Something is radically wrong

A writer-friend of mine, or lovie as she would say, has unknowingly referred me to one of the most transformational books I’ve read in a long time. I say unknowingly because Claudia Mair Burney (a fabulous writer that you must check out if you haven’t already) named her blog The Ragamuffin Diva and has written about the revelations she’s received from the book The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brendan Manning in such a way that it piqued my interest. So no, she didn’t say, “Yo, Tracey. Read this book!” LOL. However, I do believe that the Holy Spirit heightened my curiosity about it as a result of my following her blog. And for good reason!

Have you ever read something that was both fascinating and challenging, freeing yet convicting, all at the same time? Yeah, well if you haven’t and you’re up for a real shifting at both the mind and heart level then this one’s for you. The Ragamuffin Gospel is exciting to me because it addresses this restlessness that I’ve felt for a while now about “church as usual” and the lack of real, Godly, love among those of us who profess to know Christ.

Here’s a couple of excerpts. I’d love to know your thoughts.

“This is the God of the gospel of Grace. A God who, out of love for us, sent the only son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us all.

The God of the legalistic Christian, on the other hand, is often unpredictable, erratic, and capable of all manner of prejudices. When we view God this way, we feel compelled to engage in some sort of magic to appease Him. Sunday worship becomes a superstitious insurance policy against His whims. This God expects people to be perfect and to be in perpetual control of their feelings and thoughts. When broken people with this concept of God fail – as inevitably they must – they usually expect punishment. So they perservere in religious practices as they struggle to maintain a hollow image of a perfect self. The struggle itself is exhausting. The legalist can never live up to the expectations they project on God.

If your God is an impersonal cosmic force, your religion will be noncommittal and vague…But trust in the God who loves consistently and faithfully nurtures confident, free disciples. A loving God fosters a loving people. The fact that our view of God shapes our lives to a great extent may be one of the reasons Scripture ascribes such importance to seeking to know Him”

There's more...

“We…have twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small minded, bookkeeper. The Christian community resembles a Wall Street exchange of works wherein the elite are honored and the ordinary ignored. Love is stifled, freedom shackled, and self-righteousness fastened. The institutional church has become a wounder of the healers rather than a healer of the wounded.”

Woah.

Disclaimer: The book doesn’t in any way imply that all Christians or all churches function in this manner. But I think it’s safe to say that this hits home in many, many ways. As the book so simply states in the first chapter: Something is radically wrong.

Your thoughts?

Remembering Rejection

I don’t know what it is but I guess I’ve been in a storytelling mood here lately. It may have something to do with the fact that I’m “fingers deep” into my latest novel. Anyway, I recently asked the students in my English 101 class to write a description of a childhood memory and as I often do, I decided to write with them. This particular memory came to me, I think, because I recently found myself uncovering the various ways I’ve allowed rejection, real or perceived, to influence my life and impact my destiny. Here goes…

He was the cutest boy in the neighborhood. At least he was to my nine-year old eyes. As if he was dipped into a vat of caramel icing, his skin was smooth. Smoother than any other 13 year-old I’d seen. He was also the Pastor’s son. Don’t know why that made a difference but it did. Maybe I thought that made him closer to God or something. In hindsight, his intentions were as far from Godly as anyone can be but hey, I was nine. I didn’t really stop to ponder the theology of it all.

He also had the best bike in the neighborhood. A 10-speed that was jet black and whose shiny wheels whispered when he whizzed by us girls playing double-dutch or hopscotch or hand games.

I liked this brown boy very much. So much so, I was willing to risk the lightning fast whip of my Aunt’s belt in exchange for “borrowing” my cousin’s bike and answering his call to follow him into the woods near our neighborhood.

There I am, breathing heavy and pumping hard on the pedals of a BMX bike in order to make it up and down the steep hills that brown boy, with his gear shifts and all, seemed to navigate with ease. Dark and shadowy figures appeared to be hidden behind the tall trees that smothered this part of Vine Grove, Ky. My real home was in Louisville but I was being forced to spend what I thought would be only one summer with family who lived “in the country.” Anyway, in truth those dark figures I saw were probably only a few deer or a raccoon or two. Yet even back then I had a very vivid imagination and preferred to think of them as ghosts; anything that would heighten the element of danger in my adventure.

