Christian Celebrity?

In approximately 6 days I will technically be in the same room with the Donald Miller. Now, I recognize that for most people the mention of that name causes you to scratch your head in confusion and say to yourself, "Who?". That's because he is a Christian Celebrity. What does that even mean? The fact that I'm attempting to strategize my potential meeting with Mr. Miller six days in advance (which is totally warranted if you know me at all and my cheesiness) caused me to think about this whole concept of Christian Celebrity and why it even exists.

We tend to admire people who are saying the "next great thing". They've cornered the market on the next kitchy phrase or cool way of doing things or articulating faith. I wonder what dude coined the phrase WWJD? That gave him mileage for a few years in the 90's. I can hear it now, "Yeah, my neighbor is the guy who made up WWJD!". Ick! Even though it makes me want to vomit, I must admit the Christian Celebrity bug has bit me more than once. A few years ago when I was in youth ministry I was attending a National Youth Workers Convention. It was around the time when Shane Claiborne's book, Irresistible Revolution, was gaining momentum. I can remember bragging to my friends that I brushed passed his homemade hemp shirt on the way to the trade show floor. I think I could even smell his dreads. Really, Dana? You're gonna brag about that? He's just a dude. A pastor friend of mine has a man-crush on Robbie Seay and before you say man-crush?, just take some time to silently admit that you know what that is. We brought the Robbie Seay Band in for a free concert a few years ago that spawned a ministry of people giving themselves away (see Robbie Seay Band's song, "Give Yourself Away"). I watched as my pastor friend almost tripped over himself to get Robbie whatever he needed and smiled incessantly almost as if he couldn't believe Robbie was actually at our church.

But as much as I can retell these stories with sarcasm, here I am, doing the same thing with Donald Miller. I am actually trying to plan how I can say, "Hi" to him without seeming like a cheesy, ridiculous fan who mutters in a nasal voice, "Will you sign my book?". What is it about Christian Celebrities? What do we want that we think they have? What makes a Christian Celebrity? Have you made your pastor one? or maybe your worship pastor? What happens to God when we turn his people into celebrities?

p.s. I would totally brag if I ever grabbed a beer with N.T. Wright.

Welcome to the rest of your life?

I realize I have taken an extended hiatus from writing in my "oh so eloquent" blog. That phrase actually doesn't even make sense. How can something called a "blog" be eloquent? It sounds messy. It sounds unpolished and unrehearsed and unrefined. Not unlike how I feel these days. Let me explain...

I am just about to enter my third month of my practicum for my Marriage and Family Therapy masters degree. When I began this journey a little over three years ago, I was unrecognizable from the woman you'd meet today. The funny thing is, I thought I liked who I was. I thought I was fine. The last three years have completely broken me down and built me back up, or rather begun the process of building me back up. I couldn't have dreamed what this process what look like and how much I'd learn about people and systems and mental illnesses sure, but...about me. That is what really happened. Along the way God gave me the gift of discovering who I am. Let me be the first to say, it's scary, it's lonely, it's painful, but it's so worth it.

My previous posts seem to have a theme running through them. I like to tie them up with some cheesy bow that creatively utilizes a metaphor of how God loves us, works for the good, etc. The truth is, that is not how real life is. We are incomplete messes. In our mess God still says, "I want to be in relationship with you, YES YOU!" In our attempts to wear the mask we so frequently don we say, "But let me learn this lesson and pray about it and journal about it and apply it and...". God doesn't want us to be spinning our wheels in pretense. He likes us in process because that is where he gets the most glory. In our mess, He is revealed. That doesn't change the fact that we want the bow. We want the fancy overpriced metallic wrapping paper. We want to have it all figured out and be on to the next thing. Our desire to be complete and His desire to finish us is where we meet.

Where are you meeting God today? Or rather where is He meeting YOU?

I’m reading Don Miller’s new book. I feel like that in itself is a confession because I told myself I wasn’t allowed to break the binding until all my homework for the fall quarter was completed. I have one 10-page paper looming over me like an anvil from an old cartoon ready to fall and squish my head, so I thought I deserved a distraction. Whew! I feel better having confessed that and all.

Anyway, I write this because in the first few chapters Don discloses that his story isn’t interesting enough for a movie. I think most of us would agree that if our lives were displayed on a screen, there’d be a lot of dull (and embarrassing) moments. Remember, Jessica Simpson and the ill-fated Newlyweds series? She successfully achieved dull and embarrassing in one foul swoop. It’s easy to laugh at her misfortune, but if in the same situation, I might slip up and confuse chicken and tuna myself.

