It is time to dust off the blog!

I wrote this in late 2013 and lately I have been feeling a significant pull to write.

I am called to be a writer

I am called to communicate in a way in which helps others connects with the struggle to matter and to usher those feelings forward in a manageable cadence.

I am called to help others anchor the unknown to the known of self and God.

So get ready world, it's time to dust off the blog and crank things up for 2015!

Standing in the Same Place But Different!

The inside of the Starbucks had changed so much! I hardly recognized the set up! The chairs--the soft, squishy--chairs I used just, two years ago were gone.  I suppose students needed more room for meetings and desktop space.  I was glad to see the responsiveness of Starbucks and the iterative nature of being attuned to one’s environment.

            Similar to Starbucks, I too had changed.   Where once there stood a scared, timid woman doubting herself, on Monday, September 8, 2014 a strong, confident woman walked onto the Azusa campus and defended, with distinction, dissertation.  

After we got everything set up, all there was to do was wait until time for the defense.  My husband, poor thing, was a wreck.  His palms were sweating, his hands were shaking, and he was so anxious.

I took his hands in mine and I said “babe, I got this.  Don’t worry, I am going to knock this outta here!  I promise you, I got this!”

I now celebrate my accomplishment, I recognize that I meandered through a process and as the end of this road, not everyone is happy I’m done.

            I returned to work on Wednesday, September 10 and learned my peers were throwing a party for me on Thursday, September 11.  What an amazing event that party was!  Oh my glory!  I had a ball!  I went from person to person loving everyone and just relishing the moments.  I had so much fun!  Celebrating is the way to go!  Wow!

            I have peers who zoomed through the dissertation in lightning speed and I applaud them!  I must had to do it in my own way though which is a little more slow and steady, more intentional.  Like the song says—I did it my way.   I had a great deal of fun though as I went along the way; I stopped and smelled the flowers, looked at puffy clouds, and made sure I saw important things.  I feel like I lived life without sacrificing it too much.  I found balance and again—I did it my way.

            As I pulled into the station of celebration, I learned that not everyone is happy I have a doctorate.  Quite frankly it threatens some people who are insecure and fake.  But in the end….you know what?   Regardless of how he feels, he still has to call me Dr. Wallace!  And you know what else? I did it MY WAY!

Girl, Get Real

I recently read a thoughtful piece by Andrea Lucado ( find it here:  http://storylineblog.com/2014/05/30/are-you-afraid-of-admitting-what-you-want/ )

which really made me think about  tempering emotions……especially joy.

For as long as I can remember, I have tempered joy.  I have done so, appearing cool, detached, nonchalant, in earlier times striving to avoid being labeled as silly, childish, immature even.

While on the outside-to others, I would justify this tempering by saying things which neutralize the potential for joy.  I might discount my enthusiasm for a potential job/promotion expectancy (hope) by pointing out my shortcomings in experience.  Or, I might counteract my contributions (recognition) to a project by pointing out everyone else’s gifts. 

What Lucado made me realize is that while I was guarding against disappointment (not getting the job, not being recognized), I was also neutralizing joy significantly. While I might be insulating myself from the hurt and pain, I have also been insulating myself from joy.

You cannot dull one spectrum of emotions without dulling the opposite end of the spectrum of emotions.

Lucado quotes author and researcher, Brene’ Brown in saying “It is much easier to live disappointed than it is to feel disappointment.” 

We so often believe we can insulate ourselves from the feelings.  At times we use things as insulation such as:  drugs, alcohol, or even socially accepted things such as work, or exercise.  In any form, we are trying to insulate, to put something between us and those feelings so we do not feel, I mean deeply feel. So we do not sit with those emotions and know what it is like to feel the pain of disappointment or of not being recognized, or of not fitting in. 

Lucado urges us to move forward into those feelings—to risk feeling the emotions of fear, of anxiety as they also lead to joy, to love, to belonging, and to faith.  For it is through the trail of anxiety and fear that we find joy.

It is through the allowing of these emotions to be felt that others come to know us, that others get to truly bond with us and have authentic relationships with us.  

Happiness Is....The Redneck Theologian's Response

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

Here come bad news talking this and that, yeah,

Well, give me all you got, and don’t hold it back, yeah,

Well, I should probably warn you I’ll be just fine, yeah,

No offense to you, don’t waste your time

Here’s why

Can't nothing bring me down

My level's too high

Bring me down

Can't nothing bring me down

I said (let me tell you now)

Bring me down

Can't nothing bring me down

My level's too high

Bring me down

Can't nothing bring me down

I said

Philippians 4:11-13

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

11 Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Elizabeth’s Reflections or “The Redneck Theologian”

Today Shannon provided a powerful and thought provoking message regarding our decision point between the point of stimuli and the choice of response we have in situations.  We each get to choose if we will be positive or negative in each situation.

Once we choose, we tend to self-reinforce our choices and create a cycle of habit.  These habits then, become the way we tend to be known.  Thus if we have a tendency to choose the positive and reinforce those choices, we are likely known as a positive person.  If we tend to choose the negative then reinforce such, then we may very well become known as a negative person.

Shannon began her message with a delightful video of a current song by the artist Pharrell with a cute video. The lyrics above help you understand why the song is taking the country by storm.  Everyone in American is doing the “happy” dance from Oprah to Good Morning America.  The positive affirmations of the lyrics and the upbeat music, which accompanies it, are appealing across genres.

In reading the scripture for today, we focus on the concept of being content-regardless of the situation.  Whether we are content in good times or content suffering. 

