My thoughts are rather fleeting.

Well, here I am. It's the week before finals week, (dead week if you will...I'm not sure if you are supposed to wish to be dead or if things are supposed to calm down. The latter hasn't happened yet.) and I am writing on this thing.

Last night I went to Overflow, a praise and worship experience for college students here at Oklahoma State. I've struggled with Overflow this year, because I've struggled with how consumer driven our church culture has become. So much so that we have a worship concert every Tuesday night that is an hour long. It's quick, easy, and no outside time commitment involved. We come in talk, socialize, sing, "fellowship", and then leave spiritual "recharged" so we last until Sunday. I'm not sure how much life change is actually involved, but it's fun, and it is a good place to build relationships with people, so I go. Maybe it's not the best motivation, but there are a lot of people who have the same driving force as me. Not to mention, I get to sing songs to God. That's a plus. I say this to show that I am not criticizing, merely stating what I struggle with. I also get frustrated when I head in with the right heart, but I feel as if no actual worship is going on. No actual finding joy in God's glory. I try my hardest, and sometimes it doesn't work. While I realize that worship is between the worshiper and the object of worship, oftentimes I feel that corporate worship adds the dynamic of everyone in the room participating in order for God to be experienced in all of the glory of who He is. This is probably a horrible statement doctrinally since worship is not based on emotion or chill bumps alone, but based on fully imitating the One we serve. Stating who He is and our response. But for me, something about knowing that the people next to you are truly striving and struggling to tell God who He is, makes me see God better.

Except for some reason last night everything seemed to click. We were outside, and it was relatively cold (40 degrees on April 25th? Really?). But for some reason, when the worship started, the singing of God's people warmed the place. The brisk wind felt more like the breath of God's work. We sang about how God numbers the stars in the sky, but we could not see the with the overcast cloudiness in the way. Somehow that made words more meaningful. Although we couldn't see the stars, God knew them by name and was working them in motion behind the clouds that had brought a powerful thunderstorm the night before. I felt as if my breath was being used to sing to God instead of to keep warm. And it solved all my fears, my chills, my shivers. We called nature to sing to Him as we sang together. "Praise Him under open skies,/ everything breathing praising God/In the company of all who love the King". And as I looked around, I saw men and women responding to God's pursuit of them.

This whole week I have been thinking about God's glory, and what it means to fully respond to it. To use an illustration of one of my favorite teachers, John Piper, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. He describes God's glory as so great and so wonderful, that our human, finite, time-driven minds cannot fully comprehend it. All of human life is spent reaching for His glory, striving for His passion. Our response should be one of trying to reveal the little bit of glory that we can comprehend now, to the rest of the world. In short, we are to magnify his glory to the world. Now there are two ways to magnify something. You can use a microscope or a telescope. A microscope is used to make something that is really small bigger. As a church, we cannot try to magnify God in this way. If we do, essentially we are saying, "Oh God, you need our help. You are far too small. These people can't see your work everywhere on this planet, in their DNA, in their daily living. Let me help you, for God you are too small." In saying this, we make ourselves above God, an reduce Christianity to a spritualized version of secular humanism. However, there is another approach. One can also use a telescope to magnify something. When one uses a telescope to look at the stars, one does not see an amplified version of a small thing. One sees more clearly what the stars truly are. HUGE THINGS that we cannot see unless the images are reflected and refracted into our finite understanding of them. If magnify God to the world as a telescope, we will essentially let others see God's HUGENESS and MAJESTY in a way that is applicable to their lives. And when they look through us to see God's hugeness, we fade away. And only Christ is there. Overwhelmingly loving and purposeful and righteous.

I think my approach can be seen in this way. Throughout the year, Overflow may have been a way for us to produce God, so that He could be seen better. My words are failing me now, I can't think of how to describe this idea. I think this is why it has frustrated me so. In a sense we have been saying, God you are too small. Let's do this so we can feel you. Let's magnify you to the world with a microscope mentality. We reduced God to a Tuesday night from 9-10:15.

Last night, Overflow was not that way. Last night it was as if God forced us out of the picture because his glory is already so wonderful. It was as if Overflow telescoping His broad glory to us. We moved out of the picture. The picture became the glory in the things around us. The songs were more cries for us to understand how big his glory was, instead of cries to simply understand within our own context. Last night collectively, corporately, I believe a body of believers asked God to help us understand Him in his context, outside of our consumerized view of who He is. I tried to understand Him as the all knowing, the I AM.

