Finding hope in love.

Ohhhh Valentine’s Day.. I have to admit I am one of those people who really doesn’t appreciate Valentine’s Day. I feel like it can exploit those who are lonely, those who have loved and lost, and also is a ploy for Hallmark and candy companies to make money. So for me, Valentine’s Day usually becomes a day where I am extremely sarcastic and cynical about love, and I focus on the negative aspects of such a day… I shoot cupid with his own arrow.. and not to make him fall in love… I shoot to kill.

Today on this lovely Valentines Day, I sat down to do my devotion. My devotion is not one that goes by date, it just is a 365 day devotion that you do as you can. But I’ve found that God works in amazing ways through this book. He usually speaks to me very clearly, and his messages are very relevant to the time I’m going through it.

I sat down and opened my devotional to day 121, and the lesson was from Song of Solomon… OF COURSE!! I have to say I approached this with a poor attitude.. GREAT.. I’m gonna read about this sickening love story.. on Valentine’s Day… PERFECT! but as I read, I felt a change in my heart, the words slowly filled my soul.

Song of Songs 4:9-15 (Message)

You’ve captured my heart, dear friend. You looked at me, and I fell in love. One look my way and I was hopelessly in love! How beautiful your love, dear, dear friend– far more pleasing than a fine, rare wine, your fragrance more exotic than select spices. The kisses of your lips are honey, my love, every syllable you speak a delicacy to savor. Your clothes smell like the wild outdoors, the ozone scent of high mountains. Dear lover and friend, you’re a secret garden, a private and pure fountain. Body and soul, you are a paradise, a whole orchard of succulent fruits — Ripe apricots and peaches, oranges and pears; Nut trees and cinnamon, and all scented woods; Mint and lavender, and all herbs aromatic; A garden fountain, sparkling and splashing, fed by spring waters from the Lebanon mountains.

I read these words, and my heart turned from this sarcastic negative place, to this place of awe. This place of awe at the beauty of love, the possibilities of love. A love that describes another’s body and soul as a paradise.

It’s been hard, as of late, to think positively of the state of the world we live in. I’ve lost considerable amounts of faith in people.. I’ve been jaded a bit. But when I read this, I saw the potential for something amazing. For people to look beyond themselves and be just absolutely enthralled and overcome by love for another person. I saw the potential for me to break through my jadedness and see others in such a light.

There’s so much hope in this kind of love.

Even as my girlish heart swoons at these verses, I don’t just see it as the possibility for romantic love here on Earth.. I see it as a glimpse of what the Creator of the universe feels for me. The Creator feels it for you. The Creator feels for every person you come into contact with. What he feels is way beyond the words of this verse.. and it’s hard to believe.. He feels that for little ole me? His love transcends condition.

I found myself exchanging my poor attitude, for a heart filled with hope, and filled with this sense of incredible peace. The fairy tales we see in movies, in books, in other aspects of our culture seem so far fetched. But it’s right here in the bible. And it’s not shallow like romantic comedies. It’s a love that is solid, durable.. time tested. This potential lies in each and everyone of us. This love has the possibilty to overcome all the bad in the world.. all of the terrible things that don’t make sense.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7, 11-12

Hang a locket around your neck, wear my ring on your finger. Love is invincible facing danger and death. Passion laughs at the terrors of hell. The fire of love stops at nothing — it sweeps everything before it. Flood waters can’t drown love, torrents of rain can’t put it out. Love can’t be bought, love can’t be sold– it’s not to be found in the marketplace.

So my hope is.. that as you go through this Valentine’s Day, that you don’t look to the cards, candy, chocolates, candlelight dinners, sappy love songs, the things of the marketplace for some feeling of love. I hope that are filled with hope and captivated by the potential in each of us to love. Whether or not you have a significant other, I hope you are overtaken by the magnitude of love God has for you. A love that stops at nothing, that can’t be drowned or bought or sold. I also hope that you realize the potential in yourself to have this kind of passionate love for others. I hope in some way you live that out today. Whether for a friend, a family member, or a complete stranger… because after all, God is love. Let’s share the Creator.

Everything’s Connected.

There is a common theme that keeps coming up in my every day, and that theme is: everything is connected. Everything can be traced back to anything. We live in a world that is completely interrelated.

As much as our culture would have us believe that the best way to live is to be independent and completely self sustained.. that is in fact impossible. No matter what we do, we depend on others, and no matter what we do we affect others.

Why is it that there is this every man for himself mentality? Is it because we truly believe we can live our lives independently from one another? Why do we believe that our actions do not affect anyone but ourselves?

I am reading a book called The Tarball Chronicles: A Journey Beyond the Oiled Pelican and Into the Heart of the Gulf Oil Spill. by David Gessner. It’s really putting the whole BP oil spill into perspective, and a lot of other things for that matter. It’s proving once again to me that everything’s connected. Reading this book has been a very profound experience. I definitely wasn’t expecting this kind of incite in reading this book.

The following are some excerpts from The Tarball Chronicles talking about the interrelatedness each of us has with the oil spill, with the fragile coastline, with nature, and with one another. There is so much good stuff in this book, so I want to share with you some of the profound, brilliant ideas that this environmentalist, bird watcher, and lover of the heart of nature has recorded in his book.

“The people who made and sprayed DDT were not evil. Who wouldn’t want to get rid of mosquitoes? They weren’t evil, but they just believed that they could control things. They believed they could make things better than they are; that they could always fix what got broken; never considering that some of the things they were breaking had taken a million years or so to make.”

I think the same is true if we look at our own lives. We have this desire to control things, to have things our way. This need to harness the wildness of this world that we’ve been given, a gift from God that we need to fix. It’s a trend that’s been going on since the beginning of man. We take matters into our own hands and end up screwing up a lot of things, and starting a chain of events that ends in so much destruction. So much so that we can no longer trace it back to the cause.

In talking about the issues facing the Gulf and seeing the need for change, Gessner has some interesting points… he indicates that there’s a deeper problem that we are facing…

“The thing we really need to fix is ourselves. It’s not about the fish, it’s not about the pollution, it’s not about the climate change. It’s about us, and our greed, and our need for growth…”

“Maybe, as we do this, we can be guided, not just by the desire for ease, but also by older ideals of sacrifice; of good work and growth and wildness beyond an engineer’s dream of straight lines.”

