"some measure of audacity"

Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. - 2 Cor 7:1

Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a [peculiar] people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. - Titus 2:14

What kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming... since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. - 2 Pet 3:11, 14

God is concerned with our holiness and our peculiarity and the two are not separate from one another. The nature of our peculiarity is to be holy. Holiness literally means a state of being set aside for noble purposes. It is first of all a quality of God and secondly a quality that He expects His children to exhibit.

"Personal holiness is a work of gradual development. It is carried on under many hindrances, hence the frequent admonitions to watchfulness, prayer, and perseverance" says Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. It's this admonition to "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" that Paul talked about (Phil 2:12-13).

So this theme of personal holiness has been coming up around me lately at Crossroads, in conversations with housemates, in books I've picked up this month, and in sermons I've been downloading. I think the church has downplayed the calling to be holy in the name of steering clear of legalism and/or desire to be approachable and relevant. I think this has been misguided at best and disastrous at worst. It allows us to go on about our business as though we're just the same as anyone else; it doesn't call us up and out, and therefore leaves us living with a vaguely dissatisfying but comfortable experience of being let off the hook. We think we want to be let off the hook, but deeper than that don't we all want someone to expect more from us and believe we're capable of it. More than that, scripture is pretty clear that good fruit is not separable from salvation; a branch that isn't bearing any will be cut off. In this way God's invitation to us to enter into His holiness is a gift of outstanding love, a mark of His desire to see us truly saved.

These are very partially digested thoughts, honestly. The Lord is still instructing me in this area. But I guess the most helpful epiphany I've had thus far is that there is a connection between being led by the Spirit and personal Holiness. Here is how I think it goes (and I am open to discussion and correction):

We're dead to the law and alive to the Spirit. The Spirit is a supernatural deposit of the Divine Person into the spirits of those who have given themselves to Christ and trusted in His death for their life. This Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, reminds us of the words of Christ, and comes upon us in key moments to move us into powerful action that results in transformation (we see this over and over again in Acts). Since we no longer live according to the law, but according to the Spirit (read Romans 8), the way into the Holiness that we are called to exhibit is through that Spirit. He is more concerned with our holiness and infinitely able to present us to the Father on the last day as one holy and blameless. We entrust our holiness to the Spirit and live in a state of perpetual communication with Him to so guide our actions and thoughts that we become the peculiar people we are called to be. So my task in seeking to be holy is not so much to arrive upon a set of standards and rules of actions to be avoided or engaged in; rather, the task is primarily to so commit myself to positioning my heart in sensitivity and obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit, by whom I live. This then cannot become legalism because it operates outside of law and man-made rule that Paul so desperately wanted his churches to be free of. I cannot put my trust in my Holiness Code, but only in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. I think in this way holiness is probably dynamic in its expression, leaving room to become all things to all people so that my all means some might be saved.

This brings me back to the title of this post, which is something Abbott Tony said to me a while back. We were on our way back from meeting with another group of folks who are interested in starting a prayer community in their area and they were throwing out ideas for where and how to meet that were not yet wild or reckless, but rather safe and conventional. Tony said something like, "I think they will quickly come to understand that in order to get people's attention with the good news of the gospel, there has to be some measure of audacity involved." Audacity, peculiarity, and outstanding in nature. And what better way to be peculiar and audacious than to dare holiness in a world like this one? Or, as Paul Washer (one of these so-called "Holiness Preachers") said, "The only way to be relevant is to be totally different than the world." We cannot expect to be like our agnostic neighbors in every way except a privately held doctrinal creed and see them excited and moved to right relationship with God by that.

God, infect me with holy audacity!!!!

ho·ly noun, plural -lies. –adjective

1.	specially recognized as or declared sacred by religious use or authority; consecrated: holy ground.

2.	dedicated or devoted to the service of God, the church, or religion: a holy man

au·dac·i·ty noun, plural -ties.

1.	boldness or daring, esp. with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions.

