Txt Msg

Sometimes this is how I feel.

Also, I never text like this.

--

Txt Msg

God, why ddnt u

answer my txt?

I sent it ystrdy

at 2 pm

rght aftr I rolld out of

sin

It said

help me plz

bcs Ive lost my

step or my way

or wtvr

ppl say when

they do smthng

shitty

But u ddnt

evn rspnd or

evn notify me

that my txt ddnt

go thru like

ur sppsd to

whn theres silence

4 a while

Hi, I'm a narcissist

I am a narcissist.

After my Media and Society paper about narcissism on Facebook, I realized that I have all the tell-tale signs of a narcissist. I talk about myself. I am frustrated when people don't honor me the way I think they should. And in the midst of my self-loving is self-loathing - I want to be more than I already am.

It's a big mess.
It's also something I've been praying against since the spring.

My goal for this internship was to rid myself of narcissism. I wanted, and still want, a character arc. I want my character - me, Lauren Deidra Sawyer - to change during this internship, and for the better.

I wanted to magically become more others-focused and compassionate.
I wanted to overcome my insecurities and view myself soberly.

It's about four weeks into my internship, and I think it's finally happening, just not in the way I had imagined. I thought that I'd start stripping myself of narcissism when I met a bunch of sick kids or toughed the 115 degree heat. But honestly, I'm being challenged the same way I am in the States.

Note that I'm glad I'm going through this. I don't want my dear PLC family to think that they're doing anything wrong. Everything that's going on is for the best - I believe it. I won't be able to shake this narcissism without fire.

Observations:
- I am most comfortable in a leadership position ... so I find myself in a country where women aren't meant to lead. I'm forced to be okay with that.
- I'm not the best. Esther's the journalist. Lydia's the artsy one. Claire's the funny one. Sophie's Wonder Woman. I'm just me. A me that isn't "winning" at the moment.
- The task I chose for the summer does not bring me instant gratification. I am one of the few interns that took a long-term project. I am making headway on my assignment - PLC's year-end review, kind of like a magazine - but it's not as though what I'm writing is posted on the blog. It's hard. That's the one thing I love about working at a newspaper - I can see results by the end of the week.
- To somehow make this vague and mysterious: it's hard talking (I mean "talking") to a boy when you're a narcissist. It's easy for me to talk about myself all the time, but that's not how you attract the opposite sex.


Oh God, break me down.



I read this prayer in Elise and Sarah's copy of "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer:

Oh God, I have tasted Thy goodness and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further Grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still.


Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my Love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me Grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.








Ezekiel

*Gulp*

In 10 days I'll be up in the air.

People keep asking me if I'm nervous. I'm not nervous; I'm scared out of my wits.

I have never left the country.
I have never flown alone.
I am never alone.
Oh God, I'm never alone.
Can I handle being alone in a foreign country?
Can I handle being a grown-up?

Back in December this sounded like a splendid idea - like a daydream. It's so real now. I will be in Iraq in 11 days. I will be where American troops fought. I'll be where Shane Claiborne traveled in 2003. I'll be in the ancient Mesopotamia, the land of Babylon, near the Garden of Eden.

Holy crap.

I'm excited. I'm not changing my mind or anything. It's just ... real. Not a lot of things I dream up become real. Like that year I really wanted to be on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - never happened.

What's worse: I cannot be comfortable. I can't even take comfort that everything's been taken care of - because it hasn't. IWU still needs to approve my loan and CitiBank still needs to disburse it. I need a whole lot of money in just 10 days. Oh God, I'm scared. Can you make this happen?

--

God knows what he's doing - I've been signing my emails like that. I solicit your prayers, dear saints in Christ. I can't do it without God; I can't do it without all of you.

--

There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead--as if innocence had ever been--and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is not one but us. There never has been.


Here I am, LORD. Send me.




Ezekiel

only by prayer and fasting

"But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?" I answer, What if He knows Prayer to be the thing we need first and most?

--

I never share prayer requests. I don't like to. When Dr. Huckins asks for ours in Practicum, I never make eye contact. I think it's because in youth group everyone tried to one-up each other. Your mom's sick? Well, mine just died - beat that! And I don't want you prying into my personal space.

--

This season has been filled with doubt. I don't know what I believe. I know some things, and those things I hang my faith on like a hat. Others, like prayer, I don't know what to make of.

But I'm going to live them out, like Jayber. This blog will testify to that.

--

I want to intern at Preemptive Love Coalition. I've wanted to since December. I thought God was finally going to give me a break - let me have a big story to live out. RELEVANT died. This was it.

Then, Mom said no. 

She said no in December, but I applied for the internship anyway.

She said no in February when I bought my passport.

She said no in mid-March when I got the internship.

She said sigh maybe in late March when I begged and pleaded and cried and came up with logical reasons why I should get to work with PLC in Kurdistan.

(I'm realizing how persistent I can be - to my own demise.)

So I prayed. Reluctantly. I didn't have anyone else pray except Molly, Lindsey and my college group at home. I didn't ask Dr. Huckins to pray. I didn't ask Dr. Bence to pray. I think I asked Dr. Perry to pray, but that's it. 