All of this is coming from a scientifically minded man who explains that he does not believe in God. Gessner sees that the basis of a lot of issues begins with our human nature. He repeats the theme of the loss of sacrifice throughout the book, and points out that our inability to give of ourselves to help others and to sacrifice things that comfort us is destroying the Earth. This idea of sacrifice transcends religion.

“Nature was our first home, our old home, and to paraphrase Emerson, we miss it dearly. I am not saying that we should all run off and find cabins in the woods. There are no more cabins anyway. No places apart. Think of this place, this fish camp, seemingly remote, but vulnerable to the tendrils of oil. I’m not talking about “getting away from it all,” but its opposite: acknowledging where we came from. How to really understand that this thing we seem so dead set on destroying is our home and that we are — still — a part of the world we grew out of? I’m not suggesting we need to have a perfect relationship with so-called nature; that we need to grow zucchinis and wear flowers in our hair. But if we don’t need a pure relationship we do need some relationship.”

When we divorce nature from our lives we suffer in ways our brains don’t understand.

Ahhhh, relationship : ) When we cut ourselves off from relationships, something ugly happens. The same is true when we refer to our relationship with others as with our relationship with nature. Gessner points out that without some sort of relationship with nature we suffer. We suffer in ways our brains don’t understand. Why is that?

I believe God has provided us with this idea of relationship, this idea of interrelatedness and community to experience the love of God. It is a gift to experience a taste of the love and communion among the Trinity. Everything springs from our relationship with others, and our relationship with the Earth. I believe that when our relationship with the Earth is cut off we suffer and therefore the Earth suffers. As the Earth suffers, we suffer even more physically, mentally, and spiritually. It’s a vicious cycle. You can see the proof of the health of our relationship with nature all around us as oil swirls in the Gulf. The health of our relationships and their effects on our existence transcends religion.

“To walk by the shore, to swim in the sea, to fish, and feel the sun. Could it be that we are willing to give this up for the comfort of forms and straight lines? It’s as if our new credo were, “This thing, this business model, developed over the last hundred years or so, this system that gives great rewards to few Homo sapiens, is superior to the vast and complex machine of life of all beings that has evolved over billions of years.”

Do we really believe this? Could we?
Maybe the answer is “yes.” Maybe we hate uncertainty so much, and are so intent on stamping it out, that we don’t mind also crushing the living world in the process. Maybe our twin gods of ease and speed have ascended above all else.

I feel uncertainty is a driving force of our need and desire to control. We feel we can’t control anything in our own personal lives, so we have to control this creative force of nature.. build levees and dams to stop the flooding, to stop the messy madness…

“One thing I like about a shack like this is that it’s honest. It admits that the world is uncertain and impermanent and that the ground is never firm, that sands shift and islands migrate. For most of us the fact that this same world is wild, joyous, dramatic, and enlivening somehow does not make up for its messiness. We are quick to sell our birthright if things are convenient and quick and straight. Sacrifice is an outdated virtue. Better a controlled castle than a shack that can be wiped out at any moment.”

Gessner brings up sacrifice once again. I have to be honest, this is not a theme I was expecting to be reminded of constantly in a book about the BP oil spill. The idea of sacrifice is connected to a spiritual life just as much as it is with a healthy relationship with nature.

“What if instead of sacrificing other places — Sydney Mines and the Gulf and Alaska — and other species — killer whales and gannets and dolphins — we chose to sacrifice a little of ourselves? Is that so ludicrous? Unfortunately the word sacrifice has… been hollowed out. It has become rote. Something politicians say. It has lost its heroic connotations and isn’t a word people really use that much, which is understandable. our culture has emphatically chosen the opposite route of Thoreau, focusing on getting more to the extent that the idea of consciously doing with less seems laughable. But what if someone came to you and whispered..

‘Do with a little less and two things will happen. The world will be better and you will be happier.’“

Sounds pretty simple, right? But I get discouraged thinking about the improbability of huge corporations being convinced with these words.. of our culture and even myself being convinced to be changed with these words… This book has been overwhelming to say the least. There is a pressure that comes along with this slow realization that everything is connected, that the way I decide to live my life has a direct effect on others and on the environment.

I came across a chapter in this book called Faith. I have to say I was very intrigued. This author had made it very clear that he did not believe in God, and had no qualms about sticking strong to that. Here’s some things he had to say in reference to White Pelicans:

“What I experience when I see the birds, these great white radiant birds, is more akin to what Jim Duffy described when he said he could believe in both a certain book and the rocks, God and science, even though they tell different stories. Like Jim, I can believe in two stories: the pessimistic Eco-story of my tribe, and, at the same time, a greater, wilder story. That story has nothing to do with words or the future or how we will or won’t act. It is happening right now. It is an irrational story, an ineffable one. It is about the birds themselves. It is the birds themselves. White. Radiant. Flying.

I am not a religious man. But as I watch one white pelican veer away from the rest, my body fills with something that I have no words for. I don’t have an organized system of belief. But I do have faith in that single white bird.

What is faith if not belief without, or beyond reason? That is what I have in nature, even at this late date in its destruction and demise. I understand that we are at the end of nature, that it is dead and outdated, and that I’m kind of old-fashioned for believing. But still. To say it is as close as one can get to going to church has become cliche, but being out here with these birds does offer me at least some of the pleasures and consolations of religion. It offers me a place outside of myself, a place to consider things beyond me, a place of wonder and awe. It is where religions were born.

Because along with wetlands we are losing this: a place other than human, a place not smeared with our clumsy thumbprints, and a place, since we are being practical here, with the distinctly human use of seeing beyond ourselves. It seems reasonable to point out that for some of us BP has soiled not just our beaches but our church.”

