Justice Work and Humility

I am currently reading Kenneth Bailey’s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes.  I feel really fortunate to be on a roll with books lately—I am both enjoying and being challenged by them.  I was compiling notes today on Bailey’s chapter on “The Parable of the Rich Fool” Found in Luke 12:13-21.  The following quote rings so true for my life regarding fighting for justice, “Another difficulty is that the person who fights for a just cause usually thinks that he or she is thereby a just person.  Everything such a person does in fighting for that cause usually becomes right in his or her eyes.  Woe to those who fall under the sway of this kind of self-created justice.  This parable presents a new perspective on the cry for justice.”  

This quote hits home for me!  The more I feel called to justice and the more I pursue it the more I realize how easy it is to become prideful and thereby believe that I am just.  The only way I have found to combat this is to ask for humility through prayer.  In fact, convincing myself to write this blog entry is helping me confirm how lacking I am in justice work—a definite answer to prayer in writing and sharing this.  

Sadly, I am thinking over the last week looking for a single example where an act of mine was intentionally done in the name of justice and I am drawing a blank.  I can think and have just thoughts, but they are really meaningless if they are not put into action.  This means it is time to start looking for and seizing opportunities to act on behalf of “the least of these.”

Quiet Speaks Volumes

Cain has written a remarkable book that is both thoroughly researched and beneficial not only to introverts but to extroverts as well.  While Quiet is not a biography, Cain uses many biographical references juxtaposed with psychological studies to support her argument that introverts are overlooked, oppressed even,  in Western society despite having just as much, even more in some cases, to offer than extroverts.  Of course Cain is writing subjectively being an introvert herself.  However, she does not use the book as a platform to bash extroverts.   She contends that extroverts and introverts both have much to offer and rather than societies favoring one personality type over another there needs to be partnership between both.  She argues that in current Western mentality, extroverts are exalted while introverts are viewed as weak or lacking in character.  According to Cain, this painfully overlooks the fact that there is strength in the quiet introvert. 

In her introduction Cain writes about the partnership of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Parks herself seemed aware of this paradox, calling her autobiography Quiet Strength—a title that challenges us to question our assumptions.  Why shouldn’t quiet be strong?  And what else can quiet do that we don’t give it credit for?...Take the partnership of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.: a formidable orator refusing to give up his seat on a segregated bus wouldn’t have had the same effect as a modest woman who’d clearly prefer to keep silent but for the exigencies of the situation…Yet today we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles.  We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable.  We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts—which means that we’ve lost sight of who we really are“(Pg. 2-3).

The book is divided into four sections: 1) The Extrovert Ideal; 2) Your Biology, Your Self?; 3) Do All Cultures Have An Extrovert Ideal; 4) How To Love, How To Work. In the first section Cain demonstrates how extroversion has come to be the standard for Western society.  Cain convincingly argues that the rise of the Extrovert Ideal began with Dale Carnegie.  She writes, “Carnegie’s metamorphosis from farmboy to salesman to public-speaking icon is also the story of the rise of the extrovert ideal…America had shifted from what the influential cultural historian Warren Susman called a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality…when they embraced the Culture of Personality, Americans started to focus on how others perceived them.  They became captivated by people who were bold and entertaining” (Pg. 20-21).  Cain also shares stories about attending a Tony Robbins Unleash-The-Power-Within seminar and visiting Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church to further support her contention of the Extrovert Ideal.

Cain’s distaste for the Tony Robbins seminar and her experience with  Saddleback Church resonate with me—I completely indentify with her!  I feel like these kinds of institutions are pushed upon us by society and Cain convincingly argues that while these institutions may be good for extroverts they are not the best environments for introverts to thrive and our western society would be much better served if this was recognized resulting in more introverted-friendly institutions or environments.

Having established that the West lives within the paradigm of the Extrovert Ideal, Cain looks at the psychology and science related to extroversion and introversion in the second section.  The studies that Cain presents are both enlightening and fascinating.  It was interesting for me at least to learn that evidence suggests that 40 to 50 percent of introvertedness and extrovertedness is genetic (Pg. 108).  I was relieved to learn that a third to half of Westerners are introverted.  Moreover, the fact that introvertedness can be tied to genetics gave more credence to the fact that I am normal.  Finally, as a quick aside to this section if one is not familiar with the life of Eleanor Roosevelt the brief, yet fascinating, biography found at the beginning of chapter 6 alone makes Cain’s book worth purchasing.    

