Day 1 of 31 Days of Giving that Gives Back

I'm the kind of girl who would much rather address the proverbial elephant in the living room than skirt around an issue we all know is affecting what we are trying to talk about but we don't want to admit it. So as we begin to talk about how to change our consumer habits for the sake of others' freedom, can we just be real for today and say the hard thing we all know is true?

The best way for any of us to reduce our slavery footprint is for us to intentionally consume less. Whew. There I said it. This is the hardest part for us to tackle honestly. We all have our reasons why it just won't work to change the way we do Christmas...grandparents who will be angry, family who expects our participation, a husband who thinks we've gone a bit off the deep end. 

And I get that. This process is most effective if it is an opportunity to educate and thus affect those around us. If we alienate and anger everyone around us from our perceived soapbox, well, that's not exactly the point. Nor does it feel very much about the true spirit of Christmas.

And if our goal is renounce consumer craziness and reclaim some of Christmas' earliest message that love is born in humble places we have to be brave about making intentional changes, but we have to find ways to do it that are lavish in love and generous in grace. After all, shepherds and kings both showed up bearing their gifts for the Christ Child and they were all welcomed.

But if we are to begin, we have to begin somewhere. Here are my thoughts on how we can begin to address the hardest part of this process of giving freedom instead of consuming this Christmas.

1. Pray. I do believe that at its heart, this is a spiritual matter for all of us. Christmas and what it means. Our consumption habits and where they come from. Our expectations of ourselves and others. The way we respond to others' expectations of us. This all has to do with the state of our souls and the state of our sin and our relationship with the Lord whose coming we celebrate in the great feast of Christmas. 

When we begin to feel a stirring inside us to change, we can become just as manic about needing to get it right RIGHT NOW as we are tempted to be about consumption. We have to remember the goal here is to slow down and be more intentional about what we are doing. Not to raze Christmas to the ground with a moral wrecking ball. 

That balance is only going to come through prayer. Let's start there. Immerse ourselves in the Word and the mysteries of Christ's birth. Ask ourselves what it means to live those mysteries this season. Make room for the Holy Spirit to inspire and inform our consciences. Confess our consumer sins and willful ignorance of the past. Clean out our hearts with the same vigor we clean out the toy shelves and the kitchen cupboard to make room for Christmas' newness. 

Start living a spiritual advent now, before the consumer craziness hijacks your opportunity. Advent in its more secular form can mean a change or development. The birth of something new. Let's start now so we can make it so.

AND let's resist the temptation to turn Advent into its own consumer frenzy in order to get it right. You and I are both already thinking about just the books we can buy and the cute pinteresty things we can do to live Advent and get it right RIGHT NOW. Again. Sigh. See how insidious that urge to consume more is? 

Look, here's the November supply list:

1. a bag of fair trade coffee or tea

2. a Bible you already have

3. a pen you already have (dig it out from the couch cushions if you must and forget about whether it is colored gel ink in Christmas colors with glittery sparkles. Manger. Food trough. Barn cave. Any pen will do.)

4. Some type of paper bound together in one place. A half stack of Post It notes from the junk drawer will do. You DO NOT need a new prayer journal. Use the last twenty pages of one of the ten you already have.

(I say these things because I love you. And I get you. I am talking to myself. If you were not tempted to do any of those things above, props to you. You're one step ahead of me on this journey.)

Now. Here's where you can have a little fun. Make a space to pray and plan for this Christmas. Choose a space in your home, rearrange a bit, make it feel new and welcoming and waiting. Just like Christmas. Use things you already have as intentional visual reminders in the space about what your goal and purpose is here But your supplies from above there at there at the ready. 

And for the next 30 Days, let's go there together. Every day. And together let's seek the heart of Christmas. And ask God how He would have us change our practices. Let's ask His forgiveness for the ways our need to consume has enslaved His children. Let's beg for their freedom and for ours. Let's pray for those who fight this very real battle on the ground. And those who perpetrate this evil. Let's pray for change. And let us give Him permission to begin with us.

All posts will be linked in the introductory post for the series 
so you can follow along easily if you like

31 Days: Giving That Gives Back

Well, Halloween is over. Today, the world settles into a two month long stretch of utter Christmas mania. And we all begin to internalize it just a little. Gift giving, cookie baking, food shopping, all begin to buzz loudly in our heads, call to us in our sleep, and lure us into a retail frenzy.

