The other day I read Job 10. It had a throwback to my last post: "Your hands shaped me and made me... Remember that you molded me like clay" (verses 8-9). And other parts of this chapter tied into my Taize experience in another way.
The entire book of Job has a fair amount of "why am I alive" passages, but these are from chapter 10: "Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye ever saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!" (18-19)
At the risk of sounding extremely melodramatic, in my life I have asked/said similar things to God. This February through conversations about the concept of having children, I've come to realize that probably at least 51% of me thinks not existing must be better than existing (which I am aware is unprovable and perhaps senseless). I bet this is related to the fact that as I age and (hopefully) mature spiritually, I am not less sad than I was when I was younger/farther from God. Often the opposite seems true.
I discovered what I took as a response to this at Taize, when one of the girls in my house --I don't know which one-- translated and wrote out lyrics to a song. Even though we were all in silence all week, the girls in the house communicated daily, often through eye contact. Though only two of us (out of about ten) were native English speakers, English was used whenever language was necessary. So the words on the notes we left for each other on the big table were sometimes translated from other languages, in this case, German. (Meaning I am not sure of ever tracking down the originals of what I'm about to share).
The song's title was something like "Don't forget this." It was pretty cheesy. The kind of thing that makes you smile dopily and want to hide your face so people don't see your dopey smile. I'll spare you that (mostly because I can't remember specifics). The gist, the line that stuck with me, was something like, "Never forget that living and breathing were not your idea." That could be taken in a depressing way, but it made me feel free. I don't have to find a reason for my existence. If I don't seem to be getting consistently happier during this season of life, maybe happiness isn't the main goal. I'm responsible for my actions and reactions, but I am not responsible to figure everything out, or to take credit (or blame) for my personality or family situation or anything that happens to me.
A related poem, a prayer, showed up on the table a few days later. I copied down the three lines that I loved best:
I am because of you
in front of you
and for you.
So, sure, it wasn't my idea, but it was someone else's, and I live out the life I received by gift in his full view and I'm responsible to him for how I choose to do this. I should perhaps not expect that God will answer me why I was born, but I can know that it was on purpose.
These words also gave me insight into forgiveness. Lately I've been struggling more than usual with unforgiveness. It can be hard to forgive because if I do, the person may not understand how much they hurt me. It can even be easier to forgive deeper cuts, because the offending person must understand how awful it was for me. But if someone does something that seriously bothers me but ultimately doesn't ruin my life, then I am tempted to use unforgiveness as a way to show my frustration, which the person could otherwise miss altogether. Honestly, though, they still miss it almost altogether. I am not quite terrible enough to chase people down and make sure they understand I am angry.
I understand the faulty logic of unforgiveness. I know that withholding forgiveness mostly just hurts the person who is already hurt, or keeps their wound fresh indefinitely. But the simplest reason is that Jesus asks me to forgive everything, big or small. To forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven. And he asks this for my own benefit: the Bible implies that by extending grace and forgiving debts we open our hearts to more fully receive grace and have our own debts forgiven.
From my human viewpoint, there are times forgiveness seems like a bad idea. God is so gracious to the undeserving, I tend to doubt that he would truly exact justice from those who have hurt me, particularly as they are usually believers. God is, I often remind myself, as much on their side as he is on mine. But Jesus doesn't set conditions on forgiveness. If I ran the show, I might do it differently. But if I accept that this whole living thing wasn't my idea, I can conceptualize that maybe I should just play by the rules of the person whose idea it was.
If forgiveness looks stupid, and life looks sad, I don't have to take credit for setting up and maintaining the set of systems under which that is possible. My sphere of influence is much smaller than that, and my responsibilities are exactly the right size for me, no larger and no smaller. None of this was my idea (hallelujah).