In the third section, Cain looks at Eastern cultures and shows that the Extrovert Ideal is not universal.  In this section she spends time interviewing Asian students from Harvard’s business school and high school students from a public school system in California.  Cain writes, “Individuals in Asia see themselves as part of a greater whole—whether family, corporation, or community—and place tremendous value on harmony within their group.  They often subordinate their own desires to the group’s interest accepting their place in its hierarchy.  Western culture, by contrast, is organized around the individual” (Pg. 188-189).  If there is one area that lacked research in this book this would be it—her research seemed to be limited to those from Eastern cultural backgrounds residing in our Western culture.  It would have been interesting to read about a more thorough discussion of firsthand experience with Eastern cultures.

The fourth section can be best summed up in Cain’s words, “Probably the most common—and damaging—misunderstanding about personality type is that introverts are antisocial and extroverts are pro-social.  But as we’ve seen, neither formulation is correct; introverts and extroverts are differently social” (Pg. 226).  Cain also argues that there is a time for introverts to put on an extroverted face, she writes, “Yes, we are only pretending to be extroverts, and yes, such inauthenticity can be morally ambiguous (not to mention exhausting), but if it’s in the service of love or a professional calling, then we’re just as Shakespeare advised…’To thine own self be true’” (Pg. 210). 

At one point in the book I wrote in the margins, “When you boil it down this book is essentially about relationships.”  Of course no one is a pure introvert nor a pure extrovert but all of us are going to lean one direction or the other and fall on different points along the spectrum.  Cain’s book has helped me realize that if we are more sensitive to these leanings we can be more productive as a society and more importantly we can have more meaning in our lives because our relationships will be deeper.

Frankly, this book spoke to me.  For my whole life I have struggled with the fact that I am a “quiet” person and very introverted—not necessarily shy but, yes, introverted.  I was frustrated that I did not fit what seems to be the norm for our society.  After reading Cain’s book I am both thankful for who I am and much more comfortable with who I am.  For the first time I believe that I have a lot to offer not in spite of my introvertedness but because of my introvertedness.  Moreover, this book helped lessen my animosity toward extroverts because I no longer need to be envious of them and this will allow me to approach them in love and community.  I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone!

I received this book free from WaterBrook Multnomah for the purposes of this review.

NARRATIVES AND TENSION

So, I am back from Egypt and feel like I have so much to process.  One theme that I am currently processing is the idea of narrative.  The more I ponder this concept the more I realize that for as many people there are in the world there are a corresponding number of narratives.  Moreover, each of these narratives deserves a listening ear.

I am currently reading Kenneth Bailey’s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes.  In Chapter 5 the paradigm of narrative fits perfectly with my experience in Egypt.  In this chapter Bailey compares Luke 6:20-26 with Matthew 5:3-12.  It is apparent that these are the same speech in Jesus’ life—The Sermon on the Mount.  However, the narratives differ substantially between the two.  Matthew’s contains nine “Blessed are…” while Luke begins with four “Blessed are…,” but ends with four “Woe to you…”

If you were to ask me what this means for me I could ponder it for some time.  I find it interesting, though, that much of Christianity wants things black and white.  However, if God wants things to be black and white why does his word contain similar, yet at the same time, very different accounts of what Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount?

Of course, my answer is that God does not want us to live so much in black and white models as He wants us to dwell in tension.  I believe that it is in tension that God breaks us down and molds us into who he wants us to become.

A Brief Thought On The Term "Judeo-Christian"

On a friend’s blog this morning I read the following quote: "Our nation's founders held the Judeo-Christian belief that all human beings are sinners."  I am not sure if it is because in less than a week I leave for a trip with my church to Egypt with our focus being on peace and reconciliation but I was really struck by the exclusion that exists in the term “Judeo-Christian.”

We see the term “Judeo-Christian” so often, yet there is, as many of us know, a third Abrahamic faith and I have never seen its inclusion in the Judeo-Christian term. If we are working toward peace and reconciliation and we want to use the term “Judeo-Christian” we may want to use another, more inclusive term--perhaps “Judeo-Islamic-Christian.”

For me “Judeo-Christian,” while on the surface appearing to be inclusive reinforces the Zionist mindset and is more exclusive than inclusive.