It's been a while since I blogged about human trafficking here on the blog. I think as Christmas approaches time to take up the reminder again. The frenzy of Christmas, especially in America, can lull into a sort of coma about the justice issues in the world around us. There is just too much happy to be had. We begin feel the pressure to buy and to make and to gather and to sing. "What can we do about child sex slaves today? Forget about it. Grab another peppermint latte and sing 'Joy to the World'".

But the truth is, there is much we can do to reduce the demand for slaves around the world with our purchasing power. My friend Lisa Hendey ran a great post yesterday asking us to consider how our consumption contributes to slavery. It's important that we all realize that we do not have to be paying for sex create a market for modern day slavery. Much of our consumption of normal goods increases the market for cheap labor, and thus slavery, in developing nations. Want to know how much? Take the time to fine tune your slavery footprint here. It's disconcerting to know how much our purchases drive this evil. And it is a call to be more intentional about the way we use that power. Especially in the height of consumer craziness that is Christmas.

Why not add freedom to the list of gifts you'll give this Christmas? Slow down a bit and try to be intentional in the ways you spend, gift and celebrate this Christmas. There are ways to shop and give that are ethical and responsible and will drastically lower the demand for slavery around the world. And many of these options actually contribute to a better world. We can shop local, support social and micro-enterprises, give gifts of charity, and educate while we give. We can avoid the "no room at the inn" mentality of Christmas that tells us we have no time to be slow and intentional and make room for Christ-like love.

So I will be beginning starting today a series of  31 Days posts about shopping ethically and responsibly this Christmas season. About giving that gives back and giving that gives freedom. Join me, please? Not only will you learn more about the issue of modern day slavery and its implications for our lives, but you will be introduces to some lovely businesses and gifting opportunity that will inspire you and give you the gift of hope in the goodness of humanity.

I'll revisit many of the groups I discussed in the 31 Days of Action series about trafficking last year. And giving you more information about many of the groups listed in the Responsible Shopping links on the tab above. So today, why not read Lisa's post, assess your slavery footprint and set up a bookmarks folder for the links we'll visit over the next 31 days? Grab yourself a fair trade latte each morning and settle in to make a difference this Christmas.

Feel free to use the button below to share this series with your blog readers. Grab the image and link it back to this post. I will add the links to all 31 posts in the series here each day.

Day 1

Day 2: Orphan Sunday

Day 3: Lovely Linens
Day 4: How Not to Be the Grinch
Day 5: Connected in Hope
Day 6: Christmas Clothes
Day 7: The Philippines Disaster Response
Day 8: Meet Mercy Goods
Day 9: Mercy Covers for the Homeless
Day 10:Fund Freedom
Day 11: Old-Fashioned Fun
Day 12: Coffee Talk
Day 13: What She Said

Why I Am Asking IF

Back in September at Idea Camp, I had the pleasure of hearing Jennie Allen  speak. And let me tell you something, I was all on board to sign up for whatever it was she was about afterwards. Her passion, her heart for Jesus, her honesty about being a woman and loving other women was a language I speak it deep in my heart. It is a language that has been beating its rhythm loud in my head since my friend Ann began calling us the #esthergeneration from the red clay of Uganda. Its song is being sung in my development of our social enterprise initiative and our St. Francis Emmaus Center.

So when I learned about Jennie's IF:Gathering, I got excited. If you know me, you won't be surprised that I leaped right in without looking at how deep the water was. I told you about the common ground established with people at Idea Camp. IF was an opportunity to really see that concept bloom, and I was all in.

When Jennie announced her bigger vision for IF and all the  ladies I like to read a whole lot started sharing pictures of those twinkle lights and that pretty white table, and I knew I could be a part of it from my little mountain top in faraway Costa Rica, I was doubly excited. But sad that I would be alone. So I boldly shouted that anyone who wanted to could come join me here for IF: Missions. I realize now that it is really easy to be all brave like the other girls when your proposal seems unlikely.

But then they said "yes". Ladies from varied backgrounds and different denominations said they would actually like to ask IF with me in this space and see where God led us. And then, as I tend to do when I jump into something with all my heart, I panicked a little. Not about having company. But asking myself if this was what God was doing, or what I wanted.