I didn't ask people to pray because I didn't believe in prayer.

(And maybe I still don't.)

Then Mom said that she would think about it, that she might consider letting me take the internship. She started asking me questions like how I could pay for it and how long I'd be gone. I was hopeful; I asked more people to pray.

Maybe God did have a hand in this after all.

I asked Molly to pray, of course, and Lindsey. I asked my dear friend Jason to pray and Austin and Matt. I asked the other PLC interns and the president, Jeremy, to pray. People on Twitter told me that they were praying for me and for my mom. 

I prayed for the dead saints to pray for me because that seemed like a very Catholic thing to do, even though I'm not Catholic.

And God has moved. 

--

I don't think God's only moving because we're praying. I don't think that's what Jesus meant when he said, "Where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them." I think that Jesus shows up when I'm alone too.

I think that praying for others and asking others to pray for you is a humbling experience.

I think it transforms you more than it spurs God to answer in your favor.

--

We must ask that we may receive: but that we should receive what we ask in respect of our lower needs, is not God's end in making us pray, for He could give us everything without that: to bring His child to his knee, God withholds that man may ask.

--

Maybe that's the point. Maybe the ask-not-because-you-have-not is God's way of getting us to talk with him. Not only that, maybe it's his way of making us rely on others, to think outside ourselves. I can't ask people to pray for me out of pride. I can't do it. I have a huge pride issue, but if you're going to pray for me, it's got to be for a legitimate reason.

I need to need you.

And praying to the saints? Maybe I should save this for another blog post, but I think there's something - uhh - transcendental about asking saints to pray for you, to intercede. Not because Christ can't do it. But because you can't do it on your own. You need help. You need the saints. Dead and alive ones.

I say this again: it's humbling. Especially for someone who doesn't like sharing prayer requests, to know that David, a follower on Twitter, is praying for me is humbling. He owes me nothing. He has no ties with me. He doesn't know my age or hair color. He just knows my situation and we share the same God.

--

I fast a meal a week. I don't like talking about that either because I'm afraid that sounds like I'm bragging. To help: this was Lindsey's idea.

Every Wednesday at noon I pray instead of eating. Sometimes I stay in my room; sometimes I go into the NHC chapel or sit outside; sometimes I drive to Tree of Life. Sometimes I can stay focused, sometimes I can't at all.

But I'm not eating during this time. It's just me, my "worship music" playlist, my Bible, my notebook ... (wow, this list is long) ... and God. Just us. Hungry.

Maybe this works. Maybe it's like prayer and it's more about the communion, less about the results. Who knows. I do know that when Matt texted me one Wednesday, right as I entered the chapel to tell me that he was fasting with me, I felt loved and cared for and humbled.

--

Mom's going to tell me Monday if I can go to Kurdistan with PLC. I'm confident that she'll say yes, but I don't know for sure. I also don't know if Dr. T is going to approve it as an internship so I can get loans to pay for it. I don't even know if CitiBank will pay for it.

So pray.

Please.

If for nothing else, for the support system it's bringing me and my family and the other interns.

love,

ezekiel

There will be snacks

College makes me cynical.

I used to be so optimistic and hopeful and daydreamy, but ever since I started mingling with so many like-minded people with their stupid morals and stupid agendas* ... ugh ... I've grown exhausted. Optimism used to come so naturally. Now I have to work at it.

* When I'm cynical, I stereotype.

But I think this might be changing - slowly.

A few posts ago I described Grace as a hug. I can't get over that. It's not a perfect analogy by any means, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Grace hugged me a lot last week.

The weather is beautiful. The sky might still be grey and dull, but it's warm. *Hugs*

Two of my favorite Salinger books came in the mail. *Hugs*

I bought the Avett Brothers' album "I and Love and You," which is beautiful. *Hugs*

Believing that we don't live according to a merit system is wonderful. When I do something wrong, God doesn't punish me. God doesn't just bless me when I do something right. Everything in life is a gift.

I don't have to earn anything.
How freeing.

--
These Grace hugs are making me more generous. I find myself wanting to give my money away. I tell people I'm praying for them - and I actually do pray. (I don't usually tell people I'll pray for them because I know I'll forget.)

I know this isn't coming from me. It has to be God. I'm just not a very nice person.

You know how in elementary school we had to list three adjectives to describe ourselves, and "nice" is always the default description? Lauren is QUIET, CREATIVE and NICE. False. I'm not nice. (Side note: what if we were honest about those three adjectives? Lauren is SELFISH, INSECURE and AWKWARD. Thank God for Grace.)
--

I think of the Kingdom of Heaven, of Zion, of the New Jerusalem. The Bible talks about a redeemed world established by Jesus, but not complete until he returns again.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a tiny mustard seed.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman kneads into dough.

I think of Christianity as a grassroots movement. I think of the early church meeting in attics and sharing money and food. I think of everyone having enough.

In the midst of my cynicism, I'm realizing how desperately I yearn for Zion. I want to be part of that underground movement, not like the Christians on their megaphones who turn our faith into a Political Party, a Crusade or a Religion.

