Friday, July 15, 2016
Feeling pretty battered today Lord... pretty beaten up and worn down. Perhaps it's just because it's piled up on top of the job searching, apartment searching, future searching, trying not to let fear and anxiety take root and stifle the life out of me...
The undercurrents of sorrow and desperation in our country - in our world...
And on top of all that the Pokemon Go fiasco with people in church.
To be honest I'd give it up in a heartbeat if I thought it necessary or that you were asking me to - but I feel tied into this in the sense that I would be doing it simply because someone somewhere says it's wrong and too dangerous.
Along with it then I feel I should give up so many books that have mattered to me - ones with "gods" in them - questionable music - questionable movies - that I should eat, drink, sleep Christian stuff - only Christian stuff - because it's the only "allowed" form of entertainment - the only place You supposedly show up - although I have personally experienced that not to be true.
I feel like Scripture is used in both arguments - but of course my side is "suspect" and twisting Scriptures according to the other side - and honestly I feel like the Scriptures they're using relate to the actual worship & act of calling upon demons or idols... not anything remotely related to anything non-Christian or "other-religion" related...
Honestly... I feel like it's a little ridiculous that I'm allowing this to get under my skin - to make me question everything I believe in and my understanding of Your character and who You are or whether I'm doing everything all wrong - or whether I'm actually a believer at all - or whether I'm a actually a "real Christian" or should be Christian at all...
I mean - it isn't like the Church hasn't had this discussion over and over again in my life - on Harry Potter - on various movies - on video games - on books - my sources of entertainment - my entire life I feel like is constantly being called into question by "experts in the field."
They would be appalled by what I read - destroy what I write - look at what I watch - what I listen to - who my friends are - and determine that all I am is living a life of active rebellion against You and I'd dare not even tell them some of my private musings and intimate beliefs that I share with few because I'm not sure they're anywhere correct but I still wonder about them anyways.
I feel myself shrinking back into myself - simultaneously torn by the desire not to be pressured into someone else's definition of who I ought to be - but also terrified that I'm getting it all wrong - I'm getting YOU all wrong.
My atheistic and agnostic friends would read all of this and their hearts would break for me. "See," they would say, "This is why your religious belief is terrible. It is a bully beating you down - being used to control and conform you and strip from you all the gifts of who you are and the joy you could bring into the world. Why do you keep to this?!"
I want to tell them that You're bigger than that - that there's so much MORE that we don't see - that You break down barriers and set people free - both from the burdens of this world and enslavement to things we don't even know have gotten their hooks into us - that You are a vast and incredible God - one who spoke the Universe into being - spun the stars into motion - that you spark with life and joy and complexity... that there's so much to You that I don't understand and Your justice and holiness is chief amongst those things - but it's worth it... It's so worth it to enter into this journey with you - through the heartache - pain - and confusion. It's worth it for the joy - the intimacy - the help - the transformation - to love as never before - to experience life through the eyes of eternity instead of just right now... to know and trust that there is something infinitely bigger - infinitely greater - infinitely loving - and that You know my name and care about me.
In the light of that - Pokemon - books - movies - whatever - they pale... they wash out. WHO CARES I want to shout this is an INFINITE, VAST, and LOVING God and I want to lose myself in Him - not in shoulds or should nots or examining every facet of my life in an attempt to discover if there is any hidden sin - You search me, O God - I've done all I feel that I can and that I should in order to stand with integrity and honesty before You - but that isn't to say I didn't miss something - or even a whole lot of somethings.
... But even I am struggling to believe it all right now...
Father - I am willing - I would give the moon and back to You if you would ask and I could give it. I would do anything You required of me - but first I feel like I need to rest and abide in You as I am because otherwise I am not sure I can.
And yet I feel like I can't. I can't rest. Maybe because I'm not worthy - maybe because I'm not trusting you - may because... a million reasons why? Maybe I'm waiting to get permission?
From who? You? Myself? Someone else?
Back to spinning thoughts...
Back to my spiraling descent into paralyzing fear and that familiar inability to breathe...
The weight of faith is crushing me right now Father - or perhaps it is disbelief - all I know is that I feel pinned and as though I am slowly suffocating in desperation...
It isn't just Pokemon - it's everything - and I feel crushed.
I am terrified to open Your Word... terrified of what I might read and how perhaps it might crush me even more... But I find myself reaching out in the hopes that perhaps it might be like water to my soul - perhaps it may even bring me relief.
"As the deer pants for water
So my soul pants for you,
My soul thirsts for you, O God
for the living - vibrant - true God -
When shall I come and appear before You?
My tears have been my food,
day and night,
While they say to me all the day long,
"Where is your God?"
These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude partying in joy.
Why are you downcast, O my soul?!
Why so disturbed within me?!
Hope in God - Hope in God - Hope in God - Hope in God
for I shall (someday? [again] now?) praise him
my salvation and my God.
Despite all my efforts - my soul IS downcast within me
Therefore I remember you -
from the land of rescue - the place of salvation - from the mount of peace/rest
from the valleys - to the heighest heights - and the hills in between...
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls
all your breakers and waves have crashed over me
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God - my rock,
"Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?"
As with a deadly wound in my bones
my adversaries taunt me,
while their voices in my head and heart say all day long,
"Where is your God?"
Why are you downcast, O my soul -
Why so disturbed within me??
Hope in God - just keep hoping in God - do not give up - just keep trying
hold on for dear life to that Hope - He is Good - He is Good - He is Good -
He is Good - He is Good - He is Good - He loves me. He loves me.
He loves me. He loves me. He loves me. He is Love. He is Love. He is Love.
He is Love. He is Love. He is Good. He is Good. He is Good. He is Good.
You can Trust him. Trust Him. TRUST HIM. Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope.
"Hope" is the thing with feathers --
that perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
(Emily Dickinson)
Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.
Hope. Hope. Hope in the Lord - Hope in the Lord - O my soul - and hold onto for dear life onto that hope. hope in God --
For I shall again (someday? now?) praise him, my salvation (He is my salvation - He will rescue me - He will not leave me alone or abadoned. He has always come for me in the past - He will again - wait for Him - wait for Him - wait for Him - wait for Him - wait wait wait - hope hope hope) and my God.
I will yet praise Him - I will yet praise. Him.
my salvation and my God.
(Psalm 42)
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
July 13, 2016
I read a post today from someone I generally respect about how Pokemon was basically from the devil and felt my last reserves crumble away.
It has less to do with either the ridiculousness or the validity of his point of view - I think you would say you have more important things to worry about than Pokemon if you were here - and maybe that's kind of the point.
I feel like the rich man who sadly walked away after you told him to sell everything and come follow you.
I always had thought how sad that material wealth had kept this man from experiencing the full life of adventure he could've had with you - but today I feel like that sad man.
Like someone who has willingly laid so much at your feet - my future - my marriage - my passions - my talents - my trust - my insecurities - my weaknesses - my infirmities.
Like I have tried for the last several years to be content with where you have me - trusting that there is a reason. That I have wrestled both with understanding and being willing to come alongside of those "of your flock" and those "not of your flock" and wrestled with YOU - to trust and love you - to give thanks for all the blessings of my life while trying not to cling to them more tightly than you.
I'm not trying to say that I've been perfect, or even that I have been a model Christian - but I have done my best to faithfully follow after you with the hope and trust that my best is enough and you have grace enough to cover all my failings - because without that grace I am lost - truly lost - and unable...
And after all of that - after all these years - I feel like the young man who has come to you eager with all I have to give and you have told me it isn't enough.
You don't just want my happiness -- you want to take my comfort - you want whatever little pleasure I may get out of whatever distractions I may have - my books, Pokemon, movies - any escape from the world that gives me momentary relief - that allows me to breathe for a second - you want me to freely give that up for you and be willing to be 100% present - all the time - to the pain and suffering and sorrow that is wracking this world with shuddering sobs and making everything tremble to pieces like an earthquake.
And it's too much. I don't know that I can enter into that with you Father. This is too much for me to bear and I cannot bear it alone.
And even though I know you tell me I am not alone - that you will be there with me - I want to throw your hand off me with anger and disgust. This is what an abusive relationship feels like - a deep co-dependent twisted relationship where we throw everything away for each other. And everything in my life and experience has taught me that these relationships end only in toxicity and destruction.
But I am no man.
You remind me...
Yes - but I AM - just a human - just dust - and you're asking me to give anything and everything I may ever trust - take delight in - anything that gives me space to simply be - to tear down every defense, every wall - and to be exposed to every element that is battering this world to pieces - and to stand naked in front of it - completely vulnerable and exposed.
I cannot!!
I am too afraid --
And HOW do I do that? Where do I even begin?
Selah
[I begin to understand that word in Psalms. Perhaps it meant a storm of emotion - a struggle/wrestle of hearts betwen you and David too deep or profound to put into words.]
OK... take it.
I don't know what that means or what it will look like - you will have to tell me what this giving it over and giving it up means...
It's as simple - and straightforward - and as hard as it sounds Whitney.
Give. It. Up.
Selah
Please Lord help me because I am weak.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I want is distraction
Not to reach out and touch this world -
raw and rare
flayed open with all its sores laid bare
to my trembling frightened touch.
I do not want to dive into that pool
deep, dark, unknown - to have to face the colossus of being
to have to face it alone -
exposed.
Give me anything - movies - stories - games -
any distraction at all
to keep me from being aware.
Anything but aware
I DON'T WANT IT.
I would rather stay safe
Cocooned in my comfortable coverings of denial,
Than to have to reach out and press
this world's bleeding and throbbing heart
anywhere near my own.
And to feel our pain
with nothing between us.
It has less to do with either the ridiculousness or the validity of his point of view - I think you would say you have more important things to worry about than Pokemon if you were here - and maybe that's kind of the point.
I feel like the rich man who sadly walked away after you told him to sell everything and come follow you.
I always had thought how sad that material wealth had kept this man from experiencing the full life of adventure he could've had with you - but today I feel like that sad man.
Like someone who has willingly laid so much at your feet - my future - my marriage - my passions - my talents - my trust - my insecurities - my weaknesses - my infirmities.
