February 2014 - Gina Brenna Butz

Why I Need a Dog

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 26, 2014
Post category:growth personal

Sometimes I imagine a conversation between the Father and Jesus that went like this:

Father: I think we should give Gina a dog.
Jesus: I don’t think she would like that. I think she would find it disruptive.
Father: Exactly.
Jesus: Oh, this is going to be fun.

Oh yes, she’s been disruptive. She’s required countless hours of training, walking, feeding. She has woken me at 4 am many times to throw up whatever it was she indiscriminately ate on the street the day before. Always 4 am.

We have shelled out crazy dollars to fly her around the world and attempt to diagnose various mysterious illnesses she seems to have. We have lived out the cliche of “everyone in the family wants a dog, but mom ends up taking care of her.”

And at the end of the day, I need it.

I need a dog to remind me that I am not as important as I think I am, and neither are the tasks from which she takes me.

I need a dog to slow me down, make me take walks around the neighborhood, go outside early in the morning and breathe.

I need a dog to show me how to love people well – to always greet them at the door like they’re the best thing that’s happened today, to stay close to them wherever they go, to depend on them for what you need.

I need a dog who burps in my face, and sticks her tongue out at me, and runs around like a Tasmanian devil, to make me laugh when I least expect it.

Disruptive? Yes. Fun? Absolutely. Just what I need? Yep.

Zoom In

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 24, 2014
Post category:faith word of the year

My favorite piece of camera equipment is my Canon 18-200mm lens, because I love to zoom in. The closer the better. I want to cut out extraneous things and just focus on my subject.

I’m finding this to be true in my on-going quest to abide as well. The more I focus on God, the more He fills my lens, other things are just pushed out. They become less important to me. I care less about my goals unless they are what God is calling me to do. I care less about being seen or known because I am focused on the one who sees and knows me most. I find myself comparing to others less because I simply don’t see them in my view anymore. It’s all Him.

Our pastor touched on this during the sermon this morning when he said, “When Jesus is bigger, when He is our focus, He is enough.” Amen.

It’s true. This week, through a variety of ways, I’ve spent more time thinking about God (preparing a talk for the middle schoolers, listening to podcasts during my drive times, reading 2 Corinthians which is hands down my favorite book of the Bible) and I feel like God’s been bigger to me. I’ve zoomed in. Oh to always have this view.

No Substitute for Relationships

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 13, 2014
Post category:culture

Truth be told, I’ve started dreaming of the day when we say to one another, “Remember when social media was so popular? Yeah, that was nutty. Thank God it’s over.”

Realistically, I suppose it never will be, but lately I’ve found myself so aware of the downside of these interactions. They are communication rich but relationally poor. Yes, I know what is happening in the lives of people I would otherwise probably never contact (and many of them I would like to contact) and that’s maybe the reason I don’t quit altogether.

But it’s also become the equivalent of an increasingly crowded party where people fight for air time, value is measured in likes and retweets, a marketplace for comparison and shaming. Comments that seem witty on Twitter if said aloud in company to a person’s face would be unacceptably rude. It’s an environment where there is little accountability for the impact of our social interactions. People talk about being in “community” online, but it falls so short of what true community looks like.

Sometimes social media feels like a train rushing off somewhere to interesting places, and we’d better hop on or we’ll lose out. But the reality is that there is nothing new under the sun – that train is just circling the block over and over again, only in greater volume and with stronger opinions than before. What would happen if we shut down the noise? What if tomorrow Facebook and Twitter and Reddit and Tumblr and Instagram ceased to exist? Would we lose anything? Or would we gain?

I wonder if it would give us space to connect with people again, really. It might force us to call those people we wouldn’t see on Facebook. It would blow away the chaff of unnecessary information and opinions that are thrown out there. It might force people to be accountable for their words again.

I’m not saying social media cannot be used for good. I just want to remind all of us not to let it be a substitute for true connection. Like someone who snacks all day and never takes in a full meal, we can waste all our relational energy on surface connection and never reach true depth with others.

There is no substitute for real relationships. What we need is not one more person to validate our opinions or like our activities. We need people who linger with us for more than 140 words. We need people who will call us on what we say and how we say it. We don’t need the world to tell us our worth. We need real people. We need real interactions. There is no substitute.