Here's to the Ones who Dream

I cried watching La La Land because the story is every budding artist's story.  Mia is just scraping by, working at a coffee shop, serving the stars she wishes to be one day. The main guy is a talented, free-spirited jazz musician who goes from a boss who relegates him to playing his set list which is not very fun to a band whose music he is not crazy about.  They both essentially sell out on their dreams and then challenge each other to dream again.

I love that story.  I love that story because it affirms the one thing I am learning recently: we need each other to accomplish our dreams.

My beyond favorite scene is when he drives all the way to Colorado to tell her she has an audition and she says she not going.  He freaks out and makes her tell him why.  She proceeds with one of the most poignant monologues I've ever heard about what sucks about being an actor and finishes with:

"...because maybe I'm not good enough"

"You are"

"I'm not"

"You are"

"I'm not"

...

"why don't you want to do it anymore?"

He speaks to her identity and then he challenges her.  Sometimes we need those people in our lives who ask us hard questions, who push us, who won't take excuses from us.  Sometimes we need people who will listen to the songs we write, see the plays we act in, and be our cheerleaders.  We weren't built to be alone.

Me Too

I felt it. I started awake two weeks ago with memories of being violated flooding my mind as though the event had just happened to me.  Immediately something rose up in my spirit without prompt: unbridled, seething anger.

At the time of these events (three that really changed my perspective) I felt shame.   I felt the typical responsibility we as women often take for everything we do.  I felt like my "no" was meaningless.  I had already opened the door and here I was reaping the consequences, I thought.

I will describe one of these events to you.  I remember I was cleaning up after work to close and it was just my boss and I in the building.  Suddenly I see him get this look on his face.  I cannot remember to this day what he said.  I think he thought I was coming onto him and he was simply responding.  I knew because he instantly turned bright red when I said, "No."  But that look on his face will ever be engraved in my mind as connected to this slimy, sickening feeling I felt in my stomach.  I called my best friend at the time and just remember being so angry.

In the other instances I was in a relationship so lines were a little more blurred.  I will refrain from details but I will say that it is possible for a woman to feel in a relationship that they have been violated, that boundaries have been crossed and that things are not ok.

A few weeks before Harvey Weinstein's accusers started coming forward I had tweeted my sad realization that every woman knows what it feels like to feel violated.  Yet reading through all of the posts of women re-living each memory so the world knew, I grew saddened.  I completely agree with the call to solidarity and the exposing of evil to bring it to justice.  I would not like to discount that.  I hope that in the above lines I have added to a sense of awareness of this issue.

Yet I do want to say that as a believer in the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and because of my unfolding story of redemption I know that there is hope, redemption, and healing for all of us, men and women included.  One thing I realized in the process of healing from these events is the instant fear of my femininity that arose.  I want to make some declarations of truth I have learned.  Even if you're not a Christian, I encourage you to meditate and try these things.

You were made to be beautiful and inviting.  The enemy wants to steal your power to allure.  It's a good thing though not bad.

You don't have to be angry anymore.  You have a King and Judge who is fighting on your behalf.  He sees every scar and he is roaring in power to destroy the evil that is coming against you and all those who have been wounded and violated.  Let him carry the anger.

Forgiveness is a powerful weapon against evil.  For me, I had to first accept that what the person did was wrong before I could even get to this section.  So once I could, then I recognize that the men who hurt me were operating out of brokenness as I have often done.  Forgiveness is a process and we will often discover layers of un-forgiveness but it really is possible to forgive.  Once I tried it, the power of the memories grew dim and started to disappear altogether.

I am sure someone who has gone through therapy and other forms of inner healing has more insight than I on this.  I just wanted to give a little ray of hope in the midst of the chaos of this time.  We cannot let our spirits bend to the power of the evil one.  Bitterness causes great destruction.  I have personally watched un-forgiveness and hate eat up one of my friends who IS a believer.  As Obi Won said, "Fear leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to the dark side." (cheesy I know, I know.  But it's true, no?)