Like I have tried for the last several years to be content with where you have me - trusting that there is a reason. That I have wrestled both with understanding and being willing to come alongside of those "of your flock" and those "not of your flock" and wrestled with YOU - to trust and love you - to give thanks for all the blessings of my life while trying not to cling to them more tightly than you.
I'm not trying to say that I've been perfect, or even that I have been a model Christian - but I have done my best to faithfully follow after you with the hope and trust that my best is enough and you have grace enough to cover all my failings - because without that grace I am lost - truly lost - and unable...
And after all of that - after all these years - I feel like the young man who has come to you eager with all I have to give and you have told me it isn't enough.
You don't just want my happiness -- you want to take my comfort - you want whatever little pleasure I may get out of whatever distractions I may have - my books, Pokemon, movies - any escape from the world that gives me momentary relief - that allows me to breathe for a second - you want me to freely give that up for you and be willing to be 100% present - all the time - to the pain and suffering and sorrow that is wracking this world with shuddering sobs and making everything tremble to pieces like an earthquake.
And it's too much. I don't know that I can enter into that with you Father. This is too much for me to bear and I cannot bear it alone.
And even though I know you tell me I am not alone - that you will be there with me - I want to throw your hand off me with anger and disgust. This is what an abusive relationship feels like - a deep co-dependent twisted relationship where we throw everything away for each other. And everything in my life and experience has taught me that these relationships end only in toxicity and destruction.
But I am no man.
You remind me...
Yes - but I AM - just a human - just dust - and you're asking me to give anything and everything I may ever trust - take delight in - anything that gives me space to simply be - to tear down every defense, every wall - and to be exposed to every element that is battering this world to pieces - and to stand naked in front of it - completely vulnerable and exposed.
I cannot!!
I am too afraid --
And HOW do I do that? Where do I even begin?
Selah
[I begin to understand that word in Psalms. Perhaps it meant a storm of emotion - a struggle/wrestle of hearts betwen you and David too deep or profound to put into words.]
OK... take it.
I don't know what that means or what it will look like - you will have to tell me what this giving it over and giving it up means...
It's as simple - and straightforward - and as hard as it sounds Whitney.
Give. It. Up.
Selah
Please Lord help me because I am weak.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I want is distraction
Not to reach out and touch this world -
raw and rare
flayed open with all its sores laid bare
to my trembling frightened touch.
I do not want to dive into that pool
deep, dark, unknown - to have to face the colossus of being
to have to face it alone -
exposed.
Give me anything - movies - stories - games -
any distraction at all
to keep me from being aware.
Anything but aware
I DON'T WANT IT.
I would rather stay safe
Cocooned in my comfortable coverings of denial,
Than to have to reach out and press
this world's bleeding and throbbing heart
anywhere near my own.
And to feel our pain
with nothing between us.
July 5, 2016
She snuggles closer to me... little fuzzball pupdog.
So much trust and peace - sleeping the afternoon away as though apartments and jobs and futures don't matter... And maybe they shouldn't, but they loom large in my mind with their uncertainties.
First week off my job...
Two months away from moving out of this apartment...
First rejection from Japan...
This is feeling less and less like courage in the face of adventure and more and more like foolishness in the face of uncertainty.
Every journey begins with a first step -- but it feels strange to feel the last step dissolving behind you.
The only way forward right now is just that - forward - with no clear direction or purpose. Just a bunch of "I thinks" and "maybes"...
And in the midst of this You are uncharacteristically quiet and removed. I reach out for a touch of assurance and rather than a peace that embalms my heart with no effort from my end I get: "Trust Me."
Just one verse at a time lately has been your mode of communication.
When irritated and frustrated:
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit - but in humility consider others more highly than yourself."
When overwhelmed with what lays ahead and all the uncertainties:
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for -- the evidence of things unseen."
I am trying to lean in in the midst of my impatience -- in the midst of my frustration, fear, and uncertainty.
I want to strike against your chest and throw a tantrum.
Why can't you just fix this?
Why do things have to be hard?
Why can't I simply escape down a million stories that take me away?
Give me more than this.
Lift from me the weight of petty disbelief.
I'm so frustrated Father.
Feeling my wheels spinning and nothing seems to get them to stop except becoming numb.
Inside I feel like I'm throwing a thousand fits.
Crawling out of my skin...
Help me. Help me. Help me.
So much trust and peace - sleeping the afternoon away as though apartments and jobs and futures don't matter... And maybe they shouldn't, but they loom large in my mind with their uncertainties.
First week off my job...
Two months away from moving out of this apartment...
First rejection from Japan...
This is feeling less and less like courage in the face of adventure and more and more like foolishness in the face of uncertainty.
Every journey begins with a first step -- but it feels strange to feel the last step dissolving behind you.
The only way forward right now is just that - forward - with no clear direction or purpose. Just a bunch of "I thinks" and "maybes"...
And in the midst of this You are uncharacteristically quiet and removed. I reach out for a touch of assurance and rather than a peace that embalms my heart with no effort from my end I get: "Trust Me."
Just one verse at a time lately has been your mode of communication.
When irritated and frustrated:
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit - but in humility consider others more highly than yourself."
When overwhelmed with what lays ahead and all the uncertainties:
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for -- the evidence of things unseen."
I am trying to lean in in the midst of my impatience -- in the midst of my frustration, fear, and uncertainty.
I want to strike against your chest and throw a tantrum.
Why can't you just fix this?
Why do things have to be hard?
Why can't I simply escape down a million stories that take me away?
Give me more than this.
Lift from me the weight of petty disbelief.
I'm so frustrated Father.
Feeling my wheels spinning and nothing seems to get them to stop except becoming numb.
Inside I feel like I'm throwing a thousand fits.
Crawling out of my skin...
Help me. Help me. Help me.
Friday, November 13, 2015
The Aftermath - 11.13.15
It's the night of Friday, November 13th, 2015... Saturday already in France - where an organized terrorist attack has left in its wake the same stunned heartache, fear, and confusion that echoes so familiarly to me of a similar day in our country 14 years ago on September 11th.
I keep thinking about how surreal that day was for me. I remember I was in high school - 9th grade - and I was walking in between classes when I noticed that students were talking excitedly in hushed voices and actually hurrying into classes - rather than just dawdling outside in the hallways.
I walked into one of my Humanities courses - and the teachers had the television on - with the news up. I slid into my seat, confused as to what was going on - and we watched the smoking towers on the TV and then in horror as they fell - like a jenga puzzle falling apart.
I remember even then - thinking about how remote - how strange and oddly detached I felt at that time. Wondering how that would ever affect me - what it even meant - I didn't have anyone in New York - no one I loved was hurt... it felt miles and miles away.
How little did I realize.
I think most of my high school years went by without me even thinking about September 11th again except for once a year when we would remember it on its anniversary - and then it would fade out from existence again for the next year until the date would roll around again.
It wasn't until ten years later and as I look back now - that I think about it so much more often... maybe it's age - maybe it's perspective - but I feel like I see more and more the ramifications of what the attack meant for our country - how deeply it has embedded itself into the psyche of the nation until it has so transformed our country and our world to the point that I feel like I see its imprint on every heartbreaking situation that arises - including this one in Paris today.
I remember how in the days following the attack - our country responded in resilience - yes, and initially in unity... but how quickly that devolved. We entered into a hasty war - that seemed to cascade into others - until several years later now I look back and can see this thread tying Sept. 11th to the Iraqi war, to the Afghanistan war, to the disrupt in the Middle East, the dissolution of powers in the Arab Spring, the situation in Syria, the rise of more and more extremist groups that are taking over the Middle East and striking out in coordinated attacks like the one against France.
The response of racism, bitterness, and hatred that resulted in busted business windows, innocent Muslims being attacked on our streets, death threats, and even murders in the days following Sept. 11th seems to echo down throughout the years in the increasingly harsh division in our country, the vitriolic comments online, the increasing extremism in our own political divide, the racism that continues to perpetuate fear - misunderstanding - and continual lashing out... I hear it now resounding off of tweets and facebook posts and soundbytes and I'm terrified - absolutely terrified - for the refugees (many of them Muslim or from Muslim countries) in Europe - already reviled, hated, targeted, and vulnerable - knowing that they will inevitably be caught up in the backlash of all of this - already are.
When the haze and the confusion begins to wear off - and the days begin to wear on - I am actually scared that what is to come for France will be far, far worse than this attack...
When I think back to our own September 11th - I feel like the terrorists won a larger victory than any they may have been intending to score. They broke something in our country, that granted - had already been stretching somewhat thin in the years leading up to 2001, but whatever openness - whatever grace - whatever mercy - whatever sanctuary this country had stood for for so many years - slammed completely shut in the years following 2001. The attack on the World Towers took down everything that the Statue of Liberty stands for in New York in a way that was more devastating than if they had blown up that iconic symbol for our country... because I feel like we let the fear and the instinct to protect - the entire response of "never again will we ever be that vulnerable" - rip the heart of unity right out of us.
Community - UNITY - takes vulnerability. It requires give and take... which isn't possible if what you're concerned about is protecting yours and your own - to hell with all the rest.
Already France's prime minister is talking about striking back. The French people and surrounding European countries are responding in hatred and vitriol against the refugees. The governments are tightening border security and Europe, already overrun with an entire nation of refugees - is turning a baleful eyes to the masses of desperate people.
"Don't you realize these are the people the refugees are running from?"
One person asks - and it brings anguish in my heart. Because to answer in an affirmative realization of that statement would take compassion - vulnerability - a response of openness in the wake of an attack...
... I think the frightening answer may be that we no longer care. Send them back. Back to their own problems - back to their own countries - don't infect us with your issues anymore. We have a duty - we have a calling - to protect ours and our own -- to hell with all the rest.
Can I blame them?
In the midst of this - I am struggling with the dawning realization of the increasing and urgent need for forgiveness - for conversations of reconciliation, redemption, restoration of relationship that are so largely lost in this country - even ebbing in my own life.
Never in all my life have the verses that Christ spoke in Matthew 5:43-48, Luke 6:27-42, or 1 Peter 3:13-17 made more sense to me... but in a way that I do not know if I could even begin to make them make sense to the rest of the world.
