Guilt and Giving

Sometimes I think about how I could be doing more for poor people (what? I don't know. All I can think of is walking up to random hobos with a hot meal, or giving money whenever you're asked for it, or taking on several Compassion children). And sometimes, this makes me panic.

I had a fantastic Christmas this year. In every way. I was richly blessed relationally and materially. German relatives who I had previously met about once opened up their homes and schedules to me. I have had really fun and interesting experiences with nice, smart, funny people who really seem to care about me, and on top of that I've gotten some great gifts. And some money. Like, more than I've ever gotten at one holiday in my entire life. And this money really starts to make me panic. Do I have to tithe it? How much do I have to give away? It would be copping out not to give away all of it, what about that verse about selling everything you own to give to the poor? Isn't it ridiculous to give it all away? And to whom? And wouldn't I feel so weird about it that I wouldn't even be glad I had done so?

These are dumb questions, I decided. They smack of fear and legalism, and panic is of the devil. This is what I think:

We don't have to walk around feeling guilty about our lack of deeds/giving. As long as we feel guilty, we are incapable of doing said deeds out of anything but obligation, and they are meaningless unless we do them in love. It's hard for me to accept grace, God's timing, waiting, but if we insist on forcing the deeds, it's declaring God's outrageous, extravagant love isn't enough. His grace that would love us no less even if we never helped another person again, is offensive, but I need to accept that as truth and not fret about my apparent lack of giving back. Everything in its time.

Obviously I think giving back is incredibly important, because it reflects the state of the heart. But I think if we are spending time with God and allowing him to give us a heart just like his, the desire to give will bubble up inside of us, and we can give joyfully out of that.

And fyi, I don't think each good deed and act of giving has to be specifically called out by God in advance. I am just processing through this idea of living guilt-free. I am deciding more and more that everything in the world is so interconnected that we have chances every day to either fight oppression or look the other way: oppression of animals (eating meat at a fast food restaurant), of people (some friends have been telling me chocolate is made by slavery, and I've heard a lot of cheaper clothing is manufactured in sweatshops), or of the earth (being wasteful). We can shop at fair trade stores and buy products that didn't take advantage of anyone before making it to us.

I realize those decisions are all deeds or works, but they have far less guilt and panic attached to them than straight up cash. I am sure we were not meant to live in guilt and panic.

I found some Scriptures that helped me:

"...Rebekah's children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins had done anything good or bad -- in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls-- she was told, "The older one will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob have I loved, but Esau I hated." What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy." -Romans 9:10-16

We can't work or give our way out of guilt. We can't work or give our way out of anything. God is doing the heavy lifting, doing all the work there is to do, we're on his team, contributing the strengths that he gifted us with to help, and enjoying him in the process.

This one is better:

"I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the LORD Almighty." -Isaiah 45:13

It startled me, and even seemed random. But this is what I got: The Lord is raising up Cyrus. Cyrus is doing his own thing in the sense that he has free will, but is doing God's thing in the sense that he's being animated and guided by God into his good works. Just like all of us. The mistake is in thinking there's separation there, like God does something, and then separately we work out our own other thing. We ought to accept that God promises as long as we seek him, he is doing stuff through us whether or not we are aware of it all the time. Cyrus is not doing those wonderful deeds to impress God or assuage his own guilt in any way, but by divine initiative.

There's always more we can be doing and more we can be giving. But God's Christmas gift to us 365 days a year is not to be panicky or guilty about this fact, because he knows us, and he will use us.

If you are reading this, I'd love to hear what you think. I of course don't want to unintentionally become callous to other peoples' problems while I wait for God to move in a way that may not be what I am expecting.

A Guest Advent Reflection

This is another guest post. It's from The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey:

C.S. Lewis has written about God's plan, "The whole thing narrows and narrows, until at last it comes down to a little point, small as the point of a spear--a Jewish girl at her prayers." Today as I read the accounts of Jesus' birth I tremble to think of the fate of the world resting on the responses of two rural teenagers. How many times did Mary review the angel's words as she felt the Son of God kicking against the walls of her uterus? How many times did Joseph second-guess his own encounter with an angel--just a dream?--as he endured the hot shame of living among villagers who could plainly see the changing shape of his fiancee?

[...]

Nine months of awkward explanations, the lingering scent of scandal--it seems that God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for his entrance, as if to avoid any charge of favoritism. I am impressed that when the Son of God became a human being he played by the rules, harsh rules: small towns do not treat kindly young boys who grow up with questionable paternity.

Malcolm Muggeridge observed that in our day, with family-planning clinics offering convenient ways to correct "mistakes" that might disgrace a family name, "It is, in point of fact, extremely improbable that Jesus would have been permitted to be born at all. Mary's pregnancy, in poor circumstances, and with the father unknown, would have been an obvious case for an abortion; and her talk of having conceived as a result of the intervention of the Holy Ghost would have pointed to her need for psychiatric treatment, and made the case for terminating her pregnancy even stronger. Thus our generation, needing a Savior more, perhaps, than any that has ever existed, would be too humane to allow one to be born."*

The virgin Mary, though, whose parenthood was unplanned, had a different response. She heard the angel out, pondered the repercussions, and replied, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said." Often a word of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain, and in that matter-of-fact response Mary embraced both. She was the first person to accept Jesus on his own terms, regardless of the personal cost.**

from me, not Philip Yancey:

* I sure hope this guy is overstating the case a little bit, but I think he makes a good point even so. I would hope a mother has more control than to just let the baby be aborted without her consent, but either way Jesus would definitely be a prime candidate if you look at reasons people give, like "oh, that family is so poor the kid wouldn't have a good life anyway," and stuff. I agree that Mary's explanation would definitely get her into a psychiatric hospital, too, if most doctors heard it.

**Wow. I love the wording he chose. Accepting Jesus and God's plan (which are one and the same) always comes at a high personal cost, and it must always be on His terms, without compromise, but it's always worth it.

What we are praying for when we pray for the gospel to spread

Last night the pastor at my church here was telling the story of his conversion. He said God meant nothing to his family during his childhood. None of the family believed or cared to follow God's ways. But when he was a teenager, first his sister and then his mother began going to church. He decided to investigate what this was all about, and he began to read the Bible. Not out of love for God, but out of curiosity. Then he said because of his reading the gospel message he began to be thirsty. That was not surprising to me.

Then he said he began to feel dirty. I wasn't sure I had translated correctly. He said he began to feel alone, and to feel very ugly. He said that before his encounter with the gospel as portrayed in the Bible he had been a very prideful person, content in his achievements and his intelligence and the pride of his family for these things about him. I knew that what he was saying made sense, but at first it struck me as very strange. And I realized that many people who don't know God simply don't feel a need for Him. And I realized, again, that the way to God dips into a valley before it climbs to heaven. We aren't taken from glory to glory until we've come face to face with the end of ourselves.

This has been a question I've had lately: how to pray for non-believers, when all they really need is God. At my church in America, sometimes they go and pray for people who don't know God, right in front of them. They ask what they need and pray for that. That's probably fine or they wouldn't be doing it, but I said "they" because I've not yet understood how that is supposed to work. It seems to be ignoring the most glaring and basic need in the person's life to pray for them and leave out the part about their heart encountering God, and yet it seems dishonest to leave that part out if you're planning to do it later so that they don't feel weird.

The truth is, when you find a person who is in need of God (aka everyone who doesn't walk with Him yet), what they need first to even be able to approach Him is a deep sense of unease with the way things are going. This might be why some of us describe encountering God as "having your life turned upside down" or "getting rocked" or even (okay, this is just me, in some dramatic moments) "having your life ruined." Because once you see the truth, going back isn't an option. There are no easy roads left to you once your ignorance has been stripped away. You have to do things that break your fleshly little heart, and yet not to do them is to turn your back on the one you love.

