Getting older is always better than the alternative!

My love for this diabolically delicious combination knows no bounds, and I'm still amazed I had the self-control not to buy this when I found it in NYC last March. Of course, I knew if I bought it I would eat the whole thing. Right away.

I'm 35 today! Woo hoo!

There's no sarcasm in that, by the way. I'd rather be 35 than . . . well, pretty much any other age. My 20s were great but I have no desire to go back there, and the idea of being a teenager again gives me the heebie-jeebies (shudder). Nope, I'm good with being 35, creaky joints and all. I do wish I had my old memory back, though. Sigh.Wait, what was I saying?

How am I celebrating today? Writing a blog post at work, naturally! :) I have a 4 mile run planned for this afternoon, small group tonight, and somewhere in there I will be eating a Reese's Pumpkin (far and away my favorite of the seasonal Reese's shapes . . . well, the Christmas trees are also yummy, and the Easter eggs were the original, so they have tradition on their side . . .and don't forget the Valentine's hearts - new to the scene but with just the right balance between chocolate and PB . . . yes, people, I know I have a problem).

There are 3 days left in my Birthday Week of Running challenge! The good news: I only have 8 miles left to do and am only $5 away from reaching my fundraising goal for Blood: Water Mission! The not-so-good-news: There's rain forecast for tomorrow, which means I might need to fit those 8 miles into today and Friday, which will be busy for various reasons. Hmmmmm, we'll see.

Thank you ALL for the encouragement, birthday greetings, and words of affirmation. They've really meant a lot to me over the past week. Cheesy or not, I mean it when I tell you that every email, text, or Facebook post helps me focus on doing this.

Happy running!

Water matters. Here's why.

 Yeah, this is only tangentially related to the subject of this post, but it's Wolowitz!

Today is Day 4 of my birthday week of running! I've made it through 20 of my planned 35 miles. My quads and calves, however, were left behind somewhere around mile 13 and I'm not sure I'll ever see them again. Eh, who needs 'em?

As I've been running I've been asking people to please consider donating to a nonprofit called Blood: Water Mission, a group whose stated aim is "Empowering communities to work together against the HIV/AIDS and water crises in Africa." As of this morning, I've raised $190 of my $350 goal, and thank you, thank, THANK YOU to those people who have given! For those who are a little more curious as to what B:WM does, what the "water crisis" is, and why I chose to raise money for this specifically, here's some information.

For those of us in the developed world, it's strange to even think of water - where it comes from, the process of cleaning it, and the effort it takes to get from "there" to "here." But for many, many people in the world, clean, safe, drinkable water is a daily struggle. Some facts:
- 700 million people in the world lack access to clean water. That's about 10% of the world's population and 2 and 1/2 times the population of the US.
- 3.4 million people die every year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Almost all of these deaths occur in the developing world . . . which tells us that these deaths are largely preventable.
- Over 800,000 children under the age of 5 die every year from diarrhea-related causes. This works out to more that 2,000 children per day. It's estimated that 88% of diarrhea-related deaths are caused directly by a lack of clean water and sanitation.
- The average person (almost always a woman or child) in Africa walks about 3 miles a day to get to a water source, and carries about 10 pounds of water in each trip. This could add up to 7 hours of work a day . . . for water.
- A 5-minute shower uses more water than a person in the developing world will use in an entire day.
(All the above from various sources including the CDC, UNICEF, WHO, and Water.org)

I'm not here to preach - I promise! But water matters and most of us in the developed world never think of it. So think about water today, be thankful for it, and remember those people around the world who don't have it.

Happy running!

Why in the world am I doing this? Running week FAQ

About a month ago I decided to do something "different" for my birthday celebration. During the week of my 35th birthday, I'm running 35 miles. For some, that's a lot; for others, that's practically nothing; for ME, I thought it would be the perfect length for a challenge that was somewhat daunting, but manageable.

I started on Saturday with a planned 3 miles that turned into 5.5 when everything felt good. Yesterday was a planned 10 miles (my longest planned run) that turned into 11 when I still had a little gas left. Today is Day 3 and OHMYGOODNESSMYLEGSARESOSORE. :) I don't know what I'm going to get done today - maybe an easy, slow, 3 miles as a recovery run? - but I feel good about my progress so far.