The natural human reaction when someone hits you is to hit back - in fact - hit back harder than when you were hit. Who can blame that natural instinct? The problem is - how to strike at a shadow? How do you strike at hate? Instead - you end up hitting the closest thing that you think is casting the shadow... and unfortunately, a lot of times that means hitting the innocent... and the shadow of hate lengthens and grows in the face of this retaliation... because at least some of the innocent you just struck are now determined to strike back - 10 times harder.
Christ's way is different. It calls for heaping love on people who strike out in violence.
Give more - go in with even less defenses - when they strike you - turn the other cheek.
This is his command: To the detriment of yourself - go - serve and love others.
... because that is what Christ did.
Giving up your own safety, your own provisions, your own glory, your own pride, your dignity, your rights, yes --- even your life.
Give it for the ungrateful, the spiteful, the angry, the abusive, the cruel.
How does this make sense, Father?
I cry out.
How does any of that make sense? What good would that do?
And yet I've watched - as we've done the opposite... and I've watched how the terrorists have made us something to be hated to others as we've retaliated. How we have become a reason for people to flee their homes. We struck at a terrorist leader earlier today - it seems we decimated him... and rejoiced.
But I can't help but wonder if the attacks on France this night was their answering retaliation.
Hit us - and we will hit back - ten times harder than before.
Politics can't work on this level, I argue with God, what nation would stand if it followed your code of forgiveness - This absurd command to love your enemies?
And he answers: I'm not really interested in maintaining national powers - borders - rights - or privileges.
Then there is the SENSE of what he says - in this paradoxical way, it is the only thing that HAS worked in revitalizing a hate-torn, war-torn country... See Japan and Germany after World War II. We learned after World War I what happens when you allow a country to wallow in the salted-lands-aftermath of devastating war -- it gives rise to extremism and dictators who manage to push inane agendas founded solely upon hate to horrific consequences. We managed to apply what we had learned in WWI in changing our actions in the aftermath of World War II - but it seems we have not been able to repeat that ever since.
And doesn't it make some sense? At some point - when love is being poured out in service, in prayers, in blood, in lives... at some point would you not say "These people are caring for our wounded - they are feeding our poor - they are serving our people - they are laying their lives down... and you want us to strike back at them... why would we?"
And yet - Christ calls us even higher.
Even if that isn't the change your kindness results in -
Even if you are reviled - even if you pouring out love after love affects no change - you are called to love MORE - because more love is needed in the face of great hate.
Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
"For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him." 1 Peter 3:17-22
“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:27-42
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:43-48
There's this song that I have been listening to - it was first introduced to me by a philosophy teacher in college. My mother recognizes it as the song that the entire nation listened to after John F. Kennedy was shot and the entire nation mourned (the ENTIRE nation and world mourned - in the wake of his death). They listened to this song: Adagio for Strings written by Samuel Barber.
I was talking to Jason about this the other day as we listened to this song - that though we experienced September 11th - our generation didn't experience the blow of an assassination of a president... and his response broke my heart because of the truth in it:
"There are some in our country who would rejoice if our president was killed today... and that is sickening."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50WIs0Rbm9Q
There's this point in the song that makes my heart weep - it's at the critical climax of the song - when every single string is screaming in agony at the pinnacle of suffering and pain... and when you think it could go no further - it rachets up to a new level of agony... and then to another... and then to another - before suddenly snapping into silence.
After that precipitous fall - the music moves forward - it goes from the broken, discordant minor chords - to hitting complete, whole, and unified major chords - with the minors being played in between. The pain is still there - but it is being reconciled... healed... incorporated into the healing and reconciliation.
And I think about this in context of this world.
Time after time after time I feel like we are brought to this point of unreal agony - and then it increases, and increases...
I think about how we tear each other apart - how the innocent so often get caught up in the revenge and the retaliation - how this cycle of war and violence perpetuates and perpetuates to new levels of horror, suffering, and agony...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im0ymVp8qdo
the flight of a thousand people from this suffering met with barbed wire fences and with new faces of hatred and hostility...
I wonder how much worse it can get - and I'm frightened to know.
And I think about how God will let us choose our own paths - choose our own ways - choose retaliation - choose revenge - and that it will perpetuate this annihilation - until we snap.
And into that broken silence - He will descend - and every knee will bow, every tongue confess that He is Lord - because we will have dashed ourselves so utterly to pieces in our own efforts and machinations - that we will be relieved for apocalypse. We will be thankful for the ending... because no one wants to live in the hell we've created for ourselves...
I think about why it is necessary that we have a God who is both forgiving and gracious - but also righteous and just.
Repentance is key to the end of violence... to the end of the perpetuating selfishness, the impulse to "protect me, myself, and my own - to hell with all the rest"... How can you give grace without first experiencing it yourself? How can you remove the speck - without removing the log in your own eye? Without that, it is pouring into a bucket with holes... a love that is only taken advantage of but never affects change.
Repentance is the start to transformational love.
And transformational love is the only thing that will stop the perpetuating wars of violence. And if we refuse it... then we choose our own destruction as our end.
I keep thinking about how surreal that day was for me. I remember I was in high school - 9th grade - and I was walking in between classes when I noticed that students were talking excitedly in hushed voices and actually hurrying into classes - rather than just dawdling outside in the hallways.
I walked into one of my Humanities courses - and the teachers had the television on - with the news up. I slid into my seat, confused as to what was going on - and we watched the smoking towers on the TV and then in horror as they fell - like a jenga puzzle falling apart.
I remember even then - thinking about how remote - how strange and oddly detached I felt at that time. Wondering how that would ever affect me - what it even meant - I didn't have anyone in New York - no one I loved was hurt... it felt miles and miles away.
How little did I realize.
I think most of my high school years went by without me even thinking about September 11th again except for once a year when we would remember it on its anniversary - and then it would fade out from existence again for the next year until the date would roll around again.
It wasn't until ten years later and as I look back now - that I think about it so much more often... maybe it's age - maybe it's perspective - but I feel like I see more and more the ramifications of what the attack meant for our country - how deeply it has embedded itself into the psyche of the nation until it has so transformed our country and our world to the point that I feel like I see its imprint on every heartbreaking situation that arises - including this one in Paris today.
I remember how in the days following the attack - our country responded in resilience - yes, and initially in unity... but how quickly that devolved. We entered into a hasty war - that seemed to cascade into others - until several years later now I look back and can see this thread tying Sept. 11th to the Iraqi war, to the Afghanistan war, to the disrupt in the Middle East, the dissolution of powers in the Arab Spring, the situation in Syria, the rise of more and more extremist groups that are taking over the Middle East and striking out in coordinated attacks like the one against France.
The response of racism, bitterness, and hatred that resulted in busted business windows, innocent Muslims being attacked on our streets, death threats, and even murders in the days following Sept. 11th seems to echo down throughout the years in the increasingly harsh division in our country, the vitriolic comments online, the increasing extremism in our own political divide, the racism that continues to perpetuate fear - misunderstanding - and continual lashing out... I hear it now resounding off of tweets and facebook posts and soundbytes and I'm terrified - absolutely terrified - for the refugees (many of them Muslim or from Muslim countries) in Europe - already reviled, hated, targeted, and vulnerable - knowing that they will inevitably be caught up in the backlash of all of this - already are.
When the haze and the confusion begins to wear off - and the days begin to wear on - I am actually scared that what is to come for France will be far, far worse than this attack...
When I think back to our own September 11th - I feel like the terrorists won a larger victory than any they may have been intending to score. They broke something in our country, that granted - had already been stretching somewhat thin in the years leading up to 2001, but whatever openness - whatever grace - whatever mercy - whatever sanctuary this country had stood for for so many years - slammed completely shut in the years following 2001. The attack on the World Towers took down everything that the Statue of Liberty stands for in New York in a way that was more devastating than if they had blown up that iconic symbol for our country... because I feel like we let the fear and the instinct to protect - the entire response of "never again will we ever be that vulnerable" - rip the heart of unity right out of us.
Community - UNITY - takes vulnerability. It requires give and take... which isn't possible if what you're concerned about is protecting yours and your own - to hell with all the rest.
Already France's prime minister is talking about striking back. The French people and surrounding European countries are responding in hatred and vitriol against the refugees. The governments are tightening border security and Europe, already overrun with an entire nation of refugees - is turning a baleful eyes to the masses of desperate people.
"Don't you realize these are the people the refugees are running from?"
One person asks - and it brings anguish in my heart. Because to answer in an affirmative realization of that statement would take compassion - vulnerability - a response of openness in the wake of an attack...
... I think the frightening answer may be that we no longer care. Send them back. Back to their own problems - back to their own countries - don't infect us with your issues anymore. We have a duty - we have a calling - to protect ours and our own -- to hell with all the rest.
Can I blame them?
In the midst of this - I am struggling with the dawning realization of the increasing and urgent need for forgiveness - for conversations of reconciliation, redemption, restoration of relationship that are so largely lost in this country - even ebbing in my own life.
Never in all my life have the verses that Christ spoke in Matthew 5:43-48, Luke 6:27-42, or 1 Peter 3:13-17 made more sense to me... but in a way that I do not know if I could even begin to make them make sense to the rest of the world.
The natural human reaction when someone hits you is to hit back - in fact - hit back harder than when you were hit. Who can blame that natural instinct? The problem is - how to strike at a shadow? How do you strike at hate? Instead - you end up hitting the closest thing that you think is casting the shadow... and unfortunately, a lot of times that means hitting the innocent... and the shadow of hate lengthens and grows in the face of this retaliation... because at least some of the innocent you just struck are now determined to strike back - 10 times harder.
Christ's way is different. It calls for heaping love on people who strike out in violence.
Give more - go in with even less defenses - when they strike you - turn the other cheek.
This is his command: To the detriment of yourself - go - serve and love others.
... because that is what Christ did.
Giving up your own safety, your own provisions, your own glory, your own pride, your dignity, your rights, yes --- even your life.
Give it for the ungrateful, the spiteful, the angry, the abusive, the cruel.
How does this make sense, Father?
I cry out.
How does any of that make sense? What good would that do?
