What I need and what I believe are worlds apart.

New Years Grinch

2009-12-31T18:16:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is a new year. Another artificial marker in time... another rollover of some arbitrary counter. Another opportunity to make some sort of resolution on exercise, habits, goals, etc.

I don't feel any different today than I did yesterday. And tomorrow, I won't feel any different than I did today. Today, the sun rose and it set, and so it shall tomorrow. Any "resolution" that we want to start tomorrow might as well be started today. I don't believe "tomorrow" is a special "tomorrow." We have opportunities every day to start new.

"Behold, I makes all things new."

And yet, as I go through the journals, writings, and poems from this last year, I cannot deny that a string of days has wrought change. Or rather, retrospectively, I can say that God has remained faithful. Reading my journal from 12/31/08, I can humbly say that I didn't accomplish all my goals or resolutions. I have fallen short on multiple levels... community, holiness, academic goals, spirituality... and yet I am still here, enveloped and surrounded by an acceptance and love that is not rooted in the successful accomplishment of my goals, no matter how noble they might be.

I spent the year quite selfishly, and have found it rather vacuous. I frequently cheated myself with the cheap and easy when depth and substance required work and sacrifice. Despite all that, He has been faithful, and I will not make the mistake Israel made, which was to forget God's faithfulness.

So tomorrow is like any other day, albeit one in which I will probably miswrite the date as '09. Today I give thanks, and tomorrow is a day in which mercies are made new.

What is man that you are mindful of him?

2009-12-06T21:54:00.000-08:00

There is something about being alone in the wilderness. All the Jack London stories read around a campfire cannot do it justice. There is security in the other. There is safety in company. But when the cell signals of civilization do not penetrate the deep woods of wilderness, one is left eerily alone with oneself. The ceiling of stars loses its romance and strikes with its vastness. A residual image of beauty before floating into dreams is engulfed with an immense feeling of insignificance and finitude. “If an entire star, a burning fury of grandeur and power, is so infinitesimal in the blackness of night, how much smaller am I?” The breeze is a wind, and the wind is a howl. Darkness swaying all around does not promote warmth. For all I felt with my -20 degree bag, I could have been lying naked and exposed on the ground. And I was, if perception was reality. There were no walls around me, no ceiling above me. The dark recesses of my primal psyche, the part that has been repressed by modern lights and noise, tested its newfound territory.

In the wilderness alone, in the dark, all your accolades are stripped of you. Your degrees, your job, who you are as defined in relationship to others, the brands you wear and the lies you maintain, there is no one to perceive them or give them value. There is no one to affirm you or console you, to stop or encourage you. There is no one to feed your addictions or to reciprocate your codependence. There is no one to save you. The amount of knowledge and illumination you have in your life at any given moment is directly proportional to the strength and radius of your headlamp’s beam. Who are you, in the darkness of your own thoughts? When naked vulnerability is the frigid air you breathe, what is it that keeps you warm? When there are no brick walls to separate you from an untamed and wild reality, what grants you security?

It is rare to be truly alone, if only for a night. I will not soon forget it.

“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” –Psalm 8:4

Sense

2009-09-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

At work, we tell our kids to try and understand their anger or their actions. We challenge them to see if there are other factors contributing to their frustrations. “It doesn’t come from nowhere,” we say. Our day, earlier events, stress, anticipation, relationships, a lack of sleep… yet when it comes down to it, those of us who are staff, seeming to have all the answers and insight, are not immune from such things. I sit here and I enumerate all the reasons why I’m in a shitty mood. 14 hours of travel. Drained on socializing. Not enough time with the family. Hating the process of packing for work. 2 hours of sleep last night. Yes, it all makes sense, but sense doesn’t always make things better. I think about the conviction in which I speak my hopes to those kids… my hope that they would learn to express themselves, to feel better after they share their emotions… hopes that they won’t be discouraged at setbacks and learn to accept what is out of their control… hopes that they would wrestle with the hurt, wounds, and disappointments they carry. Those phrases roll of my tongue like sweet honey, and it sounds so good when I say them. It makes so much sense. But my sense pesters me in the back of my mind… questions me vindictively on why I struggle to do that which I preach with such ease.

Coal Trains and the Red Line

2009-08-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

I have a theory. At my job, I work 8 days on, and then get 6 days off. With this kind of schedule, months fly by in the blink of an eye. My theory is that instead of 30 some individual days, I live my month in 4 segments. With the beginning of each shift or off week, the end is in sight, and so that segment passes not as a collection of days, but as one block of time, similar to how everyone else would view one day. Thus, the four segments disappear much like 4 days would disappear.

Whether or not this theory is correct, I don’t know. But talking to a friend about future plans, he pointed out that according to my timeline of desired events, I would finish grad school by the age of 30. Thirty!! Despite the fact that grad school may take 5 or 6 years, it is but another segment in my life. When one begins it, one lives with the anticipation and vision of finishing it. If we are not careful and intentional, these segments in life will pass quickly, leaving us at a place wondering where all our time, youth, and energy has gone.

I don’t presume to know what it means to be intentional, but I presume that it’s one of the few ways of living life without waking up one mid-life morning and wondering how one arrived there or what the hell one is doing. I fear that our scrambling and striving, without a certain intentionality, will dull our ability to be alive. With every self-interested step we make towards our unexamined goals, we fall further into a void of eventual uncertainty that sooner or later, will overtake us.

It was surprising last night, with the Chicago sounds coming through the window, what the rumbling of tracks and the pitch of a train whistle would do to my memory. It caught me off guard and brought be back to the frigid winters in the boys HNGR house, looking through a frosted window across the yard to see the long cargo trains plow through the evening, much like the grayness that rumbled through my being. Most of that hurt, by the grace of God, has been sifted through time, but I can’t get that haunting cry out of my ears. And now, most of these people who have walked with me during those years are one by one leaving the place that helped form us. One by one, we treat this time as a steppingstone and keep moving on. There is something I want to hold onto, people I want to hold onto because by losing them, I fear losing all that I once knew and all who knew me as I once was, all the while not knowing fully who I am or who I should be.

Morte Christe

2009-04-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

During the Good Friday service today, we had a reading that incorporated the text from “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”. Those words aggressively threw me against the wall of nostalgia, since I had sung the song “Morte Christe” with that text in Men’s Glee Club. For the half an hour drive home from church, my car leaked at the seams with old Glee Club repertoire as I relived standing on those creaky risers and hitting those low D’s.

I talked with some friends these last few days, others like me who curse and spit at the mere thought of remembering second semester senior year for their own reasons, those who would have agreed with Eliot that “this is the way the world ends: not with a bang but a whimper.” An ugly stain upon our hearts and minds, we still graduated and moved forward, strewn across the country, chasing our dreams to move on, and moving on to chase our dreams, all the while hoping to forget the unforgettable.

Where are we?

Perhaps my emotions were primed by the Stations of the Cross. I mean, thinking about Jesus dying is a bit of debby downer. I wanted desperately for Sunday to be right now. Right after the line in the bulletin that read, “The service ends in silence,” I wanted the lift, the resolution, the fix. I wanted to know that everything was ok and to bask in the glow of that empty tomb in a garden, with an angel shining like a Thomas Kinkade painting.

But that’s not how it goes. Today, we sit with the reality of death. We will go to bed with it tonight, and wake up with it heavy on our chests, even if the sun sneaks through our shutters. And we will walk with it, make it our own, let it weary our souls until God lifts us up, as he does Jesus on Sunday. But for now, we are Saturday. Neither here nor there, but moving forward like time inevitable.

On Media, Hiphop, Porn, and Mr. Darcy

2009-02-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

I know some would argue that the movie "Notorious," portraying the life of the gangster rapper Notorious B.I.G., can hardly be called an artistic or profound film. Whatever criticisms one might have about it, I believe it illustrates one thing well: Entertainment, for the most part, is not real life.

When one creates or produces something, whether it be a painting, song, movie, book, etc, it falls along a continuum of how accurately it reflects reality (among other things). On one extreme, the piece of work may be extremely representative of realities. I believe "Slumdog Millionaire," although entertaining, was a powerful expression of an ugly reality. On the other extreme are works that have very little intent on anything other than pure sensory stimulation (not that it is necessarily a bad thing.)

However, something terribly wrong happens when one creates a piece of work for the purpose of pure entertainment with little grounding in reality, but the observers mistake it as an expression of how things are or should be. T.I.'s song "Dead and Gone" pinpoints the possible negative influence of Hiphop on black urban culture. The movie "Notorious" illustrated the contrast between the glorified versions of what he rapped about (women, money, drugs) versus the reality of his life, which was the attempt to manifest much of what he rapped about.

The truth is, given the ability to create, we are able to either draw out and paint deeper realities beyond what we see, hear, smell, taste or touch, or we can create that which does not exist. This power of imagination is potent. It has the potential to lift our eyes and spirit, and to call us forward through difficulty and oppression. Think of the role music, stories and oration played in historical struggles like the Civil Rights movement or various revolutions in the world. Think of the way narratives are used to guide our behavior and grant meaning to life (eg the Christian narrative).

However, the ability to paint that which does not exist carries a dangerous side. If we are not keen towards the effects of such a power, it may evolve from the creation of our hands into a beast beyond our control. When one attempts to live another's fake creation, the expected results seldom happen, while plenty of unintended realities do not cease. Going back to the illustration of "Notorious," a verbal war between two rappers consumed not only their lives but fostered such animosity between East and West coasts, all because they created that which did not exist, and listeners believed it as real. The danger is compounded when this created image draws its strength from real human needs, desires, emotions, or realities. They resemble realities, but in essence are mythologies merely clothed with aspects of the what we recognize within ourselves and the environment around us.

This has much subtler implications. A friend of mine, after being told that he was a crappy boyfriend, was encouraged to watch some chick flicks by his ex to learn how to be a better one. I cringed at that idea, because such films, although entertaining, are bastardizations of reality. With every cut, switch of scene, or panning of the camera, reality is edited out. Time is condensed. Ugliness is omitted. It is one person creating that which does not exist for the purpose of entertainment and money, while the masses consume these fabricated standards or ideas and internalize them as expected realities.

If such things seem harmless, think of it in terms of pornography. Pornography itself portrays two people having sex, a very normal phenomenon. However, it does three things. First, it grounds itself in very real physical desires (which is why it sells). Second, it appears real, since two very real people with arms and legs and other such plumbing are interacting in ways known to be possible. But most importantly, it takes that reality and creates something that is isolated, glamorized, beautified, and altogether rather fake. And then consumers, seeking out their needs, end up internalizing the performance or "beauty" expectations they see on a screen. Simply replace the physical with the emotional, and you will see why that bastard Mr. Darcy is a terrible human being.

So, my dear friend, I suggest you do not take your ex's advice, and find someone who glories in the sometimes gritty and ugly realities of commitment and love, versus someone who thinks the world would be better if men pretended they were in a chick flick.

I Don't Know Why You Say Hello, I Say Goodbye

2009-02-04T20:10:00.001-08:00

Everything has an end. At times, it catches you blind, like an alarm that broadsides your dream like a drunk in a truck, running a light. Others set, ever so slowly, almost imperceptible, were it not for a lengthening of shadows under the eyes and the color of fire lit above the horizon. Passed, before it was lived. But everything has an end. Some are orchestrated, choreographed in step with Pomp and Circumstance, notarized with chops and officiated by priests. Pictures. Speeches. Flowers, delicately arranged, cut and sacrificed for this very occasion. Others will squat upon your mind as you get a haircut or eat yet another meal… a sitting vision, a premonition wondering if it will all still be the same the next time you come back. Everything has an end. It will all come to pass. Though, most of us would appreciate a little heads up.

Roads Are Made for Traveling

2009-01-31T21:39:00.000-08:00

Today was spent in an embittered battle against a statistics program on my computer. I have a love-hate relationship with SPSS. There is something satisfying when you make a few selections, press a few buttons, and a printout tells you that your results are significant. Oh, how we love to feel significant. However, the lover can be cold when a wall of numbers stares unemotionally back at you, defiant and obstinately refusing to interpret themselves in a way a normal human being would understand... (Reminds me of women sometimes... zing! ;)

Thus, after a long battle in man vs machine, I am tired. But tired is a good place to be when honesty is something to be sought after. After all, gone is the strength to find another distraction.

A friend mentioned to me that she just returned from a retreat with the outgoing class of HNGR interns. Juniors, doe-eyed and hopeful, waiting to change the world in just 6 months. New eyes for the least of these... jumping in with both feet already wet, their dreams and anxiety, palpable. I remember tasting it in my mouth as we tried to remember that nothing would be as we expected. Junior year with so much on my heart and mind. It was where I needed to be. Trust in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

I commented to my friend that I now feel less hopeful, not quite as young, and certainly less impressionable. "Oh for sure. Graduating changed everything," was her response. Did it? What changed between cramming for our last test and starting our first day in this entry-level job? What is it that left us, subjectively, when we left that square mile encompassing College Ave? What was it that we were so afraid of when our eyes were wider and our knees more calloused? The tyranny of 9 to 5. The wailing of a monday alarm and the anxious glances toward a friday clock. The passive withering of our 4 year $150,000 brain cells. The loss of our hearts in the slow exchange for the subtle American dream, slipped into as quietly but as surely as the sun bows out to the dark. It smelt of death in our nostrils, and we staked our passion as collateral, that "we" would never be like "them."

It's been a while since my knees have gotten dirty. When the rain stops, all sorts of unintentional things start drying up as well. I took a break from thinking. I've sought a reprieve from feeling. I'm growing a new hobby to scratch my aesthetic itch and to feed my money to. I'm putting on some snow treads and road tripping to the great state of Mormons and National Parks in hopes for something new. Something communal. Maybe I can find Someone in places with names like Eureka(!) and Freedom and Zion and Jericho. Yes, I'm sure of it, the Mormons were looking in the right place for God.

We'll Shake the Nightmare Free

2008-12-14T00:38:00.000-08:00

In a non-Gnostic, purely illustrative way, I think people function with three layers. Superficially, our skin is what we show to the world. It’s this outer garment we cake with makeup and drape with clothes. We carry it when we walk and present it as we wish to be viewed. It is the pride of our youth, and what the simplest forms of beauty call home. But beneath it is our flesh and bones… the blood and truth of our thoughts and emotions. Our skin heals, albeit with scars, but our sinews and tendons are not so easily mended, leaving us with Jacob’s limp that asserts itself every step of the way. It is our flesh and bones that move our feet down a path, and joints and ligaments that bend our fingers in creation or destruction. Being the substance of who we are, there is no ignoring its depth. It's cut with the jagged blade of the fall, and woven together with generational sin. It’s patched with all the wrongs done to us and laced with all the wrongs we have done to others. It is, for most people, the driving winds and currents propelling our lives, in light of or in spite of our awareness. Our flesh and blood is what we attempt to escape from at the edge of sleep, what haunts our dreams in the early hours of morning, and the invasive sharp that pries our eyes awake like light from slotted blinds.

But even further beneath the rolling tumult that animates our breath lays a dark core of stillness… the center of who we are and what we truly know. In those rare moments when our flesh and blood are at ease and our skin is translucent, our soul, what the ancient Jews would call “Nephesh,” can be heard whispering its steadiness and truth.

More eternal than the broken bones and pain of bruises, my nephesh simply says, “Yes, He is worth it. His Kingdom is worth it. Greater than your past and past your future, It is worth it.” Like strings on a sitar, my nephesh resonates when it hears the vibrations of grace. It quells my shaking bones long enough for the flesh to ponder an existence beyond itself, beyond the idolatry of its own hands and mind, beyond the myopic dreams turned sour… long enough to hope that deep in my marrow, I will one day know the truth my nephesh claims.

It will innervate my tissue, forcing out the angry red poison I have known all my life. Flowing through my veins, redeeming all it gives breath to, it will not heed the threat of pain. No longer will my passions be crooked or my heart be broke. No longer will the oscillating waves throb behind my eyes or pummel my mind… my flesh and bone will be moved by the depths of what my nephesh knows. My soul and flesh and skin will align and be an unruly mustang no longer, but with its head bowed low, carry the Lord like humility once did.

Innocuously Insidious

2008-11-29T15:27:00.000-08:00

It seems innocuous enough, even laudably romantic, to say that despite others’ opinions, one sees glimpses of some greater beauty in another person. It would make (and probably has made) the skeleton plot of many movies… the person who is patient and suffers all sorts of abuse in the process of bringing out that greater character in the other. After all their hard work and persistence, their faith, hope, love, and an undying belief in never giving up, the other character’s true selves are able to flourish, and everything ends happily ever after.

Such stories make us sigh wistfully, echoing within us the hopes that perseverance pays off, that ugliness succumbs to beauty, that pain will be redeemed, and that love conquers all. Each of those things, in their purest forms, are true in their deepest sense and can be found at the core of our Christian story. Those things are true of our Father and displayed in his son. Even today, we catch reaffirmations of them through his spirit in our lives.

