I was sitting in class today and my professor dropped a bomb of knowledge on us. We were having difficult conversations on Celibacy, Marriage, Family and the hardships that go along with that conversation such as barrenness, homosexuality in the church, being single, divorce, etc. We kept coming back to this idea of brokenness and the need for the community of the church to rally around broken relationships and help out.
That’s when our professor said, “The ways that we are broken have to come into the light in Christian community.”
It has an interesting ring to it, this urge that she placed before us.
Before I dig too deep into this, another few thoughts. Recently a person I’ve done ministry with in the past made a statement to me that was really interesting. This person made the observation that so often, in ministry especially, we lead off with our resume. We seem to try and justify our point of views with who we are as leaders in ministry. As if this gives us a voice. This person told me that they would so much rather hear how their colleagues were broken. This person was challenging me (and others) to be open with my brokenness as a leader. To be open with where our lives are broken and lacking. Basically to be honest with where we need God.
One more story… On one of my first breaks from seminary, I was home in Denver having a craft night with some friends. I started up a conversation with a friend who was asking me more about my decision to become a pastor. I could tell that she was probing for something but I didn’t really know what. So we started having this conversation about my experience in the church. I talked openly about having just come off the first anniversary of my dad’s death and this idea I was struggling through at the time. I was struggling, at the time, with the unfairness of the hand that I was dealt. I was mourning the loss of my dad and all the things that went with that loss. I was mourning that I had a different family story than most of the church. I shared with my friend about how I thought that God was in Heaven, watching me and crying with me. I firmly believed that God thought that what had happened in my life was indeed unfair. The struggles I will continue to face throughout my life as a consequence of my background…they are not fair. They are not the story that God intended for me at creation.
But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen. Brokenness still happens. It’s what we do with that brokenness that shows faith, that requires community, that points us to a need of reconciliation with God. All semester in my ethics class we have been talking about brokenness in our world. It surrounds us, there is no escaping it.
And if there is no escaping it, then there needs to be a light on it in Christian community. We need to feel the ability to share with one another the places that life hurts. Maybe then we can carry each others burdens and lighten the load.
“If tomorrow is judgment day and I’m standing on the front line. And the Lord asks me what I did with my life, I will say I spent it with you.”
striving for shalom….
In this senior seminar that I talked about in my last post we’ve been asking the question of What is the Gospel? And last week our presenter was Soong-Chan Rah, who is one of my favorite professors. As we were talking about the question of what is the gospel, Soong-Chan brought up this idea that when we are asked to articulate the gospel, the majority of people will start with the fall rather than creation. We start our gospel sentences with the idea that we are sinners who have fallen short and are in need of the saving grace of Christ. The chaos of the world causes us to look forward to the Shalom – the wholeness and peace – of the eschaton.
Yes, and…
Then, Soong-Chan talked about a friend of his in the Native American community who talks about the idea of starting our gospel story with creation rather than the fall. He told this story about how in a community that is full of struggle and strife, they tend to start the gospel with looking back at the Shalom of creation rather than looking forward to the Shalom of the restoration in the second coming of Christ.
This idea is fascinating to me. I think about how so much of the time we articulate the gospel as saving faith in Christ that points to a time when struggles and pain will be no more. We can have faith in sufferings because we look forward to a time when it will be better. For the most part, this is easy because we can always look back to a time when we weren’t struggling personally. But what about communities that do not have that story? That struggles have characterized their whole life.
In the biblical story we have the ability to look back to the relationship that Adam and Eve had with God in the garden – this idea of complete Shalom – a wholeness that comes only from a relationship with God. Then the fall, we are distanced from God by sin and now we are striving to get back to Shalom. We have a picture of this in our biblical story. We know what Shalom looks like and now all we can do is follow and strive to get back to that Shalom.
Personally, when I came to Christ it was more powerful for me to look back to creation than to look forward to the eschaton. The life I was living was one of constant struggle. I lived in a broken home with an alcoholic father who looked as if he would never get clean. The most valid argument I heard for faith in Christ is that the life I was living was not the one intended for me by God. That I was created for this Shalom relationship with God.
