chaos as a lifestyle

one of the best sayings: when it rains, it pours.

completely appropriate as i sit here watching it rain (again). never seems to stop
[at least it's better than the snow i saw falling last night]

but it is also appropriate since that saying describes life.

my first semester was nowhere near as busy as this one. yes, i was constantly doing coursework, but i was not traveling anywhere near as much as i have been in the last month or so.

april was crazy: preached the first sunday, spent five days driving around and interviewing the following weekend, went to and helped out with my cousin's wedding the next weekend (and battled several inches of snow), and went home for easter break.

so here's a more detail of the downpour i've been experiencing:

the wedding was awesome. my first wedding to lead, and it was a learning experience. my sisters used my camcorder to get the whole service, although i'm never on the screen since i was hiding behind the trellis and pillars and flowers. it was a good, fun, relaxing and utterly enjoyable time with family.
and the snow was fun but not. made everything look pretty since the world was not quite green yet, but horrible on country roads that were not plowed. so it tore up the undercarriage/skid plate on my car.

i got back to st paul sunday evening. at 7, i met with a group to work on our presentation that would take place the next morning.
[and we totally rocked the presentation skit!]

finally got back to my apartment around 9:30 pm.

up early monday morning for class.

and worked on a bible study for my book of revelation class.

then the next day i packed, attended class and drove back with a sem colleague to south dakota through the rain.
arrived in parkston at 10:30 and was told i looked exhausted. cause i was.

note: i spent less than 48 hours in st paul before taking off for almost a week

then on wednesday, when i wanted to sleep in, i was not really able to. i had a big essay to write. then that afternoon was spent easter dress shopping for the neighbor girl.
so we drove up to mitchell where we met mom to go shopping.
and forgot mom's car in mitchell.

so thursday was a trip to mitchell.
otherwise very low-key and included much needed rest and maundy thursday service at salem in parkston

friday was getting my car prepped and ready to go
[dad fixed the skid plate on my car]
and then the drive to omaha to hang with kayla, where we went shopping and ate food and had some bonding time.
we went to good friday services at a local congregation where we were overdressed (we wore dress clothes...who knew that jeans were acceptable?)

saturday involved being lazy, visiting kayla at work, and renting "hereafter" staring matt damon

sunday was church in the morning. we both wore skirts, but it was borderline too cold to wear anything but pants.
then we loaded my car and i took off to spend the rest of the day in parkston.
spent the afternoon and evening with mom, dad, ki, colten, grandparents and neighbors.

monday i tried to sleep in (unfortunately i had a problem the entire week with waking up no later than 8 am) and slowly got ready to drive back to st paul.

and i'm not going anywhere for a few days. my next trip is to the black hills for sister bonding time with kayla and kendra may 6.
this friday, i'm spending time with friend(s) here in the twin cities.
this sunday, i preach at salem english in minneapolis.
i have class, but not much homeworkwise until may 10, which is when i as a graduating senior really need to buckle down and work on final papers [ideally i will be working earlier]
my last final is due may 15, which is mere weeks away...

and in the midst of this, i'm working with first call stuff. talking to a congregation that is interested in calling me and [hopefully] setting up ordination and installation for this summer

forecast for the next month: torrential downpours

fortunately i prefer downpour to the annoying, never-ending mists

my weekend

expected travel: 5 days, 23 hrs of time in the vehicle, 1224 miles

actual travel: over 1400 miles and lots more time in the car than mapquest told me as i had to drive around or backtrack to find roads not covered by water or churches not stored in my gps...

planned events: 4 interviews with four congregations/parishes, visit with supervisor from internship, visit with family

unplanned events: trip to grand forks since i had so much free time, last minute decision to go to the circus with my aunt and uncle and little cousin, buying the chronicles of naria: voyage of the dawn treader

i'm exhausted

but also excited to see which of the 4 interviews may or may not turn into my first call...

seminary update

alright people, i'm getting stressed/nervous/overwhelmed

life is moving quickly.
very quickly.

i am super busy and both loving and hating it.
(mostly lovin' it)

i enjoy not sitting still.
i enjoy running around like a chicken with my head chopped off.
but i do not enjoy the sensation that i may start crying because i have so much to do and little time to do it in
(but if you ask me a week from now, i will only remember the fun adrenaline rush)

here is my plan:
1. homework - post online, read/skim books and articles, complete assignments
2. interview - this weekend: 4 interviews with 4 parishes/congregations in 4 days
3. live - savor every minute i have left at luther

homework gets done and i will pass classes (p is for pastor, after all).
then i will graduate at the end of may.
then i will hopefully be ordained this summer and start working for the Church

interviews will be done and i may or may not receive a call to be someone's pastor before the summer starts. hopefully at least one congregation i interview with will be the ideal place for me to do ministry with the skills God gave me.
i did a mapquest search to see the approx amount of miles i will be traveling from thursday morning to monday morning: 1118.33 miles
that's spending 19 hrs 42 mins in my car...(not counting the stops for gas, bathroom, food, sleep)

this is the time to live life to its fullest (yeah, i know it's cliche).
i may cry at some point, but i'm hoping it will be tears of joy and not tears of frustration or sorrow.
as someone pointed out to me today, there are only about 6 weeks left to the school year (breathe, kara, breathe).
and as i've been pointing out to friends here, i only know of 2-3 weekends i am going to be sleeping in my apt from now until the end of may (breathe...).
i'm excited for the coming trips, but so much travel wears me down.

but if God can bring me to it, God will see me through it.

(prayers are not only accepted but encouraged)

sermon 3.4.2011

here is my sermon from this morning at salem english lutheran church:

Will you please pray with me…Lord, may the words of my lips and the meditations of our souls be pleasing to you, our rock and redeemer. Amen.

