Give

I happened upon this video tonight when doing research for my job ("Who do you work for, Celia?"  Check out www.ccfof.org if you're curious).  Anyway, it's kind of long, but worth your time.  And you'd usually take about 8 minutes to read one of my written posts, right?

 "⁴¹Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. ⁴²But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins,^[a]worth only a fraction of a penny.^[b]

 ⁴³Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. ⁴⁴They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on." - Mark 12:41-44 (NIV)

Money Grows on Trees

Do you ever wonder where God is?

Do you ever just look around and see all the bad things happening in the world, and wonder how God could exist in the midst of everything?

Do you have an exceedingly difficult time believing that God is working in your life?  That God cares?

Do you ever feel like God is just ignoring you?

Do you think it's possible that God is right in front of us, that we see God everyday, and that we just don't notice?

I do.

In my last blog post, I wrote about how it's possible that the reason we can't hear or see or feel God is because we're too focused on our own lives, our own schedules.  I suggested that maybe God is there all around us, but we're just too busy to pay attention.

But just how much do we really miss?

I happened across this video on YouTube tonight.  Take a look...

Whether or not it was the intent of the creator of this video or not, I think that this is a perfect example of how we sometimes respond to God.

There's basically four responses that people have to the tree...

1) They don't notice it at all.

2) They see the tree, but don't take any money from it.

3) They see the tree, and take money from it.

4) They see the tree, take money from it, and point it out to other passerby so that they can experience the tree too.

...I feel like where I'm going might be self-explanatory...but let's go there anyway.

I would like to think that if I walked under a tree filled with dollar bills, that I would notice.  Especially if I had to DUCK under the tree.  At that point, you're just going out of your way to avoid the tree...how in the world could you NOT see it?  But SO MANY PEOPLE in the video did just that.  They walked quickly past the tree, not even noticing how extraordinarily unusual, generous, and inviting it was.  They were so invested in their own lives, that they didn't even notice that money was growing on trees right in front of them.

Other people saw the tree, saw the money in it, and just kept walking.  I'm thinking, "What's WRONG with these people???"  I get the whole idea that "maybe-it's-not-for-me-so-I-shouldn't-touch-it.  But at least stop and LOOK at it a bit closer...and then maybe you'd see that the tree was meant for you to experience all along.

Then there's the predictable people who saw the tree, got excited, and took money from it.  A few people even took several bills from the tree.  They saw something awesome, and let themselves experience it.

The fourth group of people, though, is my favorite.  These people saw the tree, got all excited, took a bill or two from the tree...but then they stopped and went out of their way to point out to other people what they were missing.  They stopped their lives, and intervened in the lives of others...making sure that no one missed this miraculous thing that they were so willingly or blindly passing by.

Now stop and switch the tree out with God in your mind.

Think about that for a second...

Most of the time, people want to believe that they'll be in the group that sees the tree, that sees God.  I definitely want to assume that I'd be in that group.  Maybe, if you're feeling particularly selfless today, you'll want to believe that you'll be in the group that sees the tree (and sees God) and points the awesomeness out to other people.  I'd also like to believe that I'd be a part of THAT group.

But really....how many times are we the people who ignore the tree (and ignore God), or just don't see it at all (or don't notice God)?

See where I'm going with this?

Maybe this video, charming as it is, is screaming at us with a problem with our culture today.  Actually, forget our culture...it's a problem with us.  With you and me.  We can be so self-absorbed that we don't even notice the spectacular.  Or we can be so proud that even when we DO see something amazing, we choose not to experience it.  Or, even if we do take notice, we might be so excited in our own experience that we forget to use it to help other people.  If it's all about us, it's never about other people...it's never about something beyond ourselves.  

It goes for the good and the bad.

So maybe you're thinking now:

"How could you just ignore a tree like that?  I'd never just pass by it without doing anything."

...but how many times do you walk past a homeless person without taking notice?

I've done it countless times.

"Of course I'd tell other people about the tree!!"

...but how many times do you keep back important information from people because you're afraid of an awkward situation by bringing up something that might be uncomfortable?

Done that one a lot too.

Personally, I found this video to be an exceedingly charming idea, but also really challenging.

How would you feel if you made the money tree for everyone to see and love and take joy from, but they just walked by your gift without noticing?  That's probably how God feels every time we fail to notice the gloriousness of His creation, or of His work in our own lives.  I would hate to make God feel like that.  

So I better pay better attention.

The other thing I loved about the tree was that most people who took from the tree only took one bill.  For them, it wasn't about the money; it was about the goodwill behind the money.

So maybe we shouldn't get caught up looking for blessings from God, but should just stop and appreciate God for God's sake.

So I probably should stop wondering what God can do for me, and look at everything He's already done.