I know that’s not everyone’s story but I think we may need to rethink our audiences when we talk about the gospel. Maybe we need to bring creation back into it.d
What I was searching for was me
I’m taking this senior seminar on the Gospel. It’s been kicking my butt recently, trying to figure out what my theology of the Gospel is and wondering what Gospel it is that I will be preaching when I’m a pastor. Asking hard questions like whether we are creating disciples of Christ or people who think they are going to heaven no matter what. It’s been a really challenging and rewarding class.
This week we had a lecture from one of our Old Testament professors. Somehow we got onto the topic of individualism and the formation of our identity. Our professor (who is nuts about the discussion of identity) was talking about how there is this new generation in the church (or just in our culture) that are really into this whole idea of being an individual and not like anyone else. And then he started talking about our identity and asked us how much of our identity was completely up to us. How much of our formation was our own doing? He wanted a percentage.
I thought about it, about the things that I claim have created me into the person I am and realized that the majority of identity forming events and people in my life were not of my own doing. I didn’t choose them, I didn’t choose the way I reacted to them (at least not consciously), I didn’t choose any of it. Identity has happened to me…creation has happened to me. I am a passive identity-maker.
This isn’t to say that I don’t have responsibility for the person that I am, that’s not it. It’s more that the people that I am surrounded by and the events that have endured are what have shaped my identity. To speak in more spiritual terms, my identity has been handed down to me by the Creator. I have become who I am now because of how he formed me and the people that he has placed in my life and around me.
So if that is true, how much of an individual can I be? How can I stand out and be “different” than anyone else if I have little control in who I am? And in all honesty, being an individual in this culture in this time means more of how I dress or what music I listen to than fundamentally who I am. I think about how many people struggle and fight to become different than everyone around them only to become more like the people around them.
So when we are talking about youth ministry, when we are talking about students who are consciously trying to figure out who they are–how do we instill in them that their identity is not their own but rather handed down from their Creator. That there is a God out there that has an plan of who they are and how they should live. Yes their God created them as an individual but an individual called to live in community with other individuals.
We are individuals created by a creative God who wants to see us living in communities with other individuals without being individuals. We have a common good, we have a common goal, we have a common God to worship together.
Still thinking through this one…what are your thoughts?
blessed are the weak
My Christian Ethics class is blowing my mind. I already knew this would happen. People that have gone before me have warned me that this Ethics class with this professor was amazing.
Each week there is an insane amount of reading (like a book a week) and then we sit in class and discuss issues such as remembering suffered wrongs, poverty, immigration etc. Today we have an immigration specialist talking about the current immigration situation in the US and the Ethics we are called to in response.
This guest lecturer (who is awesome btw) is a Catholic theologian and talks about how the beginning of a person, in Catholic anthropology, is the fact that they are created in the image and likeness of God. This is the right of Human Dignity in the 4 rights that Catholics teach in their Social Teaching. Human Dignity states that the human person precedes the state.
Within the question of immigration, human dignity asks – how does your position on immigration that “those people” are made in God’s image and likeness”?
I know that the discussion on immigration is big and complicated. And to be completely honest I have stayed a little bit out of this conversation because of my personal connection to the issue. Which I know, means I should have educated myself on it but considering some of the experiences I have had with anti-immigration people and groups – I’ve decided to be hands off. Until now.
We had to read a book for this class called Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church and the Bible by M. Daniel Carroll R. (Who is a prof at Denver Sem…by the way). It not only lays out the history of immigration in the US but also how the Bible deals with issues of immigrants and immigration. It’s actually a great read that makes you see the side of the argument that as Christians, we are called to care for those in our country who are seeking refuge or a better life. To borrow a commonly used phrase around seminary, that could preach.