This reminds me of advice I recently wrote for my daughter upon her college graduation.  My husband and I each provided “advice to our daughter upon her graduation” in a booklet she might keep. In one note, I wrote a series of 10 pieces of advice and one point was “find happiness in the ordinary.”  I offered this advice because I believe it important that she cherish the everyday moments. As the poet William Blake opens one of his famous poems with, “To see a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour” I hope for her to find bliss in common moments, to see the extraordinary in the ordinary because it is the ordinary where we spend the majority of our moments and if we disregard those moments seeking only the high of the extraordinary, then we discard the majority of our life.

Shannon’s commentary made me think of Viktor E. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning.  Frankl, a Holocaust survivor is famous for his pioneering of the belief that humans do have a choice in how they respond.

Frankl says,

If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering.  Suffering is an imperadicable part of life, even as fate and death.  Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.  The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life.

Frankl’s reflections, made all the more powerful knowing he drew his conclusions as he watched individuals deal with life and death before his very eyes. 

Thus between the point we receive a stimuli and the point of our response, we have a choice.  God has already provided Jesus for us and our battle has been won. We need not wallow in pity and wage a war filled with anger and bitterness.  The war has already been won. 

We may choose to live our lives in a way that defines us, with a deeper meaning, as a child of God, dealing with joyful and difficult circumstances, but always as a Child of an all-powerful God.

Loved this post:

http://manofdepravity.com/2014/02/the-back-door/

Pointing Fingers As People Walk Out the Back Door

by Tyler

Pastors are weary of what they call “the back door”—the people who leave without saying anything, giving the pastor no idea of why. The back door is one reason church life is difficult. People who you have given your life for sometimes leave at the drop of a hat.

I’ve seen something interesting happen online in the past few weeks. Recently Relevant Magazine featured an article on really bad reasons to leave church. As a pastor, I agreed with the article. As someone who knows people who have left church for the reasons mentioned, I cringed. Maybe I’m getting soft, but I wondered how the words of the article would sting. Maybe they should?
Then earlier this week Donald Miller wrote about the reasons he finds himself not pursuing church life. Don and I connected through The Mentoring Project back when he and I were both in Portland. Don is 100 times the writer I’ll ever be. He played a role in planting a church in Portland that has literally changed the city. I have a high level of respect for Don. I honestly believe Don is a prophetic voice for Christians today. I don’t say that flippantly.
As you can imagine, many a church going folk has shamed Don for his lack of church involvement. “Church isn’t about you.” “Chuch is about community.” “You’re just focusing on your own feelings, being selfish.” You can imagine the backlash from church apologizers. Honestly, these kinds of statements were my first reaction.
Why is it the first reaction of church attenders to shame those who haven’t found it to be a home?
A couple reasons stand out. First, insecurity. What if more people leave? What if there’s a mass exodus for the back door? Maybe we’re just scared of what it could mean if more people start buying into the idea that church can happen anywhere.
Second, as much as any other demographic, Christians have a desire to be right, not wrong. If God commanded us to go to church, while also being part of The Church, then we must go. So those who choose to walk out the back door are wrong, and those who stay are right, the church-goers say to themselves.
We’re so busy pointing fingers at people as they walk out the back door that we’re missing how the church is partly to blame. 
Why do you go to church? How you answer that question ultimately shapes what church is. If church is music and teaching as Don describes—if church ceases to be a place of formation, depth, and community, it’s no wonder the back door is a reality. Amidst the push to stand out for the sake of relevance, the pop culture church is becoming irrelevant.
How many read Relevant’s article on bad reasons to leave the church and thought, “I guess I’m one of those bad people”? Rather than piling guilt on those who leave church, let’s instead start pointing fingers ourselves, and our churches.
Bill Hybels is well known for saying that “the local church is the hope of the world.” I believe this to be true, but not if we’re content pointing fingers at those who walk away, instead of building for the coming Kingdom by forming thriving churches.
We can do better.

Overflow

Over the holidays I subscribed (not sure how I did it) to a service that helps one improve one’s blogging.  Each day there is a new prompt or tip with an associated link that will assist for a fee.  I have not subscribed to the fee at this time but today’s prompt piqued my interest because it was on the notion of progress.

It seems that everyone is focused on making progress because of the new year and new beginnings.

Yet, while so many individuals are focused on progress, more individuals seem to be focused on failure.  Multiple news stories, interviews, tweets, and facebook posts detail the upcoming failures that befall so many individuals that it seems our motto simply should be “Ready, Set, Fail!”

So, why bother?

Simply-setting a goal does move you forward in a positive direction.  I believe that done correctly, a goal assists in forward progression.  Setting a realistic, measureable, and practical goal with an appropriate timeline will allow an individual to advance.

One of my goals for this year is to live more open-heartedly.  During the holiday I viewed Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday program.  The guest that particular day was Marianne Williamson.  Ms. Williamson proposed that we, as humans, are unable to live whole heartedly if we live with a fear-based orientation.  We cannot serve both fear and love.  Rather we much choose between one or the other-but not both.  Ms. Williamson explained that she arises each morning and asks the Divine “who must I forgive today?”  She then forgives anyone shown to her and ask for blessings and love to pour forth for them.  Ms. Williamson hopes to live her life demonstrating love, not fear.

It is my own hope that I can demonstrate such whole heartedness as well.  I am asking to receive this year, to be open to the Divine’s use, to be a catalyst for blessing others, for being a blessing to others. 

My hope is to ask the Divine to allow me to receive in a way that I overflow with richness and blessings.