If you could go Back...

...would you do it again?" That's the question that I have been contemplating recently. If I could go back and do my summer over differently, would I have? Or, would I have still spent two months of my summer in Santa Monica, skipping out on adventures in SB, baking, and seeing people that I need to see here? These are questions that have been running through my head lately. Truth of the matter I have not been to SB since I left for Santa Monica and I miss it dearly; I cannot wait to get back. It is my home after all and I would love to spend a summer there, something that I am yet to do since starting school. Also, there was so much pressure on me in SM, from a community, from an organization that employed me, from myself. I felt more into God than ever before and yet still, despite it all, I find myself wondering these days, if it was all worth it, if I would trade a summer in the safety of the community that I know to devote two months to God and live in a place that I have never before been.
I think that the answer to all of these questions is that I undoubtedly would have done it the same as before. This summer, although there were many down sides, missing out on things and I think that I cried more those two months than I have in a long time, I felt more accepted than ever before, purely for who I am. I made friends who loved me, just because, out of the depths of their heart. People that I can come to and , I hope, who feel like they can come to me, for anything. I realize though that these people are no different than my family in SB or in Glendora or anywhere in between. The reason that I felt so loved and accepted in SM was because I finally felt accepted by God. I finally understood that I will always be unsatisfied with people, unless I am satisfied with God. Now, more so than ever before, I am.
Treats of the week: I've made a ton since my last post. Inception cookies, chocolate cbbler, peach and nectarine cobbler, blueberry cobbler, banana chocolate chip muffins, peanut-butter brownies. It's been good getting back in the game.
Good Luck and Good Eats
~Cody

Pressure

It builds, like the fastest construction team,
It rises, like an ardent soldier through the ranks,
It grows, like an adolescent on a spurt,
It weighs on you, like a blood-stained murder,
It swallows you whole, like The Whale did Jonah,
It saps your joy, like the darkest rain cloud,
It eats at your soul, like a hungry child to dinner,
It comes from out of nowhere, like the most praised football tackler,
It sucks out your lifeforce, like a vacuum made of hate,
It paralyzes you, as if you are Christopher Reeves,
And it,
it,
it,
can only be removed, by a man on a tree.
Then, and only then does
It transform into faith,
transform into righteousness,
melt, like butter on toast,
and only then
Are you free to be
You.

Purpose

Just as I am about to leave the palm motel and begin stage 2 of my summer, a van pulls up and a man and dog get out. I'm wearing my outreach shirt, the one that says, "I found Purpose" because it was the last shirt that I had 'clean'. As I go into the room to get my stuff the young man questions me, "What is your purpose?" I respond quickly, "Jesus. What is your purpose?" "I'm trying to figure that out. That's why I am traveling the state in my van." That was it, the extent of the conversation that I had with the stranger before I piled into a car driving away from SM. While I wish that I had more time to discuss with the man where he can find purpose, I was forced to carry on. It started to get me thinking a lot about purpose however.
What is purpose anyways? I think people would generally, broadly define it as that which makes their life worthwhile, that which gives them meaning. But I find that definition weak because that I do not believe that purpose is that relative. My definition is a lot closer to Aristotle's, that is, performing the chief human function, but enough of philosophy. Let's be real, nothing we do as any real purpose, any real meaning behind it. Nothing that we do really affects anything here. I think purpose more refers to why we do something, the reason or end behind any of our actions. So for instance, the purpose of eating is to stay alive, getting good grades in high school to go to college, etc. Then, the purpose of life is whatever the reason of life or the end goal of our lives is our purpose. But really, the reason of our lives is to glorify or worship. It's what we were created for. We all worship something. My purpose is Jesus, to Love, adore, and worship Him who made me who I am. We can worship God, ourselves, or anything really. Some people worship sex; others, food; others, fame; many, money; a few, God, but the bottom line is that we were created to worship. It's who we are, but more than that, it is what we are. What you worship is your decision, but only one will give you true purpose.
Good Luck and Good Eats
~Cody

Thursday Post-Living Water

5 husbands, I have had 5 husbands. It never works out. They always kick me out, call me a dirty sinner and shove me to the curb. I have now taken up residence with a man who is not my husband. I know that it is wrong that we sleep together, but what else can I do? I have no family and nowhere to go, and I feel chained down by all of the negative consequences of my sins, present and past. I know, a lot of the reasons that 5 marriages did not work out was me, I am the only common denominator after all. I considered taking my own life after the fourth one because I just felt so dirty and sinful over the 5 failed marriages, 5 tickets of divorce, each with my name on it, my name, I'm really starting to hate the sound of it.
I am now left getting water from a well for my most recent hus-er suitor. I am not even allowed to go into the temple anymore because I have been so marked with sin. And to my luck, there is a jew at the well, and a man. I should not be talking with him, but I know that i need that water. I walk over to the well cautiously and begin to fill my pale with the water. I was lost in my own thoughts over my sin that when He spoke I almost dropped my jug.
"Will you give me something to drink?" His voice is different than the voices that I am used to. It is gentle, yet firm, inviting. As inviting and calming as His voice was, I already knew my response.
"You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" He has probably heard of my reputation, as hard as I have tried to keep it secret.
"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Living water? That sounds like what I need. I do not fully understand the words that He speaks, but I still crave more of them.
"Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where will you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" This man is different, but that is a lot that He is boasting.
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Everything that this man says makes me crave something deeper than my sorrowful existence, makes me crave life.
"Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
"Go, call your husband and come back." Surely this must be a sarcastic comment. He must have heard something incorrect about my situation and reputation.
"I have no husband."
"You are right to say you have no husband.The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." He knows me. He knows who I am, and that means that surely He will condemn me like all of the others have, there's no other option; they all do it. He asks me about the Jews and I reply with what I know. He then asks me about the messiah.
"I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
"I who you speak to am He." As the last words leave His mouth, it clicks. This is the one that we have been waiting for. No wonder he knows me and shows me more compassion than all of the others. His coming has changed it all. They said that He was coming to free us, and now that I have met Him, I feel free of the chains that hold me down. He has released me, He has set me free.
I have to tell people; you have to tell people.

