"To Marilyn" or "Thanks for the Sweet Tea!"

“This is dedicated to the one I love.” --Peter, Paul, and Mary



Have I mentioned how much I really enjoy Marilyn Elliott? In the eras of the Victorians and the Romantics, it was not unusual to find love letters between mutual friends, students and teachers, and those who simply had mentors they admired. This had nothing to do with a romantic love as the limited view of love letters today would have it, but were words of appreciation and admiration in a time that was not so fearful to share them. And so, while I don’t know that I would call this a love letter, today I have decided to dedicate this post to Marilyn, Asbury’s rock of a chaplain, and my fantastically whimsical friend.

If I were to write this in letter form, I might start like this:

Dear Marilyn,

You are fabulously wonderful, even if you do drive me crazy!

If I could put the essence of my relationship with Marilyn into one precise sentence, that’s the closest I could come. The things I dislike about Marilyn are the things I absolutely love. I love how spontaneous she can be, how she keeps me on my toes. And I hate that she won’t nail down times with me. I love her honesty, her lack of desire to say anything but the truth. And I hate when she says things to me I don’t want to hear. I love that Marilyn doesn’t censor herself around me, that she laughs with me, that she plays with me and teases me.

Marilyn is not like any other woman I’ve met. She is never bothered by my intensity and does not try to entertain me when she is not in the mood or does not have the time. She does not fake how she feels, and I have learned that I never have to worry about what she may be thinking about me, because she’ll simply say it. I love that she doesn’t put up walls with me, and I love that I don’t have to second guess Marilyn and that I have her word on that.

With a twenty-six year age gap, our relationship is, to say the least, a unique one. It is so interesting to me, that sometimes I wish I could frame it and put it on my shelf, because it would add an interesting element to my collection of pictures and trinkets. Marilyn is largely uninterested in the age gap, but being less than two months older than her youngest child, my relationship with her sometimes looks more like an awkward parent-child partnership than a friend to friend kinship or even a pastor-student bond. The weirdest part is that sometimes it looks like all three at once.

Marilyn is one of the very, very few who understand me not just as someone of a postmodern point of view, but as a Portlander who has been uprooted and transplanted into a place entirely foreign to her culture. As a Canadian, especially one with the same bent toward postmodernism that I have, she seems to understand this with an empathy others can’t grasp. I love that I can vent about my thoughts on Southern culture, the Church, and Asbury and have no worries that she’ll be offended or even bothered, and to know that, in fact, I just might have an empathetic ear.

My first experience with Marilyn was not a personal one. Due to a minor back injury from my nasty car accident that officially welcomed me to Kentucky, I was in and out of New Student Orientation, unable to cope with both the discomfort of sitting for too long and the discomfort of being in a sea of people I’ve never met. But I did happen to be in NSO when Marilyn spoke. I don’t really remember what it was she talked about, but she caught my attention when she quoted the Brandi Carlile’s song “The Story.” It is a certain type of person that has an interest in Brandi Carlile and acquaintances back home are a number of those. Brandi Carlile is a Seattle-based musician who has a bigger following on the West Coast than over here, so to hear her mentioned piqued my interest, and I seemed to stow away in the back of my mind that whether or not Marilyn was a person I should get to know, she was at least worth noting as relevant. She made me curious, but it was many weeks before we would officially connect.

Since then, it’s been a crazy ride, one that has consisted of office visits, random chats, witty bantering, lots of cupcakes, banana bread, church visits (including Easter), grocery shopping, lunch out, her front porch, one retreat, tears, laying in the grass, a trip to the public library, the asking of me (or any other female near enough to hear the question) to be the contributing factor in the giving of grandchildren from her last born who, as she so articulately noted, is the only one of her children left with the biological capability to do so, and the exchanging of books and movies.

I have known Marilyn for less than a year, and it’s been a year to remember, though one I sometimes think I’d rather forget. I don’t know if I could have survived Asbury without Marilyn. Like a little beacon of sanity, Marilyn was always there to remind me that there was a world outside Asbury and that the world outside Asbury would not see me the same way the world inside Asbury does.