Why have we tried to separate the church and the environment? Why is there this movement or tendency for Christians to see environmentalist as a dirty word? And in the same vain, why are there scientifically minded people who discredit faith as something delusional people buy into? Why do so many discredit the church? I believe these things are interwoven and it can be a beautiful thing when seen that way. The church and nature are connected. The way we treat the environment should be a major component of how we live our faith out. Gessner continues…

“It is a truly miraculous world we are destroying. A world where shrews can somehow become dolphins. Think of that. Think of the delightful fluidity, the sheer thrill of adaptation. Could straight lines lead to this, could engineers plan out how to get from the A of a shrew to the B of dolphin? “Miraculous” may have strictly religious connotations for some, but I’ll stick with it in this instance. You can believe that this is God’s creation or you can believe we evolved. You can even believe in both. That is not my fight at the moment. But whatever your beliefs, and whatever your origin story of favor, how can you not believe in dolphins and white pelicans?”

Some of you may have checked out of this paragraph at the phrase “shrews can somehow become dolphins”, or “adaptation”. Others may have checked out at the words “religious” or “God’s creation”. Regardless of where you come from, or what your background is… I feel we can meet at the word “miraculous”. It is undeniable that this Earth, this creation is awe inspiring. I feel that you can believe this is God’s creation, or that we evolved, but it’s hard to escape that there is something greater and mysterious about how everything fits together.

“The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God.” -Rob Bell

“I have always thought that nature was the source of my creativity, and the source of creativity for most artists, even those who never set foot on a beach or in the woods. But my thinking is evolving and I am moving beyond those inchoate ideas. I am coming to believe that nature is creativity. Not just a wellspring for humans but the thing itself.”

At this point of the book, I see a change in Gessner. He is no longer able to talk about nature without this awe.. without connecting it to other areas of life. As he does this his language gets more and more beautiful, and he makes more and more sense.

“When we kill the woods or beach we are killing possibilities. Our options, biologically as well as artistically, become limited. After all, you can’t simply re-create dolphin or pelican or kangaroo. I could go on but I will stop my preaching now. I am tired, weary. One of the things that straight-line thinkers like to do is segregate, keeping everyone and everything in their separate cells. In this way, we can focus on the narcotics of our specialties: macrame or biochemistry or golf. In my field this means keeping art separate from politics, which is one of the rules of literature in the past century. It is a rule that I would, quite honestly like to follow and one that I did follow for the first twenty years of my career. But it just doesn’t seem possible anymore.”

And so everything starts to blend together….

The final connection I want to point out is one that means a lot to me specifically. As you probably can tell, I have been enthralled by this new passion of Creation Care,  the connection of nature and theology. I feel like this last connection kind of ties it all up in a neat bow.

Gessner decided to explore the idea that the BP oil spill is connected to all of us, and did so by emailing a bunch of professors that were at the top of their respective fields, and asking each of them to connect a pelican to their area of study….

“A philosophy professor recalled that the pelican was a religious symbol and sent along this Wikipedia entry: ‘In medieval Europe, the pelican was thought to be particularly attentive to her young, to the point of providing her own blood when no other food was available. As a result, the pelican became a symbol of the Passion of Jesus and of the Eucharist.’ And, along the same lines, another professor offered up Psalm 102 which ends: “I am like a pelican of the wilderness.”

Wow. I had no idea that the pelican would have such a direct link to my faith in Christ. Even though this idea of the pelican feeding its young with blood is a myth, if you do some research you will see the countless images of pelicans used as an icon to symbolize Christ, the Eucharist, and charity among other things. Gessner continues…

“All of it went in my file, though I made special note of the idea of the birds feeding their blood to their young. As natural history it’s hogwash, but symbolically I can see the pelican as the offering we have sacrificed at the altar of oil, down in this body of water that is our national sacrifice zone.

There’s another way to look at it, though. Maybe the true offering has to come from us, in response to what has occurred. At the very least, the idea of sacrifice, which seems so outdated and quaint, has to be revived. In an age of instant gratification, why ever give anything up?

Perhaps because by giving up we gain something greater.”

Does this sound familiar?

“Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me[Jesus] will find it.” Matthew 16:25

And now we are back to the idea of sacrifice. If we are able to live independently from one another, if there is nothing greater, if nothing is actually connected, if my actions do not affect you and vice versa … if our every man for himself culture is right, then what on earth would be the point of sacrifice? Where does sacrifice fit in to this puzzle?

I believe if each of us practiced some sacrificial giving in our lives, even in small ways, it would heal the earth, heal our relationships, and heal ourselves. We are connected, and instead of our actions having a negative chain reaction through all interconnections, our sacrifices could radiate out and positively affect all we are connected to.

I can think of nothing more beautiful than this life and the complexity of how interwoven it all is. It is all connected, and it is all beautiful.

It’s a Beautiful Life.

God has been really challenging me to look at my life as a story.

It all started this summer when I read A Million Miles in  Thousand Years by Donald Miller. If you want to have a renewed passion for life, and feel the power you have in living an exciting, beautiful, and meaningful life, I highly suggest this book.

From there, I had a friend lend me a series of Donald Miller’s lectures on life as a story where Miller unpacked lessons he learned and things he discovered while examining the plot of his own life.

Now, the YAV program has been using Donald Miller and curriculum from Volunteers Exploring Vocation for me and my community to examine all the elements of our lives through the lens of setting, character, conflict, climax, and resolution.

So naturally with this repetitive thumping over the head with the idea of life as a story, I felt like God was trying to tell me something..

Alright God… I get it. There’s obviously something here that I need to explore…

This led me to think about how I got in New Orleans… in other words.. the plot and storyline that brought me here…

Back in 2005 hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I remember I was driving home from Knoxville after seeing Jack Johnson during my senior year of high school, when I pulled into a gas station to get a snack. As I wandered the isles, I was sucked into a tv that depicted images of people standing on their roofs waving for some kind of help… some kind of salvation. I thought to myself:

This couldn’t be the United States… this couldn’t be New Orleans….. 

It’s sad for me to think about now, but I honestly hadn’t really thought about New Orleans until that point. These images scarred me. They left a mark on my heart that I would revisit later. This tragedy got my attention, and planted a seed that I would sow later. If this hurricane had not occurred, there probably wouldn’t be a Young Adult Volunteer site in New Orleans. One of the organizations I work with, Project Homecoming, would definitely not exist without hurricane Katrina.

A hurricane led me to New Orleans.