Sometimes the extraordinary appears in the ordinary.  But most of the time, we only see the ordinary.  How lame is that?  Maybe we should look a little deeper.

And maybe...

When we DO happen across a tree of money...

Maybe we shouldn't be afraid to let ourselves accept the gift which it offers...

...and maybe we should go out of our way to show other people the tree as well.

Don't you think?

Speed Limit

So I speed when I drive.  It's time we get this out in the open.


I'm not one of those maniacs who goes blazing down a 30 mph street at 70+mph...but I'm probably going about 37 or so.  And if there IS someone going 30 mph, I get all annoyed at their legal morality, and I sternly say "MOVE!" in a frustrated tone that no one can hear because I'm generally in the car by myself, and of course the driver in question can't hear me because there's my car and air and their car separating them from my frustrated voice.


When I would drive back to St. Louis from Kentucky in the not-so-distant undergraduate years, the speed limit would decline as you passed from state to state.  And  it DROVE


ME 


CRAZY.


I'd start out in a 70mph zone driving through Kentucky (naturally driving 77 mph), slow down to 50mph in Louisville (fine, it's a city, no worries...in fact, the traffic generally freaked me out and I'd actually go LESS than the speed limit for fear of getting run over by a merging semi).  And then in Indiana the speed limit hopped back up to 70, and I'd resume my happy 77mph, setting the cruise control to reflect this very efficient-feeling but not-TOO-illegal speed.

And then would come Illinois...where the interstate speed limit is only 65.  And I would just keep speeding along at 77mph...after all, my cruise control's already set, and everything's been fine driving this speed so far.  What's the big difference between Indiana and Illinois highways that causes 70mph to suddenly become more dangerous than it was before the invisible state line?  If anything, Illinois is flatter (more flat?), implying that Indiana just doesn't care for its drivers' safety like Illinois does, I suppose.


And after Illinois would come the glorious moment when I not only entered Missouri, but St. Louis itself, the city where I grew up and the point in the trip that I always classified as being "home", even if I still had a good 40 minutes or so ahead of me before I actually reached my driveway.


And here is where things would get really frustrating.


Not only would the speed limit suddenly become 60mph (remember, I'm still cruising along at 77), but I would inevitably hit rush hour traffic that would FURTHER slow me down, until finally I maneuvered my way around standstill traffic and looping interchanges and came to where I-44 meets MO-109, the intersection where my high school happily and predictably stands, and where I'm less than 20 minutes from home.


But by this point I've been driving for over 6 hours.  20 more minutes isn't going to cut it.

If you've ever driven the stretch of Hwy 109 between I-44 and Hwy 100, you know that it's a rather twisty and turn-y road, going up over a mountain-ish hill and back down again, and having just enough random turn-offs for people to suddenly come out of nowhere, or stop to turn and catch every car behind them off guard causing a domino effect of brake lights.  So it's no wonder that the speed limit is 45 mph.  It's probably a very good idea to be going that slow, just in case Nelly is pulling out of his driveway (because Nelly totally lives off this very road).  You don't want to try to explain to the performer of "Shake Your Tail Feather" why his tail light was unfortunately crushed by your front fender.  


...But I drove this stretch of road twice a day, every day, for 4 years.  I know the twists and turns.  And 45 mph after a 6 hour drive isn't going to cut it.


So suddenly, I'm that crazy person trying to drive 60mph+ on a two-lane road, getting mad at all the people who dare drive 45 mph and obey the law.  Silly good citizens.  Just go recycle or something.

It seems like most people drive like this.  The speed limit signs become more of a suggestion than an actual law, and it usually feels safer to drive over the speed limit and keep moving at the speed of traffic than obey the number on the sign and risk getting rear ended by some crazy driver who's been on the road for almost 7 hours and can't take it anymore.  


But stop and consider for a second...


...maybe all those people driving the speed limit have got it right.  


Do you ever feel like maybe the rest of your life needs a speed limit?  Some sort of definitive, easily measured limit that tells you when you're reaching your breaking point and entering the danger zone?  Some number on a scale that tells you that you're getting in over your head, that you're probably going to smack into someone else and negatively impact both their life and yours if you don't just slow down?  I think that my life does...although, with my driving habits, I'm not sure I'd listen to it.


I'm one of those people who pride themselves on being busy.  Senior year of college, my typical schedule would involve leaving my dorm room at 9:00 in the morning and returning to it somewhere around 10:30 or 11:00 at night, because even though my campus was all of 2 blocks, it just didn't seem time-efficient to go back to my room with everything else I had going on.  I'd go from class to class to lunch to class to work to choir to the library to some club to dinner to some other club, and finally end up back in the room where I might start my homework around 11:00 or so and still manage to be in bed by 1:00am, sleep until 8:00, and start the whole thing over the next day.  And I liked being busy, and I got to see basically all my friends in the course of a day, and things were going great.