I love that Marilyn will not give undue sympathy, even if I do want it, and won’t bullshit around. I love that with no warning, she’ll come out and whisk me away from my grueling work to take a quick trip to Goodwill or go sit in the sun for a few minutes or lay in the grass. I love that Marilyn does not want to be a mother to me and that I don’t want her to treat me as if she’s my mother, but that at times we default to that anyway and in the end I just go with the flow of whatever she wants, because it has everything to do with spending time with her and nothing to do with how that’s done.

These days, Marilyn and I are designing a garden (hence the public library trip)—a prayer garden outside one of Asbury’s many chapels. If there’s a timeline for this, Marilyn has not notified me of it, and I don’t find this to be a surprise. Whether or not it even gets finished by the end of the summer is up for grabs, I’m sure. But the finishing end is not much of a factor for my choice to be involved. I’m simply entertained with the opportunity this will bring for more amusing stories and fantastic interactions, and the opportunities that have already arisen.

Marilyn does not fit the Asbury mold. She doesn’t even fit the opposite of the Asbury mold. She is simply her own entity, and this is one of the reasons I so enjoy her. I could write a lot more about her. I could tell amusing stories and relay comical conversations. For now, though, I will end by saying I love that Marilyn has redefined relationships for me in a way that is very different from the dysfunctional and painful ones in my past. I love that Marilyn doesn’t think my intensity is any stranger than that of her children or even her own and that she may not even see me as particularly intense at all. Asbury has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. It is not an easy place to be in and burnout tends to happen quickly but inefficiently. Almost a year later, it feels less like home to me than when I first arrived. But when I look closer, I remember there are a couple of people who have made it all worthwhile. What I have learned from my relationship with Marilyn is something I will always cherish. No matter where I go and where I end up, I know I will always have Marilyn to chat with, cry to, and to share fabulous poems and endless bounds of wit and humor with. Thanks, Marilyn, for an amazing time and one crazy ride!

Oh, and did I mention I love that Canadian accent? Sure is something, eh?

A Way of Seeing

I wrote this as a photo essay of sorts on my profile for a photo site I enjoy being a part of, jpgmag.com. The assignment was to write about a photo product we use and enjoy.

Some days, I miss those hours in the darkroom—the time that would pass by unknowingly like a gambling addict in those windowless casinos, the tactile experience of placing the paper in the easel, the turning of that focus knob on the enlarger, the way magic seemed to happen as the picture began to appear on the paper as it soaked in the developer. Maybe I even miss my hands smelling like fixer for the rest of the day, reminding me of the vinegar-scented prelude to the childhood dyed-egg hunts of Easter.

For years, I easily resisted the temptation for a digital camera. I was wary of the picture quality when compared to the film I was used to, I was unsure of the way computer programs might cheapen the art of photography, and, quite simply, I was unable to afford a decent digital SLR. Finally, though, I made the plunge, and though I would have loved to have afforded a D200 (or even now a D700), I can't deny that my Nikon D40x has served me well. Very well.

Like with many photographers, my camera is my lifeline. A few months ago I spilled tea all over it, body and lens. It wouldn't turn on immediately after and I was sure my life was over. My chaplain here at grad school, whom I love but who does not see a great need for sympathy, remarked, "It's not like you lost your eyesight," and I wanted to respond back to her, "Well, it sort of is." Fortunately, after following a friend's advice to sit it in a pile of uncooked rice, it worked fine a few hours later.

Some might describe a camera as a third eye, one more thing that helps you see. But for me, a camera is less an added eye and more like a second brain, one dedicated solely to the capture of memories. I can take pictures of landscapes, of country, city, cars, sunsets, but my energy comes from photographing people and especially photographing the people I know and the people I love. People are fascinating. They're amazing, they're cool, they're crazy, incredible, messed up, weird, and just plain unbelievable, and when I capture these moments it is for me like the endorphin rush of a runner or maybe even the adrenaline rush of a druggie. And people are worth remembering. They are worth looking back on, worth reflecting on the time spent with them.

I have come to realize my digital camera has revolutionized my picture taking life in a way my film camera possibly never would. It has opened up artistic possibilities and has changed the way I view photography. I take immensely more photos than I could have ever dreamed of with film. And with the instant gratification of immediate access to results, it has probably upped the addictive factor of it tenfold, which I don't at all mind.

