1 Corinthians 13 (In my own words)

Suppose I could speak every language on earth and even every tongue of heaven to communicate with both God and angels. But suppose I did not have love. I would be nothing more than a loud, obnoxious clanging symbol whose words and thoughts are purposeless. No one would care to hear me.

Suppose I was a prophet with the deepest spiritual gifts, who could sense the greatest mysteries of all. Suppose I knew all there is to know and my knowledge and wisdom was as vast and deep as oceans. But if I didn’t love others, I would be of no good.

Suppose my faith was so strong and real that I could walk up to a mountain and declare, “Move!” and it would. Suppose my faith was even so strong that I would be a martyr, surrendering myself to evil doers and to the flames of persecution. But if I did all this, even if my hand moved mountains and my body melted beneath fire for my beliefs, if I didn’t love others, it would all be for nothing.

What is this, then? Love waits when it does not want to wait. Love is altruistic even when it is weary and worn. Love is not envious of who someone else is or what someone else has. Love does not put others down in order to bring itself up. Love thinks before it speaks. Love is at peace with not having its own way. Love is slow to get angry. Love does not remember wrong doings but forgives in all circumstances. Love never supports injustice. Love always rejoices when truth is brought out. Love does not easily give up. Love presses on. Love does not lose hope. Love does not lose strength. Love will last through every place and circumstance, through every generation and time. Love will surely be the only thing that lasts forever.

As a child I spoke in childish words. I was small and weak. As I grew older, my childish thoughts and behaviors slipped away. I see things imperfectly now. All of this is vague, like a foggy mirror. But one day I will see with the most perfect clarity. I will no longer have a single childish thought. All that I know now; every unanswered question and incomplete thought will be made clear. All that is in parts will finally be made whole. I will then know everything completely; just as God knows me now. I will then be perfect love.

Through all of this-through this tiring journey of being whole and known, through growing from child to adult I know but only one true thing: There are three things that will endure the test of all time. These are faith, hope and love. Yet, though people quarrel and question I feel it deep in my very soul that the very greatest of these, is love.

Taken

Tonight I watched Liam Neeson’s recent movie, Taken. The movie follows a father who is in search for his daughter in Europe. Kim, his daughter, is taken by a group of Arab human traffickers and is sold from one place to another until her father finally rescues her in an action-packed scene on a ship in Paris. I have to be honest, if the movie wasn’t about the social issue of human trafficking (something I really care about), I probably would not have been that impressed. However, I was simply grateful that the action movie genre decided to interact with the issue of human trafficking. As a nation that depends so heavily on entertainment and media, it is good for people to see movies that use these real and serious issues as a backdrop for their stories.

The movie was adventurous, quick and kept you on the edge of your seat. You could not help but cheer when Liam Neeson wiped out a room of evil kidnappers and you’re touched when he finally reunites with the daughter that he loves so much.

Unfortunately, even if we end the movie with a victory cheer, we do need to remember that this is not something that happens only in Hollywood. Human trafficking is the 2nd biggest illegal money making business in the world (drugs being first). 800,000 people a year are trafficked internationally, and 17,000 are trafficked into our own home–the United States. 70% of those trafficked are female, and a large amount are children and adolescents. Four billion dollars are put into the brothel industry every single year.

Unlike Kim in Taken who is victoriously rescued, there are 800,000+ women at this very moment who are not rescued and who are currently suffering mental, emotional, physical and sexual abuse beyond all reason. And unlike Kim who is shown in the movie as happy and smiling after the huge ordeal, the majority of women who are rescued out of such circumstances endure problems ranging from anorexia to post traumatic stress disorder the rest of their lives. We must keep these women in our hearts and minds. Pray for them, think about them, talk about the issue of human trafficking and get involved. They need us.

(Might I add in a shameless plug for my favorite organization, International Justice Mission: www.ijm.org, whose work is dedicated to ending human slavery in this country and all around the world.)

