Morte Christe

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.

$120,000 and 4 Years Later...

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.

Redemption of Place

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.

Dear Chicago:

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

Praying Our Goodbyes

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.

Addendums To My Cynicism

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

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.

Three Stripes on a Puffy Sleave Means You're Better.

I don't mind driving from Wheaton to Jersey. It gives me lots of time to think.

I was listening to some Talib Kweli when in the middle of his song "I Try," Mary J. Blige sings about the upside down Kingdom. For some reason, those words contrasted so sharply with what I feel like Wheaton can be about sometimes. Achievement, success, degrees and graduate schools, well-dressed banquets, smiles, formalities, and hors d'hoeurvs with movers and shakers... they have their place in this world and culture. They have their purposes and necessities, but they have left me feeling grimy. I bit the hook, got snagged on things like admiring the Prof's gowns and wondering how mine will look, and now I feel like I have to scrape a layer of dirt off myself.

An upside down Kingdom, one that consists of the poor in spirit, mourners, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted. If that indeed is what the Kingdom will look like, why do I feel so far removed from the Kingdom, as if it were only something I could reach through books and biographies? Why do I feel my calling cede ground to comfort, status, and my own interpretation of it?

"Listen my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?" -James 2:5

What does it take for all my misdirected energy, tears, and efforts to be pointed back to my first love and His kingdom?