And yet I've watched - as we've done the opposite... and I've watched how the terrorists have made us something to be hated to others as we've retaliated. How we have become a reason for people to flee their homes. We struck at a terrorist leader earlier today - it seems we decimated him... and rejoiced.
But I can't help but wonder if the attacks on France this night was their answering retaliation.
Hit us - and we will hit back - ten times harder than before.
Politics can't work on this level, I argue with God, what nation would stand if it followed your code of forgiveness - This absurd command to love your enemies?
And he answers: I'm not really interested in maintaining national powers - borders - rights - or privileges.
Then there is the SENSE of what he says - in this paradoxical way, it is the only thing that HAS worked in revitalizing a hate-torn, war-torn country... See Japan and Germany after World War II. We learned after World War I what happens when you allow a country to wallow in the salted-lands-aftermath of devastating war -- it gives rise to extremism and dictators who manage to push inane agendas founded solely upon hate to horrific consequences. We managed to apply what we had learned in WWI in changing our actions in the aftermath of World War II - but it seems we have not been able to repeat that ever since.
And doesn't it make some sense? At some point - when love is being poured out in service, in prayers, in blood, in lives... at some point would you not say "These people are caring for our wounded - they are feeding our poor - they are serving our people - they are laying their lives down... and you want us to strike back at them... why would we?"
And yet - Christ calls us even higher.
Even if that isn't the change your kindness results in -
Even if you are reviled - even if you pouring out love after love affects no change - you are called to love MORE - because more love is needed in the face of great hate.
Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
"For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him." 1 Peter 3:17-22
“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:27-42
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:43-48
There's this song that I have been listening to - it was first introduced to me by a philosophy teacher in college. My mother recognizes it as the song that the entire nation listened to after John F. Kennedy was shot and the entire nation mourned (the ENTIRE nation and world mourned - in the wake of his death). They listened to this song: Adagio for Strings written by Samuel Barber.
I was talking to Jason about this the other day as we listened to this song - that though we experienced September 11th - our generation didn't experience the blow of an assassination of a president... and his response broke my heart because of the truth in it:
"There are some in our country who would rejoice if our president was killed today... and that is sickening."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50WIs0Rbm9Q
There's this point in the song that makes my heart weep - it's at the critical climax of the song - when every single string is screaming in agony at the pinnacle of suffering and pain... and when you think it could go no further - it rachets up to a new level of agony... and then to another... and then to another - before suddenly snapping into silence.
After that precipitous fall - the music moves forward - it goes from the broken, discordant minor chords - to hitting complete, whole, and unified major chords - with the minors being played in between. The pain is still there - but it is being reconciled... healed... incorporated into the healing and reconciliation.
And I think about this in context of this world.
Time after time after time I feel like we are brought to this point of unreal agony - and then it increases, and increases...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im0ymVp8qdo
the flight of a thousand people from this suffering met with barbed wire fences and with new faces of hatred and hostility...
I wonder how much worse it can get - and I'm frightened to know.
And I think about how God will let us choose our own paths - choose our own ways - choose retaliation - choose revenge - and that it will perpetuate this annihilation - until we snap.
And into that broken silence - He will descend - and every knee will bow, every tongue confess that He is Lord - because we will have dashed ourselves so utterly to pieces in our own efforts and machinations - that we will be relieved for apocalypse. We will be thankful for the ending... because no one wants to live in the hell we've created for ourselves...
I think about why it is necessary that we have a God who is both forgiving and gracious - but also righteous and just.
Repentance is key to the end of violence... to the end of the perpetuating selfishness, the impulse to "protect me, myself, and my own - to hell with all the rest"... How can you give grace without first experiencing it yourself? How can you remove the speck - without removing the log in your own eye? Without that, it is pouring into a bucket with holes... a love that is only taken advantage of but never affects change.
Repentance is the start to transformational love.
And transformational love is the only thing that will stop the perpetuating wars of violence. And if we refuse it... then we choose our own destruction as our end.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
April 14: 2 Timothy 2:23-26
April 14, 2015
2 Timothy 2:23-26
“Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
Lately there have been a lot of things that have been coming out the church that have made me wonder more than once: “Do I have ANYTHING in common with these people at all?!”
A lot of things - about race issues, about same-sex marriage/relationships, about people from other faiths/beliefs/how we talk about “them." It’s stuff that does more than just make me irritated or tired; enough of it, over sustained periods of time recently, from many different places, has legitimately made me want to walk away from relationship with certain people in the church and - if I’m completely honest, to walk away from the church-at-large, especially if this is the way we’re going to be as the “church.”
I used to think that it was just the media-skewed presentation of the church - because I can tell you hands-down that the church one encounters through media doesn’t look ANYTHING like the people I normally hang out with, do life with, and do faith with. But lately it’s little things that I feel like keep adding up from people I DO know personally, people I DO respect and call friends and brothers and sisters in Christ - that are literally making me feel sick to my stomach.
It's little things like articles posted that make arguments so biased towards one side that in any other setting, on any other topic, I feel like the person who has posted the article would have throw it out immediately on the basis of it being so one-sided as to be completely blind-sided.
... Comments left on articles I’ve posted that have left me speechless because my only thoughts were: “Wow… I seriously CANNOT believe you just said that… I’m completely dumbfounded that you CANNOT see how wrong what you just said is."
... And even statements made from the pulpit (by people in leadership that I respect and honor) - and I’m not talking about comments that address the fact that the issue is on the table. Mostly it’s these little jokes or asides that the majority of the congregation chuckles/nods along with, but I feel like if I WAS a person who identified with the “offending party” - be that atheist, or pro-choice, or LGBQT, or on-the-fence-about-Christianity-in-any-way-shape-or-form then that comment would just drive me in the straightest and fastest beeline I could for the exit door as-soon-as-I-possibly-could-without-attracting-notice. To be honest, even when the sermon is GREAT - it makes it hard for me to get past that snide comment to hear the rest of all the really good stuff because I keep tripping over that little feeling of sickness.
And I keep hearing people say, “We have to speak the TRUTH in love,”
... and either we have really different concepts of what is “truth” - or really different concepts of what is “love” - because you keep saying that but I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS…
And as for the jokes/asides, I can’t help but think about a time in elementary school someone made a joke that the majority of the people surrounding me found funny/amusing/okay-to-just-go-along-with-even-though-it-bashed-someone-else and I didn’t find it funny at all: I was on the playground and there were a bunch of white girls standing around me in a circle going “Chinese, Japanese, look-at-these” because I look (and am half) Asian. And they just thought it was "funny" - and that I shouldn't be "that mad about it" but to me - that wasn’t some “harmless joke” or "merely-offensive-because-I-didn't-agree-with-them." It looked a lot like “bullying” to me… and even if WANTED to be friends with those kids (because let’s be honest, there were times I did. And it was always a toss-up whether these incidents ended in some kind of fist/word fight or me trying to blend in), even the times I DID hang out with them it didn’t ever make me feel like I actually belonged there with them, and not surprising - none of those “friendships” ever lasted.
I honestly don't understand why there are so many Christians bewildered that people get offended and don’t actually want to listen to our “truth in love” when it feels like most of the time they’re just getting bullied. Even if you ARE nice to them, MOST of the time (as most of those girls were to me) - would YOU honestly call someone a “true friend” who was willing to sacrifice you on their altar of popularity amongst their “home tribe” “every once in awhile” for “fun”? Or behind your back?
Lately, in trying to wrestle with all these articles, comments, asides, etc. coming from the church I have also been surprised at the number of Christians who don’t understand why American people outside of the church avoid the church and Christians… and by "understand" I mean, empathize - not just “I hear what you’re saying, but let me argue with you on why you should actually be more open because that will obviously change your perception that the church really doesn’t care about YOU, just about forcing its ideas upon you.”
In the midst of me having this mental tirade with God he happened to bring this verse to mind: 2 Timothy 2:23-26.
And I had to laugh for a second because it wasn’t at all in the context of Him telling me to be quiet and not to post my thoughts on all of this (which, to be honest, I would have preferred), but for me to consider this verse and apply it. I told him: You DO realize that the Christians I’m frustrated with probably think that I’M the quarrelsome one - and that THEY are the ones who need to correct me with gentleness… and yet you’re asking ME to put myself in the position of being “kind, able to teach, patiently enduring evil - hoping that You will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth…”
DO YOU NOT REALIZE HOW FLIPPED-SELF-RIGHTEOUS THAT SOUNDS?
… I am convinced that God is a fan of irony.
“Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.”
I'm convinced that DOES NOT mean back off of listening, reading, talking about these current issues of race, same-sex relationships, or other beliefs - because when I look at these current issues, they are not “foolish, ignorant controversies” - they are REAL - PRESSING - REALITIES that actually affect people’s lives. And not just “people” - but specific individuals I encounter - people I end up (or should end up) loving and caring for.
So what ARE foolish, ignorant controversies? To me - those are the discussions that have nothing to do with PEOPLE… and have everything to do with arguments and quarrels between ideologies, theologies, and nebulous “us” and “them” distinctions.
Let me translate this for you into what this meant for me in actionable items: Whitney, back off from engaging in esoteric debates and forge on in interacting with and loving REAL PEOPLE.
“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.”
Kind to EVERYONE… YES WHITNEY - INCLUDING THOSE PEOPLE WHO YOU FEEL ARE NOT KIND TO YOU OR OTHERS.
He bolded, underlined, and italicized that for me… I promise.
In case I had any doubts He followed it up with this: “able to teach, patiently enduring evil”
Because if I’m honest… whether it’s people’s outright angry vitriol - careless/unintentional bullying - well-intentioned, but one-sided (to the point of being blind and deaf to anyone who disagrees with them) arguments - those things can be pretty evil to endure and leave me wanting to stick my head in the sand, stay silent --> [attract-no-attention - definitely do not attempt to “teach,” attempt to “GET OUT.”]
And yet the command is - BE KIND.
Even More so: “Correct with gentleness” (not silence) - I’m still working on that one. Heavily. Given time, IF I speak up, I'll start out gently, but then by about the fourth or fifth response my true colors start showing and I’m starting to get on edge or just walking away. I would like for speaking out in gentleness to be my default reaction. It is not... staying silent or speaking out in anger is.
