Aj Schwanz

I know:  I’m a geek.  I guess God’s momentarily given me the gift of OT geekdom because this is seriously so interesting!  Much more than it was in my middle school or college Bible classes.  Or maybe it’s that I have a lack of competing interests in my daily life currently (although listening to The Music Machine *never* gets old.  Nope.  Especially the song about patience.  I could listen to that FOREVER:  rock on, Herbert!).

If these geneologies are accurate and literal, did you know that Adam lived beyond Methuselah’s birth, and Methuselah was still living when Shem (Noah’s son) was born?  And Shem died only around 25 years before Abram?  That is *crazy*!!  My husband has some lengthy historical connections in his family (I think his cousin’s grandfather or great grandfather was in the civil war?  Jason’s not here, and I’m not so good with dates to figure out how crazy I sound). But seriously.

And boy howdy do nasty traits get passed down the family line!  Reading about the three Noah boys and their decedents (especially Ham’s son who was cursed) , well, that’s just a whole lot of ugly that seems to be passed, magnified, and glorified. Part of me wonders if Noah knew what he was doing:  why would he want to pass such a legacy to his grandson?  Words.  Matter.

If my family history was written down, I wonder what we would be able to see was inherited:  it’s easy to notice when you’re not living in the midst of it.   Also, what does that look like in my local gathering?  In my denomination?  Where are blessings and cursings evident?  I wonder if God would reveal areas where we continually have hangups or repeatedly run into walls, give us the knowledge why, and instruct us how to repsond to His desire for our healing and redemption.

At Yearly Meeting I heard a story from a faith gathering on the east coast.  Their city’s history involved the slave trade and that the slaves cursed their city upon their arrival.  This city is known for it’s crime, hate acts, and has some of the highest divorce stats in the country.  However, God’s been bringing together people to confess and repent of sins while rejecting these curses, and amazing redemption is taking place, from areas of high crime reporting no acts of violence to churches being asked to be present in the public school districts to help with education and reconciliation.

I wonder what it looks like to loose those chains in my community, in my life.  And I wonder if steps are being taken towards redemption, what they look like, and if we will be able to respond to the deep deep call.  It’s easy to say, “Enh:  this is just the way we are.  This is our history.”  But is it?

Okay, I know a rule of blogging is that you’re not supposed to explain your process of blogging.  At least, I suspect good bloggers don’t explain their process.  But good bloggers might have the ability to process information and noticings and ideas in a logical manner due to 1) regular sleep, b) regular adult interaction, and iii) a lack of projectile fluids in their living situation.  So, in an effort to be a more present blogger, you get the ramblings.  And the explanations.  And once I start to figure this whole thing out, they’ll go away.  Maybe.

While eldering at Surfside I was given the honor to speak at the Wednesday night worship gathering.  The theme of the evening was expectancy.  So the worship team and I sat down on Tuesday to kind of hash out what that would mean.  The story that coming to mind was that of Joseph:  he lived in expectancy that God was faithful and would honor his word to Joseph (that Joseph would have some sort of power).  Then I unpacked some of the differences between expectancy and expectations:  expectations take a certain form, end at a particular point or goal where expectancy seems to be a state of awareness or readiness.  If Joseph placed all his hope on expecting God to honor His word in a certain manifestion, his hope would’ve been crushed by his life experiences; but since he lived in expectancy, Joseph was able to learn from his life experiences which shaped him into being the person to receive the power and authority given to him.

I feel that God has given this story to our youth for many reasons, that they will be a Joseph generation (a post or posts explaining that later).  The story has been hauting me, so each morning I’ve sat with it, reading in different versions.  But then I wondered what context Joseph was coming from, what his family heritage was.  Yes, I’ve read the Bible, but not with the eyes of it being a family scrapbook.  So I started at the beginning reading about creation and working onward.  Some of this stuff is pretty wacky!  Assumptions I’ve made or misteachings due to simplicity that I’ve gathered from Sunday School.  What’s cracking me up right now is the part right after Noah but before Abraham where guys are living until 500 years old, but having kids at 30, so great-great-great-great-great-great grandfathers and sons could know each other.

Coming from a family where I have been able to list living close family relatives on two hands, that blows my mind.  And think about how fun that would be to try and put on a family reunion nametag.  Or how many folks the little ones could run to to ask permission?  “But great-great-great-auntie said I could!”  “Okay . . . . wait:  you don’t even *have* a great-great-great-auntie!”  “Oh.  Well, whoever that lady over there is said I could.”  And one would think that the early Genesis stories would be pretty accurate since there would be an abundance of folks to say, “You’re not telling it right!”  Or maybe that’s why some stories seem to be missing from the Bible, you know, those family stories that aren’t shared verbally but mostly with a look.  “Like that time that, you know.”  “Mm hmm.  Mm hmm.”