But I wonder what happens when each of those good truths are slightly distorted as we place ourselves at the center of those statements. We try to become the ones who redeem pain. We try to conquer all with our version of love. We want to be the ones to bring out the beauty in others, whether or not it is our rightful place to do so. All the while, we see the entire situation with our convoluted and cracked lenses. We tell ourselves that we are living the Gospel story, loving our neighbors as ourselves, when in fact it is our neediness, brokenness and emptiness that is trying to play God. We want to be the beneficiaries of our own “unconditional” love. We want to be the redeemers of our own pain that we created, and the one who plants, waters, grows and reaps seeds in the lives of others. It is not the Lord’s work in their lives that we are after, but *our* version of the Lord’s work according to *our* ideas of who we want them to be, which inevitably revolve around ourselves. It is our own corruption reading itself into a narrative that desires to be true.

So in the end, though it seems innocuous, we may be playing into the most insidious of sins by stringing together our distorted version of those truths. Namely, we cast ourselves as the role of God, even as we attempt to “love.” Sometime ago, in speaking of relationships, Bonhoeffer says that Christ must mediate our relationships. If Christ bids us to speak or act in love, we speak or act. If Christ bids us to stay silent and still, we rest and hold our tongues. If he calls us to greet and embrace, we do so in his name. But he may also call us to bid adieu and depart, and that too is in his name. Therefore, tenacity and persistence are only values so long as they are in Christ and his will. Love through actions is only God’s love so long as he calls for it. Since in him, there is a season for everything, and love in obedience, even if it is in silence, is far truer to his purposes than a seemingly innocuous romantic story.

Red Ink Black Ink

2008-11-17T21:36:00.000-08:00

Don’t you sometimes wish that you could balance memories like a checkbook? Red ink and black ink, positives and negatives. For every crappy one you have, a positive one of equal strength would cancel it out, putting you at a net of 0. Having a bad day? No worries, go make some good memories with friends and cash them in. Plan on having a rough year? Stash the laughs up now, or dig yourself out later. But instead of being equal parts of sour vs. sweet, we weigh lead against helium and blow our hot air in hopes that we live more than a zero sum game. Instead, we are left with the full spectrum of our broken selves and our strange functioning 3lb glob of neural connections, keen to fire at the most innocuous of triggers, resigned to survive on a word that simply says, "This way that it is, it is good."

So it is, the difference between what we wish and what is real… trusting, praying, hoping that Grace is a reality redeeming the red, ceasing our striving, granting us reprieve, and putting us over the top.

Chitown

2008-11-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

When I left on my four wheels
across interstates and
demarcations of time
you begged for rest like
a child denied
his dreams painted upon his mind
by green summer afternoons
on his back picking clouds
Now
facedown
upon a sponge of transference
materializations of hopes deferred
But rest,
as wakefulness was no friend
unkind to hope
inhospitable in youth
Sleep because you must
through this déjà vu
and ponder what might be made new
when
you rub the sand from your dry eyes.

Visceral Grace

2008-10-29T11:45:00.001-07:00

We live by bold statements. We try to take lessons from the mouth of Jesus and the pens of prophets, and graft them onto ourselves. Our grafts try to bring peace, they try to move in love, they try to speak words of truth. We make grand gestures with our arms and try to embrace those who have been cut by misplaced touch. But every once in a while, if we are keen to those tumultuous unspoken currents that pulse within us, they sometimes spill out and reveal that no matter how many branches and leaves we tape to our bodies, a slab of cold granite is incapable of accepting grafts. The fear that wells up from prejudices we deny, the anger that blinds from wrongs we have forgiven, the bitterness that should have gone with the times…we are no tree of life.

I believe visceral reactions often reveal truths we bury under layers of ideals we deceive ourselves into believing. Before those well-rehearsed truths are able to do damage control, our beating hearts and short breath betray another reality, one that says anger is lurking outside our door, that our fear merely wears masks, and that bitterness is no lover of God or men.

Years ago in high school, I listened to a speaker talk about “bitter root syndrome,” as he spoke out of Hebrews 12:14-15. The verses say, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” He warned strongly about the potential for bitterness to dig its tendrils deep into our being, tainting our thoughts and actions, and warring against our call to be the new creations that we are. Living at peace is intrinsically connected to holiness, and holiness to seeing the Lord. This bitter root, this growing poison chokes not only our own love and holiness, but according to Hebrews, it threatens to cast its curse upon others as well.

I’m not certain what it means to possibly “fall short of the grace of God.” But I assume that it means somehow granting grace by living up to that same grace given to us, in line with, “Forgive us our trespasses AS WE forgive those who trespass against us.” The granting of grace or forgiveness does not require bilateral reciprocation, since we were redeemed unilaterally, while we were still sinners. Plastering ourselves with Christian truisms does not necessitate transformation. Somewhere deep inside, where tangled roots of bitterness innervate our visceral reactions, this is where grace weeds out anger and fear. What controls us is our idol. What dictates our steps, thoughts, words, who or what we avoid and embrace… this is what we worship.

I do not serve a god that succumbs to fear or bitterness. Anger has no permanent address here. I serve a Lord who prayed with grace, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

A Rejection of Focus on the Family's "Letter from 2012"

2008-10-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

I recently started a Facebook group to protest Focus on the Family's "Letter from 2012." The link can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30055124462&ref=mf

This is what the group info says:

Focus on the Family Action recently put out a hypothetical letter that outlined what America would look like from the perspective of a Christian looking back on an Obama presidency from 2012. The letter starts off by saying, “Many Christians voted for Obama – Younger evangelicals actually provided him with the needed margin to defeat John McCain – but they didn’t think he would really follow through on the far-Left policies that had marked his career. They were wrong.” Here are just some of their scenarios Focus on the Family paints for us:

- The Supreme court leans liberal, 6 to 3.
- Terrorist attacks have occurred in 4 US cities.
- Christian doctors, nurses, counselors, and teachers have either been fired or quit.
- Iran perpetrated a nuclear attack on Israel, drastically reducing the size of is borders.
- Pornography is freely displayed.
- Inner city violent crime has dramatically increased due to gun control.
- Russia has occupied 4 additional countries.
- Gas tops $7 a gallon.
- Euthanasia becomes commonplace.
- Blackouts occur throughout the country.
- Homosexual marriage becomes law in all 50 states.
- Campus ministries, Christian adoption agencies and Christian schools nearly cease to exist.
- Home school families emigrate to Australia and New Zealand by the thousands.
- Bush officials are jailed and bankrupt.
- Taliban oppression overtakes Iraq and death of American sympathizers reaches millions.
- Homosexuals are given a bonus to enlist in the military.

As you can see, Focus on the Family has abandoned all reasonable appeals and resorted to shameless tactics of fear mongering. They have abandoned the belief that voters can make informed decisions and have instead appealed to fear as their fundamental motivator.

As Christians, we stand appalled and ashamed at such tasteless demagoguery. We believe that civil, educated, and compassionate dialogue should and can occur with the active engagement of our faith, but believe that Focus on the Family Action has, in this letter, stepped far outside of reasonable boundaries into pure sensationalism. We believe that such thoughtless expressions coming from an organization that purports to represent Evangelicals continues to mar our legitimacy and voice in the public arena, and damages our basic Christian witness.

Please let Focus on the Family know your thoughts by contacting them through email at citizenlink@family.org.

The original letter can be found here:

http://focusfamaction.edgeboss.net/download/focusfamaction/pdfs/10-22-08_2012letter.pdf

Please encourage your friends to contact Focus on the Family and to join this group.

Release

2008-10-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

When it is a prayer we speak to
grant reprieve, we are instead
granted sleep to ease the pull,
a constant stress upon the cords holding
what is
and what is not yet.
Grant instead
a distaste for opiates, cheapness, and
the quiet waiting that walks what is
toward the glaring silence of
what is not yet.

A Penny For Your Thoughts: Everything Must Change

2008-10-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

I have just finished the book “Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope” by Brian McLaren. I wish to hear thoughts from those of you who have read the book, but mostly challenges and critiques. However, before I do that, I want to state as honestly as I can the assumptions and biases from which I speak.

I do not function from a position of a socially conservative Evangelical. I fully affirm the ancient creeds about the Trinity, the work of Christ, and hold Scripture to be the word of God. However, I am unapologetically affected by post-modernity and its critiques of old dominating meta-narratives and its recognition of modernist arrogance. In the same vein, I hold loosely the exclusivity and absolutism of the specific strain of Protestantism of which I am a part. I want to recognize the development of theology and thinking in light of a given historical context. As cultural creations, I do not believe that people can view truth objectively, even though Truth exists in the person of Jesus Christ. We look through a glass darkly and await the day we will see clearly, face to face. Given such assumptions, I desire to view my own tradition with humility, knowing that it was not shaped in a vacuum nor bestowed in a pure untainted form from on high. In the same breath, I seek to listen to the voices of those from other Christian traditions with the belief that God is not a tribal God. I am inclined to give a hearing to women and non-Western traditions, because God is not a white Protestant male. I desire to listen to the voices of the poor and oppressed, to see how the Gospel manifests itself among those who do not have money and power behind their words, because these are people God favors. I believe that left unchecked, our cultural waters have and will continue to inform our understanding of our faith more than our faith will change us. I believe in listening to those of different faiths or non-faiths, because God can use whomever he chooses to give a clearer perspective of his realities.

With that said, “Everything Must Change” is built upon the work of post-modernity’s understanding of dominating meta-narratives, a la Foucault. McLaren first establishes and names the narratives that our culture lives by, and then proceeds to discuss why such narratives are fundamentally dysfunctional, referring to people as disparate as Rene Padilla, Jim Wallis, Philip Jenkins, Wendell Berry, Cornel West and our own Dr. Bruce Benson. He then appeals to the scholarship of people like N.T. Wright and Dominic Crossan in the understanding of a Historical Jesus and how the historical Jesus spoke to the dominant (and equally corrupt) narratives of his day. McLaren draws a parallel between what Jesus said and did in the 1st century and what we he says to our global context today. He uses people like MLK, Pope John Paul II, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela to illustrate the true power of what happens when Christians undermine faulty narratives with the [reconstructed] Christian one. He doesn’t hesitate to critique the religious structures in their perpetuation of the fallen narratives, and challenges the church to reform itself according to Jesus’ narrative, one that truly subverts the massive powers and principalities at work in the world.

I appreciate McLaren’s willingness to listen to many different voices. Undoubtedly, his association with liberation theologians, left-leaning Evangelicals, economists critical of globalization, Christian pacifists/tree hugging poets and the simple mention of "post-modernity" will turn off a more conservative reader. However, as I’ve stated from the outset, such things do not count against him in my eyes.

I ask for a critique because I am predisposed to accepting what McLaren says. This book was referred to me by a man I respect, its contents contain authors, theologians and philosophers that I tend to agree with, and even the book’s specific contents aren’t so much an exposure to new ideas as it is a clarification, connection, or reframing of certain ideas I’m already open to. I appreciate a good deconstruction and am interested to hear if anyone has other thoughts.

Ivy and Ivory Towers

2008-10-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

Driving from Linwood, NJ to Princeton, NJ was like driving from the sprawling utilitarianism of suburban American wastelands into some transplanted European town in the midst of shedding its green and revealing its glory. Narrow streets intended for horses were paved over and forced to accommodate cars, but tall white columns in front of colonial homes still guard olde money. If it weren’t for the college students in Uggs, I would swear the campus ivy screamed London.

As I marveled at massive theological tomes housed in old European architecture, I joked with my friend who attends Princeton Theological Seminary that it felt far removed from the rest of the America, and his response was simply, “Just like the oasis of Wheaton.” It’s isolated quaintness, streets lined with gnarled trees in gold and red, and Asian families with cameras vicariously dreaming for their children belied the fact that it was a mere 10 miles from one of the most dangerous cities in the country (Trenton). Meandering its streets, I did not feel the dirty grit of reality.

I have no doubt about the importance of theological studies. If I were made of sterner stuff, I would have contemplated it as possible steppingstone in life. I pondered at certain moments what my Chinese grandmother would think walking through these streets, a women who has lived her entire life in the tumultuous country of her birth, from one historical desolation to another. She would have found it incomprehensible that such a beautiful and entirely different place existed on the same earth she knew. And yet, here it stands, buildings and streets that were built to facilitate theological and academic pursuits, intended from its foundation to be a place where those who knew God intimately would be sent out to shepherd flocks and lead the country.

Is theology, or the pursuit thereof grounded in reality? Perhaps I shouldn’t draw such a line. Some would undoubtedly say that pursuing theology *is* pursuing reality. I would like to hope that such a notion is true, that theology is indeed the attempt at understanding the workings of God in a world of brokenness. However, I can’t help but to think of the books housed in one of the greatest theological libraries outside of Oxford and wonder how this entire town, swarming at every coffee shop, bar and corner with intelligentsia, an antithesis of what the rest of the world experiences, can possibly say to suffering, hungry and struggling people in the midst of wars, disease, and death.

I wonder, though not in a condemnatory way, why the study of God and reality seems, by most appearances, so insulated from it.

In no way am I disparaging academic pursuits of God through theological studies. However, I am wary of the simple pursuit of theology. The former (as I understand it), is an attempt to better love the Lord. The countless hours and late nights of classes, readings and writings will multiply into true bread for the hungry. It seeks to better understand the heart of the Lord, and how to love what He loves. It is a means to His ends. He is the end. But the pursuit of theology for the sake of itself seems to be as useful to the world as an unread thesis gathering dust underneath the basement shelves of a converted anachronistic cathedral in a beautiful isolated town of New Jersey. I wonder how many brilliant minds throughout history have settled for the fiddling of words.

For my friends in various seminaries and ivory tower institutions around the country, I pray that all those days behind Greek and Hebrew books, systematic, philosophical and historical theology classes, all the homiletics and exegesis practices will indeed bring you to love the Lord more, and draw you to the ghettos of this earth like Trenton, 10 miles away from the insulated comforts of Princeton. And if I ever get there to join y’all, call me down to earth once in a while.

A Thought Exercise: Race and Evangelical Politics

2008-10-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

I'm curious. I really am. I wonder what the conservatives (and especially Christian ones) would say if Obama was the one who had left his first wife after she got into a car accident and became handicapped, cheated with other women while still married, and then married a rich young heiress. I bet they wouldn't be silent about it, that's for sure.

I'm also curious what the conservatives would say if it was Obama who had a pregnant teenage daughter. I wouldn't be surprised to hear Focus on the Family talking about how he has no family morals and no control over his children, and why he has any right being president of the United States if he can't manage his own household.

Now, at the end of the day, we will never know for sure what would happen if that were the case. This is why it's a hypothetical exercise. However, I don't think it would be a stretch to say that somewhere in there, Obama would find himself having to defend his entire race for his actions (which McCain certainly doesn't have to do even if people pointed out the outrageous inconsistency of values voters supporting him). Somewhere in there, I wouldn't be surprised if the stereotype of promiscuous black women was subtly hinted at, or the unfaithful black male was conjured to attack him.

Sadly, I have a hard time believing that the voice-boxes of Evangelical righteousness would say, "Oh, everyone sins. Let's stop attacking his family and history! God has forgiven them. Who are we to cast the first stone?" I could be wrong, but my mind has a hard time imagining that as a possibility.

Under My Umbrella [ella ella]

2008-09-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

under an uncertain street light
amber in its glare
do not cower from the rain
for its threats against your being
are moot.
upon bare flesh it refreshes
jogs a memory of life alive
and umbrellas serve only to impinge
upon the improbable knowledge of
an unceasing current like
a wet static upon the skin from
an impregnable dark.
unlikely reminders that we are more
than the sum of our weight
in minerals.

do not cower from the rain or
the silence dripping through your bones.
far too long is spent being
far too dry.

2008-09-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

There should be a rule that says for every one thing that you deconstruct, critique, challenge, or destroy, another thing should be planted, built, created, or cherished.

If passion is always negative and discouraging, it will certainly leave us with ulcers.

Enough: Where America and McBama Are Wrong

2008-09-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.”

That was a quote from Jimmy Carter in 1979, from what is known as his “Malaise Speech” during the energy crisis. Certainly, that cannot be true? President Bush’s speeches following 9/11 told people to do more shopping. The economy will be remedied, it seems, if people went out and bought more. In fact, there is no ceiling to growth, we must merely strive forward with American ingenuity and creativity, creating more jobs and products, and find more markets to sell to. Is the American market saturated? No problem, let’s export. Let’s take all our surplus, created with fertilizers, hormones and environmentally destructive practices, which is a result of our “more is better” mentality, and dump it at cut throat prices around the world, because, after all, who doesn’t want more for less? (Everyone has our values, right??)Who cares about the national interests of the other countries… once globalization is king, it will all be international interests (for anyone but us, of course). The poor will be uplifted if companies are given more breaks so the wealth “trickles down.” If we simply consume more, we will be a nation of happier people, satisfied and secure in life. I mean, look at us now! We are so content, with our McDonalds and 3 car garages. The world is a happier and more peaceful place because of us, even if we are dehumanized, commercialized, and transformed into a mere source of consumer revenue in the process. How the face of God shines upon this Christian nation, anointed to be the example of justice and prosperity for all the world to see.

This is the American dream, is it not? The right to pursue happiness becomes the right to pursue unlimited growth without an awareness of costs or effects. This is what we have grown up with. This is the air we breathe and the water we swim in. More is simply better, therefore, the consumption and accumulation of more must be the pinnacle of best. “More is better.” This is the fundamental, unquestioned and unquestionable assumption that drives every aspect of this country, especially its politics and economics, and even its religion, when it sleeps in the same bed.