By all means, expose evil.  Stand with the oppressed.  Weep with those who weep.  Bring evil to justice.  But do not stay there.

Me too.

I don't want to stay there.

I want to move on.

The People who Fall in Love with You

I grew up in church and worked in Sunday school since I was 10 all the way until I moved out of state after college.

When I was in college I co-taught a first grade Sunday school class with another young single woman.  One of the children in our class had a single father. I knew he was single because of the strikingly sad prayer requests his son would share with our small group. It was clear that the couple had had a nasty divorce.

I lost touch with the girl who taught with me and the father and son. Years later when I visited for Christmas I noticed the Dad walking to church hand in hand with the girl. I found out they were married.

I was reminded of this instance today.  It was encouraging to me. When she loved that little boy through his pain something about it caught the dad’s eye.  We may not know the eyes we catch when we are serving.  We may not fully comprehend yet what our surrendered lives look like to the people around us.  We don’t know who’s watching when we choose to pour out our hearts for others.

I’ve noticed people frustrated that no one is dating them. I challenge those of us in that category, how are we investing our time? Are you attending the same church and have people there who are in your life, regularly spending time with you?  Are you serving other couples? Are you invested in your community at all or are you just church hopping, looking for the church with the most eligible bachelors?

I want to be clear, dating around is not a bad thing. In fact, it can actually be good. Yet I think we would all be surprised by how much of our identity is revealed to us, to God, and to the men around us by serving our church and our community.

A Wake up Call

I was thinking about predestination and choice and why that matters specifically with regards to the recent White Supremist incident and it's aftermath.  At first glance this group of humans does not seem like a group of humans at all but instead a demonic mob incited by Satan itself.  In fact, social psychology has proven that groups tend to make more extreme decisions than individuals (group polarization).  Yet I was struck by the fact that one of the group's members was just a kid who's mother had no idea what he was doing. He was human.  I think it is very important that he's given the dignity of choice no matter how tragic the outcome.  The question is: do these people recognize what they are doing for what it is?

As I was running I was thinking about how we set boundaries for ourselves so that we can live healthy, productive lives.  One of those boundaries I’ve set for myself is working out 4 times a week.  It’s great because it’s flexible.  I don’t’ have to exercise on a certain day.  It could be however long I have too, 30 min-an hour.  Why do I set this boundary?  Does this matter to me?  Moving is something that helps my body feel healthy, helps it operate correctly.  Specifically for me if I don’t work out I have bad back pain. I know what it feels like to not work out and to work out.

So coming back to that choice.  I think people do recognize what they’re doing for the most part.  I don’t think they recognize the long term outcomes of their actions.  They don’t know yet- It’s like they are unhealthy individuals eating whatever they want and just being a couch potato.  But they haven’t gained weight.  It hasn’t affected them in a deep way yet.  But they don’t know yet what it feels like to give up those things and to move into a healthy lifestyle because they’ve never tried it.  They only know their perception of reality.  So they continue to choose their perception of reality.

They have to have an wake up call, a reason to move past their reality.

I think one of the best examples of this "wake up call" I found watching this TV show on Netflix called the Crown about Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill.  It's a true story that fog descended on England for a week I think it was.  The fog created unsafe and unhealthy living conditions in London by trapping emissions in the air.  Many people died as a result.  

It was a national crisis yet the Churchill was very stubborn in saying there was nothing he could do about it and refused to do anything because it didn’t matter to him personally.  He thought it was just weather and it was going to pass. We can venture to say perhaps his personal living conditions, being from a different socio economic class than the rest, was all he perceived and therefore his perception of reality was skewed.  

