i had another post scheduled to go up today (which i will in turn put up next week)…but after i woke up this morning felt the need to open up the comments for your prayer requests…
how can we pray for you? don’t forget to come back and pray for those who have posted after you…
could you imagine?
it all started with a woman named annette. she’s a single mom who lives in six-by-six room with her five kids (sometimes a sixth stays with them too).
i had seen poverty before, but from my 32″ TV inside my trendy little house. i read about it online, saw books and magazines dedicated to photodocumenting those who have the least.
but, i had never touched poverty until i took a seat on that bed in annette’s house.
i had never smelled poverty until we walked through the slums where she lived.
i had never tasted poverty until the combined smells of sewage, cooking, and poor hygiene combined and entered my mouth as i inhaled deeply.
before my trip to uganda, i cared about the poor, but i didn’t love them.
if i loved them, i would have done something, plain and simple.
and i hadn’t.
in crazy love, francis chan writes
lukewarm people do whatever is necessary to keep themselves from feeling guilty. they want to do the bare minimum to be “good enough” without it requiring much of them…they ask, “how much do i have to give?” instead of “how much can i give?”
it took about a month of struggling through my emotions (which i had shut down because denial is easier to handle than the pain of reality) and i finally realized if i am truly a follower of christ, truly a believer, i must change.
i must act.
there is no excuse for us not to love – and therefore act – on behalf of those without. without food, water, healthcare, or freedom. the bible does not give us an option. we are told over and over again what we need to do, but we get lost in our burden of wealth and we forget.
we compartmentalize “poverty” and “injustice” as causes and don’t integrate serving those trapped in them in our minute-by-minute living, as our continual act of worship.
In the 19th century, Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote,
I fear there are many hearing me who may know well that they are not Christians because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudgingly at all, requires a new heart; an old heart would rather part with its life-blood than its money.
today is blog action day and bloggers are posting about poverty. which me writing a blog and you reading it is all fine and dandy, but it’s blog ACTION day.
there are thousands of kids who need sponsors through compassion international. for what you would spend seeing a movie or buying a new shirt or going out to eat with a friend once a month, you can release a child from poverty. the math is easy. and if you think you’re too poor to do anything, and you’re reading this on your computer or your phone in america, you’re not too poor. and forgive me, but you need to stop thinking that you are.
if you already are showing the love of christ to someone less fortunate and you’re sacrificing then with all my heart i say thank you.
if you’re not, you can start today.
i don’t like talking on the phone for one reason: i don’t know how to say goodbye.
“see ya?”
“mmmkay, bye?”
“…awkward silence…”
am i the only one with this problem?
on the flip side, i’ve noticed some people say the exact same thing whenever they say goodbye. after playing phone tag with a particular person for a while, this person always closes with:
“seeya later, bye”
which doesn’t make since because he and i:
a) have never met
and
b) will likely never see each other
how do you say goodbye?
sometimes, i think i’m really smart. i did well in school, i use polysyllabic words, (i can spell polysyllabic), and know not to put metal things in the microwave.
sometimes though, i’m not smart. these moments usually involve two things.
1) choice of shoes (i.e., wearing high heels to run around large arenas for conferences)
2) directions, maps, roads, streets, or anything involving a “point a” and a “point b”
following a tragic day of wearing very high heels, in attempt to check into my hotel and change shoes before the evening events of the first day of catalyst, i fell victim to the street naming system of atlanta.
everything is peachtree road.
for example, my GPS directions to find my hotel included:
Go NW on Peachtree Rd NW
Take a slight left on Peachtree Rd
Turn left at Peachtree Ind Rd
Make an immediate right on NW Peachtree Rd*
after driving around in traffic for an hour and a half, i finally found my hotel, quickly changed my shoes, and at unheavenly rates of speed drove back to gwinnett for the deadly viper session.
arriving a few minutes late, my catalyst friend ben and i managed to find a two empty seats in the very middle, very upper, very back, very highest possible spot. during some of the transition times, we conversed on some catalyst things, some blogging things, some life things, and then he asked the money question:
“have you ever thought of shutting your blog down?”
i might as well have kept my high heels on, because it would have felt much more comfortable for him to have taken one of them off and then punch me repeatedly in my eye than for him to have asked me that question.