The statistics are damning. Our wealth and lifestyles consume 24% of the world’s energy even though we are merely 5% of the population. I literally laughed out loud when a commercial during the nomination conventions reported the statistic of our energy consumption, yet had the shameless audacity to suggest that we need more. The way that conservatives systematically deny our role in Global Warming is unforgivably callous. In the name of growth, we will continue to destroy not only God’s creation (and lest you don’t believe in a God), the very systems that sustain and give us life. We live as if we are above the wrath of a world that has bared its teeth at us in the forms of increased hurricanes, disease and destruction. And truth be told, most of the white middle class Americans are, for the time being, above the wrath. But the poor and the weak are not (New Orleans, Indonesia, anyone?). It is no secret that the scales of an unbalanced ecosystem are unfairly weighted against those who have the fewest resources to protect themselves. (But it doesn’t matter, since it doesn’t affect us). We don’t even need to get into the astronomical amount of waste we produce or where that goes (which, coincidentally, just happens to be where minorities and those lower on the socio-economic ladder are located). No, there can be no questioning the doctrine of growth and prosperity. Whether or not we say we believe in unlimited growth is irrelevant (because anyone with any sense can tell you, in a closed system that is Earth, there is no such thing as unlimited growth). The truth is that we live like it, raping and destroying whatever needs to be raped and destroyed, with little regard for any long-term consequence. Even for those who recognize the warning signs of impending disaster, I’m confounded by their absurd willingness to do further damage via the savior of Scientific Progress instead of working to curb our consumption (see posted item on Geo-engineering). In the millions of years that this planet has supported life, the two great lies have been, “The day you eat from the tree you will not surely die,” and “We live in a world of unlimited growth where more is better.” (A tip of the hat to Derek Webb.)

And yet, We. Need. More.

Richard Foster, and I suppose others, locate 6 great streams of tradition within Christianity, each offering an important perspective: Contemplative, Holiness, Charismatic, Social Justice, Evangelical, and Incarnational. He argues that for holistic spiritual development, we must be aware and seek to develop in all of the 6 areas. As I’ve argued in the past, our theology heavily influences the way that those 6 streams merge in our lives, if at all. If one has a dualistic view, then Evangelism comes into conflict with Social Justice. If we don’t have a healthy understanding of the affirmations of the Incarnation, then the world is simply for us to abuse at will.

I do not believe that the pervasive, assumed and unquestioned ethics of unlimited growth and “more-is-better” is a Christian ethic. What I do see in Scripture is a model in which those with more bless those who have none. I see an ethic that demands a love toward our neighbor that is equal to the love we have towards ourselves. Both in Jesus’ words and in Paul’s example, I see an emphasis on not worrying about our material needs but having a contentment that comes with less or plenty. In Scripture, I see a heavy emphasis on the poor, the aliens and strangers, the widows and fatherless, those ostracized by the status quo, which are our neighbors around the world who support our decadence and wastefulness with their blood and sweat. In fact, in the early churches, I see an extreme subversion of empire and status, so much so that believers were seen as a threat worthy of capital punishment, not a co-option by the government’s political machinery. What seems much more in line with the Biblical witness is an ethic of “enough,” as seen in Proverbs 30:8-9:

“Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”

There is no universal line that states, this is “enough.” Such ambiguity has never rested comfortably with legalists. It is true that many do not have enough, in this country and around the world. However, having been saturated with “more is better,” what is truly enough is probably drastically less than what we assume we need. I cannot, and do not need to detail all the reasons why “enough” is biblically and more practically feasible than “more is better.” There are plenty of authors who vocalize the arguments of simplicity far more articulately than I (Richard Foster, Wendell Berry, Cecile Andrews, and Henri Nouwen being a few of them). But it cannot be understated that our current lifestyles are unarguably globally unsustainable and a flagrant disregard for our neighbor. For some, more will indeed be better, since they do not enough. But for the vast majority of us living in this country, the rest cannot have enough if we simply have more. To make it all the worse, America, with its flippancy towards consequences and blind pursuit of growth, is the model towards which so many struggling countries strive.

This election, unfortunately, has shown me that despite the rampant rhetoric on change, the foundation by which they make their appeals are still grounded in the concepts of unlimited growth and “more is better.” Though one party seems to care more about some issues (McCain didn’t mention the poor once in his speech, not to mention the fact that his running mate doesn’t “believe” in global warming), I will, at the end of the day be voting for the lesser of two evils.

In the book “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, the author likens societies to “flying machines.” We sit in these flying machines and take off from a cliff. We are in the air, and are paddling with all our might trying to soar to new heights, yet still find ourselves falling. On the way down, we see the ruins of other flying machines, and think, “Surely, we are better than those flying machines, if we only paddle harder.” We think, “Yes, we will make it, because look at us, we are still in the air!” But the reality is that we too will end up like those other flying machines; all too abruptly, all too painfully, and without any further recourse once we’ve crashed.

If we continue in this direction, the question is not whether we are falling, but how fast we are falling and how much longer before we plow into the ground. It will not simply be a question of the War or outsourcing. The potential problems will make us wish we were simply living the good ol’ days of $5 gas and a housing crisis.

By the way, after Jimmy Carter made that speech in ’79, his ratings plummeted. When it is popularity that buys one’s path into office, how can a prophet speak with integrity?

[I’m not a political analyst. I didn’t major in international relations and I’m not an economist. I’m not a sociologist, I’m not a theologian or philosopher, or a scientist, or even a psychologist (yet). I’m 22 years old, what do I know, right? I don’t intend to talk as if I have mastered each of those fields, as if they could be “mastered”. However, by definition of being a living breathing human being who interacts with the world around me, I am all of those things, in the lowest common denominator of those terms. Undoubtedly, many of you who have been trained in the above are far more knowledgeable than I. Your arguments will be more sensitive to information I’m sorely unaware of, and your experience will direct you to have a more nuanced understanding of said issues. You will undoubtedly find my sentiments crass and unrefined, over-generalized and perhaps simultaneously too theoretical and anti-theoretical at the same time. However, I will not be dissuaded from wrestling with such things simply because I’m a layperson. By living in this world, we have a responsibility to be as faithful as possible with the knowledge that we have, no matter how limited it is. I write, unquestionably and unapologetically, as a Christian with a bias towards my understanding of Scripture and worldview. I welcome your thoughts and comments.]

Truly, I'm Not Trying to Be Insensitive...

2008-09-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

... But the cosmic irony cannot be missed here.

A few weeks ago, I posted a video that Focus on the Family tried to be funny about asking for rain to disrupt the Democratic National Convention. (See below)

With all due respect to the seriousness of Hurricane Gustav and the lives it will affect, I think the torrential rain came a week too late. Sorry Republican National Convention. Sometimes plans backfire.

Focus: Maybe God didn't get the joke. I'm just saying.

(Don't taze me, bro.)

Prodigal

2008-08-31T20:04:00.000-07:00

Embrace
The emptiness
Like a prodigal child returned
One for whom I have prepared a bed
And kept tidy a room.
Every fortnight
A familiar tap tap tap
At the gates.

I don’t bother to ask anymore
Where he’s been
Or if I should make some tea
To keep us company
To keep me warm.
He drapes his silence like a flag upon my door.

My, how you’ve grown.

And like a good father,
I do not ask when he will leave again.

Biting the Hand That Feeds Me

2008-08-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

I listened to Obama's speech today. I don't think he's a god or agree with the media's messiah complex for him. I don't think he has all the right answers. I don't agree with the people who are 100% sold out on any politician, even Obama. No matter how much one pushes for change, the realities of running for government office means that one cannot alienate too many people, even if that means compromising one's own convictions. It's unfortunate, because that just means that vested interests still have their say, and the same old oppressive stories of "us" and "them" are still being appealed to as reasons for the candidate to be in office, even Obama. I didn't appreciate all of that rhetoric about how great America is, but I don't suppose you can be elected as the US President while being an unpopular prophet (unfortunately).

With that said, the truth is that I tenuously agree with those who say that by the nature of who Obama is, he is a catalyst for a sort of healing and reconciliation greatly needed within this country as well as with the rest of the world. I think the compromising that I personally am weary of is a necessity in a two party system dogged with pettiness and partisanship. (This is why I can't be president....... apart from the part that I wasn't born in this country.) I believe that despite my reservations on some of his policies, I find a large proportion of them far more palatable and in line with the ethics of the Kingdom than that of the line of the Republican party.

However, I am not an average American. I appreciate much of what I have been given here and do not want to downplay the privileges I have been afforded, but realize that it has often come at the expense of others. Nor does my appreciation and indebtedness force me to stay silent about the ways in which we have fallen short. I have a great amount of disrespect for our cultural superiority complex, both in words and in deeds. I think nationalism is folly, especially when it's used in the name of injustice and appealed to as an untouchable and unquestionable ethic. I have no issues with the idea that "chickens come home to roost," and have no illusions of God somehow being a de facto American patriot Himself, as we seem to make Him out to be. I do not hold the Constitution as holy and infallible, and see no point in pretending to walk humbly with our God when we fail to act justly or love mercy. But, in my ignorance and lack of life experience, there is much I do not know and am probably wrong about. What I do know though, is that the "American Dream," the one that says we are "free" to enslave ourselves in vapid anesthetics is neither dream nor freedom, but a nightmare that is lived in every city, ghetto, suburb, and rural corner of this country. It has spread like an infections disease, abetted by human falleness, to every city, ghetto, suburb and rural corner of the world. We are not satisfied in merely deluding ourselves, but have participated in a pandemic of death by the things we have done and left undone. The worst of it might be that our collusion with the political, social, economic (and by definition) spiritual powers and principalities have gone unnoticed by us, its very perpetrators, much to the satisfaction of the father of lies.

At the end of the day, I will probably vote for Obama despite my reservations. I'll vote, because I want someone to prove me wrong and show me that we are not as hopeless as my rhetoric makes us sound, that it is still possible to have a country rooted in compassion, justice, and reconciliation, where the poor, oppressed and alien are not completely trampled upon by the rich and powerful (eg, us). As much as I instigate, I would like America to stop doing so. My hope is not quite as teary-eyed as some of those I saw in the convention, but it's there, holding out for a possibility.

Today is a historically monumental day, no matter how you cut the pie. Cheers to America for being a place that has taught me how to think critically and a place that allows me to speak. Cheers to Obama for how far he's gotten, and cheers to McCain for being a good sport in this big game, at least for a day.

A White Line in the Sea Grass

2008-08-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

I fixed my crab traps last night, and decided to watch the tide rise today. It sounds just about as interesting as watching the grass grow, eh?

If my prison is this house, with its beige walls, wireless bars that chain me to everywhere at once, and walk-in closets of man-made junk, then my salvation comes to me through my backyard bay with its deep unmistakable fragrance, in the vehicle of an aluminum boat and a 5 HP motor. However, if my imprisonment consists of this empire, with its oppressive meta-narratives that have us purchasing lies that keep us subservient and docile, then watching the tide rise is radical enough to be part of my salvation.

I’ve been reading a lot. (Not being employed allows for that.) Writers that insist on something more, something different then what is, or has been in place. Thoughtful and articulate Christians who look at Scriptures, peer through history, at church and our lives, and fearlessly accuse us not only of complacency, but also of idolatry and heresy. Thinkers who do not think for an ivory tower’s sake, but for the sake of our wholeness and a complete Gospel. Farmer-turned-poets who write manifestos in a mad attempt to reignite our imprisoned and emaciated imaginations. Ascetics who, in their unique experiments, have attempted to know the fullness and presence of God through the still and silent whispers of solitude. Broken healers who embrace, and in the process are simultaneously broken and healed by their communities.

A friend and I recently engaged in a discussion on “being,” the idea that our doing can only be authentic if it proceeds from our being. He talked about how there is far too much striving and faking, of chasing after and appeasing false gods, no less idolatrous than ones made of wood or stone. One writer claims that we have become turncoats towards God’s Kingdom. Whereas we should be living the lordship of Christ and the reality of His Kingdom, we have wholeheartedly embraced and whored ourselves to the Empire instead. If this is true, who are we to be? Another claims that our conclusions of the world going to hell in a hand-basket is full of old pagan philosophies and tenuous misreadings of proof-texts. If this is also true, what then are we to do? Old desert fathers gave it all up to hear a Voice in the silence, and ended up fighting against bad theology (See Anthony the Great and Athanasius vs Arius). People today give it up to fight a dehumanizing consumerist theology that allows for blind complicity in worldwide abuse and slavery, and end up hearing a Voice in the stillness of what’s left.

Now is the time to be. Silent, aware, and in awe. “Be still, and know that I am God.” As I sat in a creek and watched the tide rise, I realized that simply reading about all of creation moaning for redemption isn’t quite the same as partaking in it, since it is not only we who worship the Creator, but all of His good creation who sing as co-worshippers with us. It is as different as merely reading about babies, and finally participating in the joy and birth of your own child (not that I would know the latter...). The solitude gave volume to the silence, filled with sounds we have lost the ability to hear. For a moment, I believed that if people would stop fearing silence, stop inundating their senses with noise, stop their repression of questions and doubts, to live life as it comes, with a simplicity dictated by need and not excess, there would be a much smaller market for psychologists.

There is something intangible to being still. Perhaps stillness allows us to listen, to both the discord in our own hearts, and to God’s response and assurance that His love is greater than our fear. Perhaps the stillness allows us to see the fluidity and beauty in His created order, as well as how abusive and oppressive our dealings are to that peace. And if adage “time is money” is a creed of the empire Jesus came to overthrow, then reclining in a boat, watching the wind and listening to the tide rise for no particular reason on a Wednesday afternoon may just be the first step in seceding from and subverting the powers and principalities.

For once, I marveled at how everything fit together so well. It’s like getting pulled out of the Matrix and freed from its pervasive illusions, but instead of finding the real world to be full of gunmetal grey, tasteless slop and burlap rags, it was right here, all along, and beautiful, if only we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and One who will make things clear if we are willing.

I have so much to learn and live. (I believe. Help my unbelief.)

McJesus

2008-08-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

Satan: "Welcome to McChurch, home of the Status Quo. How can I help you?"
Dehumanized Consumer: "Hi uh... I'll have a prosperity Gospel with some good feelings, hold the sin and justice. Also, I'll take a side of bad theology and a large cup of dualism please."
S: "Anything else?"
DC: "Yea.. umm.. mix me up some national and cultural arrogance. Put that on top of my globalization."
S: "Your total cost comes out to be Orthodoxy and True Life. Others will help you pay too. Come around to the pickup window."

Remember

2008-08-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

[In the act of writing, I hope to bring about that which I lack. In transcribing my thoughts from jumbled electrochemical activity to the English language, I want to give animation and memory to the realities which do not yet exist, and in some way, usher it in.]

Faith, hope, and love.

We are not patient, our eyes are dim, our minds are slow, and our imaginations dull. We can build only so many stairs to climb in our search for leverage over the landscape of our experiences. God knew that our statures are short, our memories vapid and adulterous, prone to wander and in league with the Accuser. We distort our realities and squeeze our pasts through the mold of our ever-vacillating emotions. When set under pressure and fire, our self-serving versions of faithfulness evaporate to leave the ugly stains of bitterness and blame.

"Remember. Remember. Remember my faithfulness, even if you do not feel it now. Remember my healing, my goodness, my presence and my love, even in the midst of darkness and loneliness. Remember, not your uncertainties and selective memories, interpretations or assumptions, but remember me, my Kingdom and my righteousness."

Hope. A biblical hope in the person of God and His character. When all our attempts to usher in the New lay futile and hollow under the spotlight of silence, there can be but one virtue that holds the weight of being. Hope becomes the quintessential anchor of our hearts, especially when our most sincere efforts at love and faithfulness are not enough.

Mute

2008-08-19T17:16:00.001-07:00

If I let my legs wander, and my thoughts walk,
Chasing a setting sun, fighting to ward off a lonesome dark
Will I, can I
Be bestowed with the bright hues that conjure tonight?

Will you point for me a direction,
Speak to me, with certain secrecy, of a goodness forgotten,
The food of gods
Of a stuff that will mute silence and turn off the night?

The Prophets of God v. Barack Obama

2008-08-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Focus on the Family. 'Nuff said.

(Common now, if you're gonna try to be funny, at least do it well. You're good at making us look stupid, but who said you had to be bad at humor too?)

Realists Anonymous

2008-08-10T23:18:00.000-07:00

Those who seek justice from the powers that be, those who do not have an off switch in their minds for questions and analysis, those who attempt to hear the voices silenced by oppression, those who are not satisfied in perpetuating the status quo and are not afraid to speak words to bring it down, those who feel the wounds of the abused as deeply as they feel their own… what will become of us if we cannot find a hope that’s more tangible than every problem we draw out, every sin we condemn, both in ourselves and in the world? The frailty and fragility of a person cannot possibly accumulate the burden of both personal scars and the wounds of others. With buckled knees and hunched backs, our eyes, which have already tended to gaze at the dirt, will be drilled closer to the ground, and soon we will lose the ability to stand straight again. Our heads will no longer fight gravity, and our eyes will see nothing but darkness, whether or not it is actually there. Whatever gifts we have used will become like trying to do surgery by swinging a machete by the blade; altogether useless and rather painful.