A few people have been asking some questions about my week of running (or running in general) and I thought I'd answer a few of them here:

Why are you running? Is someone chasing you?
In a manner of speaking. In order to get motivated to run, I often pretend that behind me is a hoard of political news shows anchors, and in front of me is a chocolate cupcake. This is a surprisingly effective combination.

Are you worried about running so much? What about getting injured?
I'm careful and I listen to my knees. They often say things to me like, "If you stop running now, we promise never to disobey you again." However, I know from experience that my knees are little lying troublemakers.

How fast do you run? 
I'm not entirely sure. Maybe we could ask that toddler that just passed me on his tricycle? I think he has a tracking app on his iPhone.

Can you eat whatever you want because you're running this much? 
Athletes often say that food is fuel. My body, for some inexplicable reason, prefers being fueled with things called "vegetables" and "lean protein" and "healthy fats." I keep trying to convince my body that ice cream and Nutella sandwiches are a reasonable substitute and that my pancreas is a vestigial organ, but my body refuses to pay attention.

So you're using this run to raise money for a charity. Why? 
I am! I'm asking that people (who might be inclined to be birthday-gift-givers anyway) skip anything monetary they would normally do and instead make a donation to Blood: Water Mission, a really awesome nonprofit. I first learned about this nonprofit years ago and am impressed by its commitment to helping with practical needs in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the CDC, over 800,000 children under the age of 5 die every year from diarrhea often caused by a lack of a clean water source. This is a real problem where our money can make a direct difference.

Of course, I'm not doing this purely for altruistic reasons. Using my running to raise money for a good also makes me MUCH less likely to skip a run in order to sit in Starbucks with my Kindle.

You can donate at this link if you'd like, and thank you!

Any other questions out there? I'm happy to make up some more sleep-deprived answers. :)

Happy running!

Let's celebrate my birthday by doing something CRAZY

Four weeks from today, I turn 35. This is good news! I mean, aside from the fact that I have all sorts of old people diseases and expect to break a hip any day now, every year of my 30s has been better than the year before. For real. My 20s were great, my 30s have been better, and I’m excited about what comes next (minus the aforementioned hip thing).

So how does one celebrate hitting their mid-thirties? Well, I was on a long run recently and I got to thinking about my inspiring friend Tara, who runs marathons (with an “s” – that girl is hardcore!) and on her thirtieth birthday actually ran 30 miles.

(This is when I sidetrack to say, if you’re not a runner, that that is AMAZING. Also, I should note that long runs can be very boring sometimes, and your mind drifts to all kinds of places it probably should stay away from. So if the following sounds kind of ridiculous, let’s just blame the endorphins. Deal?)

All that to say, I am NOT running 35 miles on my 35^th birthday. Uh uh. No way. That would be INSANE.

But . . . I am planning on running 35 miles during my 35^th birthday week!

I’m still a newbie runner in many ways, having only started running about a year and a half ago. I’m training for a half marathon right now which will be my first race ever. Until I started training, I ran about 10-12 miles a week and my longest single run was 6 miles. Even now, I’m only up to long runs of 9 miles and 20 miles per week. So, I’m no Tara, but this is a challenge that’s appropriately Jennifer-sized.

I guess the question some people might be asking is why. Well, a good question with multiple answers. Part of it is because, like Everest, the challenge is there. Why not? That seems like a good enough reason on its own.

Another huge reason is that I can! The Jennifer of 3 years ago sure couldn’t have done this, but I really think this is something I can accomplish. It’s a celebration of turning 35 in the best physical shape of my life. I know my knees and creaky joints won’t always allow me to do this, so why not take advantage of it while I’m able?

But, since all that might not be motivation enough for me when the mileage starts to add up, my tiredness accumulates, and I want to quit, I’ve decided to add one more layer. If people are interested in encouraging me and celebrating, I’m asking friends to consider making a donation to Blood: Water Mission. B:WM is a non-profit that focuses on HIV/AIDS issues and clean water in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a well-respected organization that received 4 stars (out of 4) from Charity Navigator. It’s an organization with a great mission that I’m proud to support. I’m going to use the pledges and donations to B:WM as one more source of encouragement: It’s going to be harder for me to quit if I know people are partnering with me as I run! 

