Counting heartbeats.

Sometimes I am sitting reading an article or a book, and I am sitting so still that I can see my hair vibrate from my heartbeat. So I slowly move one hand to check my pulse, and sure enough - the vibrations are from my heartbeat. So I sit even stiller and try to notice other vibrations. Maybe my scarf will shake, maybe I can feel the pulse in my hands or legs or hear it in my ears. I become aware of my breathing. I think "I need to exercise more."

I like being aware of my heart as it just keeps pumping pumping pumping. It's steady and faithful. My fingertips are pink and my toes aren't cold. When we studied the circulatory system in biology I would imagine my arteries breaking off into smaller and smaller vessels, ending in tiny capillaries so small that only one red blood cell could pass through at a time. I would close my eyes and feel my heart beat and think about being alive and how my body takes care of me; my heart pumping without me ever asking it to; my lungs working with air pressure to move oxygen in and out of my body.

So sometimes I get really distracted when I'm reading articles or books for class. It's more fun to count my heartbeats.

Found

I watched the movie August Rush with my friends Elizabeth and Juan the other day. It's a recent movie about a young musical prodigy who is eleven years old and has never met his parents. People tell him that he'll never find them, but he keeps believing, because he hears something that tells him they're still alive.

The movie has some wonderful music in it and some deep themes that resonated quite clearly within me. For all it's faults, I thought it was a worthwhile movie.

August's parents meet only once and don't see each other for eleven years, but during that time they are depicted as not being completely whole - they are missing something and know that they are really missing the other person. Though I think the movie would say it was because they are true soulmates, I think it speaks to the union that happens when we make love, a connection that cannot really be broken.

Another part that touched me was when the title character was asked what he wanted to be more than anything else in the world. He replied, 'Found.' More than anything, he wanted to be with his parents. The music that he heard reminded him that he didn't belong in the orphanage. It called him to a greater purpose. The Spanish title of the film is ¨Escucha tu destino¨ Or ¨Hear your Destiny¨. I thought it was an appropriate title.

For its faults, I don't think that the director really knew who was the main character. There is the love story between the parents, but aspects of their characters could have gone much deeper. And August, though the Title character, seemed distant and unknowable for the most part. And yet I think he is the person we should most emulate: being still to listen for the music all around us, waiting, and hoping, and looking to be Found.

mahwidge

I was a bridesmaid in my friends' wedding this past weekend. It was a new experience for me and was quite enjoyable as well as thought-provoking. I've known both of my friends for a long time and it's fun that they married each other.

All the bridesmaids and groomsmen had pieces of tape marking where they were supposed to stand. I used to have a mark, but it walked away. I stood there, watching things progress, when I realized I wasn't in line with the rest of the bridesmaids. I inched my way over but found that now my view was blocked by shoulders on the steps above me. Now all I could see was Kent, the groom. I had an odd feeling. It was not at all like Kent was saying the vows to us, but there was an aspect that we were hearing the vows the same way Monica did. I couldn't see anything but Kent. I didn't see Monica's reaction. I couldn't see Pastor Rick saying the vows for Kent to repeat. I felt like the big brother behind the bullied kid in school, or the invisible friend of a second grader, or imagine this:a bridesmaid standing up with her friend at her wedding. I was there to support her, to hear the vows and be a witness to them, to encourage them in their marriage and to remind them of the promises they made to each other.

At the wedding I also had a sense of the deep profundity and ancientness of the ceremony - connecting a man and a woman in an intentional and purposeful way. We were dancing on the edge of something incredibly meaningful and established. I pray that Kent and Monica spend the rest of their life relishing and learning more about that dance and the deep deep love it comes from.

conversation snippets

One of my Aunt Kathryn's classmates (from the class of 1943, here for their 65th college reunion) "We graduated with Billy Graham, and we hear so much about his life, but God has done great things in so many of our lives."

The person a few spaces behind me in line for commencement, "the alphabet is a confusing place to be."

Grandpa, holding my hand, "when your dad was a little boy in church, he would be restless, and I would take his hands and rub his fingertips. Quieted him down. Life is good."

Commencement speaker, Akiko Minato, "We are united in Christ, Galatians 3:28, and we are called to be peacemakers."

Tyler Fulton, "Karen, if I don't see you again, have a nice life."