Cynicism is not and cannot be the end point under which we are crushed. For those of us who are self-described realists, when we fail to acknowledge and revel in the beauty and goodness that is found intertwined with the brokenness we spend so much time pointing out, we have failed to live up to our name, for beauty, love, and hope are more enduring and immediate realities than the brokenness we see. Not only do we become as blind as those who ignore suffering, but we forfeit a potent method by which we are encouraged, energized and blessed by the one who has already borne these burdens... the one who, by His resurrection, has inaugurated a new reality.

His Kingdom is His, not mine. And if I am part of His Kingdom, then I am entirely His as well, as are these scars, both the ones I have given myself and the ones I have taken on. If He has indeed risen, as I professed today during Eucharist, then my burdens and the cries of this world are not my own to shoulder, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

NT Wright Smacked Me and I Asked For More

2008-08-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

A friend shared an experience with me once. He was staying in a home of a Christian couple, and had just finished a can of soda. Upon asking for the recycling bin, the couple’s response was, “As Christians, we don’t recycle. Jesus is coming soon anyways.” When all attempts at detecting some sort of sick humor failed to turn up any results, my friend stood speechless and dumbfounded at such a remark. Their comment sounds absurd, but is a safe conclusion if many Christians take their beliefs of the afterlife to the logical end. Why bother with the environment or social issues if it's all going to hell anyways? Why not just spend our time saving souls for heaven instead? Didn't we have enough of those mainline liberals and their Social Gospel in the past? The question of why sweep the deck of a sinking ship is often a response to the way we understand the progression of history into the "End Times." (Cue thunder cracks and dramatic orchestral music.)

I haven’t really written a book review in a while, and don’t intend to do so here, but there are many books and experiences that push me towards the river, and a few books that have been the Rubicons of my faith. I give credit to Lee Strobel (Case for Faith/Christ) in my early days, Mark Noll (Scandal of the Evangelical Mind) and Philip Jenkins (The Next Christendom) during my college years, and now, NT Wright for his work “Surprised by Hope.”

His work for me, was the pulling together of the Gospel that I’ve been trying to understand these last four years. Drawing together history, theology, ontology, spirituality, and a plethora of other related things ending in ‘y’, he synthesizes why the mainstream Christian understanding of the afterlife is wrong at worst, or misplaced at best, and how a corrected understanding of the crucial doctrine of resurrection is key in how we are to reorder our lives around the Kingdom and why it brings us hope. In it, he explores why the common held notions of dualism (separation between soul and body or spiritual and material) are weak in light of Christ’s resurrection and the greater picture of redemption, and why sentiments shared by the Christian couple above are completely misguided. It beautifully exposes the shoddy Biblical foundations of many mainstream versions of the end times (*cough* Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins), and how damaging such theology is to the witness of the Church.

Basically, it’s frickin awesome.

It’s not a difficult read, though the concepts are heavy and mind-blowing, especially to those who have grown up in a Western dualistic Christian culture. I hear it’s an abridged and compiled version of a few of his other works. Any way it happens, READ IT. If you understand the points he tries to make, it will change things from the way you read Scripture to the way you understand yourself and God’s interaction with world.

Orthodoxy: Coming to a Church Near You!

2008-08-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

As much as I love critique and deconstructionism, and have an inherent distrust of the powers that be, I have to remember love and hope in a world that desperately needs it. It might be true that there are lots of legitimate things to criticize about western mainstream Evangelical Christianity. We’re so busy pointing fingers at other people, at post modernism, at evolution, at those baby killers, liberals and homosexuals that I’ve felt the need to point the fingers back at ourselves for all the things we do wrong according to our own standards. I get excited when I hear someone thoughtfully articulate, attempt to explain, and critique our own actions and beliefs in a theological and historical context without abjuring the possibility that we could actually be wrong, as opposed to simply propping up platitudes to legitimize what exists. I shake my head and agree with the “enemies” when their observations about us are keener than our own. I hear stories of our churches, our sanctuaries and lighthouses, and am hardly surprised when people don’t want anything to do with us. It’s a much needed in-house sweep and challenge when an entire guard of thoughtful, prayerful and contemplative brothers and sisters are standing up to say that all is not right within the family.

And perhaps it is true; certain things must be torn down before they can be replaced or rebuilt. How do we preach a gospel we ourselves fail to grasp? How can we be transformed holistically when dualism, individualism, and anti-intellectualism are the lenses through which we view the world?

But the difficulty, for me at least, is how one does the critiquing not only in a way that is humble, but is done in faith, filled with love and gives hope. For me, there is an arrogance that I pray will be removed with intentionality and age. There is an inexperience that presents my convictions as untested and hollow, and a naivety that forgets the inevitable suffering of prophets. However, beneath it all is a desire to see God’s kingdom lived out as it should, in my own life, in the life of His saints, and in all of creation.

Orthodoxy (correct belief), I think, is a prerequisite for orthopraxy (correct practice). I wonder if it is possible to have all the faith, hope, and love in the world and be useless, even doing damage, without orthodoxy. I don’t know. Perhaps it’s possible, as I believe much has done as a fervent church with stray beliefs (it always amazes me at how God redeems things). But what I do know is that orthodoxy that does not manifest itself in faith, hope and love is no orthodoxy at all. As I strive to see the world as God sees it and desire to see the Gospel alive in today’s world and context, orthodoxy needs to be inseparably wed with faith, hope and love, as inseparable as our “souls” are to our bodies, even as inseparable as Christ is with His church.

Sing to Our Hearts' Discontents

2008-08-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

More than writing or a melody, I want infusion.
More than currents of knowledge to flashes of light, I seek life.
More than busyness to forge my path, I crave shalom.
More than novelty to stoke my fervor, I desire grace.
More than you could ever give, I need love.

The Road that Leads to Hope

2008-07-20T19:12:00.001-07:00

Walter Brueggemann, in a recent sermon, says that hope cannot come unless first there is mourning. Mourning, in this world of ours, is the prerequisite, the pockmarked and tear stained path that leads us to hope.

The Biblical definition of hope is grounded in the certainty of what is to come. The hope that we have, for ourselves and for the world, is rooted in the promised future just as much as it is rooted in the experienced and historical past.

When we think of who we are, we often frame ourselves in reference to our past experiences, perhaps naming key events or situations that have had a formative influence on our development. But how often do we let the promised future be a defining factor in our lives? In Philippians, when Paul speaks of “forgetting what is behind and pressing on towards what is ahead,” he models the practice of allowing his future reality (full redemption in Christ) to infuse his here and now. He is defined not by the kingdom and accolades he left behind, but by the full lordship of Christ that is yet to come.

In speaking about hurt and suffering, Nouwen says that we must let our own personal experience of pain transcend the individual and unique experiences that gave birth to it. Our pain is not to be relegated to the realm of particulars, lest we play mind games with “if only’s”, but eventually generalized and removed from specifics so that we are better able to empathize in the suffering of others. For as long as we bury our hearts in the specifics of a situation, our mourning is of limited fruitfulness to those we are called to minister to. But when we view our own cups as sharing in the greater suffering of those around us, that same hope we obtain from being sojourners on the road of mourning can then also reverberate with the mourning experienced by the world. The same staff that comforts us in our troubles will also then comfort others. And as we learn to hope in what is not yet here, so too will we be agents in bringing hope to a creation groaning in the pains of childbirth for its consummation.

This is the act of turning our eyes outwards to a hurting world even when we ourselves are licking our wounds. As the world lies broken, so we mourn as if for ourselves. As we look forward to the hope of transformation, restoration and renewal, so we take our hope and lavish it as freely to the world as love was lavished freely upon us.

And so we mourn, knowing that we mourn not only for ourselves, but for those who have much more reason to weep. And as we slowly traverse the steep paths of mourning, we somehow find ourselves walking next to others, with faith, afraid but undaunted, towards a hope that reveals itself just enough say that when all is said and done, these three remain: Faith, Hope, and Love.

I Miss the Wheaton Bookstore

2008-07-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

Figures.

I had to go to a non-Christian bookstore to pick up the book I wanted. NT Wright was nowhere to be found in my local Christian bookstore. Their paltry theology section had titles such as "Why I'm a Baptist" and looked anemic next to the Christian romance and apocalyptic-themed fiction. On the other hand, I know where to go if I ever want to plaster my walls with puppies, inspirational Kinkade calendars, preview Avalon CDs, or eat Testa-mints (for those who want to preach the Gospel but have bad breath).

I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

$120,000 and 4 Years Later...

2008-07-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

The curse of introspection and self-awareness is that the self becomes that which consumes the entire field of vision. There are certainly times where the ability for macro focus is helpful. But the thing with macro is that foreground detail comes at the cost of background clarity. This is problematic if we believe that we are not the end all be all to life. Indeed, this is problematic as Christians, since Christ has come, among other things, to take the center of the universe off ourselves and place it back on God. We are no longer singular amoebas, amorphous in purpose and identity, but grafted into something bigger than ourselves, which includes everything around us that Christ desires to redeem and heal, ironically, through near-sighted closed-minded broken people like ourselves.

It is not that we lose our individuality, nor that God no longer cares about our struggles. On the contrary, we are affirmed that He indeed knows every hair on our head and has the best for us. However, our lives, identity, growth, and purposes are now fed, nourished, and tied with this new Kingdom we are adopted into. As children of God, the common theme that threads itself through every decision and action is how our lives are in line with what the Father is doing with redemption, both in and around us.

I have long neglected, with a few exceptions, fostering a sensitivity and awareness to the way the Spirit moves outside of myself. If I were to paint my current understanding of God, I would have myself in the middle squeezing most everything else off the canvas. This hardly makes sense, given that His work in my life is not in isolation from His work in the world. My purpose and direction cannot be found outside of learning to first see Him, and to secondly see the world around me as He sees it, both of which take my eyes off myself.

Speaking of worship and the other disciplines that draw us to the heart of God, Mark Labberton in “The Dangerous Act of Worship” says, “This means living a vision of life in which we are not at the center. God is. It means turning away from a vision in which we and our issues are the primary focus of the day. God is. In a life of faithful worship, our life is not about us. It’s about God.”

The new paradigm for me is actually living in a way that reflects the reality of losing my life to actually gain it. In a time where we are all scrambling around trying to figure out why we spent $120,000 over 4 years, it would do us well to understand that we cannot find its course by looking for it. In the field of psychology built upon analyzing behavior, determining problems and providing solutions, it is sometimes difficult to remember that our lives are more than what we can plan or fix. Rather, we can only find it by seeking the heart of God, having our passions resonate with what He cares about, and losing ourselves in the process, trusting that His love and promises for our wellbeing are true. Seek first His kingdom and His heart, and I have a hunch that the healing, growth, love and provision He knows we need will be given to us as well, along with immeasurably more than we can ask for or imagine.

Perhaps our futures and lives fall under that strange category of phenomena that cannot be found by looking for it, but will be given to us in fullness and abundance if we learn to seek something else. What is left to be done is living the process and disciplines that bring us to a place where our eyes can be pried open, where we can be roused from our complacent sleep and our dreams can be bigger than ourselves. The disciplines are merely tools that bring us into the throne room of the living God. It is in meeting the living Christ that our faces are also transformed to shine with glory, and our hearts enlarged and aligned with His.

This is the goal as much as it is the process for the rest of our lives, as we learn to live the ways in which the Spirit blows.

Indeed, everything will be alright, if He becomes our vision.

Thinking of ya’ll.

Thanks CBN, for your deep Christian insight.

2008-07-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

Speaking on the recent scuffling between Dobson and Obama, CBN's (Christian Broadcasting Network) Senior Correspondent David Brody says, "There is frustration in conservative Evangelical circles that the traditional bedrock biblical issues of abortion and marriage are starting to play second fiddle to new issues like climate change, genocide, poverty, etc."

Wow. As if creation care, genocide, and poverty weren't bedrock biblical issues as well? Really?? Are we reading the same Bible? That's news to me.

Matthew 6

2008-07-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

On my trip to Mongolia, one of the focuses for the students was “knowing what’s true, then acting on it.” On the high ropes course, we told them that the harness and safety rope were strong, and that they could trust them. I told a student that at the end of the day, sometimes we just have to make a decision to believe, because that’s what faith is.

In my narrow ways of thinking, I always try to figure out what percentage of an issue can be affected by a given factor. In this case, how much of our lives can simply be traced back to decisions we make? Can we, in fact, simply decide to move forward and count it as done?

I wish difficulties were simply speed bumps in the road; gather enough inertia to make a decision, then clench our teeth, close our eyes, yell at the top of our lungs and lunge forward before we change our minds, something like skydiving. But as if the willingness to make the decision itself isn’t difficult enough, one discovers that there is no free fall after the speed bump, but rather just the first in a series of obstacles on an uphill climb. When we lose the strength to move forward, the only direction to go is down, hitting every rock along the way.

“Simply” make a decision. Make a choice. Perform the action. The sentiments and feelings will follow the actions. Be like Joshua and Caleb; step into the river before it parts, and miracles of old will be performed. But what happens when the water simply turns our boots into sinking boats and the torrents continue as they always have? What happens when instead of parting, the waters sweep our feet from under us and mock us for thinking that a simple decision could stop the current that carved canyons from granite?

As an aspiring psychologist, I believe in self-fulfilling prophecies and the power of decisions and concepts like fictional finalism. As a Christian, perseverance trumps the culture of instant fixes. But in the end, I must recognize that the will of God trumps all, no matter what virtues I try to live. It’s not the first time I’ve tried to fashion my own deliverance with dismal results. When do our good ideas, insights and self-awareness turn into things that should be considered “shit” (that’s the Greek) compared to what the Lord intends to do?… a Lord that doesn’t always keep us on dry ground along our own trajectories but uses raging torrents to carry us places we could have never imagined.

I want to learn how to love the Lord and to seek the Kingdom, Matthew 6 style. I thought that other distractions needed to be weeded out before there was space to do so, as if I only had a certain amount of emotional and mental capacity, and that the sum expended energy was limited. That may or may not be true, but it seems that we are called to love and seek the Lord in spite of and in combination with everything else that demands our strength. There will forever be suffering, busy-ness, and needs. For as long as I have warmth in my veins, brokenness will masquerade as red blood cells. Perhaps it is in the midst of it or even through it, and not the removal thereof, that I must learn to love Him with all my heart, all my mind, and all my strength.

2008-07-10T21:53:00.001-07:00

Faithfulness is not a virtue if it turns you into a dog.

1/Midas

2008-07-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

What we are called to, I don’t fit in.
My dreams have cataracts,
And deflated noise
Reverberates with far too much meaning.
I cheapen all that I touch.

There is a Kingdom closer than the hands in front of my face
And I can almost smell the grace it’s built upon
But my eyes, my eyes,
Cedar forests grow therein
And who needs demons when I have thoughts?

There has got to be more than hunches
Because premonitions have no grip.
Glimpses last as long as my eyes remain closed.
I’m here, but not yet.
You’re here, but not yet.
It’s here, but not yet.
What am I to think,
For surely,
Someone must be to blame for what is not.

[I Can't Keep] Five Paces Ahead of My Thoughts

2008-07-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

Out of the overflow of one’s heart the mouth speaks,
which is why this verse finds itself empty.

Sleeves are the best places to wear broken things,
but maybe God can’t see through hotel room ceilings.

Matthew 26

2008-07-03T00:44:00.000-07:00

The irony of Matthew 26 slapped me in the face. Here were the Pharisees, people who had dedicated their lives to serving and worshipping the God of Israel, packed into the Sanhedrin with a bunch of rabble-rousers making a mockery of justice by trying to accuse Jesus. These people, who knew the stories of their fathers and waited anxiously for their Deliverer struck and spat at Him when He finally arrived. Here was their God they had been anxiously awaiting. Instead of embracing Him, they accused their own God of blasphemy because He did not conform to their expectations.

I wonder how blind we are sometimes. We spend our time in the temple saying we want to see God and that we want Him to move, when so often, He is right in front of us, doing things His way, on His own terms. It is we who are unwilling to see Him as He is. Are we really that different from the Pharisees?

Ponderings on the Trail

2008-06-30T04:04:00.000-07:00

I believe love, by definition, is an act of vulnerability. In essence, love is taking all the frailty, brokenness, goodness, and darkness out of our own hands and placing it in the hands of another, giving them access to the core of our very personhood. In giving them this access, you have also given them an extraordinary amount of power in your life, to discover places that others cannot reach and to speak into the depths of your being. However, with this vulnerability comes the potential of an equally deep damage that comes when those whom you have given yourself to swing their words a bit too carelessly or tread a bit too roughly. In the narrow and hidden corridors of flesh that wind about in the heart, the scars etched in the walls remain long after the damage is done.

When we say that we love God, we are allowing Him into the darkest catacombs that support the structures and facades we show the world. In faith and vulnerability, we allow Light to scatter the darkness in ourselves, and give Him the authority and power to tear down and rebuild as He sees fit, oftentimes causing the buildings on the surface to come crumbling down. The vulnerability of loving God is felt in every intentional cut of His refining blade, as well as the words He speaks of life and restoration.