Charlie Hall's song "Center" brought these thoughts to my mind last night, and I could not help but meditate on them throughout the day. If you haven't heard his music before, you should try it. Charlie really does have a way of creating quality artistic music, but moving himself out of the picture. I wish I could find that balance. Anyways, I think that right now my life, and my pursuit is summed up in the words of this bridge.

We lift our eyes to heaven,
We wrap our lives around your life.
We lift our eyes to heaven, to You.

After thinking about this post, I realize how it doesn't make sense. I surely hope that the promise about how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us works for blogs too.

Doubters of a Resurrection? A Commission? Or both?

Matthew 28:16-20

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 The Jesus came to them and said,"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

I read this on Saturday night, the night before our Lord's Ressurection Sunday. The passage of course occurs after our Lord arose, but I suppose, being the good Southern Baptist that I am, I decided to get a head start on things. I was struck that some doubted. How could you doubt a man who forgave the very people who tortured him only to raise himself above death? But then I thought, What would I do if I saw a man who died two days before? What if he had been one of my closest friends? What if I had abandoned him after he had fed me, blessed me, and served me as a suffering servant. He had washed my stinky feet last Thursday. Some of me would be afraid, but I would be overjoyed. I would want to talk to him. I would want to tell him how freaking awesome he is. I would ask him how he did it (moved the stone and all). I would ask him that just for fun to see if God would give me a dirty look. I would probably ask if he knocked out the Roman guards. Actually I probably wouldn't do all of these things. I would be one of the doubters. Not of him. Not that he could do it. I would doubt my standing with him. I think that those who worshiped had a feeling that he was going to save them: that he would forgive their abandonment and lack of faith. But as for me, I might have thoughts of an angry God who could easily wipe me out for doubting him. I would doubt my standing. All of this only to find that God just wanted to tell me what would make me happy. He would tell us (actually still tells) that we are blessed now. We are blessed to be a blessing. To continue on this path of faith wherever it may lead: down the street, in the city, our nation state, and to nations of peoples (not countries...but peoples). But as he said this I would wonder if I was ready, if I could do this enormous task. But then his words turn, from a challenge to an assurance for the doubters. An assurance that he will not abandon me in my commission as I abandoned him. Then peace comes. And because he believes in me, my doubt is suppressed. Because he will be living with me, my strength comes. And I would come down from the mountain ready to spread a cause in the valley. Then will I be blessed in his commission.

Once there was a girl, who decided to create a blog post with a semi-long title just for fun.

Hi. I am Jolie. Here is a picture of me.

Sometimes I write in short, journalistic sentences simply because I know it will drive English teachers and students crazy. Wow, I did not realize the picture would be so big. I wrote the sentence about the journalistic sentences before I pressed the upload button. I should apologize for my writing because this blog is going to be random, and completely stream of consciousness. I take that back, I just used the delete button. Anyway, I'll try to make my thoughts as real and organic as possible.

Well, I have a xanga. I feel like blogspot is way more...How do you say?...For in depth discussions. My xanga will remain, but for funny stories about my life that will amuse the kids that subscribe to it. My blogspot will be my attempt to impress the world with my incredible agile mind and persuasive writing skills. Ok but seriously, I gave up blogging for lent. (To be honest, my original idea for Lent failed, but I realized I hadn't blogged since before Ash Wednesday, so I decided that's what I was giving up.) So now I'm back like a vandal, with even more blogspace than before.

Now for the purpose of this blog. I will be sharing my thoughts on my recent readings and journaling. This will be for a few to see, while my xanga will be for many. I may be posting lyrics for people to tell me how freaking awesome they are. I may be posting things that sound scary, heretical, and downright heathenistic. I hope you forgive me and just remember that I am on the same journey as you. I hope you will be gentle. This blog is generally to facilitate conversation, so converse with me, and I shall converse with you. I will try to be real without walls, and I hope you will be too.