As I’m learning more about myself and more about my call I realize that if you want to get my attention on something – show me a person who is unfairly having their human dignity stripped. My heart will be wrenched everytime. I will want to jump in and do something about it. Last week we went to the juvenile detention center and ever since then I’ve had this thought about wanting to work there. I went to a meeting at Midwinter about education in the US and the court systems and again – I wanted to get involved.
Seminary has rocked my world in a lot of ways. Not entirely the classes (they’re good too) but the experience of being educated by people who are passionate about various issues and educate others on those issues. My eyes are being opened to things I knew were problems but I’m finally educating myself on. Fascinating.
I need you so much closer
So there is this show that I watch called Parenthood. It’s on NBC and if you ever get the chance to watch it from the beginning, you should. It’s an incredible show about the love and challenges that a family can provide for us. It’s a big messy family that all live near each other and have so many intertwined stories and lives that it wouldn’t be easy for me to give you a synapsis of who is who and their life struggles at the moment. For this post all you need to know that it is a family of two parents, four adult children and their significant others and a total of seven grandchildren.
One of my favorite parts of this show is that whoever picks the music for the show nails it every time. EVERY single time – the song fits the moment perfectly. It’s the little moments of joy or sadness that make me cry with the perfect guitar strums and lyrics that cut into my heart. Yes, this show makes me cry … a lot. Almost weekly.
A couple of weeks ago one of the stories showed a triumph for one family with a son who has a form of autism. The series has watched the parents of this young boy struggle with the diagnosis and treatment of their son. In this particular episode it becomes clear that Max (the son) is being bullied at school but doesn’t mind so much when he finds a friend who shares in his struggles. At the end of the episode, Max invites this friend over and this friends parents come with him to give Max’s parents instructions on caring for their son. The two sets of parents stand in the foyer and have a moment of understanding for the other family’s struggles dealing with disability. Not in a patronizing way but in a way that they are both so glad to finally find someone that understands.
This is when you slowly hear the opening strums Ian Brit’s “The Shape of Us.”
This song is beautiful. It’s soft, melodic and simple. Guitar, bass and what sounds like a drum box. One line that gets me from the verse says, “we’ve got all the strength we need in the shape of us, in the shape of us The chorus says: “Hold my hand, hold my heart, Let go of your fears, darling I will always be here.” Basically the whole song is about fighting the hardships of the world with someone(s) by your side.
Another great moment comes from a different family in the show. Julia and her husband have been trying so hard to have a second child. When they discover they can’t get pregnant again they encounter a young pregnant girl who agrees to let them adopt her unborn son. After a long pregnancy where the girl moves in with Julia and her family, Zoey gives birth to her son and decides to keep him. Before Julia even tells her husband and their daughter she sneaks away from everyone, into an empty hospital room and cries her eyes out. This is so perfectly set to the tune of “Transatlanticism” by Death Cab For Cutie.
Once again, it’s soft at first and all you can really make out between Julia’s sobs is the perfect repeated line “I need you so much closer.” I instantly ran to my computer to hear this song in its entirety and it’s the tale of being far away from the ones you love and needing them near you to take on the battle.
I know what you’re thinking… it’s just another drawn out TV drama where everything that can go bad will go bad just to make good ratings. And that’s probably true. But the characters are so real, the acting is actually quite good and the scenarios draw from real life without pounding you every single episode (cough.glee.cough).
And maybe it’s just the incredibly high emotion week I just had or maybe it’s the fact that I feel incredibly thankful for the people in my life right now. But I’m realizing more and more that life is made up of the people you are surrounded by, whether by choice or by blood. Life is characterized by who you choose to let into your life to fight the battles with, to laugh with, to study with, to encounter God with, to cry with, to process with, to watch crappy tv with, to drink coffee with, to not drink coffee with, to learn from and to walk with.
Living life with people is messy, really messy at times. But at the end of the day it is extremely rewarding to have someone in your corner and to know that you’re in theirs too. To have someone(s) who will help you through this life on earth.
giving it all to you
Ah, it comes again…the Lenton season. We all know that I have mixed emotions on the way that popular Christian culture portrays the need to give something up for Lent. Although that could also come from a childhood of giving up sweets and meat on Fridays. (You try explaining to a child that no, we don’t go to church on Sundays but you still have to give something up for Lent and oh yeah, you can’t eat meat on fridays…why? who knows but we’re doing it.)