I love the accessories I can get for my camera. I enjoy drooling over the lenses I can't afford, the possibilities of what I could do even better in the future, even the excitement of the new tripod I bought to replace the one that just broke, but it is the camera itself, and the simple accessories I already have that I love. It is the ability to take pictures at will and to capture the moments and memories of my life as they happen.

I love my Nikon D40x. I love the pictures I've taken with it that are now printed and tacked up on my wall. I love what it allows me to remember. A photograph, I once wrote to a friend, is not in itself a memory, but the key that unlocks it. And when I look back on what my camera has captured, I realize it's certainly an interesting way of seeing.

Peace in Wilmore

My friend Morgan invited me out for pizza tonight at a funky hippy type pizza place in Lexington along with another friend of hers. I’ve only been to this place once, but I enjoyed it and have been hoping to go back. But I declined the offer. Surprisingly, because I wanted to stay in Wilmore.

Yesterday, while on a stroll to Cluckers, our only gas station, to get a Dr. Pepper, I was surprised to see new rocking chairs on the porch of Asbury College’s women’s dorm. Ten of them, in fact, and all from The Cracker Barrel (where everyone around here gets their rocking chairs, including me). I would like to note that ten of those babies in one shot is not cheap. I gazed at them as I walked by and could hear them beckoning to me, so I made a plan to spend as much time as I wanted there today. College is not in session, and the students are not occupying the dorms, so I had free reign.

So I woke up, fixed myself some breakfast, got dressed, took my hot tea and my Gandhi autobiography and strolled on over. Today’s weather was perfect, the most similar it’s been to the Northwest all summer. Tomorrow should be even more so. As I wandered up and across the street, I saw some of the city workers laboring away, noticed the cars parked along the sidewalk and for the first time this summer I thought, “This is a good life.” While others worked for hours, I simply rocked in the white painted woven seated chair and enjoyed the breeze as I read more of Gandhi’s words (more, because I’ve been reading this for two summers now—I’m on summer number three), drank my English Breakfast Tea and occasionally looked out over both campuses. The sun was wonderfully bright today and warm but not unpleasant. I have not been able to find myself a pool I can lounge around in, yet, but I got the porch I’ve been longing for for the past few weeks now, and it was everything I needed it to be.


This evening, as I sat on that porch, I looked out over the tranquil little town of Wilmore. It’s summer here, which means it’s quiet because the students are gone, or at least a lot of them are. A small group of college students, probably around for summer campus work, sat on the college’s wooden benches and chatted. Here and there a car would come up the drive. Townspeople meandered with their kids or walked with their dogs or simply walked alone, taking a needed break, I’m sure, for some exercise and solitude. An older couple wandered through the campus throwing Frisbees (what for, I couldn’t tell, because they weren’t throwing them at each other, just throwing them, hitting a lot of trees in the process). And I thought to myself that at this time in my life, Wilmore is too quiet, but at another time, later, when my life someday gets crazy and full and room to breathe will be a precious commodity, an evening like this in a place like Wilmore will be a welcome break, and I came to understand what this town really has to offer. Peace. It does not offer action. It does not offer change, progressive thinking, or a variety of career opportunities. It simply offers peace. Today, I graciously accepted. And tomorrow? Well, maybe it’s time to finally learn how to play my guitar. And I think a rocking chair on a front porch is not a bad place to start.

My guitar

Ichthus, Youth Ministry, Life, and Sara Groves

It occurred to me today that the chasm between the third world and the first world is, in fact, a fabricated one. There is no such thing as one or the other. The first worlds, and especially America, have simply become the best at hiding our poverty. Or perhaps it is not that neither are true, but that we’ve defined them incorrectly. We want to believe that in the first world poverty doesn’t exist, at least not bad poverty, not like in the “third world,” but the truth is that it is simply a difference in percentages. It does, however, exist. Children starve in America. People are killed in the streets over drugs and territory. Women and children are trafficked. Yes, even in the land of the free and home of the brave. I sometimes wonder if I’ve ever passed one of these invisible women or children on the street. Portland, you know, is a prime location for sex trafficking—a coastal city somewhere on the route between Seattle and San Francisco. And it has the highest number of strip clubs per capita of any city in the nation. The sex industry is booming. Kentucky is a little lower in its sex trafficking numbers, but with all its farmland probably contends pretty well with trafficking for labor.

