Where's Nelly?

Presenting, Fuller's 2007 School of Intercultural Studies. A special haiku award goes to ye who finds me the fastest, and scribes it upon the comments. I will write a haiku in honor of you and post it for all of blogdom. (Hint: I am partially hidden behind one very tall human.)

As a way of introducing my current state of studying, I thought I'd point out the professors whose classes I'm taking. Incidentally, I think it's very cute that they all decided to sit together.

Key:

K = Dr. Chuck Kraft, the soft-spoken, but highly (spiritually) authoritative prof. of my Deep Level Healing class. In the second week of class he prayed for a girl's migraine to be healed, and it left her immediately. This class is phenomenal. Yes. God's Spirit is still on the move.

M = Dr. Mark Hopkins, the always smiling master of the MAGL program. I'm working on very large papers for his Implications for Global Ministry class.

S = Dr. Shelley Trebesch, the lovely lady who flew all the way from the far-east in order to teach us how to O.D. on Organizational Dynamics. She is the one responsible for making me read corporate books that I'd never read otherwise, as well as encouraging my my percolating dreams, and my wanting-to-start-a-company pontificating. (More on that soon.)

Gimme More Dodgeball

I think we all need a little more dodgeball in our lives. What a game! One of the newest highlights of my week is playing dodgeball and yelling, "Ohhhhh!" as I point (and gloat) that I've just gotten someone out. (I'm a little competitive.)

Ok, so I'm playing dodgeball with middle schoolers. It shouldn't massage my ego when I can get one of them out. The truth is, they get me out more often. But I still wait patiently on the sideline until I can get back in the game. If my team catches someone's throw, I'm right back in there, baby!

For the record, it's a whole different experience to play dodgeball in a gym. The yells and "oh's!" and sneaker-squeaks on the gym floor all echo together perfectly. It's practically a song.

A few weeks ago, I asked you, the people, to cast your vote on my (part-time job) destiny. 32 of you beautiful people Rocked the Vote, and one of the winning votes was for me to tutor at-risk middle schoolers. I found an opening at a great non-profit after school program, and it's right down the street from me. And so, now, on most Mondays through Thursday afternoons, you will now find me playing dodgeball and helping these new friends of mine with their homework. It seems to be working out just fine, so far.

I think I need to start a ferocious dodgeball intramural team at Fuller. I'm reliving my elementary school days when I wasn't coordinated enough to dodge, and was always the first to get out. Redemption is near.

(Kids playing dodgeball in Sri Lanka by Zbili)

The First Days

I flew into Burbank on Monday and found the lovely Kleins waiting to hug me. Going from airport to airport, I arrived just in time to find a seat in Dr. Kraft's (somewhat infamous) class at Fuller. (And I've got the picture to prove it.) Smiling with me is Amy G. She's been in my MAGL online cohort, too. Cute that she commemorated my goofy-I've-just-arrived-to-California excitement. And God saw that it was good. The evening and the morning, the first day.

On Tuesday's morning I borrowed a bike from nice Morgan Klein, and happily learned that the ride to school is all downhill. It's about a half-hour joyride through palm-laced streets. I waved to approximately 4.5 grandpas and some smiling children in strollers.

Laying aside my bratty disdain for ugly libraries, I got acquainted with Fuller's antiquated shelves. (The library from my undergrad uni, UMBC, was 7-floors high, filled with light, and immaculate. Beauty makes it easier to study, I say.) Happy as a clam, I checked out a gorgeous old copy of Elizabeth B. Brownings' complete poetical works, inscribed to Sophia (with love) on September 26, 1913. Old Elizabeth's sonnets are so thick. And she knew my Italy very well.

On the one hour evening ride home from Fuller I surmised why they call it Altadena. I will conquer that hill in better time, I will. But all the sweat reminds me that I'm alive. The evening and the morning, the second day.

Riding the Sky to California

The nice people of Southwest Airlines dropped me off at LAX last night. And then the most wonderful Klein family picked me up from the aeroporto in their rad '90 Volvo wagon. We rode around Angel town with the windows down and I lamented the loss of my old dark green '90 Volvo 240.

Its name was Volvino, as I hypothesized that it was somehow a Swedish-Italian hybrid. We sold it after I moved to Portugal, and after its breaks failed me while driving north on highway 301.

I am happy as a clam in California. The sun is smiling out loud and it is not humid at all. The Kleins left me good coffee and I enjoyed the first responsibility-less morning and afternoon I've found in quite a long time. I went on a little run and the San Gabriel mountains cheered me on through the flower crested streets. I picked up a small flower and ran with it, just because I could.