When I was in college, I spent a lot of time at my campus ministry, Presbyterian Student Fellowship, or PSF. One particular night of worship at PSF, I believe during my sophomore year of college, some Young Adult Volunteers visited and told their stories. I talked to one YAV in particular who had spent a year in Northern Ireland. I don’t know what it is.. but I have a love and attraction to Ireland that I cannot explain. I had been to Dublin and Killarney in my Junior year of high school, and had fallen in love. The thought of spending a year in mission… especially in Ireland sounded like a dream to me. From that point on, the option of YAV was in the back of my mind.

My love for green, clovers, and Irish accents led me to the YAV program.

When I was applying to the YAV program some of the main components I wanted out of my year were a strong community life and the ability to use graphic design in my service. I had narrowed my site choices down to Hollywood and New Orleans. I interviewed with the two sites and left it up to fate (I would be lying if I said I gave it up to God). I figured that the program would get back to me, offering me a placement at one of the sites. They would make the decision for me. I got an email from New Orleans, read it and accepted their offer. I was so pumped that the YAV office had decided to place me in New Orleans.

I later talked to the site coordinator in Hollywood, and found out his disappointment that I had decided to not come to Hollywood… what? Apparently he was about to send me an offer via email, but realized I had already accepted the position in New Orleans. The decision was really in my hands all along. It was my misunderstanding of the YAV acceptance process that sent me on this path to New Orleans.

A misunderstanding led me to New Orleans.

It’s so true that these little, seemingly insignificant situations can really change the course of our lives. If I had waited a few days to accept a position, I could be living in Hollywood right now, with a completely different group of people.. and a different job. This is such a crazy thing to realize.

I’m sure if you really take a minute to look back on your life you’ll see these little instances, little turns in the road you’ve made that seemed like little decisions.. or not even decisions at all.. but they’ve all led you to exactly where you are today.

Donald Miller makes sure to point out the power we have in our own lives, in our own stories. We have the freedom of choice, the freedom to make these small or huge decisions in our day to day that can send us on crazy awesome adventures.

This realization is exciting and terrifying.

As I begin to discern what my next step is.. I am reminded of how much God has blessed me. I’m realizing how faithful he’s been in my decisions.. and my mistakes. Honestly, I could’ve never seen that news broadcast of Hurricane Katrina… I could’ve decided to miss PSF that night and never spoken to the Northern Ireland YAV. I also could’ve decided to be a little more responsible and cognizant of the YAV application process. The truth is, in changing any one of those events, I could be in a very different place than I am today.

Instead of sitting at a coffee shop in New Orleans blogging about my story..

I could be sitting in a coffee shop in Hollywood blogging about seeing some celebrity walking down the street. I could be sitting at JoZoara in Murfreesboro doing some freelance design work. I could be abroad serving two years in the Peace Corp. I could’ve never met my amazing, awesome, awe inspiring life long friends that I’ve made here in New Orleans.

It’s scary to think about, yeah? But what is proportionately as comforting is the fact that God would’ve been there with me on any one of those paths. He was there all along in all my decisions and my prayers for what to do with this year I find myself in.

What a beautiful, exciting, adventure of a life this is!

Where will your next step take you? Where will my next step/mistake/decision take me?

I have no idea. I guess we’ll see : )

The Posture of Gratitude.

Each morning I do a devotion from my book called Solo: An Uncommon Devotional. This morning was a particularly helpful exercise and I wanted to share it with you.

The book invites you to:  Take out a clean sheet of paper and fill the page with all the things you are thankful for, big and small. Include items like names of people, elements of creation, God-orchestrated events and timing, and small things you often overlook. When you’re finished, thank God for those blessings he is giving you today as well as those blessings he gave you months or even years ago.

A little section of my "Thankful page"

The book then invites you to read Psalm 75:1-4:

(Message Version)

We thank you, God, we thank you — your Name is our favorite word; your mighty works are all we talk about.

You say, “I’m calling this meeting to order, I’m ready to set things right. When the earth goes topsy-turvy and nobody knows which end is up, I nail it all down, I put everything in place again.

I say to the smart alecks, ‘That’s enough,’ to the bullies, ‘Not so fast.’”

For those who still love a more traditional version of scripture, like me, here’s Psalm 75:1-4 in ESV:

We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.

At the set time that I appoint, I will judge with equity. When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars. Selah

I say to the boastful, ‘Do not boast,’ and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horn.’

The book invites you: Based on a general outline of the expanded passage, take the list you made and prayerfully write your own psalm (poem) to God. Be creative and personal. (Nobody has to read what you write.) When you are finished, use your psalm to worship God. Read it aloud at least once.

This exercise was very helpful to me considering the stress I’ve been under because of recent events. An ugliness has clouded my vision, and I’ve struggled seeing the good around me. God cracked the hard shell I had placed around my heart to remind me that I have a billion things to be thankful for. I am thankful to be reminded to have a posture of gratitude.

I want to leave you with the psalm I wrote this morning during this activity. I invite you to do the same, and maybe this exercise will help remind you of the beauty that is life, and all the amazing things God has blessed you with.

I thank you God, I thank you. You are Love, you are Life. You are the very essence of the air I breathe, you are the creator who’s handprints cover all of creation.

I thank you God, I thank you for family. You brought us together, you designed this tight-knit web that holds us together.

I thank you God, I thank you for change. I thank you for the challenges and struggles that are continually molding me into who you intended me to be.

I thank you God, I thank you for New Orleans. I thank you for the oak trees, the streetcars, and the music pouring out into the streets. I thank you for cobble stone, and poboys, and the beautiful people who call this city home.

When nothing seems right, when the world seems to be crumbling around me, you steady the trembling.

You arrange everything according to your design, and you remind me who is in control. Selah

Fear.

I’ve fallen in love with New Orleans, it’s true. It’s seeping into the very core of me, but I think I’ve been blinded a bit by this initial love at first sight. Up until this point, my knowledge of this city has in a way been very on the surface, and I quickly fell for its beauty, quirkiness, and spirit. But, as a lot of us know, with love often comes pain.

As the holidays are drawing near, things have gotten a little crazy around here. Crime seems to have increased, and maybe its been this way all along… but it’s been brought to my attention recently because it has been closer in proximity to me and my community.