And then one day I had a breakdown.  

I don't really remember what triggered it...some indiscriminate amount of homework probably.  I just remember sitting in Front Lobby with a Francophone African novel in my lap, staring at the floor, and various friends walking by and asking with alarm if I was okay, and subsequently bursting into tears and being hugged by my friend Amanda while my friend Erika ran off to buy me an ice cream smoothie and then worked my life down into a slightly more manageable (if still fairly overwhelming) to-do list.  Later I remember my friends Matt and Brandon came by, and (being of the male persuasion) both just sort of looked at me with confusion mingled with concern, and offered to find other people to fulfill the various extra-curricular obligations I had to both of them - which, at that point, seemed as good as handing me a check for a million dollars and a plane ticket to Paris.


I'd crossed the speed limit.


And I thought everything was fine until I crashed.


The thing I always liked about being busy was the feeling of having things in control, having a purpose, and (as narcissistic as it is) feeling important.  And individually, I liked every activity that I was involved in.  These are all emotions that should make you feel good, right?


So what's with the breakdown?


Maybe it's because things aren't supposed to be in our control.  Maybe things aren't supposed to be all about me.

I remember watching this video by Rob Bell a few years ago called "Noise."  It's all about how people get all angry and complain about God being inactive, or not giving us any help or direction for our lives...when really, our lives are just too noisy to hear Him.  We're not listening.  We're too busy speeding.


Do you think it's possible that we get so caught up in our own plans for our lives, with our own destination, with our own timelines, that we forget that God has something else in mind?  Do you think that we'll see the road signs pointing to where we need to go, pointing to the right direction, if we're driving at 100 miles per hour?  Does it make more sense to drive through life as fast as you can and have to make a U-turn every block or so because you've passed your turn, or drive the speed limit, paying careful attention to the directions, and orienting our lives around the journey to our destination, not worrying how long it will take us to get there?  


I've found that whenever I get really stressed, really upset, or really overwhelmed by life in general, it's because I've gotten too busy for God.  I've started going too fast.  And sometimes I can have the best intentions ("Oh, I don't have time to read the Bible today, I have to read these 50 pages on church history for my ____ class", etc)...they're still horrible excuses.

In church this morning, the pastor talked about how the Enlightenment has made us all into a whole bunch of individualist thinkers, who believe that everything's all about ME, to please ME, to make MY life easier.  We shout "That's not FAIR!" and "You can't do that to ME!"  But it's all pointless, because it's so not about us.  Like the pastor also pointed out, the Bible compares humanity to the dew that is on the grass in the morning and is gone...in the morning.  We don't even get a whole day in the relative span of eternity.


In one of the first sessions of my New Testament class, I remember my professor exclaimed halfway through the lecture, "Have you ever stopped and thought that the Bible wasn't written about your life?"  And the class generally laughed...but really.  The Bible isn't about us.  It isn't some ancient self-help manual (even though it CAN be helpful and relevant to modern life).  The whole world, all of creation isn't about us.  It's about God.  God existed, God decided for there to be a world, God decided to put people in the world, and God furthermore decided to save all those people when they went and messed up God's world.  And one day God's kingdom will be established and all the people will worship God forever.  


Seems like it's about God, doesn't it?  


Kind like how roads are intended for all people to get to wherever they're going, not just for you to get where you're going.


When we speed through life, we run the perpetual risk of missing what God wants to say to us.  No matter how loud someone is shouting on the side of the road, the passenger of a car going 70mph won't be able to understand what they're saying.  Why should our lives be any different when it comes to hearing God's voice?


And even if God is in the car with you, you won't be able to hear his directions if you have the radio blasting out the speakers.  


It's about listening.  Listening to directions, listening to authority, listening to the speed limits that were placed there for a reason.  Listening for God's voice in a world that is increasingly trying to push him out, turning up the music to drown out the sound of His voice.  


It's about recognizing that life has a speed limit.


Then again, maybe the best thing to do is to just let God drive...   

The Earth is Yours

This post is about environmental awareness.


No, seriously.


Those of you who know me well will know that I'm not the biggest fan of environmentalism.  Those of you who, like me, had to go down to the Kentucky Theatre to see "An Inconvenient Truth" for our FLA I classes freshman year at Transylvania probably remember the "Inconvenient Rain" that poured down from the sky as we walked the "Inconvenient 15 Blocks" to see what I felt was, on the whole, a rather "Inconvenient Film"...particularly as that particular screening had several inconvenient technical difficulties added to the mess.  All I really remember from that movie is thinking that Al Gore talks too much, and being sad that polar bears had no ice to stand on. 