This world is a hard place to live in. It is hard on those in the slums of the biggest cities in the world, because their subhuman status makes them invisible to protection by their own governments, and it is hard for those of us who are not impoverished, those of us with the power of these choices, because with great power comes great responsibility. Many have chosen to pretend as if they don’t have power, which is a lie to themselves and to those more helpless than them and a great disservice to our God. But there are the rare few (and I don’t mean the Bill Gateses and Angelina Jolees) who have come to understand that it is, in a strange way, better to bear the burden of the poor than to bear the burden of ignorance, to care deeply and in a way that forces us to action about the hungry, diseased, oppressed, enslaved, and marginalized in the world.

Today, I have been listening to Sara Groves as I browse through the 1,200 pictures I took over the last three days and select just a few to edit for Facebook before I edit all the rest of them, and I have been thinking about things, thinking about my life, about Christianity and Christians, and about this world.

Ichthus is finally over. I did not stay till the very end on the last night, because I reached my limit of people time and then overstayed by two hours as it was, but I stayed long enough. I spent likely a total of about thirty-four hours at this music festival, most of which was spent on my feet moving from one stage to another and that left me with a lot of time to take in and process what I was seeing and hearing. Ichthus has attendees of all ages, but it is geared toward high school through college age. Basically, it’s a three-day long youth event with well over a hundred speakers and musicians and thousands of attendees.

If you know me (and you don’t have to know me that well to know this), you know that I just might have some thoughts and opinions about youth events. In fact, I have some thoughts and opinions about the way youth are treated in the American church, and they are generally not good ones. I believe youth (as does everyone) need to be saturated in the message of the gospel, not the convoluted message of right and wrong, dos and don’ts, guilt, behavior modification, to be or not to be, but the real story of the gospel, the story of love, the story of redemption, the story that teaches them, in the words of Philip Yancey, what’s so amazing about grace, and they need it not in a kindergarten way, but in a scripturally soaked way, a way that really teaches them, from the fall of Adam and Eve to the sins of King David to the prophecies of Jeremiah to the cross of Jesus Christ, that if the message and meaning of the story of the Bible could be summed up into one word it would be this: redemption. And it is only out of that foundation, out of that realization, that we can begin to move into a Christianity of action and into a conviction of social justice, which, like redemption—which it is inherently tied to—is saturated in scripture. Over all, I was disappointed with what I saw. I was disappointed because I discovered that very little has changed about youth ministry since I was a youth. I saw what I’d expected, but I’d hoped for something different. And yet, in the midst of it all there was that glimpse of something different. The things I didn’t discover until I was coming out of college are making their way into younger generations even if still only on the margins. In the midst of baby-milk Christianity and guilt trips and individualized spirituality is coming the message of community, of authenticity, of a world view that makes us move from inward to outward and not the other way around.

Of all the musicians that played at Ichthus this year, only one was a name I recognized, and it was the name of someone I list among my three favorites, alongside Bob Dylan and Over the Rhine. Sara Groves has an interesting story about her faith journey. It is a story you can follow through the timeline of her song writing and one that moves from that same inward to outward journey that is beginning to move its way ever so steadily into the youth culture of the church. Today, as I sat at my computer, I listened mostly to her latest two albums, “Add to the Beauty” and “Tell Me What You Know.” “Add to the Beauty” is what I would label as her transition album. It is the album where you can see the first real manifested glimpses of movement, where the restlessness and struggle in her heart for something more than what she was or had became transparent through her songs. “Tell Me What You Know” is easily labeled her social justice album and it is through these songs where her transformation into her call for the hearts of the people of the world whom God has created becomes fully real.

As an official photographer for Ichthus, I had the pass that could get me anywhere a photographer would want to be which included backstage on the Main Stage, where the biggest known bands and all the speakers were scheduled, and I was wandering around back there, chatting with someone I knew when Sara Groves came up the ramp from her bus to wait for her sound check for the next scheduled show. To see Sara Groves in person was what I’d been waiting for all day, and the only thing I’d really been looking forward to amidst this entire event. She does not seem to make it out to the Northwest ever, so this was the first chance I would have to get to see her in concert.

