Confidence vs. Arrogance

Any time I write about self-image, weight lifting, exercising, our diets, publications, and anything at all happy, the following thoughts ricochet about in my brain after hitting "publish" on my blog:

• People are going to think I'm arrogant and self-centered with all this, "Look how joyful and healthy I am" stuff.
• Am I arrogant and self-centered?
• I better write a sarcastic and funny post about all of my faults and how much I suck.

So, immediately after I wrote about how good weight lifting was making me feel and the degree of self-confidence that gave me the power and strength to stretch into yoga poses I'd never been able to hold before, I wondered if what I said was arrogant.  Am I a braggart?

And then this verse came to mind, one of my favorite Bible verses,

"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).

There is a huge difference between arrogance and confidence, and an equally huge difference between humility and self-deprecation. 

While confidence and humility can walk hand-in-hand, joyfully celebrating the good work that you are while realizing you aren't perfect and that's okay, in fact that's just right because you are still in-progress, and this growing and refining and shaping is beauty and art and the stuff of life,

 

 

arrogance and self-deprecation propel away from each other.  Arrogance and self-deprecation propel you away from others.  Arrogance and self-deprecation speak opposite lies in the same direction: one says I'm so much better than you. The other says I'm so much worse than you. 

 

Confidence and humility tend to operate from a position of neutrality: I am someone who matters.  You are someone who matters.  I will treat you as if you matter.  You will treat me as if I matter.  Because we matter. 

 

Ironically, both arrogance and self-deprecation turn the spotlight on ourselves.  Look at me, I'm awesome, so much more awesome than you! or Look at me, I suck!

 

Confidence is knowing that you are a good work.  Arrogance is thinking you are the hottest piece of work to walk the planet and thus you need no more work at all.

 

People always say, "Ivan the Terrible. Oh, he's so terrible, oh, I'm so scared of Ivan, he's bad news." When in fact, the correct translation is, "Ivan the Awesome." - Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smythsonian

 

Humility is willing to wash the feet of a stranger.  Self-deprecation lies down on the floor and begs to be stepped on, and when you tell it no, you don't deserve to be stepped on, you're great!, it says, no, no, no, really, I am a doormat.  Step on me.  Self-deprecation downgrades its worth so that others will take pity and deliver praise for how awesome you really are.

 

Unlike arrogance and self-deprecation, confidence and humility don't carry around a yard stick to see how they measure up with others.

 

No more measuring.  Who are you?  Who were you created to be?  Are you walking in that direction?  Keep walking. 

 

Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, and don't think of yourself more lowly than you ought. 

 

Consider yourself and be confident.  Consider others and be humble.

Creativity in Worship

Recently I started working with the worship team at our church, and I've been having so much fun.  I don't sing, and while I might be able to toot a tune on the ol' licorice stick, there isn't a whole lot of room for a clarinet in our contemporary worship band.  Unless we start playing songs from Fantasia.  So at first you might wonder what a tone deaf ex-member of the marching band is doing on the worship team.

We are blessed to attend a church that is not afraid to experiment.  On any given Sunday, you can expect to hear the worship leader say, "We're gonna try something different today."  Sometimes we have choreographed dancing.  Sometimes we have painting.  Sometimes we have flags.  We haven't brought out the snakes yet, but if the Spirit moved... well, we'd probably move to another church. ;)

Every week, the worship team talks via email or in person to start planning for the following Sunday, or a few Sundays ahead.  I love the intentionality, the enthusiasm, and the creativity that is permitted and encouraged.  I feel as if we are each given the freedom to use the gifts that have been given us, and it gets me just plain excited to be a part.

For those of you who are tone deaf, like me, but enthusiastic about worship and find yourself yearning for a way to use your gifts, talk to your pastor or worship leader and bring your ideas forward.  I've only been at this with our worship team for a month and a half, so I'm still learning lots of things, but it has been such a fulfilling experience that I can't help but share what I've learned so far.

Here are a few tips for bringing your creativity to Sunday morning worship:

1. Don't be afraid, ashamed, or embarrassed by your creativity.  This is important and might seem like a no-brainer, but I know from experience that self-doubt and negativity can weigh in on you and convince you that what you have to offer either isn't good enough or no one else will understand/appreciate what you have to offer because you are too different/unusual/strange.  Every good gift is from above, after all, and what better way to use what yo daddy gave you than in worship? Be bold and courageous.  Do not be afraid, do not be terrified.  The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.  Even in front of the congregation.