“God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
This may come as an insult that I could think that about someone else. I mean, aren’t I kind-of just flipping around the same tables I’m railing against? Personally, I find being treated with the attitude that God may someday “enlighten me” from my ignoramus to your enlightened point of view to be pretty insulting. Sooo, aren’t I just projecting that same attitude back at you if I adopt the same out look?
But actually… when I stepped back and considered actually doing this statement in love, I’d actually pretty glad to receive this kind of love. Because, in fact, I’d rather you leave me to God for Him to convince me, than for you to keep trying to convince me to come to your point of view by continuing to beat a dead horse.
… and you know, if I feel that way, I’m willing to bet you probably do too.
The other thing is, I’m not actually interested in convincing you that you need to agree with me on where we stand on race issues, same-sex relationships, atheists/agnostics/any-beiief-system-other-than-Christianity. Actually, I think if we sat down and talked about what I ACTUALLY believe on those topics, we’d find that we might have a lot in common (maybe not, but I’d hope so), and that goes for “all sides” of those debates!
I think where I’m most interested in convincing people is that regardless of what you believe about the ISSUES surrounding people’s lives, you CANNOT talk about those issues dissected from their lives and expect that people then think that you can care about them as a person/individual dissected from that issue. Here’s what I mean:
A good friend of mine is atheist - and pro-choice - and a gazillion ways very different from me.
But I love her. Even though I am Christian - and pro-life - and in a gazillion ways very different from her.
And I wish she was Christian, not because I just don’t want her to be atheist, but because I would like for her to also have a deep and intimate and complicated relationship with a really awesome God and Savior who has radically changed my life. And I haven’t ever asked her if she minds that I wish that and pray that for her, but she knows this about me, and I think if I DID ask her I think she would say she doesn’t mind me wishing that for her… in fact, perhaps she even appreciates that I wish that for her life - she just doesn’t choose it for herself, and I'm not trying to force her to.
However, I am strongly aware that whenever I talk about “atheists” or “atheism” the things I say about “those people” affects her and her relationship with me. [And to be completely honest, I don't even think about them as "those people" - because she is "my people" - and so actually (and for a lot of other reasons too) I feel like "atheists" are also my people now too.]
And you know, I don’t even wish that she was “pro-life” in all the politically charged meaning those words have — I just wish we both had better solutions for the sadness and despair that leads to abortions in this world. But regardless, I’m aware that when I talk about “pro-choice” people, the things I say about “those people” affects her, and by extension, her relationship with me.
And when we talk - I don’t talk to her about how atheism is wrong, or give her the list of 1000 reasons why Christianity is better than atheism… we talk about what she believes, how that informs/guides her life… and about what I believe - how that informs/guides my life. And because I’m not trying to argue with her, and she’s not trying to argue with me, we actually are both in a position to learn something. Of course sometimes it gets sticky I’m not going to lie - but we kinda sludge through the stickiness and find ourselves closer together (and perhaps closer to truth) than we were before.
What I DON’T APPRECIATE is when other people in the Christian faith make jokes about atheists, and then I think of her - and then it makes me mad because you just made a rude joke about a friend of mine.
And what I don’t appreciate is when other people in the Christian faith find it necessary to argue with her about what she thinks and believes about certain issues, even outright dismiss her arguments, without realizing that part of the reason she’s so passionate about these topics is because near and dear friends of hers - or even herself - have LIVED THROUGH these issues.
And what I don’t appreciate is when people say they are speaking “truth in love”… but then that “love” has no one on the other side they are actually IN PRACTICE of loving. And when I say “loving” I mean building a growing relationship with… Not just one of those “friendships” where you call them a “friend” - but if they were honest, they never felt like they actually belonged as your friend at all. And what upsets me is when that "truth" spoken in (empty) love affects someone I ACTUALLY love and have built a growing relationship with.
Someone once said that the highest form of respect and love is to LISTEN to someone… And I have really come to appreciate that whole thought. I don’t know about the rest of you all, but it is so much easier for me to talk than it is for me to listen. And when we DON'T listen, I feel like we shut people up before they even open their mouths.
And by “shutting people up” I mean — the people who took a chance to come to church with us on that morning despite all their misgivings - or took the chance to be our friends, even though they are a little afraid that we may be Bible-thumpers-in-sheep’s-clothing and are worried we might bash them over the head when we get a chance - or took the chance to enter into conversation with us hoping for open dialogue rather than argument. I do NOT mean the “media voice” of any people-group, because I am completely ok with shutting those talking-heads off because they honestly just get in the way of me having real conversations with actual people: and I’d like to say that goes for both Christians and non-Christians alike.
As a random, but important aside: I hate using my friend as an example, as though she were my “token atheist friend” - I actually probably split down the line the number of my friends who are Christian/non-Christian… it just so happens that she is one of those kinds of friends that you count on the fingers of one hand and our friendship amazes and blesses me as much my friends I count on that same hand who are Christian. I honestly think our friendship is a gift from God - and that’s why I wanted to try to explain what I mean by saying: you can’t dissect talking about an issue apart from the people it affects in relationship to you.
… because I’ve made that mistake.
To be honest, where I get tripped up the most in my relationships with my non-Christian friends is when I begin to wonder whether my “tactics are working” in my conversations with them - and I stop thinking of them as people I love, and start thinking of them as people I need to convert.
And I would be LYING if I said I didn’t have moments of struggling with thinking and treating people that way to this day. And it always hurts my relationships when I do (as it should - because it's a sin).
It almost always starts with moments of wondering whether I was doing something wrong, missing the boat, not-clearly-hearing-my-Shepherd’s-voice - because I can’t count the number of “converted souls” I’ve notched into my belt. And I mean that in every offensive way possible - because it IS offensive! It is offensive to every thing that Christ is and was and will be.
We have to stop this!
I HAVE TO STOP THIS.
Lord, am I doing enough?! I’M NOT CHANGING THEM…
Child, I asked you to be as Christ in their lives… not change their hearts!
HOW DARE YOU THINK you can manhandle and mold the preciousness of a heart of someone that is MINE ALONE to change if it is to be changed? Love them. And in loving the people I bring into your life - speak to them truth in love (including TRULY LOVING THEM IN TRUTH) that’s all I’m asking of you.
… It’s that simple… and that hard.
… And you know what?? That directive doesn’t change whether the person I’m in relationship with is Christian, or non-Christian, or on-the-fence-Christian, or Christian-I-don’t-agree-with, or none of the above. In other words - that directive holds true for all people, in all cases, at all times.
“God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
This was written by Paul to Timothy about his relationship with other believers in the church. So when I asked God: Do I have ANYTHING in common with these people? Can’t I walk away from relationship with them? He said "Christ. And Christ Alone."
You know, sometimes it may legitimately be our only unity in the church IS in Christ, and Christ alone... and truthfully, that is where our unity solely depends.
But Christ alone is reason enough that I can't walk away from the relationships with people in the church that I might want to walk away from. He's also reason enough for me to hope and pray for a repentance that leads to a knowledge of the truth amongst those in the church I disagree with…
… and if you happen to be praying that for me on the other side - I actually, honestly, really, truly do thank you. And I hope you can also be glad that I would be praying that for you too.
2 Timothy 2:23-26
“Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
Lately there have been a lot of things that have been coming out the church that have made me wonder more than once: “Do I have ANYTHING in common with these people at all?!”
A lot of things - about race issues, about same-sex marriage/relationships, about people from other faiths/beliefs/how we talk about “them." It’s stuff that does more than just make me irritated or tired; enough of it, over sustained periods of time recently, from many different places, has legitimately made me want to walk away from relationship with certain people in the church and - if I’m completely honest, to walk away from the church-at-large, especially if this is the way we’re going to be as the “church.”
I used to think that it was just the media-skewed presentation of the church - because I can tell you hands-down that the church one encounters through media doesn’t look ANYTHING like the people I normally hang out with, do life with, and do faith with. But lately it’s little things that I feel like keep adding up from people I DO know personally, people I DO respect and call friends and brothers and sisters in Christ - that are literally making me feel sick to my stomach.
It's little things like articles posted that make arguments so biased towards one side that in any other setting, on any other topic, I feel like the person who has posted the article would have throw it out immediately on the basis of it being so one-sided as to be completely blind-sided.
... Comments left on articles I’ve posted that have left me speechless because my only thoughts were: “Wow… I seriously CANNOT believe you just said that… I’m completely dumbfounded that you CANNOT see how wrong what you just said is."
... And even statements made from the pulpit (by people in leadership that I respect and honor) - and I’m not talking about comments that address the fact that the issue is on the table. Mostly it’s these little jokes or asides that the majority of the congregation chuckles/nods along with, but I feel like if I WAS a person who identified with the “offending party” - be that atheist, or pro-choice, or LGBQT, or on-the-fence-about-Christianity-in-any-way-shape-or-form then that comment would just drive me in the straightest and fastest beeline I could for the exit door as-soon-as-I-possibly-could-without-attracting-notice. To be honest, even when the sermon is GREAT - it makes it hard for me to get past that snide comment to hear the rest of all the really good stuff because I keep tripping over that little feeling of sickness.
And I keep hearing people say, “We have to speak the TRUTH in love,”
... and either we have really different concepts of what is “truth” - or really different concepts of what is “love” - because you keep saying that but I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS…
And as for the jokes/asides, I can’t help but think about a time in elementary school someone made a joke that the majority of the people surrounding me found funny/amusing/okay-to-just-go-along-with-even-though-it-bashed-someone-else and I didn’t find it funny at all: I was on the playground and there were a bunch of white girls standing around me in a circle going “Chinese, Japanese, look-at-these” because I look (and am half) Asian. And they just thought it was "funny" - and that I shouldn't be "that mad about it" but to me - that wasn’t some “harmless joke” or "merely-offensive-because-I-didn't-agree-with-them." It looked a lot like “bullying” to me… and even if WANTED to be friends with those kids (because let’s be honest, there were times I did. And it was always a toss-up whether these incidents ended in some kind of fist/word fight or me trying to blend in), even the times I DID hang out with them it didn’t ever make me feel like I actually belonged there with them, and not surprising - none of those “friendships” ever lasted.
