Single Story

May we refuse to accept the single stories of the people that we meet, read about, see in the news, etc…..

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Bad News

What is it with Christian radio stations and their aversion to reporting depressing news?

NEWS FLASH

The news is depressing.  And why is that?  Because, unfortunately, life on this effing earth is depressing more often than not.  And what your decision to only report “positive, encouraging news” tells me is that you’re actively choosing to hide from the world, to pull a veil over your eyes and not have to deal with the shit that happens to other people.

I understand not wanting to feel like crap all of the time because of what you see on the news, and I’m not saying that positive news is a bad thing.  Sure, good things happen every day.  But hiding from the bad isn’t going to accomplish anything.  And the only thing it might accomplish is creating more depressing news because of our ignorance and inaction.

Sorry, just needed to vent.  And procrastinate from typing, of course.

Jumping Into the Water

I read this passage of scripture today (yes… I actually opened my Bible!), and I wanted to share it with you:

John 21: 1-14

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias.  It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.  ”I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” 

      ”No,” they answered.

He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.  The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.  When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.”

Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.  Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.  Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.  This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

 

Reading that today, I was amazed by Simon Peter’s response to Jesus:  ”As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, ‘It is the Lord,’ he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.”  Peter didn’t stop to think, he didn’t try to look cool in front of the other disciples or Jesus.  As soon as he found out that the man on the shore was Jesus, his Lord, He jumped into the water and went to him as quickly as he could.  

I think I’m finally beginning to really see God as a relational God.  Jesus and Peter had a real relationship.  They were friends.  Peter loved Jesus deeply, and this passage shows us that Jesus loved Peter deeply, too.  Peter must have known that Jesus loved him, or he would not have jumped into the water.  No one would respond that way to someone unless they were certain of the other person’s affections.  

This is exactly the kind of reaction that I would be afraid to show someone.  I am rarely ever sure enough of the other person’s love for me to show them the full extent of my love the way Peter did.  I almost always hold back, unsure of how my affection would be received.  

Recently, Jesus has become less of an abstract and distant Deity and more of a real person to me.  I’ve been looking at what he’s done in the world and in my life with a skeptical curiosity, asking him questions and expecting answers, which I suspect is similar to the way the disciples related to Jesus when he was here on earth.  And as I’ve waited for those answers, my life has come to a kind of stand still.  Jesus has been holding out his hand, inviting me to follow him, while I’ve been pacing back and forth considering whether or not to take him up on his offer.  And today, just before reading this passage, I finally answered his invitation… with an uncertain “yes.”  

Not exactly jumping into the water, but I’m getting there.

More on the Fall (of Man… not the season)

I’ve been thinking more about the Fall over the last few days.  And this post was actually inspired by getting a paper back in one of my anthropology classes today.  I was not looking forward to going to that class, because I had turned in my midterm paper last week and felt that it was severely lacking.  It wasn’t long enough, I didn’t have enough sources, and honestly, I hadn’t spent nearly enough time on it.  I could list off excuses for why that was, but really, only one will hold water… ’09.

Anyways, I could barely look my professor in the eye.  I was sure that he was judging me, thinking that I was some slacker who didn’t care about his class (which wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate).  And it struck me after a few minutes of class, that the emotion I was experiencing was shame.  

Another aspect of the Fall that Donald Miller talks about in his book, Searching for God Knows What (see post Seeing the Fall) is that as human beings, we were created to be told by something outside ourselves who we are and what we’re worth.  And before that fateful day (maybe?) in Eden, that something was God.  We had value simply because God created us and loved us, and we were aware of that fact, and therefore felt no shame (Miller focuses a lot on the fact that Adam and Eve were naked and felt no shame… it’s interesting).  But the most immediate result of the Fall was that we were cast out from the presence of God, and no longer had his voice telling us who we were, and telling us that we had value.  But the need for that affirmation was still built into us, and so we started looking for it from other people.  Almost everything that we do as humans can be traced back to this need for someone to tell us that we matter.  

I experienced one of the consequences of the Fall in my anthropology class today.  Why did I feel shame over this “bad” paper (which it turns out, apparently wasn’t that bad after all)?  Why could I not even look my professor in the eye?  Because I was looking to him for validation of my existence.  I was looking to him to tell me that I matter, that I have value, that I am better than someone else out there.  And since I felt like I hadn’t done my best on that paper, I was afraid that he would weigh me and measure me, and ultimately define me as unworthy, incapable, without value.  I was looking to my professor for something that, really, only God can give me.

We truly are broken people.

