What I Learned Today

People are complex: just because you relate to them in one way doesn't mean that's the only thing that's going on for them. The girl who stole your boyfriend is also dealing with a divorced mom who's getting remarried.

I might think I'm the center of the universe, but mine is not the only universe and God is still on his throne.

Life Happenings

This summer I've chosen to live on my college campus instead of moving home like I did last summer. The decision was made somewhat haphazardly, which is almost an improvement for me: normally I agonize decisions for ages and it was a refreshing change to have something happen quickly. It came on the heels of my visit to Jubilee Partners, an intentional community in northern Georgia whose purpose is to acclimate refugees to life in the United States. The visit was interesting; I'd actually applied for a summer internship and went for a tour.

While walking around the property, the man giving the tour, Robbie, and I discussed community, and fellowship, and what it means to be a part of the body of Christ. On my three hour drive home, I started thinking about MY community; I'd intended to move to Jubilee for the summer to learn about forming community but I have a community here at ACC.

Part of my community is pregnant and delivering her second child mere months away. Another part of my community recently asked me to be in his upcoming wedding. A third (the husband of the pregnant one) and I discuss God and life and the intersection of the two in practical application. Our community garden is growing and growing and leaving for Jubilee when the summer term starts (in a couple of days) would mean leaving the growth, which proved to be an unacceptable loss.

So instead of moving home, west, or to Jubilee, northeast, I moved from Head Hall to apartment building 4 the day before yesterday. My summer's goals look somewhat as follows:

Learn about my place in God's community, through a deepening of the relationships with the people around me, whom I love.

Figure out what it means to be a semi-independent woman living in a major city in the United States.

Watch my friend as she carries her baby to term.

Practice my Greek--my final grade in second semester Greek was less-than-desirable.

READ--lots and lots, anything and everything I can find. This includes the Bible-in-a-year program which took a backseat to finals but does not exclude young adult fiction or academic works.

Figure out exactly how to feed myself and how difficult a proposition that will be.

Learn a balance between working and playing, as opposed to studying and playing.

Blog about all the above.

And I'd love to go to the beach, but goodness knows if that will happen.

"Religious Refugees" by Frederick A. Norwood

A church

Scattered like leaves before the wind

Of autumn

A congregation of faithful men

Driven

Beyond the sunset and the stars

A communion of saints

Wandering homeless

Seeking a home

The body of Christ

Unbeing

Becoming

A sanctuary

Roofless no walls

Formless on no foundation

Cathedrale engloutie

Sans marque

Sans visage

Secret

Silent

Lonely

A church flowing

Like a river

Never stopping

Unchanneled

Unbound

Free

Are these wanderers

Homeless going home

Still the church?

I've never posted someone else's work on this blog before, but this poem (found in a book entitled Strangers and Exiles: A History of Religious Refugees)... it makes me feel small and lonely but in a good way.

Holy Week

It’s the day after Easter. We’ve experienced the excitement of Holy Week: the triumphal entry and the crowds shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” We’ve sat through the Last Supper, and wondered with worry and confusion at Christ’s words, “This is my body and this is my blood, the cup of the new covenant.” We watched him arrested in the garden of Gethsemane and we’ve followed him to the cross in horror. Our hopes are crushed, and we wait in anguish, our leader, our direction, our light, dead, gone, taken, dead. He’s dead. What now? What do we do now? Then, beyond all expectation, Sunday comes. Sunday comes and with it we have hope. It’s the day after Easter. Christ is risen, indeed, but I’m left behind. On Friday morning, I ask, with Pontius Pilate. “What is truth?” And like Pilate, I have killed the anointed one with my answer.

I don't know what I think about this. It feels true. But I can't quantify it. All I know is that I want to try to polish my writing less, and this is the result of like, fifteen minutes.

How Do You Measure a Year?

In 2010 I...

...survived two semesters of college.

...attended the funeral of one of the best men I've ever known.

...made the best reference book purchase EVER.

...had more mind opening experiences than I asked for.

...watched the Olympics and made a snow family with friends.

...wrote three epically awesome songs with my best friend.

...watched my favorite cousin get married in Minnesota

...and got eaten by massive Minnesotan mosquitoes.

...celebrated my best friend's 18th birthday extravaganza.

...ruined half my clothes painting a house

...and wore paint covered clothes long after they should have been thrown away.

...successfully and finally forgave two friends who hurt me very much.

...read. And read and read and read some more.

...wrote. Journals, essays, blogs, poems, text messages, with varying levels of time consumption.

...watched two friends go from friends to dating to engaged to married!

...changed my major.

...fell out of love

...and into friendship.

...fell out of friendship and into lust

...but quickly backed back into friendship

...and then flirted with the oh-so-tempting possibility of lust.

...made new friends.

...kept some old friends.

...dropped some old friends

...and wasn't sad.

...but was sad about not being sad.

...started listening to lots of new music.

...went to my first seriously professional concert.

...preached one (1) really really awful sermon and two (2) decent sermons.

...overcommited myself (again) (by accident).