I want to be part of the Kingdom. I don't want to pretend that going to church or talking Christianese means more than it does. I want to serve like Jesus served. I want to be the last in order to be first. I want to live open-handedly and give to the poor. I want to lose my life to save it.

Andrew Bird sings about a post-Apocalyptic world. His description is so elementary, but I think it's what I want the Kingdom of heaven to be about:

I know we're going to meet some day

In the crumbled financial institutions of this land

There will be tables and chairs

There'll be pony rides and dancing bears

There'll even be a band

'Cause listen, after the fall there will be no more countries

No currencies at all, we're gonna live on our wits

We're gonna throw away survival kits,

Trade butterfly-knives for adderall

And that's not all

Ooh-ooh, there will be snacks there will

There will be snacks, there will be snacks.

--
As Christians we talk so much about the Kingdom to be established, but what about the one on earth? What about the one we have a hand in creating?

Maybe this is why I have been so cynical. I don't think we're establishing the Kingdom, just adding to the noise of the culture.

I want to be Kingdom-minded.
I want to focus on things that matter.
I want to delight in the Hugs God gives me. (Oh, I'm aware how cheesy that sounds.)

Living for God looks less like a formula, and more like a story.
But like all stories, there's conflict.

Establishing the Kingdom of God means overcoming fears. It means getting over our human desire for comfort, and believing that there are thing worth living and dying for. It means taking risks. It means acting irrationally by the world's standards, for God and for Love.

And not everything will go as planned.

But it's okay.
Because there will be snacks.

Everything in life is a gift, a snack table at the funeral of our life-as-we-know-it.

Cling to Grace.

"To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen." Jude 24f


with love and squalor,
Ezek.

oh mediocre

My Facebook status the other day was: "You know your life is uneventful when your dreams involve finishing homework (on time) and attending class (again, on time and fully clothed)."

And it's true.

The past few weeks I've been dreaming about school: about waking up, going to class, interacting with my professors, winking at a cute boy, then starting my homework. How lame is that? I'd take the dream where Ashley viciously murders me over a strand of boring, uneventful dreams.

When I'm awake it's not much better. All I can think about is school or the research I've been doing on RELEVANT magazine (which is going exceptionally well, mind you).

I want a cause; I've been praying for a cause.

I've got to be spending my time thinking about someone other than myself and about things more important than Radio Production homework. Honestly.

So far I've just been praying for RELEVANT. I don't mean "just" as in it isn't important - because it is. I'm starting to worry that I'll get so consumed in the magazine again that I'll fall back to where I was a year ago. Worthy or not, I can still make RELEVANT a god. So I need to be careful.

Without giving too much away, because I know this will pop up on RELEVANT's Google alerts, Tuesday I'm talking to former RELEVANT employee Dylan Peterson on the phone. I'm in kind of one of those celebrity-dazes. I mean, he was a pretty important part of the RELEVANT team. Well, he did make me fall in love with Andrew Bird and Anathallo.

Anyway, that's Tuesday. More research to come. More prayer to come.

I'm hoping, honestly, that I find something to devote my thoughtlife to - something God will appreciate. I've made this observation before, but it's really, really hard to pray when you have nothing to pray about. Dear God thank you for rain. Thank you for helping me wake up on time. For fresh brew. For ... class? For, ... okay, I'm out.

Thus: I need a cause.

And I need to spend less time on Facebook.

Lauren

a stone or bread?

"And there is a communion with God that asks for nothing, yet asks for everything..... He who seeks the Father more than anything He can give, is likely to have what he asks, for he is not likely to ask amiss." [George MacDonald]

I wondered yesterday if it is better to ASK AMISS or to IGNORE what we really want and pray generalized prayers: Dear God, bless me. Dear God, I pray something good happens today.

Because on one hand, the "hand" most people would agree with, it isn't right to ask for wealth or happiness. We should be ready to face the odds! Get hurt! Suffer for Christ!

And that's true, is it not?

God doesn't give us a perfect little world because He doesn't want us to become a) selfish b) greedy or c) selfish again. So we DO suffer, we DO have to give up stuff every once in a while.

And to pray for something like a car is foolish. It's got to be foolish: God, give me a Porsche. God, I want a convertible VW. I want that funhouse car they made on Monster Garage last week.

But when we pray "Dear God, make me happy" aren't we hinting that we want that car?

We're trying to lie to ourselves: God, I want to be happy. We don't get a car and we're sad. We mend a broken relationship. We find $20 in a pair of jeans. It's pizza day at lunch. But we don't SEE those things because they aren't a car. God, why didn't you give me a car?

You have not because you ask not.

But will God give you that car you want? Probably not. It's not really necessary is it? You have your little Dodge Neon. It'll get you to school and back.

But by praying that prayer DESPITE its obvious outcome, we're better off. We are being true to God. Our prayer should be "IF IT IS YOUR WILL can I please get a new car?" not simply "MAKE ME HAPPY."

God wants us to realize what He's doing in our life. He wants US to make a CONSCIOUS effort to see what's going on in His.

So pray. Not just half hearted "bless me"s, but true from the heart pleads. Through prayer and petition with thanksgiving.

♥ezek.