I've Lost It

Honestly, I've lost it.

Our intern supervisor, Steve, today spoke to us and talked about how he's appreciated how much we have given and our willingness to serve this summer. This was coming from a guy who's served many places and about to leave for Zambia for two weeks. And I then reflected instantly.

This really is insanity. By all means, I could have worked a summer job, made a good bit of cash, spent time with close friends, stayed within the comforts of my family, worked out, watched the soaps each afternoon, played with my dog, spend countless hours on the internet at any time, and enjoy home-cooked meals each night. I could have had my own car to drive around, and been there to help my Dad paint it. I could have yard saled with Mom each Saturday.

Instead I chose an expensive summer, which expensive phone bills, and expensive eat eateries. I chose to buy a $200 plane ticket to travel to the other side of the United States to live in close confines with people I had never met before. I paid to live in Los Feliz, and to live on $100 a week for 8 other girls in a 3 bedroom apartment. I chose to sweep floors at a nightclub and stack chairs. I chose to spend time designing under pressure, to squeeze into cars each day as I carpooled from place to place without transportation of my own, and to dog it down the quad playing ultimate frisbee. I chose to sleep in an apartment that is right next to a noisy blvd. and that doesn't have functional air conditioning.

And this is what I got.

I've received a summer of learning. I've learned about my strengths and what they have to do with leading people. I've connected with people that come from all over the world. I've been on a team of passionate people who draw me into the conversation of their hearts. I've been challenged to love people with my time and not my program. I've been humbled by watching others sacrifice their car, money, and love for each other. I've been convicted to live a life for a higher calling, a calling each one of us desires for ourselves. I've been eating a lot of tuna because it's cheap. I've been getting a small tan on my arms and my feet so you can now see an outline of my shoes. I've been given a chance to speak twice in a 5 minute time span, an experience and feedback session that is so helpful for talking with anyone.

I'm more raw. More challenged. And more directed where to go from here.

I lost it all this summer. And I got it all.

...in fact, I got more.

The Stem System

When you live in a house, the art of cooking turns it into a home. Unfortunately, you begin to encounter hot pans and hot hands. Eventually you'll end up like a few of your dishes: burned.

Occasions like these cause me to be thankful I adopted an aloe plant. The amazing characterisitc about an aloe plant is that it's not your ordinary cactus, absorbing minor increments of water and displaying it's anti-blooming features of greenness. It's the fact that when you get scolded from a hot surface, ripping off a piece of this natural specimen appendage becomes soothing on your skin. Despite the missing segment, it fails to phase the plant as it continues to grow, still giving more goods in comparison to the water it absorbs.

The human condition is a lot like an aloe plant. There is a necessary component to the nature of our well being and wholeness that involves the act of giving. Once I begin to think about it, giving so essential to life and wholeness. All real relationships require the act of giving, mainly love.

Because love in it's purest expression is not something that is received, but something that is given.

For example, when I become emotional consumer of love, I've become unable to experience the very thing we long for: love. When I want to consume the beauty and love that is extended to me, I cannot accept it. Yet, in a paradoxical manner, when I give the very thing I do not have, I gain it.

The person who gives away the most of himself will have the greatest experience of love. The aloe plant that does not bear branches dies, but the one that grows from it's gift thrives.

Wholeness comes as a sacrifice and sacrifice as love.

Jesus finds himself being asked what the greatest commandment is, among a vast history of countless commandments. He explains that the first is loving God and loving yourself as your neighbor. This commandment comes two fold, not three. Instead of loving God, loving myself, and loving my neighbor, but by simply loving God and loving my neighbor, I take that paradoxical road and being to love myself.

Nothing is more important to God than our relationships, because when I love others, it reflects the heart of the Creator. Love's appearance is so vast to give. It becomes a limitless resource.

A hand in the kitchen.

An ear to listen.

A ride to the airport.

A cup of coffee.

A heart in a moment of crisis.

The more I give away this love, the more I become whole, like an aloe plant. We are all designed to be an intense aloe plant, a love machine. It doesn't focus on absorbing, it focuses on giving. And by giving, it heals wounds with love.

Guarding your Cheese Muffin

So there is this intern, J (pictured as the guitarist on the right with D) , and he's a remarkable individual. So many wonderful words cannot even being to describe his energetic personality. Hilarious. Loving. Talented. Truthful. J is a tremendous person to have on this project.