I honestly don't understand why there are so many Christians bewildered that people get offended and don’t actually want to listen to our “truth in love” when it feels like most of the time they’re just getting bullied. Even if you ARE nice to them, MOST of the time (as most of those girls were to me) - would YOU honestly call someone a “true friend” who was willing to sacrifice you on their altar of popularity amongst their “home tribe” “every once in awhile” for “fun”? Or behind your back?
Lately, in trying to wrestle with all these articles, comments, asides, etc. coming from the church I have also been surprised at the number of Christians who don’t understand why American people outside of the church avoid the church and Christians… and by "understand" I mean, empathize - not just “I hear what you’re saying, but let me argue with you on why you should actually be more open because that will obviously change your perception that the church really doesn’t care about YOU, just about forcing its ideas upon you.”
In the midst of me having this mental tirade with God he happened to bring this verse to mind: 2 Timothy 2:23-26.
And I had to laugh for a second because it wasn’t at all in the context of Him telling me to be quiet and not to post my thoughts on all of this (which, to be honest, I would have preferred), but for me to consider this verse and apply it. I told him: You DO realize that the Christians I’m frustrated with probably think that I’M the quarrelsome one - and that THEY are the ones who need to correct me with gentleness… and yet you’re asking ME to put myself in the position of being “kind, able to teach, patiently enduring evil - hoping that You will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth…”
DO YOU NOT REALIZE HOW FLIPPED-SELF-RIGHTEOUS THAT SOUNDS?
… I am convinced that God is a fan of irony.
“Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.”
I'm convinced that DOES NOT mean back off of listening, reading, talking about these current issues of race, same-sex relationships, or other beliefs - because when I look at these current issues, they are not “foolish, ignorant controversies” - they are REAL - PRESSING - REALITIES that actually affect people’s lives. And not just “people” - but specific individuals I encounter - people I end up (or should end up) loving and caring for.
So what ARE foolish, ignorant controversies? To me - those are the discussions that have nothing to do with PEOPLE… and have everything to do with arguments and quarrels between ideologies, theologies, and nebulous “us” and “them” distinctions.
Let me translate this for you into what this meant for me in actionable items: Whitney, back off from engaging in esoteric debates and forge on in interacting with and loving REAL PEOPLE.
“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.”
Kind to EVERYONE… YES WHITNEY - INCLUDING THOSE PEOPLE WHO YOU FEEL ARE NOT KIND TO YOU OR OTHERS.
He bolded, underlined, and italicized that for me… I promise.
In case I had any doubts He followed it up with this: “able to teach, patiently enduring evil”
Because if I’m honest… whether it’s people’s outright angry vitriol - careless/unintentional bullying - well-intentioned, but one-sided (to the point of being blind and deaf to anyone who disagrees with them) arguments - those things can be pretty evil to endure and leave me wanting to stick my head in the sand, stay silent --> [attract-no-attention - definitely do not attempt to “teach,” attempt to “GET OUT.”]
And yet the command is - BE KIND.
Even More so: “Correct with gentleness” (not silence) - I’m still working on that one. Heavily. Given time, IF I speak up, I'll start out gently, but then by about the fourth or fifth response my true colors start showing and I’m starting to get on edge or just walking away. I would like for speaking out in gentleness to be my default reaction. It is not... staying silent or speaking out in anger is.
“God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
This may come as an insult that I could think that about someone else. I mean, aren’t I kind-of just flipping around the same tables I’m railing against? Personally, I find being treated with the attitude that God may someday “enlighten me” from my ignoramus to your enlightened point of view to be pretty insulting. Sooo, aren’t I just projecting that same attitude back at you if I adopt the same out look?
But actually… when I stepped back and considered actually doing this statement in love, I’d actually pretty glad to receive this kind of love. Because, in fact, I’d rather you leave me to God for Him to convince me, than for you to keep trying to convince me to come to your point of view by continuing to beat a dead horse.
… and you know, if I feel that way, I’m willing to bet you probably do too.
The other thing is, I’m not actually interested in convincing you that you need to agree with me on where we stand on race issues, same-sex relationships, atheists/agnostics/any-beiief-system-other-than-Christianity. Actually, I think if we sat down and talked about what I ACTUALLY believe on those topics, we’d find that we might have a lot in common (maybe not, but I’d hope so), and that goes for “all sides” of those debates!
I think where I’m most interested in convincing people is that regardless of what you believe about the ISSUES surrounding people’s lives, you CANNOT talk about those issues dissected from their lives and expect that people then think that you can care about them as a person/individual dissected from that issue. Here’s what I mean:
A good friend of mine is atheist - and pro-choice - and a gazillion ways very different from me.
But I love her. Even though I am Christian - and pro-life - and in a gazillion ways very different from her.
And I wish she was Christian, not because I just don’t want her to be atheist, but because I would like for her to also have a deep and intimate and complicated relationship with a really awesome God and Savior who has radically changed my life. And I haven’t ever asked her if she minds that I wish that and pray that for her, but she knows this about me, and I think if I DID ask her I think she would say she doesn’t mind me wishing that for her… in fact, perhaps she even appreciates that I wish that for her life - she just doesn’t choose it for herself, and I'm not trying to force her to.
However, I am strongly aware that whenever I talk about “atheists” or “atheism” the things I say about “those people” affects her and her relationship with me. [And to be completely honest, I don't even think about them as "those people" - because she is "my people" - and so actually (and for a lot of other reasons too) I feel like "atheists" are also my people now too.]
And you know, I don’t even wish that she was “pro-life” in all the politically charged meaning those words have — I just wish we both had better solutions for the sadness and despair that leads to abortions in this world. But regardless, I’m aware that when I talk about “pro-choice” people, the things I say about “those people” affects her, and by extension, her relationship with me.
And when we talk - I don’t talk to her about how atheism is wrong, or give her the list of 1000 reasons why Christianity is better than atheism… we talk about what she believes, how that informs/guides her life… and about what I believe - how that informs/guides my life. And because I’m not trying to argue with her, and she’s not trying to argue with me, we actually are both in a position to learn something. Of course sometimes it gets sticky I’m not going to lie - but we kinda sludge through the stickiness and find ourselves closer together (and perhaps closer to truth) than we were before.
What I DON’T APPRECIATE is when other people in the Christian faith make jokes about atheists, and then I think of her - and then it makes me mad because you just made a rude joke about a friend of mine.
And what I don’t appreciate is when other people in the Christian faith find it necessary to argue with her about what she thinks and believes about certain issues, even outright dismiss her arguments, without realizing that part of the reason she’s so passionate about these topics is because near and dear friends of hers - or even herself - have LIVED THROUGH these issues.
And what I don’t appreciate is when people say they are speaking “truth in love”… but then that “love” has no one on the other side they are actually IN PRACTICE of loving. And when I say “loving” I mean building a growing relationship with… Not just one of those “friendships” where you call them a “friend” - but if they were honest, they never felt like they actually belonged as your friend at all. And what upsets me is when that "truth" spoken in (empty) love affects someone I ACTUALLY love and have built a growing relationship with.
Someone once said that the highest form of respect and love is to LISTEN to someone… And I have really come to appreciate that whole thought. I don’t know about the rest of you all, but it is so much easier for me to talk than it is for me to listen. And when we DON'T listen, I feel like we shut people up before they even open their mouths.
And by “shutting people up” I mean — the people who took a chance to come to church with us on that morning despite all their misgivings - or took the chance to be our friends, even though they are a little afraid that we may be Bible-thumpers-in-sheep’s-clothing and are worried we might bash them over the head when we get a chance - or took the chance to enter into conversation with us hoping for open dialogue rather than argument. I do NOT mean the “media voice” of any people-group, because I am completely ok with shutting those talking-heads off because they honestly just get in the way of me having real conversations with actual people: and I’d like to say that goes for both Christians and non-Christians alike.
As a random, but important aside: I hate using my friend as an example, as though she were my “token atheist friend” - I actually probably split down the line the number of my friends who are Christian/non-Christian… it just so happens that she is one of those kinds of friends that you count on the fingers of one hand and our friendship amazes and blesses me as much my friends I count on that same hand who are Christian. I honestly think our friendship is a gift from God - and that’s why I wanted to try to explain what I mean by saying: you can’t dissect talking about an issue apart from the people it affects in relationship to you.
… because I’ve made that mistake.
To be honest, where I get tripped up the most in my relationships with my non-Christian friends is when I begin to wonder whether my “tactics are working” in my conversations with them - and I stop thinking of them as people I love, and start thinking of them as people I need to convert.
And I would be LYING if I said I didn’t have moments of struggling with thinking and treating people that way to this day. And it always hurts my relationships when I do (as it should - because it's a sin).
It almost always starts with moments of wondering whether I was doing something wrong, missing the boat, not-clearly-hearing-my-Shepherd’s-voice - because I can’t count the number of “converted souls” I’ve notched into my belt. And I mean that in every offensive way possible - because it IS offensive! It is offensive to every thing that Christ is and was and will be.
We have to stop this!
I HAVE TO STOP THIS.
Lord, am I doing enough?! I’M NOT CHANGING THEM…
Child, I asked you to be as Christ in their lives… not change their hearts!
HOW DARE YOU THINK you can manhandle and mold the preciousness of a heart of someone that is MINE ALONE to change if it is to be changed? Love them. And in loving the people I bring into your life - speak to them truth in love (including TRULY LOVING THEM IN TRUTH) that’s all I’m asking of you.
… It’s that simple… and that hard.
… And you know what?? That directive doesn’t change whether the person I’m in relationship with is Christian, or non-Christian, or on-the-fence-Christian, or Christian-I-don’t-agree-with, or none of the above. In other words - that directive holds true for all people, in all cases, at all times.
“God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
This was written by Paul to Timothy about his relationship with other believers in the church. So when I asked God: Do I have ANYTHING in common with these people? Can’t I walk away from relationship with them? He said "Christ. And Christ Alone."
You know, sometimes it may legitimately be our only unity in the church IS in Christ, and Christ alone... and truthfully, that is where our unity solely depends.
