lent.

Growing up in heavily-German-populated-northeast Wisconsin, the majority of the population was Catholic.  As such, many many people observed lent by giving up something - usually something along the lines of chocolate or caffeine.  Growing up as a Baptist, well, I thought it was just another meaningless Catholic tradition.

Since then, my eyes have been opened time and time again to the beauty of the tradition of the church calendar, the profundity that comes from centuries of rich history.

Lent is not merely a tradition, but is a season of penance, reflection, and fasting.  It is a time to dwell on brokenness, on the ashes of this world, in eager anticipation for the wholeness and redemption that will come on Easter Sunday.

A prayer for this Ash Wednesday:
(taken from a traditional Lenten liturgy)

Loving God,
you create us from the dust of the earth;
may these ashes be for us a sign
of our penitence and our mortality,
and a reminder that only by the cross
do we receive eternal life
in Jesus Christ our Savior.  Amen.

What a good reminder that God brings us out of the dust.  He makes us whole.  He brings newness amidst the ashes.

So we observe the season tangibly by giving up something.  Not just anything, but something of value to us.

Last year I gave up trying to hide my brokenness.  I was distraught over these girls and their brokenness, and it made my own all the more apparent.  So I didn't try to hide it when I cried.  I shared it and it made the burden easier to bear, it made my ministry to these girls all the more real.  I was able to be honest with the girls, with my coworkers, with myself, and with the Lord.  It is something I still value deeply.

I've been considering what to "give up" this year.  While I haven't yet decided, I intend to by the weekend.  In the meantime, consider this poem by Walter Brueggemann.  Also consider buying and reading one of his books - You won't be disappointed.  I promise.


Revise our taking
by Walter Brueggemann

You, you giver!
You have given light and life to the world;
You have given freedom from Pharaoh to your people Israel;
You have given your only Son for the sake of the world;
You have given yourself to us;
You have given and forgiven,
          and you remember our sin no more.
And we, in response, are takers:
     We take eagerly what you give us;
     we take from our neighbors near at hand as is acceptable;
     we take from our unseen neighbors greedily and acquisitively;
     we take from our weak neighbors thoughtlessly;
     we take all that we can lay our hands on.
It dawns on us that our taking does not match your giving.
In this Lenten season revise our taking,
          that it may be grateful and disciplined,
          even as you give in ways generous and overwhelming.
Amen.



Compliments of my friend, Andrea, is a link to a beautiful description of what lent is and means.

a memorial.

My post from a few weeks ago becomes a sort of memorial to my grandpa who passed away yesterday. (http://www.erincapers.blogspot.com/2011/12/aging.html)

I leave in the morning for the funeral.  Only the second one I have ever attended.  He was a great man who loved deeply and forever made an impact on my life.

Art Forsman, I love you.

Why I do what I do:

Some Littles here at Shelterwood know from the day they arrive that they need to be here.  They become self-aware, they confront issues, make changes, of course there are still struggles and temptations, but in the end they come out stronger than they were when they came in.

Other Littles take a while to realize they need to be here.  They take each day as another day to be miserable and locked down.  Eventually, though, some of them come around.  It may be a phone call with their parents, or an encounter with God - something triggers a desire for change.

Still others stay miserable.  They maintain a mindset that they were sent away to hell and their primary goal is to make everyone else's lives hell until the day they finally get pulled from the program or kicked out.

There are a couple of guys who fit into that third category who all left the program around the same time for various reasons.  One of them is a little bit infamous around these parts.

Just a few hours ago, he posted the following on Shelterwood's Facebook page.  I know it's a bit lengthy, but it really is worth the read.
(Disclaimer:  This is unedited, except to remove specific information for privacy purposes)

"Why i was at shelterwood i thought it was hell and wanted to leave the whole time i was there. I had respect for almost no one there and fought every rule pretty much to the day i got pulled. I made a lot of great friends there and went through a lot of life changing things. I thought since day one of me being at "The Wood" that i should have never went there in the first place. I thought everyone else was in the wrong but me, and that i was just the victim in the situation.

Well now i've been home for around _ months and cann now honestly say i should have never left the program. I honestly never even gave shelterwood 1 single chance to change me, and i wish i had. I never really gave God a chance to change me there and i wish i had because now life is so much harder and not all its cracked up to be. I feel like shelterwood is what you make of it just like this kid "_____" said in his graduation. And from day 1 i made shelterwood hell and thats exactly what i got was hell.

