Living Locally

So we've been challenged by our pastor to live locally, meaning to do our "lives" within the neighborhood around our church so we can really get to know people, know what they might need, hopefully meet their needs, and pray for them. It got me thinking--how am I going to live locally? What can I do in my neighborhood?

Here's some ideas that I ganked from Brad (my pastor), and some that I came up with on my own.

Eating at Bhan's, Elmo's, Jimmy John's, and Chubby's Tacos.
Coffee at Bean Traders or Mad Hatters. Both have wireless.
Books at Nice Priced books on Broad Street.
Haircuts at the Garden Salon (I think its within 5 miles of the church)
Violin repair/maintenance at High Strung on Broad St.
Bike repair at the Bicycle Chain on Perry St.
Soy milk and goat cheese at Whole Foods.
Other groceries at Kroger on Hillsborough Rd.
Gasoline at the BP on Broad St. The guy in the mornings is super nice.
Running around East Campus and the Club/Hillandale neighborhood.
Gift shopping at Morgan Imports and Zola's.
Swimming at Edison Johnson Pool off of Murray Rd.
Satisfying my Indian food cravings at Dale's.
If I had a dog I'd go to the dog park in Northgate Park. Someone should!

That's all I can think of right now...I'll keep the list going as new things come along.

Maybe its good for all of us to think about how to live locally so we get to know our neighbors and can participate in our community. It matters!

Our Wedding

I've finally begun to go through our wedding pictures, and they brought back so many memories that I'd like to share with you.

When Chris and I began discussing getting married, about 3 weeks into dating, I finally felt the freedom to really think and imagine what I would want in a wedding. Most girls start planning their wedding around the age of 8. I didn't do that very much, and as I got older and remained single, I was afraid to even think what I'd want in a wedding, fearing that the disappointment of never having one would overwhelm me.

Having been to a number of weddings, and never being one to conform, I definitely knew what I didn not want. I did not want invitations with multiple layers or vellum. I did not want matching bridesmaid dresses in some outlandish color that requires getting shoes dyed. I did not want the preacher to present his 10 points on how to have a successful marriage. I did not want the wedding march. I did not want special music. I did not want a cake cutting ceremony because I knew it would be too tempting to shove cake in my new husband's face despite thinking that is kind of tacky. I did not want to throw the bouquet because it turns lovely, sweet girls into scary linebackers and it doesn't work anyway. And finally, I did not want prissy food that requires four trips through the line with a plate in each hand to finally feel full. Not that these are bad things. They just weren't me things. Thankfully, they weren't Chris things either.

So we decided to break the nuptual mold and do it our way, regardless of expectations, and it worked. We set our wedding on a horse farm, with green pastures and white fences, under a huge white tent. Our guests sat at tables during the entire ceremony and reception, drinking sweet tea from mason jars. Gerber daisies and candles brought color and light to each table.





Chris and his guys wore black suits with no ties (they LOVED that), and my girls wore black dresses of their choice. You've got to be able to wear it again, right? My sister, Connie, played Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing on the banjo as my both my parents walked me down the aisle, alight with white rose petals my four flower girls so gently drizzled along the way. Our friend, Rick, prayed for us. Then we, the happy couple, sat on a rod iron bench, raised on a platform and facing our guests as my adopted aunt and uncle read scripture. Then Danny, a friend and mentor to us both, talked briefly about us and about how we hoped our marriage would represent God's grace and bring Him glory for the rest of our lives. Then we stood and said our vows, before our Lord and our friends and family, exchanged rings, and finally, Chris kissed his bride. Booya.





Finally, we were married, and the party began. Danny's BBQ provided a bounty of meat and beans, and people filed through the farm's pretty barn, filling their plates. A huge basket filled with the makings of smores invited people to the fire pit to make dessert. A game of corn hole started by the barn as Rift filled the air with bluegrass tunes. A table filled with baskets of candy provided our guests with a little take home gift, and opposite that sat another table, towering with gourmet cupcakes topped with sugared daisies, replacing the traditional cake.





One of my favorite moments in our wedding oddly enough didn't involve my new husband. My mom's family, from western Kentucky, made a huge effort to come to our special day. They drove over 10 hours to be there, and I wanted to thank them in a memorable and meaningful way. Muhlenberg County Kentucky, where they live, where my mom grew up, and where I spent some of my best summers and Christmases, holds a very place in my heart, and in the heart of John Pryne who wrote a well known bluegrass song about his own love for this place. So, to honor my family, Connie and I sang it for them. It was hard to not cry during that song, but we made it through, and I think they liked it.