Quite amazing

If I am ever in charge of a large group of children, or probably any size group, I will not let them loose in a shrub maze. On Friday my roommate Sarah Davis took Natasha and me to the Morton Arboretum, a huge plant park southeast of here. They had a maze garden and we walked through it while dozens of elementary aged kids skirted by us. Most were enjoying themselves, but after running around for a while, I began to see disconcerted looks or even tinges of fear as the kids said "you go that way and I'll go this way," looking for a way out. I don't know which of the leaders had this brilliant idea but I'm sure they enjoyed the arduous process of disentangling the children from the verdant web.

Not a finished product

We had a song on a kids tape when I was growing up, and the words were
"He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.
It took him just a week to make the moon and stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient he must be - he's still working on me."

Five days until graduation! I'll be all shiny and clean and one of 550 other blue-gowned graduates. Like Wheaton is a tube of toothpaste that annually shoots out a big glob of educated young adults. Not finished, in process, a step along the way.

It's an interesting feeling to be graduating and thinking that I should be somewhere I'm not - like I should have squeezed more out of my education. Similar to the feeling that I should be writing incredibly profound and insightful things in my blog - that one day I'll put it in a book that will bring hope and joy to millions.

I leave with you this thought "God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal, 'the Lord knows those who are his.'" 2 Tim 2:19. I do not have to prove myself, I do not have to act like a finished product. He's still working on me, and he knows those who are his. I rest and trust in his work, delighting in the adventure he has set me on.

The first step of the adventure I have some idea about - at least locationally I'll be in Mexico. Step by step, because he's still working on me.

Isaiah 43

When we come to Jesus, we are not promised instant change. It is not a Jesus pill. It is a relationship. Regeneration happens over a lifetime, though sometimes the changes are immediate. Trusting God does not mean that it will all work out the way you plan. Trusting God means that you know that all things work together for good, even when we cannot see the good at this time.


Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name - you are mine.
When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.
When you walk through fire you shall not be burned. And the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel,
Your savior.


Walking with God does not mean that we are always in the green pastures - he leads us through valleys, through the waters, through the fire. But he promises his presence and that will be enough for me.

Even as I have been fully known

I had the privilege of speaking publicly in the sociology/anthropology department chapel today. I'm copying and pasting my speech so that you can read it.

-------------

My name is Karen Hooge and I’m a senior sociology major. I want to be known and I want to be loved. I want others to care about me, about me truly and to accept and enjoy me in that knowing.

I spent most of my time at Wheaton wondering what the hype about community was.

And when I finally start to understand little pieces of it, the number of credits I have says I have to leave. I want to be known and yet I’m so scared. I don’t want to leave the people who know me.

At one point during my sophomore year I had a slight altercation with an individual on my brother floor. I had thrown a piece of crumpled up paper at a friend who was sitting a ways away and hit this individual instead. He looked at me and said “I don’t even know you.”

I don’t care.

Yet I cared more than I thought I should. It bothered me.

Did I feel sheepish because I was clowning around?
But he was so derisive. "I don’t know you. I don’t care that I don’t know you. And I don’t want to get to know you."

Well I have other friends who know me. Other people who care about me.

I think I was thrown into a small existential crisis as I began to scour my friendships and wonder who really did know me. Sure people enjoyed my friendship, but there always is a point where they don’t understand me fully. And I’m not just talking about the antics and the words and the appearance of myself.

But who knows my thoughts and my foibles. And how I enjoy feeling that other people are envious of me And how rejected I felt when I didn’t get accepted into Teach for America.. And how I got up in the middle of the night to hold my roommate while she cried even though I was really tired. How there's more of the functionalist in my sociological thought than I would care to admit. And how I wanted to stop praying when faith didn’t make sense but I was too scared not to. And all my failings and flashes of brilliance and on and on.

Did I even know them?

And did I want any one to know all of this? Wouldn’t they think I was small and petty and disgusting and selfish? That I was pretentious and self-righteous.

1 Corinthians 13. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Even as I have been fully known.

I came in a freshmen and all my prior years were unknown to the people I was living and eating and studying with.
I leave as a senior and all of these years will be unknown to the people I will meet and live and talk and share with.

But God knows all my years. All my days. My thoughts. I have been fully known and I am fully known. I will continue to be fully known.
I can rest in that. I don’t have to prove myself to my friends to my family to myself. God knows me. God sees me. And God loves me.