All this has been a surprise to me. It's dawned on me very, very slowly. And it's for this that I believe it's not up to us to make the gospel sound appealing to people. I once told a friend it's not like we listen for problems in someone's life and prescribe God to them like a medicine. He's not a product we're selling. We can't even exaggerate how great He is, but we can misrepresent Him sometimes if we try to make (or God forbid, succeed at making) the Christian life look cool. It's just not cool, okay? It's way better than the alternative, but it's not easier, and to tell someone it is can mess them up for a long time as they try to reconcile this paradox. It's not that we convince people into the kingdom; God chooses people, and calls them, and that's His divine initiative. And we can partner with His work by praying that the people we love will come to know Him.

But let's make no mistake about what we're asking. When I ask for someone's salvation, a person far from God who is pretty happy with their life, I am asking that they will be completely broken. That they will begin to feel dirty, and thirsty, and alone. Even ugly. Not that they will stay feeling that way forever with no comfort, but that they will get to that place and not be able to pretend it away anymore.

All through church I kept having more thoughts about this, and I thought, "maybe it's not so bad to pray for a little unhappiness in this life, seeing that it's so fleeting, and painful anyway, and that it could lead to eternal life. It's just like those metaphors about a doctor who gives a painful but life-saving shot, or who relocates a limb, or those people who have to push harder on the trap to free an animal or whatever."

And I also realized that prayers to get closer to God, which we might toss up so casually, knowing they are always a good bet, never the wrong thing to pray, might as well just be prayers for more sadness and more emptiness, so that God can comfort and fill us. It's impossible for Him to fill what is not empty.

I guess if there's anything good about this, at least for me, it is that whenever I am very, very sad (it happens) I am a vessel that can contain more of God's comfort, or when I am empty or alone, I can invite God to fellowship with me in a way that someone who is totally content just wouldn't be able to.

⁸ Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— ⁹ yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. ¹⁰ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. ¹¹ See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. --2 Corinthians 7:8-11

P.S. This idea, paraphrased, "Don't Just Pray For Someone's Happiness, You Fool (Because It Might Interfere With God's Work In Their Life)" was originally given to me about a year ago by good ol Oswald Chambers, and I've been working it through ever since, and continue to realize more about it all the time.

A "Guest Post": The Trial of Faith

Let me be very clear. This is a devotional I copied and pasted from My Utmost for His Highest. Calling it a guest post is stretching the truth to the breaking point. It's almost certainly illegal for me to repost it like this, but since I have about eight readers, I don't think it will be a problem. This is the original link: http://utmost.org/the-trial-of-faith/I found this incredibly helpful, even worth breaking the law for. Enjoy:

We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith— faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to “walk by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.

Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him— a faith that says, “I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.” The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is— “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

Reflections on being foreign Part I

So, I am a foreigner right now. (I don't think this is news to anyone who is reading this.) This makes me read Bible passages about "the foreigner" in a WHOLE new light.

Check out this one: "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and foreigner. I am the LORD your God." -Leviticus 19:9-10

And: "'When foreigners reside among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigners residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." -Leviticus 19:33-34

Firstly, when I saw "poor and foreigner" grouped together, I instantly understood why. In your native setting, you might be intelligent, educated, and pretty good at handling basic transactions, but when you are in a foreign context (especially in a foreign language!) you basically come across as mentally disabled. I am not saying this lightly, or to make a cheap joke. There are multiple people I know, even friends, who literally seem to me to be slightly... developmentally challenged, because of the way they speak English. I may never know this side of heaven whether they are actually slow or not but the fact remains that when you can't speak a language well, that is the impression you give off.

"Poor" implies disadvantaged, in need of a little extra grace, lacking. "Foreigner," I am learning firsthand, is the same. As for the second Scripture passage, I would like to take this opportunity to say I could never have expected a better reception from the people here. People are always inviting me to do things, and feeding me, and giving me things and offering to drive me places, and actually driving me places and then home again, even though where I live is on no one's way anywhere. I realize full well that right now I have nothing to give back to them. All I can offer them is my sincere gratitude. In the future, I hope I can also offer them friendship, but friendship takes time to flower, of course, and now the best I can give is a stranger's kindness.

It's not like I haven't spent time alone, but I want to be very clear about something: I am a person who loves being in her room. Sometimes I don't want to leave it, even to do something better than test-drive free music from Noisetrade while playing Spider Solitaire to stave off the boredom. If I am getting out and about all the time (and, I am), it's because people are initiating with me. It makes me see my need; the point of this paragraph is that I would be "lost" (too harsh a word, I know) without the intentional generosity of others calling or texting me, then driving here to pick me up. And frankly, I am pretty sure this is also because I am foreign. In America, I know there are some settings I'd be completely at ease in. One is at a Target. Another is at a Starbucks. Guess what, Saint Claude doesn't have either one of those. Those are just two examples, but here I'm pretty sure there are no settings at all here that I'd be "completely at ease in" (in which I'd be completely at ease...). We foreigners need help, is my point. We need people to leave grapes and gleanings lying around so we can eat while we're trying to track down the phone number to get our fridge fixed and figure out a grocery shopping schedule and transportation options.

Being a foreigner and "dropping" from being a person who is quickly easily understood almost all the time (gosh I hope so) to being someone who stumbles over the simplest things and uses the wrong gender with nouns, and talks in a weirdly formal way that might be textbook right but doesn't resemble how most people actually talk, makes me think of the options we all have in life. There are some people who will never do what I did, in moving to a foreign country alone, and as a result they may never quite realize how great it is to be understood when you open your mouth. I wouldn't blame anyone for staying in their home settings. It's no fun to feel like everything you say is dumb, and you have a thick accent.

But on some days, I have this thought, and admittedly its prideful, but it's like: "Do you realize who I am? I promise I'm not some babbling stupid person. I have friends, and stuff. I know how to buy things, and to say and understand numbers, even long ones, and communicate effectively with a telephone. And from time to time I am even clever with words, just not in your language." I've always associated a willingness to "drop in status" with the Christian life. By no means am I trying to say I did that on purpose, or that it's good I did it. Not at all, I just see a metaphor here I can't resist.

Jesus was the ultimate example of "Don't you know who I am? Don't you know what I'm capable of?" His Father would have sent Him more than 12 legions of angels at the drop of a hat (and apparently a legion was like 6,000), but instead He opted to live like us, you know, giving up certain perks of being a deity for a time so that He could show true love. Because love would never pull rank. Love wouldn't feel like it needed to say, "Seriously, I'm not as dumb as you probably think right now. Seriously, I'm way more powerful than this, you've got to believe me. If I wanted to I could call my dad, he's pretty famous and rich, no big deal, and he would fix everything, I swear."

Thus, I will conclude by saying that even though I feel dumb sometimes, I'm grateful for this opportunity. I love the idea of hospitality, and I've always wanted to be good at it, and I am learning tons from being on the receiving end in such an extreme way.

Praise and glory to God for His kind children, and His generous heart that humans share as His image-bearers even when they don't know Him.

Cain and Abel used to bother me.

Yesterday in church I realized it bugged me that God seemed to accept Abel and reject Cain. Doesn't Acts 10:34-35 tell us that he's "no respecter of persons" (depending on your translation)? Doesn't 1 Peter 1:17 say the Father judges impartially, and are we not instructed to imitate God by doing "nothing out of favoritism" in 1 Timothy 5:21? And in James 3:17 the wisdom that comes from heaven is lots of things, and one of them is impartial.

But before I had even had time to think of those (I mean, who needs references to know God is fair, right?) I realized that I was overlooking part of the story. Genesis 4:4-5 says, "The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor." Not just Abel and Cain themselves. So Cain gets mad and sad (my paraphrase of Genesis 4:5b) and God, being a considerate person, asks him why. "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?"

I admit there's a lot going on in the original story that I don't understand, because I don't know if there's some significance to the difference between offering animals and plants (one has blood and includes death?) and I know that Abel kept flocks for a living, and Cain grew stuff, so what does that say about 2 Corinthians 8:12 "For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have"? But I think I know the answer already. It specifies right in the passage, "if the willingness is there."