A Reflection on Lent and Fasting

A little more than a month ago I was sitting in the Pollo Campero in Columbia Heights meeting with a friend of mine by the name of Dave.  We were discussing a 21 day fast that our church was doing which led into a discussion about Lent and fasting in general.  Dave announced to me that he was planning to fast the entire year.  Now before anyone thinks that Dave is planning on starving himself to death I will let you know that you can relax.  Yes, food is probably the most common thing that people fast, but Dave has a bunch of things that he is planning on fasting and most of them are not food.

There is one thing in particular that stuck out to me from that conversation in addition to Dave’s plan to fast the entire year.  Dave stated that we live in a society that pretty much declares that we can have whatever we want whenever we want it and that fasting was a great way to break out of the paradigm of “it is all about me.”  That was more than a month ago and I cannot get it out of my head.  I think there are several reasons for this.

 First, there is so much truth to it and something that is really scary about this is how easily it allows us to neglect God.  Just today on the way to work I was thinking what it must have been like to live in Biblical times.  You wake up in the morning thirsty, or needing to take care of your morning constitutional.  There is no running water, there is not a flush toilet, and come to think of it there is no roll of toilet paper that you picked up at the super market last week either.  Funny, the Bible does not mention what people used to wipe with and I do not want to speculate here so we will leave that out.  Anyway, this person needs to get some privacy and, I assume, bring a shovel--again another item that was probably not all that easy to procure.  After this they can take on the second task of getting a drink of water, not coffee, not Red Bull, not Juice, Not Coca Cola, not any other of the plethora of choices that we have today.  Perhaps milk could be a choice if they could find a cow or goat of the nursing, female persuasion, but we will stick with water.  I wonder if this person has a container to fill or if they will have to simply use their hands as a cup.  As I was thinking about this I could not help but think, “Wow, life in Biblical times was way simpler than the life we have today--more difficult for sure, but also simpler!” This simplicity must have made it easier for them to focus on God than it is for us.  Fasting is a great way of simplifying our lives.

A second reason Dave’s statement stuck with me is because it was convicting—I rarely fast.  Yes, I have given up beer for Lent the past two years—I actually gave up all alcohol, but anyone who knows me knows that I make the world’s top-ten list for beer snobbery.  However, instead of using this time to reflect on God I substituted copious amounts of chocolate milk in beer’s place.  This Lent I decided to limit myself to one Red Bull in the morning and only water for the rest of the day.  I must say that it has not been easy for me, but when I think about how difficult it is I am trying to reflect on God and what it means to be in relationship with Him.  I can also reflect on the Biblical people with no toilet paper, no running water and no flush toilet, which puts things in perspective and helps me to be thankful for the things that I do have.   Next year maybe I could fast the flush toilet for Lent.  However, I don’t think my wife will go for that!

I have probably heard the following definition of humility a dozen times over the past several years: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.”  This is the third reason Dave’s statement stuck with me.  It is crazy to me to think that we live in a society where we can have something that we want by whipping out a 2 by 4 inch piece of plastic—even if we do not have the money in the bank to pay it off.  And it is even crazier that we can have the instant gratification of a new kayak paddle, new shoes, new bike or whatever while nearly half of the world’s population lives on two dollars a day and less than half the population of Africa have access to clean drinking water.  I have been praying for humility and fasting is a form of humility.  Of course giving up beer and all other drinks beside water and a daily Red Bull is not going to solve the issues of those living on two dollars a day and the clean drinking water problem in Africa.  However, when we intentionally deny ourselves instant gratification it is a conscious decision to “think of yourself less” which very well could be the catalyst for solving such issues.

I wanted to add one final note here.  This is my take on Lent and fasting, but it is certainly not the only one.  I recently read an article, by a much more gifted writer than myself, which emphasized that the important thing with Lent is not what you take away, but what you add.  After writing this entry it is certainly paradoxical that I loved this other article and I believe that both my blog entry and his article are spot on in the spirit of Lent.  If you are interested in reading the other article you can find it here.

Man Alive: A Not-So-Great-To-Read-On-Your-Own-But-Good-For-A-Group Book

Before I begin I want to express my gratitude to WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing for providing me with free books to read and review.  Knowing that I will need to provide a fair and honest review has made me a better reader and has provided me with books that very often I would not have read otherwise.  Patrick Morley’s Man Alive: Transforming Your 7 Primal Needs into a Powerful Spiritual Life is the latest. Reading Man Alive left me with mixed feelings.