If you’d like to donate, use this link to my Causes page.

 

If you can't donate, I'll be happy to take motivational phrases (preferably embroidered on throw pillows).  

So, the week of October 14-20, be on the lookout for a very tired, very happy Jen. I’ll be the one wearing orange and blue and sweating a lot.

Math puts me in a mood

Basically, I know just enough math to know why this is funny.

Let’s not confuse “numbers” with “growth.” 

We all know I have no love for numbers, but when it comes to statistics I not only lack warm, fuzzy feelings, I lack the patience of a 2-month-old. Statistics – just like labels – are neat, tidy, convenient bundles of near-meaninglessness. Don’t believe me? How else is it possible that the tiny church I once attended claimed to have attendance of over a thousand? Really, it was much more likely that 30 people attended 40 times . . . and even then I think one person probably just hopped back and forth over the threshold a bunch, in order to get the numbers up. 

All this is to say that, in recent articles about the “dying church,” I remain largely unconvinced and unconcerned. Are numbers dwindling at both liberal and conservative churches across the country? Well, yeah, probably. There are, most likely, fewer people sitting in pews inside church buildings in the Unites States on Sunday mornings than there were 20, 30, or 40 years ago. But notice all the qualifications I had to put on that? Where do I even start to unpack that? 

First of all, Christians worldwide make up about the same percentage of the population today as they did a century ago. So if church numbers are shrinking in the US, we have to look elsewhere to see growth; in fact, there’s been explosive church growth in what’s often referred to as the “Global South” (South America, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa). This isn’t a bad thing! This is amazing! What I think is particularly cool about it (but which I think also threatens “established” Western churches) is that Christianity in those contexts looks different from how it looks in the US. Maybe church is an a tiny apartment, maybe indigenous music is used instead of hymns, maybe there is no paid staff . . . all of the things we’ve gotten used to thinking church has to have, those churches are going to be – and should be – different. 

Turning back to the US, though, I think a lot of Christians (perhaps particularly those from my generation) are slipping through the cracks of the statistics because they aren’t in a church building on a regular basis. Now, I should say that I absolutely believe that the biblical model is to come together regularly as brothers and sisters; however, I think I a lot of young adults are perfectly OK with doing that at someone’s apartment on Monday nights with a group of their friends. Who’s counting those people? Is that not church? Why not? I’ve thought long and hard about this for personal reasons: When I returned from China in 2008, I struggled with moving from my close-knit, loving and accountable home fellowship back to the American consumer church model. If I’d found a home church back then to join, I would have in a heartbeat. Where’s the problem in that? What defines a church?

Finally, and what gets me the most, is the idea that numbers alone reflect growth. Gosh, even typing that sentence I get the heebie-jeebies. Listen, I don't think having more people in church is a bad thing. It's true that Acts mentions the growth of the early church in numerical terms ("And the Lord added to their number daily those that were being saved.") and the Gospels talk about the thousands that followed Jesus, but I also don't think Scripture states or implies that numbers = life. How are we to be known? By our fruit (Gal. 5:22-23; Matt. 7:20), by our love (John 13:35), by our sacrifice (1 John 2:6) . . . by our large congregations? By our multiple church "campuses"? By made-up statistics? :) I don't think these are things we're called to concern ourselves with.

How do you feel about numbers? Am I missing the point (it happens; feel free to call me on it)? Can we say the church is "dying" because numbers are down? 

Add your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook. Have a great Thursday!

Labels are so handy! And mostly useless!

I have always wanted to do this when forced to wear one of these dumb nametags.

I wonder why it even matters what we call ourselves. In re-reading yesterday's post, which got this little ball rolling, I looked at some of the identifying labels I used:
- Christian
- conservative
- orthodox
- evangelical
- liberal
- traditional

And notice I didn't even mention any specific denominations. Or use other labels that often get tossed around in the church: inclusive, charismatic, liturgical, Reformed, egalitarian, complementarian . . . the list could go on and on.