2.	effrontery or insolence; shameless boldness:

sabbatical month (overview)

you are about to step into a virtual mosaic (in list form) of thoughts, images, and stories from the last few weeks of my life in which I have been traveling, resting, learning, etc. during our month-long sabbatical from the SBR:

• A visit to Pittsburgh and my cousin danielle for one magical weekend that dragged up another layer of thoughts about identity and desires recovered
• A week at Lake Michigan with most of my extended family, which was spattered with fun moments of pier jumping and distance swimming, dune wilderness exploring, interrogating the boyfriends of cousins, and mocking the musical fountain, as well as some great time with the Lord in the morning quietness of the dune grass
• Listening to several sermons by teachers such as Paul Washer and Keith Moore, which are challenging and growing me
• Attending my 10-Year Class Reunion at Lansing Christian, which was very small indeed, but it was great to see everyone
• Making an unexpected re-connection with one of those old school chums (you know who you are) and being given the gift of a couple wonderful evenings lost in heart-warming conversation with him
• Having several days holed up at the near-empty Boiler Room with Sarah and digging in deep to explore what the Lord is laying on our hearts, and the terrain of our emotional lives, and also having a couple girl dates together
• A 10-day long Internet fast which broke open wells of vision and creativity in me
• 5 hours one afternoon of listening prayer with my Sarah and Sarah, at which point I think the Lord finally got some things through to me
• Saw David off at a small going-away party before He moves to Bangalore
• Countless friend dates
• Settled into the new apartment, including some finishing decorative touches
  
• Read several books: Unaccustomed Earth (Lahiri), Franny and Zoe (Salinger), The Spirit of the Disciplines (Willard), How We Are Hungry (Eggers), Making Room (Pohl), Travels with Charley (Steinbeck), and The Vine of Desire (Divakaruni)
• Photographed a wedding and committed to doing another one in October
• Endured the thwarting of plans for a trip to Chicago, but am thankfully able to see the wisdom in this
• Slept in a great deal
• Single-handedly drank far too many French presses of good coffee

Now I'll go through and put up a few smaller posts that go into further detail on some of these points.

not small at all

when will i get it?
He will (and does) keep speaking it until i finally receive it
all the images He gives, and all the words
they are BIG
they are WILD
they are EXPANSIVE
blue-crested mountain tops
green-grassed bluffs over crashing waves
vast and quiet lakes adrift on a boat
open fields for twirling and dancing
(a distinct theme emerges)

AWAKE to this
to find that DREAMS are actually spiritual reality
this is who i am to Him, what He has for me
yet i'm so trapped in my smallness feelings
in my desires for smaller things
(as cs lewis said, i'm so busy making mud pies in the sand that
we can't understand the meaning of a vacation on the sea)

how can He move forward with me until
i know who I am
His battle in my life is primarily me
my own reticence
at belief

i'm beginning to believe it (finally?) that I'm called out of the status-quo american way, out of status-quo christianity (having some form of godliness but denying its power) and into grand and expansive territories. i wonder if my angst will still significantly upon just receiving this fact and living into it -- instead of consistently attempting to be quieted into ordinary life. you've made me "not normal" and you "get" my unique beauty. I don't know how to express this...

i remember many months ago telling a friend that there are these two strong and equally wholesome desires opposing one another within me (though at the time i think i felt one must surely be less wholesome than the other, now i see they are both God-given and the only question is which path is the path of obedience for ME): one is the desire to settle down, live a quiet life working with my hands, put down roots in a people and a place. the other is to fly -- to follow my wander lust and grand visions wherever they carry me.

as sarah pointed out last night, both are firmly scriptural. in the old testament God's repeated refrain to His people was that they should settle in the land and be fruitful and multiple there. But in the new testament, through paul, He begins urging His followers not to marry because the days are short and because that life divides energies much needed for the kingdom. he says the last days will be difficult, so be on guard (a virgin with her lamp lit, plus extra oil on hand). and Jesus commissioned his disciples to GO and make disciples, thereby nudging them into a sojourner lifestyle. so there's both.

fact is that very few people really have the inclination or capacity to forgo the typical track of marriage/home/family/job/hobbies, and to those of us who can see in ourselves the potential to take another trail: i wonder if He didn't put that there for good reason? to be one of the Radical Ones is to be weird and obscenely counter-cultural, yes. but it is also a privilege, a unique friendship with Jesus. and in prophetic words the Lord keep speaking vastness, wildness, and expansiveness over me, He keeps saying it like He's trying to beat it through my head: "you aren't small; you're a giant -- wake up and see!" this overwhelms me if i let it actually sink in.

is this me smack dab in the middle of spiritual boot camp -- preparation for a sending/filling i can't yet imagine? then form me, Father! prepare me, build me up in character and dependence on you, teach me your voice, strip me of vanity and envy and concern for being accepted by others. give me a bold voice and discernment and revelation, loosen my ties to the old world (debt, dead weight relationships, possessions, bring truth to my inmost parts. there is willingness in me to be sent, God, if I understand that such grandiose plans are what you are indeed speaking over me.

and to see you working this in my sisters too thrills me, God -- that you brought us together in unity of spirit and deep friendship is likely no accident at all. you'll place us each as "christian principalities" in your kingdom if we'll urge each other on in life and godliness and seek you together.