The reading of the Cain and Abel story that does not bother me is as follows: Cain's and Abel's offerings have modern-day parallels that I can understand. Another word for offering in this case will be sacrifice. Modern-day sacrifices include all sorts of things. Like:

- sacrificing your right to speak up and defend yourself all the time (Jesus set us an example of this in 1 Peter 2:23, and it is every bit as relevant today as ever);

- sacrificing whatever amount of time you set aside daily for prayer, listening to God and reading Scripture;

- sacrificing watching movies or TV or listening to music that feels really good but also sort of tears apart your soul a little bit by setting a bad example (okay, I am referring to Gossip Girl);

- sacrificing the unlimited free music you could be having by choosing to pay out of respect for musicians;

- sacrificing your American Dream to pursue something less glam and impressive for Jesus' sake and the sake of the broken (example: doing that thing where you put a cap on your earnings and give the rest away);

- sacrificing a tenth of your dinero to give to church;

- sacrificing making out too much or at the wrong time in the interest of purity and showing you trust God that He's better than making out out of season.

and.. the examples are probably infinite, but those are what I came up with on the spot. If you were wondering, the making out one is my favorite example, lol. And I'd consider those to all be pretty good sacrifices. Sacrifices that are supernaturally motivated when you decide you want to honor God and ask Him for the strength to make them. I realize there are way bigger things to give up, and also way smaller. But I think the listed examples all require faith that there's more to life than what we can see. Hebrews 11:4 says that, "By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did." So I can believe that in my modern-day parallel story, Abel's sacrifice, his offering, was something like one of those or better. And as for Cain, well, his offering was probably more like the day you forgot to bring lunch with you and there's nowhere you can buy it so you realize halfway through being hungry that technically it could probably be referred to as a fast, and that's what you offer. Cain's sacrifice was probably like giving your last leftovers to God instead of the firstfruits He both wants and deserves way more than you, anyway. It doesn't take faith, because you didn't really do anything differently in your life because of it.

Frankly, I often have trouble with the binaries, or lack thereof, in the world. It's far easier to understand life in black and white. But God is a person, and like any person, doesn't fit into any kind of formula or predictability. So it's His divine right (and in this case, who could blame Him anyway?) to look favorably upon some offerings and not upon others. Some offerings are better, some come from a deeper place in the heart and thus contain more of us. More of our will, because they reflect more of the giver's intention (if I didn't already tell you, I think will and intention are the deepest part of someone's being). To use a dumb example, think of the difference between someone giving you store-bought cookies and home-baked ones. Sure, they are both cookies. And even if they taste the same (I think we all know the home-baked ones would be better in a non-hypothetical situation), heck, even if the home ones are worse, you will probably look more favorably on the ones that someone took time to plan and bake for you, which they did not have to do (evidenced by the fact that there is such a thing as store-bought cookies).

The rough part for me is that I can easily imagine myself in Cain's place: someone else totally spends more time with God, and I am jealous that they seem to be receiving more from Him. Well, should I be surprised by this? If I gave up what they have to pursue Jesus, would I not receive the riches I see them with?

Lastly, there's a verse somewhere (thought it was in James or Corinthians, but couldn't find it, and Google didn't help at all) about how we kill people or are mean to them or something not because of how bad they are, but how bad we are (awful, awful paraphrase I know). And this seemed relevant, and I would've added it if I could've.

What we look at says more about us than what we look like.

Some of those bright motivational posters for children say, “It’s what’s inside that counts!” I propose that, alternately, what we take in is more important than both our outsides and our insides. Because it’s a choice. People act like their life happens to them, and it partially does, but I think your true life is defined by what you decide to do about it, not by what happens. It’s like all the metaphors about hands you’re dealt and making lemonade. Life handing lemons is the test, and lemonade, your answers, are more you than the exam questions. Isn’t that true of a real test; which part is written in your handwriting?

Jesus said what you eat isn’t what makes you unclean, but I totally think that proves my point.

Mark 7 begins with a story of the Pharisees criticizing Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands before they ate. Then Jesus lectures the Pharisees for holding too tightly to tradition and thus missing the point. In Mark 7:14-16, Jesus “again called the crowd to him and said, 'Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside you can defile you by going into you. Rather, it is what comes out of you that defiles you.'” When the disciples ask him to explain, he accuses them of being dull (“willfully stupid” in the Message), and explains the rationale in v 19: “For it doesn’t go into your heart but into your stomach, and then out of your body.”

Even the Message translation holds to this same point: “Don’t you see that what you swallow can’t contaminate you? It doesn’t enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines, and is finally flushed.”

I think it’s pretty clear by this passage that something that actually does enter your heart has the potential to contaminate you. And of course, there’s Philippians 4:8 “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” The Message says, “you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

I think we sometimes buy into this idea that we can control what we are on the inside. I’m not so sure I agree. Haven’t you ever had an unwelcome thought? I’ve had more than I could possibly ever hope to count. Unwelcome means uninvited, and therefore I didn’t control its presence in my mind. We’re all born with internal, invisible traits we may or may not like.

Even Jesus couldn’t do all He did without a good influence, something to watch and fill his mind with, the most true, noble lovely, pure, admirable, beautiful, gracious, compelling, best, praise-worthy being that has ever existed:

John 5:19-20 -“Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself, he can do only what he sees the Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that spiritual depression is mainly "due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself."

I realized this last part last night. I have this desire to regularly meet with a woman who is older than I am, just to talk to her about life. I apparently had this desire when I was in Paris, too, because in retrospect I totally did that, I just showed up at her office (granted, she was a youth pastor) a bunch of times and we talked. Last night I tried to ask this woman from church if we could get a meal some time, but really I used the word for sometimes, and either way, it doesn't matter because her response wasn't the desired, "of course! I know what you mean," even though I tried to explain why I was asking, it was more like, "sure, but you should just hang out with my son at my house if you're lonely."

Afterward I felt awkward for asking because I felt misunderstood and even a touch creepy, and I had to tell myself over and over again that it's really not that big of a deal that I asked, that she knows there's a language barrier, and ultimately, whatever she did end up thinking about it (or more likely, not thinking about it), I will not necessarily ever know so the fact remains that either way I need to quickly accept that it happened and move on from it. That was me talking to myself, even coaching myself if you will, with a chant of, "It's not a big deal, everything is fine, you can let it go." But that is not what I would think if I were listening to myself. If I were listening to myself, I'd hear, "you are SO creepy right now. She probably really doesn't want to hang out with you, and is too busy anyway, and is trying to foist you off on her son, and did I mention how awkward it is that you just asked to meet up with her for more than one meal even though you just met recently and don't even remember her first name?" (Connection time: those thoughts, coming out of me, want to defile me, like in the Mark 7 passage.)

One last thing. My mom never let me watch Friends growing up (to this day, I've never seen a full episode, or really enjoyed it-- maybe there's still a sour feeling attached to it) or lots of other things (she was so upset when she caught me trying to watch 40 days and 40 nights once after she'd gone to bed) and she was so against Gossip Girl that she confiscated the books I received for Christmas and complained that the TV show was TRASH when I mentioned it once. She believed something called GIGO- garbage in, garbage out. I still deeply resent this saying, and it's very, very begrudgingly that I admit it's spot on and if I ever have a kid I'm not letting them watch anything either.

Last thing, I promise: this is embarrassing, but I've heard lots of other people do it, too. When I am thinking about something hard enough, or imagining something, my face starts to reflect it. Seriously if I think about someone asking me a question I would say yes to, I start to smile and nod without meaning to. This can happen when I am reading a book, or at lots of other times. This proves to me that we are actually interacting deeply with our surroundings, and with our imaginations, even if we pretend not to be.

The Look on His Face

When I have emotional pain, I'm always convinced that it's worse than physical pain. But then I get the flu, and I am like, there is no possible way that anything is worse than this. Probably the worst part is that it's degrading. You're helpless in every way, and also it's just plain gross.

Anyway, I had the flu yesterday. I also prayed a lot. About that, mostly, but other things too. And the thing is, sometimes I've heard it can be a good thing when you're praying to imagine God's face. This seems like a good enough idea to me. Of course He's smiling when you pray to Him, because He accepts even our smallest offerings, and loves us so, just as if you were in love with someone, you would be happy with any way that they reach out to you, even if it's not the exact thing you wanted to hear.