Yet a girl who worked for him—a girl who sort of idolized him and devoted herself to studying his work and had made some sort of an impact on him through working with him—was running in the dark and couldn’t see her way in the dark trying to help her friend who was very sick from the fog, gets hit by a bus and dies.  Well, Churchill found out about this and we see him at the the hospital in a rage. All of a sudden he is a stake holder.  Now it matters to him.  Now he’s invested. 

My use of business terms is intentional.  A stakeholder is simply someone who is invested. They’ve put forth their own money because they believe in something.  A lot of people don’t do that with this issue of racism because they don’t see it as an issue.  A lot of people that I have talked to are not necessarily biased one way or the other.  But because of their socio economic background, their geographic location, the people they’re around constantly, it doesn’t mean anything to them personally.

Churchill reacted to this girl's death, put forth money from the government towards the hospitals and recovery, and was willing to do what he could. This story is a great example of what it looks like to make a choice but not be fully aware of what your choices entail for other people.  It’s not like some demonic force comes upon you and you do things.  It’s more complex than that as most human behavior is.

 Back to boundaries.  Because we know this is human nature I propose that sometimes we make choices that are really really bad.  In light of that, sometimes boundaries need to be set for us.  I know that I am going to create a space where people are challenged to move past their perception of the world and join a conversation that will hopefully create investment in others' lives that are completely different than their own. 

I think it will be important in these instances to separate the individual from the group in order to truly get to their heart.  The key is in our design. We were designed for relationship.  We were designed to care for people. So if we can put it in terms that people understand, that matter to them, and teach them that it’s our responsibility for everyone to matter then I think we can help people recognize that their perception of reality may not be the only one that matters.

Boundary Lines

The reason that I’ve been drawn to an art form with less clearly defined boundary lines is probably because growing up I didn’t understand boundary lines.  I needed an expressive outlet that didn’t have clearly defined boundary lines. Part of that was because I was (am) dyslexic (I couldn’t read until I was 11) therefore writing as a creative art form did not make sense to me.

I still think the easiest and pure form of art for me is when you put good actors in a room and you give them a story, a concept, or an idea, and say “go!” and let them just be in the moment.  They do need boundaries too.  But they’re not as observable to the outside world.

The older I get I recognize that boundary lines are the foundation and the key to good art.  I appreciate writing as artwork now. My younger sister has her Masters now in Creative Writing. I read her work and I think it’s amazing how she can carefully craft words and she takes time to put them within the boundary lines of the text.  I appreciate that.

Boundaries are the building blocks to everything we do.  God created the world with boundaries. It was a massive void until he created.  I realize that the very act of creation was setting boundary lines. He said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters” (Gen. 1:6).  In Job God actually says that he set a boundary line for the sea: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?  Or shut the sea in with doors…and prescribed limits for it” (Gen 38:4,10).

That’s the key to parenting too.  The more that I spend time with my best friends who are parents and also just observe children I get to “parent,” the more I recognize how key boundaries are to their development. I know that if rules are given in love they create a greater sense of identity in the child to where creativity can flow freely, unhindered.

I’ve been studying the creative process ever since I went to school for acting that’s what, 10 years ago?  10 years of study has made me begin to recognize that boundaries are so key.  A lot of boundaries have to do with opening up new boxes, setting new parameters, asking new questions – that get to the heart of the issue.

The key to good boundary setting that allows for the most creativity is knowing when to place them and when to take them away.  My guitar teacher this summer said, “we must know the rules first and then we can break them.”  Then, when he saw me play a chord that was not in the key I was in he began to show me all the open doors I will eventually walk through as I continue to think outside the box.

The Abundance Conversation

We throw these terms around a lot in the church like “a poverty spirit” or an “orphan mindset” but what do they mean?  They are lumped terms for principles taught countless times in the Scriptures like when Jesus fed the 5,000 and the disciples were looking around for food and only saw the small amount they had, not the abundance God wanted to give.  The poverty spirit essentially means “living as though there is lack.”  An orphan mindset is when we don’t walk as though we are daughters and sons of a great king.