Finally, Chris and I made our big exit, surrounded by a sea of our friends and bubbles. We drove off in an antique car borrowed from a friend of a friend. That was the start of our marriage, and it definitely began with a bang. It warms my heart when people still talk about how fun, easy, and different our wedding was. That was kind of the idea, you know?





I would also like to thank Poiema Photography (www.poiemaphotography.com) for our amazing photos. They blessed us with their talent, their work ethic, their creativity, and their dedication to capturing everything about our day. Thank you!

Good Books

So I was looking over our book collection today since I've been home sick and have overdosed on old episodes of 30 Rock. We've got some good stuff on our shelves, and I thought I'd share a short list of possible reads...remember, I'm a girl, so some of these probably won't thrill any guys out there, but some might, so keep reading. I'll label the "girls only" ones...

Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
A Tale of Two Cities
Wives and Daughters (girls only)
Calvin's Institutes
Augustine's Confessions
Everybody Poops
Sense and Sensibility (girls only)
Oh the Places You'll Go (that's Dr. Suess)
Knowledge of the Holy
Peace Child
The Princess Bride
Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret
The Wheel of Time (that's 11 books)
Mere Christianity
Harry Potter (also available in Spanish)
Lord of the Rings
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Great Divorce
Spirit of the Disciplines
Spirit of the Rainforest
Rumors of Another World
The Weight of Glory
Let the Nations be Glad
Desiring God
Confessions of a Reformission Rev
Sheet Music (for married folks only...trust me)
Bridget Jones's Diary (girls only, unless you are really trying to figure out women)
The Radical Reformission
From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya
I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always
The Socio-Cultural World of Luke-Acts
Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew
Tess of the Dubervilles
Systematic Theology (Grudem's version)
Red Moon Rising
The Last of the Mohicans (great movie too)
The Mists of Avalon (if you want to know what Wiccans believe--not for the faint of heart)
The Three Musketeers
Blue Like Jazz
Any of Shakespeare's plays...12th Night is my favorite...and Much Ado About Nothing

So there's a good place to start :-)
If you have any questions, please let me know.

John Piper wrote in Desiring God, "Jesus is precious because we yearn for beauty." We, humans, love beauty. Girls love things that sparkle; guys love girls that sparkle. We celebrate beauty and strive after it tirelessly. And finally, when, by grace, we see Jesus, His beauty, so pure and real and greater than anything we've ever seen, we worship. Its a beauty that is irrefutable and the very reason for the saints' perseverance.

If Christ's beauty brings us to our knees, shouldn't all beauty ultimately turn our eyes and lives to Him? I think that's why the view from the top of Looking Glass Mountain takes my breath away. That's why art can bring me to tears. That's why I love the power of words--the beauty in these experiences makes me want to worship.

This is a video Chris shared with me from a Jewish jazz musician called Daniel Zamir, and is so good and beautiful that I literally thanked God and cried a little while listening to it. I wanted to share it. Daniel Zamir does not believe the same as I believe, but I can still see Christ's beauty in his music, and I hope others can too. Maybe Jesus is that big...or rather, that lovely.

PS. The drummer is pretty good too...and Daniel definitely redeems the soprano sax from Kenny G's debacle in the early 90s.

Recent Read

One of my favorite pastimes is reading. Just ask my husband. I've got stacks of books by my bed at all times and bookshelves full of favorites that I happily reread more than twice. Our friend Dan Hawkins once said I have good taste in books, and coming from him, who work in a library and reads more than anyone I know, that was a serious compliment. I nearly wept.

Currently I am reading two books--Lonely Planet's Guide to the Ukraine and Confessions of a Reformission Rev by Mark Driscoll, for the second time.

Now, Lonely Planet is pretty straightforward and not particularly life changing except for the fact that the more I read about the Ukraine the more intrigued I become with this country--but that is a whole nother blog post.

Confessions of a Reformission Rev, on the other hand, is worth a few lines of commentary, mostly because I think anyone who cares about the church and God's reputation worldwide should read this book. Its pretty great.

Confesssions traces the life of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, which Driscoll founded, from its beginnings as a small bible study with 20 people to a mega-church of over 4000 people in the past 13 years. Through humor and humble honesty, the author paints a history of failures, trials and errors, spiritual warfare, diligent prayer, physical suffering under the strain of being a pastor, and casting a vision for mission to people of a city with no idea of what mission meant. Driscoll comments on the dangers of liberalism in the Emergent Church/Emergent Village, even calling out several well known leaders of this movement by name. He talks about the struggles his own family faced, like when his daughter told him she couldn't sleep because dark angels were pulling her hair and telling her Jesus wasn't real. He says he was a cessasionist until he planted Mars Hill, as God began demonstrating His power through words of knowledge and prophetic dreams. Enemies rose up from within his congregation, people mooned their outdoor bible study, and a guy died of a herion overdose on the stairs of their church office.

