First Snapshot: Abba

Shalom from Israel! =) It's hard to believe I've only been here a few days...I've already seen and experienced, thought and felt so much! What a beautiful, overwhelmingly rich and complex place Jerusalem is!

That's why, as I just posted on my facebook status, blogging my time in Israel is already starting to feel like a daunting task. I've just spent the past hour and a half working on an "impression report" for a tour of Old City Jerusalem that I took with one of my classes yesterday. I have a page and a half, single-spaced, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface for even that event!

While I continue to work on that, I just wanted to provide you a few snapshots of my trip so far as I have time.

The first will be from my flight over. When I sat down on the plane departing from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv, I found myself surrounded Hebrew-speaking people. My first taste of Israel! Next to me, I could hear the Hebrew conversation between a man and his son the whole way there.

While I know almost no Hebrew, I did recognize one word used frequently by the little boy: Abba.

It instantly reminded me of Romans 8:15: "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but a Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" This was sortof a theme verse of my pre-trip time, and it was so impactful to watch the pair beside me as a living reminder of my own Abba.

I think that's how my semester is going to be. While not everything I see here has been earth-shattering (as I'll explain more in the next post hopefully), it already has made some of the verses like this hit home in a new way. I'm excited to see what's next. =)

Taking My Pilgrimage to Zion

As most of you know, I'm leaving for Israel tomorrow (I have a mini freakout inside myself everytime I say that!). I was thinking of starting a new blog for that, but then I re-read my first "Behind the Title" post and decided otherwise.

In that post, I describe how I got the title of this blog from Psalm 84:5-7: "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage...They go from strength to strength, til each appears before God in Zion."

I see my life with God as a pilgrimage. Journeying through life and sometimes Valleys of Baca-"weeping"-that God continuously transforms into "places of springs" as I encounter His radical grace and mercy in new and deeper ways. Moving ever closer to that glorious day when I will "appear before God in Zion."

Although this verse can apply to all of life in this more metaphorical way, it is becoming more literal in my life this semester. I'm going to Mount Zion. Seriously, it's in the address: "P.O. Box 1276, Mt. Zion." Whoaa...how crazy is that?!

My desire and prayer for my semester on Mt. Zion is that it really will be a pilgrimage, seeking and encountering God in new and deeper ways. Being transformed by that. Being used through it.

So, while I originally created this blog to write about some of my thoughts and experiences in my pilgrimage of life, I think it's fitting to use it to share about this new pilgrimage of mine to Mount Zion.

As I've been reading through some of the Psalms and other passages that talk about Mt. Zion, it's struck me what a deep and rich legacy I am following. So many hearts have cried out for God on Mount Zion, looked towards this place for hope. So many glorious promises, intense pain, and miraculous transformations have occurred here.

It gives me the chills.

How wonderful that this pilgrimage of life (and now, to Jerusalem)that I'm on is not something I'm just creating for myself...it's a small part of something huge and great and glorious that God has been doing for hundred and thousands of years. I can't even wrap my mind around it.

As usual, there are many more scattered thoughts in my mind that I could follow in this post, but that will have to wait for another day. I'm sitting on my bedroom floor surrounded by piles (and I mean PILES) of clothes, bags, and books that have to somehow make it into a less-than-fifty-pound suitcase and carry-on before tomorrow at one. For today, my pilgrimage will look like laundry and packing and re-packing...and all that last second, pre-trip chaos. ;)

Before I sign off, though. I want to thank all my family and friends so much for all your love, support, prayers, and encouragement. It's overwhelming. I'm so, so blessed by all of you.

If you think of it, here are some things you can be praying for:

1. That I will keep my priorities straight and my focus on God this semester, that He would reveal Himself to me in new and deeper ways. I want to have fun but not lose sight of this as a pilgrimage.

2. That I will have wisdom in how to spend my last twenty-four hours here, that I would be able to tie together all that I need to in time.

3. That God will guard my heart and mind with His peace.

4. That God will guide me as I make some decisions on classes (have decided three, but need to figure out the fourth), ministry opportunities, etc.

5. That the trip and especially arrival over there will go smoothly (that I'll get on the right taxi to the right place!).

Let me know if there's anything I can be praying for all of you about too. Although I won't be able to use my phone in Israel, I will have internet access to check facebook and my gmail address (message me if you want it). I'd love to hear from you!

Well, that's all for now! Stay tuned for next blog post...in Israel (ahh!!).

Shalom,

Elizabeth

Ottertail County Windstorm

(This is a poem I composed in Writing of Poetry last semester. In imitation of a poem by Gary Soto, it explores the impact that a windstorm at my family's cabin when I was in 9th grade had on me.)