In the past week and a half there has been a mugging, an armed robbery, a car jacking, and a drive by shooting that have either affected someone in my community or occurred near my house. I’m not saying this to alarm anyone. I have not felt unsafe in the least sense I’ve been here, but it’s hard not to let the fear and anxiety set in after these events.

I’m struggling. A darkness has set in, and a fog has settled in my mind.

This place I love is so broken.

It’s always hard when you begin to realize things aren’t as you wish they were, and you get awakened to how the world really is…

One my roommates is the garden coordinator for a school here in New Orleans. It really is incredible what she’s done in just a few short months. On Saturday I went and helped her with a community garden day she had organized. I was in charge of helping kids paint signs to label all the vegetables and flowers they have planted.

I was a little apprehensive in going because something very tragic had happened in this area just a few days before. Despite what had happened, the community rallied together and helped in the painting of signs, planting of trees, watering of plants, and spreading of mulch. It really was a beautiful day. It was so good to see something so beautiful in a place where so much ugliness had occurred just a few days before.

I felt like my faith in this city was being restored as I experienced this community coming together to restore this garden.

Everything went well with the kids. They loved painting the signs and were so enthusiastic about helping bring more color to the garden. For some reason, there was one girl in particular that grabbed my attention. She was around 11 years old… older than the rest of the kids, and had kind of an attitude about her. She wanted to take the orange tree sign home with her to hang on her wall. She also wanted to paint over the other kids work so the signs would look the way she wanted them to look. I let her know that she would not be taking the sign home, and that she was contributing to something bigger than her room, in a joking way of course. We went back and forth, I reflected her joking attitude back, and we got along alright.

During the community day, the kids were painting on a new bench with a tarp over it, and I had done my best to make sure we didn’t get any paint on the bench. While cleaning up, I was pretty impressed at how little of a mess was made. I left the bench for a few minutes to grab something to drink, and when I returned, a bunch of the younger kids were drawing on the bench in chalk. I joined in with them, and studied the drawings they were making, but then I realized that the one girl who had gotten my attention was writing in pen on the bench.

I got pretty frustrated, and told her to stop and also asked her if she realized that what she had written was in permanent ink. With her little attitude she acted as if she didn’t realize it was permanent and walked away. Disappointed, I grabbed the pen and began to walk away when her friend said to me,

Did you read the permanent thing she wrote?

I hadn’t read what she had written. I had just assumed she had written her name, or some kind of doodle like the Garfields I used to draw when I was little. I walked back to the bench and searched through all the little chalk drawings until I came to the words in pen that said:

I let hatred be my motivator.

Man. I was knocked backwards. I can’t believe this 11 year old girl wrote these words. This was her doodle. Her first thing to come to mind to write on this bench. How could so much darkness and depth of sadness come out of an 11 year old girl? All of a sudden this little oasis of a garden in the middle of this shady part of town had been infiltrated by this ugliness.

The part of New Orleans that I had been blind to had shown it’s terrible face again, in the words of an 11 year old girl.

This situation painted a pretty clear picture of what had occurred in my heart in the past week and a half. The little beautiful garden of New Orleans that I had created in my mind has been infiltrated by this ugliness, this corruption, this brokenness….

and it has changed how I see everything.

I’ve taken off my rose-colored glasses and now see the world how it actually is. I hadn’t really heard the sirens before, but now I hear them constantly. The daiquiri place my roommates and I always joke about going to is actually a place where two people have been shot and killed in the past year. The people walking by as I fill up my gas tank have the potential to hurt me and take my things.

I find myself putting my keys in between my knuckles as I walk to my car, ready to defend myself from those who are ready to attack. As I get up to get more coffee in a coffee shop, I wonder to myself if my computer and other belongings will be there when I return.

I hate this new change in me.

I’m sick of learning more about people, places, and systems that we are under and realizing that they are utterly broken and messed up to the core. I’m sick of being disappointed.

I want to have faith in this city I love, and the people in it. Even those who use hatred as their motivator are human beings with needs and beating hearts who are fiercely loved by God. I should love them too despite this feeling of fear, despite this feeling of betrayal.

God calls us to hope for something better, to hope for heaven here on earth. It is so hard to live in the reality of this messed up world, caused by our own brokenness, when the core of you longs with every fiber of your being for something greater, something that seems impossible, something that is not of this world.

I have hope that this little girl will let Love be her motivator, and see the potential that lies within herself. But the sad truth is, she believes she will only live to be about 23 because of gang violence. Her life is half over. Why wouldn’t she live by what she has seen, this hatred that she has been taught is the driving force and power in life?

I feel like I’m hurting all the time, I feel like my heart is breaking.

I hurt for her. I hurt for those who resort to violence to meet their needs. I hurt for my community and the specific members who have experienced things that will forever change them. Things that no one should ever have to go through. I hurt because of this jadedness that is hardening my heart to others, to this city, to this country, and to this world.

Despite it all, God has continued to be faithful as I have wrestled to process these emotions and fears. He has met me during my devotion time and is clearly trying to tell me something. I feel as though my heart is hardened and I’m not yet ready to completely receive what He is saying, but I want to share these scriptures with you that he’s placed on my heart.

On Sunday morning, my devotion was called A Safe Place to Hide and focused on Psalm 46. Here He is reminding me He is my fortress.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

This morning God met me once again with another passage from Psalms 53. This Psalm gives a voice to the passionate plea for justice. I feel as though God was letting me know he feels my pain. That he is right there with me.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.

God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?

There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror! For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you; you put them to shame for God has rejected them.

Oh that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores the fortunes of his people, Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

Honestly, the most I can muster is to read these passages, and know that they will bring me comfort eventually. All I can do is hold on to these truths, even though my grip is so weak:

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?  But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. 1 Peter 3:13-14

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

I have no resolution to this blog post, I usually do. All I know is that I’ve chosen Love, and therefore I have no room for fear in my life. Please pray for me as I get rid of this fear and sadness that is plaguing my heart.

So Thankful.

God is doing some amazing work in me. He is constantly teaching me new things about myself, and is challenging me in areas of my life where I knew change was necessary.. but just didn’t know how to improve on my own.

I am so thankful for lessons and challenges.

I’m so excited!  I feel like I’m finally learning what it is to have an intimate relationship with my Creator. Being more disciplined in my quiet time with God has been paramount in improving this relationship. He always has something to say to me, and He is always shaping me into someone new.