While i was there i saw the kids who were graduating as a bunch of loser or kiss ups and if you really knew me i would of used completly different words than that. While i was there i met kids who faked there way through the program and you can easily tell they did based on there actions today. And everyday i wonder what my life would have been like if i stayed and made it completly through the program. I mean if you ask someone who is there now what was it like to know _____ while he was at shelterwood they would probley tell you ____ is a party all by him self or _____ treaeted people like s***. But those people that i treated like S*** and thought all i was is trouble are the people who really didnt know me. Im a loyal friend and if i tell you i got your back i always got it.

I wish i never left because the things that happened when i came home were not at all what i promised and promised and promised my mom would happen. So i guess the main reason i wrote this was to have some of the bigs who knew me and some of the littles who knew me just i know how hard it is at shelterwood. believe me. I was probley one of the worst littles to ever go threw that program and it kills me to say it but not graduating was probley one of the stupidest choices i have ever made because shelterwood was the perfect place for change and i just made the worst of it. i know some of my boyz from shelterwood will see this and be like wtf dude shelterwood was worthless and what i would say to yall... is that we never completly gave it a chance and if we did think of how much easier our lives would be today. i just am sorry for all the hell i gave evryone why i was there well alost everyone anyways bye i guess"

Even if we don't see it, God is working.
This is a kid that gave trouble to everyone all day every day.  But even he is still malleable in the hands of the Lord.  His time here was not a waste, but served to show him the potential he had for growth.

Even if we don't see it, God is working.
This is truth.

Messages like this are so reaffirming that what we do here is valuable.  That God will use us, even in our brokenness (or especially?), to inspire change and to set examples for people He so desperately wants to claim for His Kingdom, to release from bondage.

Be used.
And be encouraged that what you do, wherever you are, is not in vain.  We may not see the fruit, but God does.

living well.

We are called to live each moment in a way that glorifies the Lord.  The things that we do with our free time, the places our thoughts go as we wait for our coffee to brew, even the mindset we have when the person in front of us has to use three different credit cards before one is accepted - all of those things, the small things, define our lives.

I've heard it said that if we are faithful in the small things, we will be faithful in the big things.  It is a message I tell to the teens here at Shelterwood all the time - that if they can be honest when asked about small things like their homework, then they are more likely to be honest when they are confronted about choices they have made, more trustworthy when asked hard questions.

Those pieces of our character make up the whole.  Those pieces of our time make up the whole.  If our thoughts are pure, they honor the Lord.  If our free time is spent well, it honors the Lord.  If all of the small things are well, then our lives honor the Lord, and isn't that the chief end of man?

It is so easy to excuse our selfish thoughts, to ignore the man who needs help picking up the change he dropped, to spend spare moments on nonsense.  God calls us to a higher standard, where each moment is one of value, an opportunity for intentionality.

Reading a piece of fiction, if chosen well, enhances the imagination and brings concrete thinking into an abstract story.  A work of non-fiction compels you to think, to process the information presented, to filter it, and then integrate the valuable pieces, ultimately building into the mind with which God has gifted you.  Checking in with a friend reconnects a relationship that could serve to glorify the Lord in the way that conversations are uplifting and refocusing.  Enjoying oneself is a manifestation of the joy and life and we have been given.  Intentionality.

So we must live well.  We must take each moment as another chance to love well, to live well, and to honor God.


My mentor tells me that I should ask each morning for "Grace enough for today."

Lord, give me grace enough for today.  Make my moments ones that glorify you, so that I may live in a way that pleases you.

Living well.

a new year.

2012.
It's a new year and new job and a new schedule and a new.. everything, it seems.

What an exciting time it is in this ministry!  God is doing some incredible things, and I am anxious to see where it all leads and how He will use it to further His Kingdom and bring healing to these teens (and to the staff, praise God).

The new Big Brothers and Sisters arrived last week.  Let me tell you, they are God-sends.  So very different from one another and from the Bigs we already have, we will all come together to form a pretty excellent team, I think.

And my role is different now, as I mentioned a few weeks ago.  I get to still spend time on coverage in the house with the Little Sisters, as I did before.  I also get to take Bigs out on one-on-ones.  Which means intentional time to care for them over a cup of coffee or a soup and salad.  It's so neat to hear their hearts and just.. be there for the Bigs, old and new.  It seems like I am seeing whole new sides of them, now that I have the energy and brainpower to devote to them.  I. Love. This.