Seeing the Fall

I’m about half way through “Searching for God Knows What,” and I just got through a couple of chapters on the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man.  I wish I could recopy both of the chapters here for you to read, but for the sake of time I will only give you a taste of Donald Miller’s thoughts on the fall:

Chapter 3 of Genesis is, to me, one of the most confusing in all Scripture.  I can’t read it without producing a list of questions for God, questions I fear have few answers.  God does not choose to tell us why He let Satan walk around in the Garden so he could talk to Adam and Eve, and He doesn’t tell us why God did not talk to Adam and Eve to kindly counsel them about Satan’s deception.  God might have done this, but if He did, we don’t have any record of it.  And while God told the sad couple in no uncertain terms to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, He did not seem to tell them that there was such a thing as a lie, and such a being as a liar.  Was this covered in the pre-earth manual?  There are times when I find myself angry at the couple because all the tragedy in all of life can be traced back to them, but I also see them as somewhat innocent, having been created by God with minds that could so easily be deceived.

And yet the crime the couple committed seems unforgivable.  They fell for a trick.  Far from a technicality in behavior, their eating of the fruit was a heart-level betrayal between committed friends: God and man.  At issue in the tragedy of the Garden is a relational crime.  Adam and Eve were not satisfied with their relationship with God, and they wanted to change the dynamic by increasing their own power, a reality that simply wasn’t possible, save the fantasy realm whispered to them through the words of the evil one.

I’ve a friend who overheard his wife on the phone with another man.  She did not know he was in the house, and he walked up behind her, leaned against the frame of the door to hear her confess her love and and enjoyment of the other man’s touch.  My friend drove around Baltimore in a daze; he went into coffee shops and sat with his head in his hands.  He went to a bus station and bought a ticket to Pittsburgh but he missed his bus, sick from smoking a pack of cigarettes.  Instead, he spent an hour in the bathroom vomiting yellow muck into a filthy toilet.

Our systematic theology reduces the fall of man to a technical act of betrayal.  We hardly think of it as relational at all.  But I think this view distorts what actually happened.  I think God must have felt like my friend in Baltimore.  I think it was something terribly painful for God to endure.  I don’t think we can understand the pain a pure love would feel after being betrayed by the focus of its love.  You wouldn’t think God would forgive them at all.  You would think God would just kill them….

And this makes me wonder what God must have felt, arriving on the scene just after the Fall, knowing all He had made was ruined, and understanding at once the sacrifice that would be required to win the hearts of His children from the grasp of their seducer.  I see Him in my mind walking the paths, calling to the couple, meeting their eyes for the first time, and Adam and Eve shaking in absolute terror, wondering what had happened, confused at the broken promise of a snake, feeling at once the trustworthiness of their first love and wondering if God would ever love them again, feeling the hot breath of His anger and emotion, hearing Him speak for the first time, not as a friend, but as One who had been betrayed.  ”Who told you that you were naked?”

 

 

After reading these two chapters, I walked around campus, seeing perhaps for the first time, the complete and utter brokenness of all of creation.  I walked through the arboretum, and as soon as my heart began to melt at the beauty of a flower, a dark shadow came over me and saw that even that flower is not as it should be.  As I walked down the street, the trees that usually exude beauty and wonder seemed to be weary with the burden of the Fall.  Through my eyes, all of creation was tainted by deceptions and lies, and was groaning for salvation.  

Nothing is as it should be.

Light and Darkness

Last night in small group we started off with John 1:1-18.  It’s a passage that most of us who grew up in the church are familiar with – the Word becoming flesh, the life, the light of men.  There was one verse in particular that stood out to me this time around:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

Some of the international students in our group had some really great insights about this passage that I want to share with you.  They really brought the hope of this verse alive, even for me. 

One student explained that light is really hard to get rid of.  Even when it’s dark outside, there’s always the moon and the stars.  We rarely, if ever, find ourselves in complete darkness.  So light is never fully snuffed out by darkness.

Another student continued by saying that actually, it’s technically impossible for darkness to overcome light.  Darkness doesn’t exist, only the absense of light. 

Unfortunately, in this world that we live in, it can often be hard to really believe that the darkness hasn’t overcome the light.  Sometimes the light is nearly impossible to see.  But these wise thoughts from our friends from around the world make it a little easier to believe.

Defining Thoughts

It’s been a while, friends.  The blogging has fallen by the wayside since the craziness of life at Carolina began two weeks ago.  If it makes you feel any better, I’ve spent pretty much every waking hour working on two InterVarsity videos for the last two weeks, leaving very little room for eating, sleeping, homework, or going to class.  So, I’ve lost sleep, brain cells, GPA points, and probably a few pounds, along with allowing my blog to be so utterly neglected.  But I’m back.

