Jamii

Today's kiswahilli word of the day is jamii. It means community or family, and it's been heavy on my mind lately. More specifically, where the distinctive lines for family are drawn, what it means to be a true community, and how I can best preserve these relationships and embrace my independent vision.

I am sorry for the MIA status this last week. Life has been throwing me some curveballs, and in the midst of some really intense soul-searching, it's about all I can do to keep my head above water right now. I'll resume with the inspirational/introspective entries when I regain some of my usual Ally-ness, but right now, there isn't a lot left in the well. So, today's entry is humble and soul-bearing.

Thank you so much to everyone for carrying me when I am too tired to walk.

I need your prayers, your strength and your conviction. I now understand the meaning of "it takes a village."

To the ones giving me a piggyback ride right now:

kel - You've got the realism-thing down pat. I love knowing that you have my back and you'll fight for me. Coffee was therapuetic...even if I was up OBSCENELY early. You're amazing.

e - Thank you for not letting me give up and being my pointman when I'm too tired/afraid to plan. You are a rock and my mentor.

cass - Your compassionate ear is an oasis in the desert. You refresh me.

ty - I don't know if you read this, but your humor uplifts my spirit, and you cut through all my crap. Thank you for being real.

joolee & sarah - Your vision is inspiring. I hope that my eyes can shine as brightly as yours. Thank you for walking with me down the hill and up it.

Badaye. (Later).

kupenda

(Kiswahili) V: To love

As my birthday celebrations have finally halted, I decided tonight to revisit birthday card wishes and swim around in the afterglow.

The topic of today's blog comes straight out of a card from my fantastic buddies Sarah & Julius. As I read this word, I was reminded of why I get up everyday...to love.

Remember how I spent yesterday pondering the "meaningless" nature of life? I still find beauty in that, but I found a way that I can make my little space in the world mean something, and truly live Ecclesiastes 9:7. Walk in the everyday, living kupenda.

I read a quote today that stopped time. Seriously - the clock jumped from 8:02 to 8:05. That's how earth-shatteringly true this is.

"When I look around and see the poor suffering from social and emotional alienation, I understand how Christ can feel so sad to see himself alienated in them. The alienation that the poor suffer is the alienation that Christ suffers." - Mother Teresa

Could it be any more simple than that? Why do we walk past them when it could be so much easier to embrace kupenda?

Just imagine:
- Two seconds filled with a kind smile = an invitation to join your life for a moment
- Lovingly listening after you ask "How are you?" = the difference between a good and a bad day
- Thanking someone you take for granted every day = wiping away the alienation Christ suffered

It does us good to remember that there exists more emotional poverty in America than actual economic poverty. How many people in our offices are slowly and painfully dying of alienation? Would it be that hard to breathe in, sigh "kupenda" and take a minute to care?

Love kept for ourselves in the reservoir of our heart's chalice will not empty, but will instead grow stagnant. A full heart that is overflowing benefits from a continuous rebirth at its source. It never stops regenerating, but is refreshed with the purity of new blood.

Today's Soundtrack: I Believe (When I Fall in Love it Will be Forever) - Stevie Wonder

Squint your eyes and look closer

I've been dying to share this picture of pure, living joy. It is courtesy of photographer extraordinaire Tim Phillips. Enter this Monday afternoon/night with this imprint on your souls. Julius Were and two precious young angels...all their faces shimmering with God's blessings. Amen.

PREFACE: Today's entry requires a soundtrack. For an optimal reading experience, I advise listening to your favorite song of joy while reading this. Throw it on, share it in the comments, and dive in. The water's warm, and I'm swimming around with Ani DiFranco's "32 Flavors."

Those of you who know me well know that I ADORE passing along things people say, write, sing or impart that imprint my heart. I'm like a child who just learned the names of the planets or how photosynthesis works.

My fascination with things others do and say encourages me to be open to new ideas, and also guarantees that a good 99% of my front-end analysis will borrow from someone else's genius. (Spread the knowledge, dude. There's a lot in this world to wrap your head around.) For a thought or idea to become my own internalized creation, I've got to talk it out. About 20 minutes into a conversation, you'll probably start to get my take on something.

Today, I want to break down the pleasure of enjoying our journey through life.

I’ve been chewing on this topic for the last year or so, but it has become magnified in this decision to go to Kenya. I've consumed various sermons on the topic and mulled it over in discussions with virtually everyone important to me. I've talked it out backwards, forwards, withwards, around and through.

All this talk about really seeing the joy in things has gotten to be hard work.