there was no good answer. i had thought about shutting my blog down once, but it lasted approximately .0002 seconds.
what would happen if i shut down my blog?
that question has been in my head for the last few days.
i imagined doing it. shutting it down, deleting my facebook account, my twitter account, then disappearing altogether from social networkland.
and after i recovered from hyperventilating, i pushed the thought out of my mind.
far out of my mind.
because there are many good reasons not to stop blogging – the community and the influence and change that this community has brought to issues of poverty and justice and faith.
but there is one reason my social media butterfly self couldn’t vanish.
and i wish i could say it’s valuable or worthwhile or noble. i couldn’t because if i did, i wouldn’t know what to do anymore.
i couldn’t…be.
i wouldn’t know who i am.
and i realize this is all my flawed thinking. my insecurity. my need for affirmation and worth and, dare i say, even attention?
it’s not pretty.
i’m not shutting down my blog. but wow, has that question challenged my motives.
======
*disclosure: GPS directions are represented with slight literary exaggeration
a week from today i’ll be out in LA speaking at bel air presbyterian church at an event called breakaway. my talk is titled “escaping from our true love.”
breakaway is from 9am to 2pm and is for women only, so if you’re a girl in the LA area and want to attend, you can register here.
i love SoCal…and will be out there a few times in the next couple of months. really can’t complain about that!
it’s been a fun week. i have no voice left because of all the amazing conversations that have taken place over the last few days and if i tried to list and link to every person i met and adored it would be, well, impossible.
my free time has been spent keeping up the catalyst backstage blog and tonight i added a few new videos. in case you haven’t been following it, you can see some interviews we did with steven furtick, perry noble, tony morgan, tim stevens, seth godin, pete wilson, jon acuff, dino rizzo, bongos breaking, and auto-flushing urinals.
you can also catch up on people’s thoughts about the sessions, their tweets, and blogs that have been rolling in automatically.
so drop over to the place i’ve called home this week and say hi.
this has probably been one of the most incredible weeks of my life (and i really didn’t even get to attend the sessions). there are so many wonderful and lovely people doing so many wonderful and lovely things. it was an honor to meet you all…
i know, i know…blah blah blah catalyst, blah blah.? is anne ever going to write on her blog again?
yes!
i will still be tracking the events of catalyst at the backstage site, but am saving this dear blog for some more personal reflections, should i have any along the way.
i noticed the comments have slowed down died on here lately and i’m sorry for not inviting more conversation.
this opportunity that i have is like an IV push of those most influential in leadership (if you define influence as speaking to a large group of people in some medium or another).
everyone-all-at-once-wham!
me?
i am just a newbie author with a blog with flowers meeting these pastors, authors, and speakers for the very first time.?
it makes me nervous.
and i became obsessed with making the best first impression.
one author in particular, who i was extremely nervous and excited to meet, is william paul young, who wrote the shack (which as irony would have it, on amazon, our books are paired together for a great bargain!)?
now, in full disclosure, i have not actually read the shack yet.?
but i will.?
and in the mean time, i have highly regarded and admired mr. young’s ability to start discussion.? it’s nothing short of amazing.
tonight, as i pulled into the hotel (disheveled, sweaty, rained upon, and gross)…clothes over my arm, earrings falling out of my ear, as i attempted to press the elevator button with my elbow, a voice behind me says,
“i’ll get it.”
together, we hop on the elevator, he asks me what floor.
“two, please.”
i ask him if he is here for catalyst.? he says yes.
“my name is paul.”
“i’m anne jackson.? i’m hosting catalyst backstage.”
“oh,” he says.? “i’m the author of the book, the shack,” he continues, unassumingly.
he leans over to give me a hug (me – disheveled, sweaty, rained upon, and gross) and we talk about some of the upcoming events on our calendars. he graciously fills me in on his schedule.
we arrive at floor two, and i head to my room.
(disheveled, sweaty, rained upon, and gross).
my first catalyst first impression. it wasn’t what i had in mind.
but it was beautiful.
i’ve posted a couple of videos from the road over at catalystbackstage.com…you must see the massive car i am driving.? watch out, ATL! :)
hop on over and check ’em out!
back to I-24…almost to 75!