...met one of my favorite authors and made a complete idiot of myself, but got him to sign one of my...er... his books.

...became more comfortable being uncomfortable.

...realized that I'm a fairly normal human being.

...reveled in this fact.

...started volunteering at an afterschool program.

...cried an acceptable amount for a young woman of my level of emotional maturity.

...turned twenty

...and was promptly reminded how young I really am.

...disagreed in a discussion with an adult who wanted me to agree with him very badly.

...moved on and circled back around.

...laughed. Just a bit for good measure.

Life in the Middle

You are born, you live, and you die in the middle. Certainty is hard to come by and even harder to hold on to. You come from the deep south; morality is black and white: if you claim to be a Christian (and who doesn’t, down here?) then your life will look a certain way. You won’t drink—alcohol is verboten. Boys are only after one thing and as a girl, you can’t give in. If you do, you’re a slut and your partner gets a firm admonishment… and a wink and a smack on the butt in the locker room. And if you get pregnant? There’s a place for people like you: alternative school. Cursing is another no-no. Homosexuality is wrong, a sin of the worst order, and if you think you might be gay? Then prepare yourself for the life of an outsider. Only bad people do drugs—but if you made some mistakes in high school, then we’ll be prepared to forgive you as long as you don’t mind parading your dirty laundry in front of younger kids as a warning against following your path. Only bad people do drugs—and if you’re still doing them now then there will be no grace. You’re a Republican, of course. Those Democrats believe in killing babies and they might even be communists.

And theology is equally black and white. You’re a Christian, because you’re a Republican. You believe in the separation of church and state (as long as everyone acknowledges that the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and that the founding fathers were Christians just like you). The biggest debate in your life is creationism versus evolution. You scoff at global warming. The Bible is a literal, historical document, the infallible word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit. You might play at being a liberal Christian. You might read books to annoy your parents like Is It Okay to Call God Mother? and Theology in a New Key: Responding to Liberation Themes and maybe you even incorporate some of what they say into your walk with God.

But then you go to college and make friends with a man who has a husband and a hobby of cross-dressing. You start befriending people who exercise their right to drink lots of alcohol. Your professors admit to believing in a non-literal creation story. You find yourself crushing on a man who confides to you his history with sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. And who freely admits to his experimentation with the full gamut of illegal substances with little to no remorse. You room with a girl who is probablymostlikely sleeping with her boyfriend and who has no shame about it. Another girl on your hall says, “Yeah, I’m having sex with him but we’re married in God’s eyes so it’s all right, okay?” And you’re flirting with your personal favorite addiction again.

And you attend a Bible college.

You sit with him in Bible classes and listen to your professor read the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the light of the world.”

You laugh with her in the caf and in the coffeehouse.

You cry with her in private and share the hurts of your heart with her and you listen to hers.

You sit with him in chapel.

You worship next to him, you take communion with her, and you love them.

You are born, you live, and you die in the middle, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You live in a world of shades, a world where black and white fade into unnameable hues. You try to contain this awful gray within what you know about God. “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” You lose yourself in the middle ground. You lose yourself in between what you’ve always thought to be right and what your experiences teach you. You lose yourself in between your cut and dry morality and the murky gray you live in.

People are simple, says your friend, and you want to believe him, but you can’t see the simplicity for all these hellish contradictions.

Take the Training Wheels Off and Grow Up

In Sunday school this morning, Leslie Smith mentioned her experience at the Tyrone Founder’s Parade. “There was a band, and floats with people throwing candy, the general hubbub you see in parades and then, in the midst of all this laughter and loudness, I saw a man carrying a cross… with a wheel attached to the bottom.”

Immediately after Peter’s great confession, Matthew writes, “Jesus began telling his followers that he must go to Jerusalem where… he must be killed…” Peter, in a shocking foil to his prior confession, scolds Jesus for saying this nonsense. Jesus, after calling Peter, “Satan,” response thus: “If people want to follow me, they must give up the things they want. They must be willing even to give up their lives to follow me. Those who want to save their lives will give up true life. But those who give up their lives for me and for the good news will have true life. It is worth nothing for them to have the whole world if they lose their souls.”

Some other translations render this as “"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

The man Leslie saw in the parade was clearly referencing this story. But what wonderful irony! Putting a wheel on the bottom of the cross for easier maneuvering kind of misses the point. Jesus’ cross was not light and he never intended for it to be easy to follow him. Like Peter, we are eager to take death out of the equation. “Look,” he says to Jesus, “you’re not going to die. That’s silly.”

We do the same thing: “Look,” we say to the people we’re trying to convert, “you’re not going to die. Being a Christian is easy.” And it’s true: we’ve made Christianity the easiest thing in the world. But it’s a lie—it’s a cross with a wheel on it.

Take the wheel off your cross. Peter’s issue—and ours—was that he wanted to micromanage God’s plan. Take the wheel off your cross. If you’re in this for “easy,” then you need to get out. Jesus never promised you anything other than your death. Take the wheel off your cross and allow yourself to feel the weight of what God has for you.