Why you can't buy grace on the clearance rack at Primark

The following is the farewell speech I gave at the Final Symposium, celebrating the end of our time in Oxford.

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I'm half British. My understanding of the UK though was some sort of strange blend of C. S. Lewis, Harry Potter, and Downton Abbey - as if all three of them had a baby, and the baby was me. I thought that by coming here, I would find some sort of connection to my ancestry. I would discover my roots. I would identify with the British people and the British culture.

 

But I didn't. Although I have loved my time here, I found that I miss Hulu, Pandora, Target, and sunshine. I miss driving a car and serving sizes the size of my face. I found that I am not British. I am an American, through and through. And that's the problem.

 It's a problem because my identity should be in Christ first.

In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer talks about abandoning all that we have and all that we are until the only thing we can cling to is Christ. Christ calls us to a life of sacrifice and suffering, but all I want to do is get some In N Out and lay out by a pool.

I didn't come here to find beauty. If I am honest, I came here because I wanted to. I distinctly remember the chat I had with God that was more like a monologue. I remember boldly telling Him that I was going to apply and I was going to go to Oxford. But like all good Christians, I covered my tracks by convincing myself that I would let God lead my life by allowing Him to deny me to the program. If I was rejected, I wouldn't apply again because I was obedient, yet He and I both knew that it was only because this semester was the only time I could travel.

But our God is a God of grace, and He sent me here and He taught me things that no tutor could.

My blog's title is Finding Yofi. I'm probably pronouncing it wrong, but yofi is the Hebrew word for beauty. Over the last couple of years, I have been actively seeking to find beauty in all the wrong places, all the mundane places, all the places that our chaotic lives and glamorous culture teach us to ignore. It's not hard to find beauty in Oxford. Everything is beautiful here - the shops, the libraries, the very building we are sitting in. We don't have to look far and we don't have to try hard to become settled and content in the magic and wonder.

One of our friends who we have made this term from another school was over for dinner a few weeks ago. My flatmate and I were talking about our time with Mexico Outreach, and this friend asked if Mexico was pretty. I said yes, but it's not a normal kind of pretty - as if there is some sort of secret beauty that only some people are able to understand.

And there is.

There is the beauty of Christ. There is the beauty of the cross, a murderous weapon of shame and pain that somehow has become a symbol for the last two thousand years of grace, love, and hope.

I'm finding yofi here in Oxford, but sometimes I wonder if it is too good to be true.

If it's a faith that is simple that is a faith that is best, then I've got a faith that is much too complex.

I've believed a lie that the more I know, then the better I will love, but the truth is that I am at the mercy of the God from up above.

I try to figure God out like He's a topic to study, like if I read enough books in the Gladstone Link then I will finally understand. Maybe that was also the desire of the first man. Of Adam, the guy who wanted to know what God knew. The guy who lost it all and suffered not because he represented Christ and chased after His grace, but because he identified with himself and bought the cheapest understanding he could find.

In my own life, my faith is one of how much I can learn and how much I can know. It's not the costly faith that Bonhoeffer preaches of. It's not yofi. My faith, it costs me nothing. Sometimes I even think I bought it at Primark.* In my head I have memorized a lot, but in my heart I know little of the suffering that Christ endured, little of the martyrdom that Bonhoeffer was subjected to. My God is a pocket full of sunshine, and although these Oxford skies may be grey and dreary, I risk little and expect all the blessing.

We know that knowledge isn't cheap in dollars. We know that APU charges more for two semesters than the average American makes in a year. But what if we spent the same amount of time, money, and effort on the Kingdom than we did on our diploma? I'm not saying education isn't good, and I'm not saying our school is bad - I am saying that where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also.

I encourage all of you as this chapter of our lives comes to a close to find the yofi wherever you go. Even when the food isn't good and the pub doesn't have enough ketchup. Even when the air is cold. Even when we have to be somewhere early in the morning. I encourage you to seek for the higher grace, the more expensive grace, the grace that costs us yet gives us all the more.

* Primark is a budget clothing store in the UK. Very cute. Very cheap. Very low quality.

Finding yofi

I changed my blog's web address.
Finding Yofi.
Yofi, the Hebrew word for beauty.
Finding beauty.

Finding beauty in that which beauty is easy to see - the mountains and valleys, the oceans and sunsets, the kind people and warm smiles.
Finding beauty in the ugly, in the mundane, in the difficult, and in the trivial.
Finding beauty in whatever happens. No matter what happens.

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I sat in the Lamb & Flag tonight sipping my water with lemon, a bold contrast to the traditional Oxfordian Friday night.
We went through a mental list of the most controversial topics: abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, capital punishment - everything you would not discuss at an American bar.