Feeling Broke(n) and Fragmented

Santa Monica is now in my past, no longer my present. There are quite a few thoughts that come out of that. One is strangely a feeling of fragmentation. I feel like I made such lasting relationships and poured into people so much this summer, that a part of me is now in Arizona, a part in Chico, a part in San Diego, and yet all of me is at the same time sitting here, typing these strange letters. It is undoubtedly a feeling of fragmentation. And yet through it all, my heart is in Santa Barbara and will be. I feel like it is where I belong, at least for the time being. So, I am left with this strange feeling of wanting to be so many places, with so many people, and not knowing where I truly truly deep down want to be at all. I know who I want to be with, as there are maybe ten-twenty people that I wish were with me, in this room right now. There is a part of me with each of those people, definitely, and it has kind of made me forget fully who I am. I would not trade this feeling for anything in the world, but it is a position that requires me to do a great amount of processing, trying to determine who I really am, but through it all one real constant remains: I am a child of God. I'm learning more and more how nothing else really has any significance but it is all just an extension of that.
Another thought that I have been left with is this: is poverty a result of sin? This is a summer that, through a variety of circumstances the breadth of which I do not have the time to fully divulge, I have felt more broke then ever in my life. I started to think about sin and the fall and if poverty is a result of that. A lot is blamed on 'human nature' (whatever that is) these days, more than I think necessary, but I have found myself wondering lately if poverty would still exist if not for sin, or if all destitution is simply a result of human greed and wont of money. Because if it is a result of sin, then people who are poor can logically say that they are broken. Ultimately, what does it matter? The reality of the situation is that my sins have been paid for, period. End of story. I am still broke, financially and I do not see that changing anytime soon, but it does not matter. That is not what is important in life. People are important, God is important, most important as a matter of fact. Money is irrelevant except insofar as I can enhance the eternal things of life. I feel broke, but not broken.
Treats of the week is back! This week made some dessert quesedillas with the amazing Mr. Weber and made some oreo cheesecake cookies as well. It's good to be back in the kitchen, for sure.
Good Luck and Good Eats
~Cody

SMSP Thoughts and Learnings

Dear SMSP,
"Thank you so much.
Thank you for teaching me, loving me, rebuking me.
Thank you for revealing to me that I have trouble feeling forgiven;
thank you for revealing to me that there's grace when I fail.
Thank you for coming from all over the country, Virginia, Chicago, Arizona,
Hawaii, to Love me.
Thank you for the relationships that will last and for what those relationships have shown me about others and about myself.
Thank you for growing me,
thank you for showing me
what a lifestyle of evangelism looks like.
Thank you, you 63 students, for becoming a community;
you could have surrendered, given in to the assaults by the enemy,
but you all fought as soldiers,
you fought against attacks, against dreariness and weariness,
and you fought hard and harder at times to build a community of people,
tuned to one the Tuner and so tuned to each other.
There hiccups, there were rough patches and gossip and silliness,
but those all are covered over by just a 6 letters:
Christ.
He covers over it all, all of our mistakes and sinfulness He erases.
His Love covers over our wrongs and makes our community what it is:
a unified, safe, place of growth and evangelism.
So, all I can say to Christ and to all of you is thank you,
for making more bold to proclaim and Love Christ.
You all now have a part in my story and
in my Love."
Good Luck and Good Eats
~Cody

Loving and Kind

"There was a man once,
in a land where there were none others;
He
was Lovingly Kind,
being kind, infused with Love, caring so very much
about his fellow man,
but even more, his fellow
woman.
He
poured so much of himself into people,
treating them not as they deserved,
but as they desired.
He
Loved people so uniquely, so counter-culturally,
and they refused, rejected, refuted
His
constant attempts to Love.
He
continued to Love,
all he knew was how to be Lovingly kind so,
He
kept going, kept on Loving, kept on pouring,
but they refuted, resisted, rejected all the more,
they broke him down until
He
could Love no more.
He
finally relented,
He
finally gave them what they wanted,
gave them hostility.
He
continued to Love only now
He
had a heavy heart."
Good Luck and Good Eats
~Cody