When I reached the edge of the woods, I jumped off the bike and followed the distinct scent of boy. I found him a few minutes later standing in a clearing next to an old wooden shack. The air around us seemed heavy with awkward anticipation. And it was…only for different reasons. I didn’t really know what to say to him since, in actuality, I’d only ever spoken to him at church. Praise the Lord didn’t seem appropriate at all. Nevertheless, I ventured forward hoping only for a smile or a hug or maybe a kiss; something that said, “I like you too.” His mission? Something entirely different.

Long story short, brown boy looked me over and then grinned. I grinned back. So far, so good, I thought. Then he asked me…no, dared me…to punch out the glass in one of the squares on the ancient, wooden shed door. Huh? Of course I didn’t understand why. It sounded strange even to someone as young and naïve as me. But I was in the woods with a boy I liked and while fear may have kept my heart beating like African drums, so did my nine-year old love.

So I punched out the glass.

Hard.

Probably as hard as he laughed.

My eyes bulged as I watched blood pour out of my hand, down my wrists, and onto my clothes. They finally burst with tears as I also watched the brown boy who, in that moment, didn’t appear quite as lovely as before, jump on his perfect bike and speed out of the woods. He left me standing there, hand and heart both hurting something fierce.

Sadly, It wouldn’t be the first time this happened.

The evidence...25 years later. Faded scars are still scars.

Meet Mae Green

Last Thursday, I had the wonderful opportunity to speak to a roundtable of church communicators, leaders, and pastors in Indianapolis regarding how to develop effective strategies for Multicultural Ministry. On the plane ride back to Philly, I felt led to write a short story that creatively summarized some of the things we discussed during my presentation. This piece is written from the point of view of the fictional character, Mae Green. Mae is a woman who is on a flight from Birmingham heading to Baltimore to visit her grandchildren. I do plan to write the other side of the story in a future post. Enjoy!

Mae Green (a short story)

Insecurity leaped from the woman’s eyes when I nodded my request to sit in this particular row. She quickly switched from the window seat to the cramped middle seat saying, as if it hurt to even acknowledge me, “I’m with him.”

I mean, seriously, what did she really think would happen if I did sit next to her husband on the plane? Would my fabulousness become so overwhelming to him that a torrid love affair would ensue right before her eyes? All within the span of a two and a half hour flight, no less? Ha! Honey, I wish I had that kind of persuasion. I could think of a whole bunch of stuff I’d have in my life if I did, none of which would be some dried up white man that looks like he is only two days from being in the grave.

Oh Lord have mercy! I know I’m wrong for saying something like that. Shoot, that man has at least a couple of years. ;)

Anyhoo, her fear is actually pretty entertaining. It’s helping me keep my mind off of this terrible turbulence that’s rocking my stomach something awful. Maybe this is the rollercoaster route to the East Coast or something. They gonna make me start pleading the Blood in the minute. Truth be told, I done already drenched my hands in that anointin’ oil I got from Pastor last Sunday. Yep, made sure that I touched as much as that plane as I could as I was passing through the doorway and looking for a seat. Humph! Ain’t no shame to my game. Probably need to rub some oil on that white lady as well. Especially since she keep giving me the side-eye like I’m some leper or something.

It’s alright though. ‘Cause that right there is hurt in her eyes. I’d recognize it a mile away. One thing I know for sure is…pain don’t discriminate. We’re all broken. Now true…some of us have more cracks than others. But we’re broken just the same. We all need Jesus, for real. (Heeeeyyyy, don’t y'all make me shout on this plane!!!!) The truth is…folks are running around scared of each other and don’t know why. Hate to say it but us church folks can be the worst. Looking on the outside…at color of all things… and judging folks on stuff that really don’t matter in the long run. Sure ain’t gonna matter in Heaven when we get our new bodies and stuff. That reminds me. I need see about getting an advanced copy of mine. Ha!

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying race don’t matter. It does. Just not in the way that we think it does. See I’m a proud black woman. African American, as we call it now. Born in Birmingham, Alabama. When you look at me, I WANT you to see my baby smooth, blue-black skin; the soft, tight curls of my hair; the expanse of my nose and my hips. Especially that last one. I like to say I was made to breathe and birth…in the natural and the spiritual. (See there ya’ll go again…makin’ me shout!)