In my intensity I get going so furiously after something that I forget to look around me and breathe. I've spent a lot of time in prayer asking for the impulse to squint my eyes a little harder and see journey unfolding around me. That's why this blog has been so fantastic and reflective…it forces me to slow down and unpack the process.

I had time to wind down over lunch today, so I read Ecclesiastes. It’s not exactly an easy read, but it came highly recommended, and I figured it would nicely compliment a study in wisdom that I’m undertaking in Proverbs.

So, I flopped my bible open, and dove in. After backstroking for awhile, I come to the realization that this book repeatedly says that everything on earth is meaningless. It goes as such:

"No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it." Ecclesiastes 8:17

After that soul-searching assertion, I was forced to wonder - who cares about the journey if the end means nothing? Any other day, I would have sort of despaired in that truth, but today, I noticed that hope followed:

"Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do." Ecclesiastes 9:7

In the midst of comparing these two verses, it smacked me: We are all on the same playing field. All of us sin EQUALLY. All of us love and hurt and understand nothing EQUALLY. We're all squinting to see the truth around us during the journey, but none of us can wrap our minds around truth, reason, or meaning completely, so this world IS meaningless...and that is beautiful!

You see, life is meaningless, but it is not pointless, and that is where the call to appreciate the journey comes in. THAT is why we are called to enjoy the journey, as the last verse says, to eat and drink what we are blessed with, and to appreciate the portion of our life we live. We are invited to revel in the process, the procuring of things, but we must let them slip through our lives as quickly as we own them. The possessions of this world are but wind, and we are lucky to even have them for a season.

Go forth, and own Ecclesiastes 9:7. That is my wishful prayer for you all today.

...and would it kill you to share the wine with your buddy Ally? :)

lum.in.ous

adj: bathed in or exposed to steady light

I get really jazzed about the small things in life. For example...
A steaming cup of sumatra glimpsed through my bleary eyes' slits at 7:23 a.m.,
a particularly blackberry-flavored Red Zinfandel, after the bottle has been open for a minute or two...and after an exhausting day,
lightly cascading snow in the glow of a streetlight,
sixty degree sunshine warming my wintry skin,
street light colors streaking across the pavement at night...red, green, yellow, red,
children smiling sweetly - especially when they know I'm enraptured,
and stars...lord, how I love getting lost in the vastness above me.

The last time I surveyed the infiniteness of the heavens I can see was during trip to Lawrence.

I was running a little early to meet my friend Tyler, and I pulled off the road about 10 minutes before I got there. I eased off the highway and found a road that was so dark, it blended into the blackness of the horizon. Parked squarely in the middle of the dirt path, surrounded by silence, I turned up The Postal Service's Give Up album. Mood appropriately set, headlights off, blue VW interior lights glowing, car heated to the warmth of a July day, I took off my coat, and opened up the sunroof. The heavens expanded before me, and the synthesizer beat bleeped in sync with the stars' flashing. I felt like I could float up through the hole above me, and extend my body out the length of the sky, touching everything around me. I felt so small. It was fantastic.

I'm reading David Crowder's book, Praise Habit, and he has encapsulated Psalm 8, a testament to the heavens' beauty, in such incredible language. I don't know where this translation came from, but as I read these words this morning, I was transported back to that reflective November night off K-10.

God, brilliant Lord,
yours is a household name.

Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?

Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden's dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.

God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.

My words can't do the majesty of the Lord justice. So today, I revel in the past realizations of smallness, and look forward to those life-imprinting memories to come.

Napendwa

In kiswahili Napendwa means "Am loved." Although I've thought I got it, I've never understood the true meaning of this.

In the Psalms, you'll frequently find a term called selah - its interpretation is understood as "a holy pause." It also is associated with the inability to speak.

Tonight, I am completely without words, and completely blessed. I am content, and bathing in the beauty that is my life. Thank you to you all. You are my song. You are my life. You are my reason for being here, and YOU are my string. I can think of no other way to wrap it up.

So...I leave you all with my journal's thanks from this morning, before I was without words.