Tomorrow at (yikes) 8am I'll start two weeks of class in Pasadena with my Fuller cohort. It will be our last two weeks together, and then we'll go on to finish our electives and then graduate like cylinders. I shall be done in the Spring!

(Balloons over California by MS4JAH)

Mathspeak for Christians: Bounded-sets

[I'm going to start posting bits of what I've been learning in my classes, in case you're interested. If my language starts sounding pretentious and annoyingly academic, please stop me.]

Here is something I'm chewing on from a book by Paul Hiebert:


What are the consequences of defining Christianity as a bounded-set?

In the West, we tend to define our realities in terms of boundaries, in terms of either/or, rather than the both/and of fuzzy-sets. Bounded-sets is a view of reality based on the Greek worldview that we have inherited.

Hiebert warns that when Christianity takes on the form of bounded-sets, we first begin classifying people as Christians “on the basis of what she or he is,” according to our own tests of orthodoxy and orthopraxy (Hiebert 1994: 115). Secondly, bounded-set Christianity sharply delineates between those who are “in” as Christians, and those who are “out,” and that, as consequence, we tend to work hard to maintain this delineation. Thirdly, this sort of Christianity views all believers as essentially the same, discrediting any sense of spiritual maturity or immaturity, and the need to learn from one another. Fourth, a heavy emphasis is placed on conversion as the defining “boundary line,” while sanctification has no place in the set. Lastly, there is an over-emphasis on the ontological reality of righteousness: the intrinsic nature of the person is of the highest importance.

(Maths photo by Akirsa)

Flying Red Pens

Tonight, red pens were a-flying in my room. We are studying 1 Timothy in my Fuller class. Oh, the legendary first letter to Timothy! The book that has caused many a woman to have imaginary boxing-matches with St. Paul over his apparent misogyny!

Well, N.T. Wright is helping me see Paul in a whole new light. I'm not so mad at him anymore. But, we'll save that talk for another post.

I must say, I find it awfully inconsistent that the folk who stand firmly on Timothy's famous directives against female leadership ("a woman should not teach a man") do not also stand on the other directives in the same passage. (That all men should pray with hands lifted up in the air, for example!)

As I read 1 Timothy 3:11 and Romans 16:1 in a few different translations tonight, I ended up throwing my red pen and shouting aloud in frustration.

Why? Because both of these verses show the likelihood of there being female leaders ("deaconesses") in the early church, and yet, the majority of English translations fail to fairly reflect this possibility. Some bury it in footnotes, and others--like my current favorite, the New King James--do not give any indication at all of this probability in the Greek.

Meet Phoebe, in Romans 16:1:

I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea. (NKJV)

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon [a] of the church in Cenchreae.
Footnotes: Or servant (TNIV)

The vast majority of English translations side with Phoebe as a (vague-sounding) "servant," though the Greek is diakonia, offering the probability that Phoebe was a deacon. The nice new TNIV shows this clearly, while others do not. Check your Bibles, kids!

I've finally begun to wrap my mind around some of the texts that have centuries long been used in the church as arguments against women in pastoral leadership. More than ever, as I learn of the context of 1 Timothy, I am persuaded that this letter was written to address issues that were specific to a set time and place. And I am persuaded, from the design of Genesis, and the whole of Scripture that it is God's intention for men and women to work in partnership.

I must say, it feels good to throw pens when frustrated.

(Photo by: Mr. Wright.)

Stinky Feet Theory

I have this new theory. I think that traveling sets off a strange chemical reaction in the laboratory of our shoes that emits a stronger-than-normal-foot-odor. Or maybe I just need to throw away my favorite "travel shoes." Either way, my post-travel stank is really amazing.

I've just returned from a renegade 3-day trip (back) to Pasadena to help out Christian Associates do some recruiting at Fuller's Missions Fair. I spent two full days talking with seminary students about the spiritual needs of Europe, and how they might take some risks with their future. I really enjoyed it, especially because I got to meet folks at my school that I normally miss in my online classes. The whole deal was a totally unexpected gift of a trip, especially to stay with the amazing Klein family, and see the Borden's one last time before they are Tanzania-ified.

Doing the recruiting-stuff gave me some inklings for a possible fun part-time job with CAI in the fall. (Here's a rad quicktime movie that gives of snapshot of CAI's vision for church-planting in Europe.) Pray, pray, and we'll see.

In the meantime I'll be asking myself the question: "Why, oh why, do my traveling feet stink?"

(Thanks for the photo of baby Gabby, B K & G.)

What I've Been Working On

If you would like to know what I've been working on, here is one thing. I recently finished a project for my class on Ministering to Street Children, and I got the wild idea to submit it as a blog-article, rather than just a boring paper (with an extra-large title...) "Listening to the Marginalized Voices of the Church to Awaken Faith: A Proposal for a Ministry of Love and Power to Street Children in Italy."