Go ahead and ask me why I pray the way I do, move the way I do, act the way I do. There’s a story in it all and I’d be glad to share it with anyone willing to listen…white, brown, yellow, or green. Okay, maybe not green. I ain’t talking to no green people.

Yep, I have a great story to tell. But I suspect so does that white lady still sneaking peaks at me on this plane. Her eyes seem to be only a prologue to a tale I’d love to hear. But of course, that won’t happen. ‘Cause she’s scared. And if I’m honest, so am I. Might be for different reasons but I’m scared nonetheless.

So yeah, we’ll sit here. Filled to the brim with word blessings just waiting to be received by the other and yet neither one of us willing to get to pouring. All because we’ve been taught some stupid concept called tolerance. Yes, I said it. Tolerance ain’t worth a hill of beans! You tolerate a puppy peeing on your carpet. You celebrate human beings. I’m just sayin’.

Yeah, we’ll probably end up doing just that: tolerating each other for the couple of hours or so we’re on this plane and then going our separate ways.

But what will we miss, I wonder?

What kinds of blessings and revelations await us in the conversation we’ll never have? The relationship we’ll never explore. Well, we done already said so much with our eyes. Done exchanged pain and struggle and curiosity with just a glance or two.

Shoot, forget this nonsense! I need as many blessings I can get before I see Glory. And the way it looks…the way this plane is bouncing around the sky…glory might be coming sooner than I’d like.

“Excuse me, miss…”

To be continued.

The Prophetic Voice of HGTV

Embedded in most 12 step programs is the concept of admitting that you have a problem. So right here, in broad internet daylight, I will make a confession.

I am a HGTV junkie.

From House Hunters to Designed to Sell to Holmes on Homes (the sweetest tough guy ever), I can watch the channel all day long. The recent blizzards in Philly have offered me an opportunity to completely binge out on my favorite episodes and, of course, drive my hubbie up the wall by sending dagger-like looks his way if he even tried to touch the remote. :)

In fact, I would go as far as to say that beyond learning how to drywall a basement or what colors work best in a master suite, I’ve also acquired some great nuggets on life itself from the network. Don’t believe me? You will.

On the shows where people are struggling to sell their homes, one of the most important things we are taught is that staging makes a big difference in whether a house gets sold quickly (urgency) and for how much (value). For those of you who are not HGTV-nista’s, home staging, according to stagingbug.com is “the process of preparing a home (and everything within the home) for sale, with a particular focus on presentation.”

Alas…revelation! I’ll explain.

You see after watching these shows, I had to ask myself, and now you, “Are you staging your life so that people can buy what you’re selling…with urgency and for what it is worth?”

I can hear you now. You’re shaking your head saying, “I don’t care what people think about me!” I get it. And you’re partially correct. How people view you shouldn’t define you; it shouldn’t impact your self-worth, sure! However, how people “see” you is important to those of us who claim to be representatives of Christ. No, you may not lose sleep if so-and-so doesn’t like you. Like is such a flaky word with a variety of meanings depending on who you talk to. Yet, you just might want to care how they see you if they, intentionally or unintentionally, have identified some new area of brokenness in you that has been left unaddressed. You know the feeling. We think we got it together; that, as grandma used to say, our witness is strong. Then out of nowhere some issue comes up as a result of someone else’s observation or a relationship that pulls on our weak spots and we are blindsided by our own stuff. What do we do? Well some of us, in the name of our version of Christianity, put on the pseudo-courage that we use as a mask to cover up our real selves---never really surrendering or dealing with the issue. Sadly, by doing that we also negatively impact and influence everyone around us; including those who are looking at us for the authenticity that only comes with Christ. Translation: Because of you, they’re not buying!

And by the way, the whole mask thing? That’s the bootleg version of staging. The kind that’s not used to enhance the real value of the home but to cover up major problems like water damage and mold. Yuck!

So, in an effort to stretch this analogy as far as I can, here are a few more critical lessons learned from those prophetic staging experts over at HGTV. Enjoy!

