Gossip Girl

I've always had a flare for the dramatic.

I've always wanted to be in the know, and I really was.

I knew everything about everyone, and that, combined with a drama queen attitude, led to some baadd siuations. I never used my knowledge to hurt anyone intentionally; I would just share the information I knew with other people. I wanted to be the one who always had something to say. I wanted to get a rise out of people, I wanted a heated conversation, I wanted to discuss someone else's life instead of my own. Excuses really; and who knows why exactly I told what I knew. There were many reasons, regardless of who it hurt, how it came back around or if it was even true.

This was a while ago, I've since learned the difficult pain of being the subject of intense drama and gossip, which ruined my reputation and severed many friendly ties in my life. It took a downfall for me to learn to shut my mouth. It is still difficult, and to me, I feel that if I'm not introducing new information into the conversation or heightening our experience to some intense level, then things are just boring, or I am just boring. However, I've been learning that the truth is never boring and even more so that people are never boring if you pay real attention to them and certainly nothing is ever boring with God.

As we've been talking about divine community, something important to me began to jump out. Not only should we be humble and honest in a divine community, but we need to control our tongues. The tongue is the most destructive member in our body. James 3:3-6 says, "When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark."

In other words, our tongue steers the horse and our tongue steers the ship. Relative to its size, it has incredible guiding power. Our tongues tell the world where our body is going. 

Our tongues were meant to praise our Lord (James 3:9), to edify the body and to strengthen our divine community. Instead, they lead us astray, they cause us to stumble and for some reason, they are the hardest things to control. James 3:8 says, "No human being can tame the tongue."

In this manner, God has given those in positions of power an incredible responsibility, the responsibility to take what they've learned from others and guard it with their heart, just as they would their own secrets and concerns. The interesting thing is that we've all been given places of power in other people's lives, as friends and as divine community members; it is not just those at the metaphorical top that need to guard their hearts, but everyone to whom people have entrusted information. It is a big responsibility, and fortunately God is there to lead and guide with his tongue as well. 

In the end, I ask myself 3 questions before I share anything: 

Is it true?

Should it be told?

Should I be the one to tell it?

If I can't answer "yes" to all three, then I just keep my big mouth shut!

Every Little Thing You Do

God is impressed with even the smallest amounts of faith; take the mustard seed for example. Matthew 17:20 says, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” God takes something miniscule and tells how it can be used for the greater good of the Kingdom of God.

Sometimes, Christians are obsessed with going bigger and better for God that they tend to miss out on the small things that God is doing. It’s certainly not bad to have goals and to be pursuing the desires God has put on your heart, but it seems that too many ordinary days pass us by.

God tells us a different story. In Luke chapter 21:1-4, the Bible says, “As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

The parable of the women who gave all her money is the prime example of how “a little” can look exactly like what it does to the world, a little. But to God, her sacrifice was enormous. God was intensely pleased by the outpouring of her “small” gesture in His namesake. In the same way, some of the things we do everyday are often gone unnoticed by Christians and by ourselves.

Did the poor woman grow to be the pastor of a large church? Did she lead worship in a world-renowned band? Did she ever lead anyone to Christ? Did she ever offer anything to God again? We don’t know, but from what we do know, God was more impressed by her offering, her sacrifice, than by the sacrifices of others. Perhaps it was her literal poverty, but could it have been her poverty of spirit that made God smile so widely?

Sure, maybe the woman in the story was disobedient with her finances, which left her destitute. Did God reprimand her in the moment of her offering on how he generally believes “obedience is better than sacrifice”? (1 Samuel 15:22) No, he was simple impressed, that perhaps even in her disobedience she could have the courage to act in a way that pleases the Lord.

Too many times we share a Westernized dream of doing something BIG for God, yet the woman in the parable most likely gave everything she had in the offering and went home to a place of trial and tribulation, one of daily stresses and hard times. Who knows if she ever truly understood the impression her gift made on Jesus himself that she would end up in the Bible as a parable being retold generation after generation; she may have worked happily the rest of her life simply knowing that God was pleased with her once or she may have even been shunned for her offering, leaving those she cared most about in an even more destitute place.

Cleaning baby bottoms, picking up a classroom full of leftover craft materials, matching socks, breaking a heart, buying drinks for someone, giving a complement, standing inside a church door for the first time in a long time, expressing an emotion in front of virtual strangers, asking for help … these are just a few examples of ordinary forms of greatness that may or may not come out of a place of poverty or of joy, that may or may not end in satisfaction or in rejection. These are the things God smiles at; these are the reasons he dances and sings over us with joy.