I believe that if you are to read Man Alive on your own what you will get out of it greatly depends where you are on your spiritual journey.  Overall, I was not very challenged by this book.  However, there were some quotes and ideas that I did find insightful. One of my favorites: “The starting point for cycle breaking is to own your stuff.  No doubt the sins against you are real, perhaps tragic.  But it’s what you do next that counts.  Will you take responsibility for yourself.” (p. 98)  I am not sure if it is irony or not but my favorite quote from the book actually comes from Christian writer and psychologist Larry Crabb: “’Biblical counseling must insist that the image of God is central to developing a solid view of personality; that our sinfulness, not how we’ve been sinned against, is our biggest problem; that forgiveness, not wholeness, is our greatest need; that repentance, not insight, is the dynamic in all real change.’” (p. 95)  Also, I really enjoyed chapter 7 “To Love And Be Loved”.  This chapter gave ten useful suggestions for how to love your wife better that I can and will certainly use.  Morley also has 10 suggestions on how to love your children which, if I had children, I believe would be very useful as well.  However, excluding chapter 7 and the few quotes that I liked most of this book was not very deep—I really feel like it just scratched the surface with most things.

Despite not being very challenged by Man Alive I could not help but frequently thinking about the book being used in the context of a small group and its potential to spur really great conversation.  Moreover, I think this context is primarily what Morley was aiming for with the book to begin with.  Each chapter ends with discussion questions which I found useful for the most part.  However, if I was leading a group I think I would add a few questions about the reading itself.  For example: Did you agree or disagree with what Morley had to say in this chapter and why?

I would not recommend this book to a friend for a solo read, but would definitely recommend it to someone thinking about starting a men’s group—for that it would work really well!

VALENTINE'S DAY LETTERS TRUMP CHOCOLATE AND FLOWERS

For Valentine’s Day my wife, Helene, came up with a wonderful idea.  She said, “Why don’t we each sit down and write each other a love letter?”  I agreed completely that this was an awesome idea.  Helene and I tell each other that we love each other every day and while I believe this is a great practice we are not in the practice of telling each other why we love each other.  For us men, we too often like to think of Valentine’s Day as a day that we buy our wife chocolates and/or flowers and take them out to a nice restaurant while neglecting to share with her the reasons that we cherish her so much.

This Valentine’s Day my wife and I stayed home and had a simple but delicious dinner that was a team effort.  Helene made her mom’s famous red-pepper soup and I made marble-cream-cheese brownies for dessert.  Of course I did splurge for a dozen orange roses because my wife is worth it.  The highlight of this romantic evening though was sitting at the dinner table and reading my love letter to Helene.  This was more than reading a letter though.  It was a declaration of why I chose her and made a commitment to spend the rest of my life with her.  Just as paramount as reading my letter was listening to Helene as she declared her love and commitment to me when she read hers!

Neither Helene nor I are completely comfortable sharing our letters here but we believe that putting them out there may help other couples to go beyond the potentially hollow declaration of, “I love you” and put some meat behind those words.  Our prayer is that your relationships push you to love more…to love deeper…to love when it hurts!

MY LETTER TO HELENE:

To the love of my life Helene,

You know, I love the fact that it is so easy for us to say “I love you” to each other every day!  While I believe that we mean those words every time that we say them to each other they can become hollow if we cannot express reasons why.

I often think about how our relationship started and am pretty amazed about how it all came together.  Ironically, it all started with a selfish act on my part—I remember being at Rocky Island and asking if you were riding with anyone to Cheat Fest later that week.  I remember wanting to share gas money being the primary motivation for the question.  Believe it or not, while you were not a total stranger at the time, it was still incredibly uncharacteristic for me to ask such a question and I am sort of baffled as to where the motivation to do so came from—I am confident I could have found another male paddling friend to share gas money with.  That makes me sort of think that it was Divine intervention that had me ask the question.

I remember the e-mail from you the day before sharing our ride.  You stated, “Food is important to me.”  That makes me think of two things that I love about you.  First, you are not afraid to speak your mind and share your needs—namely in this instance, “hey, I don’t know this person and they may be one of those fast-food junkies.  I need to know that because I like to eat healthy and make arrangements if that is the case.”  Second, I am not one of those fast-food junkies and I loved that before we were even in the car on the way to the Cheat River I had discovered that we both have a love of food in common.  By the way, it was awesome that we had a team effort with the Chili the other night—you did a great job with the carrots and peppers!  That acknowledgment leads me into yet another thing I love about you and us.  You frequently say, “We make a great team.”  I believe that is so true—I love when we go paddle together and often when we come home there is little or no verbal communication and yet everything gets put away—I love that you hang my gear for me!