He also talks about narrative. His first book is written in a narrative, essay form. The moviemakers discuss how narrative isn’t engaging for an audience. They can’t get inside your head. They quickly lose interest when they can’t engage. It made me think about my narrative. I don’t know about you, but the voice inside my head is my most cherished companion. It laughs with me when I see an arrogant, toolbox of a guy trip on his ego. She helps me get rid of the red hue that sprays across my cheeks when what I intended to say and the actual words crash in a destructive mess of words and subsequent hand motions. She rehearses the important deliveries and pumps me up when I need an extra dose of courage. She reminds me that although my thighs are not as small as the girl working out in front of me, I am here working out and not sitting on the couch at home investing my evening into a sea of Ben and Jerry’s. She helps me to rationalize situations that would cause me to react poorly. She helps me make it through tough encounters with people I don’t want to see. She rolls her eyes internally so I can restrain myself from being impolite on a blind date. She prays deeply and loves freely. She is vulnerable. She cries when she hears songs that tell a story. She’s great. But I think the moviemakers are right. The audience doesn’t get to see all that. That comes when you are in relationship with someone. You can’t expect to know all there is to know about someone from a movie, or even a book or a blog. I think the gift of relationship is meeting their narrative and becoming part of their story.

I’m only a few chapters in…Dangit Don!

Lessons from the Apple Store

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to travel to Asia and before you think this post is about my wonderful adventure, let me say, I will save that for another date. Today’s story is however about something that occurred while jaunting halfway around the world. A friend had used my MacBook to access something via her thumb drive and my hard drive crashed...well, twenty minutes later it crashed. Coincidence? I think not. For any of you mac users, when you see the faint light grey file folder with a question mark blinking at you, you know how this feels. It reminds me of the coon dog that would enter the foreground of the screen during old school “Duck Hunt” from the original Ninetendo. It pops up and laughs at you and shakes up and down a little as if its laughter at your failure is causing it to convulse rhythmically. I would always try and shoot the dog to stop its berating of my hunting skills once and for all, but alas the gun only worked on the poor ducks. In other words, you feel like you are the butt of a huge practical joke. Like someone or something is laughing at you saying, “Ha! Your stuff? It’s gone! Sucks to be YOU!”

I didn’t have time to mourn the loss of my laptop while on the trip, but as soon as I returned home, the reality of what happened hit me like a ton of bricks. Questions circled about. “What will I do for school when I start classes again this fall? How can I afford to fix it or buy a new one? Are you supposed to keep graduate school papers for anything important? How many pictures did I have on iPhoto? What kind of small fortune did I drop on iTunes in three years?”

Craptastic!

I was able to grieve the loss of my papers quite quickly in almost as much time as it took to write them (don’t tell my professors), but when I started to think about the pictures and the iTunes, my heart began to sink.

Off to the Mall of America Apple Store where in a miracle of sorts the manager honored my expired extended warranty (that I forgot I had purchased once upon a time) and installed a brand new hard drive for free ($800 value, gasp!).

As I went to pick it up the next day, I was explaining my plight to a cute, little Apple Store associate not quite nineteen years of age. As she returned from retrieving my computer in the back, she handed it to me and said, “Well, you could look at it as cathartic!” Now aside from the fact that lil’ miss Apple probably just learned the word ‘cathartic’ the previous year in her freshman ‘Intro to Theatre’ class, it made me think – “Maybe she had a point”. My entire hard drive was wiped clean. Everything good and bad, gone. A fresh start. A new hard drive with no mark of my history of my struggles or memories I’d like to erase. Hmm…

Now, to be honest the three years I’d owned that hard drive had been riddled with some crazy memories. Most of which have been deleted. But, you can never completely delete things off your hard drive, right? CSI could probably locate those bad memories in two minutes flat. So, yeah, I like this new hard drive. Cathartic indeed! But then I start to think about the memories that I would never, ever want to delete - Pictures of my nephews growing up, years I spent in CA as a youth director with students I love, goofy photo shoots with forever friends, secret songs I got from ordering Matt Wertz’s latest album early!!!!!

I think what it comes down to is you can never erase just a part of who you are. The good comes with the bad. It makes up who we are. Even though I have painful memories that make me nauseous to think about, I love who I am today and I know that those painful days played an intrinsic part in making the “today me” happen. I think about the many photos I lost and how many I had uploaded to facebook (oh, thank goodness for facebook). But, isn’t true that you only upload the best to facebook. You don’t upload the photos where someone blinked, or when someone is cracking up because someone said something funny or farted right before the shot. You edit life a little for facebook and that’s what I missing. So, as thankful as I am to have a new hard drive for free (plug MOA Apple Store once again), I would rather have an unedited version of me and my memories. I’m learning that the journey isn’t worth deleting no matter how silly or painful it is and that the destination is just another starting point.

Happy Father's Day Brosef!