Showing posts with label living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label living. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Boats at Sea
Usually we don't realize what's going on around us in a given moment. Only in hindsight can one see (and marvel at) all that was taking shape at a given time, and how it all worked together to bring about the present moment. We're thrown into situations and have to figure stuff out while it's already going on, and there's no pause button. [A friend said of this: it's like a boat at sea. You can never dock it on dry land to patch holes or whatever; you have to make all your repairs while still keeping yourself afloat.]
The whole process of growing up fits this pattern. To use a super simple example, we had bodies long before we knew what bodies were, or that we could control our hands and feet using our thoughts. Which, sidebar, seems pretty miraculous when you think about it. This wordless fluency with which we pilot these bodies we didn't choose and often don't understand.
In a relationship with God you eventually look back and realize He was pursuing you all along, way before you were aware. He works before you give Him permission, to get you to a place where you will give Him permission.
All of life is improv. Maybe this is why on-stage improv can be possible. It's not nonsensical to step into a pre-existing situation/"scene", or, if it is, at least each player/actor has loads of experience from doing this every single day of their life. People say to me all the time that improv must be scary, and I appreciate what they mean by this, and don't mind the comment, but each moment of their own life has been improv. No matter how much you prepare for something, it's never exactly how you expected it, and you must adapt or face grave consequences. "Yeah, but you have to be funny," they reply. Well, it's easier to be funny than to be loving, kind, brave, gentle, good. Much. I would know.
I like clean breaks. Clear beginnings, wrapped-up endings. But I rarely seem to get them. I recently read that "closure" is an idea that often makes people unhappy by getting them to think it is a real thing. This was both a relief and a great disappointment. I'm sure closure is a real thing, but I am equally sure it is way more elusive than anyone wants. Certainly more elusive than I was able to admit to myself before reading that it might be fake.
You don't get the hang of almost anything until you've been doing it for a while. Here's an example about getting involved in a new place. I've been telling people about this theory I have that it takes, say, 51 times showing up somewhere to reach the tipping point. The first 50 times you show up somewhere (examples: Bible study, the teachers' lounge) in a foreign country, you see strangers and any contact is necessarily shallow and you feel awkward and have to make an effort not to leave. But that 51st time you enter the room and are greeted by name and surrounded by familiar faces, probably friendly and smiling ones. If you are living somewhere for only a semester, you can hit this sweet spot right before it's time for you to move away. Here in France, the other teachers seemed to be nicer to me than ever in my last two weeks of teaching.
It's sometimes difficult for me not to feel a little regret and wonder how this year (this seven-month?) would have turned out if I had been more outgoing and taken more risks earlier on. But, two problems with that: 1) I can't turn back time, and there are plenty of great things about this experience, I'm not going to go out of my way to engage a bad feeling; and 2) I think you always appreciate people the most at the moment you say goodbye to them. This was one of my favorite things about the study abroad experience. I appreciated my college and all my friends sooooo much when I left the country, but unlike with graduation, I got to come back the next year and appreciate them in person again. In my experience you can't rush this goodbye- closeness/attachment/appreciation. I suspect it's brought on by the pending separation. That was why studying-abroad "worked" in this way: I really left, and really came back.
Is there a lesson I gained from this? I think it changed my interactions with people because I began to think, "This is fleeting. When I look back on this, how will I want to say it all went down?" Which I think is a good way for me to live in general, in relationships or in other areas. Because life is pretty short when all is said and done. And I loathe the idea that someone could be feeling unappreciated or unloved and have to wait until, like, their retirement party to find out what they meant to people. Or worse. But I bet that happens often. People say really nice things at funerals. When we die, hopefully we go to heaven and see what we meant to others, though while we were alive we just had to trust that it was Something and that there was a current guiding our little bobbing undockable boats that we just woke up inside one day with no warning.
