Tuesday funnies

This is what happens when two brain-friend seminarians think it's a good idea to do a Google Images search for Jesus' second coming:

"I think Jesus is riding a unicorn!  And look, there's a bald eagle right there!"

on being broken

My life feels like one giant blob of ugh right now.  My emotions are running here, there and everywhere, and I can't seem to pluck up the energy to get anything done. (This is especially unhelpful for the last three weeks of the semester, I might add.)

There are many things in my life that are simply not appropriate to describe in such a public forum, but suffice it to say that it feels like everything I've ever run from has caught up with me in a very sudden and very overwhelming fashion.

But what do I do with all of this lament, this fear, this insecurity--this brokenness?  A therapist would be nice right about now, but those are expensive and I'm a graduate student.

So instead, I try to write poetry.  I fail, but I try.  I find solace in good music, and some less-than-inspired music.  I pray.  Sometimes, I scream at God.  Sometimes, I really want to scream at people.  Sometimes, I cry at my peer group at 8 am.  I bake. I sleep far too much.  I curl up in a ball on the floor for a while. 

I know I'm not alone in any of this.  I know this for a fact, because I've watched lots of people try to make the pain go away in not-so-healthy ways.  Some of them have died, emotionally or physically, in the process. 

My question, then, is where does the Church fit in to all of this?  How does the Church deal with lament, and real brokenness in its midst?

Too often, we simply ignore it. I've been guilty of showing up to church on the verge of a complete emotional breakdown, but still smiling and saying things like "my week was great! How was yours?"  We lie for one of two reasons: we don't want anyone to know that we're not okay, or we think that we should be able to handle this on our own. And that assumes that we show up in the first place.

If we do bring it up at church, we do so quickly and then move on.  It might be a short prayer offered during the Prayers of the People, or the congregational prayer.  It might take the form of a bulletin announcement.  But how often on Sunday morning is there prolonged attention paid to this brokenness? 

This is one thing that I find interesting in my life.  Many of my friends are outright atheists, and not afraid to say so. Some have never entered a church building in their lives.  But to be completely honest, they are so much better at listening than many of my super-devout Christian friends.  They don't feel the need to fix things right away, be it through prayer or some other means.  Many times, they are content to sit and listen to me complain, empathize with me, and perhaps offer some advice.  But more often than not, they just sit with me in whatever I'm feeling. 

And let me tell you, I appreciate that more than anything else in the world.

Prayer is great, don't get me wrong.  Paul tells us to pray about everything. Do that.

But the buck can't stop at praying.  I say that it's time that Christians focused a little more on being the answer to prayer.  And so often, that means sitting with our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and yes--even our enemies, in their laments. Don't fix. Don't give advice. We don't hear you anyway over the sound of our own internal panic. 

I'm not sure what a true service of lament would look like, to be honest.  Maybe it would just be a silent vigil, a show of support, with hugs and prayer and a shoulder to cry on at the ready. Maybe it would involve writing out messages to groups or individuals that we know.  Maybe it would be a service of prayer, with all of the laying on hands and hugs that we can imagine. 

It's nights like these that I miss the simplicity of InterVarsity.  I miss having such free reign over worship gatherings.  In seminary, there are all sorts of rules that apply to this or that, and you can't mix those two things, and you can't do this, this, or this.  I fully realize that we're all simply trying to be faithful to what God has entrusted us with, but really, guys?  Just let the people worship God in the best way that they know how. 

Sometimes, there are tears involved--and those are the best worship gatherings ever.

Getting into You

"When I made up my mind, and my heart along with that, to live not for myself but yet for God somebody said: 'do you know what you are getting yourself into?'

When I finally ironed out all of my priorities, and asked God to remove the doubt that makes me so unsure of these things I ask myself, I asked myself: 'do you know what you are getting yourself into?'

I'm getting into you, because you got to me in a way words can't describe.  I'm getting into you because I've got to be--you're essential to survive. I'm going to love you with my life."

These lyrics have never been more true to my life. So I'm sharing them with you.

Getting Into You, by Relient K.

Thought for the day: what is family?

There are hundreds of people, scattered throughout the world, that I would be happy to call my family.  I would claim them in a heartbeat. 

(I will also claim my biological family, even though we make each other crazy a lot.  Like, a lot a lot.)

But today, I was reminded that not everyone has that luxury.  Not everyone can say that they have somewhere to celebrate, and people to celebrate with this week. 

I caved and got a haircut tonight, and my stylist was a lovely and enthusiastic woman from Thailand.  Her entire family is back there, so she's spending Thanksgiving at work.  It's not a holiday she's used to celebrating, but it's hard, she said, to be without any family when everyone else is with theirs. 

I wish that I could seek these people out and bring them together, somehow, for a real Thanksgiving dinner. Someday I'll do that, I think.  Borrow a church basement, perhaps, and have a giant potluck on Thanksgiving day.  Watch some football.  Come back for round two. Play ridiculous games. Why not extend my family for a day or two?