It features Heidi and Rolland Baker, yelling-at-Satan-Carlos Annacondia, Bill Johnson, the infamous John Wimber, Chuck Kraft, and my ideas for a new ministry in Naples, Italy. I hope it'll be a work-in-progress. Feel free to skim your favorite sections, and leave any comments if you desire to disagree, or to shout a sweaty, "amen." (I think my professora in Costa Rica would get a kick out of the conversation.)

The Church: Irreverent Towards Women?

I just completed a Culture Watchin' assignment with my friend, Ellen, in my Fuller MAGL cohort. I figured it was spicy enough to share a splice of it with you. Our assignment was to "partner up" with someone in our cohort, and follow the news , tracing a theme in culture, and analyzing it according to the changing post-modern landscape, and the implications it may have for the Church. (I appreciate Fuller because they've always taught us to pray with the Bible in one hand, the newspaper in the other.)

Our paper was entitled "The Post-Modern Working Woman in Positions of Power: A Clarion Call to the Church."

Here are a couple of the recent articles we analyzed:

NY Times:
Women Feeling Freer to Suggest 'Vote for Mom'

Washington Post Online Blog Discussion (generating +200 comments!):
Have Women Fared Well or Badly in the World's Religions Down Through the Ages? Why?

(And the one that makes me want to either scream or cry...)
Dallas Morning News: Baptists at Odds Over Removal of Female Professor

To spare you all the bloody details, here is our conclusion:

In the shifting landscape of twenty-first century America, it is clear that our culture is now desirous of women having some part in the systems of power. The emerging independency and power-inclusion of women is evidenced through the political campaigning of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the unabashed motherly persona of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, as well as Sam Rodgers' NY Times report that the majority of U.S. women are now living without a spouse. It seems we are living in changing times in the attitudes of women, and in the acceptance of women into leadership roles. However, when it comes to the question of gender equality in church leadership, articles such as that of The Dallas Morning News and the Washington Post's online blog question on women and religion reveal a growing chasm between Church and Culture. In the present shift to a post-modern world, where partnerships, egalitarianism, and many-layered voices are valued, the American Church must be prepared to reexamine and reform her theology of women in leadership, and the cultural biases that often underscore these theologies. Without such a pointed reformation, the Church risks growing increasingly more irreverent towards women as human beings, as well as being irrelevant to a culture which demands much more equality.

It was especially fun working with Ellen, because she works in a Vineyard church where they freely call her "pastor"!

"This is a historic moment - for the Congress, and for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited more than 200 years. Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren't just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and granddaughters, today, we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters, the sky is the limit, anything is possible for them."
-Nancy Pelosi's words from her 2006 acceptance speech

(Betcha didn't know Nancy P. used to be a D'Alesandro! We might be related. Thanks to Wiki for the Pelosi picki.)

Kiss My Brain

My brain needs a smooch. Or a synapse-massage, perhaps. I'm still in Pasadena finishing up the last three days of a two week intensive at Fuller. And I'm knee-deep in excellent books for the two courses I'm working on this quarter: Ministering to Street Kids and Contemporary Culture in Missiological Perspective (a.k.a. "Our culture is steeped in uglies from both modernity and post-modernity, so whatcha gonna do about it, young?"). Today in my Street Children class we pretended we were in Bucharest and devised practical strategies for setting up a ministry to care for those Children Underground. We argued a lot, but ended up with a ministry that looked a lot like Young Life for children of the street: Go to where they are, love them, and help them get integrated into a space that cheers for their freedom.

I'm up late desperately trying to translate articles about the street children of Naples, Italy. My Italian is still pretty rough, but not as rough as the streets of Naples. Some of my great-grandparents were born there. When I was in Naples this summer some Italians told me I have a distinctly Neopolitan face. One day I think this face would like to care for street kids in that city. Big dreams. Lots more to learn.

Learning makes me happy. But it's tiring, too.

(Thank you if that was you who prayed for my health last week. I started feeling significantly better just 24 hours after I asked oh Ye of the blogosphere to talk to Jesus for me.)

"I Don't Believe in Love"

“I don’t believe in love. I believe in God. Because He is bigger.”
-Cristina Ionescu, a street-dwelling teenager in Romania

I spent a significant part of this V-Day in class watching a documentary called, Children Underground. It was both beautiful and terrible. It presents the gritty lives of five Romanian street-dwelling children, and their fight to survive in a Bucharest subway. After watching it, I am more and more convinced that the gospel of the Kingdom is only good news if it is wholistic: bringing not just words, but sacrificial love, and a fight for justice at local and systemic levels. And I'm more convinced that I am, in some way, personally responsibile for systems of society that allow children to continue to live in the streets.

