On Lent; On Fasting

...day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right 
and has not forsaken the commandments of its God.
They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.
"Why have we fasted," they ask, "and you have not seen it?"
"Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?"
Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all of your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast that I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast, a day that is acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
To set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - 
When you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say 'Here am I.'

If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and the malicious talk,
And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
Then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you always, 
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise the age-old foundations;
You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
[Isaiah 58]

Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
That is who Jesus is.  That is what He came to do.
As we prepare for Easter,
As we identify with Christ in His suffering,
Let us also deny ourselves
Not only by removing something from our lives,
But by adding the active pursuit of Christ's mission.

Repairer of Broken Walls.
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Let it be said of us.

Looking for Daddy

A little girl and her father boarded the bus.  The father was tall with an angular jaw and dressed in a plaid Ralph Lauren button up.  The little girl was wide-eyed, pigtailed, and dressed in a fuscia lehenga with a bright orange choli.  Cute to the max.

In India, or, at least, on most busses in Bangalore, the women sit in the front and the men sit in the back.  This father made his way to the middle of the bus, where he stood, and tried to have his daughter tuck herself into the seat in front of me.  This was further away from him than she seemed to like, and she desperately looked for an option closer to him.  I scooted towards the open window, offering the space in between me and the 12-year-old girl beside me.  “Ba,” I said, patting the space beside me.  She looked up at her father, he nodded, and she scrambled between us, sitting on the edge of the seat, gripping the bar on the seat ahead of her, and craning her head to look at me.  I smiled, said hello, but she was silent, staring.

My seat was the last in the “women’s” section, so her father stood next to our seat.  When the bus hit a bump in the road, he leaned down, placed her back firmly on the seat, and instructed his daughter to continue holding on to the bar in front of her.  While she enjoyed looking back at me and peering out the window, every once in awhile she would turn the other way and make sure her daddy was still there.  He was.

The bus started filling up.

More women, some speaking angrily, boarded the bus.  The little girl’s father got pushed further from us, towards the back of the bus.  The girl turned, worried.  Her father smiled, nodded at her.  He was still there.  People continued to board; the bus was overflowing with people.  She turned towards me, anxious, and I said, “Ah, Appa idde.”  She turned to the other side, eyes searching frantically, and, sure enough, although there were rows of people between them, Daddy was still there, and his eyes hadn’t left his little girl.  

As we drove, she glanced back about once every two minutes, and I found myself looking with her.  His body was mostly hidden  by sareed women and he was no longer close enough to readjust her after a bump in the road, but Daddy was still watching.  Smiling.  Reassuring.  She couldn’t feel him, and she could barely see him, but he was there.  In the midst of the chaos, of the panic of people, even if she felt alone and helpless, all she needed to do was look.  And she would see that he had never stopped watching her.  That he was proud of her for sitting on her own.  That he  wasn’t going to leave without her, and that he would make sure she made it to her destinations afely.  This one look was enough to reassure her; to give her the peace to make it through the next two minutes.  Until the bus got a little more crowded, a little more loud.  Until it hit a bump in the road and she became unsure.  Until it was time to look back and double check that Daddy was still there.  

And he always was.

Transitioning

One the way to Chicago, I did nothing but sip my grande nonfat chai latte and laugh.  Seriously.  Not too loudly, though, because I didn’t want the Laotian man next to me to think I was crazy.  Laugh because - hold on - I’m going back to India?  God is so funny.  I wonder what He was thinking back in December when I left Bangalore absolutely devastated.  He knew.  He knew that I had to leave to know how deeply I had loved, that I had to return home to identify what I had become, to remember His grace, to fully understand the meaning of home, and to not want to leave...again.  I was quite a piece of work for those 8 months, but I wouldn’t have given them up for anything.  I laughed because of the incredible sense of peace that I have, and as I meandered through Chicago O’Hare I heard a voice say, “He shall keep in perfect peace him whose heart is steadfast, because he trusts completely in Him”.  This is me, and I never want to leave this place.  And by place I don’t necessarily mean my geographic location; rather, this place of peace, of steadfastness, of trust.

It's Been Quite the Year

Wow.

Here I sit in India, typing away in my little brick hut,

When it suddenly hit me that it has been exactly a year since I was accepted to grad school.

Until a year ago today, I had absolutely no idea what direction God was going to take me; in fact, I was feeling pretty stuck. And look at me now, two-thirds of the way done with my Master’s degree and living in India!!!

Looking back, I can’t believe that it has only been a year!!! And what a year it’s been:

A year in which I temporarily moved away from the most near and dear people in my life...and found that the distance only made my heart grow closer to them. A year in which I met and was inspired by some of the most incredible people that I know. A year in which I visited 6 new states [Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Hawaii]. A year that I lived in Vermont [now, how many people can say that?] and had many, many adventures on the Greyhound bus between Brattleboro and Boston. I showed my mom Chicago in a whirlwind day. I got to go on vacation with my family…twice. Oh, and I also lived with five girls in a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan…that was an adventure in and of itself J I learned Italian. I wakeboarded. I fell in love with Kolb’s experiential learning cycle. I went to the biggest pumpkin festival in the world. I cohabitated with a snowman named Steve [that was for you, Sabs]. I developed a deep affection for pitted prunes [now, before you grimace and say gross, I want you to try one]. I was honored to stand up in my best friend’s wedding, and later my soulmate’s [and celebrated with many other precious people through their engagements and weddings, too]. It was a year where I was stretched and challenged way beyond what I ever thought possible emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually…and also physically: I committed to a gluten-free lifestyle, I tried to become a runner [emphasis on try; I’m still working on that one], and, for the first time in my life, I woke up with bags under my eyes [sorry for the ugly truth…I have social change class to thank for those. And for a lot of greater things, as well]. I learned even more about who I am and what it means to love Jesus more than anything. I uncovered many new dreams and desires [who knew that going back to school would only make me want to keep going back???] and I’m pretty sure that I should have six-pack abs as proof of how much I laughed.

Wow. [again.]

To think that I worried, that I stressed about “what I should do with my life”. God knew all along that I would be sitting here today…and if all that happened in only a year, I can’t wait to see what this next one has in store. As Jennie Mather [now Anderson] and I used to say [while sitting on a bench in the Plaza Mayor in Segovia, Spain], “I wonder what God knows that He’s smiling about right now?”