Mm hmm.

This weekend I found myself wanting to make deals with God.  I had a fairly nasty bout with a bug of the stomach nature, who also made itself at home in my small children - not the kind of hospitality we desire to practice in this house, and I found myself negotiating:

• “Okay, God, if you can make my gut solidify, I’ll do [enter such and such].”
• “How about if you make my intestines not sound like a bowling alley then I won’t do [enter such and such].”
• “What if I do [such and such] and don’t do [such and such], please oh please can I ingest something other than whole wheat ritz and powerade?”

And then there was the oh-so-self-sacraficial

• “If you please would heal my child, a noble request, I’ll stop asking/badgering for my own well being.”

Desperate times call for desperate measures, especially when your toddler has been awake, puking, and making an “enh enh enh” noise for 10 hours straight.

God is a covenantal God, I reasoned:  why can’t we covenant about nausea and gastrointentional distress?  God made covenants with the Israelites:  “if you will worship me alone, I will be your God and you will be my people.”  Which in my head means that I should be able to whip out the Covenant Card, notice that a covenental relationship bars me from discomfort - emotional, physical, spiritual - especially if I meet up my end of the bargain.

But it doesn’t, really.  And I never can truly hold up my end of the bargain of my own strength. In the midst of a self-pity-party I was listening to last week’s sermon from Imago Dei.  At some point the pastor mentioned how *all* *things* come from Christ, including our faith.  That we are not strong enough to sustain faith, but Christ is, and is interceding for us, and we partner with Christ in that effort - it’s not solely of our own will.

The Israelites never lived up to their end of the covenant, and I don’t know that they were meant to.  It’s almost more that God put out this impossible goal so they could realize the impossible nature of it, and then to for God to provide the means of it - Himself.  Christ is more than equipped and ready and in process of making us God’s people.  But that means we don’t get a say in how that looks:  doesn’t mean we get a Covenental Card disclaimer of discomfort.

Interesting things to think about, and a little distracting from the gurgles.

Lately I’ve not been going into my garage.  One might think:  “well, that could mean that Aj’s garage is fairly empty - nothing to get.”  Another might postulate:  “Or Aj isn’t doing anything that requires her going into her garage - she doesn’t need anything in there.”  When in reality the reason I’m not going into my garage is because currently that is the room in my house that is paying homage to the American motto:  “gross excess is only half enough.”  There is so.much.stuff.  Normally, I love to organize, but here I don’t know where to start.  Do I move the bags of river rock that need to go in the side flower bed?  But then I should just put the rock into the bed.  But then I need to weed first.  And put down landscaper’s fabric.  Which is also in the garage, lying on the floor next to a pile of rags that were used to clean up a toddler’s experiment of “what should I do while Ma is putting away pounds of flour from Bob’s Red MIll?  Well, I’ve been meaning to see if beer bottles bounce on the garage floor?”

Baby steps to four o’clock.

Judah came in while I was standing in the midst of the muck, just staring.  “Mama, whatcha doing?”  “Noticing.”  “No-seeing?”  “Well, yeah, pretty much.”  Assessing.  Gathering.  Grouping.  Figuring out the small area I can tackle which will lead to more room to spread out, organize, weed, move on.

Same with my blog life.  I haven’t been contributing to the Grand Online Life not because I have nothing to share, nothing relevant, but because there’s just so.much.stuff.  And so I stand in the middle and stare.

Some of the things I notice in the midst:

• I’ve been more disatisfied/frustrated/disoriented since the fast.  Is it that I/we missed the mark?  Or that it’s taking longer to hit the mark (whatever that is) than I feel it should?  Or I’m feeling the tension of change?
• I’ve been pondering how the story of Joseph lines up with the journey our youth will embark on and how I/we adults will be involved.  How do we live lives that joyfully and expectantly wait on God?
• This life:  this suburban, chain-storing shopping, activity-driven, event-oriented, disconnected, consuming life - is this it?  If not, what is?  And how do I/we get there?
• Prayer and healing/growing food and plants/mentoring - these seem to be weaving themselves together, but I don’t know how/why.
• How does one live in the tension of being called to be part of a community yet feeling called to move out from that community?

And so things might seem cluttered around here and unrelated, but I believe that plodding through (sometimes acting, sometimes just noticing, or maybe no-seeing) will lead to a surprising reorientation.  Or at least a couple trips to Goodwill.