And so I did what I do when I am panicking about God. I prayed. I sat with Him. I searched my heart and I searched His Word. And He led me to the answer of why my heart simply must ask IF. That answer is three-fold.

1. My Morning Offering makes me an offer. For as long as I can remember I have prayed a Morning Offering that begs for the "unity of all Christians". But I have not every often asked myself what my responsibility was to what I was praying for. If we are honestly praying for unity, it seems to me that we need to be actively working toward unity, no? And how do we find unity if we never meet? Never sit at the same table and see one another for who we are. If there is no relationship, how can there be unity?

I want that unity. I want to be able to sit with sisters in Christ outside the lines and the boxes that have been drawn for us and see anew what unity could mean. I want to sit at a table that is about conversation not conversion to one way of thinking. I want grasp what is good and lovely and noble in the sisterhood of Christ and shake it up like a bottle full of dormant sparkles and watch it mix and float and become something breathtakingly beautiful. Because I believe in a God that unites. And I believe He does it in ways that are not systematic but surprising, in ways that are much less about what we bring to the table and much more about what He has to serve us, in ways that challenge the deepest parts of us and yet lavish us with love and generous grace. Because His purposes, His heart, His love are already triumphant. If we can just let Him win, the world will change. Hearts will heal. Stereotypes will crumble. Timid voices will find their vibrato and sing. And oh, how I would love to sing in the chorus of united sister love, in the #estergeneration's choir.

2.  Acts 2 asks for all. "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them." That is what His Word says.

I believe that if ALL the disciples were in one place the day the Holy Spirit set them on fire and the church was born, that there were women there too. And the flames dances on their heads and their mouths opened and they were ALL IN ONE ROOM and they left from there and set the world on fire. Acts does not tell us their stories. And rightfully so. It is named Acts of the Apostles for a reason. It has a purpose and it has its story to tell. 

But who is telling ours? Because there is a story left to be told, the story that we are writing, the distant daughters of the women with flames dancing over their heads and the fire alight in their hearts and their tongues loosed with the power of God and the whole world waiting to hear what they have to say. And I want to be one who tells that story because I know in my deepest being that it is full of the glory of God and the kingdom come and heaven's hope. 

And I think it has start right there where it did in Acts 2. "They were ALL together in one place." In the days before division and denominations built walls between us, the Spirit came in full force when they were all together in one room. And the world was a changed place because of it. And I know from my own life that the Word of God is extensively repetitive. We go back and do what He did and what they that named themselves His name did, Christians, and the Word is alive again and our God lives and the flames dance and the fire falls and the world changes. And I want to be there waiting.

3. Romans 8 yokes me with an obligation.  If we are the distant daughters of they whom the Spirit descended upon and we claim life in Christ, then we live governed by the Spirit. My favorite book of the Bible then says in verse 6 that "The mind governed by the flesh is death,but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace". A mind governed by the flesh is death. Sin, division and fear have their origins in death. Life, peace, love, and unity are the thoughts of the mind governed by the Spirit. And so in verse 12 Romans tell us that we have an obligation: an obligation to live according ot the Spirit. To live life and peace and good and hope and unity and fire dancing, life changing risks. 

And Romans ends its brilliant treatise of life in the Spirit with this: "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God...Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." 

And for this we will gather. We will suffer through the unknown and the strangeness and the things that divide God's children with our Jesus. We wonder why about one another and find things hard to swallow in our differences. We will feel the brokenness in the Body of Christ and wish there were away out of it. Because we know that there, in that place, his glory will shine. 

And wherever the glory of God is, I want to be. And I want to lift my hands and hear the wind of the Spirit rise and watch the flames dance in eyes of my sisters and speak the words of life in their foreign tongues so that they will hear. And I want them to do the same for me. 

So, me, I am asking IF. But I think God is already giving me a glimpse of the answer. 

A Common Depravity

So I stepped off a plane in the U.S. mid to end of September and then made my way toward Austin, TX. Without really knowing why or plumbing the depths of it, I had felt a magnetic pull to get myself to the States to attend Idea Camp/Human Care the moment I read about it on Jen Hatmaker's blog (which I present to you because if you don't know about it and you like to laugh while you love Jesus and ask hard questions, you should). I had already been trying to get to New Orleans in early October so this opportunity sealed the deal. I jumped on it and what developed was a month long whirl wind tour of the States for which I left my husband and five children behind in our mountain mission post caring for a 37 week pregnant woman and her four year old (a story for another day). I told you, there was not much in-depth forethought here...a blowing of the Spirit, a tongue of fire, and BAM I was off.