1) Clutter sucks: I don’t know how many episodes of Designing to Sell I’ve seen where people who are trying to sell their home have a million toys covering their fireplace or large clunky furniture that takes up the entire room. Inevitably, the designer will stress to them the importance of de-cluttering so that the buyer can see past your stuff and actually envision themselves living there.

So that got me to thinking…can the visitors in our lives, including those who truly want to believe, see themselves serving Christ also based on how you present Him? Or, do you have so much of your personal junk in the way that they actually miss the heart of who you really are and/or have become in Him?

2) Neutrality is not the same as indecisiveness. – Some people are okay with plain white walls. For some, it is a design choice but for most others it is a function of not knowing what color really works. Many designers stress neutral tones when trying to sell a house but they don’t necessarily encourage blandness. In other words, they don’t want to overwhelm the buyer with bright colors that may not be “where they are” in that moment but they don’t want to bore them to death either. Again, it is about creating a balanced experience that can help the buyer see themselves in the house.

Well, how about us? Do we overwhelm the people that we meet, beating them over the head with our religion instead of soothing them with His love? Are we bright and sunshiney, which by itself is not a bad thing, except when we become so consumed by our own brightness that we can’t recognize and eventually address someone else’s darkness. Or worse, are we just so undecided about our own spiritual state that we would rather remain bland and boring…borderline irrelevant? That’s definitely not attractive to anyone who is trying picture themselves serving God and are using our lives as the model.

3) Personalization is great if you’re planning to live there…not so much if you’re trying to sell: Beyond the issue of clutter, some people just like wall paneling in their basement. Or floral wall paper in their dining room. Or shag carpeting in the bedroom. And according to the design prophets, that’s okay if you are planning to live in the home yourself. But those “personal” tastes can sometimes take away from the heart of the home when you are trying to sell it.

So how many of us have said, “I am who I am. Take it or Leave it.” Yep. Me, too. But unfortunately what we forget to share with people is that who we are is a mean, jealous, conniving wretch of a person. Sure. “Being you” works if you plan to live in that place your entire life; never growing, never allowing God to transform the hurt, sin, pain, and anguish that shapes all of us at times, into the authentic, loving person he designed you to be. Why do we run from showing “our bones” as they say in the design world? Yes, some aspects of our personality are God-given distinctions but others are simply a function of what we’ve acquired throughout of life, some of which can distract others from seeing how God is using you to bless them.

I could go on and on really. I could talk about how stagers emphasize the importance of having lots of light in your home or how both historic homes and newer construction have different needs. Whew, there is SO much there! Well, maybe I’ll continue this another day…

Would love to hear your thoughts!

TMLG

Coming Full Circle

"...I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." - Deuteronomy 30:19b

I was registering to become a professional member of SistahFaith (btw, an awesome org with a powerful new book release) when one of the questions on the application asked, "In what areas of your life are you trying to come full circle?"

Woah.

This was my response.

"I'm in a lifelong process of reconciling my fears with my faith, my intellect with my passion, my pursuit of success with my pursuit of significance. I've been standing at this intersection for a while now and it is time to choose in order to reach the next level of my assignment."

The words just kind of poured out of me. Simple truths escaping an often crowded mind. The tension between all of these things has truly been my journey. To me, coming full circle means (re)discovering the woman God created me to be...the original blueprint. Before I took it upon myself to conduct unnecessary renovations and reconstructions with limited knowledge or tools. Before the distractions and sediment of my life became my preoccupation. So, yes, I can talk about my past, the sins made against me, and all of the "root" issues until I'm blue in the face...and I probably will because I think there is value in some of that…however, how much more important is it to be clear about where you stand TODAY? What are the choices you face TODAY? Where do you go from HERE?

This moment is really all we have. And every 60 seconds, even that is gone…

TMLG

Life got in the way

Okay. I just thought this image was hilarious. And very much how I feel sometimes. The whole accountability thing.

Anyway.

I think we (meaning me, of course) should stop saying "life got in the way" when we try to explain why we didn't accomplish something on time or at all. Maybe life didn't get in the way. Maybe WE got in the way of our life. Maybe we keep trying to accelerate when God wants us to coast.

Or vice versa.

Just a thought.