Why are we (and by "we" I think I'm referring to those of us who actively think about matters of faith and the Church, but this could perhaps be broadened) so fascinated by labels? Why do we ask what denomination other believers come from, or attend now? And, the biggest labels of all: Why am I even opening up this bag of LIBERAL and CONSERVATIVE faith?

Labels are so easy, people! So simple! They're part of our identity. They tell me who I am. Despite no longer attending the Salvation Army, there are ways I'm still very much a Salvationist. My theology is Wesleyan-Arminian. I'm egalitarian. My faith is orthodox. I like liturgical worship . . . these tell me things about myself and they also serve as shorthand for others to get to know me. See, just reading those things, you've probably made assumptions about me, just like I would make assumptions about someone who told me that they were Reformed, or complementarian, or (gasp!) United Methodist. (Kidding, all my UMC brethren.)

(This makes me think of many of my dear PCA friends, who, when asked what denomination they're part of, almost always tend to respond with, "Presbyterian . . . PCA, not PC (USA)." They know how important labels are.)

There's a major issue with all this, though. These labels limit me. They limit my growth. They force me to stay in a box, and others then assume that that box is all that I am. After a while, everything I read or study or think about confirms and reinforces that label, until my faith has conformed to the limits of the box, instead of having a chance to change and get messy and be challenged.

We want our faith to grow, right? To do so, it has to leave the confines of a labeled box.

This is a scary prospect. If you come from a conservative background, it might be scary to start thinking that you're not - like me - going to use the "evangelical" label anymore. If you call yourself a liberal Christian, your fellow churchgoers might start looking at you strangely if they see you reading a book by Tim Keller or NT Wright. On both sides, I think that when we starting asking questions about what we believe we're going to be told to stop, or to "be careful," because who knows what kind of dangerous place questions will lead us to?

We need to get out of the labeled box, ignore old assumptions, and start asking those dangerous questions. I think that's how we're going to grow as Christians, and as a Church.

Living in the Tension and Wrestling with Faith

(You know what’s fun? When we pretend I haven’t taken a 4-5 month hiatus from blogging, only to post a random entry that has nothing to do with my previous entries. Just go with it.)

The thoughts contained in this post aren’t necessarily new or recent – they’ve been swirling around in my head for a while – but the decision to go ahead and articulate them and post them was largely precipitated by a recent post on Rachel Held Evans’ blog. I would suggest reading that before checking my post out.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Earlier this year – and it’s not a coincidence that 2012 is an election year – I had a bit of a realization. I can no longer describe myself as an “evangelical” Christian. Now, lest my mom read this and begin to pray for my soul (hi, Mom!) I still very much count myself as an “orthodox” believer: I believe and affirm Christianity as defined biblically (and historically), can totally sign off on the Nicene Creed, and consider that I’m theologically in line with much of what traditional Christianity has always considered to be vital to faith.

But.

I can’t pretend anymore that I fit in with how the American (Southern? WASP-y? Conservative? I don’t know) church seems to define being a Christian. I have no idea how “evangelical” stopped being a theological term and started being a political one. I get vaguely nauseated by the tagline for the local (and terrible) Christian radio station: “Safe for the Whole Family.” We’re living in a time and place where Christians seem to be defined more by their hate than their love – maybe that’s not new, but it sure is starting to feel personal – and where “Christian” itself is a label that has no inherent meaning. And I am puzzled, looking around, to see brothers and sisters who are more concerned with getting other Christians to agree with them on political issues instead of living out the transforming power of the Gospel.

I’m digressing. Oh, gosh, I see another series of posts coming on. I really wasn’t planning that!

Let’s focus this one, ok? For this one, what I really want to say is that I have come to grow increasingly distrustful of easy, pat answers. I have a deep appreciation and love for the faith tradition in which I grew up, but looking back I have to acknowledge that there was a lot of legalism going on - and, for the record,  I was absolutely, positively fine with that. After all, rule-following is WAY easier than prayer and trust. It’s always going to be simpler to tell your youth group members not to drink rather than explaining the complicated biblical truth that God created wine to “gladden the hearts of men” (Psalm 104) but that the Bible condemns drunkenness (not to mention that we’re called to obey the law). It’s always going to be easier to tell dating couples to “leave room for the Holy Spirit” or have random hand checks on youth group bus trips, instead of explaining acknowledging that chastity is one of those most difficult things that they will ever do, but it’s a spiritual call that’s worth it.