1. The proverbs sermon from Tim Keel at Jacob's Well last week
2. Proverbs 10. Recognize.
3. A meeting with The Bohemians that bore so much fruit
4. A BEAUTIFUL Saturday night in Lawrence
5. An impromptu birthday wish from the Heartland Assist team on Saturday morning
6. Bagel birthday wishes from Marcia Merrick
7. $1 for Kenya from Bill Howe
8. The money for Kenya has been flowing in...I believe you now, ok?!?!?!?!!!!
9. Friday night with Cass was a study in beauty. The Bristol, the Symphony, M&S Grill...all of it.
10. My boss' beautiful comments on Friday, as well as the wisdom she imparted. I am blessed by her. Virginia - I TREASURE you.
11. Last night's Jacob's Well experience, and a great conversation with a new friend
12. Craig's encouragement...he is so amazingly supportive
13. God's AMAZING providence and serendipity
14. David Crowder, Jimmy John's and 65+ degree weather yesterday at Loose Park!
15. This gift of wisdom. I cannot fully understand or wrap my arms around it, but He allows us to learn the vastness of His mystery in a way we can comprehend.
16. MY FAVORITE NUMBER!!! Happy 25th to me!!!!
17. The gifts of my person that have come alive under my surrender to God.
18. Sharpies, LORD - how I LOOOOVE those things.
19. Small blessings...see above :)
20. Big miracles. When I let God in, He delivers so incredibly.
21. My ability to TOTALLY f* up a birthday celebration by trying to plan it myself.
22. Kelli. I heart you. For now, and forever, you have known me better than I've known myself. I am lucky and blessed to know you....and to spoil your surprises so SPECTACULARLY.
23. Cass...the depth is unfathomable. I hope we travel through the quicksand forever from now until the end of time. Heaven will be a sweet place with you next to me.
24. My family. More than a mere X & Y...I can't even begin to explain. Mommy - you are so beautiful, and I'm lucky to have even a shred of your loveliness and compassion. Daey - your wisdom is my heart's siren song...I cannot forget it. You are my standard, and I am not ashamed by that. Adam - if I can know what TRUE generosity is, I will learn it from you. You will find the way spreading out before you, and you deserve all it extends.

25. My God. For every year I've been here, your providence has afforded me the luckiest of circumstances, and endless blessings. Words cannot do you justice, and my life is my meager sacrifice. If I can live even one day with an ounce of your discernment, it is better than that which I could have hoped for.

Lastly, I leave you with the beauty of Julius' words for my birthday: "To age is human...to not show it, absolutely divine."

I'll wear 25 like a glove, 50 like a dress and 75 like a fur :)

Get yo' praise on...

"I've been looking for you, I realized nothing else will satisfy me
I'm so glad I found you, now that I'm changed, no one can keep me away from you."

I HEART Kirk Franklin. His new song, "Looking for You" is a feel-good, dancetastic, funky-feelin' praise up to the big man. I've been checking it out on the radio, singing along in the car, and I couldn't stop dancing. This guy knows how to make some Jesus-tastic music.

I had to cave to the pressure and pick up the songs on iTunes as a little early-birthday present for my sidekick, Gator (the coolest iPod ever). Gotta say, I'm groovin, and I can't wait for this weekend's birthday celebrations. I apologize in advance to whoever rides in my car for the next two weeks. This song WILL be on repeat. Better recognize.

Thanks to all who made 24 a great year. I hope the world can handle Ally at 25 :) Posting will resume after I've celebrated properly...and I'll re-emerge with a date for the Upendo party.

Wrapping the string around the tent

My buddy Bruce posted a comment to my last blog asking what else was on my mind besides Kenya lately. I confess, I have been sort of a one-track mind sort of girl, but in an effort to vary the life of this blog up, I've got other stuff to share. There HAVE been other things going on :)

First, I'm turning 25 on the 16th, and I have an almost certain feeling that this next year is going to be stellar. I'm thinking of ways to make an even bigger difference. I keep moving forward, growing, getting more settled into these bones. It feels good getting older and wiser. I'll post more about that later.

Aside from Kenya, the biggest extracurricular I've been working on is a new approach to a women's group. My friends Cass, Elizabeth and I started ruminating about ways to get a bunch of women together to really interact with each other and the world. We love having great one-on-one conversations about the world, culture, God, love, hurt, etc. and it seemed like a revolutionary idea to get people together to discuss the threads that tie through all of those issues.

Coincidentally, a woman recently wrote a book about the Red Tent phenomenon in the Old Testament that piqued our interest. The story is like this - when women were menstruating, they were considered ceremonially unclean, and thus, unfit to enter the temple. The women gathered in tents in the city for the duration, and basically had a really fun sleepover.

Can you imagine how much they must have discussed? For 3-5 days, the most intelligent women would mingle with the least advantaged. Puritans next to prostitutes. Surely they could only gossip for a little while, then the discussion must have turned to other things...other ways to relate through their differences. They could have discussed ways that culture merged with their religion, or problems that were common to all of them - issues with children, the world, their insecurities. What rich discussion! Women our age are STARVING for this sort of deep interaction. We are desperate to find a commonality amongst each other while preserving our individuality.