Once again, tell me, what was it like?
A paddle boat, broken, tipped
Askew twenty feet from shore,
Past tracks in the sand once
Worn by constant pull
Of blue boat runners
Where we slumped in our seats to reach
The pedals, churned
Our freedom into the waves

What about the farmyard?
There was no shade;
Dirt and grass clumped along the taut threads
Of upturned trees’ roots;
These green awnings here had yearly
Swelled with patriotic Tjornhoms’ song—
Gasoline’s scent now a sharp
Tranquilizer as chainsaws seared our ears.

And the tree fort?
Centered in field of milkweed
And sumac that had taught
My city-chafed ears the balm
Of silence,
The platform, stripped
Off, hung in the tree,
My teenage metaphor
For God,
Snagged by twisted
Branches, upraised
Arms torn down.

Words as They Come Out: Conquering My Fear of Lame Blog Posts

Something I've wanted to write about lately is fear. It can be such an all-consuming, paralyzing force in my life, but as I keep struggling with it, I see more and more how God is stronger--He's worked His victory in my life in this area and will continue to if I let Him.

The ironic thing is that I am afraid to write about fear.

My mind: they're not going to understand, it's not going to be good enough, they're going to read this and think I'm not good enough to be an English major, it's not going to have the kind of impact that I want it to, it's not going to make a difference,...you get the picture.

So, to conquer this fear of having lame blog posts, I'm going to write a potentially lame blog post. That's right, I'm going to just write these words as they come out. Just because I can.

Here my mind has several scattered directions I could go with this thing...

I really want to write a song about fear. The title would be "Not A Slave Anymore," based off Romans 8:15, "For you did not receive a Spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but a Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba,Father.'"

There have been years of my life where I literally felt like a slave to fear: fear of what other people think, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of my life not mattering, fear...just, fear.

I have forced these words into the chaos of my soul time and time again. And it's true, I'm not a slave. My Abba has been so good, setting me free time and time again.

But I still let myself be enslaved.

Sometimes I feel like fear grows the more you focus on it too. Like, when you stop looking at it so intensely, it starts to fade.

Someone once told me, "Don't look inward, look upward." Amazing how powerful that can be...especially for an obsessively introspective person like me.

Okay, well, that is all for now. Someday I might come back on here and say something brilliant about fear, but for now I'm content just to step out and try to conquer one of them. I'm actually not even going to edit this post. I'm just going to post it.

Thanks if you took the time to make your way through these scattered thoughts. I'd love to hear yours:

What are some of the fears you have seen or are seeing God's victory over? How did you reach that place of freedom?

People Can't Fill a God-Shaped Hole

Instruction manuals--I will never look at them the same way again. The past several days I've spent HOURS trying to write one for a leaf blower (the internal parts) for my tech writing class. A page of typed pre-planning, taking apart and assembling the leaf blower twice (I swear they glue the screws in...), struggling endlessly with technology (why on earth do the margins keep moving?) as I try to upload and format pictures and diagrams...who knew it could be so much work?

After our rough draft, we had a "non-technical friend" try out our directions. My friend was told to READ THE DIRECTIONS and assemble the piece...funny how the READING part gets lost when you're engrossed in assembly (can you sense my writerly frustration at this point?!). At one point, she misread my instructions and tried to stick a part where it didn't belong. When it didn't fit, she kept trying, twisting it around, pulling it in and out, pounding it with her fist when it wouldn't cooperate. She kept at it for five minutes before it finally occurred to her that she could have read the directions wrong.

I think the trick was that it ALMOST worked, so she thought she just needed to keep trying, force it into place. Didn't occur to her that the piece wasn't meant to fit there.

Is this how God sees us?

St. Augustine once wrote, "Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you." We all have a God-shaped, gaping hole, for He has set eternity in our hearts.

I've heard many times in gospel presentations that trying to get to God through good works is like thinking that good training and a running start will enable you to leap across the Grand Canyon. Last year, though, I also heard Tenth Avenue North apply that Grand-Canyon imagery to the universal quest for contentment. We sense this frighteningly deep hole, absence, ache deep in our beings, and we frantically try to fill it. We turn to all sorts of things: food, friends, facebook, acceptance, good grades, success. Like the guy in the above picture, we search everywhere for love. When we do these things, though, it's like pouring buckets of gravel into the Grand Canyon, hoping to fill it up.

For me, it's especially people. Though I've generally considered myself a pretty loving person, I've realized recently that I use people. I give, but I primarily seek out friends and people so that I might satisfy my needs, get from them love, acceptance, and approval. Seek from them satisfaction.

But they let me down, and I get hurt, bewildered, and angry.

I have the everlasting fountain of life beckoning for me to come, yet I keep turning to broken cisterns that cannot satisfy.

Oh Lord, grant that I might find my satisfaction in you and you alone. Let me turn to you when I encounter the leaks and cracks in the broken cisterns of relationships. Flow over, like a fountain, into my life and words. Help me love people, to see that they can never fill my God-shaped hole.

