Thoughts on the Joy of a Simple Red Cup

I normally try to avoid weighing in on these topics in any sort of public forum, but the "controversy" over the newly designed red cups at Starbucks has pushed me over the edge.

I am a Christian and I am a Starbucks fanatic.  If you know me at all, you already know both of these things.  So imagine my utter disgust when I checked my Facebook feed over the weekend and saw the story about a guy (a pastor no less) who posted a video that has gone viral declaring war on my favorite coffee shop because they "hate" Jesus.

WHAT?

Admittedly, I did not watch the video.  I fully expected it to die out.  Yeah, I don't know why I expected that either.

So now that my fiery annoyance has waned a bit, I feel... Sad.  Yeah.  Sad.

Silly?

Here's what saddens me.  I love Christmas.  No, I LOVE Christmas.  Like I started listening to Christmas music about three days after Halloween and I am wondering how early I can put up my Christmas tree without being chastised by my loved ones.  I've always loved the feeling of the holiday season (spanning from Thanksgiving to New Years people - it encompasses three separate holidays - if you grump at me for using the word "holiday" we may not be able to recover).

I know it's horribly commercialized, but for most of my life I've honestly felt like the spirit of love for all mankind permeated this time of year and from the way I see my beliefs as a Christian, that's kind of the point.  Quite frankly in America, Christmas has become a holiday that's celebrated in a far more secular sense than what it's about from a Christian perspective and I understand some of the annoyance there in the sense that it doesn't need to be about what presents you get, but I don't think that has to be damaging.

And when I see people posting anti-Starbucks rants by misguided individuals who happen to share the same religion as me, it just makes me think "please, stop talking before the world thinks we're all like you."  I promise, we're not!

Actually because of my Christian beliefs, I believe that if we took the whole season and decided to treat everyone we encounter with love, compassion, understanding, respect and grace; then maybe, just maybe we would actually represent this Jesus that we know to the people around us.

So if you think Starbucks, or any other number of retailers who I'm sure will get blasted some time between now and December 25th, is persecuting you and your beliefs with their expression of celebration during this time, maybe the person declaring war on the real message of Christmas is you.

Just a thought.

-Lisa

Thoughts on a Dark and Cloudy Friday Morning

Hello and a blessed Good Friday to you.

I've been thinking about my Good Friday blog since last Friday.  I've had a series of conversations with a variety of people in my life that have had me thinking about love.  Specifically the love that God has for us.  And by us I mean all of humanity.

A couple months ago I had a conversation with an acquaintance about faith and religion.  While the conversation was more in depth than this, the point that came out of it was, regardless of what they were raised to believe, this person did not want to identify as a Christian because "they're so judgmental."

And I get it.  I even agreed that this is a huge problem.  It's a conversation I've had many, many times with various people over the course of my adult life and I do most certainly believe that it is something Christians as a general whole need to work on.  Majorly.

John 13:34-35 (NIV) says "A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

If we look at the way the church (again, general whole encompassing all denominations of Christianity) argues with one another, not to mention how we treat those outside of our faith, it's clear we are not known by how we love.  Instead we are known by what we were specifically told not to do, which is by how we judge those around us.  And it makes me sad.  Especially today.

In my life I have a varied group of beautiful souls who I am blessed to call my friends.  We all have different backgrounds, different political beliefs, different religious beliefs and we've all made many different choices in how we live our lives.  Sometimes I scroll through my Facebook feed and chuckle because I think "my goodness if I ever had all of these people in the same room together, I'd have to get them to sign an agreement not to discuss religion, politics or the world at large.  Fluffy bunny topics only.  Otherwise we'd have a huge fight."

I have friends who are very conservative who think I've gone to the dark, liberal side thanks to my favorite state, and friends who are very liberal who think that's an absolutely hilarious thought because I'm more conservative than they are.

What is my point?

Look at the people in your life.  Do you agree on everything?  Have all of the exact same beliefs about everything?  If you're at all like me, probably not.  Yet, could you possibly love them any less?