Well anyway, I wanted to continue with the story of our “birth” as a couple.  This is kind of crazy, but I can’t remember anything about the day of our trip together to the Cheat River prior to our car ride or to put it another way I can’t remember a single thing about that day where you were not present in it.  I can’t remember if I worked that day and took off early or if I took the entire day off.  I can’t remember if I picked you up or if we met at my house!  Two things from that day stick out more than others though--the fact that we had a great conversation during our three hour car ride and that we had an impromptu dinner that felt very much like a date.  I also remember me telling you that I had the impression that you were shallow…whoops!  Thankfully, that was a false impression!

What sticks out to me today from our car ride to the Cheat River is another thing that I love about you and that is the fact that you listen well.  I am still a little embarrassed at myself for how self-absorbed I have been for the past month or two and even then you listened for several hours while I spat out and berated a book that I had recently read.

 This is somewhat ironic but I rarely ever think about the fact that we both won our classes at the race that year—as a matter of fact I was thinking about the dinner after the race and what we can dub “the brownie incident,” for lack of a better term, when I was like, “Oh yeah, we raced that Friday and we both won.”  That is such an afterthought for me and that is really odd, because you know how competitive I am.  Anyway, you have this huge, giving heart and I was literally blown away by your simple gesture of buying milk for the brownie I had saved.

Just last night I was sharing with XXXX about how I am so reluctant to involve myself in the mess of other people’s lives, but that you jump in with both feet.  You have had more conversations with XXXXX than I have.  XXXXX  talks to you more than he talks to me about his issues, the same with XXXXX.  You lend a listening and loving ear to XXXXX.  I am so fortunate that I get to learn this from you—I have a great model to learn from with respect to what it means to be there for another—I have a long way to go with this, but because of you I really believe that God is creating growth in my life in this area!

I could write more about the weekend that God brought us together, but I don’t want to dwell on the past too much.  As you can see, I merely wanted to use that weekend as a back drop for what I love about you today.  That does not mean that I do not like to think about how we met—it gives me joy and puts a smile on my face to think about it, but we are almost five years removed from that weekend and we should live in the present.  I believe we are both far from those two people we were back then and I think that is a good thing!

You are also a lot better than me at asking for help!  You had 20 people lined up to helps us move and I essentially moved the entire house by myself while you were away in Nepal.  I think a lot of people would ask, “What is there to love about someone not being afraid to ask for help?” I mean this can put a huge burden on the other spouse having to help out all the time—I believe this to be somewhat true, but I think the converse of this is way more detrimental to a relationship.  The prospect of living parallel lives is so very high with someone who never asks for help.  Asking for help allows the other to share the burden and that is a big part of what marriage is.  This is something that you are so much better at than me and again I love that I get to learn a new skill that will help develop humility in me and deepen not just our relationship but all of them.

Another thing that I love about you is that there are times when you disagree with me.  These are never fun times.  However, this is one of the biggest things that I love about you.  There is such a danger to a husband or wife that will always take the side of their spouse.  I am going to guess that it is not fun for you either when you disagree with me.  This makes me ever more thankful that you are willing to do so.  Disagreeing with me is an act of love that takes effort and it holds me accountable and I love that you are willing to make yourself uncomfortable in this respect.

I love our wedding invitation quote and my prayer for us is that we live it.  I love that I married you because I believe we complement each other well—we do make a good team!  I also pray that I carry traits that you can learn from as well.  Getting back to our wedding invitation quote I have to be honest about the fact that I have never devoted it to memory—I always remember the gist of it, but I wanted to include it here so I had to search for it on-line.  I found it with a continuation and I wanted to end with it:

The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the world. We marry to assist each other in this larger task. Though we should indeed love our spouse with true satisfaction, the most selfish and hateful life of all is that of two beings who unite merely in order to enjoy pleasures. The highest calling is that of the man who has dedicated his life to serving God and doing good, and who unites with a woman in order to happily further that purpose.