Normally, that makes sense, and I like accepting that His face is smiling at me. But when I am helplessly suffering, I just can't imagine the look on His face. Frankly, I wouldn't want Him to be smiling. That would be ignoring the horrible pain I am in, a pain to which death seems preferable. I would be so pissed if one of my friends or family members was just smiling at me in that situation. But God is a happy person, they say. And for Him to be crying would make it seem like He was helpless, too, helpless to save me. Which I know He is not. Whatever face He has, He's never desperately wringing His hands and fretting.

I just can't picture Him.

Dirty Jokes and God in Nature

I've always loved the metaphor of God illuminating the universe the way the sun illuminates earth. We'd be hopeless and lightless without Him, and He gives us life so naturally that we take Him for granted at times. Also there is not one thing we could do to stop Him from giving to us, though we could build somewhere we could hide in the shade, though we'd do that by the light of the sun, aka by the life and creativity He shares with us. Then there are places like caves that are not man-made but are naturally ways to escape the light, or, like, places we could go that are not conducive to receiving light and life. But that's a digression. The thing I hadn't thought of before is that nighttimes are not an accident. It's not as though something has gone horribly awry each night and we need to panic. Because the sun always comes up again, we simply trust that it will the next morning and sleep in peace.

If God seems distant for a time, that doesn't mean that we need to freak out and start trying to "relight the sun" by our own power. There are just different seasons for different things. We need to live and trust as though He's going to come back, because He will. Even on cloudy days when the sun is hidden, it's still the way we can see everything, even if we can't see it. And lastly, the moon gives light on most nights, but the moon is only reflecting the sun.

I see this-all (God sort of resembles self-evident things we can understand) as related but not the same as Romans 1:20 (NLT:) For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

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Now for dirty jokes. First of all, I think those are the funniest jokes. But I had a great conversation today that made me rethink some stuff. I went to a public high school, and because of that, I am aware of some humor that many home-schoolers (or people raised in a really restrictive home environment) will never understand (this is not me being sassy, it's a fact). This humor almost certainly falls under the category of coarse talk and foolish joking (Ephesians 5:4). I used to be proud of how I could get almost any joke, no matter how gross, proud of how I knew the normal definitions on urban dictionary (there's plenty of stuff on there that no one ever actually uses, so you can't blindly trust it) and was conversant in how to use them. The reason is because it seems more sophisticated, and, well, intelligent, to be able to understand, and furthermore, appreciate, a higher percentage of what's being said. In a way, I would pity those who didn't get it. A whole world out there they didn't understand, and didn't know they didn't understand.

The friend I spoke to today said something like, one's purity of heart may mean that they understand a smaller percentage of the jokes being made around them. This started me thinking, but better yet, they told an improv story. (Names omitted) She said a visiting university's improv troupe, for whom usually no subject was off limits, did a show at a Christian college. The Christian improvisers warned the visitors, "okay, you have to be squeaky clean here, you can't just say anything" and the visitors agreed. During the joint show, the normally-dirty improvisers had no idea what subjects were okay, so they challenged themselves to stay way away from anything slightly controversial. My friend thinks they were even funnier than the Christians who were fluent in the boundaries and stepped quite close to them, knowing what was fine and what wasn't.

Normally I am not huge on risks and challenges but something about the use of the term "challenge," really... reshuffled my mental cards on this matter (Ha. I've never used that metaphor before, or even heard it, ever, but it's exactly what I mean). Maybe being dirtier is not a sign of being smarter, but a sign of being lazier. Maybe you are not more sophisticated if you get more jokes, but instead you're less discerning. Maybe you're avoiding the real challenge, not rising to one.

After all, we call them dirty jokes, and dirtiness is another of those natural things that are self-evident and easily understood. What's harder, to stay dirty or to stay clean? You get dirty without even trying. Cleanliness requires a repeated effort. It doesn't just happen. It's more of a challenge than the alternative. Someone who manages to stay clean or pure should be honored, not pitied. It isn't easy to resist suggestive humor to the extent that you don't even get it. As they say, if you go with the flow you'll end up in a mud puddle at the bottom of the hill. Until now, I've been picking the lazy way out and, stupidly, being proud of that choice.

Lastly, I feel like God's reminding me how cynical I've become and how far I've gotten from a simple, childlike trust in Him. I like to think of how children watch movies (even kids movies) and their parents laugh at what seems like random times to them because they don't get all the nuances yet. I used to glory in being "the adult" no matter what movie it was, but God tells us His kingdom belongs to little children (Luke 18:16) and you must be like them to get into it (Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15).

Deep Grief

Reading Joel, I came across the passage, "Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth" (1:8). All the recent news of weddings/engagements of so, so many people from Wheaton made me appreciate this metaphor even more than usual. People are so excited about their futures together, about planning and the love that they already have now and want to have more of in the coming years of their lives. They probably feel certain that this is the person God hand picked for them to spend the rest of their life with. The verse is like, what if due to some tragedy, instead of a wedding there was a funeral? The anguish would be made a million times worse by the happy anticipation it replaces.

But then I thought, well if you never ended up marrying the person at all, would that be a relief at all? Would it be a little worse to lose your actual spouse, and/or the parent of your children? And that line of thinking made me remember sitting in a car with a few people and discussing whether it would be worse to accidentally kill your child or your lover. I think the answer to that one is pretty obvious: they are both terrible so it doesn't matter.

What all those things have in common, though, is that they represent among the darkest possible of human experience. Especially because it's so unexpected and thus seemingly so meaningless or accidental. Everyone has pain, but this type of loss seems pretty clearly worse than the other kinds.

So I have looked for a silver lining. I obviously would still never wish this stuff on anyone, just to be clear. But I think maybe the benefit to losing everything and hitting rock bottom is the freedom. I once read, [paraphrase] "Once I was dead, I didn't care about my wallet. I gave it away to the first person I saw."

If your entire perception of reality was flipped on its head, you would be free of all the stupid stuff that keeps the rest from doing what they really love. A person who had been through that kind of deep grief would literally be forced to find a reason to keep living and to keep loving. I don't know if the average person will ever find that reason. Often we kind of only do what we have to, to get by. I think it's fully possible (though sad) that someone could float through their whole life without really being free of vague fears that keep them from living the fullest life possible. Deep down, I really do think the only way to truly fail at life is not to try (to clarify, that "failed" attempts would be a form of success by putting the focus on the word "attempts"), but we let dumb things stop us, like pride or fear (which tends to be related to pride, too).

"The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning." -Ivy Baker Priest

I think this is where the idea of dying to self comes from.. Dead people are not worried about whether they look cool anymore.

Again, I repeat, I haven't had such an extreme experience, and I would never say someone ought to, but since they do happen, they can be dealt with in a way that brings more life and more joy and more freedom.

Also from Joel: "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten" [the Lord replied to them]. (2:25a).

A reflection on having and being given more

Looking for a specific Bible verse, I typed "to the one who has" into google, and as usual I thought all the suggestions that popped up after I added each word were really interesting. But what was most interesting of all was the fact that the verse I was searching for is found not once, not twice, but thrice in the gospels. This was news to me. The three places are Matthew 13:12, Matthew 25:29, and Mark 4:25. *Edit. That wasn't even true. It's four times. (F'rice?) The website I used had cross-references; it also showed Luke 8:18 and Luke 19:26. Well, both make five. And if you count John 15:2 about how the branch that bears no fruit is cut off, and those that bear fruit are pruned to be more fruitful, that's at least six times. I'm going to stop looking for more, but I think those (at least) six passages make it clear that it's a super important concept. That's a ton, a TON, of times to repeat the same exact idea in basically or exactly the same words. And that's all four gospels, too!

The NIV translations are all identical except one leaves out the word abundance: "Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."

Other translations differ slightly between references, and they make it clear that this abundance, this having, generally refers to knowledge, insight, understanding of mysterious and lofty things. One interpretation makes it sound like it has to do with using well what is given, rather than doing nothing with it. But I am going to focus on another reading.