God, you're so in control, so wise. and i know i'm only seeking flickerings, just now considering taking expansive wildness as realities you may have in store. i am blow away. i'm not sure if this is even making any sense. so i just put myself in your hands and give you the offering of a willing spirit, humbly. make me awake.

Deut 32:11-12
Like an eagle that stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
and carries them on its pinions.
The LORD alone led him;
no foreign god was with him.

disconnecting internet

Seems like when the internet gets disconnected – whether by choice or subjection to technological failings – creativity comes free. All those energies otherwise devoured in the gaping pit of cyber space begin pinging around like restless fireflies, seeking where they might bear their light. The corners where dust bunnies reside or the piles of dishes, these practical and physical cores, it might first undertake. But then it will surely move onto the quirky or creative to-do list I am convinced every person has scrolling through some central part of her brain. And on that to-do list there may be things, in no particular order, like:

• Hang the MOMA mobile above the pappazan chair and adorn it with tattered clippings of significance only to you
• Write a long and heart-opening letter (on paper) to that friend across the country who has become a confidant for reasons such as the security of created by his distance and the fact that he is a fellow dreamer and he will “get it"
• Apply to your bedroom wall the brown and orange vinyl decals that you’re not entirely sure are really “you” but you were drawn to them for some reason, and besides that you paid for them, so they might as well go up
• Piece together a new outfit of pieces old and new, which some may say don’t go together but because you are re-exploring your forgotten funk (the style you submerged to fit into the professional world for a number of years) you are willing to take the risks
• Sit down to journal and find that instead what comes out in a slightly autobiographical and surprisingly good short story, the writing of which you were so immersed in that you didn't even notice three hours had passed
• Put down on paper the first version of the downloaded dreams for your future: the one that the signs have been pointing to, the one composed of three seemingly unrelated ingredients, and find that what has just emerged is inspired and beautiful and quite possibly true
• Spend nearly five hours practicing listening prayer with girlfriends in the garage, getting washed up in that spray of holy water that is the Holy Spirit (yes, this requires creativity and imagination)

And all of this feels rather lovely and certainly more life-giving than to have to look back over the day and realize that all you really did all day was stalk distance acquaintances whose actual lives have very little bearing on yours, perused through endless streams of photographs that then clogged your imagination with their potency, and reading the blogs of friends with whose writing and stories you play the comparison (sometimes this gives false pride and superiority, other times it breeds sad desperation).

So raise your glass and toast to the practice of occasional luddism and for the deep and neglected chambers it spreads out before you, waiting to be plumbed.

identity crisis

All these cool characteristics I often wish were true of me (but you can't play at that stuff; it is or it isn't; anything not flowing from the heart of a person rings hollow and is not really beautiful at all): bohemian, artsy (making creativity in chaos), bright and bold, mismatched, musical, and nomadic.

i enjoy these things in other people and feel at home in their presence and expression, yet I don't live them personally. I'll think: it's too expensive, too late, too much, i'm too old, too dull... Or maybe its that i'm afraid that what'll come out'll be lame; that i haven't really got that creative energy in me; that i'll be on the outside of the outside.

i wonder if i were to choose to become what i most enjoy in others -- could it be genuine? could it be part of following Jesus (everything not from faith is sin?)

how did i become Pottery Barn in style, GAP in attire, inhibited in self-expression -- understated, earthy, clean-cut? is that other my alter-ego, my shadow side? is it something to enjoy but not to seek to own? "Seek first the kingdom" is the real heart of life, not "seek first authentic self-expression," right?

but here are some things He has put in me, though some may lay dormant:

• a gravitational attraction to bohemian and hippie lifestyle
• a liking of ethnic foods
• a need for or comfortability with being unique, different, counter cultural
• an ability to be very self-aware and introspective
• the capacity to sit with people in the middle of their emotional messes
• a love of books and learning through them
• an eye for photography
• a way with words; ability to communicate through written word
• a skill for cooking deliciously and healthfully
• no real need or desire for wealth or materialism
• a sensitivity to the beauty and aura of physical spaces
• magnetism towards green, brown, ivory, gray
• low-maintenance self-care
• long-standing, healthy friendships
• a love of singing (though not usually in public)
• a tendency toward melancholy and romanticism
• a love of travel -- lingering, investigative, and non-touristy in nature
• depth of wisdom and insight; intuitive knowing
• genuine and authentic self expression

i'm beginning to ask these questions of how what He has put in me might tie into how He will call me or where He will use me. surely He made me the way that I am for purposes, to fill holes and roles that others unlike me cannot. surely He is not oblivious to the uniqueness of His daughter and if i will surrender all of this to Him for His redemptive purposes, something beautiful will be built of it.

a funny conversation worth recounting

via Facebook IM-ing... this is not verbatim, but a close approximation...

matt: INFPs like us really understand that
me: according to one internet source, INFPs are the most likely of all the types to have trouble successfully mating
matt: i'm just going to un-read that now
brooke: but i'm just laughing at it because LUCKILY our destiny does not come from myers-briggs, but from God, who is perfectly capable of healing us and putting us in healthy relationships
matt: well, according to one internet page, Mary the mother of God was an INFP and SHE gave birth to the savior of the universe. Also, Fred Savage.
brooke: Oh, that's so comforting. particularly the part about Fred Savage.

taught

this has been brewing for me for a long time now. i've been making scribbles in my journal and on post-it notes whenever i come across passages of scripture or quotes from spiritual mothers and fathers that speak into these theme:

"they shall be taught by the Lord." (Isaiah 54:13, then Jesus quoted it in John 6:45)

i was thinking i'd launch into some long exposition on all the scripture verses that mention this idea of being students of the Lord himself, but can I just urge you to use this blog entry as a jumping off point for a little Bible Study? go ahead, print it off. look up all these passages. then we'll talk:

• I Cor 2:12-13 -- wisdom not from men, but taught by the SPIRIT, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words, by which we are able to understand what God has given us.
• Isaiah 50:4 -- The Lord gives an instructed tongue, He wakens our ears to listen like one being taught.
• Isaiah 48:17 -- He teaches what is best for us and directs us in the way we should go.
• Psalm 119:102 -- we don't depart from His laws when He himself has taught us.
• Jeremiah 31:34 -- God's promise is that we no longer need to teach each other to know God because all will know Him by his revelation.
• Psalm 32:8-9 -- He instructs, teaches, and counsels and by doing so watches over us
• Job 32:8-9 -- it is the Spirit in a man, the breath of God, that gives him understanding, not age
• Micah 4:2 -- an invitation to go to the mountain of the Lord where he will teach us His ways so we can walk in His paths
• Ephesians 1:17 -- there is a Spirit of wisdom and revelation that allows us to know Jesus
  

but scripture is also full of mention of being taught by MEN (Isaiah 29:13), in which case God says He'll blow that knowledge and wisdom right out of the water -- he'll pour out miracles and things too lofty to be understood, to remind them of Who know what (see vs. 14). and Paul talks about people also being taught by DEMONS (I Tim 4:1), which is scarier yet.

we are always being taught. we get to choose this day who our teachers will be.

God's so good! He says, "your teachers will be hidden no more. with your own eyes will you see them. whether you turn to the right or to the left your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, 'this is the way, walk in it.'" (Isaiah 30:20-21). He doesn't want to hide from us; He has not spoken from some secret or inaccessible place, nor would He ever tease us by saying "seek me in vain!" (Isaiah 45:19). the AUTHOR of knowledge wants to be your teacher!

all through scripture this is what He's after: for us to know Him. He wants to erase the middle men and usher us right into His heart. He wants to write His law on our HEARTS (that's so intimate) and have us call HIM our Rabbi and Lord. All Jesus wanted was for his beloved to sit at his feet and listen to what he said (luke 10:38-41). He wants to give us wisdom and says that we should ask for it and expect to get it (james 1:5).

but to be taught by God means the death of other teachers. remember what Jesus said about entering the kingdom of God like a little child? CHILD means simple, unassuming, teachable, receptive mailable. children have no pretense of wisdom or knowledge. they haven't written theses, nor have them impressive reading lists.

i started thinking about this idea only when i started to experience it. over the last year, there's been this intense and rapid learning curve for me when it comes to understanding spiritual things. and it hit me that every single thing i've learned has been learned not because i read a christian living book or did a careful exegetical study, but because the Spirit revealed it to me. it came not with words, but with power. it's a knowing that is altogether different than intellectual assent. (i corinthians 2:4, i thes 1:5). and the prerequisite to being taught in this way was a forsaking of what i had previously understood to be wisdom and knowledge.

