Aj Schwanz

Lately I’ve been getting an energy spurt around 9:30 at night. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing, except that I end up falling asleep at 11:30, have one at-least-twenty-minute night feeding, have one toddler-waking incident, and end up getting up after the first morning feeding which is usually around 6:30. Which, again, wouldn’t be a bad thing, except that I have Turbo Tot and Attention-Adoring Infant to manage all day. It makes for some interesting brain functions (or lack thereof).

Last night during the spurt, I decided to start organizing - something I do when feeling listless or out of control in areas of my life. So I tackled Abel’s room, weeding out clothes and baby items he’s not going to use (like the piles and piles of burp rags I had saved from when his brother was little - it’s so nice not to have a yarfer), but then I was getting bored. Lo and behold, a thought entered my mind. “Wait! I could listen to that Graham Cooke talk on my ipod. But I’ve listened to it a lot lately. But wait! I could find something else to listen to . . . like a podcast. What a novel idea.”

See, my brother got me an ipod for Christmas because a) he loves me, 2) he knew I’m too cheap to buy one, and iii) he’s a big spender (when you have a gift). And I’ve used it here and there, occasionally on walks, but mostly Jason uses it while he’s mowing the lawn. Most of the time I have to have my ears on full alert lest someone start playing baseball naked after turning on the outside faucet. Oh wait . . .

I went online to download Rob Bell’s sermons - I’ve enjoyed them in the past and heard they were doing a “God is Green” series. Then I noticed the handy “people who download this listen to this as well” box, and oh how the clicking began. The most enjoyable podcasts I’ve found so far happen to be Alan Roxburgh on Allelon. As I weeded through clothes and toys, I got to hear stories about mission-shaped churches and church/coffeehouses and the world-wide emerging church rather than U.S. centered. How delightful to engage another part of my brain that is usually focused on tallying grocery needs and mentally calculating how many minutes of freedom left until the next feeding.

So, are you listening to podcasts? What are some of your picks? I’d love to add them to my subscriptions: I’m such an “ooh, something new!” junkie.

This past week was a great week. After spending a brief bit of time with my fam and leaving Judah with the grand’rents, Jason, Abel, and I headed out to spend eight days at Twin Rocks for the high school camp Surfside. This year’s theme was “Pursuing the Passion” and was centered around scripture in Philippians about pursuing the goal of Christ. I taught a class called “Passion in the Daily” looking at passion in our day to day lives: what is it? Why do we care? How can we discern and better pursue our passions? Jason provided Abel and I.T. support. And Abel provided many opportunities for people to go “aw” as they walked by.

In true Aj-form, I didn’t pull my class together until the day before teaching. In fact, I didn’t quite understand the schedule, even though the director emailed me the details. I taught two classes. Twice a day (class 1 twice in the morning, class 2 twice in the afternoon). For three days. The camp was fullfullfull, so the staff had been eating in the Friendship Center. Which is where I taught. So basically I was in that room from 8:45-3:15 each day - par-tay. Actually, it worked out great - we had an internet connection, so I could check Facebook and my email while I had the high schoolers in interests groups discussion creative ways to pursue a specific passion.

So yes, I pull the class together the day before, which had me wracked with guilt because in my head I heard my father telling me about why he never procrastinates and how he writes everything out and practices in over and over way ahead of time. And, of course, that’s the way it should be . . . or so my head was saying. But I finally realized, and came to some peace, about the fact that that’s not the way I work: I absorb a whole bunch of information, stew over it while engaging in daily activities such as changing diapers or trolling Freddies for marked down dog food, and at the last minute inspiration hits (or God has mercy) and I whip something out.

This time, thanks to my amazing hubby, I was able to have a presentation that incorporated things such as pictures of my passions (my fam, connecting with friends, writing on my blog, etc.), pictures of other peoples’ passions (the lego cathedral, the crazygood DDR kid, the Rachael Ray yummy noises montage). I also managed to work in videos by U2 (Numb), Dave Matthews Band (Too Much), and a clip from Talladega Nights - really.

The campers seemed to connect. Well, they had to, because I’m a good big sister and kept poking them with questions if they didn’t respond (ask my brother: I’m a poker). And they came back with some thoughtful responses (one group talked about txting as a passion and threw out the idea of “txting God” - so creative!).

I also spoke on Friday night worship about going back home and living out of passions. I didn’t really think about the content until my last Thursday class happened. Friday I pulled together thoughts two hours before dinner. Then, ten minutes before I was supposed to speak, I scrapped it all. Nobody knew except for Jason, but he’s finally getting a little used to my “trying things out verbally and then ditching it all at a moment’s notice for what I’m really supposed to do” tendency. A little.

I ended up feeling called to speak about Jacob and the time that God gave him the dream of the ladder and the angels and promised him an inheritance of the land he slept on. Jacob built an altar to remember that God was in that place. But did Jacob stay there? No: for his inheritance to come, he had to continue on his journey. But the altar served as a reminder to him and to others that God was at work - speaking of hope and a future to come. Personally, I wanted to live in my “camp experiences.” I thought life should be that way always: I experienced God profoundly and figured that’s what life should be like. When I got home and got back to normal, I yearned to go back to the camp experience. But I really needed to continue on my journey, looking back to the experience as an altar to remember that God was there and spoke of a future to come, but that the future would only come from living in my day-to-day existence. I think it made sense. I hope it did.

So now we’re adjusting to life back at home, full of poopy diapers and park playdates and paying bills. Living in the daily. Not glamorous, but it’s good.

A couple months ago a wonderful friend and advocate got for me a great gift: an autographed copy of Dan Kimball’s They Like Jesus, but Not the Church. And my wonderful advocate told him that I’m a writer (or at least doing a good job pretending to be one), and Dan actually knew that I had a blog. Totally made my day!

My experience of reading the book wasn’t mind blowing but rather, “this friend speaks my mind!” I greatly appreciated him detailing the stories of those who were willing to share experiences that honestly reflected modern churchdom. I became more aware of wanting to seek those folks out: the folks who dig Jesus but question the way the church is lived out.

So the other night as my Hubby and I are getting ready for bed, he mentioned that he needed a new book to read. Being his personal librarian, I wracked my sleep-deprived brain for a good recommendation, and Dan’s book came to mind. I don’t normally recommend my emerging-quaking-churching-books to Jason, not because he’s not into that, but he generally seems to appreciate hearing my rundown rather than reading it himself (and I appreciate hearing his rundown of the status of the Red Sox or the latest Mozilla creation rather than reading it myself). But he seems to be enjoying it, and it’s stimulating some conversation rather than “did you water the lawn” and “your turn to walk with the Yowler.”

Dan Kimball’s book is the being reviewed and discussed this month at Barclay Press. I’d highly suggest you tune in: should be some good conversation. Who knows: you may even hear from my hubby.