The 5 Most Annoying Things People Say When I Tell Them I Want To Adopt:

1. “But don’t you want to have your own?”
I find this one somewhat comical because I am not sure who else my adopted children are going to belong to besides me. I plan on feeding them, raising them, providing them with an education and loving them their whole lives. How are they not my own? Who else are they going to belong to exactly…?

2. “You know there are kids in America who need to be adopted.”
I never really know what to respond to this because there doesn’t seem to be a decent reply. Yes, there are children in America who need to be adopted. OK. So what? Did I ever say “There are no kids in the U.S. who need homes so I guess I’ll go overseas!”? Of course not. I would have no objection to adoption within this country but I do feel specifically drawn to international adoption. We all have our callings. I really wish that people would trust that mine is not just a search for glory and romance, but rather, true direction from God.

3. “You will change your mind someday.”
Perhaps I will. Perhaps that this has just been something in my mind and heart for the last 6 years and as I grow older and more mature it will somewhat diminish. Or perhaps this truly is something I deeply want, long for, and feel incredibly compelled to. Perhaps I am sincere. Perhaps someday I really will have many adopted children. I don’t doubt that people change their minds about things. I have changed mine about many. However, there comes a point where you just want people to believe in you and not tell you (just in different words): “You’re young and ignorant, but you’ll grow out of it.” In order for my dream to thrive, I need others to support it.

4. What if your husband is not for adoption?
This is a pretty simple answer and not one that people like to hear, but it’s the truth: If my husband is not for adoption he is probably not my husband. I could never be with someone who does not share my very greatest life dream. I could never and I will never. So don’t worry about that.

5. “You will miss out on the experience of pregnancy.”
This I can almost understand. I look at pregnant women and think they radiantly glow. The experience of childbirth is one like no other. However, so is the experience of being in touch with a country for years, getting on a plane and finally meeting the child you’ve only dreamt about your whole life. So is the experience of learning how to love someone, completely and unconditionally, who is not your blood, not a part of you or anything about you or have any connection to your heritage and family. When I say I want to adopt, I never assume that adoption trumps pregnancy. I simply think that both are beautiful experiences that some people are meant to have and some people are not meant to have. Perhaps I will have both, which I would be happy with. But if I don’t, I would never want to feel like I am living in the shadow of the pregnancy I never had. My adopted children will be my children. Though not from my womb, they will be from some place just as powerful- my soul. I simply want people to celebrate that with me.

Letter From A Friend

This is an old letter that my dear friend Julia wrote to me. It was my senior year of high school when I had just went through a very difficult time. She recently added some to the letter and sent it to me again. This time, from Georgia. Just like two and a half years ago, it still made me cry and it still made me very thankful for that powerful yet simple thing we called “friendship.”

Hey Jude, I know we are far apart but when we are on the phone or whenever you mail me some piece of home and of heaven, I think you are here beside me.

I miss you pushing me off of sidewalks into the yard that is a mine field of dog poop. I miss smearing our fingers in paint and your mom overloading me with desert. I miss Chinese food and collecting flowers and leaves. I miss ranting about the church and crying for eachother on floors or with cigars.

Although coming through that dizzing winter into the hope of spring was a terrible journey, it ended up being so necessary. I would have had it no other way than to be beside you and you beside me. You mean so much to me and that was the time when our freindship became a life perserver to each of us.

So Jude keep your head up, look down the street for me to come driving down your road, music blaring and skirt flairing up in the wind. I am coming back, not soon enough but some day. I can’t help but to dread the time when I will really leave, who knows where to, but it is looming there ahead of us. Yet I will always cherish you. You are a part of my spirit.

Haiti

I have been thinking quite a bit about Haiti, and specifically Pat Robertson’s comments.

For one, I have decided that people always need someone to blame when something goes wrong. Sometimes we blame God, Satan, or ourselves. When Pat Robertson said that God was punishing Haiti, I thought to myself that as horrible of a thought that is, it is an easy philosophy to accept. People sin, people are punished. Blame rids us of other questions. We no longer have to ask questions like this: “Why do good things happen to good people? How disconnected is God from creation? Why does God step in at some points and not at others? Is God good? Is God even real?”. When natural disasters occur or terrorist attacks happen that wipe away thousands of people, we can just safely assume that it all goes back to sin and judgment. It is our ticket out of questions of the nature, goodness and presence of God.