I’ve recently discovered that it is very helpful for me to define things.  To define my experiences, to define the experiences of others, to define words and concepts that are overly used and have lost their meaning.   Over the past year or so, I’ve been thinking a lot about the word/concept “Christian,” and what exactly it means to define yourself as one.  This question came out of a somewhat frustrating experience from International Student Ministry fall semester last year.  I was leading small group, and the area director for InterVarsity ISM was visiting our group.  During the study, one of the girls asked a few questions about God’s will, how we know what his will is, and if he would ever ask us to do something that we don’t want to do.  As soon as all of the international students left, the area director came up to me and said “I don’t think that girl is a Christian.”  She was very sure of herself.  But I wasn’t convinced.  

The most frustrating thing about that comment for me was that this woman had only spent an hour with this particular international student, but had already made a confident assessment of her spiritual condition.  I had already known this girl for several weeks and couldn’t say for sure one way or another whether or not she was a “christian.”  And even after spending a whole semester with her, I’m still not sure. 

So I started asking the question, what exactly does it mean to be a Christian?  Is it walking down the isle to the front of the church?  Is it raising your hand at a Christian conference and repeating a prayer after the evangelistic speaker?  Is it believing a set of doctrines or statements of faith?  Or is it something more than that?  Something that is a little harder to define, a gray area?

The actual word “christian” originally meant someone who followed Christ.  It was first used for those who followed Jesus in Antioch, but the term was give to them by the Greeks/Romans, and wasn’t used by the followers themselves until much later.  So my next question would be, what does it mean to follow Jesus?

To continue with the international student example.  This girl came to UNC wanting nothing to do with Christianity.  She had a really bad experience with the church and with Christians in her family back in her home country, and was really turned off by it.  By some miracle, she ended up coming to our bible study, and really enjoyed it.  Throughout the semester, I had a lot of conversations with her about faith, and by the time we parted ways for winter break, she told me that she believed that God had a plan for her life and that she really wanted to do whatever that was.  She wanted to continue working out her faith when she returned home.  But she didn’t yet know what she thought about Jesus specifically.  So, is she a christian?  The way that she is really seeking God seems more like following Jesus than a lot of what I see in the Church today.  She didn’t walk down an isle, or say a special prayer, or recite the Nicene Creed.  But in the most basic sense, she is following Jesus.  She is giving a little bit of herself to him, a little bit at a time.  Is it only when she gives herself fully to him that she can be called a Christian?  And if that is the criteria, then how many of those who call themselves Christians aren’t quite as “saved” as they thought?

What about another international student, who had also had a bad experience with the Church in her home country.  She came to UNC wanting nothing to do with Christianity, but became a Christian during her first semester here.  But when she talks about her faith journey, she doesn’t mention a specific date or instance where she “gave her life to Jesus,” or “asked Jesus into her heart.”  For her, the whole semester was a process of her becoming a Christian; a process that she says still isn’t finished.  Is she a Christian?  She is clearly following Jesus, and that is her desire.  But she can’t point to a specific moment where she moved from not being a Christian to being a Christian.  What do we do with her story?  How do we define her journey?

Or what about someone who grew up in a Christian home, had a specific “becoming a Christian” moment, but is now having doubts about the inerrancy of scripture?  Knowing what they know about how the Bible came together, they’re not sure how much of it is accurate, or how much of it they still believe.  Have they lost their “Christian” title?  They haven’t chucked the faith entirely.  And they’re actively seeking answers to their questions, wanting to have a deeper faith.  What category does that fall under?

Or what about someone who still believes in God, and in scripture, but is having doubts about the character of God.  They’ve dealt with some rough circumstances in their life, and they doubt that God loves them, that He has good plans for them, that He is the good Father that He claims to be.  They’ve grown up hearing about the love and grace of God, but are really struggling to see how those things play out in their life.  They still believe firmly in God’s existence, but they’re still trying to figure out who He is before they commit themselves to Him again.  They have put their “christian walk” on hold (or at least their christian walk the way it used to be) to actively seek out the answers to these questions.  They’re not the sold out Christian that they used to be, and their faith is a little misplaced, but it is the most serious about faith that they’ve ever been.  They are sincerely seeking Jesus, wanting to know his true character and to figure out exactly how to interact with him, and what it means to follow him.  Are they still a Christian?  Should they be a part of InterVaristy’s leadership team?  Should they be discipling underclassmen?  Do they no longer have a part in building the Kingdom of God, until they get themselves “back on track”?  

I’m seeing more and more that being a Christian is more of a process than a one-moment deal.  It seems to me that it’s less about specific beliefs and more about how you act on those beliefs.  I heard a definition of a Christian recently that really resonates with me:  ”A Christian is someone who gives all that they know of themselves to all that they know of Jesus.”  I’m still trying to unpack that, and see what that means for me, for the people in my life, and for the Church as a whole.  