And now to the title of my blog. I spent 15 minutes trying to come up with a cool title like "Be the Ball" or something else. Everything was taken. Everything that came to my head sounded cheesy and way "uncool". So I decided on this title. I will try to explain it. It sounds cool, and it means something. Right now, I feel as if I'm in the process of rising above something. Rising above doubt, pain, death, hurt, pride, legalism, judgemental spirits, and other things that I so often deal with. But I'm not rising out of my own power. I'm rising on a wind that has been present long before I came here to have these doubts. It is a loving, hopeful, scary, illuminating, graceful wind that carries above the things of earth to a higher place. A love initiated by a man who just happened to rise and carry us to His Father on this day. I'm also rising on the winds of change. So much is changing in our world today, and I'm jumping on the bandwagon with some of the change that I see to be most important. I'm tagging along on this emerging church fad, and I'm trying to find a more practical approach to initiating such change in a college environment. I hope you will help me in sharing your thoughts on this as well. I am rising on the missional wind hoping to fly to others to share love to those who are loveless in this world. I want to find them close to me and far away. Help me find them. Give me suggestions on who needs to most love. "I rise above all the flattery and frowns." What a line. Flattery gives us pride. Frowns hurt our confidence. Let's rise above the two extremes and exhibit love in every possible way.

To finish, I will attempt to paint a picture of something I noticed. I sat at Starbucks with three of my best friends the other day (Many of my posts will extend from conversations beginning at coffee shops. You will notice that while I do not drink coffee, it is for this reason I love going to coffee shops and drinking hot chocolate.) I noticed how we have changed. We have grown so much since the first night we spent there. I met two of them through one of them, and now we are the four. We sit for hours till it closes laughing, wondering, making fun of ourselves, and after a while we turn to serious topics without knowing how. A few "hikeschoolers" decide it would be funny to set off their car alarms just to be annoying. We progress to talking about how stupid they are, and then proceed to set our own alarms off and burst into laughing and cheering. How silly we become on a whim.

One of them has brown short hair. She is the mother. She tells me what to do sometimes. Sometimes I don't like that. Other times it makes me laugh. She likes to talk with her tiny hands and one can tell what she is saying without having to hear her speak. She loves people a lot. She has a mole in the middle of her forehead. She likes to joke about how she should tan, then paint her mole red, and move to India to do ministry. She insists she would fit right in. She has a laugh that could knock a baby to its knees. If she laughed into a microphone, she could blow small speakers. When we are together, we all laugh like that. Someone should record our conversations. Someday she will marry a really hot boy, and we will all be jealous.

The other has red/blonde (usually we call this strawberry blonde, but she is special) curly hair. She might be the most independent of us all. She is beautiful, and we comment on how she looks so good tonight. She always looks good. She could wear a T-shirt and basketball shorts, and I would think she looked good. She is our free-spirit. She is the daughter of an artist with an oil-man as a stepdad, and she is the perfect combination of innocence and maturity. She throws her head back when she laughs. She responds to film. I want her to own a museum (if you can own museums). If you can't, then I want her to be the curator. She could tell me all these wonderful things about art, creativity and beauty whenever I need a break from boring science things. She should write books. She should read more. Her eyes light up if you act really excited to see her. If she gets mad, I don't like it. She will be in the Peace Corps. She's a Republican. A socially active Republican. That's why I like her.

The last I have known longest. Even when we weren't best friends I knew that someday we would be. She doesn't really know that. I guess now she does since I'm posting it publicly. Her hair is longer now. When it isn't curled, it is as long as mine. I can remember all of her hairstyles. I have a lot of pictures with her. Jesus had John, and I have her. We talk about how if people saw us, they would not guess that we are best friends. I tease her about her dark clothing and her "emoness". She teases me about wearing polos all the time and acting like a prep. We are different people, but we understand each other better than anyone else possibly can. It's impossible to lie to each other. We know the nervous looks on each others faces. She has cried and snotted on me before. I know how her swallows show her state of mind. She has stopped talking with her hands, because people made fun of her. She has a distinct walk, and her run makes me laugh. She is the most talented person I have come in contact with. She writes really good songs, and she plays music like it's her way to break through walls. When she plays her wrists are always in the right position and her fingers look more slender on ivory. You should get to know her. She has taught me love and life and laughter.

These three young women teach me. I love them. Conversations often begin with them, and always end with them. We have all gone our separate ways, but when we come together at Northwest Expressway and Rockwell, the scenery is the same. Our hearts have changed, but our love has not. I hope you find friendships like that. Friends who aren't your friends because of what that they can get from you. Friends who aren't your friends because they happen to go to your personal religious club. Friends who aren't your friends because they wear the same clothes. Friends who aren't your friends because they aspire to the same goals and dreams. But companions and comrades. People who are with you on your journey. People who are for you. People who will get mad at you and even in the anger, you know they adore and see you. People who see you. See through you. Notice you. People who rise with you.