Part of me wishes it was a fundamental truth that “do good in life and good will be given to you”, but it’s not. It’s obvious it is not, because for every bad person that has had suffering befall them so is there a good person that has had suffering befall them. In our reality, staying away from evil does not exempt us from tribulations. Because of this truth that bad does come to good people, and that you don’t have to have a pact with Satan to experience affliction, we have some pretty big questions to wrestle with.

These questions, these basic yet extremely life-altering questions are one’s that have brought me to tears in my spiritual journey. The idea, “How can God and tragedy be reconciled?” has been my greatest source of sadness and confusion and also my biggest catalyst for doubt. I have found no answers to these troubling questions but I have landed on a few ideas.

The first is that perhaps, there is no one to blame. This may be a rather cliche and somewhat simplified approach to viewing tragedy, but it is one that leaves me the least hardened and frustrated. Perhaps God is not how we envision Him; sitting up in Heaven with earthy controls that say “Send Earthquake Here” or “Experience Suffering Here.” Perhaps, despite some divine involvement, there really are some things that truly just happen. Perhaps we live in a world that yes, has a God that oversees it, but also a world that is governed by us, and prone to disaster, error and heartache. Perhaps some people will simply get cancer because it’s in their genetics and some people will fly planes into buildings because it is what they have been taught is noble their whole lives.

My other thought is that although a strange paradox, what if there really was such a thing as a good Gospel amidst a  sad world? Somewhere in our limited human understanding we have decided that when things go wrong, it’s automatically God’s fault. But I wonder what would happen if we actually considered that perhaps we are living in the middle of two very opposite, yet possible realities: that there is a good God and there is also pain and sadness. These two realities are separates, and though they interact with each other, one is not the fault or cause of another. They happen to be two universal truths existing aside each other, but not necessarily because of each other.

I do not understand atrocities like Haiti, nor will I ever. Situations like these are one’s that will bring me heartache for the rest of my life here on earth. I don’t believe I will ever be able to dismiss the tragedies of the human race. To cope, I can simply embrace the complicated, yet also somewhat childish perspective that the God that was good on the day of no earthquake is the same God that was good on the day there is one.

It may just be a escape, but these are some of the thoughts that bring me a bit of a solace while I am in my most cynical “doubting-Thomas” of moods. I don’t believe that what Pat Robertson said is true and I don’t think we serve a cruel, harsh God who just sits around waiting to unleash the most horrific punishments upon people. All in all, I don’t believe we have a mean Gospel. I believe we have a very good Gospel that is based on redemption for the sinners and hope for the hopeless. Both here in America, and all around the world.

“’Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?’, declares the Sovereign Lord. ‘Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? (Ezekiel 18:22-23, NIV). “‘For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone‘, declares the Sovereign Lord.” (Ezekiel 18:32)

School Thoughts

After a refreshing winter break, I started my first day of classes today. Although the work is piling up and I have knots in my stomach already, I could not help but stop and reflect on the blessings of my educational journey.

My school is so small that in some of my classes, we all sit at a big circle table and the 15 or so people talk like we would if we were all at a conference or meeting. It’s more of a conversation than it is a lecture. I have all my classes in a old building with huge windows. The sunshine streams in and I get full view of winter trees, afternoon blue skies, and bells from the chapel nearby. I always pick the seat closest to the window so that I’m sitting right in the center of the light beams streaming in.

I know many students in universities sit in classrooms where they will be lucky if the professor knows their name by the end of the semester. As for me, I am Facebook friends with some of my professors and call them by their first names. I am so comfortable, especially with some of my female professors, and have a relationship with them outside of the classroom. I know a bit about their lives, families, interests, and they know the same about me.

I carry two majors plus a certification program. My schedule is tight, crazy and confusing and I have experimented with practically every department in the college except for math. However, through my indecisiveness I was never given anything but encouragement and support. I have many different people who would sit down with me at any given time and discuss my future, my questions about school, my concerns for the future and my educational goals.