In truly loving someone else, we are also giving them the same access into our depths. Oftentimes, the Spirit guides people into those corridors to act on His behalf, whether they know it or not. At times, they are the ones who do the breaking down in His name, are the voice to His words, and His arms that embrace.

Bonhoeffer says that true love for a person is always first and foremost mediated by and through Christ. He says that it is easy for us to believe our love for a person is genuine when in fact it is really a distorted version that is tainted with our own brokenness and neediness. Because of the oftentimes more tangible and immediate results of our limited human love, what we give is often laced with subtle forms of manipulation, and reflects our insecurities more than the love given by God.

Nouwen reminds us that we are unable to truly love others freely until we allow ourselves to be loved by God. Until we internalize the unchanging truth of our status as beloved children of God, we will continue to look for the approval and affirmation of others when they cannot ultimately provide it. Our actions will not come from a desire to bless or to love, but will arise from the deep insecurities that come from the unhealed dark places in our being.

We cannot give to others that which we have not received. We cannot learn to love properly unless we accept the love from God. It is hard for us to be healers if we have not known hurt and healing. Until we embrace ourselves in the name and by the grace of the Lord, it will be difficult for us to embrace a friend, let alone a stranger or an enemy. “Those who fall upon the Rock will be shattered, but those whom the Rock falls upon will be crushed (Matt 21:44).” As we are shattered, may He become both the new bedrock and the new architect, and may our attempts to love others be empowered by and submitted to Him.

Bed of Needles

2008-06-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

For a few short breaths
I find myself nestled in the bed of needles
beneath frayed umbrellas smelling like that first week of December
when the Christmas tree paints the living room green.

Here, far north of man-scapes and concrete dreams
unbesieged by a muddle of petty anesthetics and miniscule grandeurs
the thunder cracks louder off every unmarked path and speckled rock and root
and the show I watch from beneath my pine helps wash old dust off my feet.

The signs in the skies change like the whims of a woman bearing new life
E’n so, the chant of the wind has carried the death of all that I could not leave behind.
Be still, as all the world rages around,
to know that He Is, if only for a breath.

The Mongols Are A-comin'!

2008-06-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

Let's see what happens when you stuff your heart into a backpack and drag it across the rolling expanses of Mongolian fields, while attempting to make sure 12 inexperienced teenagers make it back to their parents alive (and with some sort of growth to show).

Ta-ta for now.

All It Takes

2008-06-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

In the attempt to forcibly move
(Because the world will not move for me)
Relativity becomes a testable theory.

Every arbitrary threshold,
Every zone of time and mile staked therein,
My resolve is harnessed and clipped
Lest I falter, stumble back,
And find myself crumbled like pillars of salt.

City streets will be redeemed
As I peer beyond the silhouette of my own nose.
O Death, where is thy victory?
O Damien Rice, where is thy sting?

老天津

2008-06-07T16:09:00.000-07:00

Airports are existential places. They funnel the most eclectic and diverse people from around the world into one building, only to wait impatiently, sit awkwardly together for a few hours, mixed like a humanity cocktail. Then, just as randomly as they came, they are herded into airplanes like lemmings, and shot out to equally exotic places, to live our unimaginably disparate lives, never to interact again. On one hand, we are so minute, another face in a crowd of different shades. But the stories and lives behind the faces screams Imago Dei, and stands as a bulwark against dehumanization.

On the bus ride from the new Beijing airport (which is quite impressive, by the way) to Tianjin, I sat next to a man from Sierra Leone who worked for his country's Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, here to participate in a development seminar. He shared about the rebuilding of his country and African politics, and we lamented people like President Mugabe and histories like colonialism. I couldn't get diamonds, wars and child soldiers off my mind.

Unlike me, who squirmed for a mere 14 hours, it took him 3 days to get to China. He was so other to me, black as the night and wide-eyed in a city that was twice his country's population. And yet there we were, hamming it up, with him as a Brother as well.

Today, I will walk out onto the street and fill my lungs with pollution, order an egg inside a biscuit for breakfast, hug familiar friends at Fellowship, massage away the economy class aches, and find myself greeting the lamb-kabob chefs with an "Assalamu Alilkum," only to sit alone and continue entertaining the thoughts I had for 14 hours by myself in the sky.

Hello, Tianjin. It's good to be back.

Redemption of Place

2008-06-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

In my town, there is a small dirt road that leads into creeks coming in from the bay. In an open expanse and solitude rare for suburbia, one can look across the bay and see the glowing lights of Atlantic City reminding me, “all that glitters is not gold.” Here, throughout high school, I’ve written countless stanzas of angsty teen poetry and learned the freedom of cursing at God. When I come back “home” to New Jersey, this is still my haven of solitude, a place that simultaneously accepts my mourning and reminds me of God’s faithfulness and promises.

For an overly sentimental bastard like me, there is a lot of power in a place. Psychologists who’ve done research on environmental cues say that our surroundings have enormous strength in helping us recall habits, thoughts and events, sometimes against our conscious will.

So, today is my last day in America for the next few short months. I’m returning to a place I spent most of last year in. With the place come all the people, activities, smells and thoughts that made the experience what it was. The thoughts that accompanied me alone on crowded buses will show their face again. The wanderings of a heart when I saunter the humid night streets, looking for 羊肉串, will return. But speaking of a place he revisited, a friend recently said, “I felt like I left a part of myself back at Wheaton when I left. But I picked it up and ran with it when I visited again.”

This is my hope as I return to that dusty dirty city, that I will participate in a redemption of place. Perhaps something has changed between December of last year and tomorrow, when I sit cramped by a window seat watching an ocean of clouds wash by. Perhaps the change will allow me to face those memories that spit in my face, and take back from them the pieces of me they should’ve never been given. Perhaps, when I leave again this time, I will fly back more healed, more whole for facing this place.

Eventually, like my friend, I’ll go back to Wheaton and run away with the pieces that I left there as well.

The Prophetic Tradition

2008-06-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

I was never one who had a lot of beef with Jeremiah Wright. In fact, when I first heard his comments, I was glad that someone had the chutzpah to speak such poignant words to the rest of us. I look at the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, and Jesus, and am grateful for those who refuse to let us sit comfortably in our self-satisfying, conscience-appeasing illusions. I remember driving through a city and listening with amusement to a Christian talk show as the white hosts, who apparently had very little understanding of the life and plight of minorities in this country, evoked the name of Christ in condemning Obama for being associated with Pastor Wright. Though these thoughts are a little after the fact, I believe they remain pertinent, as the Church will forever need voices who are bold enough to challenge the powers and principalities, both inside and outside the Body. In the end, I'm sad that Obama had to leave his church because of politics. He made a dignified effort to try and remain true. Unfortunately, it will continue to be used against him. But I'm glad to know that his pastor wasn't afraid of pushing for change or speaking the truth, and that for so many years, Obama listened to him preach.

(Found on Rich Wu's Blog, for full version, see here.)

"It may surprise many in white America, for whom Martin Luther King, Jr. is the only black preacher of whom they have ever heard, to learn that there are a lot of Jeremiah Wrights out there who week after week give expression to that classic definition of prophetic preaching that is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” What would one expect of a black preacher whose Christian name is Jeremiah?

While I could not possibly agree with everything that Jeremiah Wright says, I do know that when a preacher, especially a black urban preacher, fails to speak truth to power and refuses to speak of what is wrong in the ardent hope of making it right, that preacher is, in Milton’s words, a “blind mouth,” and a repudiation of God’s solemn call to him. Preachers, despite much evidence to the contrary, are not called to celebrate the status quo, even an American status quo, and when they do their job properly they call us all to a higher standard. Preachers are not perfect, nor are they the only people allowed to be credible critics of our time and place, but they are among the very few whose vocation it is to make us aspire to something other than the status quo. For too long we have made God an ally in the American way; the highest standards of preaching in America require that we should seek to be God’s ally, helping God and one another to create a world in which we seek to live as God would have us live. To criticize America is not a sin, but it is a sin to mistake America for God, and it is both sin and dereliction of duty to fail to note the difference."

Speaking about the the dangers of how our worship lies to God, Mark Labberton, a pastor in Berkeley and another modern day prophet, writes in his book, "The Dangerous Act of Worship":

"In another lie about God, we make the Lord of heaven and earth our tribal deity when we try to make him serve nationalistic ends. Whether we think of Constantine or the British Empire or American Manifest Destiny or more recent instances, religiously instigated nationalism diminishes God and subverts his mission. This is never how the Lord presents himself, but it is a frequent lie we tell others by our actions. We perpetuate this lie by making God out to be our nation's God, the One who has a preference toward us-- deservedly, some say! God can be represented as the servant of our wishes, a vending-machine-type fulfiller of the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4), which are sometimes little more than Christmas lists."

Preach!!

Obama-rama

2008-06-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

Ok Obama, you got the nomination. Congratulations on bringing about a historical event... a black presidential candidate. You have the charisma to get people dreaming about change. You have the rhetoric and the sincerity.

The question is, can you really deliver?

All in a Day's Work

2008-06-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

Today,

I rubbed the scars on my knuckles and remembered you.

I bought 5 ripe avocados and smiled.

I saw a bumblebee on my dashboard and thought of you.

I turned the radio off, drove with the windows down and felt your silence blow through my hair.

Here's to Giving Up

2008-06-01T17:05:00.001-07:00

Giving up well is like trying to gracefully eat spaghetti while wearing a white shirt; …one wonders if it’s ever been done successfully.

When the sour sting of bitterness starts lingering in the mouth after the teeth are brushed at night… when anger is found systematically speckling your blurred consciousness in the mornings, all is not right. Moving forward should not be independent of Agape, and true healing cannot take root in hatred.

Mending, at the cost of love, is not mending at all.

Material Triptic

2008-05-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

I am a gear whore,
a consumerist dog sniffing technological feces.
A brand-name wolf in synthetic wools,
A gluttonous monk practicing the presence of Mammon,
in an abby of wireless steeples,
glinting stained glass digitals.

Come.
Live compassionately and simply
in comfort and style.

Blessed are those who comparison shop,
for they will inherit the newest weights,
the flashiest shackles
at a fraction of the cost.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for more,
more,
More,
MORE,
for their prayers will be recorded faster,
10.2 Megapixels in quality,
and of superior tone.

Hello, Memorial Day.

2008-05-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

I find it a great irony to be sitting outside enjoying the sun around a place named “Patriot Lake” on Memorial Day writing this, given my disgust for blind nationalism and unaccountable patriotism on account of belonging to a different Kingdom. I question the premises and pride upon which patriotism and nationalism are based, which are often ones of superiority and exclusivity, ones that draw artificial lines between “us” and “them” and divide rather than unite.

Turning onto my street the other day, an oversized pickup truck drove in front of me with two boisterous American flags obnoxiously flapping themselves behind the cab. I about vomited in my car, as every negative association of American consumption, arrogance, and over-indulgence found itself carrying the official representation of what countless millions of people worldwide find oppressive.

I am irked by our tendencies to graft the Gospel into our pre-existing comfort zones and culture, affirming our complacency and status quos instead of overthrowing it. As I sat in my old church, I watched a video commemorating the fallen soldiers, hailed as those who died to “protect our freedoms,” wondering where the prophetic voice of the church was in saying, “No, most recently, they died to protect our oil. Our foreign interests. Our culturally insensitive and ethnocentric version of ‘freedom’.” The psychology behind war and the military is interesting. It takes a construct like honor and pride and convinces young men and women that such are things worth giving their lives for. It glorifies the flag and the country that it represents, so that any criticism of the country’s policies or actions becomes an indictment upon the sacrifice of the soldiers, lives taken by the very country they fought to defend, for reasons obscured by self-serving national interests and political games. Like dogs, we are so blind to it that any critiques will illicit a violently patriotic visceral response, as such conditioning is intended to do, since we are terrified of believing that the deaths of our friends and loved ones were inane. I listened to the pastor talk about the worries of life, listing not having a “Biblical candidate” this November as one of them, as if the Bible only ever talked about abortion, homosexuality and family values, and that the poor, justice, and being peacemakers weren’t topics Christians should trifle with in politics.

It’s ironic, because as I sit here criticizing such things, if I am to be fair and honest, I cannot deny that I would be unable to post this if it weren’t for the actual freedoms we do have. I know that in many ways, the church I critiqued is doing the work of God. I cannot say such things without offending those who really have served God and lost their lives in "legitimate" wars. I can’t say that America hasn’t done good in the world, or that there isn’t support for Just War theories. I wouldn’t be writing this on my Macbook if I didn’t participate in American consumerism, and I have to admit that the car I drive contributes to this country’s selfish quest for energy, magnifying the misery of those around the world affected by our greed, just as much as the pickup truck in front of me. I do not speak as one without blame, but as one who is trying to fight self-deception.

So, “happy” Memorial Day, for what it’s worth. Things just aren’t so Bible-thumping black and white.

Eileen's Garden

2008-05-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

On an early morning far too crisp for May, I drove by my old pastor's house, surprised to find him bent over turning dirt in his front yard. There was a colorful little sign planted in the ground, staking claim to it as "Eileen's Garden".

Eileen, his faithful friend, companion and wife for so many years, got to see her Jesus recently.

What did God say, when the pastor begged Him to work a miracle and raise the dead? Which parts of his seminary textbooks and theology ran through his broken heart, washed in sorrow? What did all those sermons he preached on suffering and death mean now? What does God think, when we are on our knees, trying to change His mind with speechless tears?

I could only wonder what he was thinking as he squinted under the morning sun, what memories were being dug up, what loneliness was being buried as he breathed the perfume of compost under his shovel.

"You can spend your whole life working for something, just to have it taken away... There ain't no reason things are this way... that's how they always been and they intend to stay, I can't explain why we live this way, we do it every day... but love will come set me free, I do believe, love will come set me free, I know it will... " -Brett Dennen, Ain't No Reason

"Let's come back as better people."

2008-05-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

[For the full sensory experience, this is to be read while listening to “Homecoming,” by Kanye West :)]

I’m under the impression that transitional periods of life, artificial time markers and cultural rites of passages are wonderful excuses to reflect, refocus, and redirect. (Perhaps to reduce, reuse and recycle as well?)

A quote was given to us upon receiving our HNGR certificates:

"Remember your Creator during your youth when all possibilities lie open before you and you can offer all your strength intact for his service. The time to remember is not after you become senile and paralyzed! Then it is not too late for your salvation, but too late for you to serve as the presence of God in the midst of the world and creation. You must take sides earlier - when you can actually make choices, when you have many paths opening at your feet, before the weight of necessity overwhelms you." -Jacques Ellul, from "Reason for Being: A Meditation on Ecclesiastes"

As I crossed over the bridge to Jersey, it felt as gangster and skank as ever. My home felt countless hours of silence and thoughts away, scattered with the ones who shared the bread and wine of my brokenness with me. A flurry of hasty packing, subdued looks, and a few unvoiced grievances later, I drove across lines that were more than just state borders.

[Now, how can I pretend to be an adult?]

All I have figured out is this: Grow where you are planted.

I could ramble on about chasing dreams and being true, about being thankful and living with no regrets, but you have pop-psychologists and crappy Christian authors to parrot those truisms for you. Instead I will ask myself to fight the lies of individualism (in community) while resisting thoughtless acts of conformity (apart from the world). I will remind myself that life is a process and that we are omni-nothing. Faithfulness is valued above whatever shackles the world calls success, and that people, whom we are called to minister to, loved and breathed in God’s image, are found in every corner of life. We are placed where we are for a reason. There are no shortcuts here. We might as well learn to thrive.

Trust, amidst the uncertainties and paradox, because there are many.

“I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.”

When I jumped out of an airplane with a piece of fabric to save my life, I realized that I wasn’t afraid of death. Death is easy. It’s quite passive. What I’m afraid of is a passive life that is more disheartening than death. Living life to the full is what’s hard. Remember the Beatitudes, the upside-down Kingdom, and the beauty of loving Jesus more than you love your husband or wife, your job, your children… “For your heavenly Father knows that you need them… Seek first His Kingdom…”

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them.’”

Maybe all of this is like a photo with the light flooding in, where the sun is brighter than it should be, and where the details and difficulties are bleached out in a glowing brilliance. Maybe. You can accuse me of forgetting about making ends meet, of glossing over moribund 9-5’s and of coming home without the strength to hope. I could be guilty of baseless idealism. But this is my point exactly… the Gospel was always counter-intuitively brilliant to me, absurd and unrealistic in this cold world, yet I believe it because of its inexplicable contrast against hopelessness and death.

If we are not light and salt, hands and feet, if we are not the hope we profess or the love that dies to give life, if cynics like me can’t look beyond our naval and hold onto something other than our stark existentialism, well… I would be lost.

Friend, don’t you dare wake up one morning and not know how you got there. And if you ever considered me a friend, don’t let me slide obliviously down that path either.

Faith, hope, and love. Always love.

["Now everybody got the game figured out all wrong. I guess you never know what you got til it's gone.... Do you think about me now and then?..."]

Dear Chicago:

2008-05-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight was my last night with you, wrapped in blankets on the roof of my house, staring at your moon with my friends. It's the second half of May, but you're still so damn cold. I guess some things just won't change.