In the same way we smile when a small child remembers their manners, or acts out of graciousness or includes someone who isn’t cool, or who apologizes when it isn’t even their fault, so our Heavenly Father rejoices with such great admiration for his creation every time we “offer” something small. 

Steven Curtis Chapman, in a newer song, writes: “Little stuff, big stuff, in between stuff, God sees everything the same. Let me remind you, it all matters just as long, as you do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you, cause He made you to do, every little thing that you do, to bring a smile to His face, tell the story of grace with every move that you make, and every thing you do.”

So do every little and BIG thing (no matter how "small" it seems to the world) for the glory of God and rest assured he is smiling!

Labryinth

There it was, a secret path, separating the cull-de-sac from the main road, through a few feet of brush. It seemed miles wide and never-ending. My friends, Mandy, Ashley and Rebecca, used the path everyday. They were a year or so older than I was and were not starting Kindergarten like me. The school we all attended lay just beyond the street that was separated by the path. Their way to school each morning made significant use of the secret trek and I watched from my driveway as they disappeared out of sight.

Kindergarten started an hour later than the other grades and was only half day for me. So my mother would take me in our old brown car and drop me off in the circle drive at the rear of the school. I never got a chance to walk with the other girls through the hidden maze. I rarely even got to see where it was as every time I got close, someone's mother would call for me to come closer to the house.

For an entire year the path remained closed to me, I only envied from afar. I felt as though if I had walked that path and peered out over the cars on the street I would know I belonged here. We had only moved in a few months before my Kindergarten year, and everything was happening so fast. I wanted and needed acceptance and this was the way to get it. The secret path was not only the short cut to school it was also the path to belonging, maturity and friendship.

My Kindergarten year came and passed without notice. Mrs. Sailor did a wonderful job supplying for me, in her classroom, what I believed this path would accomplish. I had friends, I grew up and I was beginning to feel right at home. Eventually as the friends on my block were interested in other things, the path became less of a necessity. Until, one day, my parents decided to move again. With two new siblings in the family and my grandparents miles away, our family picked up and moved back to where I was born.

Before we left, the path struck me. I knew that I had to walk through the path before I left that place forever. I needed to show myself I could do it. It wasn't the same as before, it signified moving on, walking toward the unknown and I knew if I could conquer the secret path, I could conquer whatever lie ahead. On a summer, Saturday morning I walked from my driveway, down the cull-de-sac and right into the path. Not more than 3 feet later was I on the other side of a ditch with a sidewalk. I stared at the once daring, and now, not so secret path with glorious achievement.

The Relationship Game

It's all about maximization.

Our experience on Earth can be boiled down to three types of relationships:

1. Relationships with people
2. Relationships with nature
3. Relationships with ourselves

Nothing we do is in fact an end in itself. For instance, playing a softball game is not about the success or the fun of playing the game, it is the means to understanding others and understanding ourselves. Again, finishing a book is not about escaping or excitement, it is about gaining insight into the human condition to better our relationships with others and ourselves. Finally, hiking a mountain is not for the sheer adrenaline or to check another mountain off a list, it is about connecting with nature and experiencing solitude.

These relationships that we engage in during our time on Earth all lead to a greater relationship with The One Who Created Us. He designed us with the intent for us to explore, know, challenge and relate to nature, other humans and ourselves. In fact the whole world was created by God in His image, thus strengthening these relationships can only mean strengthening our relationship with the God of the Universe.

Now, I am sure I could take any action, activity or thought and trace its roots back to one of these three relationship categories. Which means, most of what we do daily and living life in general is additive to our relationships with ourselves, nature and others (and in turn God). However we must begin to maximize these relationships by participating in those activities and engaging those thoughts that are the most positive and helpful in strengthening our relationships in the most effective way. In essence, we do not have time to spare and must replace seemingly less worthy acts with those of greater significance in order to maximize our time on Earth and strengthen these relationships as much as possible in order to know The One who Created the Heaven and the Earth.

The Magnifying Glass

Magnify = To make greater in size; enlarge.

Psalms 34:3 says, "Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together."

We, as humans, tend to make our problems greater than they are, or, even if they are really large problems, we have a tendency to focus directly on the problem (which in turn makes it larger.) It's like we have a giant microscope and we put our situations, problems, battles right on the glass tray and zoom in as close as we can. We magnify our problems. And the enemy loves this about us. He readily hands us the magnifying lens, because he knows what we usually do with it.

