"And if you're going to fall, make sure to leave a trail, so we know where you fell!"

How is everybody on this amazingly bright summer day? Are you going for walks? Eating nectareans? Weeding in the garden? er, wait...

I'm going through a little bit of Camp Hope withdrawl. It took a while to hit. But the good news is there are pictures and memories. Someday I intend to write a less technical Camp Hope post, there's lots of memories that didn't get into my journalish one. Someday I'm also going to post a song that I'm working on about Camp Hope that I want help with. And someday I'm going to post about Jelly Beans. But for now.

Here are the things I've been learning lately. The first five are Donalld Miller inspired thoughts, the rest are mine.


I am the problem. You can go on all day blamming society, the government, corrupt schools, global warming- but in the end of the day, we're a fallen race and I am a fallen human being. That's the problem with the world, and I need to take responsibility for my own actions and lack of actions.

The things we want most will kill us. I'm still thinking about this one, but I'm pretty sure it's profound. Maybe they won't kill us, but they sure will mess us up pretty badly. The solution, I suppose, is to replace what we want with what God wants. The tricky part is just knowing what exactly that is. Even good desires can be used by the devil to throw us off, I think. I read a book where a girl had to give up her desires for mission work to God before he could start to really use her.

What you beleive is more important than passion. What does this mean for me? Do I know what I beleive? Do I live it, or do I just talk it? Do I judge others who arn't "on fire" for their beleifs? In the end of the day, you can talk and cry and be as passionate as you want all of your life, but it will be your steadfast example that will make a difference. Your beleifs DO show, in everything you do, much more clearly than they ever will through a lot of emotion.

The most inportant aspect of Christian spirtuality is falling in love with Jesus. Has it ever seemed strange to you that in a courtship, the guy has to do everything? The girl just sits there and accepts, but he has to win her heart. And if it's right, a girl can be persuaded to love someone if he is commited enough to her. I don't think that would work going the other way. Why is that? I think God programed guys and girls to be like this to reflect his relationship with us: it's his love for us that draws us to him, irresistably, not any amount of initiative on our part. We love him because he first loved us. Just consider, we may love God as much as we love or least favorite person, but he loves us more than we love our favorite person. He delights in us, with our unique personalities and abilities and interests. His grip on us is dazzaling, can you not help but love him back?

I am a character in everyone else's play. Whenever I am with someone, they are the most important person in the world. Nobody can be a tirteariy character in my own play so long as I am performing on their stage, and I need to consider what roll I'm taking in every person's life.

Faith. This one is Uncle Bart inspired. To trust in God does not mean you beleive he'll do anything for you, it means you beleive his plan is the best, and things will work out for your own good even if you don't like the sequence of events. To pray with faith means to tell God all of your desires and intrust them to him, rather than demand a certain response or result. Jesus prayed like that.

Prayer is wrestling with God until He wins. I don't remember who said this, but it's stuck with me. And I finally decided to try it. It means telling God everything, how you're feeling, what's bothering you, what you fear and especially what you're confused about, then conceding to him that you want to do the right thing, and asking for grace to do it. I used to just jump to that last step, feeling like prayer was sacred and it would be wrong to tell God, for example, that His word isn't making any sense. But when I started really communicating with my heavenly father, it became a two-way relationship. Clarification started comming out of nowhere, especially in the Bible. The grace to deal with my problems came too. And direct, startling, powerful answers to prayer.

And last and most importantly...

Love is an emotion. *deep breath* Okay, I said it. Not romantic love of course, I've given up trying to understand all that shtuff. Just (ha, "just") love like Jesus loved, for all people in general and in a special way for our, well, loved ones. Camp Hope showed me what love is. I don't know why. I'm a creature of rules and systems, as much as I'd like to deny it, and I've always tried to beleive that love is all decision and no emotion, because I guess it just feels so much more lasting. You say you've choosen to love me and I'll be satisfied, knowing it will last forever, but tell me how you feel about me and that could change tomorrow. And maybe that's true, and but that really just has to be left to God.

Yes, I sometimes use people as ego meaters, and sometimes I'm very shallow about my relationships and sometimes I love people for all the wrong reasons. But in most cases, whatever my motives or fears or human tendancies or shallow intentions are, I do actually love my friends. Alot. And there are lots of people that I love alot. God made us with a tremendous capasity for love. I'm terrible at loving people, I don't express it and I don't live it, but I am quite capable of liking people a whole heck of a lot in my head. I, we as human beings, can become so attached to another human being we might actually die for them, or in a much more drastic manifestation, live for them.

I think about the people I live for and just how much they mean to me, and it starts to sound a little surreal in my head.

Because, and here's what I'm realizing, I don't love people based on things. Not really, anyway, my love can be very conditional and at first I may like or not like someone based on something about them, but when you really truly love someone you stop comparing them to the Cool Person checklist and they become the list that you judge others by. Even when they change, you still love them the same, because... well, that's where human understanding stops.

Love is weird like that, you just become completely attached for no logical reason. If it was logical, it wouldn't be comforting. You can love me for my brain or my looks or personality, and that boosts my ego, but what we humans really need is people who love us just because. That's the only kind of love that means anything in this world, because people change. God's like this. Except he does it perfectly, he lives it and he died for it, and he is actually that attached to each and every one of his children. As much as we love our favorite person, he loves us that much- and more. I think he's given us a small capasity to experience real love to our fellow human beings so that we can understand some of the vast and unexplainable love he has for us. When I think of it like this, amazing things happen.

#1: God's love becomes sufficent. God never was interested in petting human egos, but he can fulfil our need for love.

#4: (yes, number one is that much more important) It replaces bad motives with a good one: to love people just because God does.

#5: It irradicates the Cool Person checklist, so I can stop measuring myself by it.

#6: I don't have to worry about what other people think. If they're measuring me by the Cool Person checklist, I'm going to fall short- that's a given. True friends won't be measuring in the first place.

#7: I don't have to worry about not being worthy of anyone's love- I'm not even worthy of God's love, so if we're going to talk worth we might as well all die now. Love isn't something to be earned.

You have no idea what a concession that is for me. :-)