Okay, so if your answer is no, of course not, these are people you hold dear to you; then how could you treat a stranger, someone you've never met and therefore who has not had the chance to personally offend you in anyway, with judgement instead of love or simply kindness.

Yet we are all guilty of judging others based on the color of their skin, how they look, who they're with, what they say and what they believe, but that's not our job.

We, as Christians, were given the simplest commandments by Jesus.  In Mark 12:28-31 (NIV) says "One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.  Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"  "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this:  love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these."

Love.  Selfless and perfect love is what Christ showed us on the cross on Good Friday.  And if I am to call myself a Christian and to believe that I must accept Christ as my savior, otherwise completely imperfect little me could not possibly hope to see God in heaven, then how can I — knowing my own imperfections — treat anyone else as if I am superior to them.

I have a really difficult time with the idea of, not just hating, but even showing dislike or disdain for someone because they're different from me.  Probably because I was a weird kid.  I loved to play on the swings and sing show tunes at the top of my voice during recess and I loved and chattered about watching PBS - specifically Sesame Street - and I started to fall deeply in love with Shakespeare by age six and I was ridiculed for it.  For just being myself.  And I have some really clear memories of trying to figure out what on earth I'd done to make these people I'd just met dislike me so much.

I don't know any perfect people.  I am certainly not one.  So, I really believe with all my heart that we have to stop casting shame and hate and judgment down on other people who are also not perfect, just like us.  It does no good.  And I do not believe you could act less like Christ.  I worry sometimes that we have become more like the crowd calling for Jesus to be crucified and less like His disciples, and it breaks my heart.

I know I will continue to be guilty of not treating those around me with love.  And it makes my heart sad.  But I pray daily for God's help in loving everyone I meet the way He loves me.

That's just what's on my mind this Good Friday morning, and I thought I'd share.

-Lisa

Trouble

     "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble. But take heart!  I have overcome the world." John 16:33

     I have been thinking about this verse a lot lately.  In this world you will have trouble.  I think most of my life when I've read this verse, I always thought of really big challenges in life.  Illness, maybe something tragic happening, big stuff...  Lately however, I've started thinking what if it's not just that at all?  What if trouble is also all the little things that drive us up the walls daily?  

     Have you ever found yourself trying to find a job or a soul mate or just trying to figure out what to do with your life and wondering why (at least some days) everything seems to be so difficult?  Like why can't you have a day, a week, a month or a year that just runs smoothly?  Or maybe you have had periods of time where it just felt like all the stars aligned and you're just trying to figure out how to get that back; and for the life of you, you can't figure out what you were doing differently at that time.    You only know you can't seem to duplicate it now.  

     But what if it's all these little things - repeatedly dealing with rejection in one form or another, struggling financially, always feeling like you're trying to get ahead - that are the "trouble" Jesus was speaking about in that verse?  That means all those irritants are always going to be around.  You may be thinking "Well that just sucks.  Where's the upside in that?"  And you'd be right it does suck.  But what He says next it what gives me hope - But take heart!  I have overcome the world.

     If you believe what The Old Testament says, then you believe mankind blew their chance at Heaven on earth when Adam and Eve were in the Garden.  If you look at it from that angle, we had a world without trouble and we gave it up.  So yes, trouble is an inevitable part of daily life.  But what Christ overcoming the world means is that our troubled state of living will not last forever - it is only temporary.  

     The way I am trying to look at that these days is all the stuff that drives me nuts (see the aforementioned attempts to get a career off the ground and find a soul mate) are always going to drive me a little nuts in one form or another.  All of the things I place so much importance on - particularly job stuff - aren't really going to matter in the long run.  The relationships we form with people, the way we treat each other, how we help one another, how we love each other the was Jesus loved us...those are the things that will echo through eternity.  So maybe that's where I should strive to shift my focus more instead of zeroing in on all the little things that make me feel like I'm losing it.

Just a thought.