I am so thankful that my Creator wants to truly know me.

I am so thankful that I am an evolving work of art.

I love my community. It may be dysfunctional at times, but they are truly becoming my family and people that I really want to spend my time with, people I respect, and people who inspire me.

I am so thankful for my little New Orleans family.

I love this city. It’s so beautiful, and I can’t help but have inspiration and creativity coming out of every pore as I take in the sights, smells, and sounds.

I am so thankful for New Orleans, a city that makes me feel alive.

God is teaching me to give out of my heart, and not simply give out of guilt. This has been a huge issue in my life that I wasn’t even aware of. I’ve often been worried about everyone’s feelings and somehow I’ve felt responsible for everyone’s emotions. I’ve had an intense guilt follow me where ever I go, no matter what I do. This guilt has dictated my actions, my relationships, and my feelings. God is breaking those chains in my life, and freeing me up to focus on Him, allowing everything else to revolve around Him.

I am so thankful for the breaking of chains in my life.

I am so thankful for freedom.

I miss my friends and my family, its true, but how comfortable and content I am right now is just a little window into how much God has taught me.

He is enough.

No matter how far I am from my family, He is more than enough. His love and grace will always cover all the home sickness I can muster.

I was laying in my hammock last night, and I was looking up at the sky. Clouds were quickly moving in shades of orange and pink over the sky of deep blue. I found myself focusing on one bright star. Even through all the attempts of the clouds and the street lights to cover the star’s brilliance, it still shined through. This particular star held my attention. God is that star that can never be out shown. I can lose focus and let my eyes wander over the clouds or the street lights, but God’s brilliance is still there where my eyes left Him.. He is where He was, and where He will always be.

He is more than enough.

I am so thankful to be immersed in His enoughness.

Hiding my crown.

Words cannot express how amazing this particular Sunday was, and now that I think of it… words cannot really express how incredible New Orleans is. But I will do my best to describe what happened this day in attempts of explaining what is at the essence of New Orleans.

A few weeks ago, Allison, Jillian (my lovely roommates) and myself were hanging out at the New Orleans Blues and BBQ festival, and God had something to say to us.

As we were sitting in the grass listening to music, a man in a wheel chair named Ronald came up to us and told us he had the gift of spontaneously creating poetry and asked if he could share something with us.

I have to admit… I thought to myself, “Oh man, here we go… this guy is gonna bust out some amateur rap and then ask us for money”…. but we agreed to hear what he had to say and sat uncomfortably anticipating what was coming next.

He called his spontaneous poetry Three Queens. His voice then flowed into this rhyming, rhythmic, beautiful story. He never hesitated or paused, and his passion was as clear as the nose on his face. It was almost as if you could see the ideas dance in the sky as they made their way to Ronald, and watch the words leave his mouth and swirl like smoke as they became one with the New Orleans night air. His talent was breathtaking, and his story brought tears to our eyes.

We did not record Ronald’s poetry, and his story will never be said or heard again, which I think is appropriate… God spoke through Ronald directly to us.

Here is my best attempt to share with you the gift Ronald gave us:

His story was about three queens who decided to remove their crowns, leave their castle, and go out into the outside world. Soldiers were scouring the kingdom in search for the missing queens. Ronald talked about how he came across the three lost queens one day… he was first drawn in by this unique light shining from these three women and then realized that these were the queens everyone was in search for. Even without their crowns, he could see something was special about them.

Soldiers were interrogating towns people and came to Ronald to force him to tell them where the queens were. He confessed to the soldiers that he had seen the queens, but he felt the soldiers should leave the queens alone. He explained to the soldiers that the queens were just trying to have a day where they could put away their crowns, and just be. So the soldiers took Ronald’s advice and ended their search of the queens.

It was a beautiful story.

Ronald told us he felt like the three of us, Allison, Jillian, and myself, were these queens that had decided to hide our crowns. Being drawn in by a special light from us, he was inspired, and had to share this vision with us.

We never told him we were volunteers. We never told him that we were here serving the city he called home. He just saw some kind of light from us, and he felt compelled to tell us what he saw. He finished saying that he wanted us to know us we are beautiful. He asked for nothing in return, and simply said goodnight and was gone.

It’s true that sometimes as a young adult volunteer you grow weary of talking about your volunteer work, and hearing people be impressed and thankful for you giving up a year of your life…. or for sacrificing so much.

In a way people place these crowns on your head, and the attention becomes focused on your crown and not the one you are serving. Although you love what you do, you want to not be spoken to as some sort of saint, or placed up on a pedestal for this decision you’ve made in your life. The truth is you just want to be, and not be built up or treated differently from anybody else.

When my roommates and I go out, it’s an opportunity to experience the city and take a break from all the things that make a YAV year seem some how different from real life. It’s an opportunity to just be.

This night, it was as if God just came rolling through and wanted to tell us that we were valued and beautiful and to simply enjoy what this amazing city had to offer.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put into words what this year has meant to me so far, and how in love I am with this city… but that won’t keep me from trying. Stay tuned.

After I wrote this post, I read what my roommate, Allison, had to say about this experience. It’s amazing how God spoke to us in such similar ways, but also that he had something unique to tell each of us through the same story. (Click here to read her blog entry)

The Green in the Stained Glass Window.

There will always be naysayers. There will always be those people who will stand in the way of the good you are trying to do in your life, and in the lives of others.

There will always be the negative, the pessimistic, the bitter, the jaded, the disheartened, the hopeless…

There will always be that person that will remind you that what you are striving for is in fact impossible.

There will always be that person that will make you ask yourself:

What am I doing here?

Am I making a difference?

Am I working in vain?

During my year in New Orleans, my fight is to save the wetlands.

Is this an unrealistic goal?

One of the tasks in my job with CHART is to give a wetlands presentation to mission teams who come through for Hurricane Katrina relief. Once I was done with one of my presentations, someone decided to ask a “question”. This person then proceeded to let me know that everything that I had presented was all fine and good and very idealistic… but that the wetlands will disappear, and that there’s really nothing we can do about it. He then went into a 3 minute long explanation of why the wetlands are for sure going to disappear.