So the abundance conversation began because I sort of (but not to the extent that I normally do) freaked out because my birthday was approaching.  I was sitting on the train thinking about this and then began to ask God why I act like this.

“Why is that every year on my birthday I cannot seem to decide what I want to do and everything has to be perfect?” I queried.  He proceeded to reveal to me that as a child I was taught this.  My parents would get me one huge extravagant gift as well as let me throw these huge parties. My grandfather who was a retired doctor would send us these large sums of money on our birthdays.  “You can have what you want but only on your birthday.”  Great principle, right?  I thought so.  Well, I feel like it’s sort of set me up for failure.

Another example in that vein: As a child when my parents took us kids clothes shopping every season I’d watch my sisters find an abundance of fun and exciting new styles.  I learned from the shake of my mother’s head and her sigh that practical things were best.  So I was the most practical daughter I could be and I was greatly praised for it.

As an adult now I feel shame when I spend money on myself.  I’ve learned to associate shame with buying nice things.  My friends allot money in their budget to nails, hair, spa treatment, make up, clothing, accessories, and perfume.  I do not.  Until last year as an adult I had never bought new clothing (except for jeans when I had to).

Conversely, I talked to my younger sister recently, trying to praise her for her shopping habit.  She instantly responded in shame.  She was taught that these things were bad.  Meanwhile, I wished I had what she had.

It has taken me years to recognize that where my sister and I are at is not healthy.  It’s not what Father God wants for us.  Slowly I have started allowing myself to enjoy spending money on myself.  I started very slowly buying new clothes (on sale at H&M but, hey, I don’t have the income yet).  I started doing my nails more than once a year.  I went to the spa few times.

The test now is: how do I do this throughout the year for myself so that on my birthday I don’t panic and think of all the things I want to do for myself?  This is what I’m learning.  This is my process. 

This year I feel like I did have a major breakthrough for my birthday plans.  Though the details matter they suddenly aren’t the be-all end-all of my existence.  For instance, I know I will probably go to at least one more nice restaurant before I turn 29. So I can pick a restaurant that will comfortably seat more people because people matter more than my perfect ambiance and food.  I didn’t have to see a show or do anything on my birthday because I know that I can do those things not on my birthday and I will be ok.  I had this revelation that I have a father who cares about me that wants to celebrate me everyday.

My biggest revelation in an inner healing session I recently had was that I have needs and God wants to meet those needs.  I mean, that’s huge.  It’s time to let God heal those wounds so that I can live in abundance as a daughter of a king – there’s always more than enough with him.

My Thoughts on Wonder Woman

We have spent years as a culture battling femininity instead of championing it so I'm so inspired and delighted at what Wonder Woman did. Wonder Woman succeeded where other feminist films have failed it began to point to feminine and masculine strength used together to defeat the greatest enemy.

I watched through the whole film a girl who knew who she was created to be continually told that she couldn't. It's so familiar. I actually cried when Steve said to her, "Go that way." Because he was no longer arguing with her.

Here's where I really cried though:

There's a part where Steve grabs this giant piece of scrap metal and with the other guys holds it up. He yells, "shield!" She launches off of it and destroys the headquarters of the villain winning the battle.

Why is this part so important?

Steve was watching. The very beginning of the movie he watches these women (Amazons) trained in battle and one of them yells "shield." All the women know what this means. A woman puts out her shield and the other one launches off of it. It's a battle tactic. It utilizes their unique feminine strength, which is agility.

Steve knew how to cultivate and use her power because he watched, he listened. He understood what she carried. He fought alongside her, not against her.

This was one reason I wept through Arrival. The man stopped everything he was doing to analytically figure out the aliens because he was watching the woman. Her heart was carrying an important key. He championed her. He stopped everything he was doing and just championed her.

