An Experiment in Transparency

Social media can be a dangerous thing. It can tell a compelling story that lacks detail, or show a beautiful piece of art, neglecting the shadows in the background. Social media is wonderful, because we can stay in touch with people we care about but cannot see or talk with frequently. It can be dangerous if that is the only way those people know us. It is so one dimensional.

So let's try an experiment in transparency.

I am not the perfect woman, friend, daughter, sister, leader, or grad student. Honestly, I am a perfect mess right now. I have large amounts of credit card debt and student loans that I will be paying for the rest of my life. I deal with anxiety and job stress on a daily basis, which often results in indigestion, hair loss, or migraines. I question myself, doubting if my abilities align with my sense of calling, or if I understand my sense of calling at all. I feel guilty about not being available enough for my friends, but resent too many demands on my all too little time. I struggle to overcome my controlling nature, and my "leadership qualities" (aka bossiness) often lands me in hot water. I am impatient, ungentle, discouraged, and tired.

....

I could just leave it there. I clearly don't have it all together, so maybe the point is that my messiness should encourage you, (“hey, at least I’m not sporting bald spots like that Graybill girl!”). Or maybe, just maybe, I should talk a little less about me, and a little bit more about those who are responsible for the best I have to offer. You see, my ungraciousness has been worn away by those friends whose gentleness shines from them like spring sunshine. My bossiness has been refined to actual leadership skills because of the guidance and example of supervisors, mentors, and bosses, who each took time to invest in who I was and who I am becoming. My self-absorption and roller-coaster emotions have been buffered and caressed into a more genuine nature by the unconditional and unfathomable love of my mom. My arrogance has been humbled by the wisdom of my dad, and my rudeness quenched by the grace of my brother. My irresponsibility has experienced accountability in the generous figures of my grandparents, and my anxiety quelled by the prayers of my best friend.

Ultimately, substantially, I owe any of the good I do or grace I exhibit to who I believe God is, and how I allow my God to work on and through me. That is the point I am oh-so-clumsily trying to make. I am not perfect; I am not even remarkable. I am very, very human. But each day that I grow to be a little bit more like the Jesus I love, I consider to be a good day. And each of those days I owe entirely to God and to the amazing people He has put in my life.

So to each of you, to those I owe my grand life and never thank enough, “thank you”. Stay amazing. 

And to each of you who feel like perfect messes today too, I highly suggest taking a walk in the wild. There is something incredibly healing about feeling totally accepted and at home in nature. Give it a try, I dare you. Just don't forget to come home again. Tomorrow is a brand new day.  

For Gram

Today I made a sweet potato casserole, and I thought of you.

Catholics believe I can talk to you, and you will hear. And maybe even put in a good word for me with our Father in heaven. I wonder if you can see me.

Do you remember making sweet potato casseroles every Thanksgiving? I remember.


I kind of hope you can't see me. I believe heaven is a happy place, and I can only imagine you would cry if you could see the world you left behind.

Today we are on the brink of World War III. Immigrants fleeing terrorism have no place to go. Terrorists go everywhere. Politicians argue policy while people starve and die. Religious persecution runs rampant. Fear is the word of the day.

At the expense of humanity we label, blame, and vilify. "All white people are rich and ignorant". "All black people are angry and violent". We see in two colors, and we lump each other into blanket categories for our own comfort.

Compassion is viewed as stupidity, faith as irrationality.

And yet, I believe. I believe in a better world, a world where we view each other as brothers and sisters. A world where orphans are adopted and widows are loved. A world where bombs and drones are no longer the answer.

I hope you cannot see this world. But, I confess, a small part of me hopes you can see the very first sweet potato casserole I ever made. I think you'd be proud of me.

If you can hear me, say hello to Grandpa for me. And happy Thanksgiving.

A Girl Named General.

If I ever have a daughter, I will name her General.

......

Every time she enters a room and is greeted by her name, she receives a verbal salute.

She will know that she is worthy of respect.

Brave.

Strong.

Free.

She can lead.

She can listen.

And most importantly, she will always fight for what is right.

......

Names are powerful, and so are little girls.

Image retrieved from: http://www.athleta.net/2014/04/18/strong-is-the-new-pretty/

On Nonviolence & a Warrior's Heart

Big, hot tears glistened in round, baby-brown eyes and rolled down over sweet chubby cheeks as his lower lip trembled. My precious little 6-year-old brother was crying. And 8-year-old me, in a frilly Sunday dress, felt a white-hot rage engulf me in an instant. That moment was all it took. I let a punch fly, connecting squarely with the jaw of the bully who just dared to call my brother "fat". It sent him straight to the deck, or rather, the blacktop outside of the front door of our church. This was particularly unfortunate, as the service had just let out, and so my little act of very non-Mennonite aggression had been witnessed by more than a few. 

Who wouldn't want to protect this adorable kid?!