But Christ alone is reason enough that I can't walk away from the relationships with people in the church that I might want to walk away from. He's also reason enough for me to hope and pray for a repentance that leads to a knowledge of the truth amongst those in the church I disagree with…
… and if you happen to be praying that for me on the other side - I actually, honestly, really, truly do thank you. And I hope you can also be glad that I would be praying that for you too.
Friday, April 3, 2015
April 3: Good Friday
April 3, 2015
Nearly every Good Friday service, every year, I end up crying my entire way through the service. There’s a lot of people around me who can make it through the service without all the ugly tears - so don’t take this as an “uber-Christian-weird-emotional-thing” but for me every year Good Friday is essentially attending the memorial service of a really, really good friend who died a violent and brutal death out of love and compassion for others, and those “others” include me.
This isn’t just any friend. This is the kind of friend who you sit down with and have long conversations with over tea. Take one of those genuine people who just really wants to know someone for who they are, who strives to love each person for who they are, and that’s the kind of person who Christ is to me. In fact, this is a friend who not only wants to know me for all of who I am - in all my good and bad - and pushes me to be that “unmasked person” as much as I possibly can around them all the time (and loves me through all of that) but this is the kind of friend who wants to know me so much that he crawls into the hole of my suffering so that he can understand what I’m going through - so that he can be a better friend to me and love me in the way I need to be loved right in the midst of my pain.
… and it isn’t just me - it’s everyone in the world He loves that much.
Isaiah 53 says:
"Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (NKJV)
I honestly believe that when it says “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” - that literally what that means is that when Christ was carrying the cross, he was LITERALLY bearing the weight of the griefs and sorrows of humanity - all our pain - across all of time.
To me this means that he experienced the horror of war, the constant struggle of poverty, the despair of hopelessness.
He experienced the pain of parents who have lost a child, the loneliness of an orphan, the ache of a missing spouse.
He experienced being oppressed, abused, misused, betrayed.
He knows what it is to be misunderstood - to be the outsider/outcast/weirdo.
He experienced the suffering of someone dying from cancer/parkinson’s/alzheimer's/dementia/etc., as well as the pain of their family and loved ones as they watch the person they love waste away.
He gets what it feels like to be without a voice - to be disabled, have cerebral palsy, down syndrome, autism, asperger’s, depression, anxiety attacks.
He was me - when I was a teenager with parents going through a divorce.
The awkward kid growing up and being a general misfit.
The broken heart from my first romance.
He IS me -
With my daily frustrations, grievances, sorrows, and pains.
And all the million hairline fractures and gaping fissures of heartaches and fears that still lay ahead of me in having kids, trying to be a good mom, do well at my job, grow old (or maybe not so old), and eventually die - and who knows what else along the way.
When it says that the Lord “hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” - I actually believe that when Christ was nailed on the cross that he experienced all the brokenness and pain of humanity - of all time - and bore every. single. bit of it.
This means that he was the rape victim - and the rapist.
He was the molested child - and the pedophile.
He was the trembling kid hiding under the bed in tears and bruises - and the alcoholic dad.
He was the beaten up “loser” - and the class bully.
He was the person experiencing racism - and the bigot.
He was the murder victim - and the murderer.
He was the children in Syria - and ISIS.
He was the LGBTQ teenager who felt driven to commit suicide - and the classmates who thought he/she deserved to die.
He was the person bearing the brunt of the little white lie that diverted the blame - and the person who told it.
He was the person cut by the insult, and the person who wanted to get back at the other by any means possible.
Everything - from the most heinous and atrociously evil act that has ever been done in this world - to the most innocuous and everyday things we do that we know are inherently wrong - all of those sins AND the full consequences of all those actions were laid on him to bear the “chastisement” and punishment so that justice would be done - and yet peace and reconciliation could be restored.
To me - the only way he could have borne all of that and not died in an instant - is because He IS fully God and fully Man. Because if He was just God - he couldn’t have borne it as one of us. And if he was just Man - he wouldn’t have been able to withstand that amount of agony and evil.
Which begs the question of Why??
Hebrews 2:17-18, 4:14-16, 5:7-10 says:
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted...
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. (ESV)
For a long time I really struggled with what it meant when it says that Christ was “made perfect” through suffering… isn’t God supposed to ALREADY BE perfect? How could he be “made perfect,” ESPECIALLY through suffering?
Until it dawned on me… that because God IS perfect, Christ COULDN’T be the perfect mediator for us UNLESS he experienced suffering and sin.
“Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect,” because otherwise… how could he actually be the bridge between imperfect men and a perfect God?
Experiencing suffering - bearing our sorrows and griefs and the chastisement of our peace - is what made Him the perfect mediator for us… and because of that He can honestly say to God: “Dad, I’ve been there. I’ve been IN HER SHOES. You don’t know what it’s like, but I do. Perfectly. And I’m asking you to let me cover for her. We agreed that justice had to be done, and I’m willing to take both her sin and the pain it causes - let’s reconcile and bring her back in love.”
I don’t know who Christ may be to you… but I can understand why a lot of people may recoil at the name. He might be the excuse someone gave you to refuse serving you or a loved one because you/they are gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/queer - or the reason your parents gave you for throwing you out of the house when you told them you were LGBTQ - or told them you were pregnant - or that you weren’t going to go to church anymore because you were following another religion/weren’t following one at all. Perhaps He’s the reason the pastor/priest gave you or your mother or sister/friend for why you/they should go back to that abusive marriage. Maybe you associate Him with the Westboro Church - or people picketing outside of abortion clinics - or those people standing on corners holding signs with lists of all the people God hates.
Or maybe you don’t believe that there is a God at all - and all those people are crazy. Or if there is a God, maybe there’s a lot of them… Or maybe you grew up in the Christian church and you’ve had your fair share of being burned and also being embraced by people in the church.
Whatever the case may be, I hope that you know at least one or two or perhaps quite a few decent people who are Christian - and maybe it just seems like one of those odd parts of their personality that you don’t really get, but I hope it actually makes them kinder/more compassionate people.
But if there is a God out there - which I hope (and believe) that there is - then at least I wanted to share with you that the Christ that I worship and adore and want to follow - is the kind-of friend who is crawling into your hole of suffering to be there with you.
Who has come out of a place of privilege - complete and utter perfection even - to experience imperfection and suffering - to go through heartache and headache, tiredness, pain, frustration, even torture and death - to bear your sorrows and griefs, from the everyday to the extreme - to take upon himself the chastisement of peace and reconciliation - so that He could better know and understand you. So that He could be a voice alongside of you. So that He could love you - TRULY love you - and fully understand what that means. So that He could be the perfect propitiation - instill perfect justice - and yet achieve restored relationship with you - and not just any relationship... but the kind of relationship that is deep and abiding and soul-giving and soul-enriching. The kind of relationship that holds through pain and suffering and horror and fire and joy and reconciliation and new beginnings and all the cycles of life.
He’s the kind of friend at whose memorial service every year I have tears streaming down my face because I wish I could understand more of how much He loves me… I wish you could understand more of how much He loves you… I wish I could understand more of how much He loves you… because I think if we did - it would truly and honestly revolutionize our world.
Nearly every Good Friday service, every year, I end up crying my entire way through the service. There’s a lot of people around me who can make it through the service without all the ugly tears - so don’t take this as an “uber-Christian-weird-emotional-thing” but for me every year Good Friday is essentially attending the memorial service of a really, really good friend who died a violent and brutal death out of love and compassion for others, and those “others” include me.
This isn’t just any friend. This is the kind of friend who you sit down with and have long conversations with over tea. Take one of those genuine people who just really wants to know someone for who they are, who strives to love each person for who they are, and that’s the kind of person who Christ is to me. In fact, this is a friend who not only wants to know me for all of who I am - in all my good and bad - and pushes me to be that “unmasked person” as much as I possibly can around them all the time (and loves me through all of that) but this is the kind of friend who wants to know me so much that he crawls into the hole of my suffering so that he can understand what I’m going through - so that he can be a better friend to me and love me in the way I need to be loved right in the midst of my pain.
… and it isn’t just me - it’s everyone in the world He loves that much.
Isaiah 53 says:
"Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (NKJV)
I honestly believe that when it says “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” - that literally what that means is that when Christ was carrying the cross, he was LITERALLY bearing the weight of the griefs and sorrows of humanity - all our pain - across all of time.
To me this means that he experienced the horror of war, the constant struggle of poverty, the despair of hopelessness.
He experienced the pain of parents who have lost a child, the loneliness of an orphan, the ache of a missing spouse.
He experienced being oppressed, abused, misused, betrayed.
He knows what it is to be misunderstood - to be the outsider/outcast/weirdo.
He experienced the suffering of someone dying from cancer/parkinson’s/alzheimer's/dementia/etc., as well as the pain of their family and loved ones as they watch the person they love waste away.
He gets what it feels like to be without a voice - to be disabled, have cerebral palsy, down syndrome, autism, asperger’s, depression, anxiety attacks.
He was me - when I was a teenager with parents going through a divorce.
The awkward kid growing up and being a general misfit.
The broken heart from my first romance.
He IS me -
With my daily frustrations, grievances, sorrows, and pains.
And all the million hairline fractures and gaping fissures of heartaches and fears that still lay ahead of me in having kids, trying to be a good mom, do well at my job, grow old (or maybe not so old), and eventually die - and who knows what else along the way.
When it says that the Lord “hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” - I actually believe that when Christ was nailed on the cross that he experienced all the brokenness and pain of humanity - of all time - and bore every. single. bit of it.
This means that he was the rape victim - and the rapist.
He was the molested child - and the pedophile.
He was the trembling kid hiding under the bed in tears and bruises - and the alcoholic dad.
He was the beaten up “loser” - and the class bully.
He was the person experiencing racism - and the bigot.
He was the murder victim - and the murderer.
He was the children in Syria - and ISIS.
He was the LGBTQ teenager who felt driven to commit suicide - and the classmates who thought he/she deserved to die.
He was the person bearing the brunt of the little white lie that diverted the blame - and the person who told it.
He was the person cut by the insult, and the person who wanted to get back at the other by any means possible.