I sometimes catch myself wishing you were different. That I was different. I sometimes wish humility could have come without the humbling, that friends didn't come with the drama. Sometimes, I wish that your streets were gentler to my thoughts and your songs kinder to my heart. I wish you would have taught me to love rightly and to forget myself more often.

Maybe tomorrow, when I spend my night driving through Ohio listening to Over the Rhine, or next month back under the lights of Tianjin 羊肉 vendors, I won't be so bitter over your painful winters. Maybe, as I look up and see stars under Mongolian skies or neon towers across Victoria Harbour, a smile will greet the thought of my brothers and sisters who all have '08 after their names. After all, however imperfect and odd we were, however fleeting our joy was, you made us beautiful, if only for a moment.

Tomorrow, I'll squeeze the last of Wheaton in my back seat, packed in paper boxes. I'm sure I'll find pieces of you with every familiar face.

I'm leaving you with a broken heart, and I'm not coming back until He fixes it. I'm not coming back until I'm a better person, and your winds no longer cut so deep.

Until then, ciao, buddy. My friends here will hold you down.

Yea, here's to the nights we felt alive.

Love,
Chuck

Remember?

2008-05-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

If I slide your picture underneath a frame,
I can grasp within my two hands
the moment we chose to leave our regrets
like muddy shoes at the door,
and let the whites of our teeth,
the creases at the corner of our eyes
select the memories I choose to recall.

Forget
In that moment, anything
but the lilacs lingering on a breeze
that never seems to leave this windy city
Unlike us, who,
with our patchwork hearts,
begin to drive, fly, walk,
RUN.
away from all that we chose not to frame.

If I slide your picture underneath a frame,
We will fossilize our smiles,
reignite our conversations with,
“Remember that time in Chicago...
That night... on spring break...
... Remember?”
We will dance around the demons slain by the Holy Ghost,
and will toast to the amnesia outside the frame.

This is the Way the World Ends, Not With a Bang But a Whimper

2008-05-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

What's the point of not drinking if I'm going to wake up with a pounding pain behind my eyes? What's the point of not saying goodbye if I'm still going to think about you?

The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

Praying Our Goodbyes

2008-05-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a prayer that our prof left us with today:

I give you praise, God of my journey,
for the power of love, the discovery of friends, the truth of beauty
for the wonder of growth, the kindling of fidelity, the taste of transformation
for the miracle of life, the seed of my soul, the gift of becoming
for the taste of the little dyings which have strengthened me for this moment
for the mystery of journey, the bends in the road, the pauses that refresh
for the faith that lies deep enough to permeate discouragement and anxiety

I give you thanks, God of my journey,
for all I have learned from the life of Jesus of how to say goodbye
for those who have always stood near me and given me spiritual energy
for your strength on which I can lean and your grace by which I can grow
for the desire to continue on, for believing that your power works through me
for being able to love so deeply, so tenderly, so truly
for feeling my poorness, my emptiness, my powerlessness
for believing that you will care for me in my vulnerability

I ask forgiveness, God of my journey,
for holding on too tightly
for refusing to be open to new life
for fighting off the dying that’s essential for growing
for insisting that I must be secure and serene
for ignoring your voice when you urged me to let go
for taking in all the goodness but being reluctant to share it
for doubting my inner beauty
for resisting the truth of my journey home to you

I beg assistance, God of my journey,
to accept that all of life is only on loan to me
to believe beyond this moment
to accept your courage when mine fails
to recognize the pilgrim part of my heart
to hold all of life in open hands
to treasure all that is gift and blessing
to look at the painful parts of my life and to grow through them
to allow your love to embrace me on the empty and lonely days
to receive the truth of your presence
to trust in the place of “forever hello”

(-Joyce Rupp)

Amen.

One Last Huzzah for Chi-City

2008-05-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

To think oneself away from thoughts
is really like
hiring a beaver
to dam[n] Lake Michigan.

The PSI of driving by…
(under the yellow bellies of sliding street lights)
… concrete we’ve kissed with our feet,
coat still laced with our sins,
vaults my liver, lungs, heart, brain
tenuous and shifting
like the shadows unable to stand still.

3:57 AM

2008-04-27T10:56:00.001-07:00

I crawled underneath my covers
Just as birds heralded another rotation of this world
Premonitions that should weigh no more than feathers
Are the hardest, heaviest of masters

"The tyranny of the shoulds,"
Bending my body and soul
Soul and body, no dualism here,
Upon my sheets like a vice
Perhaps I may yet wring a drop of wisdom out of the down

"I am who the Lord has made me."

Mantras to wash my trembling mind in truths
Too bland, too dense for me to palate.

Words do not breathe deeply upon my chest
Ideas are not soft upon my skin
The weights of balancing paradox, treading the gray,
Scrambling to hold both story and reality in my embrace...

Warmth is found in your flesh, flushed with life
And the ever haunting holy ghost.

Visions, thus, not so easily forgotten.

For Gabe

2008-04-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

A bit of scoff blows through my nostrils
At those who insinuate or aver,
“Here, spoken in my syllables
Printed upon this page,
Measured by the electrochemical activity in my frontal lobes,
I, we, us,
Possess, here, now,
Answers.”

What secret have you unearthed,
That which has eluded the likes of
Socrates, Augustine, Nietzsche, Freud

Answer
The demands of the scars upon my knuckles
Patches of hardened, darkened skin as reminders of
A joke you no longer share with us.
We no longer hear.
Cracked in your name.

You too had a patch.
A laugh, a swagger in your stride,
But no answers for fools like us.

Thoughts After a Play

2008-04-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

How is it that love can simultaneously be the most potent, reality changing, existence affirming "force," yet so often be misguided, hollow, ephemeral, and that which has the capacity to cause or receive the greatest suffering all in one breath? How can something so good, only conceptually touched upon in its purest form, be so corrupt and twisted? How can it simultaneously be more real then the floor I sit on, yet be as intangible as the shadow of a lifting fog?

... And why can't we turn it all off when we so desperately need a breath?

The week from hell has turned into merely the week from the intermediary state (or the week from purgatory, if you're Catholic)

2008-04-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

I've decided that if ever there was a day to be thankful, today is it, for the following reasons:

1. Feeling grass, pebbles, and warm concrete underneath my toes.
2. A neuroscience brain lab test that got moved to next week.
3. Buying lemonade from little kids for .25 cents.
4. A warm wind.

If I cannot be thankful today, I'm hopeless.

Sur le fil et Comptine D'un Autre Ete-L'Apre

2008-04-15T00:38:00.000-07:00

At 3 in the morning when the really early birds are already singing and night owl friends are hardly sleeping, the word "hope" sounds strangely bright, anachronistic and misplaced amidst an emotional landscape that feels and smells like a monochrome portrait of New Orleans after Katrina.

We do not hope in ourselves, because one cannot hope in the death within, but must hope in life from without. We cannot hope in our contortions of dreams because they lack the substance to support reality. We cannot hope in the past because hope yearns forward by definition. We do not even hope in hope itself, because unless the object of hope cannot disappoint, we will be left again with our empty hands trying to cover our naked hearts.

And though we dirty our knees with our nose in the dirt and eyes out of focus, rolling the Kyrie off our tongue like the tears that follow gravity down interesting lines of our face, we cling, like the bleeding woman for what seems like 12 broken years, to the frayed edges of Hope hoping... hoping against hope that if we don't let go, He will say, "Child, your faith has healed you."

In whom shall I trust? In whom shall I hope?

4/6/08

2008-04-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

"I want to say that this was a mistake... The hurt of right now wants to blame everything on mistakes.. on foolishness.. on selfishness... but I know I shouldn’t be so hard on myself... I really did try the best that I could, even if they were mistakes. I have to keep telling myself that it’s not so wrong to hurt so much, that this is part of the process of things, and that the Lord has taught me a lot. And I have to hold on to the fact that there will be a better day... one in which I am not so broken... one in which I will be able to smile. It’s really hard believing that, especially since I’m so uncertain about the things that I used to be so sure about... things that I looked forward to, my motivation for pressing on.

Please Jesus, keep my eyes on You... even if all my other ideas and constructs fall, never let me go, because I’m terrified of where that leads... Please be my rock. If You strip me of all I have, please remain the rock upon which I am broken. May every one of my tears fall on you..."

2008-04-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

The heaviness of the heart
finds its manifestation as the weights
that drag the soles of our feet…
How we sink.
Oh, we are broke.

Daydream in a Wednesday Night Class

2008-03-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

Like a liquid painting
I hear the wind chimes sing,
the ones sitting watch outside my window
played carefully, intentionally
by the breeze that hums
past the trees and kisses their leaves
sweeping up their secrets
whispering them to those still enough
to listen to those melodies smile.

This...
This is the way it should be.

3/23/08

2008-03-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

“Having it together”... I want to say it’s overrated. I want to say we should be able to break down and be ok with it. But in the end, the purpose of the breakdown is so that I can “have it together” again afterwards, because in this world, I need to be functional. I need to be able to study and take tests, write papers and concentrate. I can’t afford to sit around all day trying to “get better.” The difficulty is finding that delicate balance where I have the peace and freedom to lick my wounds while continuing to find ways of functioning.

I've been trying to make the most of the last few weeks I have here. I’ve been trying to keep my eyes on the glass that’s half full hoping that I can ignore the emptiness that screams at me. It screams in my face, and it seems like all I can do is squeeze my eyes shut, plug my fingers in my ears and yell back, “Lalalalala I’m not listening!”

Who the hell am I fooling?

The Beauty of Easter Lilies

2008-03-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

I came home with some Easter Lilies today. I couldn't bring myself to keep them in my room.

A friend sent this to me yesterday:

The Fortieth Day: Holy Saturday

MARK 15:47
"Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid."

Stone Cold. And the stone is closed. Where do I go from here? Nowhere. Back to the city. Which is a nowhere now. The Master isn't there. The Master is not. Everywhere is nowhere. There's nowhere to go.

What do I do? I don't know what to do. Nothing. The Sabbath has started. So what? So, if I pray I'll be mouthing the sounds. Nothing. And if I pray a vain repetition, what then? Will Heaven be offended? Well, Heaven has offended me!

Joseph's stone is like the period that stops the sentence. Boom! - the story's done. And when the story's over, the very air is empty. No place for me. No home for my soul. Silence. Why do I keep standing here? It's dark. It's midnight. Everyone's gone home. Except me. Abandoned. Nothing.

Why can't I leave the tombs?
Because the whole world is a graveyard. Because this is the one that has my Lord.
Jesus! Jesus! Without you I am a nothing in a nowhere!
You are dead.
My world is annihilated.
And still - I love you.

Mary, do this:
Even in your despair, observe the rituals. It is the Sabbath; then let it be the Sabbath after all. Pray your prayers. However hollow and unsatisfying they may feel, God can fill them. God is God, who made the world from nothing- and God as God can still astonish you. He can make of your mouthings a prayer-and of your groanings a hymn. Observe the ritual. Prepare your spices. Return on Sunday, even to this scene of your sorrow, expecting nothing but a corpse, planning nothing but to sigh once more and to pay respects.

One story is done indeed, my Magdalene. You're right. You've entered the dark night of the soul.

But another story- one you cannot conceive of (it's God who conceives it!) - starts at sunrise. And the empty time between, while sadly you prepare the spices, is in fact preparing you! Soon you will change. Soon you will become that holy conundrum which must baffle and antagonize the world: a saint. Saint Mary Magdalene. "As dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things" - that host of contradictions, the beauty of Spirit, the puzzle of all who know him not, the character of the Saints!

Come again on Sunday, Mary, and see how it is that God makes saints.
Come, follow.

from Reliving the Passion by Walter Wangerin Jr.

A word from Dr. Robinson in response:

"And this is the wonder that is Easter, but the dark night must come first. Then and only then--God, amazing us with that other story out there that we could not conceive of!

But through our dark nights, when as with Mary going to the tomb, or Jonah in the belly of the whale, we still love, we still follow."

Amen.

Meditations on a Good Friday

2008-03-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

More so than any other day, the humanity in the suffering of Jesus should speak volumes to us today. The death of the divine Christ was to reconcile us to God, His blood paving the way to the throne of God. The church teaches this well.

But the suffering... the angst laced with blood that soaked the dirt of the garden, as much as the church stresses the divinity of Christ (and rightfully so), that was the blood of a man crushed by the will of the Father. Here was a man who wished his friends to at least keep him company as he struggled to stand underneath the burden. Here was a man who wished desperately to drink from a less painful cup.

And so Jesus, the Son of God, yet in every sense of the word, the Son of (hu)Man(ity), bones of my bones and flesh of my flesh, suffered. He hungered, he wept, he ran his fingers through children's hair, felt the coolness of wine run down his throat, reclined and treasured the presence of his friends, and here, his sympathetic nervous system threw itself into high gear knowing that every second brought him further suffering.

The humanity of Jesus suffered. Like us, he suffered. In Scripture, the Passion happens in a few chapters. It is read within the matter of minutes. In the reality of time and space, it took hours. Days.

And for three days, God himself was silent in the grave, giving no answers to those who wept or those who now huddled themselves, locked with fear and confusion as their companions. They themselves must have cried, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani??"

If God did not spare his son... then... how about us?

It is the divinity of Christ that validates and vindicates suffering of his humanity. It is the status of "Son" that reminds the rest of his very human adopted brothers and sisters that silence and darkness in a grave is not a sin, but the path taken by Christ himself. From the smiles that creased the corners of his eyes, to the unrestrained sobs at Lazarus' grave, our broken humanity was vindicated by God himself.

And on the road into Jerusalem upon a donkey, to the road he stumbled through towards Golgotha, to the road headed towards Emmaus, both his divinity and his humanity remind us that we are to live our lives as journeys, never static, never certain of what praise, suffering, or surprises might meet us along the way.

But one thing we know. Jesus, the one who has both suffered and rejoiced, walks beside us. And as he runs or crawls with us, he reminds us that though three days of silence and darkness felt like a lifetime, a Good Sunday is on its way.

We All Struggle With Forward Motion

2008-03-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

It's frightening to wake up one day, instead of being in your bed, to be lying naked on the dirt upon which your house once stood. The walls that you spent so much time propping up, the furniture you spent time amassing... it never was a very beautiful house, with crooked door frames and uneven floorboards. The paint never really matched and the roof had torrential leaks on bad days. But this is where you lived, spent all your time trying to install support beams to keep it standing, nailing patches to the holes in the ceiling... this is what you had tried so hard to build for so long.

You gave them permission to take it down because day after day, they reminded you that it didn't pass the inspection codes. It was unsafe and unsightly. On the good days, the beams of sun that escaped through the cracks and holes brought life to the damp rooms, a romantic picture worthy of being mounted with a silver frame. But when it rained, it was so damn cold, and no memory could comfort the bones of such a dense reality.

You gave them permission to bulldoze it. You gave it up willingly, because your hands had forgotten what anything other than the heaviness of a hammer felt like, and your skin had grown pale with the dark.

You gave it up, but you never expected the wind to howl so eerily or the ground to be so empty. The weeds that grew at the feet of the foundation now brush against a damp line in the dirt. When all that's ever surrounded you were your falling walls and broken windows, not having them as the very last musings of night and the very first stirrings of morning can make you wonder how one can fill this unnerving vacancy...

Random Inflammatory Thoughts on a Sunny Thursday Morning

2008-03-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

China is a product of its own propaganda... it has yet to see that the roots of their problems might actually be their own actions.

Is Rev. Wright really that outrageous? I seem to agree with most the things he says. The comments sound racist mostly because many white Americans have the privilege of being oblivious to the reality of those who are not like them, until it smacks them across the face, and it sounds foreign to their ears. Wrights sermons are not foreign to those whose legitimate anger and experiences have been ignored for so long. They are actually borderline prophetic.

I would really like a president with humility, honesty, and integrity like Obama, someone who recognizes limitations, values dialog, and holds personal conviction even at the the possible cost of his image.

America really needs to get its head out of its ass and get over itself. Stop thinking we're hot shit and start realizing that we've pissed a lot of people off, everywhere. Blind paternalistic patriotism that associates a certain ethnocentric lifestyle with "the right way" really has "brought the chickens home to roost."

I'm deeply grateful for professors who understand that mental and spiritual damage control is more important than studying for a test. Mercy is like a drink of cold water to a parched soul. Too bad it's seldom found in the "real world."

Good Friday and Easter Sunday. *I* should probably get my head out of my ass and get over myself.

"On my knees, empty..."

2008-03-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, no, oftentimes, I wish life was not the way that it was.

It's an acquired skill to appreciate and be thankful for the small beauties that keep our heads up, but it's sad that we need to resort to that. It implies that those beautiful things are the exceptions to the rule, and that most of our days are a struggle.

One day.

Velt

2008-03-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

[To:]
The Crackling Static of my dynamic thoughts.
Do not cut them free,
For without grace or consideration
Lacking mercy
They would needlessly trample and rampage
[Throwing:]
Delicate crystal semblances of carefully turned phrases,
Cautiously constructed frames scaffolding my stoic composure
[Into:]
A sandstorm of a rumbling stampede
Undermining the very tenuous ground underneath our feet.

It's OK to be not OK.

2008-03-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

A month and a half left until graduation. A month and a half left until the end of our college careers. Uncertainties refuse to remain relegated in the damp darkness of our unconscious for much longer. They snarl their threats in grad school rejection letters. They creep behind the masks of questions like, "What are you doing after you graduate?"

