i can't believe it took so long

"may the god who dances in creation, who embraces us with human love, who shakes our lives like thunder, bless us and drive us out with power to fill the world with her justice. amen."

i cannot believe it took me so long to find a church where i could feel the fullness of christ stretching beyond the limits that christian society has placed on a large portion of the world's population. on sunday, i attended a church where people were allowed to be whole. i know that a great deal of what this church believes flies in the face of the tradition in which i grew up. both pastors are female. one is a lesbian. a woman in the choir (who also happens to be a lesbian) stood in the pulpit and proclaimed her testimony of how this church had taught her about a god of love, as opposed to the angry god she was taught about as a child. this church used gender-inclusive language when talking about the body of christ and about god.

this church proclaimed that all people are equal in the eyes of god. it said that you can be yourself as long as that self be for god. our responsive call to worship proclaimed:

come join together, joining hands and hearts. let our hands be links of chain which hold our lives together - not a chain of bondage, but a silver chord of strength,

a ribbon of love and faith and community giving us slack to sail the wind, yet holding us in a mystical embrace, that we may be alone, but never lonely,

that we may be together, but never lost in the crowd,

that we may be one without forfeiting uniqueness.

come together joining hands and hearts, and let the spirit of the holy and the human spirit flow in each one and through us all as we gather here to share this time and space and as we walk together on the journey.

we sang only from the hymn book. the choir sang a madrigal anthem of praise. there was a chiming of the hour. the offertory was a cello solo. we sang psalms and had readings from the hebrew scripture. it was beautiful. it was traditional. but it was also progressive. it was the body of christ as i have always wanted to experience it. and it was here in nashville.

i can't believe it took so long for me to find a church that encompassed all of these things. but here it was, very nearly in belmont's backyard. how incredible is that? it feels so good to finally be home.

being healthy vs. dieting :: part 1=> tea

almost everyone i know is aware of the fact that i work for teavana...in fact, a large number of people i do not know are fully aware of this too. i'm a little obsessed. of course, in my opinion, there are worse things to be obsessed about. working at a place that stresses health benefits in every sale pitch has led to some interesting conversations and trains of thought for me. it is interesting for that for the first time in my life, i am living a healthy lifestyle as opposed to a dieting lifestyle. there are some fundamental differences.

in the past, i have been so focused on changing the way i eat that i haven't seen the big picture. yes, having a good, healthy diet is important. however, a holistic approach to health can be even more beneficial. making sure to balance protein, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, dairy, etc. throughout your day can have a positive influence on your body, even if weight loss is not your goal. increasing your level of antioxidant intake helps give you natural energy in addition to the positive effects it has on teeth, skin, and bones. antioxidants also fight free radicals which are cancer-causing cells.

white teas, especially premium-grade, have the highest levels of antioxidants of any other types of tea...yes, even more than green tea. green tea has gotten a lot of buzz in the news for its fantastic health benefits and high antioxidant levels. while these things are true, white tea really is the best for you. silver needle is the rarest of all teas, and it is an especially powerful white tea. it has virtually no taste which means you can add it to any other tea without changing the flavor or the second tea, but you also don't sacrifice the health benefits of the silver needle. what's so special about it? it contains 15 times the amount of antioxidants of any other tea.

i do not mean to slight green tea at all. it has exceptional health benefits that vary from those of white tea. while green tea does contain polyphenols (which help fight cancer), it has a slightly lower level of antioxidants than white tea. however, green tea is especially helpful in fighting cavities and gingivitis. in fact, if for some reason you forget to brush your teeth on your way out the door, just steep yourself some green tea...it actually does help with bad breath. it also helps regulate blood sugar and lower cholesterol. one of the absolute best unflavored green teas is gykuro imperial. however, one of my favorite flavored green teas is jasmine dragon phoenix pearls.

the next tea down the line is oolong tea. oolong is often referred to as the "diet tea" because it works specifically to speed up metabolism and to help with the digestion of high-cholesterol foods. it also burns up fat already stored in the body. oolong tea typically has about 15% the amount of caffeine found in coffee, so it may give you a boost of energy as well. oolong is another good cholesterol-regulatory tea. the very best oolong is monkey-picked oolong. it has a smooth flavor, and you can steep it up to six (and in some cases more) times.

okay...that's all for me today. next time i'll talk about the benefits of black, rooibos, mate, and herbal teas. remember, "tea is instant wisdom - just add water!" (astrid alauda)

next...part 2 => more tea

i sobbed through church this morning

today i sat in church and cried. i cried hard. my friend allyson, who was sitting next to me, obviously noticed but said and did nothing. for this i am incredibly grateful because, at the time, i was really struggling with why the service was affecting me so much. but now i really know why. today during church, the interim pastor presented an opportunity for people to make themselves vulnerable. he asked any family dealing with job loss to come forward to the altar so that the church could gather around them a pray over them.

and i saw people come forward, letting themselves be honest to their church that they were struggling and were in need of prayer, i started to cry. it moved my soul. i sat on the third row of a church with which i have fairly profound disagreement doctrinally and felt the holy spirit move. i saw the church as it should be. i saw members of a christian community hurting, and i saw their sisters and brothers surround them.

from that point on i just couldn't keep it together. i sat there and thought about the crossroads before green valley. i wanted to stand up and give an impassioned speech about how green valley has all the potential in the world, but it is not using it. i wanted to tell them that the holy spirit wants so badly to work through their church. but then their interim pastor got up and said it all for me. dr. bobby dubois tells it like it is. he'll knock you flat on your ass, but he'll be the first person to extend a hand to help you up. he delivered such a challenge to green valley. it was beautiful.

but as i sat there and sobbed through most of the service, i was struck by how much i have changed over the last few years. a year ago there was no way i could sit in a service of green valley (or any southern baptist church for that matter) and expect or even anticipate that i would feel the spirit of god move because my doctrinal beliefs are so blatantly different. today i was able to see past my doctrinal differences to the core of why we were all there.

we all long for community. for each of us, it expresses itself in a different way. denominations exist because people disagree on how that community should be expressed. different churches in the same denominations exists for the exact same reason. but they exist and function because we long for community. while the message of christ is, from one perspective, predominantly about salvation, to me it is a message of relationship. they message of the christian new testament is community. ubuntu, if you will. as archbishop desmond tutu said:

"ubuntu is very difficult to render into a western language. it speaks of the very essence of being human. when we want to give high praise to someone we say, 'yu, u nobuntu'; 'hey so-and-so has ubuntu.' then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. you share what you have. it is to say, 'my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.' we belong in a bundle of life. we say, 'a person is a person through other persons.'"

that last part stands out to me most in this instance. "a person is a person through other persons." we can take that further. "a christian is a christian through other christians." that is the essence of community. that is the essence of what church should be. that is what brought me to tears this morning. i saw christians, vulnerable and hurting, being christians through other christians who surrounded them with love and comfort. they were saying, "my christianity is inextricably bound up in yours." it was beautiful. it gave me hope.