I want you to close your eyes for just a moment. Close them tight.

What do you see when your eyes are closed? 

Just keep them closed for a while longer...

Now open your eyes.

What do you see first?

You may think you first see objects or people. But really, first you see the light. Then comes the colors and shapes that you begin to recognize. But first is light. Because you need the light in order to see.

The light is overwhelming. Welcome, but bright and painful. So bright that I often want to close my eyes again.

Which is how I think is how we often go through life. We open our eyes, but the light hurts our eyes so we go back to the comforting darkness, the darkness that shields and hides.

Let’s think about this.

We all know that light is better than darkness. Right? Makes sense. Think of day versus night. Most of us tend to prefer the sunny day instead of the dark night. We like the warmth and ability to see where we are going. The dark seems scary because we cannot see. That is the dark we always think of.

But dark can also be safe. In the sun, we see everything. Nothing is hidden from us. We see all the corners and flaws. But when it’s dark, some of those are hidden away. We look and because we do not see, we see nothing wrong.

Is light or dark better? Is it better to see or not see?

I think it all depends on what we are looking at.

If we are looking at the world around us, we want to see. We like to know what’s going on. We like to see where we are going. We like to see where we’ve been. We like to see where other people are. We want to see.

But if we are looking at ourselves, we prefer the darkness. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to hide who I am because in the light, I see what’s wrong. In the light, I see the dark parts.

When I think of light and dark, I think of walking around at nighttime. I admit that in college I would work til late at night at the campus library then walk back to my dorm all by myself. I was told it was not safe to be out in the dark by myself, but I was not afraid of the dark. I was not afraid of the night. For the most part of my life, I have loved to take walks in the nighttime. I like the solitude. I don’t mind the fact that I don’t see other people. I am at home and content in the dark.

But I can’t stay in the darkness. Because I always find the light. And once I find the light, the light messes with how I see and experience the dark.

On the walk back to my dorm, there was only one spot that I was afraid of. And it was a corner of a building where there was a light on one side but not the other. I hated walking through the light back into the darkness. The light blinded my eyes so that someone sinister could be hiding in the dark beyond but I wouldn’t be able to see. If it were all dark, my eyes would have been adjusted to see the movements in the night. But that bright light would play tricks on my eyes. Because once I was in the light, I couldn’t go back to the dark.

That is what I hear in the scripture for today.

Once we are in the light, we can’t go back to the dark. Once we choose to open our eyes and follow the light that is Christ, we can’t go back to the dark. Once we are children of light as Paul says, we are no longer able to live in the dark. Once we enter the light, we must live as children of the light.

How many of us have heard the phrase, “ignorance is bliss”?

Ignorance is the not knowing, the not being able to see and recognize. Ignorance is living in darkness and being comfortable with our lacks because we do not see. We are kept in the dark, and the dark is familiar. The dark is safe, secure.

The dark is where the Pharisees find themselves. They are ignorant of who Jesus is. They are unwilling to open their eyes and ears and minds and hearts to the knowledge that Christ is the Christ, that Jesus is the Messiah. They are ignorant and blind to Jesus. And they are blissfully ignorant. They are content to live in the world they see. They are content to live the life they’ve been living, not knowing that there is something else.

They do not know the light that is Christ.

But the blind man learns. The blind man encounters the light that is Christ. His eyes are opened. This is a great miracle. Even in our world of medical technology, we struggle to help the blind see. We can help improve sight, but we cannot open the eyes of the truly blind. But Jesus does just that. He opens the eyes of the man born blind. He gives sight to the man who spent every day in darkness.  

The blind man encounters the light. And he is healed. He is changed when he meets Jesus of Nazareth.

Once he enters the light, once he is changed by the light, he cannot go back to the dark. He will not go back to the dark. He stays in the light. His eyes are opened. His eyes probably hurt from seeing the light, the brightnees, the colors and shapes, and he chooses to live in the light.

When I was reading this text, when I was thinking about what we learn from the blind man, I knew that we had a lot to learn. There are days when we long for the comforts of the ignorance and darkness. We long for the ease that the Pharisees have in their black and white world without colors. We want to have the darkness shield what is shameful. We don’t want to have my dark, deep secrets exposed by the light. We know the darkness and we know how to live in the dark.

But Paul reminds us that we are not children of the dark. We were, yes. We were children of the dark. We grew up in a world that is dark. We live in a world that does not acknowledge or see Christ. And in some ways, we still are. When our actions show that we are not bearing good fruit like peace, kindness and hope, we are children of the dark.

But we are not called to be children of the dark. We are children of the light.

We meet Jesus. He may not spit on the dirt and rub mud on our eyes to open them, but he is the light that opens our eyes. He is standing there when we open our eyes. We meet the light. We know and see Jesus Christ.

And we are transformed. We can no longer live in darkness. Just like walking through the dark and through a light, we can never fully reenter into the darkness. Once we know the light, we know the dark. And once we see the light, we know that the dark is scary and unsafe. The dark, no matter how familiar it was, is no longer our safe place.

We once were blind, but now we see.

The challenge for us today is to walk back into the world of darkness having encountered the light that is Christ. How do we live as children of light in a world of darkness?

I don’t have easy answers. I don’t have any answers. I just have a challenge.

The biggest challenge is to bring the light with us. To be the light. To not be afraid to have it light up the world. Just as the song “this little light of mine” tells us, shine your light for the whole world to see it. Don’t put the light in a box, but let the light out. A little light goes a long way.

But we are not alone. Christ, the light of the world, goes with us. God is with us as we re-enter the world of darkness. 

Let us read Psalm 23 together. 

1  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

2  He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;

3  He restores my soul; he leads me in right paths for his name's sake.

4  Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

5  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

6  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.