2. If you write poetry, write a poem about God/faith/forgiveness/grace/mercy/love/prayer/fear/justice/etc. If you paint or sculpt, interpret a passage of Scripture.  If you dance, choreograph a praise song.  If you love to read, read a passage of Scripture or a story.  If you act, work with a writer in your congregation who wants to do a skit.  If you sing, by all means, sing a new song unto the Lord.  Whatever brings you joy and passion, bring that to worship, and not only will your worship experience be more meaningful and alive, your authentic worship will help others to worship too.

3. Be other-focused.  Your creativity is an act of worship, yes, but don't forget that the congregation is trying to engage in worship, and through your writing/dancing/painting/singing, you are leading worship, too.  So that poem with all of the literary and biblical allusions and cross-references and utter brilliance that leaps from one image to the next and requires several in-depth reads in order to fully understand... that one you might want to leave in the notebook. 

4. Talk to your tech-y people, your musicians, your video people, your dancers, your writers, your public speakers, and your photographers.  Collaborate with other members of the congregation and see if you can't approach a topic from several different angles-- some people engage with sound.  Some people with movement.  Some people are visual.  Some people are tactile.  Diversify your worship pallet to engage all of the senses, and not only will you help more of the congregation to connect, you'll build up each other as each of you continues to become the fullest version of yourselves in Christ.

5. Approach the throne of grace with humility, awe, prayer, shouts of thanksgiving, reflection, mourning, rage, distress, fear, and mystery.  Praise and worship is acknowledging God in every season, and it is good to lay before him the full range of our feelings and emotions.  It seems appropriate to me to reflect this same element of worship in the corporate worship setting.  Sometimes we need to mourn and wail together.  Sometimes we need to move from wailing to dancing.  Sometimes we need to stand in awe.  Sometimes we need to be silent.  Our worship planning ought to be sensitive to the place of the congregation.

6. Listen to the prayer team, pastor, and elders of your church and pray over your worship planning.  The Holy Spirit knows better than us all what needs to happen in our hearts and minds, so make time to listen before you leap into all of your amazing plans, which are truly amazing, after all. 

7. Don't get too caught up in presentation and execution.  Remember that what you are doing is worship, too, not just a means for other people to worship.

8. Don't be afraid to fail.  Allow the congregation and the worship team to flex its muscles, strain and push.  Some weeks, what you thought would be awesome might fall flat on its face.  Other weeks, what you thought might seem hastily planned could be the most authentic worship experience your church has had in months.

9. It's not your job to carry the congregation.  It is the Holy Spirit's responsibility to move in the members of your church, during worship and beyond.  You might be a catalyst for that experience, but surely the Holy Spirit will be speaking into the hearts and lives of those he knows are ready to hear and be so moved.  Worry less about how the congregation is going to respond to what you've prepared and concern yourself more with approaching God humbly, executing your part of the plan to the best of your ability, with grace and attention, as part of your act of worship.

10. You are part of the body of Christ, and every limb and nerve ending of the body doesn't need to be in motion all at once in order to be active.  Let parts of your worship team and plan take a break from time to time.

11.  Be intentional.  Just because you have the ability to do sound, lights, video, reading, full band, flags, dancing, communion and candles doesn't mean you should do them all at once.

12.  Do not give up meeting as some are inclined to do, but keep communicating with the members of your worship team and listen when someone volunteers or even hints at wanting to contribute, and follow-up with those people.  Sometimes us creative folk need an invitation, or several invitations, to come forward.  And if you are wanting to get involved, don't wait for an invitation.  Your desire to contribute is an invitaiton from God to get involved, so go with it.

13.  Encourage one another regularly.  Just because Joe has been leading worship awesomely for months doesn't mean he believes he's got this thing nailed.  Sometimes all we need is one or two attaboys to keep the energy up.

Above all else, come with love and grace.  We're all working toward completion and wholeness, and we're all going to screw up some time or another.  The beauty of the body of Christ is that we can hold each other up, forgive, heal, and be restored.  I'm not sure exactly how this last part applies to worship and creativity, but surely we can put love and grace in everything.

So bring your gifts to the altar and let them shine!  The whole church will grow in faith and praise alongside you.

Confessions of a Tubal Ligation

It's been a week since our newest, and last, son - Henry Delbert - arrived safely into the world via c-section.  He is absolutely beautiful, perfectly content and as predictable of a baby as I've experienced.  Ever since we became pregnant with Henry, I've been coming to terms with this being our last baby - treasuring every little bump and kick in spite of heartburn and general discomfort during pregnancy, and now, as each day passes and Henry grows (and cries, and hiccups, and chirps, and poops, and sleeps, and stretches, and eats), I find myself experiencing similar bittersweet emotions about this phase of life coming to a close. 