Many people ask me, “Do you like college?” Well, I suppose I do “like” it. However, it goes much beyond like. It really is a sincere appreciation and thankfulness. I know that there are many women, many people, who do not have the money, opportunity or even freedom to get their education. The world of academia brings richness to my life and I cannot imagine not being able to have the chance to be a part of it. Having the opportunity alone would be a blessing. Having it be a wonderful experience too is just another reminder that I should not take a moment of this for granted.

Future Plans

Last night over tea me and my dear friend Johnny were mapping out our lives. We were drawing comics showing the different steps of our lives. His was pretty extensive, with lots of detail and specifics. When I did mine, this is all I could come up: Graduate. Get my Master’s, PHD. Be a teacher, professor or psychologist. Get money. Adopt kids.

I looked at my silly stick figure drawings on the card board and thought that those plans didn’t seem very definite. In the past I was much more decisive and “plan” focused. That was in high school, and now that I am halfway through my bachelor’s degree, during a time where I should have more concrete direction, I don’t. Unlike some other women, my biggest dream and desire is not to get married. Although I will be  teaching secondary school for awhile, I’m not convinced it’s forever. I toss around ideas about getting more into counseling, or teaching on a higher level. My truest longing is to adopt, but I won’t be able to do that until my 30’s because of international rules and financial stability concerns. Unlike some of my friends, I don’t have an overwhelming longing to live in another country. Does that mean I am pathless? When people ask where my life is going, will all I have to say is, “Wherever the wind blows me”?

Last night with my friend I thought that, but now that I’ve given it some thought through out the day I’ve come with two things. 1) Though plans are nice in the moment, how often do we truly stick to them? I had certain plans in high school which may have felt comfortable and reassuring but a lot of them didn’t come to be. Life is about changing so obviously that includes plans changing. 2) The more you plot out every little detail, the less you lose of the present moment. We can want things “right now” so much that finally, we get everything and then have nothing more to work for or look forward to. Part of the joy of the journey is not knowing what lies ahead.

I may not have every part of my future mapped out, but the most I can do at this point is continue to do I what I feel is right at the time, seek for God’s direction, stay true to my convictions, listen to my heart and gut feelings and enjoy the present moment. I am learning that life may be more the today’s than the tomorrow’s and more about the current path than the one that is twenty miles away. I am getting rid of the maps.

My 20th Birthday

This past Friday (December 18th) was my 20th birthday. I had a wonderful day with loved one’s and dear friends. I had a lot of thoughts about turning 20, some of which I will share.

My first thought was that I am no longer a teenager. I haven’t technically felt like a “teenager” for years, but it’s the whole concept that ages 13-19 are over and will never return. I’ve reflected a lot on my teenage years. I have seen trials and tribulations but also a lot of goodness and blessings. I don’t look back on my teenage years and see them as the most easy times; in fact, I anticipate my adult life to go much smoother (simply for the sake that I am so much more aware of who I am and how I can claim my happiness.) However, albeit not easy, I see my teenage years holding incredibly significant moments that have shaped me forever.

Some of those significant moments: The Tri-County youth group and youth leadership team which held some of the most challenging yet wonderful moments of my life. Tea time every Thursday afternoon with Allison, Reni and Johnny (in his office.) Dave’s death on July 5, 2005. Mondays at MEC and the many opportunities it gave me. Sunday nights at Johnny’s house with Julia and Jesse, having 1am conversations in the hot tub. Walks with Allison, almost every single night, up and down our street. “Girls Only” club on Wednesday nights and the friendships that so deepened there. My journey through, and out of, clinical depression. Playing flute for the worship team, both with Dave and without. Graduating high school, getting accepted into all the schools I applied for and choosing LVC. Art nights with Julia, painting and drinking coffee at my kitchen table till very late. My first trip to the ocean. Ballet lessons with Rachel every Saturday morning. My first tattoo. The internship at SVPS my Senior year. My TMJ and years working through the healing. Daily piano and Greek lessons with Yiayia. My “spiritual parenting” experience and the blessing of my spiritual mom. Youth convention weekends. A dear friend attempting suicide.