New readers of my blog, don’t think that I’m a hostile hater, it’s more that simply giving up sweets or caffeine with no “real” reason makes my skin crawl. You are not going to magically become closer to God by abstaining from m&ms. That’s just not how it works. However, if you are giving up chocolate because you have recently discovered that it is one of the industries most responsible for slave labor and poor supply chain (which it is), and you want to give it up in order to take a stand against that. That’s great. Or, say, you are addicted to something (like caffeine) and you want to give it up in order to make yourself more healthy, also great. Although in both of those scenarios, it’s probably not the best thing to be pounding chocolate or coffee on Easter morning “because you can now.” (again, flashback to childhood and many Easters spent in a sugar coma).
Although, what you choose to do is between you and the Lord, so really this post shouldn’t be about judgement but rather about what the Lenton season brings for me this year.
This year, much to my chagrin, one (or more) of my professors has challenged us (for a grade) to do some sort of Lenton discipline. In my Ethics class we were challenged to have the discipline attempt to foster a virtue in us.
I racked my brain. It’s hard for me to come up with something that will be sustainable in this busy season of my life. But finally I came up with it, gave it a catchy name (cause that’s how I do) and I started. I am calling it Project LGLO (Love God Love Others). At least once a week will find me at a neighborhood coffee shop (not starbucks) doing devotions and homework. I will attempt to get out of my comfort zone by becoming a regular at said coffee shop. I will keep myself open by not allowing myself to use headphones while I work. I will attempt to learn how to love God and love others better as I get out of my 1 mile radius of NP and force myself to be better at getting to know others and my neighborhood.
The other thing (which I’m stealing from Jessa) is called Project Face Value. Where we try our hardest to take things that others say at face value without reading into them. We also will try and say things at face value – meaning that if I care about where we go to dinner I’m not going to say that I don’t. It’s not about causing problems with friends but honoring myself and my desires in expressing them, then I can’t get passive aggressively mad for people not reading my mind.
These are two simple things, but I think they will create in me habits that I would like to continue and get me out of my comfort zone in more ways than one. I am also going to try and blog more… but I always say that so…yeah.
(PS. I write this from the above mentioned coffee shop, which is my own little piece of heaven within Chicago. Big windows, lots of light, bit wooden table to work at, good coffee and a great mix of music. But I don’t want to share so I’m not disclosing my location.)
i can't imagine all the people that you know and the places that you go
I was sitting in Church this morning being challenged by a visiting pastor to think differently at the story found in John 4:43-54. It’s a story of a father, grasping at straws for the healing of his son. He goes to Jesus because he’s tried everything, he thinks his son is going to die so in a last ditch kind of effort he goes to Jesus and begs for Jesus to come with him to his son’s bedside and heal him. The pastor was asking us to imagine with him what its like to be a parent trying to hold onto hope out of love for a child. That the love for your child brings about a hope that requires you to have. That’s a bit about what he was talking about, but that’s not what this post is about…
The pastor was calling on moments in his families life that help him relate to this story. He showed pictures of his beautiful daughter and told stories of her struggles and achievements. It was as if he was asking all the parents in the room to imagine with him what the father of this child was feeling in John. Now, I’m all about relating the bible to stories in your own life to be able to identify (well most of the time), but I struggle with this at times being “that girl” whose childhood wasn’t all roses and butterflies. So I’ll be a little honest, I was getting a tad bit grumpy.