I started working out recently, and it's been pretty great so far. I definitely wasn't expecting to say that. I thought I'd say it's been a struggle, because that had been my experience with working out in the past. But instead, I find that I like it. I actually have way more energy than I did before. I am motivated to take the stairs instead of the elevator, or to jump up and down with both feet just because. And yesterday, I could tell my body wanted to work out. It was literally like a puppy that wants to go for a walk, like, "are we going to the gym? please?" and I was all, "sorry, we don't have time today, and I decided to go every other day; we'll go tomorrow!" I'm not even sure how I could tell this, because I can assure you my body and I don't usually have conversations like this, but somehow it was definitely the case.

It made me think, I almost never wanted to work out before I decided to just start one day. But now that I have (started), instead of finding that I am more tired from exercising, I have more energy and more motivation. When I didn't have any working out, even my motivation was taken from me, and when I did have some working out, bonus motivation was added to me without that even having been my intention.

Additionally, I have read (and I believe) that when you exercise regularly, you naturally start wanting more healthful foods, and cravings for unhealthy food are slightly suppressed. This is yet another bonus or addition to "the one who has". If you're out of shape and not working out, what you have could be taken from you by your hunger for tasty but unhealthy food.

I have also come to realize something in the past few days. I'd realized this many, many times before, but I appreciate it more now than ever. The very best advice you can give to someone regarding their prayer life and, well, several other things in life (exercise, often) is this: just show up. And don't let anything stop you from showing up. Including, maybe especially, your own thoughts or doubts. Don't measure your results in minutes or days, but trust in the process and let the results take care of themselves as you faithfully keep persisting at whatever it is you want to see growth in. Daily intention and daily effort is the cause (because you'll be given more) and result (because it's a grace of God that you are able to carry it out) of a truly successful life.

Even-ness and package-deal-lives

I have this idea that everything somehow comes out even for all of us. It may have begun when I was jealous of one of my friends whose mother bought her a $200 dress for our 8^th grade dance and my mother said, “would you like it if your parents were divorced?” Meaning that I couldn't just cherry-pick the best parts of her life, because a life is a package deal. Meaning also, perhaps--I am just now realizing for the first time--that there was some link between the expensive dress and the divorce-- the friend’s mother may have been trying to compensate, or to demonstrate that this girl could still have all she wanted, or that the mother didn’t need a man to be able to afford nice, even luxurious, things for her daughter.

I feel like the specific bad things that happen to each of us will be made up for by the good things that happen to only us. Like shortcomings in our personality are excused by our strengths. (Sometimes unfairly. I think I am way more forgiving of attractive people, or people who have something to offer me). Like those of us who suffer through being nerdy or weird in school may someday literally be more fulfilled in life because we’ve learned what’s truly important.

I don’t know if this is true. I would suspect it is not, especially in very extreme cases, but it’s an idea I can’t shake from the back of my mind (not that I’ve tried very hard, or wanted to). I suppose it’s a manifestation of every human’s desire for justice. It just doesn’t seem right that people could really have a worse life. I mean, I honestly believe that suffering purifies us and makes us better people. I think that with every part of my mind. I have moments when I lapse away from it, but that belief has stood the test of time for me. So then, if our life is hard, our character is better for it.

A recent and vivid example that seems to prove my idea comes from a writing class. There is a girl I know, who is a good example of shininess (something I want to cover in a later post). To the extreme. She made an anonymous cameo in someone else’s essay because her Facebook makes her seem so happy and blessed that it was worth it to bring her up and talk about how lucky she is. This girl is not someone I know very well, but I know she came to college with a boyfriend who seemed loving and great for her. Later I found out that she cried at night so loudly that she could be heard outside her room. (To be honest, I don’t know how often. I remember it as “fairly often” but I’m not sure). And she and that “perfect man” are no longer together. Her nighttime crying (something I did not experience freshman year) is a great example of balancing out how damn jealous everyone is of her because she seems so happy. When I found that out, I was deeply gratified. Not that I was glad she cried, but I was glad she was human.

People who are truly happy all the time, not faking, to the extent that they exist, are living in ignorance and simplicity. They have traded intelligence and honesty for a shallowness that may be a bad thing. It reminds me of a dog. When I was a child I used to be jealous of my dog Yodi because he could just lay around all day. But, in keeping with what my mother taught me about a life as a package deal, I knew I couldn't read or eat really good food if I were a dog. But dogs can be happy all the time because they don't have to think about the deep sadness and inequality the world holds. With Jesus as our example we can still find joy and love through suffering, even though we have to be human. It's too hot in here to write more about that now. Hopefully someday I will be super comfortable to make up for it ;)

All or Nothing

A few weeks ago, one of my roommates read in a book that a psychologist could predict how well a marriage will fare after just 15 minutes of watching the couple. They predicted with great accuracy whether the couple would divorce just from seeing them interact for that short amount of time.

When she relayed this to me, I was totally not surprised. I have (had? past tense?) this tenuous idea that we live each moment the way we want to, over and over again, almost regardless of our outward circumstances. It's similar logic to that study that showed people are about the same level of happiness for their whole lives. It's like that saying, life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it.

Unfortunately, that idea has some flaws. Notably, I've been having a sort of weird couple of weeks. During the past school year I felt great about where all my time was going. I spent tons of time with people I loved, and I felt like most of my time (apart from the odd Saturday..) was purposeful and productive and helpful for the long term. So I was happy to drift deeper and deeper into the idea that I had just reached a new height of understanding in life, and I would never go back, and I had an enormous amount of control over my life, because I alone could decide my reaction to it.

Basically I decided that I must act in a consistent way at all times, not only a consistent way but a way that I will be glad I lived in the future. I reasoned that if I string together awesome seconds, the result will be an awesome life. That's great logic! I'm a great logician. Enter real life.

Now that I feel sort of unsettled some of the time, sort of vaguely disconnected from God (probably because my job has kept me from going to church for 3 of the past 4 Sundays), and less like He is speaking to me (because I've been sort of doubting I can hear Him the way I once thought I could), and most of all, just.. like... ready for the next big thing; now that all that is true, I can't just be like "I'm fine if every day for the rest of my life is like this day." Or insert "moment" for "day."

Thus, this new idea I just scribbled in my planner as a note-to-self: "It's okay that some days and moments are darker than others, and it's more than okay--it's accurate--to know you're walking into eternal brightness and each day can get brighter and brighter into eternity."

Things will ebb and flow, but I know that the more I know Jesus, the more light He will bring into my life. It will be a good thing if not every day is like this day, because they will be sweeter as I come to know more of God's character, even if my surface level emotions don't always reflect the deeper joy.

If that sounds cheesy, just know that I really believe it. If it helps, I don't think life naturally tends to get better for everyone. In fact, I think it gets worse if we don't fight the encroaching darkness. I specifically think things will improve in the context of coming to personally know Jesus Christ. Like Romans 8:28, I think things work together for the good of those who love God & have been called according to His purposes. But sadly, the verse doesn't sound like it's saying all things work together for the good of every single person.

Psalm 36:9 promises light to those who look: "For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light." (NIV) Other versions say things like "by your light we see light" and The Message says, " You're a fountain of cascading light, and you open our eyes to light."

I am happy it doesn't have to be all or nothing, that my eyes can and will get a little more open every day as they get stronger and can handle more light.

Something I will never change my mind about

I prefer thinking in absolutes, but of course this is usually impractical. That doesn't keep me from looking for things I can just say and not have to qualify, or things I can devote myself to being without feeling like I have to be careful not to be too much of that thing.

I am very happy to announce that I found another one. I really loathe the expression, "lifelong learner" for some reason (too alliterative?), so I'm shortening it to "learner". There are a few reasons it's everlastingly appropriate to commit to being a learner. First of all, we'll never know everything, so we'll never, ever be like, "oops, I'm done early, what should I be now?" Secondly, in his book Onething, Sam Storms writes about how even angels in heaven are always learning. He mentions how in 1 Peter 1:12 they desire to look into the things of redemption. He goes on about continued learning in heaven for a while, saying there's always more about God to learn, and our perfect happiness will yet "always [be] subject to improvement," oh, and that our learning on earth is a foundation for all we will learn in the afterlife. So, apparently learning will be fun.

Another thing about learning is this quote by Abraham Lincoln: "I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." Well, I don't know about you, but I would want Abraham Lincoln to think well of me (assuming he was using the gender-encompassing form of "man," that is).