So it’s just me and God then, booyah. Not quite.

For some reason I need the body of Christ. After taking away my dependence on human acceptance because I see I am known by God, God gives me back to community. For we are social beings, but more than just our innate need for others is the call to Christian community. I do not choose the Body of Christ; I am chosen. For this reason, I cannot say to someone else, “I don’t need you.” Oh but I do say this. I say it in many ways. I say it by ignoring you as I walk by you and by not giving you the opportunity to share your story with me.

I am still afraid of being hurt if you reject me so I guard myself. I am also afraid of the awkwardness of not knowing how to handle something you share with me. I do not seek to know you, and I do not allow you to begin to know me.

But 1 Corinthians 13 still calls me. I have been fully known. I can be open and honest and vulnerable with the Body of Christ because I know that there is eternal acceptance beyond the human acceptance. When we let each other down there is forgiveness because there is one who holds our hearts.

When my own faith struggles and falters I can lean on the faith of those around me and those throughout time. And when others struggle, they can lean on my faith.
I can accept your vulnerability and failings because I know that you also are known truly and loved by God. I do not see you as you are, but one day I will, and I can love you.
I am frightened to leave a place where I have discovered community and being known but I am not crippled, because the integrity of who I am – all the pieces seen and understood together – is held by God and not by myself or by the people around me.

I’d like to end with some verses from Colossians 3 which have been meaningful to me in dealing with community.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you so must also forgive. And over all these things put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

running

Funny how the effects of things can linger. Thursday afternoon I went jogging with my friend Anna for a time. She's a runner, I'm not. I stretched, yet my muscles kept reminding me days later of the trauma they underwent. She was encouraging, kept a steady pace for me to follow, and we started walking when I was about to fall over.

I've heard many sermons and devotionals likening the Christian life to a race, and have memorized Paul's metaphor in 1 Cor. 9. They've never really resonated with me because I'm not a runner and don't terribly enjoy steady consistent running (though bursts of speed can be good for the soul). I wonder if Paul was ever an athlete and if he knew from experience what it was like - the long-distance mindset, pacing oneself, being afraid to stop for a second because once you stop your muscles vehemently resist beginning again. Perhaps if I really was a runner I would understand the analogy to the Christian life.

As it is my picture is based more on Isaiah 40:31 - soaring on wings like eagles, running and not growing tired, walking and not fainting. Sometimes life is smooth, sometimes steady, and sometimes all you can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other. And God sustains through it all.

"I called you because you are poor."

I've been applying for jobs in the social service sector of Chicago, jobs where I will be "helping" people who are "less fortunate than I." We've been talking about this in our sociology capstone course, particularly because our discipline of study has given us tools to be able to help others. Yesterday one of my classmates shared the following passage from a book by Jean Vanier entitled Befriending the Stranger. Vanier founded the l'Arche communities, which work with people with disabilities. He has this to say about being in community:

God's ways are not our ways; God's choices are not the choices of society.
God chooses "the poor, the weak, the needy",
those who recognize their poverty -
not just a material poverty but an inability to cope with life.
...
the problem is that we refuse to admit our weakness, our needs, our poverty
because we are frightened of rejection.
We have been taught to be strong, to be "the best", to win in order to become "someone".
Since society tends to marginalise those who are weak we think that weakness means rejection.
So we try to hide our poverty for as long as we can
and to pretend that we are strong;
we build up an appearance of being in control.

We need to hear that gentle, inner voice of God who tells us:
"you do not need to pretend.
you do not need to hide your weakness.
You can be yourself.
I didn't call you to community first of all to help others
Or to prove that you were generous or efficient.
I called you because you are poor,
Just like the ones you came to serve,
And because the Kingdom of God is promised to the poor."

Uke

My ukulele has an odd habit of never being quite in tune, but I think that one which was perfectly tuned would fail to sound like a ukulele, at least as I know it.

I have always enjoyed making music, even though I've never been very stellar at it. I learned to play the guitar a couple of years ago, and soon after picked up my mother's ukulele and started to play that. At first all I played were little melodies that I picked up, most notably "Somewhere over the Rainbow." Slowly I began to learn proper tuning and chords (which, I noticed embarrassedly two years after I started playing, were ridiculously easy - I should have learned them right away).