Fast-forward a week - I had to write a letter of apology to the boy's mother for striking her son, even though she said that he deserved what he got. Fast-forward to high school - the "bully" is actually a pretty cool guy, and he and my brother and I are all actually friends, and I have never felt the need to punch him in the face again. Skip ahead to grad school - I have had the urge to punch quite a few people in the face since my single flirtation with violence, but gratefully report that no one has been harmed in the making of this memoir. Only once did I take a swing at someone, (unsuccessfully, thanks to the quick interventions of a few good friends,) and in that case, I was being sexually harassed at a bar, so at the time I figured it was justified. Why do I share these slightly ridiculous stories, do you ask? Well, I have actually been struggling with the whole notion of the practice of pacifism in our violent world today, so this is more like "thinking out loud". 

For clarification, while the Mennonite tradition, (with which I do most closely align theologically, and to which I credit my spiritual development as well as family background,) does include a strict pacifist standard, my home church had never "enforced" this mantra. Rather, we were the church in the district that had families representing military service, and so were allowed by the Bishop to simply say nothing at all, rather than condemn a non-pacifist lifestyle. Yeah, I'm very grateful for my "fringe" church, it was a great family to grow with. As a whole, they grasped the best tenets of the Anabaptist faith and ran with them in a way that Jesus would in the 21st century.

Aside from avidly supporting our military sisters and brothers, which I do wholeheartedly, I began feeling convicted a few years ago about how my expression of either peace or violence represented Christ as He would walk in our world today. Because I have a confession...I have a warrior's heart. When I hear of injustice in the political system of this nation, some travesty committed against the helpless in another, and the overall degradation of our world as a whole, I get angry. And not necessarily like the cool righteous anger that was involved in the whole Jesus-flipping-tables incident, but an anger that makes me want to take someone down for what has occurred, to wring some justice out of the dirty dishrag that we have created of our universe. 

But since even the Son of God refused to be a militant Messiah, I have tried to never allow my first "fight" instinct to control me, but to rather combat injustice with truth and love. In college, when a favorite professor and 7 other members of faculty were unjustly removed from their positions, I used my role as Student Chaplain to encourage and organize a peaceful protest, one that involved written petitions and public statements rather than angry protests. Ironically, even that manner of questioning the actions of authority resulted in a meeting with University leaders who called my behavior "un-Christlike" and "inflammatory". I suppose truth is often inflammatory, but so was Christ. 

The only real conclusion I have discovered is that I have a deep and abiding belief in nonviolence, but I am not a pacifist. The basic difference here, is perhaps best explained through the words of Francis Schaeffer.

 "The Bible is clear here: I am to love my neighbor as myself, in the manner needed, in a practical way, in the midst of the fallen world, at my particular point of history. This is why I am not a pacifist. Pacifism in this poor world in which we live - this lost world - means that we desert the people who need our greatest help."

I say that I am not a pacifist because I believe that there are times when, in defense of the defenseless, violence is necessary. If I see my neighbor attacked on the street, I will respond with protective force because I believe that is the loving response. I do however believe in nonviolence as an overarching way of life, which includes committing to a peaceful response when I am personally threatened, physically or verbally, and to advocate for peaceful resolution strategies as the first option always in any conflict. I do not get this right all the time, or even most of the time. (Case in point, taking a swing at a pervert in a bar.) And at some point, I would also like to share some thoughts on what I have learned about how nonviolence must be present in our language, how we speak to and about one another, as well as our actions, for our belief in peace to be valid.

But I keep trying. I keep trying because I believe that those of us who were born with warrior hearts are necessary. I believe God can use this nature as a force for good and justice and yes, ultimately peace in the face of evil. But that is only possible if warriors submit their raging hearts to the One who created their very souls.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, my "little" brother protects me now, so watch what you say...

My Sister Act

Total transparency - the past few months have been filled with frustration, pain, discouragement, and loss. The last several weeks have been particularly hard, and as I prepare for a brand new week, I had to share some reflections. I'm going to skip over the hurricane of my Monday-Friday drama, and focus solely on how the Lord came through in a big way, in a completely unexpected way, in a God-sized, magical kind-of-way.

I decided to visit a monastery. I was facing an inevitable emotional breakdown about four weeks ago, and I knew it would take something a little crazy to overcome the overwhelming hurdles I was facing. So, in classic Steph style, I chose something a little nutty. I decided to visit Mount St. Benedict, a monastery of Benedictine nuns in Harborcreek, PA, about 40 minutes away. The pastor of a church I had been attending mentioned that he had stayed in a guest cabin at the Mount during his sabbatical, and so I sent the Sisters an email and arranged to stay from Saturday morning into Sunday afternoon.

Let me put this in perspective. I had never even set foot in a Catholic church before that weekend. Raised in the Anabaptist tradition, I had always harbored a vague fear and distrust of Catholics, which had something to do with that denomination's ancient history of burning my ancestors at the stake, and also a suspicion that Catholics really just sat around and worshiped statues of Mary. On top of that, pretty much all I knew about nuns I learned from The Sound of Music and Sister Act.