I have a big brother. I’ve never written about him because, like most sibling relationships, ours was tumultuous at best. From summer afternoons spent being forced to play the “robber” in cops and robbers with the neighborhood boys to dirty sock ambushes suffocating my face while my brother pinned me down on the couch as well as the classic loogie fake, I was subjected to the most common “big brother” moves directly from the playbook I’m convinced they all receive at birth (the little sister’s birth, that is).

Even though I daydreamed of what it would be like to have a big sister instead of a big brother, my favorite books and tv shows had brother/sister relationships. “The Berenstein Bears” and “The Cosby Show” were the top two. I felt special like Sister Bear and Rudy Huxtable. I have a big brother and even though he beat me up, made me play the roles nobody wants to play like goalie, catcher, and ‘robber’, and incessantly framed me for his indiscretions with mom and dad, I would still catch him sticking up for me. See, it was only okay for him to treat me that way. As my big brother, he held the exclusive rights to all teasing, embarrassment, roughing up, and fear induction to the point of tears. Any treatment toward me of this nature that occurred outside of his puppet strings was not allowed and he made sure to defend his birthright….out of my sight of course…or so he thought.

Growing up I also saw that he would feign disinterest or even a sense of irritation or indignation at having to help me with a ‘pickle’ I’d gotten myself into, but I’d soon learn to recognize the sly joy he got from helping me out and in later years, he grew weary of the mask and settled into the helpful big brother role, albeit a sassy, know-it-all one.

During our awkward transition into adulthood, my brother started to open up to the idea of me reciprocating some of the advice giving. The summer before I went off to college he began to actually ask me for my advice...in a very sneaky way. This odd tradition began. On the nights where we were both home, he would yell at me to turn his TV and bedroom light off because he was too lazy to get out of bed. Under the veil of darkness my brother shared his fears and struggles and hurts. It was almost as if he couldn’t see me, I wasn’t really there. He wasn’t really telling his little sister about all the crap he had endured his first two years (and incidentally the only years) of college. I was just a necessary sounding board for the pain he had been keeping inside for too long. I was the only one he felt safe enough to share his fears. That summer I sat in the threshold between the hallway and my brother’s room many a night and remained silent. He cried. He laughed. He sat in silence processing. I’m so thankful he couldn’t see my face because although I never said a word, so often my face betrays my desire to remain neutral (something I have to work on if I am ever to be a therapist). He shared a HUGE secret I have kept to this day and that, in itself, is a huge victory for this self-professed Chatty Cathy. I’m so thankful for that summer and how it allowed our relationship to mature and afforded me the amazing opportunity to see my brother in a different light.



Today, I see him as a dedicated husband and father of two boys. I see how the two rascals I call my nephews disarm my brother’s tough exterior in an instant and how they alone can soften him in a way that makes me smile on the inside. I get to put so many pieces that comprise my brother together: smart-ass, son, brother, husband, father. Growing up, I definitely took some knocks from my big brother, but I wouldn’t trade him for a sister for anything. Truth is, in a lot of ways, I look up to him. But, don’t tell him that. ☺





"Danielson" and I. Circa 1981.

Keep Your Crabby at Home!

If there is one character trait that I could eradicate from my being, it would have to be my crabbiness. Yes, I said it. Does admitting the fact that I have some crabbiness in me, give me any points? Like GI Joe says, "Knowing is half the battle". Can I be given a tiny bit of credit? Maybe? Just a tidge? I didn't think so.

A few weeks ago I had my first meeting with the team I'll be traveling to China with in July. We were having a great discussion on how to be servants to one another and the Chinese teachers we'll be partnering with as we teach summer camp. I blurted out, "I should make a shirt that says, "Keep your crabby at home". This t-shirt would soley serve as a reminder to myself. The idea came from a statement I heard about ten years ago in college. The summer after my freshman year I particpated in a cross-country tour with a group of students. We had a couple of purposes, but mainly we served as ambassadors to our college. "YAY, We are happy, smiling, perfect Christians! Come to our school. Give money to our school!" The problem was I wasn't happy, smiley all the time. We put on a show every night complete with lights, set, music and dancing. We ate countless potluck feasts handmade by congregation members named Hilda and Gertrude. Incidentally Hilda and Gertrude like to guilt-trip you into seconds and thirds and think that everyone is too skinny. We slept in the homes of Gertrude and Hilda's kids or cousins or neighbors. We travel in a van all day and eat bag lunches made by...you guessed it Gertrude and Hilda. It was like Christian Road Rules on...Testamints!