This morning at a meeting he was sharing a story from Sunday morning. He and my roommate, C, head to a Sunday morning Mosaic venue inland at Chino. As they waited in line at McD's in the wee hours of the day, Jesse was enthralled to receive his 32 oz. cup for Powerade. C, a strong anti-morning individual, was astonished how anyone could consume anything that is 32 oz. at the break of dawn. In rebuttal, expressed how anyone could eat a cheese muffin, coincidentally C's order.

What does this funny little story mean? J preceded to share that he's held onto various things in order to find his identity. C's comment about his 32oz. was more than a shot at the concept, he perceived it as a shot at him. He wanted to guard his Powerade, so he took a shot at the cheese muffin. But the cheese muffin was being guarded too.

It's remarkable how we let things rule ourselves. More so, it's remarkable at what community does. In the past 5 days, the community here among the interns has improved by a countless percent. The dynamics of the group started to make an upward swing when we confessed we had grudges against each other, deep struggles we weren't sharing with our close friends to enable them to walk along side of us, because it wasn't an area that could be trusted. A great measurement of a healthy relationship is the level of trust that is present, because where we find trust we also find the heart of the matter.

This is always about that.

It's never the fact that the laundry was taken out and thrown on the top of the washer. It's the fact that there is a sense of disrespect in the relationship.

It's never the fact that someone was trying to help me and I rejected it. It's the fact that I feel like I can't do it on my own because of it.

This is always about that.

Rob Bell speaks of this theory in the first chapter of his latest book Sex God, where he explores the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality. When a community chooses to confess and talk with each other, it unleashes the starting fruit of healthiness both socially, but also spiritually and emotionally.

Remarkable how so many components of spirituality, emotional, and social health are inversely tied. I personally found that without a healthy social community where trust is established, I cannot be fully alive spiritually. The Gospels scream community. Constantly we can find Jesus being so relational with others in groups and in one on one situations. I truly believe that God desires community within His creation because despite our anti-social tendencies, being part of a family with a foundation of hope, faith and love, it enables our heart to once again wildly beat.

The whole story is crazy. You know, the story of God. The whole journey I've been on in my life is just out of the world nutty. Ridiculous, really. The road ahead is so full of wondrous uncertainty. And even though the road to seek a mysterious God of this love and power and mystic nature, it's the sweetest thing I've ever tasted.

Last night at the Mayan was one of my best Sunday nights in California. Why? I had a community. A family. And I have a loving God who intensely wants to take me on this adventure to follow Him, to find out about Him through what He's written to me, and to embrace the sweetness that he desires to give me.

The sweetest thing I've ever tasted.

To Rant and Rave

Corporate America is so interesting. Markets, economies, all those great resources being utilized and studied. Honestly, the only things I know about the field are from people who do know a thing or two about them. Like one of the interns here at Mosaic, he's an International Business major and his insight on small and major issues ranging from small marketing to the economics of Africa is astounding and so profound. I'm captivated. But what is even more captivating is to first-hand witness such results. Like Costco.

Costco is the West Coast version on Sam's Club. Since we have 9 girls in a 3 bedroom apartment, food goes fast.

So buy it in bulk.

Bulk supply in anything you would imagine. Bulk in cereal. Bulk in toilet paper. Bulk in vodka. Bulk in candy.

Trying to navigate your way through one of these joints is like riding on the LA freeway, only grabbing food along the way (and if you know anything about LA freeways, you're getting a great visual). Everyone herded together with monsterous carts wandering around for the right isle that is stacked to the roof with crates upon crates of food and materials. It's like a refuge house in case the next Cold War came knocking at your fridge door.

Then you have vendors. Granted, they are hard workers, kissing up and promoting their product, but they serve as drive-in billborads among the rush of shoppers swerving and cornering around each other from section to section. Because of the size of the buggies, a traffic jam occurs when a crowd of three or more come. It's as if traffic was trying to be scriptural. "When two or more (carts) gather, I will be there".

You do get a great deal. Membership is required because of the wholesale discount you are getting. A lot of things are significantly cheaper, no doubt, but the means of aquiring grub is exhausting. I might pay my mother to say away from such places to compensate for the cost of anger management sessions that would result. She hates Wal-Mart in our small town to begin with. I thought of her today and rendered Costco a "no-shop zone". She'd be a chewin', as we would say.

I now see why some families reproduce frequently. It's so they have hands to unload the goods from the car when you finally get home. Then you crack open a yogert from a package of 18 and savor the victory as you wipe the sweat off your brow, praying that the food you hauled in will last you a significantly long period of time.

Many hands make light work. Too bad they have mouths.

Fraternizing and such.