Lastly, and bestly, the idea of always learning gives me a great framework for interacting with super annoying people. I wish I could remember the source of this last idea; it certainly wasn't me. It suggested that you view every interaction as though the other person were divinely sent into your path to teach you something new and enlighten you in a way only they could. People who say provoking things were sent to teach you to be patient and kind in spite of obstacles, people who need help were sent to show you how to lovingly offer aid, etc etc. It sounds cheesy, but just wait until you're face-to-face with someone who doesn't seem to like, get it. If you can step back just long enough to reframe it as a chance for you to improve your people skills, a personal lesson (free tuition!) that no one else is getting, it actually helps.

Some days feel useless, especially during the summer, but I can honestly say I have learned something every day since I graduated, which means every day so far, even without realizing it, I have lived into my self-assigned role of learner, and that is a relief. And Abraham Lincoln would be pleased.

You were probably an accident (not really, though)

I estimate that (VERY, VERY conservatively) 75% of people in the world were unintended/an accident. I actually think the statistic is more like 100%, but sometimes that seems crazy and so I softened it by randomly choosing a more reasonable figure. But seriously, even if two people are married and willing to have a kid (which, let’s be honest, that can’t be more than 50% of parents, amiright? I mean, affairs and love children and all that) they don’t know which, um, attempt at parenthood, will, like, succeed. So they can’t’ve specifically meant that kid. The best they can do is ballpark it. Even parents don’t necessarily know the conditions of a child’s conception. And if they do, they still don’t know what that kid will be like; their interests, their hair, their face.

It really blew me away to think about how if you just go into a place with people and look at them, 100% are the personification of a sexual encounter (do not bring up test tube babies plz kthx) and conservatively 75% of them are the personification of some sort of mistake. Humans are good at making mistakes. A Wendell Berry poem someone read to me tonight said something like, "thank God for ignorance, for humans cannot destroy what they don't know about."

However, God knew and intended each one of us specifically. Every freckle. He created us in His image because it was His good pleasure, and He wanted us to know Him and love Him the way He knows us and loves us. All the planning that went into creating you is… lots of generations. Here are some fave lyrics from Sleeping at Last, a band I just really kind of love:

You were a million years of work
said God and his angels with needle and thread
they kissed your head
and said
“you’re a good kid
and you make us proud
so just give your best and the rest will come and we’ll see you soon”

How amazing that I was planned from the beginning. I exist. I didn’t have to be, but I am because God wanted me to be. Lastly, this is paraphrased from a Facebook group I was once a part of, when Facebook, like, had groups (I don’t really know what’s going on with that now): “If you ever feel down, sad, alone, or weak, like you have never done anything significant, just remember that you were once the fastest and most victorious of all the millions of little sperm.”

Tallness and Humility

We know that God opposes the proud (and arrogant) [but gives grace to the humble]. James 4:6. Charlotte from Charlotte's Web defines humble as "not proud; also, low to the ground."

On a Maundy Thursday processional (or was it recessional? some typa walk) this year I had this thought as I walked behind people who were taller than me. God can't have fellowship with pride because it is so opposite His nature. (Duh). But I realized that it's not to be mean that He insists His people be humble. It's not because He wants to manipulate us into a certain kind of behavior. To put it in terms we can understand, it's more like some natural law.

Just as tall people have to stoop to pass under low branches when the path takes them there, the proud must be humbled to be near to God and to do His work. Short (humble) people are already the right size for the tasks and responsibilities given us. Kingdom work can take you into some tight corners. Not everyone is equally cut out for it when we begin. Ego size definitely has to do with it, and a large ego is nothing but a terrible inconvenience that hinders progress.

An extension of this metaphor is that it is indeed possible to resist being humbled/ not bend over, but you're just going to be hit in the face again and again with branches until you begin to get it.

Honest thoughts on Honesty, Part I

Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. –Oswald Chambers Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

Honesty runs so deep in me that the value I give it is more a core part of my being than a decision I make to live it. I refuse to knowingly say things that are false. If my opinion would be unpleasant, I just don't say it, as a way of not being a total jerk all the time.

I can go on and on about how honesty is the most important thing in any relationship, and no matter how unpleasant things are you at least have to face them to move forward. I really believed this for a long time. Part of me still does. But good ol' Hugh Prather, in that book that I said is like my own journal, had some comments about honesty:

"'I must be honest.' 'I must be true to myself.' These words are almost always a preamble to a speech of abandonment or betrayal."

"'I want to let you know how I've been feeling.' But God is Love. To be what we were created to be, we don't always have to give an update on our negative emotions."

"If there's a question whether to say it, don't say it."

That first one about abandonment and betrayal, I understand completely. But I couldn't let it go at that. As I kept reflecting, I realized that the quote applies in situations that cannot be changed. There are some abandonments that are better for all parties. These, of course, are the ones between people in a non-marriage romantic relationship who do not belong together.

And those words about honesty and being true to oneself are just as likely to be a preamble for a confession of love (which of course can feel like an abandonment or betrayal as the speaker seems to be jumping ship on the just-friendship you probably both enjoyed for a while). At the end of season 2 of The Office, an episode I just rewatched, incidentally, Jim just says to Pam straight out, "I am in love with you," and everyone watching gasps (and if they're me, cries a little bit just like Jim) but knows it's a million times better that he said it. That he's a better and braver man for having admitted it to her, even though it's messy and mostly unwanted. Because the alternative is that he forever holds his peace and watches her marry a guy that is a way worse for her and spends the rest of his life wondering what the outcome would have been if he had been honest.

So I do think honesty is important for that kind of thing, if only to not be living a lie and not to create regrets that seem way harder to get over than other kinds of regrets.

Now, about the other honesty. This year for class we had to read La Princesse de Cleves, a really old French novel that has some great (if heartbreaking) passages in it. In typical French fashion, the princess is married to one man but has unbearably passionate feelings for another--she tries not to even be in the same room as him but since they're part of the same court this is often hard to pull off. She really wants to remain faithful to her husband and virtuous.

Pause. Would you tell your spouse about something like this? Like totes having the biggest crush ever on some other person?

Unpause. She tells him and it ruins his life because he is so jealous and upset that he can't get past it, and he obsesses about who it is and then sort of tricks her into telling him (she doesn't want to say) and is swallowed up by hatred when he knows. He falls ill from this distress and dies shortly after.

I'm stuck, here. I don't know whether I think honesty is best. I guess if I go by my other, non-love-triangle truth-telling standards, I think the amount of detail matters. I think you don't have to talk about how often you think of the other person and what they are wearing in those thoughts (jk), but you might be able to be like, "look, I have this awful problem and I want your help if you want us to have a good marriage... I have this temptation I need to resist and I need all the support I can get."

Okay but that was a book. For less ridiculous situations, my conclusions are super boring and along the lines of, "if it's an ongoing issue and it's something they can change, tell them in a nice voice that lets them know you still totally like/love them but you really wish they would change this one thing as a favor to you" or "if it's something they have no control over at all you might do better just to hold your peace about it and pray and seek some kind of refreshment elsewhere, like by chatting with friends who have experienced similar people problems".

Only marriage has that exclusivity thing, but I ultimately think (gulp, what would I know about this? Just guessing I spose) that marriage is more like a friendship than a dating relationship. Dating is about being sexy exciting and having a good time together and proving how neato you are. This might be the whole first week of marriage, but after that it will probably be scattered instances of this sort of thing but mostly friendship (C.S. Lewis once described marriage as plain and businesslike). Friendship is about smaller things that accumulate more over a lifetime, and about enjoying living with people even once you know they have a lot of ways they could improve.

This is long already, I'll save more thoughts for later.

What we are in the dark

We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L

This is from Oswald Chambers, author of My Utmost for His Highest.