So, based on this ancient concept, we created a format to adapt this idea to modern day living. A group of 10-15 will meet on the first Thursday of every month to explore life and support each other. The format is simple: it's part field trip, part study session, part support group. It's not exclusive to Christians, although the majority of us are, and we're very respectful of where people are on their journey. It's extremely important that the environment is safe, honest and supportive, and most importantly, that no consensus is reached from our discussion. No matter what the topic is, I never want people to leave saying, "so we covered this, and here's our answer."

This last week was our first event, and it was a bigger success than I could have imagined. We met at Elizabeth's house and women who barely knew each other put their junk out for all of us to look at. People walked away with a different lens to view life through. We got to know each other, ate, laughed and cried. We explored what it's like to really be known, and what that means to each of us.

But the coolest part was...it went NOTHING like we had planned. We all had a framework, a vision of what we could discuss, and the group took on a life of its own. It was organic and beautiful. That, my friends, was exactly what I had wished for, but couldn't have predicted.

I'm happy to have an amazing group of friends in Kansas City that I'm constantly learning from. I'm glad that we don't gossip about each other because our life is too busy with important things. Our minds are too engaged with investing in building people up and being positive. We're not too important for earthly things, it's just that there's so much cool stuff around us to see and explore and dissect that we don't have time to get caught up in the crap.

And that is why I know 25 is going to be great :)

Free

I wanna see one of these guys. He's reason #3 that I'm excited about going to Kenya. Real nature. None of this behind the cage at a zoo crap. They're out in public. Living. Breathing. Making that cool noise they make that's like a REALLY loud horn.

I bet they don't get stressed out. And they're just as blessed as we are. They're under the same beautiful sky, enjoying all the bounty of the world.

We have it better because we have thoughtful realization...supposedly. I'm happy that I can think and create and be all the things that make me human. But today, as I check items off my to-do list, think about getting my transmission fluid changed, and wonder if I have enough time to go to the store before my Red Tent group meets, I wonder:

What would my day look like if I lived like he does? Simply. Free. Walking around, eating grass, pausing to enjoy the bounty of life and spraying people with water?

pu·ri·fy

verb: to free from undesirable elements; to grow or become pure or clean

It feels good to be reminded of your "undesirable elements" i.e. weaknesses. I never thought it would be freeing, but I'm glad to know I've got places in my life that are being refined over a (very painful) fire. As my feet have been held to the coals, I recognize two things:

I've been really good at self-doubt, thinking whatever I did was worse than other people, and I'm pretty damn sick of it. After a lifetime of punishing myself, I give up.

I'm PETRIFIED of failing.

I spent some time in Psalms right before '05 ended, and chapters 25-30 leapt off the page, soothing my soul. I used to think these random, mysterious musings weren't anything amazing until recently. There is every bit of the life I've lived and what I've felt in this book. Love, pain, hurt, dependence, worthlessness, hope, fear, doubt, you name it. AND, it's written superbeautifully.

As someone who needs to hear that she's on the right track a lot (thanks to the amazing friends that recognize this), a few spots jumped out at me -

"My heart leaps for joy
and I will give thanks to Him in song."
- Psalm 28:7

That is the purpose of this blog, of this trip. I never knew a trip to Kenya could be a song to Him, but it is. I sing out upendo every time I talk with you about this. My heart leaping for joy is just as apparent.

"When I felt secure, I said,
'I will never be shaken.'
O Lord, when you favored me,
you made my mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed."
- Psalm 30: 6-7

I'm not going to lie. I'm afraid. I'm afraid I won't be able to get it together and save and raise the money for this trip. AND, if I don't, then I'm afraid I'm failing my calling, because I've never been so excited about anything in my entire life. What if the biggest answer through the clouds I've gotten ISN'T what I'm supposed to be doing? What if God will hide his face?

The fear of failing is a curse that plagues us all and has stuck with me for a long time. The next step in my purification is to humbly ask for your prayers, and your support. I am desperate for it.

In this next week, I've got to get started planning this party, and I'm scared that no one will believe in my vision to see a beautiful part of the world and help these children.

So, as my next step in this journey, take my string in your hands, and please pray for me.

Pray that this trip will be blessed. Pray that people will support this and believe in it. Pray that I'll be able to touch the faces of children who have no one else to do it. Pray that I'll walk through the doorway to Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity and wave at them for all of us back here. Pray that if I don't go, that my faith will be strengthened, because I'll understand why it didn't come together.

Asking for your help holding my feet to the fire is a huge step for me, but I trust you all with my heart. As one of my favorite songs says, "You've got to let the fire burn you just to get clean again..."