I love Tuesdays. Typically my Tuesday on campus involve all kinds of long, crazy excitement. Cutting invites. Packaging. Designing. Class. Dinner. Heaps of tasks for the Gathering on Tuesday nites in Edinboro.

Here in Cali my Tuesdays are dedicated to the University of Southern California and the architecture house on the Row. The row is like a magical land of large homes that exhibit qualities of wealthy landowners but are actually trashed on the inside from parties and a year long of fraternization gone wild. But summer frat living is much calmer, and quieter.

Myself along with 3 other interns head down to campus in the afternoon to meet and then eventually get together a pick-up game of Ultimate Frisbee at the Quad on campus. It seems surreal to me that I am actually at the USC campus. I've looked at the Heisman trophies. I've seen all the awards. I've walked around the brochure-perfect campus. It's amazing. A rich kid's paradise.

After the pick-up game, a few head over to McD's for 69 cent drinks in something like a 32 oz cup. Large. Intense. They even have Powerade, which is more user friendly than can a coke after chucking a plastic disc down the field and chasing it like a pack of dogs at the park.

Then the best part happens. We haul out chairs and a table, make fruit cabobs, and host a grand weekly cookout. We chit chat, play another game of Ultimate in a neighboring yard of a girls sorority house that is abandoned for the summer, and then enjoy freshly grilled burgers by a true Texan who's results verify his heritage. Later in the night we finish up with some kind of random ice cream or cookie, or both. Either way, it's a good night.

But it's a great night, a tremendous night when you start talking to people who come each week and hear their story. Those from all over the country, or right in Southern California's backyard, and enjoying a game of play with them. Inviting them into a grander story, one pass of the frisbee at a time.

I'll miss USC, the smell of the fancy grass, the sounds of the numerous water fountains, and the fantastic time of fellowship. A beautiful art of loving on people.

Stories from San Pedro Street

Fran: She's one of my fellow interns, an apartment-mate, and a friend. Fran has such a passion for people on San Pedro Street, where you an find Skidrow, the homeless community of LA. There you'll find Union Rescue Mission, a love-centered endevor to combat the issue of homelessness in the city. Fran also turns a few heads at the Mission.

James: This guy was playing cards with me today inside the men's day room where you can find an internet cafe and lounge. We played gin rummy with Charlie, another resident enlisted with the rehabilitation program at the Mission, and another intern. I concluded that James probably had stronger math skills than myself.

Jonathan: Originally from Georgia, this UGA student drove out to LA for the summer on a whim to break out of the mold and into the world. He's out here working a restaurant, living north of downtown, and volunteering with the interns when we head down to the Union Rescue Mission. Huge heart, he does have. We've pretty much taken him in as one of our own.

T : Dude, this man can cook. He's a great chef in the back kitchen who's using his talents to prepare meals for the many hungry stomachs on the streets. Union Rescue feeds about 2,000 homeless individuals each day. Donations are always in the back, ready to be prepped. All that is needed is the hands, and those hands can surely be mine. He also has a great sense of humor, and enjoys whistling and singing.

Kasey (or K.C, or even Casey, whichever way you prefer it) : Remarkable. A Kansas resident, he flew out to LA with a small bag and a ticket paid by his home church to Skidrow so he can live among he homeless population for 3 weeks. That's right. He's living with the homeless at the Mission. Eating their meals. Spending time with them. Sleeping in the stay rooms He even fell asleep in Pershing Square the other day, hub for homeless (which, a lot of homeless sleep there, so he found that little happening quite humorous). I declare this heart daredevil an honorary intern.

David: Another intern who speaks with a conviction when he expresses his aspirations to eliminate homelessness. His heart is pure. His words have emotion. And it was listening to him on a car ride home one night from an event about homelessness that helped me re-evaluate how I serve people and to seize the opportunity that I have while being here in LA.

Lindsay: She feels very reflective after a day at Skidrow. She's challenged. She feels whole. She felt like she was part of a community. It's funny how authentic community doesn't even need a structure. It doesn't need a steeple. It doesn't require a fireplace. It requires a heart beat, a smile, and a sacrifice to step out of the self-centered desires of each day to extend a self-less commitment to others. She wants to go back next week and learn a new card game too.

From the middle of the backseat

A common theme for this summer is carpooling. Intense carpooling. Limited space, many bodies, and shuffling to and fro from location to location, calling each other endlessly to assure we are accounted for all of our fellow interns.

Yesterday was quite like that. Since I headed back from the offices early and my evening plans had been canceled, news of traveling to Santa Monica beach for the late hours of Monday sounded like a great deal. Eventually, after the phone calls, seat arrangements, and discussion, we headed out of Los Feliz towards the Pacific Ocean.