"Really, if you're a mom and you are going to put your kid into foster care, I think it would be better to not have been born at all. That's a terrible life." Despite our last few months together, he was completely unaware of my own past, the harsh words my mother had said of her second pregnancy and the reality of my last couple of years of childhood.

I was caught between my desire to crawl under the table and hide, and my urge to reach over it and slap him in the face.

So I spoke.
"I was fostered for two years. Now I'm at Oxford, so..."

Finding yofi.

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"Is Mexico pretty?"

My mind heart races back to the place I haven't been to in nearly a year. 

"Yes. Yes, it is" I tell him. I pause, unsure of how to transfer all that I am feeling and envisioning to him, a boy from DC. "But it's not the normal kind of pretty." He stares at me, as if there is some secret, special type of beauty.

And there is.

There's beauty in that red clay and broken glass and the little brown hand that knows nothing and everything about a guerra de narcos. 

There's beauty in the tired muscles and hot sun and sweaty skin and the hair that hasn't been washed since the other side of the border. 

There's beauty in the people of God who live waiting for the Kingdom more than I do, relying on Christ more than I need to, and finding faith in a barren land.

Finding yofi.

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Mat Kearney is standing on the stage, serenading my heart with a song that speaks right to my soul. 

It's simple and it's cool. There's no pretense; it just cuts deep, speaking what we all think but are afraid to say. 

I am completely glued to the words, the acoustics, the melody, and the gingerly placed allusions to the One I love.  My body, my heart, my mind, my soul - they're all dancing and swinging to the beat, falling in love with the sounds of delight and Truth.

Finding yofi.

When bigger things aren't coming

Y'all, I'm gonna shoot straight.
I will not be an RA next year.
I am devastated.

I have been praying, wishing, and hoping over this past year for the Lord to bless me in this specific way, at this specific time.
And what do you do when it feels like the blessings have run dry?
Despite all that you have and all that you are, what do you say to the God who lived and died for you, but isn't enough to settle your woes?

And while I am surrounded by beautiful people who mean the best, somehow insults to my school's judgment calls, "You'll get 'em next year" and "Got has bigger plans for you" doesn't fit the bill. This is what I have always wanted. I stand there silent and stoic, but oh, am I wailing; beating my chest like a three year old who feels entirely out of control.

I am racked with anxiety, fear, and defeat.
Where will I work?
Where will I live?
Who will I live with?
How will I pay for all of this nonsense?
How will I arrange all of this while I am backpacking through Europe?
What about all of my hopes and dreams and plans?
What about my resume?
What about my pride?
What have I done wrong?

I make some immediate attempts to rectify the situation to no avail. It's still dark in England.
I've still cried about it more than I've praised about it.

Living abroad magnifies the problem. Makes it harder to solve, harder to mourn and to recover with my usual vices. Being displaced makes it easier to turn to Yahweh when my comforts are 7000 miles and 8 time zones apart; but I don't realize this, not at first, and maybe not still. I begin to question my ability to live abroad at all. I begin to question my entire life call as perhaps not a call at all, but the off-key sound of an un-tuned trumpet.

And suddenly an opportunity that was about to define my entire year is shattered.
And maybe that's the problem.

Maybe I'm like the little three year old more than I'd care to admit.
A child who made the little into the huge.
A child who simply hasn't gotten her way.
Who thinks she has better plans than The Way.
A disgruntled daughter who thinks that if she shakes her first at the Almighty, things will go well.
A daughter who forgot who is her Father.

We sat around the dinner table tonight. Four of us, all from the same school, but never having met until England. We shared stories about the rather-forget times in middle school and laughed at how ridiculous we were, how things that were so silly mattered so much. In all his wisdom, 21 year-old Peter exclaimed, "If I could go back, I'd slap middle school Peter in the face and tell him to buck up and stop throwing a fit. These things I got so upset and worried about don't matter. Bigger things are coming."

Maybe not all is lost.

Do I really want an opportunity, no matter how grand, that isn't what God wanted for me?
The God who knows the residents I would have gotten, the stress I would have been under, the other opportunities I would have.
That doesn't mean I won't meet difficult people, have times of difficulty and despair, or come across something I will enjoy even more - but it does mean that there is a God who understands infinitely more than I could fathom.

I am not so sure that God has a specific road map for my life. Maybe He does. Maybe He doesn't. Maybe it's not my job to figure His job out.

Maybe my theology prof was right when he said, "We would pray for whatever God gives us if we knew everything He knows."

Foreigners in the frost

This picture was taken last week at the Marble Arch in London. 

Fun dresses, tights, and jackets that are promising of spring.