I love that moment where the woman cries for help and Diana's heart is stirred.  Sometimes women have this thing called intuition and it drives men crazy. In battle, a side war driven by compassion doesn't make tactical sense.  Ultimately if they hadn't stopped though, she would have never been intimate with the man in the first place. Then they wouldn't have won the war because love won the war.

When Steve holds up the shield for her it is a picture of the masculine role. Men are supposed to lift women up. To show the world their greatest strength. If you have met any married men who are warriors they do this daily. They say things like, "but look how amazing she is."

 It's only when men learn to champion women, invest in their dreams, that the enemy is truly afraid. Because God created them both male AND female. And when they harness their unique strength they are unstoppable.

Story Time! Virginity, male nurses, and God's Voice

I’m 27 and I’m a virgin.

I’ve been on this journey for much of my life of trying to be relevant, trying to fit in to culture and forgetting that I was called to be set apart for a reason.  Not to flaunt it, no.  Not to bury it either.

Today I went to the doctor for my annual physical exam.  It’s getting more and more comical every year.  This year I had a male nurse taking down my information.  He asked me if I was sexually active, and when I said no he got very nervous.  He said “not currently” to himself and put it in the system.

There are a million different subtexts you could place for why he did this but they all point back to what he perceived as culturally normal.

I was smiling to myself because I was not nervous and I felt wonderful about this.

I say that to say this: I felt very relaxed the rest of my visit, making effortless conversation with people in the office.  I felt like I hit it off with the woman who drew my blood, Kim.  At some point I felt like there was an opportunity to say something like “hey can I pray for you?”  I used to do this all the time but for the past year or so I’ve resisted this tendency.  I always say to myself that it’s not the Lord and that it’s just me looking for attention and I don’t want to be weird and turn them off to God completely.  The list of excuses goes on.

I walked out of the office and I heard the Lord say to me (and this time it was clearly his voice):

“Will you stop apologizing for me?  I’m awesome.”

He went on to compare our relationship to that of a lover and his love.  Reminding me what it was like to be in love and not be able to stop talking about that person.  He wanted me to know that he delights when his name bubbles out of my being.

He then went on to say “I’ve made you this way!  Your desire to know people and draw them closer to their authentic selves is FROM ME.  You’re bored with your spirituality because you’re JUSTIFYING your boredom.”

Woah.

All of a sudden everything I had been praying about, desiring for, longing for clicked into place.  He’s been setting me apart from this culture for a purpose.  He’s been reminding me of when my passion outweighed all of my excuses.  I just loved Jesus so much nothing else mattered.  I didn’t make deals with God then.  I sacrificed everything and he broke in every time. I saw miracles because I was expecting them.  I walked in power. I was who I was called to be because I wasn’t afraid of being different.

I instantly started to repent and asked God to restore me.  I told him I don’t want to justify my boredom anymore.  I asked to go on a fantastic journey with him.  I surrendered.

I recognize that with every scriptural truth there is a paradox.  So being in the world and not of it is going to look sort of different for everyone.  For me though, it means laying down my tendency to hide my faith from people I’ve just met, especially when I desire to pray for them.  What does it look like for you?  Ask God.

God is such a good teacher.  Will you allow him to teach you?  When you don’t understand or you’re frustrated by something he’s asking you to do TELL HIM!  He will draw you closer and help you look at it in a different way.  As in every relationship, it’s important to keep the conversation going.  He LOVES to illuminate truth in every dark crevice of doubt and fear.

I am woman. I desire things.

Who, me?  I want things? No, you’ve got the wrong girl.  See I’m independent.  I’m self-sufficient.

Then I break down crying singing this phrase in a song: “All I want is someone beside me to have and to hold, someone to love me, as we grow older.”  Hm.

I started to read the book Captivating again and my heart is gripped by John and Staci’s thoughts on what it means to be a woman.  They postulate that what is unique to each gender is a unique expression of who God is.  They cite the Bible verse man and woman were created in the image of God, male and female he created them (Genesis 5:1-2). 