As I get older, though, these checklists of laws become less and less clear because my spiritual walk stopped being about the fear of breaking a rule and more about the intention of my heart. I find that there are more gray areas in my life now, not fewer. And it’s discouraging to me that any public acknowledgment of these things seems to send some Christians to a place of immediate judgment: If you’ve stopped thinking that faith and church and fellowship have to look a certain way, you must be perilously close to heresy, runs their thoughts. But see, I don’t think I am. And in any case, I don’t think the best response to that is to try and force me back into that old mold of churchiness, but instead to have a gracious, loving, and occasionally provocative conversation about what 21^st century faith needs to look like. (Some of you are rolling your eyes at that, or thinking “Faith is faith is faith!” But nope, sorry, it isn’t. Worship and doctrine are expressed differently through history and it’s silly to pretend otherwise.)

This post has gone on a ridiculously long time and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I wanted to say. A series it will be! I’m sure most of you can’t wait . . . all three of you. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your comments and reactions either here, or on Facebook, or in person.

What I did and why I did it

So  . . . long time, no blog! Life got busy and crazy, readers! (All 5 of you.) And, since I’m not making money off this little venture and doing it really for myself more than anything, I don’t feel too bad about not posting for a while. Now let’s just jump right in, shall we?

Here’s the short version for those with no attention span/interest in this topic:

I got my nose pierced because I wanted to and couldn’t see why not. The End.

You could stop there, but if you want, here’s the longer version for those who are reading blogs because they are procrastinating something they actually should be doing right now:

Last week, while my good friend Kim and I were visiting our other good friend Bethany up in New York City, I got my nose pierced. There is, at this very moment, a small, white gold (gold is apparently the best thing to pierce with but I’m not a fan, so white gold it is) stud on the outside of my left nostril. It’s a little larger than I wanted it to be, but in 3 months or so I can change it out for something smaller. Even so, I like it. It is – at the risk of sounding immodest – cute.

I didn’t get my nose pierced on a whim, by the way. I’ve wanted a nose piercing for at least 8-10 years (no, really). But various factors – mostly work – made it impractical or impossible and so I never seriously considered it until recently, then realized this is the perfect time. Work is certainly not an issue; I work at a state university, for pete’s sake – if you think I’m the only teacher with a nose ring you need to think again.

What I think is funny are the reactions my nose-piercing has provoked from people. It is an understatement to say my parents were not thrilled. My boss stared at my nose for a few seconds with a puzzled look on his face, as if wondering, “Has Jennifer had the entire two years she’s been working here?” My fellow teachers’ reactions ranged from carefully neutral to enthusiastic. My sister declared it “weird” which is her default position on pretty much anything I do. My 7-year-old nephew said it was “gross” while my 5-year-old nephew said he wanted one, too (I love those kids).

My favorite reaction has come from a couple of friends I see on a semi-regular basis – after talking with them for a while, I eventually brought the subject up with the awkward opener, “So, I got my nose pierced.” They both replied that they knew something was different but thought maybe I’d always had my nose pierced. I consider that a sign that it doesn’t look too out-of-place on me. Victory!

Through all of this I’m reminded of how powerful the image of ourselves is that we put out into the world every day. I don’t want to put words in my mom’s mouth, but it’s probably fair to say that – in her mind – sailors get tattoos and rebellious teenagers get facial piercings. (Mom, just to reassure you, I’m stopping with the nose piercing!) She’s having to reconcile the image she has of me as her “baby girl” with the idea that I’m not a member of a biker gang, or a circus performer, or an undercover FBI agent in need of a good disguise but I chose to do this anyway.

There is, it must be said, a part of me that loves confounding others’ expectations of me. Now, I don’t think that’s why I did it. I didn’t do it to be rebellious – seriously people, it feels like 25% of the people I know now have their noses pierced – but it’s kind of a lovely side benefit when people think they have you all figured out, in your safe little box labeled Jennifer (or whatever your own box might be labeled, I’m presuming for the most part NOT Jennifer) and you do something that doesn’t fit in the box. I think the unexpected is a nice shock to the system for the people around you as well as for you. It keeps us on our toes.

