Author: Kelsi

It has been 2 months since I exited the doors of Multnomah as an “alumna” for my first time. A girl with a master’s degree, and a ring on her finger.

I have had the sinking reality of school loans set in. It involved tears and screaming at the top of my lungs (more like a very disturbing roar with a lot of spit flying everywhere and a little dog running away from me for dear life). Maybe that was a break down. I still work at a “quick service” cafe and  drive a borrowed car from my parents. I now live with my sister, and am trying to save up some money to move to Santa Cruz in October. After I get married. My fiance, Josh, lives down there, which menas we have the joy of sustaining and growing a long distance relationship in the midst of planning a wedding here. I just found my wedding dress, and really, am not too excited about it. Don’t ask me why. I think it’s becasue “they” (Hollywood, wedding magazines–which deserve a blog entry in and of themselves) always hype it up, like finding a wedding dress is the holy grail, your wedding planning climax. It’s not. It’s another thing to check of the list, quite frankly.

It is a lonely process, wedding planning. It can be lonely when your fiance lives hundreds of miles away, and it is challenging just planning a reading date on the phone. We aren’t doing (prepare yourself, Christian community) premarital counseling, so we are reading Sacred Marriage over the phone together instead. Or at least we are about to. And well, marriage counseling once we live in the same town will be in order.

It is hard to remember what it is like to hang out for a day with each other, what it is like to “do life” together–study, worship, socialize, rest, work, eat, fight, love, cry, laugh.

But, we are doing it. It is tough. It is tough knowing what to do about birth control (which I think deserves its own school on ethics, thought and philosophy), let alone which tie to buy for him when I don’t even know what his suit looks like. It is hard to register when we can’t just meet up one day and go to the store. We are getting married in less than three months, I am moving to a new state, will be going to a new church and will be eagerly looking for a  job. (Eh-hem. Anyone?) It’s just strange, all this planning and waiting.

I miss my seminary community. I miss New Wine meetings, and the smell of the entrance of Travis Lovett when the sun has been baking in and it’s this weird little pressurized oven between the first set of doors and the second. I miss rushing to get coffee during lecture breaks, and I miss that adrenaline rush when I am about to finally finally, by the grace of God, finish a paper.

And now, my mind is filled with the wonderous waiting. Waiting to get married, pack, move, make new friends, start a new community, find the best coffee shops and running trails, and leave. Leave a city that is my home. A city that never ever bores me, and never fails to feed me new food (hello food carts! Is it just me or are they multiplying by the dozens every week?), give me the best cup of coffee ever and surround me with beautiful flowers, trees, rain and sun.

So, I guess I am just checking in. I know that it is summer. Finally. Sort of. At least it was two days ago. But life is strange, and I just had a tearful conversation last night with Josh that went something like this, “by the time we are able to maybe, barely afford to have a kid, will we be too old, anyway?” I never thought I would face the reality that, as Josh puts it, “kids just may not be in the cards for us”. I am trusting and praying they are. Honestly, I cannot conceive (no pun intended) of not ever being a mom, but it is so strange to even have to consider that (!)

So, there you have it. Thoughts from an engaged, recently graduated Seminarian with a heap of debt and giant, bulging files of class notes to show for it. The only way to find joy in all of this, I am proved over and over again, is to really, truly press in to the loving arms of the one who is masterfully, carefully, and intentionally  behind and in all of this. So glad it’s not all on my shoulders.

Consumer Christianity takes timely new steps to the world of online reviews….

Do you think it is ok (or possible) to be a consumer about your next church selection but not necessarily be a consumer about the gospel (picking and choosing what you desire most)?  How do you think online reviews for churches affect the gospel that is being preached in these churches vying for a 4 star rating? Bottom line: What are the implications of this?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125394718&sc=emaf

Speaking of Jim Wallis and Glenn Beck…here is a clip of them finally meeting to debate the perils and virtues of social justice. Don’t miss it.

I love EE Cummings. I love people who write things that make me feel fully alive again– as if, just by finishing it, I have been resuscitated in a way I didn’t even know I needed. I am grateful for people who get over themselves and dare to express these sort of sentiments for the world to sigh and marvel at together. Poets like EE Cummings share their heart in the moments when no would ever think to listen. It’s these secret marvels exposed that show us bits of ourselves and God and I love it.

i am a little church (no great cathedral)

i am a little church(no great cathedral) far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities -i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest, i am not sorry when sun and rain make april my life is the life of the reaper and the sower; my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving (finding and losing and laughing and crying)children whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness around me surges a miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection: over my sleeping self float flaming symbols of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains i am a little church(far from the frantic world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature -i do not worry if longer nights grow longest; i am not sorry when silence becomes singing winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever: standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence (welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness) ee cummings

I recently attended Jim Wallis’ book reading at Powell’s Bookstore on his latest book, “Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street and your street.” The premise of the book is to re-establish a moral compass in the new economy. This ties in appropriately with New Wine, New Wineskins’ upcoming conference, “Owning the Pond Together: Developing Communities through Entrepreneurship”. Both Wallis’ book and the conference explore how to do business in a way that complements, rather than competes with local business, economic sustainability and community development. They both address how to live together, not simply tolerate one another.

Wallis urged us to re-consider the concept of common grounds: sharing space and ownership and re-establishing what he termed, the “new old values”—values such as “enough is enough”, and drawing from the Native American value of measuring the impact we have today by the impact it will have seven generations from now. He challenged us to ask, “how will this crisis change us”, rather than, “when will this crisis end?”

This said economic crisis could be, if we are wise, humble and teachable, an opportunity. Yet if we close our hearts, imaginations and minds, it could be a long-term disaster, only to be repeated years later. I’m not going to pretend I am a financial or economic expert. I am a 28-year old who has been in school pretty much my whole life, and am currently living off a part-time job and school loans. My experience of the housing market is writing a rent check every month. That said, all this talk about the financial crisis makes me feel a bit oblivious. However, I do know that this crisis, regardless how much one understands the technicalities, must wake us—me–up in some capacity. As Wallis challenged, what do we do when the “invisible hand” lets go? This is a brilliant time when, as Christ followers, we have the opportunity to stand apart and offer our communities another way.

As Christians, the way we “do business”, the way we invest, what we invest in, and how we invest (be it our time, energy, money, resources, relationships) must reflect kingdom values. These values are those of solidarity, community, unity, self-sacrifice and humility—values that are sadly the opposite of what too many Christians are currently operating under in our country. I wholeheartedly believe that we must do everything with intention, because whether we realize it or not, everything we do sends a message and affects our community. We must be aware of this. Rather than looking out for our own best interest, how would our economy look today if we first looked out for the interest of the other? And isn’t that a Biblical mandate anyway?

As Wallis put well: instead of keeping up with the Jones’, we should check and see if the Jones’ are ok. This is what both Wallis and our upcoming conference on April 10^th address: building community not on hand outs, charity, or quick fixes, but on costly relationships and kingdom values in which both the poor and the rich need and empower one another in Christ.