My second thought was that 20 and the year 2010 is a whole new decade and passage of life. Those numbers seem significant. I know how many things could happen from 20-30; such as getting my master’s (let’s shoot for doctorate!), traveling, getting a job, my own place, or maybe, towards the latter end, even beginning my adoption process.  It both excites me and scares me that the next 10 years could hold so many changes.

I was asking myself, “if I could pick any words that totally summed up my teenage years and upcoming adult years, what words would I choose?” These simple words from the Scriptures are the closest I could find. There are not many things I am sure of, but I am sure of God’s love for me. I am very aware that I have been through some ups and downs but God’s mercy has not run dry. I am very thankful for what I have already journeyed. Here’s to another 20 years.

The love of the Lord endures.
The love of the Lord endures.
If there’s only one thing, I can be sure,
It’s that the love of the Lord endures.

How Souls Meet

I wrote this for a dear friend of mine for Christmas. I am giving it to her tomorrow. I thought I would share it.

Souls do not have a vivid understanding
of what earlier was begot.
Somehow yet they seem to feel,
“My, we have learned a lot.”

The souls remember not every place they were-
of lands they roamed or walls they scaled.
They can’t recall the thrills and joys,
what they won and what they failed.

Yet somewhere in them is a familiar sense,
that they have loved sometime before-
that somewhere they had met,
and knew each other more.

Souls will journey on through this delicate life
of sorrow, heaviness and woe.
They will find those they need to find,
And will carry each other’s load.

Oh, what a mystical mystery is this
that the souls find who they find!
They travel far and wide and say,
“How glad I am yours has found mine!”

And found I am. Here, today, somehow.
For however long matters not.
Because whether for a time or a lifetime,
Still now, how much richer is my lot.

We’ll never grasp how this takes place.
Just that God, in grace, finds the lost,
Guides their moments, directs the souls,
And allows their roads to cross.

Identity In Words

In one of my English classes we were talking about identity and whether it’s possible to sum-up someone’s identity in words. How much of ourselves are definable? How much of us can we put into words? And if we attempted to pick words that summed up what makes us US, what would they be? We were asked to try writing it. Below is my attempt at encompassing my entire being into one paragraph. Of course, as I said, an attempt. It was much easier said than done.

Theodora Hermes, known as “Teddi.” Belongs to a mother, father, a brother, grandmother, extended family in New Jersey, Ohio, and St. Louis, many friends and a siamese cat. Greek, German, and Irish heritage but identifying most and strongly, as Greek. A December birthday, twenty year’s old in body, and very old in soul. Has lived in Pennsylvania her whole life, in different houses, same county. Attended 7 years of public school, 5 years home schooled. Has completed a year and a half of college. Is currently a Sociology, English and Secondary Education major who is perhaps, studying too much, yet madly in love with the broad pursuit of knowledge. A strong believer in God and a follower of the teachings of Jesus with a wide range of spiritual experiences and places of worship. Is passionate about social justice and is a human activist, humanitarian, peacemaker, Democrat and feminist. A lover of small cities yet craves interaction with natural Mother Earth. Is most alive near water, particularly the ocean. A people-person who knows no strangers, is the listening ear, keeps others secrets, is in constant conversation and would have it no other way. Deeply knows many yet is deeply known by few. These few are signifiant and special friends of all ages both young and old, from many different places and times of life. She is a profuse reader, writer, walker, night owl and tea drinker. A lover of poetry, road trips, yoga,  folk music, quiet time and meaningful conversations. Hates loneliness, math, cold weather and not having space (in all respects.) Strives to be honest, peaceful, sincere, grateful, strong, comfortable as a woman, helpful and loving. Longs to live simply. She most dreams of adopting children from all corners of the world, getting her doctorate, being fluent in Greek and writing a book. Looking forward to the destinations of the future but much more concerned with the journey. Her mother, the most important person in her life, once told her that when she thinks about life being over, all she can say is, “I miss it already.” Theodora feels the exact same way.