Sometimes I feel like my best thoughts can be collected traveling in the car, more specifically, the middle seat in the cab of a Chevy pick-up truck. As I reflected upon the latest developments in support raising, I started to dwell upon the concept of possibilities. Where we were headed and an element of where we were going got this thought train fired up. There's something about shopping that appeals to me when I had money and when I might spend money (but in all reality, I don't because I'm outrageously cheap). But having the option to spend money, the possibility is somewhat freeing. Pretty simple concept. And then I thought about lack of possibilities.

There is something enslaving about the lack of possibilities when they seem like common rights to everyone else. To wake up in the morning without employment. To yearn for a better future for your children when you simply don't have the finances. To live in a place where basic rights are prohibited. Abuse. Neglect. Disregard for people with exploding amount of human worth and dignity.

How can I give someone else a chance to explore their possibilities? Where does one even begin? Seems like an overwhelming task. Yet, as I write this, giving these chances for intensified living just might be easier than one would think.

Buy a student a cup of coffee.

Serve at a food service center.

Donate funds to a greater cause.

Give someone a car ride.

Cast a smile.

Support a child.

Extend arms for hugs.

Possibilities seem as if they would only consist of material things. Granted, those things do create possibilities. But possibilities derive from the heart. Touching a heart and being intentional. Simplicity and possibilities appear to correspond.

I've been touched by being given possibilities over a sandwich at the bagel shop, a conversation in the living room, and being given the great opportunity to experience ministry in LA through the gifts of others. It's a inverse relationship because when others are looking for n extended hand, I will remember the hands extended to me. Each month 3 friends and I remember the many hands that have provided love and a future and give to a child thousands of miles away in Columbia so that we may aid her in endless possibilities. Because we believe that she is worth endless dignity.

Cleaning a Nighclub

Internships always have unqiue job descriptions, but I never imagined mine would include the brooming of drink straws, picking up used limes, and mopping up the floors sticky from the previous night that is like many other nights. Club nights. A typical LA club nights in a building with pagan gods carved into the walls with a balcony and so much square footage that you become lost in the maze of doors, stairwells, and foyers.

The Mayan is a gathering for Mosaic at 5:00PM and 7:00PM Sunday evenings. Because the club isn't open Sunday nights, the owners make a profit from the rent of the space from Mosaic. In return, we have a venue in the heart of LA that does more than any decoration or promotional could ever do. It has a flavor, an appeal that has such an influence because of the sheer fact that it's the Mayan. It's a nightclub.

The intern crew for the Mayan arrives at 2:00PM to begin clean up from Saturday night (it saves us money this way). In fact, so many of the interns are passionate about the Mayan. Set up and clean up are so time consuming, but when you have many hands, the task becomes light work. Serving at the Mayan looks starkly different from what typical serving may look like. Strapping on rubber gloves, picking up a broom, and getting a good Sunday afternoon sweat opens your eyes to a new realm of church service. Service, raw and untamed.

It's what I love about serving at the Mayan. It's not ideal. In fact, sometimes it's not comfortable. I'm not saying I face life-threathening monsters in the green rooms in the basement, I'm saying that confortable service is sometimes hard to find when it's nitty gritty.

I was pondering about this idea of "comfortable". We seem to be creatures who crave to be "comfortable". Maybe it's a birth-given thing. Why do we buy the soft couch? The sleek car? Why do we travel to the same place? Why do we hate moving? Why do we love t-shirts? Why do we hate change? Because we just might be a little bit inclined to be comfortable.

The funny thing about service and, heck, life for that matter, is that you can control this comfort level. You can become as comfortable or uncomfortable as you want. It's when you step out of the natural rythem of things and head into a tunnel of uncertainty where you find comfort is gone. Maybe comfort amidst the uncertainy is a direct result of faith. Maybe a declaration of the soul craving for something bigger. And when you seek the heart of a God who as the size thing under control, our comfort levels begin to coincide with his.

For me, uncertain in this stage of my life has taught me a lot. In the end, it shows me that the fear I am holding within me is the very extraordinary thing God has waiting for me. Therefore, comfort shall be a creature, but never my ruler.

Flags and Frappachinos

It would be interesting to conduct research to find whether "morning socialness" is a genetic trait, because I am the product of such a thing. Mornings, when woken before reaching a full re-charge from the previous day, are utterly awful for me. Same goes for my mother. Don't talk to me, don't try to make conversation, because I just might hurt you. One of my former roommates can testify to this. Poor girl tried to start conversations in the morning before she headed off to class. I was useless.