Y'all, it was (kinda) sunny with a high of 55. What more could a island girl want on for her birthday celebrations? (Besides the birds to go a way. Nobody likes a park pigeon.)

Well, my birthday came and went - and with it, the warmth fled.
It's a wind chill of 15 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't even know what that means. There is snow and hail and I am starting to doubt that global warming is an actual problem. Please, Globe, please do warm, and do it quickly.

It's supposed to be 90 back home in Cali this week. Half of me thinks "Well, I'll take the snow and the sleet over heatstroke" while the other part of me longs to be back in the sunshine and hot, dry air of the foothills. Back to the warm smiles and familiar faces and long afternoons sitting on the Walk with a reading list and a notebook. Back to In-N-Out, authentic Mexican cuisine, and a stove that reads on the familiar Fahrenheit rather than gas marks. A place where I am not constantly translating temperatures and currencies and distances and pronunciations or cultural norms in my head.

Sometimes I think I am not cut out for this whole "world traveler" thing.

But maybe that's the point.
I am not a worldly traveler, defined by the foods and accents and tourist hot-spots of a new place.
My expeditions are defined by the people I meet. The neighbor that laughs when we try to say his name. The new friends at the dinner table who do not understand why we always ask for the salt. The student who reads economics (as the Oxfordians say) and does not understand why I believe in an economy of mercy, but will stay up late at night to hear about it in my living room. The pastor who picked his whole life up from the sunny land that I love and came to a country so desolate and dry, searching for a God that they did not know the name of; a God that makes all of their magical history, military success, and beautiful buildings look like rubbish. Maybe He's the One I am meeting the most.

And suddenly, it doesn't feel so cold.

Rolling the dice on registration day

I registered for classes today, days after pouring praying over charts and schedules and academic requirements. We snuck out of a dinner party, laptops clutched underneath our arms as we held winter caps firmly to our heads with a red-raw hand and tried to not choke on our scarves flapping in the wind.

Spring semester was ending, but spring felt like it would never come.

We chimed around town looking for an internet cafe that was still open and would let a couple of ragamuffin Americans in who looked like they would push over anybody who got in their way. Registration day is love and war - but mostly war.

We nestled into the warmth of a hundreds-year-old building, crowded together in a mostly-empty room. We waited. We prayed to the internet gods. We prayed to the One True God. We held our breath as we clicked "enroll" as if we were enrolling into the rest of our lives.

Three of us.
"Yes! Done!"
"Oh! Yes! Wait... No... Crap."
"Oh no! Dangit!"

I have mixed emotions about registering for classes.

I love the excitement about a new teachers, new friends, new books, and a new pace of life.
I hate the anxiety of being thrown outside of the rhythm I have established.

I love dreaming about the future and ticking off requirements.
I hate the uncertainty and knowing my time here is almost done, only to be thrown into a world that I do not understand.

But mostly, I hate not having control.
I hate not knowing if I will get what I need. I hate being at the mercy of something or Someone that I cannot control.

It's better this way.
If I made schedules, we'd all be getting up at 10am to study cookie recipes, traveling plans, and small furry animals - only to expect a high-paying degree in Social Work. (Only part of that statement is a problem.) Y'all, I can't be in charge.

Rhythms have to change.
To remind us who is in charge.
To remind us what little control we have.
To show us new things, new ideas, and new people.
To keep us on our toes and far away from the most dangerous pace of all: contentment.

When a daughter was born

I was born two decades ago.
Knuckles white from the cold blizzard night and the pains and fears of both labor and of a child born into a century of war.
My mother's whole world sighed, and a baby cried.

The daughter of lords and rulers, immigrants and refugees, farmers and fathers who knew nothing.
Nothing of a God who was heaven-sent; the Lord and Ruler of all who welcomed the alien and freed the oppressed from the hands of the wicked.
The God who took the plow to a soil so barren and bruised, making all things new.
A Father who said "Come. You are my daughter."
A Father who places our identity in His Son.

On our birthdays we celebrate our creation, our foundation and our survival.
What if we lived every day with awe and wonder, reflecting on the past and being hopeful for the future?
If we spent every day thanking Abba for being our Father, for knitting us together and preserving us for another year.
From dust I have been created, and to dust I shall return - but what is it that I do with this time in between?
With this Grace that I have been given so freely yet forget about so easily.
Perhaps every day is a birthday when we remember that we are living on gifted time.

These last 366 days have made me no taller. I'm certainly no richer.
But do I know my Father any better?
Do I know Him any better than stained glass and recited prayers?
Or do I know Him as the one who bore me, boring a whole into my heart and soul that was looped through a string tied around His neck; two hearts beating together, never far from the other.