I've always been a firm believer that family has very little to do with blood.  Family is whoever happens to be at dinner.  Family is whoever wakes up on your couch that morning.  Family is people that you care about, and that care about you.  It might be temporary, like the kids that sleep on the couch for a couple of weeks at a time.  Or it might be permanent, like the child that you legally adopt.

But maybe this will be the push that you need to do what I can't this year: to add someone to your family for a day.  Or a lifetime.  Your choice.

Seminary is....

an exercise in humility.

I've never before fallen flat on my face in so many ways, daily, in the same place.  Making a fool of oneself is great when you never really have to interact with those people again.  I love that--it's so freeing.

Sounding off your ignorance in a classroom full of people?  Not so fabulous.  It's rather embarrassing, actually.

I won't detail all of the ways that I've done this in the past week, nevertheless the entire semester.  That would take hours. 

Rather, I simply beg for the grace of my colleagues and professors as I try to navigate all of this.  I screw it up a lot, I know.  It's pretty obvious that I'm pretty oblivious to most things.  But I can promise you that I'm trying.  I might be failing in a lot of ways, but at least I'm trying.

That has to count for something, right?

Poetry

 I wish I could write poetry.

I used to say that I didn't understand poetry. Therefore, I didn't like it. Simple excuse for a simple mind, right?

But in the last few years, I've come to have a deep appreciation for and love of poetry--all sorts of poetry--as powerful and expressive in the exact way that words should be.  Good poetry is like therapy, like an opening of old, gross wounds that begins the healing process. 

My problem, though, is that I don't know where to find good poetry.  I just keep stumbling across things (mostly thanks to Facebook,) that I really love.

So today, my question for you is this:

If you were to have one book of poetry with you for the rest of your life, wherever you went, what would it be?

Life-struck.

In the middle of my reading for Holy Spirit and Christian Worship, I came across this in Jean Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. It struck me as an incredibly beautiful view of the Eucharist.

"How little confidence can it give you, to know that the Word of God, from which you are at the greatest distance, contains within himself the fulness of life, whereas in yourself, in whatever direction you turn, you see nothing but death? But ever since that fountain of life began to dwell in our nature, he no longer lies hid at a distance from us, but exhibits himself openly for our participation. Nay, the very flesh in which he resides he makes vivifying to us, that by partaking of it we may feed for immortality. “I,” says he, “am that bread of life;” “I am the living bread which came down from heaven;” “And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”" (Calvin, 4.17.8)

Some of you know this and many of you don't, but I've experienced depression in big ways--not only in myself, but in friends and family.  That feeling of inexplicable emptiness, loneliness, and invisibility pervaded much of my teen years.

"...whereas in yourself, in whatever direction you turn, you see nothing but death?"

As a child and teen, I found myself in church (and at camp) a lot, for various reasons. And I heard something very much like this:

"But ever since that fountain of life began to dwell in our nature, he no longer lies at a distance from us, but exhibits himself openly for our participation."

This is what gave me life in those times, those places of utter darkness.  This idea that God became human to give us the fullness of His own life, that we may participate in that life with Him. Knowing this didn't make the sadness go away, or fix anyone else's problems, but above all it gave me hope for life beyond those moments. 

This is not, though, how I was used to hearing the Eucharist described. It's a weekly practice here at seminary, which will now be all the richer for me.

"...Nay, the very flesh in which he resides he makes vivifying to us, that by partaking it we may feed for immortality."

Christ's death and resurrection, in which we partake in baptism, is a big theme in the Church and in the Eucharist (as it should be!)  But where is the talk of Christ's 'vivifying' body? Where is the talk of the Holy Spirit that brings us the life which we so cherish?

Or is it, perhaps, that we do not cherish our lives enough to think of it this way?

What are we doing here? (Discipleship, worship, and how we do life)

I've asked myself this question billions of times in the last two years. Why am I doing what I'm doing? What in the world possessed me to make me even think about seminary?  Why do I even go to church?

The answer, I've found, is always the same: "because God calls me to." 

But what would be your answer?

I'm taking two separate classes on worship theology and practices this semester: The Holy Spirit in Christian Worship and Contemporary and Emerging Worship.  The two don't cross paths as much as I would like them to, but they are by far my favorite classes of the year. 

Contemporary and Emerging Worship focuses on 'alternative' churches--places that purposely do worship in crazy, odd, and sometimes just plain weird ways.  (Think drum circles, pop-up tents in the sanctuary, and banks of TV screens.)  We've found, though, that these people aren't just doing worship differently to be different: they're thinking of new ways to express the same timeless truths that the 'traditional' church proclaims.  They're doing worship really, really well.

For that course, I get to (read: have to) write a book review on James K. A. Smith's book Desiring the Kingdom, which focuses on spiritual formation in the postmodern era, and how churches are doing a terrible job of being counter-cultural.  (I'll rant about this later.)