-Lisa

Let it Go

There are some days when you get up and in the deepest part of your being you know it's going to be a rough one.  You have no idea what lies ahead of you, but something in your spirit is telling you to pause and consider calling in.  Every time I ignore that tug, I regret it.  So you would think by now I would have learned not to ignore it.

But sometimes the real challenge in that moment (I believe) is to acknowledge that urging and to step forward into your day anyway.

Now because of my personal beliefs, I feel it is in the midst of that uneasy feeling that God is whispering "Trust me.  I will not let you go."

As human beings it can be really easy in those moments when everything starts to go down hill at top speed, to beat ourselves up.

"Why didn't I stay home?"  "How could I have made such a stupid mistake?" "Why can't I seem to get it together?"  "What did I ever do to land myself here?"  Because nothing is going "the way that it's supposed to."

But we live in a broken world.  One that will never be perfect, no matter how hard we push for what's "supposed" to be.  That ended with Adam & Eve in the Garden and until the end of time as we know it, this is the struggle we will face.

I think about it a lot actually.  How we so easily get caught up in the way we know things should be.  And I believe there's a very good reason for that.  I think the way it was "supposed to be" is encoded in our DNA and if it wasn't, we might not understand the truth of our imperfection.  For we are imperfect creatures.

But we are also beautiful to God - even with our imperfections - so much so that He gave us Jesus.  The ultimate example of grace (getting what we do not deserve) and mercy (not getting what we do deserve).  And we are supposed to strive to be like Him.  To love like Him.

Which is of course impossible for us to ever reach that while we are in this flesh.  But it does not mean we don't try.  Because we should try to love like Him.

But back to "supposed to"...

In my own life I am at least three different kinds of NOT where I am "supposed to be".  And it drives me crazy.  I hate it.  In part because I spend a lot of time and energy futilely trying to fix it quickly.  But I am learning...

In the last three months I have begun to slow down.  To breathe in the space I am in.  And to attempt to move at a reasonable pace to where I would like to be.  Sometimes the only road ahead takes us back to a place where we don't want to be.  A place that feels like a step backwards.  But (at least in my case) once I stopped for a minute and considered that it's not a step backwards because it's not exactly the same.  I am not the same.

And that is important because it is a step toward understanding how to let go of "supposed to" and to move on to what "is".  Which lends value to the world around us; helps us appreciate the blessings in our lives today.  And that is a very good thing.

Just a thought.

-Lisa

Message Received

I visited church with a friend this morning and heard something I so needed to hear, but didn't realize it.  The sermon was on the story of Peter stepping out of the boat and walking on the water with Jesus (that's an enormous paraphrase by the way - see Matt. Ch. 15 vs 22-33).

Anyway...the pastor was talking about how in life so many times people stay in the boat so to speak, but how some people actually take a chance and step out on faith and get out of the boat - no matter what the result may be.  Then he said that just by stepping out of the boat to begin with, we alter our future.

That caught my attention.  I love the story about Peter walking on the water to Jesus and it came to mean more to me when I first moved out to Los Angeles.  But after moving back to Texas...to make a long story short, I've struggled a lot with feeling like I took a leap of faith only to end up right back where I was to begin with, which is a place I couldn't stand to begin with (to be frank - and why mince words at this point?).

I never stopped to consider that, even if I can't see it right now, my future is not what it would have been had I not gone to California.  I knew I was different, that I'd come into my own if nothing else, but I don't think I'd considered that the future I would like to see is still possible.  And how I needed so much to hear that all was not lost.

It's interesting the way that God can prompt us to go somewhere, visit someone, or even check out a church at the exact moment when we're going to hear the sort of reassurance our soul is longing for the most.

The other thing this morning got me to thinking about is taking risks...

Sometimes we are called upon to look at our life - maybe a specific situation or just in general - and assess what (& occasionally who) we have in our life and if the "what" or "who" fits with who we want to be - or maybe more specifically who you know deep in your soul that you are despite your current situation.

Perhaps sometimes we are not simply called to step out of the boat.  Perhaps we are called to jump ship when it's really a choice of thriving or drowning.

Just a thought.

-Lisa