Brandon and I decided this would be our last baby almost before we were pregnant with him.  I have to admit that I love being pregnant, and I love having babies, in spite of the discomforts that come along with pregnancy and c-sections.  We planned on having my tubes tied several months ago, though in my heart I could only commit to being 95% sure this should be it.  After all, I'm 28.  Most of my friends and acquaintances my age aren't even considering starting families until they are safely out of their twenties, and here we are, putting a stop to the baby making business?

However, last night as I was feeding Henry, I realized that we've been trying to make babies, recover from losing babies, or birthing babies every year since we got married.  I've been pregnant every year since 2004, counting my three living and breathing miracles as well as four miscarriages.  It has been a long season of baby-making, baby-losing, and baby-birthing, and it feels good to be done.  I will remember this period of life as one of significant growth, spiritually and emotionally, and rejoice in all that has happened in these seven years.  All good things must come to an end, after all, and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to carry these babies - for my three children, Lydia, Elvis, and Henry, and for the lost babies.  God carried us through some very difficult chapters of our marriage the last eight years, including those miscarriages, and though walking through those valleys was probably the hardest time of our lives so far, it also taught us a lot about God and our relationship with Him.

Now that the decision is official, and permanent, I am surprised at how relieved I am to be closing this chapter.  I am sad at the finality of it all, but every month with any sort of delay or abnormality won't be plagued with the anxiety of whether or not I'm pregnant.  I can claim back my three c-sectioned body (once it heals).  We can plan our future vacations knowing we will need one roll-away bed in our hotel room and space for three car seats in our vehicles.  It is finished.  And a brand new season is beginning. :)

Sydney Cast in Shadow

Sydney Cast in Shadow


The garden stroll before a matinee ballet
birds of paradise gawking these palms this lushness
this pristine park dustless alley
these streakfree storefront windows
this cloudless painless blue this skyline
etched with geometric concrete waves
jutting saucer tower arcing bridge
sailboat-speckled placid harbor this paper bag
soaked in grease from fish and chips

Me too far away to see
my blurred face bare legs fingers tugging skirt hem
neverending steps the opera house
perched at cresting point behind me

This map too small in scale its cartoon skyscrapers
outlandish fountain dozen golden arches architecture
arc and angles exaggerated too whimsical
to accommodate the shadowed blocks we walked
cabs we didn't wave sweaty footprints pressed to sidewalks
heels in hand this vast gap between where we were
and where we hoped to be.

Easter Saturdays

Easter Saturdays (tentative title because I stink at titles)


Cars full of people split the swamp where my creek flows.
They must not ponder, pause, stare at hollowed logs,
branchless trunks and wonder about the end of winter,
spring still a whisper in the trickle of cold water through the culvert.

What does all this dying mean, this surrender
after striving for three seasons? Grasses have been shedding
locks for decades, climbing out of caskets, grow and grow
over all their flawed history. We are all eating ourselves,

regurgitating what we thought was digested,
disposed and left behind. But it heaves back,
the crunch of gravel chip and seal, the steady rain falling
after having traveled the culvert just yesterday,

when I straddled the guard rail, cold metal creasing my thighs,
watching every season of my life die and be reborn.

Lydia

Lydia


*Poof!*

Two Poems - Rumble Strip and The Patient Gardener

*poof!*

Cascade Valley

Look, my daughter, the pine tree
dropped its seeds, and here
a fragile sapling braves the forest floor.
This used to be a birch tree
but maybe lightning sliced it,
wind heaved its heavy breath against it
and now the trunk is rust.
Sticks used to flirt, flare
their skirts of springtime buds,

but now we throw the broken limbs
into the rushing floodwaters to see
how quickly we could be carried away.
We are always a hair too close
to the edge, send pebbles skittering
into the river. Let's find our way back
from this spring rage, out of the valley
that catches what used to cling above.

Climb this mountain with its muddy paths,
deer trails, tread marks, hoof prints,
decomposing oaks - we are not the first
to grow and fall. But see the way the leaves
return to earth, the way the dust collects.
Crocus blades emerge from crumbling stumps
as if this growth does not take more than soil,
light, and rain. Reach down, my child,
bring a pine cone home to show
how miraculously we are carried.