It wasn't really until I woke up the morning of the first day of Idea Camp in my friend Nickie's house that I started to question myself. First of all, my most wonderful hostess allowed me to prevail upon her and her family even though we had only reconnected since high school on Facebook. She jumped to open her home to me when I zipped off a message saying. "Um, if I randomly come to Austin in September to go to this thing (insert Idea Camp link), can you provide me food, lodging and transportation for free?" Because she's a good girl and she loves Jesus and a NOLA girl so loves company, she was all, "YES!"

But I woke up on Friday morning to get dressed and await the ride she had arranged for me with a neighborhood friend and had a moment AKA freak out. What the heck was I doing? My family was far away, my husband holding the home front and ministry fort, while I was about to head to some hybrid conference/conversation thing with people I did not know to meet other people I did not know who did really awesome things I did know about. And all I could think was 1. I'm way out of my league and 2. Don't genuflect and make the Sign of the Cross when you get in the pew at that Church because you are totally going to creep these people out.

You see, I was pretty sure that I was going to be the only Catholic girl at this rodeo (That's a Texas reference, get it?) And that freaked me out because...well, I don't really know why. I think it's because I really do not care. I feel comfortable, inspired and hopeful about the future around Jesus-lovers and world-changers of all sorts. But I am never quite sure if that feeling will be reciprocated. I feel like I have to awkwardly work the fact that I am Catholic into the first line of every conversation to allow people the opportunity to walk away from me if they like. So I did. And they didn't. Not one person walked away.

What I found was a space where there was a unique commonality among those gathered. It went way beyond our antiquated "we all love the same Jesus" platitude (which by the way does nothing to cross ecumenical bounds and reach out to our deepest common places and is really just kind of dumb). It took me a while to figure out what it was that was there.

There was a van ride where two women became my instant friends. There was praise and worship that just felt right. There was a room and a conversation where I felt confident that I had something worthwhile to say. There was the lady who slipped into the pew beside me and then it turned out calls Costa Rica her second home. There was excitement about the work we are doing, and ideas and thoughts and offers for collaboration. There was lunch where we broke every health code and walked straight through the kitchen to our table. And where smart women had insightful conversation.

And that was all really, really cool. But it wasn't quite the heart of the matter. There was something deep happening in the hearts of the people I watched and listened to and talked with and prayed with over those two days. Something that bound us together differently than I had found myself bound to a group of people before. I heard in their voices, sensed it in their countenance, watched it glisten in their tears. We were not made brothers and sisters by some vague same Jesus we believed in.

If you heard the conversations that took place in that space out of context and without being surrounded by that atmosphere, you would have likely though the lot of us crazy. We cried and we were angry and we were disappointed and we were confused and we felt like we had no answers. Yet we were hopeful and we were brave and we were raw and we were in the fight. And we had been broken. Fallen in love with a real God who did the hardest thing for us, broke Himself wide open. And who had in turn sent us into the world with bleeding hearts that had broken for the least of His people. And we stood there together with the pieces in our hands and wondered what came next. We shared a common depravity.

And in that broken, depraved place where we admitted that we had fewer answers than we ever thought we could and that when we really were honest we knew less now than when we started, there was a new hope born. A hope that in admitting to our common depravity we could find ways to help each other keep being brave, keep asking hard questions, keep walking through the muck and the mud of relationships and Church and Christianity and charity and what the heck does it all mean. That the blind leading the blind often find their way in the dark faster than those who think they see and so need no one.

I left that space a little timid to face the world again. There was something so, so nice about being a mess among messes and knowing it was good. And knowing that even after we had quietly admitted to our common depravity in that space, we would take the pieces of our hearts, go back out into the great wide broken world and dig in again. Do the hard stuff. Ask each other questions. Invite one another into our craziness. It framed the entire rest of my time in the States. It changed me. It gave me new friends. Friends who love my Jesus, but not only that, love Him to that point of broken wide, messy crazy. Friends with whom I share a common depravity.

I have made many friends in the last couple of years with whom I do not share denomination. And yet I am drawn deeply to them in so many ways. This is my final explanation of what it is that draws me. It may not make sense to you. That probably just means you're not crazy. Yet.