You don't get the hang of almost anything until you've been doing it for a while. Here's an example about getting involved in a new place. I've been telling people about this theory I have that it takes, say, 51 times showing up somewhere to reach the tipping point. The first 50 times you show up somewhere (examples: Bible study, the teachers' lounge) in a foreign country, you see strangers and any contact is necessarily shallow and you feel awkward and have to make an effort not to leave. But that 51st time you enter the room and are greeted by name and surrounded by familiar faces, probably friendly and smiling ones. If you are living somewhere for only a semester, you can hit this sweet spot right before it's time for you to move away. Here in France, the other teachers seemed to be nicer to me than ever in my last two weeks of teaching.
It's sometimes difficult for me not to feel a little regret and wonder how this year (this seven-month?) would have turned out if I had been more outgoing and taken more risks earlier on. But, two problems with that: 1) I can't turn back time, and there are plenty of great things about this experience, I'm not going to go out of my way to engage a bad feeling; and 2) I think you always appreciate people the most at the moment you say goodbye to them. This was one of my favorite things about the study abroad experience. I appreciated my college and all my friends sooooo much when I left the country, but unlike with graduation, I got to come back the next year and appreciate them in person again. In my experience you can't rush this goodbye- closeness/attachment/appreciation. I suspect it's brought on by the pending separation. That was why studying-abroad "worked" in this way: I really left, and really came back.
Is there a lesson I gained from this? I think it changed my interactions with people because I began to think, "This is fleeting. When I look back on this, how will I want to say it all went down?" Which I think is a good way for me to live in general, in relationships or in other areas. Because life is pretty short when all is said and done. And I loathe the idea that someone could be feeling unappreciated or unloved and have to wait until, like, their retirement party to find out what they meant to people. Or worse. But I bet that happens often. People say really nice things at funerals. When we die, hopefully we go to heaven and see what we meant to others, though while we were alive we just had to trust that it was Something and that there was a current guiding our little bobbing undockable boats that we just woke up inside one day with no warning.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Wholehearted Devotion and a Willing Mind
The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these
decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your
soul. You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will
walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and
laws—that you will listen to him. And the Lord has declared this day that you
are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to
keep all his commands. –Deuteronomy 26:16-18
And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father,
and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord
searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you
seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you
forever. 1 Chronicles 28:9
God has been reminding me that following Jesus
is a big deal. It’s not an add-on to an already full and meaningful existence;* it's the central point. The two verses above were in my Bible reading on the same day last week, and they arrived the day after I felt convicted on this matter. I think lately I pay lip
service to Christianity without fully entering into what it means. Here is how I can tell: if someone were to ask me what I am living for, and what the point of my life is, I would reply that it's to glorify God, because I don't have anything better to say, but I would know deep down that if you look at all my actions and motivations, that's not really what I am living for. Because love for Jesus isn't what motivates the majority of my actions. In my daily life, I tend to follow him when it's convenient and lines up with what I would already do.
So what am I living for really? Well, that's the million dollar question in this recently-graduated season of my life. But I am far more lost than I ought to be. What I mean by that: I think some of the fear in my life comes from not accepting truths that the Bible teaches pretty plainly. There are some things I know already that I am still allowing to haunt me with doubt. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7 (which my Bible reading plan had me read with the above verses... what a day!) believers are specifically instructed: "each of you should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to you, just as God has called you." (1 Corinthians 7:17a). Then, "each of you should remain in the situation you were in when God called you," (7:20) is repeated twice. Among other things, I take this to mean that the situation I am in is the one God called me to. I shouldn't expect God to fret or be dissatisfied that the people he calls are in their respective locations. (This is also me reminding myself, again, that God doesn't call most of us to sell all our belongings and move to Africa, though he does call some to.) So I don't have to fear that I am wasting time here. I know God calls us to be wise and make the most of every opportunity (Ephesians 5:15-16), but that is separate from this larger concept of "where I am," and whether I "belong" there. The answer is yes, I freaking belong here. I must accept that and move on to other things, rather than getting mired in this question that has already been answered for me, and using that "confusion" as an excuse to walk or even limp after God rather than running after him.