We are not our jobs.

We are not our grades.

But we are our community. I won't miss my assignments and papers, but I will miss people who I don't need to explain myself to. I will miss shared experiences that need no words. I will miss my brothers and my sisters who have seen the worst and the best of all I am, who know how I think and have seen me cry.

I remind myself of the ways in which God has worked in my life and how He has directed it, especially in the times He has given me very little choice in the matter. I try to tell myself that this is the case, that if given a choice, I would probably make the wrong one. But the uncertainties ask me if I'm just uttering a mantra to make myself feel better.

I want to actively embrace and prepare for the change that forges toward us like a runaway train. But I don't want it to hit me like one. If I knew how to anticipate the onslaught of frustrations and emotions, I would. But I don't.

My friends tell me that I think too much. (I think it's a control thing).

Henri Nouwen tells me to live in the present.

Where is my faith?

Jesus, I believe. Help my unbelief.

March

2008-03-02T23:01:00.000-08:00

My world melts.
Inches and sheets of winter
Retreat into soggy lawns, spongy beneath my feet.
Saturated, trickle down the street.

I thought I would forever cringe and
Mutter profanities at
The wind. No. Honestly.
The concept of Spring completely,
Left. My. Consciousness.
Learned helplessness.
If not for the Bose sounds of crackling ice
Vert, sandals, and warmth on skin
Would have ceased to exist in my reality.

Imagine, then, the surprise of
Driving with my windows... down and
Gloves off,
Four letter words strangely missed.
Wind sweeping across a lake…
RIPPLES!! (AND NO TEARS!)
Who woulda thunk?

The clouds are definitely orderly.
Maybe rosey.

China: The New White Man

2008-02-29T20:28:00.000-08:00

America is often seen as the arrogant international police, selectively enforcing its views of human rights, waging its Just Wars over oil fields, and ridding the world of its Axis of Evil, one dictator at a time. The Muslim world hates us, our immodesty, and our Zionism. Latin America grudgingly acknowledges its powerful big brother. Africa takes our handouts and confounds our understanding of development. Europe can't understand our strange marriage of religion and politics. And Asia eyes us jealously, waiting for the day the aces shift from the West to the East.

I mentioned China becoming the new World Superpower in the upcoming years, and a friend mentioned that he was excited for America to lose its spot on top.

I questioned whether or not having China on top would be much better.

Now, I'm no IR major or Sinologist, but I am a general pessimist when it comes to the prospects of China becoming an intrinsically motivated positive player on the world stage.

Numerous reasons for this exist. China's power comes from its enormous and exponentially growing economic clout. Since China opened up in the '80s, its tentacles have made significant inroads not only in Western countries, but developing countries and nations with unstable governments as well. Culturally, the accumulation of pelf is of enormous importance to the Chinese. How one attains that wealth, as those familiar with "Chinese Characteristics" will attest, is not subject to a moral standard of integrity. Politically, China's past isolationist attitude and current non-interventionist policies do nothing to abet peace (ex. Sudan and Burma). China has no intentions of leveraging economic clout to bring about stability. In line with stereotypical Chinese business practices, little concern is given to the "lao bai xing," the normal Joes who are affected by cutthroat competition. Much like colonialism and imperialism raped Africa of its resources, China is systematically taking advantage of Africa by what would be equivalent to economic extraterritoriality in African natural resources.

As an example, much of the Chinese mentality of doing business is already heavily ingrained in South East Asia. In Africa, it is the Mzungu (white man) who is viewed as the privileged and powerful minority. In South East Asia, the ethnic Chinese are powerful minorities who live a high life in walled compounds, hire indigenous servants, quite reminiscent of the despised wealth of Mzungus in Africa (which led to purges in places like the Belgian Congo). As terrible as it was for the Chinese, it's no wonder that Indonesia erupted with anti-Chinese riots in the 90's. (Interestingly, the ethnic Chinese are also oftentimes associated with Christianity in these countries.)

For those who know the Chinese perspective of the world, it is hardly a secret that the Chinese are a very proud people. The Chinese have not forgotten their humiliation in the early 1900s by the foreign powers. In many ways, China's show for the world via the Olympics is not about world peace or brotherhood. "One world, One dream" is lip service. The real Olympic tagline should be, "One China, One Power, biotch." It's about Chinese face, and proving to the world that China has finally come of age. Some might point to China's investment in nuclear talks with North Korea, or its previous (but few) deployments of PLA soldiers for humanitarian work, or its changes towards human rights as encouraging. One must notice, however, that in most cases, China either has vested interest in a positive outcome (e.g. North Korea), must deal with an issue because it's causing internal discontent, or is pressured and shamed by foreign powers (in regards to human rights). I wonder what positive international change can come when China becomes top dog and other countries have little leverage over it, since China in its current state seems to lack most parts of the humanitarian/peace/justice engine on cultural, moral, philosophical, theological, and political levels. Democracy and human rights are hardly their worries.

China will certainly play an increasingly enormous role in the world. But I have very little hope that much positive change will come with China's ascent.

Jesus, my Opiate.

2008-02-20T15:02:00.000-08:00

“We may even discover that much of our image of God, and even our reasons for coming to religious faith, have psychological roots. To discover such things creates a great deal of anxiety and can even shake one’s faith. A faith unexamined, however, always runs the risk of being a faith in idols rather than a faith in God.” –Dr. Michael Mangis

We have lived under auspices of modernity and Fundamentalism for so long that most of us have grown up with this need to be “objective” and absolute with our faith. Our churches, the tracts we hand out, the apologetic books we read exist to solidify certainty in our minds, that our faith is logical and worth believing apart from our own needs, able to stand empirically against the “demons” of post-modernity, evolution, and moral decay. We defend our faith against statements like, “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” because it paints us as needy people, and we sure as hell don’t want to be viewed as weak by the world.

The more honest I am with myself, the more I realize I am not objective. Everything I think, say, and do is affected by my experiences, culture, and upbringing. It’s about time that the myth of objectivity lies down to die.

We are so fond of saying, “There’s a God-shaped hole inside of everyone.” Is it so scary to admit that the God-shaped hole might be partly psychological in nature? Is it so wrong to admit that we are indeed weak, and that God is simultaneously our Lord and opiate? Why does it offend our sense of competency to confess that we could not breath without Him? (After all, don’t all things hold together in Christ?) Does our brokenness and need for love and community necessarily make God any less real? The more I know about myself, the more I must confess that I am not strong, but that it is only His grace that is sufficient. It is His strength in my weakness. Actually, I believe that we are all weak. Some of us merely choose to acknowledge it.

In attempting to reconcile the “hermeneutic of suspicion” (recognizing that we are not capable of objectivity) with some Christian absolute truth, Dr. Mangis says the following: “A Christian hermeneutic of humility and confidence, therefore, will answer yes to the first question- there is an authoritative heart of truth- but will answer no to the second- we cannot know that truth with objectivity.” We then, as Christians, are in the pursuit of that truth, but cannot know it absolutely until we see Him face to face, since, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Cor 13:12). We live in the process of coming to know the truth.

In the end, the person and work of Jesus Christ is whom we hang onto. It is the one thing that I know. As Paul said, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

A quote from my journal:

“I’m so glad for Jesus. He keeps my feet grounded and my heart floating. He calls me to stay away from dwelling long in self-pity or anger. He calls me to lift my eyes beyond myself and shows me that there is more to this world than me. His love anchors me when my emotions throw me about. He is unchanging, yet our dynamic relationship is never stale. He is my Lord, for whom I am thankful.”

An Open Apology to My Sisters

2008-02-19T20:34:00.000-08:00

There is guilt that comes along with being a guy. The guilt exists because of the recognition of what so many of my sisters go through... the burdens they carry in trying to achieve attractiveness according to society’s impossible standards, all because that’s what they think they need to be in order to be liked by people, including us “men,” who also agree with what we see on TV and magazines and pornography.

I feel guilty because I know what these images do to women... I can only imagine the feelings of inadequacy and personal dissatisfaction when they compare themselves against the 5’10” model that weighs 115 pounds. And yet, this is what we are trained to be attracted to. I feel guilty because as much as I desire to honor women, there is this dark part of me that has imbibed in objectifying them and dehumanizing them.

And we men... we so actively participate in it, with our words, who we give attention to, who we look at and smile at... how we cold shoulder those we consider to be unattractive.

We see the results of our sin, in women trying to win our approval with their bodies, in the process selling themselves as less than they are. My friends compliment each other on their thinness, or we in our naitivite, try to affirm women with, “On you look nice today!” all the while not knowing that those compliments are reinforcing destructive behaviors among themselves. We talk about personal worth apart from weight and attractiveness, yet that is how so many women, view themselves... that’s how we men view women.

All the while, we men... we sad excuses of brothers, are guilty as hell. I don’t even need to mention the rape, abuse or other sins we commit. It simply saddens me to watch modesty give way to skin, though it undeniably catches my eye. It’s hard to accept that the reason we find a girl physically attractive is because she cares so much about what other people think that she would throw up her last meal (or not eat it at all) to retain her size and shape. I feel as if my attraction silently condones and approves the ways in which women hurt themselves and are hurt by the world. I feel as if in recognizing the sin that runs in me, I cannot vehemently condemn it as it deserves because it crouches at my own door.

I want so badly to be a real blessing to women... to fight against the structures that chip away at their Imago Dei. Yet I participate so deeply in spoken and unspoken ways that oppress them.

I’m sorry sisters, for being such shitty brothers to you. Please show us grace. Please don’t give up on us. Christ is in the business of making us new, is He not?

I'm sorry that this is the most I can offer.

Colbert Gets Psychologically Theological

2008-02-13T13:58:00.000-08:00

Oh, and Happy Valentine's day. I'm going to try to fight my cynicism.

I Can't Stop Thinking About Sex

2008-02-07T16:25:00.000-08:00

Actually, I can't stop thinking about sexuality, who we are as men and women, what intimacy and love mean, identity and security, partly because I'm taking Psychology of Sexuality, but partly because these topics have always interested me. I mean, how can they not? Each of those affect us deeply. It would certainly be in our best interest to better understand the relationships between all those complex subjects, if only for our own sake.

No small thanks to my time in China working with a sexual education curriculum, I seem to have acquired a high degree of tolerance when speaking about issues of sexuality. So, I don't intend to mince words. You have been warned.

I try to avoid pornography. I don't need to go into details about how it seriously messes with men's minds and contemptuously degrades women. (For the former, take Dr. Struthers' Men and Addictions class, or read his book on that topic, almost in print). Though concerning the latter, I am a strict affirmer of aesthetic beauty. There are those of us who are slightly more sensitive to the color of a note or the sound of snowfall. We are winded by nature and can be stopped cold with a painting. I affirm physical beauty in creation as God given, and I echo His statement that "It is good." Asceticism? Hell no.

However, in my bittorrent client (don't worry, if you don't know what that is, it doesn't matter) which I frequently use, the most popular and highest rated files are often those of a soft-core pornographic nature. At best, someone can try to legitimize it by saying, "But I'm simply admiring beauty!" At worst, obviously, there is no excuse except lust. Now, I affirm the physical beauty in women. But lest an analogy goes awry, women are not simply a painting to be gawked at. Our physical selves are simply an aspect of who we are. (I have much more to say about the affirmation of physical beauty in relation to who we are as holistic people, but I'll save that for another day). Perhaps I've been primed to be more keen towards issues of gender, relationships and sexuality since taking the class, but here are a few of my recent thoughts and observations.

Scenario one. I recently watched the French movie "Amelie," which, by the way, was incredible. However, despite its beauty, its view towards sexuality rubbed me the wrong way. Aside from a rather blasé and irreverent view towards sex during most of the movie, a relationship between two strangers is symbolically and literally epitomized using sex as the culmination of intimacy. (If you haven't noticed, that's pretty much the norm in the media's understanding of sex).

Scenario two. I watched the movie "Once," also an unforgettable movie with an intense soundtrack. In this case, the lead character asks to sleep with the girl he just met because he was lonely, causing tension between them for the rest of the movie.

Scenario three. I watched "Juno," a witty and enjoyable movie as well. However, the sex was so out of place and immature, there was no beauty in it, just awkwardness.

Those scenarios all suffer from a common malady, namely a truncated view of sexual intimacy. First, our view towards sexuality suffers from the same disease that plagues the rest of our lives, namely, compartmentalization. We talk about sex as an isolated act. In an attempt to affirm its sanctity, we Christians have elevated it so high on this pedestal that it has become detached from the realities of every day life. It is recognized as pertinent to our nitty gritty existence only so far as to prevent it from happening before marriage. We fail to realize that our sexuality and desires for intimacy go beyond simply the reproductive act of sex, but is rooted in the very core of who we are as men and women, created to live in relationship.

Secondly, sex, I think, has become a sort of idol in Christian circles. "Christian locker room talk" would have me believe that the wedding night will be the most ecstatic and satisfying night of my life. This distorted ideation fails to recognize the complexity of intimacy. I don't believe that sex is the end-all-be-all of intimacy. It is (or rather, should be) a deep manifestation of it, yet the depth of our sexuality and relationships are not limited to sex. Though I am surrounded by gender stereotypes, I find it hard to believe that men are only sex-driven automatons guided by their unwavering desire for phallic satisfaction. In fact, I believe it is this truncated view of sexuality that has deprived us of the opportunity to express and experience intimacy in ways that don't require us to take off our pants.

Pornography, sex without commitment, mechanistic views of sex, all those things bother me because they lack the true intimacy between a man and a woman that makes for a healthy view of sex. In regards to pornography, it elevates, de-contexualizes, and adulterates one aspect of femininity, as if there is nothing more to a woman than her body. It is an ugly excuse for a cheap and broken version of something that is extremely costly but deeply beautiful. However, on the Christian side, idolization of sex, a lack of acknowledgment concerning sexuality, compartmentalization and over-simplification of sexuality might almost be just as harmful. Instead of providing a forum in which men and women can safely explore and discover their identities and relationships with one another as amazingly complex creations, our Christian culture seems content in expounding the dangers of premarital sex. Wouldn't relationships be richer and our lives fuller if the church spent more time encouraging a healthy holistic sexuality? Wouldn't our families be more whole if we went into marriage without fears caused by distorted views and unspoken expectations? Wouldn't it be beautiful to embrace and be at home in the bodies and minds the Lord has given us?

In the end, sex and sexuality cannot be spoken of outside of "the other," as no relational aspect of our lives can. I'll end my rambling with a little note I sent a recently engaged friend who grew up in a broken family:

"There's a hope that the relationships we get ourselves into will turn out better than the ones we grew up in. There's a hope that our marriages will make a family that brings joy, not frustration and pain.

"Here's to hoping eh? Here's to the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that breaks the power of environment, our past, and ourselves. Here's to him who makes all things new."

Lamentations

2008-01-30T09:11:00.001-08:00

Hear me, O Lord,
And forget not your promises.
In the morning, my soul churns like the waves of the sea
And my heart is burdened in the evening.
Remember, O Lord,
The lot of your servant, that I might praise your name,
And proclaim your faithfulness to the ends of the earth.
Your goodness causes me to rise
And your word sustains my heart.
It is in you I place my hope and salvation,
For who is there like you?

Addendums To My Cynicism

2008-01-26T11:36:00.001-08:00

I'm trying really hard, for the sake of wide-eyed and innocent freshmen, to not come off as a cynical and condescending senior. I'm trying to remember what I felt like as a bubbly and energetic social ball of naitivite. I'm trying not to flout normal and polite social conventions just because I have little desire to spread myself thin in relationships. I'm trying to balance my words, because I have not arrived at this point without going through the process that many of them will eventually go through.

And that's the difficulty, isn't it? We forget that it was a journey, and that the things we see and learn have taken time, experience, and most of all, grace. Our self-righteousness, our haughtiness and distance forgets the process it took to get us here. And even then, where is "here," except another point in our lives where we will one day look back upon and say, "Man, I can't believe I was ever there."

Even The Fire is Fake

2008-01-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

A friend and I were having a conversation in front of a fireplace in our school cafeteria. We were talking about the frustrations of being back at homogeneous Wheaton. We were talking about how Wheaton, as the epitome of white American Evangelical culture, values perfection so much that those who struggle, those who do not meet this disturbing subculture's standards of attractiveness, success, or spirituality often feel alienated, condemned, and silenced.

I watched the fire "burn" behind the screen. There was no smell of birch or oak to cling to our shirts. There were no crackles or sparks, and the "wood" has remained in the same artificial state since the fireplace was installed. There was nothing to stoke and nothing to build. The three neat little gas flames remained constant and perfect, reminding me that it was pleasing at first glance, but hardly as mesmerizing as a campfire or even one of the fires up at Honey Rock.

"Be ye perfect as I am perfect," commands the Lord. Yes, but it is the constant struggle that is the reality of life, not the perfection acquired post-eschaton. Thus the ash, the sparks, the smoke, all that is "imperfect" and "dangerous" is silently condemned and transformed into this fake fireplace, ridding it of its richness, idiosyncrasies, smells, and thus, beauty.