1 Samuel 16:7 says "The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

"Baby cause in the dark
you can't see shiny cars
and that's when you need me there
with you I'll always share"
-Umbrella: The-Dream, Christopher Stewart, Kuk Harrell, and Jay-Z (as made famous by Rihanna)

It seems really Gnostic or something to say that all we are is spirit, but that's all we are. I mean we definitely inhabit bodies, but those bodies are not necessarily a reflection of who we are. We didn't choose them. Sometimes I just look in the mirror and cannot believe that is what people see when they look at me. I can't believe how easily this body I live in bruises, and as recently as five minutes ago I discovered something new about my nose that I had literally never noticed before in my two decades plus of seeing this face in reflective surfaces.

I know God sees all, which is to say he sees both outside and inside, but a metaphor to help me understand what he sees is that our exterior is utterly transparent to him. He sees right through all the things that are opaque enough to others to fool them if we want to.

I read something insightful today: "One reason we struggle with insecurity: we’re comparing our behind the scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel.” -Steven Furtick

But God doesn't see anyone as a highlight reel, even if we become deluded enough to see ourselves that way.

I guess I'm writing because this thought is sort of convicting to me. Sloppy thinking is worse than having a messy room. What matters is the kind of housekeeping we do on the inside. Do we let things sit around until they're rotting? Do we let bad ideas run rampant like disobedient children, screaming and breaking things, because we're too lazy to step up, or are we good disciplinarians? Do we forget to plan (metaphor: um, go grocery shopping?) until it's too late and it makes us late for stuff?

The best part of this is that its about as equal opportunity as it gets. We all have a mind, and we all have thoughts and decisions, no matter what we look like and no matter the physical state of our bodies. May we remember to get to know the content of our friends minds and their desires rather than just the way they would be seen by strangers.

because I love the way you lie

...But you'll always be my hero

Even though you've lost your mind

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn

well that's alright because I like the way it hurts

just gonna stand there and hear me cry

well that's alright because I love the way you lie.

I love the way you lie.

I love the way you lie.

I've been listening to Skylar Grey's version of "Love the Way You Lie" over and over again. [You should grooveshark it--I couldn't find it on amazon or itunes.] It makes me sick, but I love it. Which, like, is totally the point of the song; I'm really getting the full experience. The original song is too harsh for me. There's a line where Eminem is something like, "and if she leaves again I'm going to tie her to the bed and set fire to the house." And he always sounds so angry anyway. So, it's a song about domestic abuse, shattered glass from fights, and how, "you always win, even when I'm right." He lies to her with "fables from his head." She sings that "it's sick that all these battles are what keeps me satisfied." (btw should it be "keep" instead of "keeps"? I can't decide if the verb refers to "all" or "the battles.")

We always love people who hurt us. Sometimes that makes us love them more. Maybe we feel brave and magnanimous for giving back love in the face of the pain they cause. I feel like there is no depth or height that we wouldn't go to, to excuse someone we want to excuse. At the beginning of the song, it goes, "Even angels have their wicked schemes, and you take that to new extremes," which is definitely comparing the abuser/liar to an angel, even if unfavorably.

This goes back to my idea that we decide in advance how we want to feel about someone, and view all of their actions in light of that, instead of evaluating each one independently (I think this is called the inductive approach, although it might really be the deductive). This ability allows us to continue to trust in God's character even when it seems like He doesn't care about us or has forgotten. It also allows us to forgive people that we don't understand (PTL) if we listen to their side of the story and hear in their own words why they did what they did. There are so many people I don't understand, but if I can just believe them that they meant well, we can get along, even if I was hurt before I knew their intent. Whether we should spend all our time with people we have to struggle to get at all is another issue, but at least we don't have to avoid them entirely if we're willing to listen.

"But you'll always be my hero/ Even though you've lost your mind" is so chilling to me. I don't feel this way about anyone, but I can so easily imagine it. I can picture wanting so badly to see someone a certain way (as a hero) that you overlook terrible, inappropriate, ill-thought-out behavior. This kind of thing is why someone felt like they had to author He's Just Not That Into You. Sometimes you would do better to look at a person's actual actions and use those to decide the kind of person they are, rather than listening to their self-assessment, which is, to say the least, biased. This can be especially true with a person you don't talk to regularly. That not-talking-ness might be a sign right there that they don't really care for you (not always, but maybe).

People are always telling you who they are, whether they mean to or not. You owe it to them, and to yourself, to listen.

My dad wants me to read stuff by Joseph Campbell. He always reads what I recommend to him (the most impressive example of this being all 7 Harry Potter books), but I rarely return the favor, probably because when I was little he gave me a book that had some really explicit sex scenes (I assume it had been many years since he read it himself and he just forgot) and I felt terribly awkward about it for a long time. Anyway, I want to read this book so I can engage with where my father is coming from as we talk about God and Jesus and stuff. He's still hoping I'll outgrow being a Christian; the other day he admitted that he'd been waiting for years but I just continued to be serious about my faith, but he hasn't given up hope yet.

This book is Transformations of Myth Through Time, "thirteen brilliant lectures from the renowned master of mythology." I just finished the first essay. He says the first, um, like, thing, in mythology is the relationship with the mother, and the second thing is the differences between men and women. Sure, why not. I'm glad the first thing is something everyone could theoretically participate in. Side note: I think people have to be more or less good on the first thing before being really good at the second. As oh-so-many relationship authors have advised, "if a man can't get that first, basic, primal relationship in order, how is he going to be able to handle something more complicated and less natural?" (Obviously this applies to women, too.)

What really caught my attention from Joseph Campbell was the following: "Actually, in a marriage, woman is the initiator. She is the one closer to nature and what it's all about. He's just coming in for the illumination." I've definitely heard a male friend say something similar, but it somehow has more weight in black and white on the printed page coming from a famous, published author. I wonder if most guys think this, though.

I agree with a lot of Deepak Chopra's ideas. He has some great quotes. In our living room, I found an interview with him cut out from the Chicago Tribune (sometime Jan-May 2011?), and it's neato:

"...even if you took five, 10 minutes of quiet time every day or every other day or once a week and asked yourself simple questions like Who am I? What do I want? What is my life's purpose? Is there a contribution I can make to my community or to society? What kind of relationships do I want to have? What is my idea of well-being and how can I achieve it?

"I don't ask that you even know the answers, but if you start to do this kind of reflection, it has a very interesting way of not only moving you to the answers but of changing your behavior. Instead of saying 'I'm going to have all this willpower, and I'm going to try so hard,' which is all mental fatigue, reflective self-inquiry spontaneously leads to change."

Yep.

My experience with this kind of thing: a few times in my life I have decided to write down everything I eat for a day. Each and every time without fail, I eat much healthier without even meaning to or intending to. I meant to just faithfully record whatever was there, but observation always changes it. Obviously this is true of attitudes as well. A personal example: the second you are open enough to honestly ask, "am I being a brat right now?" you are demonstrating the courage to face the truth and very often you are rewarded with the truth, and a better and more authentic life as a result, whatever you ended up deciding as an answer.

Lastly, I think personal reflection is very important. Someone could accuse me of doing it too much and potentially be right. But I was comforted by the following. I read in a book that they did a survey of 85-year-olds and here were their top 3 would-haves:

1) I would have spent more time reflecting in meditation and contemplation.

2) I would have risked more.

3)I would have done more things that would live on after I die.

I know at least one person besides me reads this. So whoever is reading this, do you spend time in contemplation? Do you take risks? Are you doing anything that will live on after you die?

Heart washing

We talked in my church a while ago about Proverbs 3:27, which is something like, "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he," and how what you believe defines your reality rather than the other way around.

Many people secretly fear everyone else is laughing at them silently, or just humoring them by being (or pretending to be) their friend. But fixing this problem won't come from researching ways to avoid ridicule, by being funnier or smarter or faster, but instead by acknowledging that if someone is laughing at you, that's really their decision, and deciding that you will not let real or imagined laughter determine your decisions in life. (Like in my last post: it's not in discovering an answer but in realizing the question needs some work).

In the first ever post of this blog, I said something about how human life is always physically messy. I found something in 1 Peter today that was awesomely related. 1 Peter 3:21 is about baptism: "and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience before God..." In this particular case, action is secondary to thought and intention. The action of cleaning oneself off is less important than the decision to think rightly (think cleanly/clearly?) about the world. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If his body is dirty, but his mind is clean, he is clean.