The Cross' Transformation

I still remember my first real necklace. This wasn’t the plastic, dress-up kind that got lost in the attic, but a real, gold cross that came in a box with a silk cushion. My parents gave it to me when I was eight, on my baptism day. Having been raised on a steady diet of Adventures and Odyssey, Veggie Tales, and other Christian programming, I had decided to be baptized after an episode of Story Keepers. A cartoon had showed John neatly baptizing an ever-serene Jesus, a pretty white bird fluttering down through the sky, gilded in light. The commentary at the end of this episode explained that people were baptized because they wanted to show the world they followed God—and this was how. I knew right away, more than anything, that I wanted to be baptized (I did wish, though, that they’d let you wear goggles when the pastor dunked you under).

When I think back to my baptism, I can remember snippets of the event, but always a precious object—a slender, golden chain and delicate cross with a diamond in the center, small enough to fit smoothly into my palm. I would take it out sometimes, twirl it around in the light, let that golden-dove feeling seep through me. As I got older, I continued to cherish the symbol of the cross. I started decorating my room with crosses: a silver cross, a foam cross, a sun-catcher cross, cross earrings, a Michael’s decoupaged cross. I began, though, to value the cross for more than just its aesthetic qualities. As my soul was stretched throughout the years, I grew to cherish this symbol for the hope and peace it represented. Perhaps that is why crosses continue to adorn throats and homes everywhere: this beautiful figure captivates us—embodies that for which we hope and long.

I was recently reminded, however, that the cross was not always thought of in this way. This Good Friday, my sister invited some of her friends over to watch The Passion of the Christ. I’d never seen it before, so I stopped in for the last half an hour. Maybe it’s because it was my first R-rated movie, but I was sobbing in minutes. Every lash that tore through his back seemed to rock my own body. It wasn’t really the gore that got me, though, but the depths of anguish in His eyes, the blood on Mary’s face as her trembling lips kissed the crushed feet of her Son.

The cross did not always mean what it does to us now. In Jesus’ day, it was well-known as a Roman tool for ruthless torture, engineered with the twisted design to inflict as much pain as possible. One only needed to look up at the mangled bodies hanging outside the city walls to know what a cross was. Surely, the shape of a cross would have struck terror into their hearts: it would speak not of peace and hope, but anguish and horror; shame and despair; unspeakable, relentless agony. The cross was a rough wood that splintered into torn flesh. The mere suggestion that a cross could be used as jewelry, as art, would have seemed sick, twisted, revolting.

The way that the cross as a symbol has been so utterly transformed is a symbol unto itself, representing the powerful transformations that occur to all who meet God there. The cross, this icon of our faith, was an instrument of torture. Yet, out of the love shown there—that bloody, gaping love—we are renewed. Our gasping, smoldering souls are transformed. And we live

Behind the Title

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,

whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,

they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,

til each appears before God in Zion.

Psalm 84:5-7

This is one of those psalms that just makes my heart sing.

I love travelling and exploring, itch for adventure. I was the little kid always buried in a book, travelling round the world and across history, oblivious to everything around me but the adventure I had been sucked up into. I always hated finishing a book--that jolt back to reality, like waking up from a nap, feeling crabby and disoriented. It was that same part of me that always wanted to break my legs so I could ride a wheelchair, wanted a tornado to go down our street, thought it would be kindof exciting to get lost.

I love that life with God is a pilgrimage, an adventure, a journey that's really headed somewhere. And I love how that journey's described here: traveling from strength to strength. Sometimes, I look ahead, and all I can see are the obstacles, the valleys. I feel like I'm just travelling from one to another, with brief rests in between. But maybe the valleys are the interludes, each one lovingly placed into my life to bring me face-to-face with my weakness so I can press deeper and deeper into His strength.

In verse 6, "Baca" means "weeping." It also carries the meaning of a dry, arid desert land, void of water. Sometimes, my pilgrimage leads me through this Valleys of Weeping, parched, desolate lands that leave me clawing in the burning sand, desperate for water to soothe my aching heart. But this isn't my destination. Praise God, I'm only passing through.

And God can transform those places. He has for me, time and time again. Pouring out His life-giving rain into my dry, broken places, bringing me back to life again. He even promises to use me to "make it a place of springs." Crazy. And beautiful--only God could do something like that.

I think that's one of my favorite parts about this world. I love seeing the things that are already beautiful, but I really love seeing how God creates beauty out of ashes. It's so powerful, so hopeful. "I want the world to always see your perfect majesty, reflected from my life--this broken poetry..."

And I know what my destination is: appearing before God in Zion. Washed in His blood, clothed in the imperishable, perfectly satisfied and rejoicing in His presence.

All Creation groans and waits...and so do I.

But until then, I'm going to walk this road He's set me on. As one of the characters from a favorite childhood book always said, "Life with God is not a tea party, my dear. It's a wild adventure."