TMLG

A Way to Hide Our Pain

Self-medication is the use of drugs, including alcohol, or other self-soothing forms of behavior, to treat a perceived or real malady. Self-medication is often referred to in the context of a person self-medicating, in order to alleviate their own distress or pain.

People self medicate in a variety of ways. The obvious vices are drugs and alcohol. For others of us, we use food to hide from our pains or to suppress the emotional issues that we need to face and don’t. And since the content of food has becoming increasingly drug-like, those of us who try to eat our way out of our hurt can get a double hit. The act of self-medicating is also thought to be a form of self-control, as in a way for one to create the semblance of control in the midst of a situation or circumstance that is very much out of control.

Now I’m going to step out on a limb and say that in addition to food or drugs or alcohol, there is another, less obvious form of self-medication going on with some of us. For many people, the medication of choice is their own gifts.

Whaaaat??? I know. Sounds crazy. But give me some room to explain…

I would like to submit that some of us self-medicate ourselves with our gifts, our talents, our abilities. Did you know that you can make your gift, the very thing that God gave you to give Him glory, an idol? So…this means that if you are a singer, dancer, writer, or doctor you can become SO consumed by your gift…a subtle distraction by the enemy…that you begin to serve it versus using it to serve God or the people God has placed in your path. You can also find yourself using your gifts and abilities as a way to divert your own much needed attention away from the broken places in your life. To try to retain some kind of pseudo-control over a chaotic emotional state.

So what does this kind of self-medication look like?

For me, writing is a gift that I’m very clear has been given to me by God. However, I also know that even in the midst of what I call success, God has not been able to get the full and maximum use of it. Why? Because of my need to control my gift. I’ve taken control over what I will or won’t write. I think I know what people will or won’t like; what they need to read from me and what they don’t. How many of us who are writers have, deep down beneath our own will, felt strongly that we were being led by God to write on a specific topic or write a certain kind of book but because of external factors or our internal issues, we chose not to? That is an example of attempting to control your gift versus allowing God full control over it.

I believe that our gifts, no matter what they are, are the vehicles by which we reach our individual purpose and destiny on earth. Therefore, we should be flexible in our operation of them; they should remain accessible and moldable to the hands of God. In fact, the scriptures state that God’s ways and thoughts are much greater than our ways and thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). Yeah. I’m guessing this probably means that how He plans to use our gifts is probably going to work out much better than our own plans for our gifts. I also deduce from this that maximum creativity comes from being able to be flexible within the will of God in terms of what He wants to do with our gifts. I can write poem after poem or book after book and become so consumed with my own ideas, the actual act of writing, and the manipulation of words that I lose sight of the purpose of the gift of writing in the first place. Not good. So not good. I liken that to overdosing. For real.

So this begs the question: Why do we o.d. on our gifts? Why do we try to maintain control of our talents?

Well, that brings me back to the concept of self-medication. I think we become consumed by or controlling of our gifts out of fear of what will happen if we allow ourselves to be the fully open and complete vessels for the message of God. I think that I, and maybe you, are afraid of how great we can be, but we are also afraid of the hurt that we may have to re-live in order to get there.

Nine times out of ten God is going to use the very pain that we are running from (the same as anyone who abuses drugs or alcohol or food) as the avenue by which we will travel and be delivered to our destiny. So by trying to maintain some control over our gifts, we think we can control the how, the why, and the way of that trip. Yet, in doing this, we are essentially saying this: “I don’t want to deal with the pain of my childhood. I don’t want to deal with the pain caused by my own choices. I don’t want to experience that rejection or this feeling and so yes God, I’ll write about, sing about, dance about, this but I will not write about, sing about, dance about that. Because IF I write about, sing about, dance about this then I can keep some kind of control over my emotions; suppressing the pain.” The result? My journal and my books become my bottle of Hennessy; the place where I can hide my pain in superficial and powerless words instead of exploring the transformational stories that are embedded in my own. For the painter, the canvas becomes your cocaine; the space in which you can indulge all the notions and observations that don’t matter and that serve no purpose instead of seeing the beautiful images that are amazingly reflected from your own hurt.

Unfortunately, all of this keeps us from be the great [fill in the blank] that were created to be.

Still not sold? Let me ask you this. If it is possible to express ourselves through our gifts, isn’t it also possible to suppress ourselves with our gifts?

TMLG