Then I remembered this one memory of my childhood. In all honesty, it was probably one of the most defining moments of my pre-adolescence. I was in the 7th grade and was getting ready for this “teen night” at my school that was called Teen Canteen. There’s dancing, sports, refreshments, games…it was the best night of the month to any 6-8th grader at Eric S Smith Middle School. I remember this one particular night as I got ready there was a weird feeling in my house. Something wasn’t quite right. But being the 12-year-old girl that I was – I was more interested in how I looked for my night than to ask what was up with my family. So I left for my night without concern. I came home later that night to my dad sitting alone, in the dark, in our living room. I walked in and saw that he had been crying. I sat on the couch opposite of him and asked him what was wrong. To this day I can almost see the two of us sitting there as he told me that one of my uncles, his brother-in-law, had committed suicide.
I remember thinking to myself “why hadn’t he told me before I left?” I remember instantly feeling guilty for my night of fun because he had been at home, crying. But as I grew up I realized that he knew this news was going to change me. That my childhood would be shifted with this news and that he wanted one more night of normalcy for me before we had to talk about funerals, flights to Colorado, missing a school field trip. I remember having to tell my choir teacher that I couldn’t go see Phantom of the Opera in the city because we were flying to Colorado for a funeral. I remember all the looks of pity my teachers gave me as I got my homework to do on the plane.
I remember seeing the brokenness of my family in real and astonishingly new ways. It was the first funeral I remember attending for someone I was close to. I remember asking really hard questions about why and not getting answers. But mostly I remember that was the last time I remember my dad having strength. Something changed in him too, I can see it now all these years later.
I see this moment in my life as the first time I felt true pain, true brokenness. It wouldn’t be for another few years that I would find Christ and understand for myself how hope and faith flow out of a love that is incomprehensible.
Which I think is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three: but the greatest of these is love.” (ESV).
you don't have to go it alone
Last week was Midwinter which, for those of you who don’t know, is the Evangelical Covenant Church’s annual gathering for pastors. It’s a week of spending time with people you love but live far away as well as a time of teaching and renewal for pastors. As a seminary student, I have the privilege of working Midwinter which allowed me to have some really long days last week.
This week we start back in with classes and I am attempting to find rhythm in the midst of the chaos in my life as a student/babysitter/president/cohort member/mentee/mentor/etc…. My classes so far have been invigorating and challenging. It’s a good place to be when you stay up til 12:30 not because you have to finish a reading but because you want to finish it. But more on that as the semester continues…
As of late I have had a lot of random thoughts that won’t leave my head so it’s time to get them out…
One of the best things I have ever done is choosing to walk the road of friendship with my best friend. I cannot express in enough words how much of a privilege it is for me to be living in the same city as her again after a few years of separation. I can only speak for myself but her role in my life far surpasses that of “friend.” I think of her more as family than as a friend…Let me explain. Because of the nature of my family and the ways in which we interact I have always felt a bit of an outsider. (read this as extended family not like my mom and brother). I always longed to have the kinds of relationships that I saw in the movies with my family. I’ve also always wanted a sister. In my best friend I get both. And this past year and a half I have enjoyed walking this journey of life with her and her husband. I am ever so thankful for her and the way in which she loves me so well. The way in which she knows me and knows my passions and brings me alongside of her work and her life. Our friendship is nothing short of heaven sent and I love every moment I get to stand beside her.
Last week at Midwinter there were a lot of reconnections with people from far away. I got a lot of time to process my life here and while there have been some really rough moments, I feel like I’ve come out of them more thankful than anything for the people around me. The chance that I get to live three blocks from my best friend and her husband and their beautiful little foster baby. The friendships that I’ve made here that will last much longer than my Greek vocabulary. The chance that I get to struggle though what it means to live the Gospel in our every day lives.
I feel more grounded recently than I have in a long time. I feel rooted in something that is bigger than myself and like I get to be a part of something new and exciting. There isn’t really anything new going on in my life to make me feel like this, just a better sense of connectedness to those around me. I guess it’s hard to explain but I just know that it’s one of those moments where I can’t help but grin and think, “I can’t believe I get to live this life.” And to be honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve had that thought.
