lies.
Because it’s not even about money. It’s about my heart. And my continual need to have fun, new things to keep me happy. It’s also about me not appreciating the good gifts I do have.
The reason I love Todd Steen’s quote is how down-to-earth he is. [his article is very, very interesting, by the way]. Of course we’re going to have to buy stuff. There is value in a thriving economy and we are all interconnected and interdependent. But the thing I like most is that he brings it back to the most fundamental point.
Shopping has to be in submission to God. It’s also about our relationships with community and with the world.
And so this year, I want to think before I buy. I want to be less impulsive. I want to cultivate a deep appreciation for the life God has given me and the things I do have, and openly, willingly share them with others.
And I want to allow myself to need my neighbours more. There is something very vulnerable in allowing others to care for us through the sharing of resources within our communities. I want to be that kind of a person. Someone who can graciously, joyfully, receive good things from friends and neighbours without always having to run out and by my own.
And when I do have to buy something, may it promote shalom.
| Two thousand years ago three wise men purchased gold, frankincense and myrrh in order to honor our newborn king. Years later Mary spent a year’s wages on a jar of perfume that she used to wash Jesus’ feet. So let our redeemed and renewed shopping begin, but shopping that promotes shalom in our relationships to God, others and the creation. | Todd Steen | “Born to shop?” in Comment Magazine. quoted in the Daily Asterisk. Dec. 30, 2010. |
What I am and ain’t 10 years on
 It’s been ten years since I graduated from high school. At the moment, many of my classmates are celebrating our 10-year reunion. I’m not going – not cause I don’t want to – but because I live in Cambodia. And it’s not that easy to just fly home.Â
Also, I’ll admit. High school wasn’t my favourite season of life. The popularity contest. The games. The insecurity. I sure didn’t jump at the chance to pay $1500 to run back to Cochrane, AB to celebrate with people I’ve hardly kept in touch with over the past decade.Â
But in honour of my 10 year reunion, here are some of the ways I think I’ve changed over the past 10 years. Â
- I am no longer a teetotaler.
- I am not scared of driving a motorbike.
- I am not famous and I’m okay with that.
- I am less judgmental (I hope). [i am almost positive I made following Jesus all about rules and only for prudes and the perfect.]
photo from http://weheartit.com - I have learned to live more in the present and to enjoy the experiences and relationships that are here and now.
- Traveling and working abroad has has opened up the world for me. And I realize, I’m tired of being a narcissist.
- I realize I’m a narcissist (hopefully naming it is the first step on the road to recovery).
- I met Steve.
- My family has lived through bouts of depression, an eating disorder, deaths of loved ones and chronic anxiety. These sober experiences have brought me back to reality and helped me to appreciate joy.
- I now like to and can cook. (It’s a miracle. The first time I made Kraft Dinner I botched it).
- I play ultimate frisbee.
- I believe community is important.
- I am a part of a house church and believe it is a beautiful and legitimate expression of worship and faith.
- I don’t have something scheduled every night of the week.
I am still learning of course. I am still learning that my value doesn’t come from the number of things I do and how well I do them. But there’s been movement. I like that.
the unfinished
it struck me as i was at the gym [not my typical locale for an epiphany] this afternoon how everything in Phnom Penh is a work in progress. and how much i love that.
most buildings are unfinished. rebar juts out of the side of concrete. [just in case people might want to add on in the future]. development happens as families have time and resources.Â
family homes. the gym’s change rooms. streets.
things aren’t perfect and it’s okay that way.Â
i like that. because i usually have to remind myself that being imperfect is okay. so i can remind myself in every brick and pile of sand. with every construction worker i pass. that i should be gracious with myself. Â
life is this journey. a work in progress. always shifting, changing, becoming what it is meant to be.
beautiful.
schizophrenic self-preservation
As practice is to policy, so style is to belief. Style is merely a consequence of what we believe, of what is in our hearts. (Max De Pree; Leadership is an Art. Pg. 27)Â
Unfortunately what is oozing out of me as I train national staff is slightly schizophrenic. One moment I’m elated. Convinced that what I’m doing is important – no – critical to Cambodia’s development. Five minutes later I am hell bent on self-preservation.
This whole capacity building thing is actually really hard. It seems this is a cross I am being asked to bear. This is how I practically die to myself. How in this space and time I follow Jesus. And as I work through this process day by day, the pruning shears are out. I can feel them. And it hurts.
On Sunday night I shared with our church community how the past two months (including a Meeting House sermon series (Inglorious Pastors)Â on the peace teachings of Jesus + this process of nationalizing my role) have revealed to me some of the ugly fruit I bear.
And of course bright and early Monday morning the rubber met the road. I joined my colleagues for the beginning of a meeting. 15 minutes later I had to tear myself away to go back to the office. If I didn’t leave then, I would have stayed all day. And I knew the right thing was to go. It won’t do my colleagues any good for me to be there unwittingly commanding control of the situation and breathing down their necks.
I felt like a mother letting go of my first child. And I couldn’t help but worry that if this part (not even my favourite part of my work) is hard to let go of, what will be be like when I have to release the other stuff. It’s sure not going to get any easier that’s for sure. Â
Don’t get me wrong. I know this is important. I know it’s right. But I am simultaneously amazed at how a really important and good thing can spark all this introspection. How the most normal processes can transform us – and teach us patience and grace and hope. And I do hope that as I let go, I will become more like Jesus – who when you really think about it, was the ultimate example of passing on leadership with grace.
the world…
The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.
Albert Einstein.
I saw this posted on a wall at my parent’s church in Strathmore before we left for Cambodia. It reminds me of conversations I sometimes have with people about geo-political issues…about poverty…about the world and what the Christian response should be.
I’ve often heard Matthew 26:11 as a response to poverty… “The poor you will always have among you.” But I don’t think that verse can be interpreted as an excuse to not be involved in the world. Jesus taught his followers to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We have to see the words of Jesus within the whole context of his life. To be a follower of Jesus is to walk in the way of Jesus – bringing a little bit of heaven onto earth wherever we can.
When I look at the world, I want to do something – not out of a need to feel good about myself, or to somehow save myself from something, but because that’s what Jesus did. He loved people – the rich and the poor – right where they were at. Jesus looked at the world and did something…he sacrificed himself and history changed.
Musings of a Social Conscience 