Everything - from the most heinous and atrociously evil act that has ever been done in this world - to the most innocuous and everyday things we do that we know are inherently wrong - all of those sins AND the full consequences of all those actions were laid on him to bear the “chastisement” and punishment so that justice would be done - and yet peace and reconciliation could be restored.
To me - the only way he could have borne all of that and not died in an instant - is because He IS fully God and fully Man. Because if He was just God - he couldn’t have borne it as one of us. And if he was just Man - he wouldn’t have been able to withstand that amount of agony and evil.
Which begs the question of Why??
Hebrews 2:17-18, 4:14-16, 5:7-10 says:
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted...
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. (ESV)
For a long time I really struggled with what it meant when it says that Christ was “made perfect” through suffering… isn’t God supposed to ALREADY BE perfect? How could he be “made perfect,” ESPECIALLY through suffering?
Until it dawned on me… that because God IS perfect, Christ COULDN’T be the perfect mediator for us UNLESS he experienced suffering and sin.
“Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect,” because otherwise… how could he actually be the bridge between imperfect men and a perfect God?
Experiencing suffering - bearing our sorrows and griefs and the chastisement of our peace - is what made Him the perfect mediator for us… and because of that He can honestly say to God: “Dad, I’ve been there. I’ve been IN HER SHOES. You don’t know what it’s like, but I do. Perfectly. And I’m asking you to let me cover for her. We agreed that justice had to be done, and I’m willing to take both her sin and the pain it causes - let’s reconcile and bring her back in love.”
I don’t know who Christ may be to you… but I can understand why a lot of people may recoil at the name. He might be the excuse someone gave you to refuse serving you or a loved one because you/they are gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/queer - or the reason your parents gave you for throwing you out of the house when you told them you were LGBTQ - or told them you were pregnant - or that you weren’t going to go to church anymore because you were following another religion/weren’t following one at all. Perhaps He’s the reason the pastor/priest gave you or your mother or sister/friend for why you/they should go back to that abusive marriage. Maybe you associate Him with the Westboro Church - or people picketing outside of abortion clinics - or those people standing on corners holding signs with lists of all the people God hates.
Or maybe you don’t believe that there is a God at all - and all those people are crazy. Or if there is a God, maybe there’s a lot of them… Or maybe you grew up in the Christian church and you’ve had your fair share of being burned and also being embraced by people in the church.
Whatever the case may be, I hope that you know at least one or two or perhaps quite a few decent people who are Christian - and maybe it just seems like one of those odd parts of their personality that you don’t really get, but I hope it actually makes them kinder/more compassionate people.
But if there is a God out there - which I hope (and believe) that there is - then at least I wanted to share with you that the Christ that I worship and adore and want to follow - is the kind-of friend who is crawling into your hole of suffering to be there with you.
Who has come out of a place of privilege - complete and utter perfection even - to experience imperfection and suffering - to go through heartache and headache, tiredness, pain, frustration, even torture and death - to bear your sorrows and griefs, from the everyday to the extreme - to take upon himself the chastisement of peace and reconciliation - so that He could better know and understand you. So that He could be a voice alongside of you. So that He could love you - TRULY love you - and fully understand what that means. So that He could be the perfect propitiation - instill perfect justice - and yet achieve restored relationship with you - and not just any relationship... but the kind of relationship that is deep and abiding and soul-giving and soul-enriching. The kind of relationship that holds through pain and suffering and horror and fire and joy and reconciliation and new beginnings and all the cycles of life.
He’s the kind of friend at whose memorial service every year I have tears streaming down my face because I wish I could understand more of how much He loves me… I wish you could understand more of how much He loves you… I wish I could understand more of how much He loves you… because I think if we did - it would truly and honestly revolutionize our world.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
03.03.15 - Checking the Box
March 3, 2015
I’m going through a lot of internal landscape change right now. It’s always awkward when that happens… level lands that I once trod through daily suddenly become treacherous pathways that I traverse with care — and paths that I used to avoid suddenly become supply life lines.
The main upheaval today was caused by a thought this morning - that if I have time to watch thirty minutes of anime every night, then I have time to write thirty minutes every night.
… that I grew up thinking and believing that I had talent… but that talent means nothing if you do nothing with it.
… that hard work is as important (if not more important) than talent - because if you have talent and you never work it, it never becomes anything… whereas with hard work - you might be able to take nothing and make something.
Even if it’s a long shot, at least it has potential… but doing nothing with talent has a guaranteed empty future.
There’s a thousand reasons why I could argue with that statement that if I have time to watch t.v. then I have time to write… but I think today I am done giving them…
Maybe I’m just saying this because I’m hoping that it will keep my commitment steadier than a week… or two weeks… before it dies (which is what typically happens)… but at least now that I’ve said it - it’s there and it’s something that has been breathed into existence - where before maybe I could’ve ignored it.
There’s a lot of change going everywhere in my life - and so because it is on my mind and I’m not sure what else to write about - that’s what I’m going to write about.
I think when most people look at my life they see a pretty busy schedule… at least - I feel like I have a pretty busy life, but now I’m beginning to wonder if “busy” is a perspective… or maybe a state of mind? Or perhaps even a personality?
Typically my week has looked like this: working most days Monday through Friday - and in the evenings Monday is catch up from the weekend or cooking, Tuesday is teaching swing dancing, Wednesday is pottery, Thursday is Bible study, Friday night through Sunday is going to church, grocery shopping, cooking for the week, cleaning, and hanging out with people - with some time for vegging out. Late evenings are also reserved for vegging and shoving in time for the various volunteering things that I do: preparing for leading Bible study, working on Facebook pages, writing up newsletter type things, trying to plan ahead…
I don’t know what most people do with their time or their evenings - but I feel like they’re probably about as busy as that… or maybe less or more- but it always just seems that I am busier (always) than I’d like to be…
But underneath all of that I feel like it’s because it takes such monumental effort for me to go do anything at all.
My basic underlying instinct for all of life is to hide away. If I could stay buried in blankets and get up to take baths and then eat and then curl back into bed: to “live” my life through shows and through books - and to sleep - that’s probably what my existence would actually look like.
If I could do essentially do nothing - and have no responsibility - that is probably what my underlying base personality would actually be.
It takes effort to get out of bed. To go to work. To care.
If I didn’t have to choose… that would be the choice I would make.
What makes me get out of bed? What makes me care?
The realization that I would actually be utterly miserable and hate myself if that were my life… even if it is what my most basic personality wants.
It’s weird to know that getting what I want would make me miserable in life.
How do I know that it would make me miserable in life?
Other than the fact that I really honestly don’t think it’s physically sustainable for me to have that kind of life - I think I realize I’d be miserable because it’s because it’s hardest for me to let myself do any of that “vegging” without feeling like I need to have earned it… or to even accept that is my base personality without a sense of guilt. As though I just “ought to” care. As though it shouldn’t take effort for me to… or at least… that I should want to put forth the effort to live life because life is there to live.
And there’s really so much life to live.
As much life as you are willing to put effort forth to live…
And I sometimes wonder how some people have so much effort to live - when it’s all I can muster sometimes to care enough to get up - get bathed - look decent - do well at work - let alone show up marginally prepared for the areas I lead - poorly prepared for the events that I don’t lead - and live some kind of actual “life” outside of a basic survival routine.
I feel like I hurtle along this life mostly haphazardly doing my best - and failing a good majority of the time in living up to all the potential that life holds for me.
Maybe most people feel that way… I just always wish that I was making more out of the potential there is in life… and that I wish I would even want to try harder.
Here’s the thing - I know I try pretty hard… and I think most people looking at my life could say it isn’t a failure, even if it may or may not rate on the level of a success (there are a few of those brightly optimistic people in life who would tell me it’s a stellar success) - but I know that for me I wish for so much more out of myself and out of my life - and yet find that I want so little to do the work and effort to get it there.
In a lot of areas in my life I have been feeling the load of that pushback so much more.
The desire to fold my hand - throw down the towel - give up in what little I feel like I am doing or progressing in - and just put my head down and let it all just go to shit and stop caring.
Why not?
Why bother?
I just want to quit.
Quit trying so hard.
Quit trying so. damn. hard. at life.
And things are changing instead.
I feel like I keep hitting these blocks - where once things flowed freely it becomes harder to put down every word… to believe in every effort enough to even try…
I want things to be easier.
I want to rest.
Ten more minutes of my thirty minute sentence. I’m watching the clock like I do on those last hours of work and battling that desire to let my eyelids droop and my head hit the pillow. To wrap up with the blanket and let the last ten minutes pass me by. I have earned at least ten minutes of rest, haven’t I?
This is the struggle on a micro level - the struggle every step of the way. When I am already tired… when things don’t feel like they are easily falling into place… when it seems like no one else is doing this so why I am I forcing myself to? To hold myself to this discipline of pushing on… carrying on… keeping commitments… to continue trying my best - in the face of self-failure, in the face of general failure, in the face of potential-failure.
Eight more minutes of thirty minutes.
The hardest part is believing in the words enough to say them - even if they may be meaningless… even if they are a waste.
And I hate waste.
I hate wasted time - and wasted words - and wasted money. I hate wasted lives and wasted talent and wasted opportunities. I hate waste in myself - and the fact that waste in my life causes wasted and misplaced effort in judging other people’s waste.
Five more minutes.
Pushing past the desire to close my eyes - and the reoccurring thought of “but who is really, REALLY going to care? Come on Whitney… who is really going to care?”
And maybe this is wasted introspection. Maybe I’m abnormally self-absorbed… I definitely can’t think of why anyone would care to read something so hell-bent on self-analyzation… This is typical of my mind: to check itself, double back, re-check, and question everything it had stated - evaluate whether it was worth saying at all - or if all this was all wasted. waste. waste. waste.
Two more minutes… and I’m already counting down the time to blissful sleep and reprieve. I don’t want to answer the difficult questions - consider hard possibilities.
I just want to barrel on to the end of this time - with the hope and belief that it matters. Perhaps in my self-discovery, someone else can discover something too and we can both discover something new - even if it isn’t any answer but just some nebulous, half-formed clue.
One more minute.
Trying not to waste even thirty seconds of closing the mind… but when the box is checked in - then I can already feel myself thankfully checking out.
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