Living in a jr-sr high school and getting little tastes of the social pressures and raw cruelty of that world, not to mention just plain living in another country's culture, have made me less sure of myself than I was before. I weigh my words as carefully as I can, trying to avoid saying things that will make people laugh at me for reasons I don't understand. When I say people, I of course mean the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, because almost everyone else is mature enough to not be a jerk about language mistakes. This hesitation to speak is not in keeping with my beliefs about life, which include the idea that the only way to fail is to not try. After all, the more mistakes I make in front of these little critics, the quicker I will get feedback and improve my speech.
I am also less sure of myself at the grocery store, partly since I don't understand everything on the shelves. Today I wasn't sure if I wanted to try a can of beans with meat in it (cassoulet) but I knew I definitely didn't want to when someone else came into the aisle and I imagined looking like a loser, living alone and buying something that looked like dog food in a can. The other shopper was not looking at me, and probably even likes cassoulet, because it's probably good if there were so many shelves of its different versions, but I have not been marching to my own drum here because I have no idea how to act, and the constant awareness of not knowing how to act really throws me curveballs. This one is a great example, I mean, I don't think I would be tempted by cassoulet in America, because it doesn't seem that healthy and it wouldn't even have the distinction of being "French food," so only here in France do I find myself in this sort of weird pseudo-dilemma about what to buy and how it might seem to people I don't know, who don't know I live alone, and who are not looking at what I put in my bag.
So those are two ways I have been ruled by fear instead of living within truths I already know, like: my value doesn't come from what rude foreign children, or random strangers on the street, think about me. Or: I can afford to be kind to people, even if I'm afraid of coming across too intense because no one seems to smile and it's confusing and makes me want to stop trying anything at all.
Out of fear, I have been cherry picking which parts of God’s law and command I
follow. I make exceptions for dumb reasons like what other people are doing. That is such a terrible reason because my path
is different than theirs. If I want to be inspired by people, I should
look at the best things they do and seek to emulate those, not use the failings
of others to justify my own bad decisions. I used to justify music piracy because I had a missionary
friend that didn’t think it was a big deal and got free music all the time.
That is between him and God, just as it is between me and God for me to follow
my conscience as best I can and not look for loopholes and exceptions and wiggle room.
As a more recent example, nowadays I seem to overlook the repeated parts of God's commands that suggest (oh wait, actually command) that we devote every part of our lives and ourselves to holiness and to his service. I don't think television is necessarily unholy, but I think using reruns to fill any spare moment that's not spent online is a poor stewarding of the time one is given. More to the point, I think if I get to midnight on a day I had two hours of work, and I have found no time to rest in God's presence, but I found time to watch some TV, I have a problem.
To return to the 1 Chronicles passage: I do have devotion. It's just half-hearted devotion. It's devotion that wakes up and hastily gets dressed when guilt gives it a little kick because it's been a bit since I went out of my way to do something nice. It's devotion that swells when good things happen to me and ebbs when I am bored or I might actually have to be in an awkward social situation with the other teachers. And do I have a willing mind? No. I have a mind that's scared I will be called to talk about the gospel with non-believing friends. That hates that idea, and hates the hate. And feels guilt for it. Then, guilty for this guilt. I have a mind that genuinely has to resist the pull of Futurama when it comes down to a choice between that or reading the Word, a mind that lets the Bible win by just 1%, a percent composed of guilt and wanting to be able to say I made that choice if I ever talk about it. There is some part of me that's willing. I know it! But surely it can't be this fragmented and often grumpy mind.