Needless to say, when you are with the same group of people day in and day out for months at a time, I don't care who you are, the gloves come off! One morning I just wasn't feeling it and before my backside even found the worn bench seat of the van, I rose my right hand with an air of attitude and said, "Fair warning everyone, I'm having a crabby day today". I thought this warning would protect me from cutesy small talk, pranks, and all other shenanigans that I normally participated in. One of my friends and fellow tour members totally derailed my plan, my wall, my fortress of crab. Dan was a football player with the voice of a Disney prince. I'm serious. You can't help but listen to this guy and feel rebuked and comforted all at the same time. What? Dan says (in his hero-esque voice), "Dana, you know, crabbiness is a choice." My facial expression I'm sure spelled out my disgust in letters that Disney corp. will never use. He continued, "Everyday I wake up and I have a choice to be crabby or not". CRAP!!!!! It made sense, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear. I thought I'd written myself a free ticket out of relationship at least for a few hours by my declaration of crabbiness. And I was pretty sure the whole van heard "Deep Thoughts from Dan". Ugh! I'm caught! I have to choose to not be crabby.

I recently went on a trip to CA with some dear friends from college, two of which were in that van on that 'day of reckoning' years ago. As I knew it would, crabby came to the surface like an explosive volcano (that how she works with me). It spewed all over my friends and I may have spouted a curse word or two. Immediately a wave of disappointment and guilt washed over me. I pushed crabby away, but the damage had already been done. It only takes minutes. Thankfully these friends love me and forgive me, but I couldn't take back my immature display or the words I had said.

What happens when we let our crabby infest those who don't know us at all? Those whom we are called to love? Can we simply say, "Oops...Sorry, I was having a crabby day"? What kind of an excuse is that? Really. I've tried to forget that day in the van many a time. I want an excuse. I don't want to be responsible for my actions ALL the time. But I can't shake it. We do have a choice to be crabby or not and the choice that we make affects so much more than we can see.

I know I'm not perfect and I'm sure crabby will make a cameo appearance on the China trip, but I pray that I can make a choice to stop her instead of feed her.

A Different Ending

I have a confession to make. I am a habitual page-skipper. Like stealing cookies from the cookie jar before dinner, I often peek ahead to the last page of a chapter or, gasp, even the last page of the entire book. I can trace this impropriety back to when I started buying my own books. I’d quickly grow insecure of my “loitering” in the aisle at Barnes and Noble or Target and feel a need to expedite my book selection. Surely people were judging my lack of decisiveness, right? I’d quickly scan the first few and last few pages to see if it was worthy of my hard-earned $19.95 and then quickly be on my way to the safety of the check out counter. But later at home cozying up with my brand new book, I’d inevitably find that my sneak peek had either made no sense in the context of the story or it completely ruined the whole storyline for me. Back in the corner of my mind I couldn’t forget the words written on the last page. Almost like a snapshot, they were imprinted into my memory. Shoot! I ruined all the preceding chapters because I tried to connect them to the ending that I already read. And to think I tried to ensure my $19.95 was well spent, but instead I sabotaged my own makeshift “Consumer Report” system.

Last week I chatted with a couple of friends. One is entering into a brand new relationship complete with butterflies flitting about and birds chirping songs in harmony with the breeze. I think the sun is actually shining brighter on her these days. She is happily experiencing all the joys of the newness, but she can’t help but think about the future. It’s only been a week or so and even though she tries to push it out of her mind, she finds herself searching for the guarantee that this one will work, that this time it will be different. “Can we just fast forward a little bit? Can I sneak a peek to the end of this chapter? C’mon what will it hurt?” Tempting as it may be, and believe me, as I divulged earlier, I’m a page skipper, skipping ahead to see what will happen will affect the process in a way that will steal away from the beauty of the experience. Just like the end of a book, knowing the end will make no sense out of the context of living the experience out or even worse, it’ll rob you of the joy of experiencing each day to its fullest because you can’t get the ending out of your mind. “Oh, sure he doesn’t want to go to my work party, that’s because… or I knew he would react this way when I told him about my past because he did this…” Analyzing is best left to the scientists. We get to simply live.

In stark contrast, another friend of mine just entered therapy after it became clear that relationships were not being lived to their fullest. This friend is being asked to read backwards instead of forwards. My friend must reread pages that were painful to read the first time around. I’m sure skipping to the end of therapy, getting to the place where everything is healed seems all too appealing right now, but by reading backwards and reliving the pages that are difficult to read, a different ending is being written.

A different ending.

By inviting God to stand by us in the process and walk through it no matter how impatient or how racked with pain we may be, we get a different ending.

If only my books would’ve had a different ending. Then I wouldn’t have wasted my measly gap paycheck. Don’t waste your $19.95. Live it out. Don’t desire to skip the pages. Because truth is, your new ending is worth way more than $19.95 and God is dying [has died] to write it.