That was their “question”.

I have to be honest, this hit me very hard. It knocked the wind out of me. It instantly caused tears to well up in my eyes.. but I had to stay strong… after all, I was in the middle of a presentation on saving the wetlands, and I had just finished my section on how this wasn’t impossible.. and how this was a cause that God is calling us to.

This person basically told me my efforts are useless.. my year here will be in vain.

It was really hard to respond to this person, without either crying and leaving… getting angry in response… or just agreeing and giving up.

But I didn’t.. I told this person I understood where they were coming from because a lot of what they were saying was logical and true to a certain extent, and that this is indeed a complex situation that seems impossible…

but I have to do something. There are people who in the next 15 years will lose their homes if nothing changes. The land they have grown up knowing, along with their history, their culture.. their everything will be in a watery grave. There are people who have already faced this reality, and can now only visit their homelands in a boat.

Do these people not deserve a fighting chance? Do they not deserve hope?

There is a bigger picture here than just planting some wetland grass and trying to divert sediment to watered down lands…. There are systems and ideas in place that HAVE to change in order to make substantial progress in this fight.

Our society is driven by consumerism. We just want more and more and more, and we will go out of our way to get it. Even if it means putting ecosystems, wild life, and even other people in danger. Emphasis being on other.

I do understand what we (those fighting to save the wetlands) are standing up against.

We are standing against the government.

We are standing against the oil industry.

- There are 43,000 oil and gas wells and 64,000 miles of oil pipelines in Louisiana and the surrounding gulf alone.

- There are close to 3,000 reported oil spills a year in Louisiana and the surrounding gulf alone, causing erosion of land among other things.

- There is an 85 mile stretch of the Mississippi River called Cancer Alley where Petrochemical plants, in addition to polluting the air and water, are causing entire communities to suffer from various types of cancer.

We are standing against wealthy corporations.

We are standing against the pursuit of money. (the motivation for oil companies)

Hebrews 13:5-9 (Message)

Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you, ” we can boldly quote,

God is there, ready to help; I’m fearless no matter what. Who or what can get to me?

We are standing against the pursuit of the American Dream.

We are standing against the mentality that plagues most of America.. and most of the developed world for that matter. This attitude that seeps into our subconscious, into you, into me: That we can never get enough.

1 Timothy 6:6-8 (Message)

A devout life does bring wealth, but it’s the rich simplicity of being yourself before God. Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that’s enough.

These are huge establishments to stand up against, and yes.. in this day and age money is the speaking power in our world… so it does seem impossible, right?

Can we convince people to give up their dependence on oil? Can we convince people to live only on what they need.. and to live with the land, and not try to tame it?

Can we convince people that the pursuit of money is not everything?

1 Timothy 6:9-12 (Message)

But if it’s only money these leaders are after, they’ll self-destruct in no time. Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down the path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after. But you, Timothy, man of god: Run for your life from all this. Pursue a righteous life – a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy. Run hard and fast in the faith. Seize the eternal life, the life you were called to, the life you so fervently embraced in the presence of so many witnesses.

Mark 10:17-22 (Message)

As he went out in the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and mother.” He said, “Teacher I have – from my youth – kept them all!” Jesus looked him hard in the eye – and loved him! He said, “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.” The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart.

He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.

We are standing against an army of “rich men“.  As I fight the “rich man” mentality that plagues my mind.

I’m not sure if we can convince people to change their mindset…. but I sure HOPE so.

I know that God calls us to hope for something more.. for heaven here on Earth… for peace and justice for all.

Isaiah 61:1-3, 10-11 (Message)

The Spirit of God, the Master is on me because God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners. God sent me to announce the year of his grace – a celebration of God’s destruction of our enemies – and to comfort all who mourn, to care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit.

God calls us to work towards and hope for the impossible.

God also calls us to follow our passions;  he gave me a passion for the wetlands for a reason, right?

I know that attempting to save the wetlands may make me seem crazy.. or radical.. or idealistic.. but isn’t that how I’m supposed to be?

Romans 12:2-12:16

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in the exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Out do one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal , be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.

God gave each of us individual talents and passions to use to serve others, and to lift up His name.

I went to a renewal of non-violence service the other day, and this woman named Sister Helen Prejean gave a speech. She is widely recognized for her faith and advocacy on behalf of those on death row. She has been fighting most of her life to end the death penalty. She spoke with so much passion and conviction that it filled me with hope.

At the end of the presentation a man got up and said that largely because of Sister Prejean’s work, that they are working towards ending the death penalty in Louisiana in the next 5 years.

AMAZING! She has stood against incredible odds, and now she is on her way to see the fruit of God’s work through all of her labor. She reminded us that each of us has our own talents and our own gifts to give up as an offering, and the pieces we contribute come together much like a stained glass window. All of us are different sizes, different hues, different opacities. But we come together to create an amazing picture of Christ here on the Earth, and we work best when His light shines through us.

I chose to not be discouraged by what this person said to me concerning the wetlands. I may be a small piece. I may be oddly shaped. I may only have a little to contribute. I may have crazy ideas.. But that will not stop me from fighting to save the wetlands.

I want to be the green in the Stained Glass window.

Practicing Awareness.

My site coordinator sent this to me, and I thought it was worth sharing.

This is from Becca Stevens “Walking Bible Study: The Path of Peace”

John Elder, who wrote a beautiful treatise about why loving nature is a religious discipline said,

“Wilderness is not dependent upon a vast, unsettled tract of land. Rather, it is a quality of awareness, an openness to the light, to the seasons, and to nature’s perpetual renewal.”

To me that means we are called to see visions in the woods, not by changing the woods, but by changing the way we look at the woods. We can see God when we stand by the roots of an old and familiar tree, when we set boot on the bank of the great river Tigris, or when we find ourselves in deserted places we may not have chosen to travel. All the visions call us to peace and to not be afraid.

Nature is really about us being aware of what is around us and all its possibilities. It is about noticing subtle differences in the way the light shines or the different shades of green. It is beautiful to walk on huge, wild tracts of land; but it is not required to be in nature. We can practice being in nature, like any religious discipline, by practicing awareness.

As I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris, I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen…. He said, …”Do not be afraid.” -Daniel 10:4-12, NIV

Toxic Toothpaste

My toothpaste is toxic.