The bible tells us that we should instead MAGNIFY the Lord. Now, there is more than one definition for the word magnify, and given the contextual clues in the verse above, we can gather that by 'magnify' David meant 'to glorify or praise', but for the sake of the metaphor, I would like to focus on the first definition.

If instead of focusing our attention on our problems, there by increasing their size, we focus on the Lord, we will increase His size, His power and His reign in our lives and situations. Magnify the Lord, not our problems. Use the magnifying glass to make God bigger, instead of our problems.

We can make God greater in size, by exalting his name together it says in the psalms. Psalm 69:30 says, "I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving." We can magnify the Lord by praising His name with a song and giving thanks. And maybe this is a stretch (however not entirely unfounded) but Acts 10:46 says, "For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God." We can magnify the Lord by speaking in the Spirit.

It is a choice. We can magnify our problems or we can magnify the Lord. I want to try harder to do the latter.

The Savage Difference

"Night after night, on television, Americans can watch police or federal agents rounding up black men and black teenagers. The sight of white policemen breaking down the doors of houses, black people emerging with their head bent low in order to avoid the television cameras, has become a form of prime-time television entertainment in America. The story that is told by television cameras is a story of deformity. The story that is not told is the lifelong deformation of poor children by their own society and government. We hear of an insatiable attraction to consumer goods like sneakers, stereos and video recorders. The story that we do not hear is of the aggressive marketing of these commodities in neighborhoods where very poor black people live: neighborhoods where appetites for purchasable mediocrity are easily inflamed because there sometimes is so little that is rich and beautiful to offer competition. Once these children learn that lovely and transcendent things are not for them, it may be a little easier to settle for the cheaper satisfactions.

A psychiatrist whom I have known for many years speaks of the ways violence [in black communities] is viewed and understood by suburban neighbors: "When they hear of all these murders, all these men in prison, all these women pregnant with no husbands, they don't buy that explanation that it's poverty, or public schools, or racial segregation. They say, 'We didn't have much money when we started out, but we led clean and decent lives. We did it. Why can't they?' I try to get inside that statement. So I ask them what they mean. What I hear is something that sounds very much like a genetic answer: 'They don't have it.' What they mean is lack of brains, or lack of drive, or lack of willingness to work. Something like that. Whatever it is, it sounds almost inherent. Some of them are less direct. They don't say genetics; what they talk about is history. 'This is what they have become, for lots of complicated reasons. Slavery, injustice or whatever.' But they really do believe it when they say this is what they've become, that this is what they are. And they don't believe that better schools or social change will affect it very much. So it comes down to an explination that is so intrinisc, so immutable, that it might as well be called genetic. They see a slipshod deviant nature - violence, lassitude, a reckless sxulaity, a feverish need to over-reproduce - as if it were a character imprinted on black people. The degree to which ths racial explination is accepted would surprise you.""

--Jonathan Kozol, 1991.

The Hidden Inequality

"Sometimes the residents of affluent school districts point to certain failings in their own suburban schools, as if to say that 'all our schools' are 'rather unsuccessful' and that 'minor differentials' between urban and suburban schools may not therefore be of much significance. 'You know,' said the father of two children who had gone to school in Great Neck, 'it isn't just New York. We have our problems on Long Island too. My daughter has some high school teachers who were utterly inept and uninspired. She has had a devil of a time at Sarah Lawrence...' He added that she had friends who went to private school who were given a much better preperation. 'It just seems terribly unfair,' he said.

Defining unfairness as the difficulty that a Great Neck graduate encounters at a top-flight private college, to which any child in the South Bronx would have given her right arm to be admitted, strikes one as a way or rendering the term so large that it means almost nothing. 'What is unfair,' he is saying in effect, 'is what I determine to be unfair. What I find unfair is what affects my child, not somebody else's child in New York.'

The loss of distinction in [this] statement serves to blur the differences between the inescapable unhappiness of being human and the needless misery created by injustice. It also frees the wealthy from the obligation to concede the difference between inconvenience and destruction.

Poor people do not need to be reminded that the contest is unfair. 'They know they are living in a rich society. They see it on TV, and in advertisements, and in the movies. They know that [other people] were given something extra. They don't know exactly what it is, but they have seen enough. They know this other world exists, and, when you tell them that the government can't find the money to provide them with a decent place to go to school, they don't believe it and they know it's a choice that has been made about how much they matter to society. They see it as a message: 'This is to tell you that you don't much matter. You are ugly to us so we crowd you into ugly places. You are dirty so it will not hurt you to pack you into dirty places. By doing this we teach you how much you are hated.'"

--Johathan Kozol, 1991.