Injustice Remix Video

Just got back from InterVarsity's Fall Conference on Sunday! It was good, but I was completely wiped out. I'll post more on it soon, but I wanted to throw up a video that I put together for the talk that I gave in the "Gospel of Justice" track at the conference. Sorry in advance about the quality of the first couple slides . . . not sure what happened (I'll see if I can get it fixed).

Since they're hard to read they say: up to 2 million people experience homelessness every year and an average of 335,000 people experience homelessness on a given night.

Hope you enjoyed it and found it thought provoking. I'll post some more thoughts soon from the talk I gave about injustice (economic injustice specifically).

Long Week

So here I am on Thursday night . . . and boy has this been a long week. I've been up pretty late several nights preparing for our InterVarsity area conference (222) this weekend. I was up on campus this evening for the alternative thanksgiving dinner sponsored by the Campus Ministries Council and the service following (which was hosted by InterVarsity). I thought it went really well - I felt the Spirit move during worship . . . one song in particular, "Surrender," stuck out to me (just feeling like I'm in a good place of dependence on God right now):

I'm giving you my heart, and all that is within
I lay it all down for the sake of you my King
I'm giving you my dreams, I'm laying down my rights
I'm giving up my pride for the promise of new life

And I surrender all to you, all to you
And I surrender all to you, all to you

I'm singing You this song, I'm waiting at the cross
And all the world holds dear, I count it all as loss
For the sake of knowing You for the glory of Your name
To know the lasting joy, even sharing in Your pain

Our speaker was great, too. He talked about suffering and thankfulness and the hope we have in Christ. After the service was over, I checked my phone and saw that Morgan had tried to call serveral times throughout the service (in addition to texting me, which she never does). A little concerned, I call her back to see what's going on and find out that her grandfather had just suffered a heart attack and passed away.

Definitely not helping to ease any stress around the Murray home . . .
Spent some time with Morgan this evening just letting her cry, remembering some funny stories and how good a man her grandfather was (he was known as Big Daddy - how's that for southern?). He was a double amputee and, in spite of what doctors told him, was able to walk, drive, and get around with two prostheses. Pretty amazing!
He was also really sweet . . . after Morgan had surgery last spring, he drove through rush hour traffic (which he hated) to bring us a home-cooked dinner. I didn't know him well, but the time that I did spend with him left an impression of someone incredibly warm and caring - and he always had a good story to tell about him and his "buddies."

Stuff like this really puts into perspective what's important in life. All that concern about the details of the conference this weekend seem pretty insiginificant now.
Needless to say, this weekend is going to be a little crazy . . . bouncing back and forth between the conference in Hampton and any funeral arrangements hear in Richmond.

Your prayers would be much appreciated for Morgan, me (to love her well during this time), and Morgan's family.

To Write Love on Her Arms

This is the story that sparked the movement To Write Love on Her Arms (check out the website) that is travelling across the country now. I heard about it in my Relevant Magazine a few issues ago and the story is incredibly compelling . . . it made me cry. I think it's a beautiful and messy picture of what it looks like for us to love all of God's children.

I know the story is a little long, but it's well worth reading.

TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS by Jamie Tworkowski

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies. On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.

I've broken down . . .

and entered the world of blogging! I hope that this will be a good way to keep everyone updated with what's going on with Morgan and me, InterVarsity at Randolph-Macon, or any number of random things I may be thinking about in a given week . . .

Check back soon for some actual content!