And you know, I just realized something.  I love studying worship not because I love thinking about what goes on in church, but how that worship should affect the rest of our lives.  If we as Christians proclaim a God that is both completely above and other than us, yet is present in our very souls and guides us through this ridiculous maze that is life, then shouldn't our actions outside of church match that?

I'm not talking about standing on corners with signs or broadcasting to the world "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!"  I'm talking about a transformation in the way that we think about the world. Seminary, I've heard from several people, is like drinking from a fire hydrant.  You're never going to get it all.  But everything I do learn simply blows my mind.  I can see and feel myself being transformed and changed by the concept of reconciliation--that God is working in and through the world (and God's people) to reconcile the entirety of creation to Himself.  We as Christians are called to be a part of that reconciliation--that healing of old, deep wounds.

And that. changes. everything.

So how did I go through my entire life in the Reformed Church in America and NEVER hear this? 

Why do I hear so many sermons about how to live our lives as Christians that have an implicit message of "you suck, try harder?" 

Because sanctification--that transformation that occurs in Christians through the work of the Holy Spirit and makes us look more and more like Christ--is not something that we can do.  We cannot make ourselves act more like Christ through sheer willpower.  We rely on the work of the Holy Spirit. We pray for that work to be done in us, but we cannot do it.

This is all to say that I'm less concerned with what happens inside of the church than what's going on outside.  Sitting through a Sunday sermon on God's mercy doesn't do any good if you're not going to be more merciful when you walk out the door.  Think of it this way: you can go to every single class and seminar on real estate within 500 miles of your house, but if you don't go through the process of actually becoming a licensed realtor and selling houses, then you don't get to call yourself a realtor.  You can call yourself a fan of real estate, or whatever else you like.  But you don't get that title of realtor. 

So why, then, do people think that sitting through a sermon on a Sunday makes them a Christian?  That somehow, showing up is all that God requires of them?

I don't mean for this to be a "hate on church" post, I really don't.  But I get so incredibly frustrated with cultural Christianity that I just want to scream from the rooftops.  If I'm going to identify myself as a Christian, then I want that to mean something. 

Discipleship (being a follower of Jesus) means so much more than weekly church attendance.  That's a part of it, certainly--being in a community with fellow believers that encourage you, call you out when you're being ridiculous, and love Jesus as much and more than you do is SO important.  But that's only one piece of the puzzle.  We are called to be and do so much more in the world than churchgoers that show up.

As Pastor Jeff Petersen once put it: "Jesus did not die so that we could have a well-organized, well-funded building full of people that think the same way about God."

Micah, an Old Testament prophet, says this: "God has shown you, oh humans, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  Only this: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

So what is God calling you to?

stir crazy

I have declared Friday to be my sabbath day--I don't do homework, I don't think about schoolwork, and I usually wind up baking, walking, crafting, or sleeping most of the day.

Today, I'm going a little stir crazy.

It's a bit too cold outside to be out walking, and I already spent one afternoon this week baking.  I could crochet or take a nap, but it just seems like I should be doing more with my day. 

Also: I'm going to INDIA in three months!  More details to come, friends.

long walks

Over the past few days, I've spent at least two and a half hours just walking through Holland.  One day, I started walking westward and just kept going until I hit the lake.  Today, I simply meandered through downtown, back towards the lake, and then back downtown.  I dropped by a couple of the shops that were still open, and I talked to myself a lot.

You see, walking and talking is the single best way that I process things.  I think it has something to do with being a tour guide for three years: "keep walking, this way..."

I've spent the last week and a half just trying to figure out what exactly happened over the last seven months that made things so different.  I feel different.  I am different.  But how?  What happened that makes this new me better (or worse) than the old me?

I've spent hours poring over life decisions, made and unmade.  Fretting over things I probably shouldn't have done, and the opportunities that I missed. But I still can't name it.  I still can't figure it out.

In about two weeks, I need to have something to share with my peer group about my life--who I am, how I came to be here, and the people and events that have shaped me most. But how much can I really share with people that I've only known for four weeks?  Sure, sharing the happy moments of my life is easy--but there's no sharing my life without including moments of intense pain, loss, and heartache.  There's no explaining how I came to be here without sharing why I left in the first place: loneliness, a deep-seated sense of inadequacy, and a terrible fear of failure. 

I wish I could say that even now, my life is roses. I'm happy to be here, don't get me wrong--but at the same time, those feelings still linger.  I find myself unable to concentrate on anything for very long before my thoughts drift into "what if?" and other such questions.  I often find my sanity again in Pinterest, the world where everything is DIY, rather than "wait on the Lord."

Seminary's hard. I continuously remind myself that God has to have something absolutely ridiculous in store for me once this is all done, and that keeps me from asking too many questions.  After all, had I known everything that would happen in 2012 when I left Western in January, I probably would have had a panic attack. I might have turned around right then and come back.

But I'm better for those 7 months.  I am different, somehow.  And maybe one day I'll figure out how to say it.