My FDA approved toothpaste contains something that causes birth defects in boys, early onset puberty in girls, and last but not least.. cancer….. CANCER. (I’ll get back to that in a minute)

I went to a Presbyterians for Earth Care conference in Allenspark, Colorado and my world was shaken. I am undeniably changed because of what I learned at this conference.

I’ve always considered myself a lover of nature, and someone who cared for the environment… but this conference made me realize what a novice I am. I realized the degree to which I have turned a blind eye to issues that effect me, my loved ones, everyone on this Earth, and those yet to come to this Earth.

God calls us to be stewards of the Earth.

Genesis 2:15: The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

He commanded Adam to serve and preserve the Earth. This was His first command to the first human on Earth.

What happened?

The Hebrew word that is used for keep in Genesis 2:15 is Shamar.

Shamar- loving, caring, sustaining, keeping

It is the same word used in Numbers 6:24 “The Lord bless you and keep you.”

So…. we are supposed to keep the Earth in the very same way we hope God will keep us. The very same way we hope God will love, care for, and sustain us….

Hmm… How are we doing?

We are putting carcinogens in toothpaste… we are spraying our crops with pesticides that are linked to hormonal issues (studies are showing that this same pesticide is causing male frogs to become female)… OH and our big, amazing solution for the oil spill in the Gulf is to spray toxic chemical dispersant into the water that causes the oil to ball up and sink below the surface.

What would it look like if God cared for us this way? Would God spray chemicals on our problems and just let our problems sink below the surface a bit so they aren’t quite so visible? Our problems would still be there… but we’d sure look pretty!

Heaven forbid God care for, love and sustain us the way we care for the Earth.

We are using the Earth like it can’t fail.. we take it for granted. Notice my use of  the word WE… it’s because I’m just as guilty … it stings as I type these things. The way we treat the Earth should be a major extension of our faith.

If God’s command to Adam is not enough, what about the Golden Rule?

What about the second most important commandment? Loving your Neighbor as yourself.

How do you define the word neighbor? I’ve been struggling with this as of late… are our neighbors the ones immediately around us? Or do our neighbors include the whole human family? Or do our neighbors include future generations… our furture children and grandchildren?

Or should we define “neighbor” as creation in it’s entirety?

Hey neighbor, here’s some toxic toothpaste that will increase your chances for cancer.

Why hello there neighbor, here’s some smoke in the air.. breathe it deep into your lungs.

Greetings neighbor, here’s a nice layer of chemicals on your food, the run off is gonna get in the waterways.. and then into your drinking water.. and eventually into the rain. But don’t worry… it may just screw with your hormones a bit, and possibly cause you to have fertility issues.. OH YEAH, and by the way… if you manage to have children, those chemicals are gonna be in your amniotic fluid.. so yeah.. it’s gonna effect your child too..

WHAT ARE WE DOING TO ONE ANOTHER??

Deuteronomy 28:1: And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

Deuteronomy 28: 15-21 : But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

Tough words to swallow, yeah?

I feel like these verses are a warning of what will happen if we do not take care of the Earth properly. I don’t think these are things God sends on us… but consequences of our own actions. These curses are the pollution in our land, the chemicals in our drinking water, rain, and amniotic fluid, they are the disappearing wetlands in Southern Louisiana…. they are the diseases that are side effects from our man made attempts to cut corners…

The Green Care Devotional Bible: God created humans to live as a harmonious part of the created order, as the caretakers of all that God made. When we as human beings forget that calling, the earth pays the price. Famine, drought, disease– these are not part of God’s intentions for the earth. They are what come from human selfishness and greed. When we pollute the air, the rain becomes toxic. When we pollute the water, the earth becomes toxic. When we pollute the earth, the earth’s resources become toxic. And when the earth suffers, people suffer. Our disobedience brings about devastation.

We have to stop this madness. Or at least attempt to.

Now back to carcinogens being in my toothpaste… The Last Straw.

When I found out there were carcinogens in my toothpaste, it was as if God took me by the face and said, “Now, Listen to me.” I was awakened from my apathetic, glazed over state.

If you know me well, you know this whole cancer thing isn’t a distant thing.. but something that hits home, and has effected the core of who I am. I knew someone who did nothing of his own volition to get cancer. He was healthy… he loved nature to the core of his being. But.. he got cancer.. the doctors couldn’t really pin point how he got it.. but the fact is he did, and he suffered greatly.. and so did everyone who loved him.

Usually the first reaction to cancer is to look to the sky and ask WHY? It becomes all God’s fault, or we convince ourselves  that there isn’t a God… because why would God be the creator of everything good AND cancer?

God didn’t put the carcinogens into fruits and vegetables.. God didn’t spray pesticides on our corn and expect us to deal with the disease… God didn’t make our air toxic, and our rain water full of chemicals…

WE have done all of that… In our pursuit of what?

Money?

Convenience?

And why the heck are the prices jacked up on all the organic / healthy options???

The system is such that those who are less fortunate don’t even have the choice to eat healthily. They don’t have access to Whole Foods or organic, locally grown food. They have to get the cheap heavily processed foods chocked full of chemicals and preservatives.

Also, I don’t want to forget that there are people that make their living off of using pesticides on their crops… their livelihood depends on using these chemicals and toxins…. They have to feed and take care of their families…

What are they supposed to do?

This is not a simple issue to fix, there are people’s lives invested on both sides of the issue…

it is a complex issue.. and I can’t stress that enough…

It’s a screwed up, flawed world… and it’s not OK.

These are things that have been swimming around in my head…

I have to do something about it. This is my challenge and my call this year.. and the rest of my life.. to do my best to figure out how to fight this in my own life. This is why God has brought me to New Orleans, I’m certain of it.

I would be amiss if I did not mention sources I used in this blog:

Three Biblical Principles For Environmental Stewardship by: Dr. Calvin B. DeWitt

Love Your Neighbor by: Peter Sawtell Executive Director of Eco-Justice Ministries

The Green Bible Devotional: A Book of Daily Readings by: Harper Bibles

This blog strictly my opinion, and does not reflect the ideas of the YAV program, or the Presbyterian Church USA.