As with a lot of people I know whose hearts are touched by the plight of the world, Sara Groves has discovered that there is no turning back once your eyes are opened to the true poverty that exists, and so she has named her tour the Art*Music*Justice Tour and travels with other musicians in an effort to not just entertain but so that through the music they can touch the hearts of those watching. Along side video clips of Martin Luther King, Jr,, speaking and Bono’s well known prayer breakfast speech, she talks about her journey through her discoveries of modern day slavery, the unbelievable poverty of so many people in this world, her visit to Rwanda and their genocide memorial sites in hopes of sparking that same fire in the hearts of those who are there to hear them play.

I was down in front with the audience as the videos played at the start of the show, but I spent the majority of the time listening to the show from back stage. In the intensity of this crazy three day long festival, it was like a breath of fresh air to listen to Sara Groves and her fellow musicians share the same concerns that are on my heart, and I have to admit that I’d become so adjusted to not knowing anything I was hearing that when she played the first notes of her well-known song “Add to the Beauty,” it startled me to hear something I recognized, and it surprised me even more to listen to an entire show about the very things that have seized my heart and refused to let go, even though these were things not unexpected to hear from them.

This world, as I noted before, is a hard place to be in. There is so much that needs to be done, so much injustice on this earth to contend with and fight against, so many people who need love, so much struggle in my own heart to make the better choices, even though they may seem self-sacrificing, or maybe because of it. This world is constantly changing, and as a Christian, it’s my responsibility to chose to change it for the better, but it is not my calling to save the world. It is my call to seek out and follow the heart of God. That is the call of every Christian.

Ichthus was full of things I had hoped it would not be, but had also simply expected it would. Just before Sara began her show, I had a short conversation with a young volunteer security guard who argued that to listen to anything but Christian music was to listen to idol words and that when he was first saved he felt God say to him to put down the music that didn’t glorify God, which meant only listen to Christian music. “That was my personal conviction,” he claimed. I simply responded, “Well, it is not mine.” I wish, now, that I could have a longer conversation with him—that I could hear him out and share some of my thoughts, but I was exhausted and hot didn’t have the energy to say to him that my thoughts at the moment were that there are a lot of good things being said outside of Christian music and a lot of crappy stuff said within it. I wish I would have, but perhaps it’s best that I didn’t. I can only hope that what he heard from Sara Groves and those traveling with her challenged how he sees the world and planted a seed of seeking within him.

In the end, I got to meet Sara Groves. It was a brief encounter in which I simply told her I love what she’s doing and that despite my general dislike for Christian music, I love listening to her stuff. She is a delightful and friendly person. And it was the highlight of my summer so far. In fact, it may be the highlight of my entire last year and perhaps has made all the shittiness of transitioning from the Pacific Northwest to Asbury and Kentucky completely worthwhile.

I am glad that Ichthus is over. I am left with a saddening for our youth, some very sore shoulders, exhaustion, 1,200 pictures to scan through and edit, and in the middle of it all a glimpse of hope that maybe it’s going to be alright. Redemption, as Sara Groves sings, comes in strange places, small spaces, calling out the best of who we are. I have paused her music for the moment as I finish this up and prepare to read back through, but when I’m done, I will turn it back on, and I will be reminded that as difficult as things can be, just as she says, Love is still a worthy cause. And so I will simply close this out with these words of hers that have gotten me through a lot this year, and will likely get me through a whole lot more:

in the midst of passing bravery
in the face of our own injuries
is the constant generosity of grace.

The Career or the Family: Womens' Fight for it All

This is my post for today on my summer blog and I thought it was interesting enough to also post here. It is not superbly written by any means. But I think it's worth a read, and especially if you are part of the church.

June 8, 2009

I watched a documentary, today, called Searching for Debra Winger, and I was entranced by it, to say the least. In the western world, there seems to be one place left in society where women still struggle at unprecedented levels for equality: the Church. Included in that is the struggle to have a career and a family, by choice, and not be looked down upon as wrong, a sinner, or one of *those* feminists. Outside the church the struggle for equality exists, but no one questions the right for a woman to be a manager, a professor, a researcher, a CEO, or even president. Some, chauvinistically, may question a woman’s capability to do so, but it is even in the laws that one can not judge her right. I have heard more than one woman who, after coming into the church for the first time in adulthood, was stunned to discover the equality chasm. It had never occurred to them to even think that a woman could not perform the same roles as men. Tradition is hard to break everywhere, but it is hardest to break in the church. And tradition declares that men work and women stay home. When necessity arises, exceptions are made for a woman to work, but for a woman to choose to work and have children is for some, unthinkable.