I won't give up on us
My friend wrote recently that she had been reading about the Lord’s Prayer over on the blog of Andrew Arndt. So I clicked, out of curiosity and read some of Andrew’s stuff on the Lord’s Prayer when I remembered an article I read last year on this prayer that we know so well.
So I dug up my research from the paper I had written on the Lord’s prayer and sure enough I found the article written by NT Wright entitled “They Kingdom Come: Living the Lord’s Prayer.” It was a short article and in all honesty, a bit of a cop out for a scholarly article on my passage, but it radically changed how I thought about these words that flow so freely from my mouth when prompted, almost rehearsed. (Okay more than almost…)
Wright dwells on the line of the prayer where we ask “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Wright says that to pray Thy Kingdom come is to see the world as the Lord sees it, with the love the Creator has for his creation and to see the utter brokenness and woundedness that the world lives in today. Then we take this love and this grief and see how that love and grief has existed before–in the death of Jesus on the cross. With that image in our minds we pray, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are praying for the redemption of the world and for the radical uprooting of evil and the final marriage of heaven and earth – for God to be all in all before our eyes.
But if we are going to pray this, we need to ask the question, Are we willing to be Kingdom-bearers? Are we willing to act as healed healers rather than broken bullies? Are we willing to sing the song of redemption loud enough for the world to join in? To fully live as Jesus created us?
We are all broken. We have all fallen short of the glory of God and been dealt bad hands. We have suffered from the evils of this world, the question is, how do we lead from that brokenness? How do we give up the idea of perfect leaders and take up the idea that we can lead and bring healing because we have experienced healing?
With all those questions in view – are we willing to pray this over familiar prayer and truly ask for the Kingdom of Heaven to come here, to meet us in this world. Are we willing to lead the way in this transformation? Are we willing to be Kingdom bearers in our everyday lives.
I’ll tell you one thing, after reading this NT Wright, I find it harder and harder to take this challenge that Jesus handed out in Matthew. Every time I pray that prayer I think about whether or not I am really up for this challenge. What if we were to fervently pray for the Kingdom to come and for His will to be done? What kind of church could we have then?
if you ever wonder if you are in my mind
My new favorite picture of Bizzy.
I wrote a blog a while back about how I thought we needed more females like Mindy Kaling. I wrote about how I desperately wanted more people in the public eye that were better. That I wanted more people that I could point to for my nieces and goddaughter to want to be like. That I could say to them, “like these women, not Ke$ha.”
When I was home for Christmas I realized something important. My nieces and goddaughter, they don’t want to be like Ke$ha. They aren’t looking for their role models on TV and in magazines. They are looking at me. On Christmas Eve, we were all rushing around trying to get ready for church. I was in my room getting ready when I heard the door open just a crack. I look over and see a tiny little eye in the crack, my 6 year old niece, Benny. I motioned for her to come in and she burst through the door, all dressed for church. She twirled around in her dress and looked up at me for approval. I told her she looked very pretty and asked her if she needed something. She looked up and in her shy little voice that means she wants something she said, “can I watch you get ready?”
Now, I wish that I could say I was a star aunt and said yes. That I let her watch me put my make up on and we had one of those Parent Trap moments where I pretend to put blush on her. But for whatever reason, I was annoyed at something else and I told her no and sent her back upstairs.
Looking back at the moment I realized I missed out on a major Tia-Benny moment. I missed out on a precious time between us because of whatever was bugging me. When you only get to see your family 3-4 times a year you have to make those times count, and that night, I did not.
Now, our whole Christmas wasn’t like that and we had plenty of Tia-Benny times to warm my heart but I will never forget the one moment I turned her down. (just like the fact that the goddaughter remembers the ONE time in 4 years that I forgot to pick her up from school…).
But the thing I learned most from this last trip home is how much Benny and the goddaughter look up to me and see what I’m doing. Their eyes catch everything, and some day Bizzy’s will too. The question is, am I living a life that I would want them to follow? Am I being an example of a women that I want them to be?
It’s not whether or not I am a role model to them, it’s am I being the modeling the right life?