And not to over-spiritualize this, but I’ve been learning some lessons about judgment from this, for sure. When people look a certain way think we know how to deal with them, how to approach them (or not approach them, as the case may be) and what their personalities are going to be like. Well, now I’m an educated, well-read, articulate 34-year-old woman with a nose ring and otherwise poor fashion sense. No biggie. See if people know how to handle me now.

So those are my Saturday ramblings. Would YOU get your nose pierced? Do you have a picture in your head of the kind of person that does?  Anyone thing I should get a chain that goes from my nose to my ear? (Just kidding, Mom! I promise!)

Avoiding and Ostrich-ing

I am an ostrich, head buried in the sand, refusing to acknowledge my problems, shortcomings, or the difficulties around me.

And can you blame me? Life is HARD, people! Yes, we have first-world problems (football season is still almost 7 months away, the battery life on my iPhone stinks, I just had to do some minor car repair on my otherwise trusty Camry, sometimes I have to wear my glasses when my eyes get irritated and running or exercising in glasses is the pits) but aside from these roll-your-eyes-at-the-entitled-American problems, the world is a tough place. There are wars, failing economies, human trafficking rings, famines, droughts, melting polar ice caps. On a personal level there are people I care about dealing with sickness, depression, crushing debt and continued unemployment.

When you read the newspaper or watch the nightly news (Ha! I kid, who does those things anymore? Obviously I meant "When Facebook and/or Twitter tells us what's happening in the world") who can blame me for being overwhelmed and retreating inside my safe shell*? Surely, if I pretend everything is going to be fine, it WILL be fine, won't it?

Except this: Never once in the history of ever has avoiding a problem made it (really and truly) go away. David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear once, but problems are here to stay (sigh, I miss the 80s. They were such simpler times).

This truth makes me hurt. It makes me ache. For serious problems it makes me cry because those problems are huge and overwhelming and bigger than anything I alone can do.

For smaller problems - my own, individual issues - it frustrates and annoys me. Because these are problems I can face and take steps to solve and don't. And that's on me. I have no one else to blame. And blaming others is a time-honored tradition that I use to perpetuate the cycle of avoiding my problems.

I am a person of faith and I know that God isn't asking me, Jennifer, to solve all of the world's problems on my own. I get that - no need to remind me. But, in the interest of plain honesty, I believe that it's really easy to use that as a cop-out and an excuse to do nothing. Ouch. No pointing fingers here, unless I'm pointing them at myself.

As for the minor problems? As for what's wrong with me, the things I can fix? I'm learning - well, trying to learn would be a better description - to view these areas as challenges to accept rather than challenges to avoid.

I think we fall into traps of inevitability. "I've always been fat," we'll say, and then because we view that as true (and it was true for me!) then we feel that the logical conclusion is that we must always be fat. But day by day I'm learning that that's a logical fallacy. Just because something has always been true in the past doesn't mean it must necessarily always be true. Not if we take steps - however small - to change it.

Fill in your inevitable challenge, the one you've been avoiding in hopes that it will, one day, magically disappear (Oh, David Copperfield, where art thou?). I'll get the ball rolling on this one:
- I'm a procrastinator.
- I'm not bad with money but I'm not so good, either.
- I am occasionally disorganized to the point of losing things.
- I don't pray enough. I'm undisciplined in my spiritual life.
- I don't send out Christmas cards. (OK, yeah, this one's an area of challenge I can live with indefinitely.)

How do we tackle these areas? What are steps we take, day by day, to change from the person we are and don't want to be into the person who accepts the challenge and initiates real, lasting change?

To be clear, people, I'm not talking about perfection. I'm most definitely not a perfectionist and no one who knows me would confuse me for one. But this isn't about striving for unattainable perfection. It's about removing my head from the sand and acknowledging that change, indeed, is possible. And it starts with me. Now.


*You caught that, didn't you, sharp-eyed reader? Why yes, I did change animal metaphors in the middle of the post. Now I'm a turtle. I needed a shell for a while.