I also bought a case for the little instrument. It makes it look like I'm carrying around a 3/4 violin or maybe a mafia-esque assassination tool. The case came with a little book of chords and songs, which I have since added to my repertoire.

It's much easier to carry around a ukulele than a guitar, and while it doesn't have the variations possible on a guitar (the ukulele has a range of just under two octaves) it definitely provides a base for singing, and the ability to pick out simple tunes.

I play it to calm myself, to entertain friends, to lead a song during class.
I also like the ukulele for its esoteric qualities. Most people don't know what it is, thinking it's a baby guitar (no, it will not grow up into a full-size) or a mandolin. There's a part of me that relishes in things that not everybody else knows about. 90% of Wheaton students play the guitar to some extent (my best estimate). I don't know anyone else who has a ukulele.

I am not sure if the ukulele is my attempt to live simply and leave my dad's guitar at home, or if it's a way for me to retain a sense of individuality in this community, or if it's simply something I enjoy. I can make music almost anywhere. Perhaps not the best quality, but it makes me smile.

"A shout out to my mom for giving me birth and letting me play her ukulele. I'll tattoo your name on my arm someday."

Just keep swimming, swimming swimming.

Is trust like letting go and floating,

Or is trust like swimming,
swimming when you don't know how far shore is, or even which direction, and it's starting to get dark, and you're getting tired.

But you keep swimming.

Here at the end of all things

I'm celebrating a fake holiday today.
It's March 25, and the Ring has been destroyed.

What a great day! An emblem and embodiment of evil and power and control has been done away with, due to the tremendous efforts and sacrifice.

I'd rather we celebrate our New Year on a day like this, when the seasons are actually changing, and the March wind blows a change, than a cold, bitter day in the midst of winter. This day has meaning.

"...the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach." (The Return of the King pg. 199)

"They stood now; and Sam still holding his master's hand caressed it. He sighed. 'What a tale we have been in, Mr. Frodo, haven't we?' he said. ...But even as he spoke so, to keep fear away until the very last, his eyes still strayed north, north into the eye of the wind, to where the sky far off was clear, as the cold blast, rising to a gale, drove back the darkness and the ruin of the clouds." (Ibid, 229).

The only way out is through

Lent is difficult for me. I have too much of the Protestant in my theological blood. I prefer the Resurrected Christ, without problems. Christ is Risen. He is Risen Indeed. For this reason, my cross is empty - there is no suffering, emaciated figure hanging there to bring me discomfort (or is it comfort in disguise?).

At Lenten services I know the priest won't dismiss us with a "Go in peace." We are meant to leave troubled by our sin and the great sacrifice it precipitated. I don't want to dwell on suffering. I don't like thinking of myself as a vile sinner, saved through the grace of God but still struggling.
And I don't know what to do with the God-man. Behold, the Creator, stooped in dust, bloody.

I feel like Prince Humperdinck, muttering out of the side of my mouth "skip to the end."

But the only way out is through.

Do I cheat the Resurrection of its power when I neglect what it defeats? If I don't understand death, how do I know true life? How do I know how to feast, unless I first experience the fast.

Benefit of the doubt

I like to give people a little bit of leeway when I'm determining what their actions or words mean. I'm a rather trusting person and I hope for the best about a lot of people. I try not to jump to conclusions (though I do, I admit) and try to remember that I shouldn't assume things - there's so much about a situation that I don't know.

Things that I take for granted about what it means to be a Christian - that being a Christian is more than just going to church on Sunday but should be an all-encompassing rethinking and reordering of every aspect of our lives - I am learning aren't held by all the people around me calling themselves Christians.
Part of being a Christian means having integrity. I don't think that integrity is a nice by-product that some people may have, but is rather something we all need to strive for. Let our words and actions match up. If we say we will do something, do it. People watch us, in our lives, and we are a witness at every moment.
I'm not talking about a legalistic terror of mistakes or a strive to be perfect in a self-created way. I'm talking about intentionally working towards the integration of our words and actions and beliefs, being a whole person where all parts of our lives connect and support each other. Acknowledging our mistakes and being honest about our failings. Rejecting pretension and the compartmentalization of our lives.

We are forgiven people, but our redemption is not so that we can get lost in the wilderness. We were set free for a purpose, to be God's icons in this world. Our actions matter, our words matter. If we believe something, it needs to change us.