With stories like those and chapters titled, "Jesus Could You Please Rapture the Charismaniac Lady Who Brings Her Tambourine to Church?" and "Jesus Why am I Getting Fatter and Meaner?", how can you resist?

Actually, aside from the fun stories and crazy experiences, the real draw of this book lies in Driscoll's relentless pursuit of God's glory through the redemption of souls and his unbending will to keep his church focused on this mission no matter the cost. Driscoll calls his church to go and make disciples, not to stay and just be cool and spiritual. He wants other pastors and missionaries, those reading his book, to be students of culture, to be creative, to love and honor scripture and to believe it, to love and honor God and believe Him and fear Him, and to be people of the Cross with eyes and lives on the mission.

That's something worth reading. And if you are interested in the Ukraine, Lonely Planet's pretty good too.

Anger

Yesterday at work, I got cussed out by a patient's mother on the phone an hour after arriving to work. She'd never met me, seen me, or spoken to me. The only experience she'd ever had in labor was her own was having her own children. After she told me that we, UNC Hospital staff, didn't know what we were doing (despite delivering over 300 babies a month), she hung up, swearing all the way.

I was shocked. No one had ever spoken to me that way, ever ever. More than shocked, I was angry. And not just angry, but mad. Like, I wanted to smack her, hard, twice. How dare she talk to anyone that way? I felt slightly abused and assaulted, and I knew that if she acted like that to my face, we'd have a problem on our hands.

Thinking ahead to that potential problem, I told my charge nurse and our unit clerk that if this lady came to the unit, she should not be allowed in. Our clerk announced with a grin, "Girl, I LOVE calling security!" I knew she would.

We didn't have to call security, and everything ended up fine, but it made me think about my own response to this situation. Did I have a right to be angry? Given the chance, should I have said anything to this woman about her actions and words? What does it mean to turn the other cheek and does that apply here? What would Jesus have done? He probably would have said something deep and wise--something I could never come up with spur of the moment. He's way smarter than me, and quicker.

I still don't have an answer to the question, really...I don't know what the "Christian" response is in situations like these. Thankfully I did not have the chance to respond yesterday in my anger because it would have been decidedly un-Christian. Now I have time to process, time to pray, and figure out what to do next time. Maybe there won't be a next time, but probably not.

Prayer time

Chris and I are praying tonight for the 1000 hours of prayer our church is doing this week. I thought, in order to focus, have accountability, and share with you our prayers, I'd blog a little while and what we prayed.

Lord, I thank you for the grace you have poured out on our church and in our lives. You are growing both us and the Summit, and we are learning so much, namely, that its not about us and that its nothing we do. Still, we come to you humbly with requests, as we long for people to know you and to worship you.

God, I hope that our campus at West Club is a place where you are honored above all things. God, may it be a place of deep and honest worship, a place of friendship and community, a place that is focused more on our neighbors and community than ourselves, and a place were lives are changed to the glory of your name.

So much of the world is living without light and they have no idea. So many people need a Savior. And God you have raised up people here to go and tell them about Jesus. I pray for our churches in Central and Southeast Asia, for South Africa and China. God, give them grace, give them humble hearts, give them power over the darkness so that people might come to know you through them. Reveal yourself to their neighbors and their friends. Make yourself known for your name's sake and for the sake of your renown.

I pray for future churches in North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America--may teams be raised up here to go and make you known. Open doors and homes and streets to your gospel. Give your people courage to speak and ears to hear, and make those who go learners and listeners just as they are teachers and speakers.

Lord, for the sake of the mission, for the sake of the vision, for the sake of your name, and for the sake of the hearts of the people at the Summit, draw us unto yourself and help us respond to your gospel with generosity. May our lives not be ruled by greed, material comforts, or satisfying our wants first, but may our lives reflect the Savior--kind, generous even unto death, obedient, and gracious. May we all catch the vision of making you known and may we give in response, of our time, money, energy, and prayers. May our gifts be acts of worship. May our hearts be cheerful and our minds trusting, and may it all be to your glory.

Amen.

Our time is out and now we're going to watch a Mark Driscoll sermon. Then we're going to watch Bones. Friday nights rock.