I've been reading a fantastic book lately (when I have time). Spiritual Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather is like reading my own journal, except often with fresh thoughts I've never had. [side note: His simple statement that it's possible to gossip without malice was a pleasant epiphany for me.] Last night I read, "we spend all this time in the morning trying to look prepared--getting the hair right, the clothes right--but we leave home with our minds in disarray."

He talked about how "our physical appearance and outward behavior are everything to the ego, while the thoughts behind our actions are of little concern. Yet in reality, we dwell in our minds, not our actions [...] On a spiritual path, [...] form is secondary to content. So if I find myself preoccupied with the question of what to say or do, I am already caught up in the ego. Release the question and let God do the thinking. [...] There is no question about an action taken in peace." That might sound a little intense, but I am so with this guy when he says that. I buy it when people say our choices have to come from peace. That's a conversation for another time though. I hope the connection with inner/outer cleanness is obvious. Baptism is important as a representation of the state of the inner mind, not primarily as a physical washing. It's the invisible kind of getting ready in the morning.

If I knew who I was going to marry..

I used to think that if I just knew who I was going to marry, life would be grand. Also, simpler. I wouldn't have to think about whether or not I'd get married, and I could get used to the idea of this person very early on and then learn more about them, and I wouldn't have to second guess my choices.

But what I've learned instead is that, as human beings (spiritual beings having a human experience, as some would put it.. lol) that cannot see the future and even have faulty vision of the past, that are severely limited in space as well as in time, we cannot know. I feel like there's something about the experience of emotional/romantic intimacy that makes you wonder if it's forever, even if you just started dating someone and you can see ways you're incompatible. So I think we come up with the idea of marriage on our own, and rather quickly. But even if it wasn't just you, even if you thought God told you directly, you'd still doubt it, because it is in human nature to doubt, to forget slightly, to overanalyze and question and pick it to pieces. To assume the other person can render it impossible. Of course, even before and during all the rest of this stuff, to think that you misheard God. So I've realized instead that we live in a world where it is not possible to know for the time being.

I think this is sort of how life is. We have a given question and we want an answer, but instead of getting an answer, we get the realization that we live in a world where we don't get the kind of answer we sought.

I think this is also kind of how prayer is. We pray for things, and whatever those things are, we realize that the point of prayer wasn't the answer to it but the realization that intimacy with God is way better than whatever we prayed for. Sometimes instead of what you hoped for, you get a story and see that you live in the kind of world where you can't know (yet) why things turned out a certain way.

This conclusion that I cannot know is more satisfying than thinking that it's possible to know and I just don't. Still not very satisfying, though. I think if I could love all ambiguity/surprises, I would have figured out the secret of happiness. In the meantime, I enjoy planned (and only planned) ambiguity/surprises. This is why I like moving to a new city where they don't speak English and I don't know anyone, but I can't handle it when someone says we're going to get bubble tea and instead we get ice cream.

Not by what he sees with his eyes...

Isaiah 11:3 says, "...and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears." I think we assume this is referring to Jesus, but even if somehow it were not, we know this is a good guy because he delights in the fear of the Lord. That = the right thing to do.

Hebrews 11:27 is talking about Moses leaving Egypt and it says, "...he persevered, because he saw him who is invisible."

As an ENFP, a big thing about me is my passion for possibilities. I tend to see things as they could be, and get really excited about what is not, but what could be. As I've been visiting many of the rooms of Fischer and some in Mac for my summer job, I really see this. My eyes see that each room is blank, stripped completely bare, but my mind sees adorable room setups and unlimited potential. I wish I had lived in a triple anywhere because they are so cute, but more specifically, I wish I had been a boy so I could have lived in one of the triples on the end of the east wing of Fischer, or on T7, where you can see everything from up high and it's beautiful. I wish I had lived in Mac seven times so I could try out each of the different kinds of rooms and each different possible view from the windows, which are all shapes and sizes and look out over different buildings in different directions. Don't get me started on Williston.

I think a person misses a lot of life, and a lot of what's important, when they don't acknowledge the unseen. I do need to be clear and say that the "unseen but real" is not exactly the same thing as "the possible," but they do overlap.

The Bible teaches us that the wise person is the person who does not make decisions based on present circumstances, which flare away like dry paper in a fire, but instead makes their decisions based on God, who is changeless and everlastingly loving. We're allowed to dream big because of God; he always dreams bigger anyway.

I don't always see my dreams come to fruition, but as cheesy as it sounds, I honestly believe that's because God's dreams are bigger/more awesome than mine, and it's His that I get to live out instead whenever I am willing to let mine go.

I'm pleased that wisdom means seeing beyond what's visible, sometimes even beyond what's really there. I can't help but do that already. Too bad there is more to wisdom than that.

One more thing:

"If you treat an individual how he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be." -Johann Wolfgang von Goeth

I don't know where this quote is from, but I think Mr. von Goeth is right, and furthermore, I think this can apply to all kinds of things, even whole situations. This is kind of the whole deal with faith, right? Believing for something brings it into being. We've all seen too many examples of this idea seeming to fail to believe the power of believing is limitless. But I think it should be and maybe can be.

We tend to love children not because of who they are, but because of whose they are.

After all, we don't even really know who children are, or who they're going to be, because they don't yet have the words to tell us, and maybe they don't even know themselves. (I think this is true of older people as well, but it's easy to forget adults don't know).

I realized this today and it was a good reminder for me, because if I had to love everyone for who they were, it would be too hard. But just knowing that each person is a child of God and that I should treat them as carefully as I'd treat the child of anyone I love makes sense. I can wrap my mind around how I might treat the son or daughter of one of my best friends. The fact that God considers us his children.. I cannot wrap my mind around. But that's an idea for another day.

Lungs

If you've listened to music by Florence and the Machine, you know that her songs tend to be unapologetically dark. My friend said to me recently, "I love how raw she is." Her music is so layered, and her melodies are so original and complex. I can't get enough of this music. Taking all the songs together, Lungs is absolutely one of the best albums I've ever heard in my life. The thing is, many or most of the songs are written in the second person and at some point send the message: "you are killing me [sometimes literally] but I love you anyway."

Job 13:15 came to mind. Pick your translation, but the message is "Though he slay me, yet I put my hope in him." Actually, The Message translation is "even if he killed me, I'd keep on hoping." This is even more intense. This is also 100% the kind of thing you might hear in the songs on the Lungs album.

I realized, and not for the first time, that love is giving the keys to your life and death to someone (or something?) besides yourself. It's not like tossing them a keyring while grinning, because you don't necessarily make this giving into a conscious choice, or experience pleasure from it. It's just what happens. It can be deliberate, but it's simply the natural result of caring all that much about another person.

When I say the keys to your life and death, it might literally refer to your body (I have an example of that in a second), or to the life/death of your heart, or that of your mind. I mean, really, the mind is the most obvious one, because a lot of what happens to your heart is experienced in the mind as an event. Caring about someone else's well-being is something that happens in your mind, and may even take up a lot of space there.

It's not a coincidence to this line of thinking that the first and most important commandment in all the law is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, passions, intellect, will, etc etc. It's not a coincidence that there has never been a more perfect love than that between the Father and the Son, and yet the Son was sent to die. Jesus allowed humanity to kill him because he loved them so much.

This message that relates love and death seems completely insane and morbid and unhealthy from some standpoints, but I submit that rather than an ideal pattern for how to love the best in the best of all possible worlds, it seems to be an inevitable result of life here below that will be observed by anyone who's looking. If I've learned anything lately, it's been that no part of human life is pure. To interact with humanity is to get blood, tears, saliva, sweat, and worse on your hands (and maybe all over). Loving a real live person is being okay with whatever mess they throw at you, and separating your response to the mess from your response to the eternal being who effected the mess. (Which can mean anything. Sometimes the most loving response to a person is to step back.)

.

Comparing the love that the author of the songs was writing about to the love that the Father has for his children is of course completely figurative, a simile that must not be extended too far, but it's worth considering that love is love is love, (add the word "true" or "real" before each of those), wherever we find it, whatever muck we have to dig through for the treasure.