Searching for Debra Winger is a documentary, originally made for Shotime, about the struggle for actresses to have a career and a family and what it is for them to age in Hollywood. Produced by actress Rosanna Arquette, she interviews multiple well-known actresses such as Laura Dern, Holly Hunter, Jane Fonda, and Sharon Stone about their journeys and choices and struggles in the film industry. I was intrigued to watch this movie for no other reason than that I think Debra Winger is amazing, and I think she’s even more beautiful now than she was when she did such movies as An Officer and a Gentleman and Terms of Endearment (a personal favorite). The movie is so titled because Debra Winger made the decision to retire, or at least take a long break for an undeterminable amount of time, from the acting business and pretty much fell off the radar. It is probably a good half way through this documentary before Arquette finally pulls up for a face to face interview with Debra Winger. All the conversations were very interesting to listen to, but it was words from Laura Dern and then later from Whoopi Goldberg that really struck me and stayed with me. As Dern spoke about growing up with a mother in the movie business, she recalled the conversation with her as a child about wishing she’d be around more and feeling somewhat abandoned, and her mother attempted to explain to her that she did not know how to be a mother without also living out her passion. Yes, I could stay home and spend more time with you, she remembered her mother’s reply, but if I did that at the expense of my passion, I would be a really bad mom. And these words really hit me in the heart.

Today, I am young. I am family-less, and I can dream all I want. I can tell people I never want to be a stay-at-home mom, that I want to have children someday, but that I also have the passion to follow my career, and they smile and some probably think, because I can see it in their faces, that really in the end I will want to stay home. But someday, this will not be the future, it will not be a dream. It will be reality, and those looks that tell me now—without ever having to hear the words—that I’m simply silly and young and inexperienced, will instead tell me they disapprove, because I know myself, and I know that I will, in fact, never be a stay-at-home mom, or at least not a happy one. In the world, people may smile and say, to each his (or her) own, but in the church, this is be very different. It is in these words which Laura Dern recounted, where I felt as if God reminded me of who I am, and God taught me a lesson. I felt God say, I made you as you are, not as people want you to be.

I am a passionate person. I have things I’m passionate about and I have a call that may include (I hope include) having children but that is not centered around that. This is not faulty wiring on God’s part, or a defect. It is the way God wired me, with her own hands. As I heard those words, I remembered a conversation with my friend Sarah. It was a conversation wherein multiple women were present, mostly college women, and I asked her about being a working mom, and she said to me, “I have come to realize that I have about five good ‘mom’ hours in me a day. Beyond that, I lose my attention span. I get impatient. That is just something I know about myself,” and these words calmed my spirit and made me realize that my lack of desire (my horror, really) at the idea of being a stay-at-home mom is not because something is wrong with me, but because that is not what I’m called to and not what I’m made for.

Marriage and motherhood is a long way off for me. Probably further away than my career, though I can not see into my future, so I can’t really know. I am very content with my life right now. I have my difficult moments but those are not moments that a husband or child would fix—they are moments that happen at those times, too—but I am happy, over all, with the way things are. I greatly value the freedom I have to live at my leisure, to move without directly affecting another’s life and decisions, to act on a call without having to acutely consider the call of someone else.

These things will come when they come, and with them will come an entirely different way of living and an entirely different set of choices to make. In those moments when people pressure to me to fit into their mold, to be the wife, the mother, the woman I’m expected to be, I hope I remember Sarah’s words; I hope I will recall the conversations and recountings from this film. I hope I remember what God has spoken to me today, what she has spoken to me before, though I seem to often forget it—that I am who God created me to be. I am not anybody else.

So for those of you who love being a career mom, for those of you who can’t understand the idea behind being a career mom, and for those of you not there yet (or are men), I would recommend viewing this film. Some of the language is not PG rated, so be warned, but it is a documentary worth watching.