Don't get me wrong, I think being environmentally conscious is great and all, and I try and recycle and all that good stuff, but it's just never really been a passion of mine.  The most I've "gone green" lately in my life has been choosing a green notebook over a black one at Walgreens and purchasing a seafoam couch which now graces my living room.


But nonetheless, this post is about environmental awareness.  Seriously, it is.

I think that one of the reasons I've never been into environmentalism is because it generally comes off as a giant fad, right up there with gel pens and gauchos (both of which I love, by the way).  I was in environmental club in high school, but I don't particularly remember why...I think it just sounded like a cool thing to join.  All earthy and hippie and stuff, you know?  But I was in a lot of clubs that year, so it was probably just self-exploration more than a deep seated desire to save the whales.  Even though I like whales a whole lot.


But I like the outside.  I really do.  Not sleeping outside in tents, necessarily, but I like BEING outside.  There's something about being in open air, even in the middle of a city, that just seems more inviting than air conditioning.  And I like being able to see the sky, to feel grass squishing around my feet, or to hear water running over rocks or splashing up against the shore, depending on the type of water at hand.


I've traveled quite a bit in my 22 years of being alive, and when I look back on everywhere I've been there's a lot of awesome stuff that I've seen.  But in all of it, there have been two things that literally take my breath away more than anything else: 


Gigantic cathedrals and gigantic natural wonders.


I think there's probably a connection there, don't you?

Let's start with cathedrals.  I've marveled at the giant dome of the Oratoire Saint-Joseph atop Mont Royal and gasped at the breathtaking colors of the Basilique Notre Dame in Montreal, stared slack-jawed at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, fought the stairs of la butte to reach the Basilique de Sacre Coeur and stood within arms length of a gargoyle atop Notre Dame in Paris, peered over an altar to a vial supposedly containing drops of Jesus' blood in the Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges, and wandered into countless others seeking a solitary place to think.  And every single one of them was beautiful.  And every single one of them made me stop and consider the God whom humans found deserving of such a marvelous building.


For ages people have built cathedrals and churches, no matter how hugely ornamental or quietly simple, in order to create a space to experience God.


But what about all the other ways that God gave us to experience Him?

As beautiful as all of those cathedrals are, there have been other moments amidst the chaos of travelling that have stopped me in my tracks with their awe-inspiring beauty.  The valleys of Yosemite, falling effortlessly amidst giant outcroppings of rock.  An expanse of forest stretching out under the Natural Bridge in Kentucky.  The jagged edges of the Badlands in South Dakota.  The twisting coast of mountains rising majestically above the ocean at Big Sur in California.  A heavenly landscape of clouds seen from an airplane window, a privilege completely foreign to people living before the 20th century.  


These things are all bigger, and boast more beauty than even the grandest cathedral ever built.

And God just...puts them there.  For us.

One of my all time favorite movie lines comes from "Pride and Prejudice," when Mary (the uninterestingly plain and largely forgotten Bennett sister), frustrated with her sisters' obsession with the recent arrival of a regiment filled with handsome soldiers, exclaims with annoyance, "What are men compared to rocks and mountains?!"  As a woman who has had her share of mixed signals on the part of men and has put up with a fair amount of cavity-inducing Facebook posts between lovers, this line has all the "GIRL POWER!" sentiment that I need every now and again.  But thinking about it in a different context...really, what are men compared to rocks and mountains?  What are any of us compared to the majesty of God's creation?


But we're a part of that creation too.  Shouldn't we show it a little more respect?


One of my favorite praise and worship songs (in fact, the one from which the subtitle of this blog is quoted), includes this phrase: "My eyes are small, but they have seen the beauty of enormous things."  What a privilege it is for us to live in the middle of God's glorious creation!  I mean, really...think of how often we mess things up, how often we aren't perfect.  Do you really think that we deserve to have such a marvelous world to live in?  How much does God's love call out to us from the mountaintops, from the rustle of leaves among tree branches, from the rhythmic rolling of waves along the beaches?  Job 37:6 declares that even "the shower of rain, his heavy shower of rain, serves as a sign on everyone's hand, so that all whom he has made may know it."  Why in the world aren't we paying attention?


Taken this way, the earth IS a cathedral.  It's our cathedral, a beautiful structure that God has given us in which to worship Him.


Would you leave a giant mess in the middle of a cathedral?


Neither would I.


And on that note, with THAT motivation...let's all be more environmentally aware, shall we?




***This whole post came about after I heard this song at chapel service on Wednesday.  I like this version of it, because it's performed in a forest...I hope it inspires you like it inspired me.