But I believed that I needed silence and solitude, so to the Mount I fled. What I encountered was unlike anything I have experienced before. I found a community of good, godly, genuinely loving women who welcomed me like a friend. The Sisters of St. Benedict are educated, intelligent, hard-working women, who dedicate their lives to living in community and advocating for social justice, peace, and equality. They love God and they love others. It is that simple. I was welcomed, hugged, and invited to participate in the Eucharist. Sisters actively saved seats for me in the sanctuary, and had a praise book laid out with all the pages marked so that I could follow along. I suspect that I found myself nestled in the second to front row with a lot of musical Sisters during my first Evening Praise so that I could comfortably copy their voices and movements, instead of struggling to join in from the back row. I had Sisters to sit and eat with, and Sisters to invite me to their movie night. (Oh by the way, these Sisters do not wear habits, but they do watch tv, espouse feminist ideals, and tell very funny stories and jokes that I could never have anticipated hearing from a nun.) They are self-acknowledging "normal people". Yes, I walked the grounds of the monastery and participated in "spiritual direction". I spent some time in solitude and silence. But unexpectedly, sweetly, the most life-changing moments I experienced during this weekend were spent simply being with the Sisters. These authentic, beautiful, dear Catholic nuns.

But that's the great thing. When I am at Mount St. Benedict, I don't see the "Catholic Church," I see the Church. The living, breathing, loving body of Christ. I see Jesus in motion. I see the miraculous hand of God at work in the simplicity of community life and selfless friendship. I have walked in peace and felt the touch of God's sustaining hand, and I have experienced Emmanuel, "God with us", at the Mount. I carry Emmanuel with me.

I have glossed over the details of what happened during my weekend at the Mount, but I simply put to you that it was one of the most life-changing weekends of my life, even in its uneventful simplicity. In the quiet easiness of community I found healing. I have since attended several workshops with the Sisters, and regularly participate in Sunday Morning Praise and Liturgy at the Mount. I have found a community, and this community has loved me.

Yes, these fabulous ladies tease about recruiting me; one Sister just this morning elbowed me as she walked past my seat and asked when I was moving in. I find these indications of invitation and warmth both heartwarming and intriguing. When my grandfather asked me on the phone if "those nuns have converted you?", I responded quite seriously, quite joyfully, "I would sign up in a second for what these women have". And isn't that the point of our life here on this earth? To be such an authentic reflection of Jesus that others cannot help but be drawn to His very heart.

So, who knows what the future holds? I know that I don't. What I do know is that my desire to actively pursue the heart of God drew me to the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, and I have been forever changed because of their friendship. What happens next, well, in the words of Maria, "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window."

2k14 Lessons & Resolutions(ish)

(Blogged while listening to Wild Wild Love.)

As I look back on the entirely crazy and largely fantastic year of 2014, I've compiled a list of lessons/wisdom/ironic anecdotes that I have gathered over the past 12 months. May they inspire, convict, or simply entertain you. Also, may they remind me throughout the year of the value of growth and the ability to find humor in every situation.

1. God > Family > Friends > Everything Else...
2. Change is normal, change is inevitable, and above all, change is good. To resist is foolish and futile, and to blame someone for natural growth is unhealthy.
3. The fastest way to grow and mature is to put yourself in an alien environment far outside of your comfort zone and [humbly] make it work... Read: spend an entire summer as a Yankee, post-college camp counselor in the south.
4. Drive like I have my pregnant best friend in the passenger seat (even when she is safely at home munching pickles and singing along to Pentatonix!)
5. Make a life playlist. Seriously. I create a new playlist in my iTunes for every season of life or special trip, and add songs that are important to me at that time. Then later I can hit "shuffle" and enjoy a musical time transport. (Wake Me Up will always bring me back to France...)
6. Good friends know you will drink all their coffee and wine, and they invite you over anyway.
7. Changing life goals is okay - if you didn't pursue your past ambitions, they wouldn't have led you to your current dreams. 
8. Being a morning person isn't so bad, in fact, it is quite good for you. (I am a reconditioning night owl.)
9. Death is holy business. Joining journeys with someone who is dying puts living in perspective, and gives new reverence for the gift of breath within our bodies. For believers, death is a natural, progressive part of eternal life. As humans we have lost the art of dying "well". I have been privileged to witness two close relatives live a good life and die a good death. Because of their example, I intend to live and eventually die well. 
10. Sparkle and light your own fire. You are wonderful.
11. "Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman." {Coco Chanel}
12. Recognize the difference between someone who likes you and someone who "wants" you.
13. Find the perfect combination of professional and classy, then apply to all areas of life.
14. Be alone, not lonely. 
15. Love yourself. You would only be more awesome if you had a mermaid tale. 
16. Challenge the status quo. Don't be antagonistic for the sake of being an ass, but at least within yourself seriously contemplate your assumptions. 
17. Observe a Sabbath. 
18. Singleness, seasonal or otherwise, is fantastic! 
19. Challenge inequality. Social justice is a life-long calling. 
20. Never burn bridges, (unless those suckers are clearly evil, unhealthy barricades!) You never know when you could run into someone again, or who may recall you as "that Christian" they once knew... Make sure you represent yourself and the Christ-in-you well. 
21. Live courageously. All good things are wild and free. 

There are so many more thoughts I could add or stories I could tell, but this late at night I begin to ache for my bed, (mostly because the sooner I sleep the sooner I can wake up and drink coffee!) 

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him..." {Romans 15:13}, and feliz 2015 to each of you!