The first is this strange desire women have for romance.  What’s up with that?

Adam’s alone with God in the garden and God goes:

“It is not good for man to be alone.  I will make a sustainer beside him” (Gen. 2:18).

(We’ll come back to this “sustainer” word in the next desire of women blog).  For now focus on the fact that woman comes into the picture when man is all alone.  She is the deeply connected to relationship.  Whether you agree with this or not, it is widely accepted throughout the ages that women desire relationship (not just romantic ones) greatly.  That’s how the chick flick thrives.  Poets have spoken of this.  Byron said, “Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart. Tis a woman’s whole existence.”

When I was last in love, I just wanted to be with him all the time.  When he was around it just fueled my desire for him.  If he flirted with me I’d get all red in the face, I felt like I was suffering a heat stroke, and simply couldn’t function.

If Eve is the image of God, what does God desire?

Jesus is about to die on the cross and what does he say he DESIRES?  “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given to me, may be with me where I am” (John 17:24).

He LONGS for us: “how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under wings?” (Matt. 23:37).

The Bible is God’s giant, epic love story between him and us.  He desires relationship with us.

I was worshipping God the other day and I saw in my head a giant veil descending from Heaven to earth, it was as if God was beckoning us to that sacred covenant.  He is always romancing us back to his heart.  John Eldridge says, “We see him as strong and powerful, but not as a needing us, vulnerable to us, yearning to be desired” (29).

We were made for relationship with God and Eve is the picture of this.

The Eldridges state, “the universe we live in is relational at its core” (28).  This truth, I believe, is a large reason why I wept through the entire movie Arrival.  I have never felt so validated as a woman in pressing into relational understanding.  When people stopped listening to the aliens and to each other, that’s when things started to go terribly wrong.  There’s something about things that do not work if we are not in sync with each other.

For so long I have felt that my longing for relationship was part of the fall, part of my broken nature.  I was not whole so I was desperately trying to fill myself in relationships.

But the reality is that our desire for relationship is how God created us to exist.  The book puts it this way: “This is not some weakness or insecurity on the part of a woman, the deep yearning to be desired…Eve—God’s message to the world in feminine form—invites us to romance.  Through her, God makes romance a priority of the universe.”

Broken Vessels

Reflecting on this season and the interesting highs and lows it has produced emotionally for me has got me thinking in narrative form.  God, of course, is the great story teller so it's no surprise to me that everything I see is a mirror image of my heart.

This image from a student film my friend Jesse Doland made in college popped into my head.  It was a particularly striking film for me when I saw it so I was not surprised when it came up this week for me.  You can watch the link below but to summarize for reading purposes: it is the story of a guy who is trying comically and tragically failing at committing suicide.  In his grand efforts to to die, he takes a bunch of pills but there is no water.  He goes for the fish bowl but it topples, shattering.  Then he saves this gold fish's life and thus realizes the importance of life all at once.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR04N8kpG6E

It struck me because I was going through the throws of emotional turmoil and suddenly a person reaches out to me in the same boat.  I see in her what I see in myself and then speak truth over her.  Suddenly I am speaking truth over myself.

Isn't that like God?  To take us from ourselves to help someone else only to show us the process of healing our own hearts.

It was all God.  Roger Joyner told a similar story.  He was about to walk into fulfilling a huge dream of his heart but then God had him lay it all down for his family.  He looked intensely (and it felt like it was right at me) and said something to the effect of, "God cares more about your heart and character than what looks like a promise fulfilled in the moment."  He would eventually get his promise fulfilled in a different way.  The through line though was that God was his exceedingly great reward.  That it didn't matter that he was in the desert serving his wife instead of walking out his "ministry" calling.  God was working in his heart.

See I try to compartmentalize my ministry and my own personal time with God.  That is good to a point.  We need alone time with God.  We need to be filled.  But what I didn't realize was how much I would receive by just being a friend to people who are hurting because I know what it's like to hurt.