I also think Cristina from Romania has something to say to us. Maybe what she is saying is that love is something bigger than what society has told her.

Sham –noun
1. something that is not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation; fraud or hoax.

Concerning Valentine's Day, I maintain that it is a sham of a holiday. Not because I'm an embittered single woman (although I've had my moments), but because our Valentine's Day celebrations communicate something about the giving and receiving of love that is a sham. Our Valentine's Day purports that love is sweet, comfortable, and happy. I don't think love is such. I think that love is sacrificial, difficult, and oftentimes, sad. Love is a man hanging on a tree as a means of reconciliation. Love is forgiveness that makes others call you a fool. The disciple "whom Jesus loved" said that love is laying down our lives for one another. If this is true, loving our Valentines should mean anything but fluffy balloons and overpriced chocolates.

I'm not judging you for celebrating. I always enjoy getting V-day chocolates and "I love you's" from Mama and Dad, and others along the way. I certainly don't throw those away. But the sugar-sweet words of this "holiday" makes me struggle to know who's Voice is loudest in my ears about what love is all about. I want to live a life of sacrificial love that is both beautiful and terrible. (Lord, help us.)

Full at Fuller

I am sitting on a comfy leather chair in Fuller's Kreyssler's Hall. K. Hall is Fuller's Student Center where folk come to chat/study/nap. It reminds me of the colonial houses in Charles County, where I grew up. Inside there's loads of these comfy leather chairs and free internet. Outside there is a vicious game of badminton going on between a handful of hipster boys. In the back is a nice green garden-like area with more study space. Inside, the natural light is plentiful, there are bay-windows all around.

I am drinking a nice strawberry mocha in my new insulated ceramic mug. I think all hot beverages should be enjoyed in ceramic mugs. None of this (kill-the-earth) paper nonsense. It's just terrible for the lips, I say. I'm getting sick again, so I'm drinking my sneezes away with sweet caffeinated goodness in a mug.

I should be studying about Children at Risk for my class in three hours, but instead I'm totally eavesdropping on a conversation these two guys are having underneath the big bay window. They're talking about their church where there is no main pastor. They gather together for the Lord's Table for one whole hour, and then they prophesy to one another for the next hour. On other occasions someone in the group will be assigned to teach on the Scriptures, and they focus on singing about Jesus' death and resurrection. (Stick me in those pews, baby!)

The guy talking is bi-lingual, as he keeps greeting people in both Spanish and English. I heard him say that he's also done missions in Taiwan.

I really love Fuller. Everywhere I go there are both internationals and forward-thinking people. I'm constantly eavesdropping on juicy conversations about living missionally, growing prophetically, and advocating for the poor throughout the nations. Since my degree program is mostly done in an online cohort, it's not often that I get to enjoy campus life.

If you want to know a secret, here it is. I've started talking to Jesus about me moving out to California for my last quarter or two of seminary. I'd really like to be a part of this community of great conversation while I study. I feel very full listening in on so many conversations. It'd be nice to jump in on some, but not have to leave on a plane a few days later.

(Thanks to Grandinroad
for the comfy chair pic.)

Musing in Bawlmer

Greetings from Baltimore. A.K.A. “The Greatest City in America,” and, even more hysterical (considering the literacy rate), “The City that Reads.” I love Baltimore. She is the rough, sassy, audacious younger sister to Washington, D.C, just forty minutes up highway 95. I always loved inventing the rivalry between these two close cities. I’m still a little bitter that I’ve lived so close to D.C. all my life, and yet, without fail, get lost every time I drive there. (How can you have four different addresses for the same street, in the same city? For the love.)

I've just started my first week of classes this quarter with Fuller’s M.A. - Global Leadership program. The class is on Mentoring. I’m halfway through the program and I’m doing my best to get ahead of this reading for the first time in my life. To those of you sweet souls who were cheering me on in that last Bobby Clinton class, I just got my 47-page paper back, and passed, quite miraculously. Next time I’m doing a cross-continental move/major life-transition, someone please yell at me to put on hold any classes demanding 50 page papers. That baby required two all-nighters to finish on time. Oh me.

As I’m drinking coffee in a very-not-European café, my current thoughts are swirling around two things:

1. How to resurrect the combined total of over 300 pages of academic writing I’ve done over the last decade into something that might give life to my friends. And strangers.
2. How to live out the Psalms more. I always like to think the Psalmists were absolute emotional wrecks. So, at least I'm living myself into that part of the song.