Not only that, but the task-oriented side of me gets satisfied through administrative tasks for the office.  Somehow, I find a sense of accomplishment when I complete a project or a to-do list, and this piece of my position helps me to feel that.

And THEN.  Well, I'm working on a small group curriculum for the Little Sisters that the Bigs can lead.  And finally my background in Bible, in youth ministry, AND in education/curriculum development come crashing together into this residential context.

All this to say that I love how God orchestrated all of this.  I love that the things I have studied are being used for God's glory.  I love that I get a good mix of many different things, but most importantly, that I get to spend so much time with Bigs.  Seriously.


I don't really know what the purpose of this post was, except to, perhaps, share in my excitement.  God is good and He is faithful to do what He says He will do.

aging.

I saw my grandparents this week.
After making a trek to the northern parts of Minnesota, I saw them for the first time in a year.

Grandma, the last time she visited
Green Bay - Fall 2009

The once-alive face of my grandma and the smiling eyes that once lit up a room are now dark and empty.  Her gaze fixed on a point on the wall, she doesn't make eye contact with anyone anymore.  Her giggles would make everyone laugh along, but they have become rare and, even then, untimely.

Grandpa used to be always moving.  He couldn't sit still, and now that's all he can do.  Sure, his power chair slowly carries him all over the nursing home, but he is as sedentary as ever.  He still understands most things, but his speech is slurred and the non-use of his left hand has left him unable to even play cards or read a newspaper on his own.  He cries a lot - He never used to do that.

Tonight, Daniel and Kristen played a few songs on the piano and sang a few more.  During the Christmas carols, we all sang along - Grandma too.  Happiness shone from her face, a simple reminder that there was still emotion, still some coherence under that thinning, silver hair.  When Grandpa saw her glowing as she was, his eyes welled with tears.  He sure does love her.  Someday I hope to have a man who loves me the way that he does Grandma - It's beautiful.

The songs were nice, but the rest of the time spent together was in forced small talk.  Nothing of any substance at all.  We looked at the atlas to show Grandpa where he is on the map now that they've moved to Minnesota.  We hung some pictures on the wall.  We ate some Christmas cookies.  We laughed too much, the nervous kind of laughter, so to fill the silence.

It's strange, this whole aging thing.  It just seems unnecessary, doesn't it?  When people you've spent your life with don't even recognize you when you visit them.  When the things they say don't have any relevance to the current conversation or situation.  The mind is supposed to be our most valuable asset, right?  We are commanded to love the Lord with all of it.  We are given wisdom if we ask for it.  We constantly engage the mind in order to develop and strengthen it and all its necessary processes.
And then we lose it.

It reminds me that this life wasn't made for us to just get paid a lot or for us to enjoy it as much as we can.  All of that doesn't matter if you're just going to get old and forget that it all happened and lose everything you've worked for.

No, the purpose of this life comes from outside of our earthly understanding.  It comes from outside of these dying bodies in which we live.  We are called to know the God who created us, to worship Him, and to bring others to do the same.  Christ came to bring redemption, and that is what we must rely on for hope.  This is the only the beginning, as we are to spread that beautiful story of redemption to everyone we meet, lest their lives be meaningless.

Somehow, we will get through the painful conversation that will surely happen again tomorrow morning in the sterile rooms of this Detroit Lakes nursing home.  And, again, I will have to remind myself of the beauty of life despite the agonizing deterioration of man during the dying process.

Life in abundance.
Life that has meaning.
Life that comes from the Lord.
God grant us a daily reminder.

Resting in His promises.

Five days until I will be heading back to Green Bay.  Not for good, as I once thought, but until the new year.  This break is considerably longer than the rest, and I am eager to actually feel some rest that lasts longer than the three or so days of my normal breaks.

All this to say that I'm ready for a break.

You know what else I'm ready for?
To be back here two weeks later and start in a new position :)

That's right, I'm staying at Shelterwood for another year under the title "Residential Intern."
It's a pretty cush position, really.  It's 45 or so hours per week.  45.  Right now we work 80+.  I can have a life that's a little bit more "normal," more scheduled, more... free.  And I am excited for it.

The position is designed in such a way that I still have time on coverage in the house, but I get to disciple the Bigs and help with administrative tasks - things that I've been wanting to do, but haven't had the opportunity nor the energy for.

God is faithful, is He not?
I knew months ago that I wanted to stay here for more than a year.  I just.. knew that I would.  Then all of the positions I thought I might move into were filled or eliminated and it seemed a hopeless cause.  But God is certainly not hopeless and His promises are for real.