I am telling you, God always speaks to me multiple times.  So if the message, the video, the conversation with the friend wasn't enough, he sent me to support a friend in her play (and this was all in one day mind you).  In the play her role was a girl who was incredibly emotional all the time.  Again I saw myself in her.  By the end of the play she realized how incredibly selfish she had been in making everything about her.

The biggest realization of this whole thing is this: My growing up and reaching out to others benefits everyone.

I was complaining to God that no one understands me.  Particularly I was upset that I cried at church and no one asked me what was wrong.  They just assumed the Holy Spirit was ministering to me. God goes, "Use your words."  We've all heard parents say that to their children as they cry and whine.  I'm in a growing season of realizing that I can communicate my needs to the people around me and it's OK! (HA!)

The point of all of this is this: God wants us to be FUNCTIONING vessels.  That means that we are wells that are continually being poured into and continually pouring out.  This means we are vulnerable with people.  This means we speak up when we are mistreated.  But most importantly it means that we continue to see in others the same pain and brokenness in ourselves and collectively call it out and ask for God to come and make us new.

Letters from Birmingham Jail and my thoughts

“I must confess that I am not afraid of the word ‘tension,’"  Martin Luther King Jr. pauses to say.

He has just opened his letter addressed to his fellow clergymen with a detailed explanation of his reasons for activism specifically in Birmingham.  He notes that he is going to address their criticism of his work in the rest of the letter.  Clearly the man is proving to us by the writing itself he that he is not afraid of tension.

"I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.  Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the of kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.” (90)

I too take issue with the church calling for unity and not seeking for discernment.  It is as though the church today is similar to the church MLK was encountering.  They call for a more agreeable approach but fail to realize the grave danger that would pose.  When lies, faulty beliefs, permeate the core of our nation, perhaps the need to expose them can outweigh the need for false unity.  MLK continues:

“Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension.  We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.  We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with.  Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.” (98)

Tension is a good thing.  The deep scar in America is finally being exposed in a great way.  A move of God is on the horizon.  Yet the church still seems to be missing their role in it.

“In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevances and sanctimonious trivialities.” (105)

I have sat through way to many church services since 2014 where what was happening outside its walls was being ignored.  I would go home and weep over police brutality and then come to church and we were talking about something different. 

I found quickly that there were people in the world that did not think that racism was a huge issue.  It was just something that I had a heart for.  So I buried it.  I didn’t talk about it.  I prayed about it all the more.  I talked about it with my friends of color.  But all of my white church friends who could care less would never hear about the stirrings of my soul because it just simply was not an issue for them.  Of this I have since then repented.  Yet one can see clearly since these elections where true loyalties lie and it saddens my heart that many of my white Christian friends cannot hear the blood crying out from the ground.

When things got rough for my friends of color, the tension was too uncomfortable for the church.  A cowardice to confront had settled in.  My friends and I turned to other places for solace.  Yet this was never how it was meant to be.  MLK explains:

“There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed.  In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.  Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’  But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were ‘a colony of heaven’ called to obey God rather than man.”

I have also heard Christians mocking protestors.  This baffling journey of encountering Christians who actually think protesting is pointless began in 2011 and I am sad to say has not ended.  MLK again explains to a completely ignorant church one reason (I say one because there are many) he encourages marches:

“If his [the American negro] repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history.  So I have not said to my people: ‘Get rid of your discontent.’  Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action.  And now this approach is being termed extremist.”

He goes on to say that he was troubled at first with being called an extremist but then he realized every prominent figure in the Bible was an extremist and he goes on to list them: Jesus, Amos, Paul.  Then he calls out martin Luther, John Bunyan, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson.  Each has a quote by him that conjures up our thoughts about this person and we readily agree that, yes, they were in fact extreme and it did great good.

He says, “So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be?” (102)

He says, and I will end here, “Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists” (103).