It is the struggle, with the presence of Christ, that is beautiful. It is the broken being redeemed and transformed into the new that is attractive, not the artificial facades we put on to impress those other "perfect" Christians who surround us (as if there was such a thing).

This institution is like the fireplace in our cafeteria. Temporarily pleasing to the eye, safe, and not without its warmth. But a real fire... the sometimes intense heat, the glowing embers of burning logs, the crackling of wood, the aroma of a true offering, now that's a beautiful fire.

Hiphop Concerts and Israeli Terrorism

2008-01-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

I went to a Talib Kweli concert last night at the Chicago House of Blues with some friends. A hiphop concert is an interesting place to worship. I love the power of a bass that rumbles through my chest, and words that spit truth without hesitation. One of Talib's songs, "I Try," has Mary J. Blige singing the following:

"An upside down kingdom where life is just not fair
So many suffering cuz deep inside they're scared
Fear pumped into their veins to keep them from their destiny
Where would they be if you and I don't care?"

Recently, news headlines have been pointing to Israel's injustices towards the 1.5 million people living in Gaza. If ever there was a good way of creating more animosity and perpetuating the cycle of hate, Israel continues to do a wonderful job at it. It's response, once again, is disproportionate, ineffective, and being resisted even among members of their own government, not to mention receives harsh condemnation from the UN and Oxfam. How, in the name of all things holy, can Christians just proof text their way to supporting Israel?

In an attempt to save the Gospel, we have truncated it. In an attempt to focus on the root, we consistently ignore or conveniently forget the deep implications of living in the Kingdom, a Kingdom that is more than just "me and my relationship with God" and opposes the powerful and the proud but belongs to the poor and the oppressed. We have neutered the Gospel and sapped its ability to free prisoners when we support those who imprison. We have lost the prophetic voice of the Body when we blindly toe political lines and fail to see that Christ desires Life not just after death, but in the here and now. Our compartmentalization of the Gospel, our dualistic understanding of ourselves and our blindness towards everything that has shaped our priorities, values, spirituality has made us think that life will be all well if people would just pray an acceptance prayer. We miss the fact that it is so often the powers and authorities, the systems in which we blindly participate in and benefit from, that causes the suffering of His children.

It is far easier to tweek our theologies so that our "passions" conveniently eclipse the real difficulties of gray areas and places in our own lives.

Apathy is easy. But ignorance is not bliss. It is not impartial. Does it make our modernist selves uncomfortable to think that we might not have concrete answers to everything, so much so that we are not willing to entertain the questions?

I think back to the time I tried to post on the Facebook wall of a group called "Christians Standing with Israel," and had my post deleted despite the fact that it was civil and simply raised questions. Is this what Christians are made of? Foolish dogmatism and desire to run from the truth? Are we really that afraid of anything that challenges our narrow understanding of the world? (Here's the old post about it).

We are the Pharisees. We are the Sanhedrin. We are those who pound our Bibles and claim to hold the absolute truth, yet sit in the seats of judgment against the sinners and gentiles, not knowing that all the while, we spit in the face of Jesus.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God."

1/18/08

2008-01-18T13:57:00.001-08:00

It’s always about relinquishing. It’s always about opened hands and broken hearts, and admitting that God knows better, because that’s our only option to accept. Such an admission comes from a place of desperation and dependence. It is forced by cold shoulders of realities that we wished were only bad dreams at best, night-terrors at worst. But just because my state is a product of being forced into concession doesn’t make it wrong.

It’s always about relinquishing. It’s about making plans and thinking ideas… it’s about wanting things our way only to have God ask us to give it up. Not because He’s a bully (or so I would like to hope in His defense), but because supposedly, He has something different and better in store. And hope…. Hope is the chain, sometimes the only chain, that ties my motivation and sanity to this earth. If one day I lose hope in what is promised to me, if I lose hope that no matter what happens, there is a God who has assured me of a resurrection and vindication, that will be the day I cease seeing purpose in suffering and pain.

Relinquishing. Relinquishing the dreams that we hold to, the form manifested by our desire for completion and wholeness… it is not the hope for completion that is relinquished, but our conceptualization of it… the idol we have fashioned out of what was deemed, “Very good.” It’s always about relinquishing.

I walked slowly today, in the face of the wind and snow and decided to feel every cold prick sweeping across my exposed skin. Our God is a strange God, one who allows things to break before they are reconstructed, calls us to relinquish every part of our lives, especially the deepest parts, if we are to keep it. What a difficult teaching indeed.

How long, O Lord, do we need to have faith in an ideal before we taste its actualization? And even when we are given it, ironic that I still have to remember, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. May the name of the Lord be praised.”

Things You JUST DON'T FUCKING DO.

2008-01-01T19:48:00.000-08:00

You don't burn down churches with children in them. You just don't.

It's getting ugly in Kenya. I don't know the politics behind it. I don't know Kibaki's story, or why people feel like they need to riot. I don't understand tribalism, and I can't comprehend what comes over someone to set a church on fire with children in it.

For 7 months, China blocked my access to worldnews.com. And now that I have it again, Bhutto's death has been trumpeted, Kenya is degenerating into tribal warfare, and China is starting to up its economic hegemony, not to mention the standard news of suicide bombers, nuclear issues, etc.

Yea, happy new year to everyone. Drink up... this year's gonna be great for everyone around the world. Especially those 80 kids that burned to death because they were trying to run from machetes.

Kyrie eleison... Christe eleison.

'08

2008-01-01T00:01:00.001-08:00

Behold, the old has gone and the new has come.
But I still feel the same.
08.
These are our numbers to claim,
Engraved at the ends of our names.
An end and a beginning are etched in our hearts.
The ebb of time cannot weather the carvings
Chiseled by the very hands of God.

Tonight the air is even,
Obstructing none of the galaxies that light our eyes
A glimpse of what He called "good"
Before our souls became dim.

'08 is but 120 minutes old.
Tonight, my prayers will shed their words and fade into
The stage for the first dreams of this year.

Abrasive Thoughts, Minimally Filtered

2007-12-29T13:36:00.000-08:00

I have a 15 page paper due in 2 days, and I haven't started it yet. I have half a sermon to prepare for about my "missionary endeavors" (cough) in China, but here I am, cursed with a need to write because I feel like I'm caged in this house.

It's the little things that start adding up but have nowhere to go. It's eating these bland tangerines, but having no street vendors outside to sell me sweet little ones. It's having a random spike of electricity in my brain strike the bubble tea neuron, only to realize I can't walk down the street and order at the hole in the wall by saying, "what I usually get, small." It's making lamb kabobs because I miss them so much, and having everyone at the party love them, except myself.

Having spent the last two days snowboarding, it's so strange to be a minority again. Being dropped in white youth culture... that's culture shock with 3 shots of expresso and an uppercut. And the Asians here, they all speak perfect English. Where are the Korean and Chinese accents? Where is the bad fashion sense and inability to apply makeup?? When I walked out the ski lodge and a punk made a racial comment, I wanted to physically relieve my frustration on his face.

I felt like a muzzled dog when I couldn't yell "fu wu yuan!" in the Chinese restaurant. (Why does the food just suck??)

Gah! Why is everything so damn expensive?!

It's strange to be a minority again. Self-consciousness is probably mostly internal, but it exists nonetheless.

People, things, feel so myopic here.

I said it before I went to China, and I'll say it again... I have no desire to stay here.... My heart has too much wanderlust.

On the 857 (Tianjin)

2007-12-11T04:16:00.000-08:00

What is it about empty Chicago lanes?
The gentle purr in my bones and lull of the lines
- - - - - - -
Heading east on Roosevelt, then I290
Alone.

Drive.

Red lights turn green in their own time.
They hustle for no man.
Street lamps cast my shadow
Like a broken record, from front to back
In clips and phrases
Again.
And again.
And again.

DRIVE.

Lean this tired head on a frozen pane of glass
The clarity that keeps me separated from 80 mile bursts
Of the Lake’s December wrath.
There’s nowhere to lean a tired soul though,
Not when The Roots are laying down:
“Still your sunken heart thumpin’ like a kick in a snare.”

DRIVE, Damnit.

Where??
Cross the bridge. The concrete towers loom.
Empty.

Michigan Ave can’t take my thoughts
Far enough from here.

No, not when you’re the one driving my mind.

"A penny for your thoughts, a nickel for your kiss, a dime if you tell me that you love me."

2007-12-09T04:36:00.000-08:00

Platonic love.

I'm not sure that there was any decent resolution to this year's Gender Series chapels. (Not that I actually heard them. Only that there wasn't anything brilliant said.)

My thoughts, in short, (as if you cared):

Yes, it is possible.
Yes, I think gender always gets in the way from one side or the other, at some point or another, if only whispered quietly and momentarily in the dark recesses of the mind, but is far from insurmountable.

Here here, I raise a question for you.

Can you think of any better indicator of a platonic friendship between a male and a female than their open discussion of attraction towards/relationship with someone else?

And thus, is it safe to measure one's "platonic-ness" with another in light of such discussions?

(There are, of course, a few caveats to that, as there are to most things in life. Namely, we're assuming this "sharing" is not an attempt to manipulate or make the other party jealous.)

Plus, awesome-points for those who can tell me where that title comes from without Googling it.

Canvas Seas

2007-12-05T00:02:00.001-08:00

Worlds apart become worlds collide
As my lives start to bleed across the lines
Unspokens borne out of one affair
Drip and drag their scarlet drops
That seep across these canvas seas
Echos of prayers blown continents far
Cords of distant narratives lacerate local hearts
Convolute my palette
Rend composure, coherency apart.

My Muse is a Hag (Who Lives on Government Cheese)

2007-11-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

If I didn’t know better
[Or if the world were like me]
I would think that artists learned to tickle the keys
To paint the notes they could not see
And puerile musicians with only 4 chords
Spilled the inkwell to blot out silence.
I’d think writers were poets
Who were packrats with words
And poets who attempted free verse as such
Were lazy and sucked at making thoughts rhyme
[So I slapped on a bumper sticker that screams:
Po-Mo! Creative! Unique!]

If painters were seraphim
And poets were saints,
I would be me.
Scraping month old paint chips off the palette
Closing my eyes to miss the sour keys
[If I hit them, it’s called Jazz.]
Telling myself that free verse has enough space
To let me act a fool.

My thoughts lean heavy against my eyes
And I can’t tell if it’s my soul or my gut that’s rotund and full.
Something heavy inside me churns like butter.
An ocean? A storm? (Dysentery?)
[No, pick some spiritual imagery.]
It’s the Holy Ghost haunting me, according to Over the Rhine.

Whatever notions, vague premonitions
Whatever desires to create like God
and speak existence into the unspoken,
All that is hope and frail and much broken,
Is but a spark caught flickering on an unfocused camera frame,
While the inferno dances out past the corner of my eye.

A letter for Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T04:59:00.000-08:00

I suppose now is a good time to sit and think of all the reasons we should be thankful.

The first part is the sitting. Some of us (who work in offices), feel like we do that an awful lot. In fact, for 8.5 hours a day, I sit in a cheap office chair in front of my Macbook and fidget away. So why sit anymore?

Perhaps the sitting I'm thinking about isn't so much the physical position of our gluts on some padding. Perhaps I mean more of the spiritual sitting... a position of rest, but also of attentiveness, a position that is difficult to attain when our minds are overrun with time lines and schedules, people to meet and events to attend, assignments to complete and on and on. Our spirits are seldom still enough to just sit. I am thankful that I can sit.

"Be still and know that I am G-d."

I'm sitting on a couch, house sitting for some friends, who left banana chocolate chip muffins for me. (Crappy HNGR intern? Guilty as charged. But boy is guilt delicious.) Through the concrete ceiling, I hear someone sight-reading hymns on a piano and some foreigners w-rshipping on a brisk Thursday night in November, halfway across the world from the rest of their families. I'm thankful that family goes beyond our blood, but is found wherever there is His blood. In so many ways, we are exiles. But in so many ways, we find Home wherever we are.

There is a certain amount of restlessness in my heart. Pages and pages of journal will attest to the desires that demand a hearing. But even journals get tired of hearing the same things day in and day out. There is never full resolution. There is never full resolve. And what tomorrow looks like... what next semester looks like, I cannot say. But from our thoughts down to the core of creation, there is a yearning for completion. I am thankful that we are never left alone, nor are we without a promise.

I read this in 1st Peter today:

"To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion… according to the foreknowledge of G-d the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for the obedience to J-sus Chr-st and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you." (ESV)

Ironic that we are elect. Chosen, loved, the children of He who rules the Hosts of the universe. And yet... we are ragged, dirty exiles with our hearts on that place we call Home.

No matter where you're getting your dose of tryptophan and football, how close or far you are from those you love, go on and sit. Be still. And even if you have every reason in the world to be ungrateful, let the Spirit of He who bought us with his blood bring you a thankfulness that transcends understanding. If you think you feel close to home, might I remind you that we are yet a ways off. But if you feel far and lost, He is nearer than You know.

Friends, my Family, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Most sincerely,
Chuck

Words In My Head (... Like misfits after midnight begging for a light)

2007-10-18T00:10:00.001-07:00

Words are funny little things. The can draw blood and they can cure in ways that doctors can't. They can bring down empires and erect new ones. They can reveal the hidden, or they can hide the truth. They can paint more vividly than a brush and A carefully phrased sentence can insinuate and evade at the same time. It can serve to both appease our own need to reveal without actually doing so. And if we claim true ownership of our words, if they were born out of tears, experience and grace, then they are more than scribbles on a page or blips on a screen. They are more than academic and hypothetical ideas to be considered, critiqued and dissected. They can be the very portions of our hearts upon which those lessons were branded.

Dole them out with caution, lest you give something you never intended to.

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

2007-10-07T01:35:00.000-07:00

Are we ever "where we need to be?" On one hand, isn't it possible to be in G-d's will, and isn't that then "where we need to be?" But on the other hand, isn't the nature of sanctification the reality that we aren't where we need to be, and thus we are getting to that place we're supposed to be? The former allows us to live in shalom with what G-d has given (or not given) us. It facilitates the process of living in the present. However, the reality of the latter is like a thorn in the mind, heart and spirit. The realization that our thoughts and motives count just as heavily as our actions (Sermon on the mount), yet we are to act in accordance with what is right even when our motives and thoughts are rebellious remains, to me, a difficult anomaly.

This is ever the tension of our lives... acknowledging the legitimacy of our feelings without necessarily living by them. Struggling to live right even when our motives are questionable. Through all of these paradoxes runs a thread of attempted faithfulness, often faltering... a faithfulness that I pray is honored even when I cannot straighten or sweep out the depths of my intentions.

The Spirit prays for us when we do not have the words... but I think He also prays for us when our motives are muddled.

You gotta know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em...

2007-09-17T01:43:00.000-07:00

Nouwen likes to say that we each have our own crosses to bear, referring to the unique weaknesses and burdens we each possess. However, with deference, I believe that the analogy, when used in the context of our faith, should not be tossed around in its colloquial meaning. Chr-st is the bearer of our cross, and it is upon the cross that we have been crucified with Him, dead to ourselves.

Perhaps a more apt New Testament allusion would be to say we all have our thorns in the flesh. Like Paul, we have those demons in our lives that seem to haunt us no matter how much we pray for them to be taken away. Paul called his a “messenger of Satan.” Three times he prayed to be relieved of his curse, and three times the Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient. My strength is made perfect in your weakness.”

Ever since I realized that running away doesn’t do much to solve problems, I’ve attempted to take the challenge of facing them head on, no matter how difficult. In the few short years that I’ve attempted to hold that standard, there have been two things that I’ve realized.

First, no matter how honest we are with ourselves or with other people, some things just take time. A single conversation, albeit a bold and necessary one, does not automatically fix things. No matter how hard we try with something, we can only do so much. The rest is in the placating and neutralizing effects of time. Free will also dictates that a positive response cannot be forced… it is between the other person and G-d. Time, in the hands of G-d, becomes an important catalyst for healing and growth. It is also in this span of silence that we must strive to remain as faithful as we can, in spite of our sometimes quasi self-deluded attempts at justifying our actions. (How’s that for qualifiers?)

Second, after facing the reality of our weaknesses and sin, and after wrestling with them like Paul, I think it’s ok to come to the conclusion that they are our own unique thorns, our very own customized messengers of Satan who won’t leave us alone. We might have to bear our vices and our scars longer than we would prefer, so that we are humbled enough to know that it is G-d’s grace that sustains us, not our ever-improving, ever-victorious holy and righteous self discipline and willpower. And if we indeed live in a fallen world where our hearts are broken and our thoughts distorted, where our bodies and all of creation groan for the culmination of redemption, then it might be ok to embrace the idea that though sanctification is a process, some of these curses will indeed remain with us until all is made right. If the case is that a given thorn refuses to change, then for your own sake, know when to walk away and know when to run. It’s not faithfulness or bravery to fight a battle that cannot be won. Run. (Joseph ran from Potiphar’s wife. David ran from Saul). Run until your legs can no longer move, because if you believe in Chr-st’s return, then you’ll also know that your running is not cowardice or ignorance, but the proper response until Someone else ultimately takes care of business.

The message most people probably need to hear is to stop and fight. But for others, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to know when to run.

Rain, rain, go away!

2007-09-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

After waiting two weeks to play Ultimate, it was rained out, yet again.