So when I recieved word July 3rd that I would start my July 4th at 5:40AM, I was less than thrilled. In fact, I was forced with the truth that I was already headed to bed past 12AM, just several hours before the events of the day would begin. The reason for this early awakening is due to the fact that I am a stereotype: I'm an intern. So when you need a group of people to fend off other Californians from Elyisan Park's section 9 for the Mosaic Picnic, you are awarded this steller job.

The day started off in a rush because everyone had the same idea: get up at the same time so we can pile in the bathroom. Once we rushed up and out of the apartment, we headed to the park to park ourselves on picnic tables and haul out materials for the festivites from 11-4 to celebrate America. At this hour, the question of why we were celebrating the United States in such a large manner when we have 70+ nationalities at Mosaic seemed a tad puzzling. But even so, I sat quietly with Blue Like Jazz on a picnic table among dirt and dew covered grass.

The day took a violent upswing with orders were taken from an intern at Starbucks. Now granted, I rather support the local guy who is making a buck rather than the mega-store with their own addicts for their product, but at this hour of the day when so much would be demanded, how could one say no to a Mocha Frappachino.

The day went well. The food was delicious, BBQ ribs, chicken, beans, tater salad, rolls, all the holiday fixins. Facepainting with the kids. And of course, lots of injuries. Honestly, what's a large event of outdoor action without breaking and bleeding?

The most memorable, aside from, Erwin's son breaking an ankle, was a child who rolled down this large, dusty southern California hill causing a cut on his left hand and some mighty good scrapes on his knees. It brought back many memories of rolling down the gravel driveway on my Fisher-Price tricycle and dumping it over at rapid kid speed. Only this child screamed city kid. Really. He screamed a lot. The sight of his own blood and wounds caused frantic exclaimation at decibals so loud that my parents ringed me and inquired if there was a sonic boom on the west coast. Ok, that might be an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

Poor kid. We cleaned him up, calmed him down, and finally got the kiddo at the point where he wasn't crying so much that the California drought was ending. After the end of the excitement, clean up proceeded and we headed back to the apartment to view distant fireworks.

But let us go back. Well, let me go back. I'm the one writing it. Anyway, during the picnic I was gazing across the beautiful view of people of all different ages and races gathering and interacting in the great outdoors and realized that if I could picture a little bit of heaven on earth, it would be at that moment. So mych joy, conversations, and celebrating. Raw and untamed fellowship among so many people from all over the world. One of the wonders of LA. You meet people from everyone with amazing stories that leave you reflecting for ages.

Sushi and a Gas Station

Traveling into the mountains in California is a wonderous experience, so much so that leaving this state without doing so would seem like a huge loss.

This past week I had the pleasure of exploring more of Southern California through the means of dinner dates and beach appointments. Monday night we headed into an area about 10 or so miles from Los Feliz to this twisty mountain communities that were covered in homes, big and small, delicately placed in the side of the hills. Again, I saw these similiar communities as we traveled to Erwin's neighborhood (group picutre above) and later to Laguna Beach. Those of you who are familiar with the name may be familiar with the MTV show that was probably one of the second worst reaility shows I've ever seen, Big Brother being number 1.

As we made our way down through the mountains to the beach on Saturday, finishing up a week of various traveling in the area, we passed a gas station that served sushi.

Polar opposites.

I believe that in order to purchase raw fish from the same place you purchase unleaded fuel there would have to be a strong bribe or a significant mental impairment. What would even convince the store owner that this combination would even fiancially thrive?

Then I started to gaze at the houses that covered the tips of the hills and thought about the paradox of such a building location. Why build your house on land that has the capabilities to become a structure sled if rain waters persist? Why would so many people build in such unsafe territory? Sure, California doesn't get a lot of rain, that is for sure, but is it worth the risk?

Then I thought about where I had been this past week. Going to have meals at these two places in the hills, the gorgeous mountains of California, and being in complete awe of glancing out a window and seeing a view that would continually, day by day, take your breath away.

The view.

Sometimes the risk is worth the view. Like this Californian experience, the challenge, the growing, the intense opporitunity of a lifetime. The risk and fear of support raising, the uncertainity, the seperation of country comforts, it's all worth the view. Because as we cruised along the highway on a Saturday afternoon I was reminded of something I said last summer.

"I can't believe I almost said no."

In the future, I believe these memories and experiences will remind me of the greater causes that life is short and rich. Savor the moments of each day. And when called to do the uncertain, to have faith to pursue the direction without knowing the destination.

Living each moment, laughing everyday, and loving beyond words.