Any thoughts?

Omnipotent? Why Wait?

I really don’t understand God’s timing.  Why does he wait?  Why does he wait and purposefully allow people to suffer before he rescues them?  He waited with Moses.  He waited with the Israelites in Egypt.  He waited with all of humanity as they awaited the savior.  And this morning, I was reading about how he allowed the suffering of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.  He knew that Lazarus was sick, and that Mary and Martha were worried, and yet he stayed where he was.  And the scripture says something that puzzles me:

“Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where He was two more days.”

What?  Why?  Maybe that’s why the writer of John put those two sentences in there – he was confused about it as I am.  If Jesus loved them, why did he act the way he did?  Why didn’t he run in immediately and save the day?  Why didn’t he just heal the sickness like he had done so many times before?  Why did Lazarus have to die before Jesus would act?  Why did Martha and Mary have to worry through the sickness, get their hopes up when they called for Jesus, only to have them dashed as they watched their brother die and grieved for him 4 days?  Most people that I pose this question to would come back with a quick answer of “So that God could be glorified.”  And that seems to be what the writer of John came up with, and those are the words that come out of Jesus’ mouth.  But that’s just a hard answer for me to swallow right now.  Maybe I’m thinking too highly of humanity, but somehow it seems a little sick that humanity has to experience so much suffering in order for God to be glorified.  How is that love?  And that’s not a rhetorical question.  I really want to understand why a God who claims to love us seems so prone to inaction.  I have to know, before I stake my life on the reality of that love.

God’s Answer

So, I’ve started reading Exodus 6, and this is God’s response to Moses:

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh:  Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.’

God also said to Moses, ‘I am the LORD.  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.  I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens.  Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. 

‘Therefore, say to the Israelites: “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.  I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgement.  I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.  Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.  And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.  I will give it to you as a possession.  I am the LORD.’”

– Exodus 6:1-8

As usual, God is pretty long-winded.  Haha.  Moses asks a 2 sentence question, God gives a 12 sentence response.  Typical.

Even though I’m still processing His answer, and what it means for Moses and me, I am willing to concede that it’s a pretty powerful answer.  Basically, God is saying “I AM.”  His response to Moses’ frustration and confusion is a re-iteration of his character, his promises, and his power and desire to bring them to life.  ”I AM, therefore…”  

And though I don’t know what to do with this response just yet, I have become convinced that it’s okay to question God.  That actually, it’s more than okay.  He WANTS us to question.  In Isaiah he invites us to reason with him (Isaiah 1:18).  I mean, Moses was a pretty cool dude, and God used him to do some amazing things (come on, he split the red sea, made water come out of a rock, wrote down the Law, and the list goes on…).  But Moses wasn’t afraid to ask God the “why” question.  And when the Israelites were in the desert, Moses talked with God, face to face, as a man speaks with his friend (Exodus 33:11).  That’s pretty sweet.  And David was definitely real with God.  He expressed his anger to God towards his enemies and asked God lots of “why” questions in the Psalms.  I mean, he danced around in his underwear before the Lord, for goodness sakes… you don’t get much more real than that.  I think God longs for us to be real and honest with him.  He sees it all anyway…

Perfection Redefined

Whenever I talk about anything in the sense of the grass being greener on the other side, I am always warned to be careful.  ”No one’s perfect, you know” they say.  But I think that, over the years (I say that as if I’m some wise old woman), I have come to redefine the meaning of perfection.  Here are some of my thoughts on this new definition:

• Perfection isn’t never making mistakes, it’s owning your humanity and learning from the ones you inevitably make.

• Perfection isn’t being perpetually happy, it’s a willingness to wade through the not-so-happy times with patience and grace.

• Perfection isn’t always being right, it’s the willingness to admit when you’re wrong.

• Perfection isn’t finally reaching the highest of heights, it’s having the perseverance to get back up when you fall.

• Perfection isn’t always having your priorities straight, it’s being open to seeing when you don’t, and at least putting yourself on the road to getting them where they need to be.

• Perfection isn’t never hurting the people you love, it’s being willing to admit when you do and doing everything possible to make it right.  

• Perfection isn’t having all together, it’s recognizing the beauty in the mess that you are.  

• Perfection isn’t having everything you need, it’s doing the best you can with the cards you’ve been dealt.  

These things seem like a much more attainable goal than the commonly used definition of perfection.  And for people who at least attempt to “perfect” these characteristics in their lives, I think the grass is, in fact, a little bit greener.