I Cor 1:18-31 is where Paul talks about the wisdom of the cross being foolishness to the world, and about the foolishness of God (is there such a thing?) being wiser than men's wisdom. there's a certain upside-down-ness to this, isn't there? and for a girl who's always prided herself on being smart, intellectually curious, and well-read, that verse came with a little bit of Ouch.

i remember a time when i heard him whisper in my ear: "Brooke, do you want to trust your books or do you want to trust ME?" shortly thereafter, my counselor looked at me sternly and said, "you are not to figure anything out because you can't and it is not your job. that's HIS job" and then she sentenced me to the most beneficial discipline i have yet endured: 20 minutes a day sitting in His presence without questions or requests, just stillness. THAT is when i began being taught.

there are things that i KNOW now that i have always known, but never KNOWN. does this make sense? all the talking in the world, the best sermon illustrations, the most clever use of language cannot teach a heart what it needs to know. only the Lord can do that! He speaks into that secret place and His words are like a double-edged sword dividing and separating, bringing about shifts heart that translate into transformed life, mind, and emotion.

here's what George Mueller had to say about it:

"above all, he should seek to have it settled in his own mind that God alone, by His Spirit, can teach him, and that therefore, as God will be enquired of for blessings, it becomes him to seek God's blessing previous to reading, and also whilst reading...

"learned commentaries i have found to store the head with many notions and often also with the truth of God; but when the Spirit teaches, through the instrumentality of prayer and meditation, the heart is affected. the former kind of knowledge generally puffs up, and is often renounced when another commentary gives a different opinion, and often is also found good for nothing when it is to be carried out into practice. the latter kind of knowledge generally humbles, gives joy, leads us nearer to God, and is not easily reasoned away; and having been obtained from God, and thus having entered into the heart, and become our own, is generally carried out."

James 3:17 -- that's the right kind of wisdom; the kind that is only learned by that Spirit (oh, bless that Spirit, how I love Him!).

so I laughed knowingly the other day when I told jenn and tony that i'd taken my diplomas off my office wall at work last week, and they replied, "well, you can just put them in the basement storage with ours!" that's not knowledge. that's not wisdom. not the kind that counts. in this kingdom, that stuff matters very little.

My Rabbi,
I surrender my knowledge and my intellect to You again today and I consider it nothing that I may gain you and know You and the power of your resurrection. I want the wisdom that comes from heaven, even if it looks upside-down or ill-advised. You are the only wise King, the instructor of my heart. Let me hear your voice counseling me in the way that i should go. I want your laws written on my transformed heart so that i don't depart from them. To whom else shall I go? You have the words of everlasting life. Send your Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I may know you better.
Amen.

photo chalk board (the poor are always with us)

in my new bedroom at the boiler room, which is the master bedroom -- big enough to house my full-size bed, a desk, book cases, and a couple reading chairs, with a big closet to boot -- i also have a chalkboard wall. i have lined the edges of this chalkboard wall with photographs of people, places, and things that are beautiful, restorative, and happy to me. pictures of things like:

• the bench between trees at the edge of the lake at the old family cottage
• a cluster of wine grapes in leelenau peninsula
• pale pink, papery poppies growing alongside the fence in the alley
• chelsea, sarah, and me at lake michigan last month
• the twin vintage schwinns
  
• a friend's hands cupping a mug of hot tea
• my feet in the sand at the beach
• blackberry vines in the sun in oakland hills
• my little niece anna, face smeared with dark chocolate
• the speckled hens in jenn and tony's backyard

living and working alongside the poor, these images bring my senses and my imagination back to beauty, rest, and civility. they elevate me. i'm allowing this space to be, in every sense of the word, my retreat space.

BUT

one of the photos -- the one most directly in my line of vision when i sit down to type at this computer -- is of the cupped hands of a Rwandan farmer, holding the equivalent of perhaps 1/4 cup of dry beans and behind the hands are visible his tattered and dirty shorts.

i want to keep the poor always before me: that even in the enjoyment of blessings and beauty i do not forget that there are people in this world whose day's worth of sustenance can be contained in two open palms.

and when i leave this room, this house, and step out into the yard or venture out onto the sidewalks and streets of this neighborhood, i am stepping into their midst. and every day i hope to make choices of humility that bear in mind the need for justice and mercy for "the least of these," both near and far. God, never let me forget.