HELENE’S LETTER TO ME:

My sweetheart, the love of my life, my greatest blessing,

One of the things that I noticed about you right off the bat was that you truly care about relationships in a way that most guys do not.  You think through what is going on between you and another person (friend, family ...) and you are self-aware enough to be honest about where the road blocks might be even if they come from you.  For example you had thought about why you had a hard time staying close with friends who moved away.  Maybe you didn’t magically start rekindling a bunch of lost friendships, but you took the time to diagnose why it was an issue for you and eventually you were able to turn things around (e.g., when XXXX moved, you didn’t feel so abandoned anymore).  Just the fact that you spend any time at all considering the status of your many relationships with others is hugely attractive for me because relationships are such a major part of my world.

I love that you are such a good listener - maybe not when you get all focused on your stuff but when you decide to listen, you are a very active listener that not only makes me feel heard, but also helps me think through stuff by having to answer your questions that help further my understanding of the issue.  I really love that about you, you are a real friend to me in that respect, not just a lover.

The fact that you are a seeker spiritually is something that means a lot to me.  I could never be with someone who thinks he has all the answers and isn’t willing to continue seeking and trying to understand the world both spiritual and real.  You work so hard at understanding God and how you can serve him better, as well as at understanding the world around us and how you can make a difference.  That is very inspiring to me and motivates me to do the same even if my focus might be slightly different than yours.  I don’t know where all this seeking will lead us in the long run, but it’s the journey that matters and I love being on this journey with you!

I absolutely love how much you show your love by cooking.  It’s not just that I am the lucky recipient of much of that love (although that is a significant bonus since “food is important to me”), it’s that I love watching you spend so much time and energy doing something for someone else.  It gives a glimpse into how big your heart is for others and that makes me melt inside.  Other bonus:  I get the pride of watching you impress my dad :)

I feel very humbled and very touched that you share some of your insecurities with me, like for example the fact that you feel that you are not “smart” like a lot of NCCers.  I disagree with that statement but I recognize that your feelings of inferiority in this matter are real to you and I also know that this is not something you’d openly share with everyone. So I am grateful for your self-awareness and honesty.  We all feel insecure in some ways and a lot of these insecurities probably seem crazy to others – the art of marriage often feels like finding the balance between trusting the other enough to share our insecurities and having the other be mindful and respectful but without enabling us to stay stuck in the swamp of insecurity.  

I am so touched that you have embraced all my friends, of which there are many and who can be a little overwhelming at times both in numbers and in personalities. This is important to me because as you know my love for my friends is something that takes up a big part of my heart and my daily preoccupations (not to mention scheduling), so when you show acceptance of my friends and even real love for some of them you actually make me feel accepted and loved myself.  My friends are important to me so you caring about them translates to you caring about ME and that feels very good.  As time goes on, of course, friendships have become lesser priorities for me than our marriage, but nevertheless they are still very important and I love that you honor that.

I love traveling with you!  I love that you are patient with the small delays and unexpected surprises that are inherent to traveling (particularly internationally) and that you are interested in learning about other cultures and people living in ways different than ours, and that you rejoice in seeing amazing landscapes (like the Grand Canyon) as much as I do.  Being able to share my love of traveling and of the outdoors with someone is one of my biggest joys in our marriage.

Another thing I am really grateful for is how well we work as a team in our home. I am no longer as afraid or anxious about opening up our home to our friends or even strangers because you work so hard to help me put the house back in order immediately after we have gatherings.  Knowing that I can count on you to do that with me alleviates a lot of my anxiety about the mess that results from having guests, and in turn that makes me more willing and even excited to open up our home to others.  I love our teamwork!

I would be remiss if I focused only on emotional or intellectual attributes… your body is such a source of deliciousness to me.  I never get tired of how smooth and wonderful your skin is and I could just spend all day with my skin against your skin just breathing you in and feeling like I could melt into you.  I am so grateful that you work hard to stay healthy and fit so that we can enjoy each other physically as much as is possible.  And you smell soooo good!!!  

And finally, I am excited (both eager and anxious) to see where God is going to lead us.  After a couple of years of you doing a lot of thinking and reading on the issue of poverty and how to help those in need, it seems that you are reaching a time of action with committing to Second Saturday and the Living in the Tension group.  It scares me a little as would anything that could potentially alter the way we live our lives (which I am very comfortable with and really enjoy), but it is also a powerful and exciting experience to be joined as One with someone and see him taking a path that I value and admire and feel like I am going along for the ride…  I am not used to not being the sole master of my own destiny but there is a deep sense of righteousness in being by your side and supporting you in whatever comes next!