Last week, two days in a row I went to read my Bible and, through moments of quietness and listening, was led instead to a different activity that still connected me with God. It was awesome. One day, it was much-needed self-reflection through writing, and the next it was music and a reminder of what God is
for me. And then an impossibly gentle further point was impressed upon me: I have a part to
play, too, if I am the Christ-follower I say I am. It’s an if-then thing, which
I appreciate. If I am a Christian, I have made
commitments I must live up to. If not, then it doesn't matter how I choose what to do. But it's not fair to call myself by Christ's name and then put Jesus second or third on my list of what I live for. Especially if reason #1 is super amorphous and contradictory and more composed of negatives and evasion tactics than anything defined and positive.
Even though this whole thing seems negative and makes me sound really bad, I take comfort in the fact that, as evidenced by my last paragraph, God honors my efforts to reach out to him. I am not terribly disciplined yet, but he is giving me a heart just like his, and that can take a while. One of the hardest things for me to accept as a short-tempered human is God's patience with my serious issues and my waffling. He's not surprised by any of this, and it doesn't make him love me less. Instead I bet he's happy I noticed the glaring problem, and that he accepts whatever little part of my heart is his that is trying to get the rest of my heart on board. I have a hope and a belief that I am moving in the right direction, because God will do the heavy lifting (there's a lot of it) to change me, if only I ask him to. It has to be this way, because I can't do this on my own.
-
*Ha, not that I have that right now anyway.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Women's Bodies and 2nd-Best Friends: paradigms change your life, yo
I think a great deal of my angst comes from my chronic tendency to see things in black and white. This means, for example, that for a long time I assumed that participating in things meant I should be the best at them, and if I would not be the best, I was failing and it wasn't necessarily worth it to continue in what I was doing. A nice thing about improv is that it's so thoroughly a team sport that this way of thinking about it doesn't make any sense. I am more than lucky (I call it providence) that that was my main college "sport."
But now I believe the only thing I should aim to be the best at is being myself. Frankly, I don't have the self-discipline to be the best at singing or ice-skating or graphic design, though I like two of those things. There is no such thing as a best writer, because everyone's style is so different, though admittedly writing seems like a weird thing to do when you consider that everyone who is literate is capable of it, and there are thousands (more, even) of very talented writers out there doing their thing. Does the world need another one? Well, no and yes. No other writer is me. Thus no other writer has been and lived in all the exact combination of places I have physically and emotionally. And no one else has my mind. If writing was purely for entertainment value, well, no one will ever run out of things to read in their lifetime, so I'm adding to the noise. But if writing is to share viewpoints in a world where literally no two people have the same one, then it's not a useless pursuit.
This is meant to illustrate the importance of paradigms. I will take two personal examples to show how a correct vision of something can bring peace of mind, perhaps even joy, though the situation has not changed in any other way.
When I was, oh, I don't know what age(s) exactly, an adolescent, my body changed from that of a child to that of an adult. Pretty cool, huh. The thing was, though, that for years I didn't understand what a woman's body should look like. Or I will rephrase, the shape a woman's body normally has, on average. I never thought about it at all, and then when my body started looking different, I suddenly cared. But I was all wrong. I cannot imagine where I got all my warped views, but I thought the waist was located at the hips, and that it was supposed to be so small you could almost span it with your hands. I thought that thighs were to be completely straight with no roundness to them. I looked at my body and thought, "What the heck is going on here?! Why do I look like this?" I hated the tops of my little legs for each having one long curve down the front of them, because I thought that roundness was an indicator of fatness, and I didn't want to be fat. In retrospect, I guess most of the women I'd seen were curveless models, broken up by the occasional Disney princess. In fact, I'm sure that if I had tried to draw my mental image of what women look like (a combination of those two), it wouldn't have made any sense and I would have more quickly discovered my error. As it was, I don't remember how or when I was put right. I think I read something somewhere that jolted me out of my preconceptions. After this, I do remember noticing the hourglass shape on basically all women, once I started to look for it, and being surprised every time that we all look like that! But when I finally got it, I stopped being bewildered, confused, and vaguely resentful of my body. My body hadn't changed, but when my perspective finally did, it changed everything.
These are the waists I grew up seeing (the words I could take or leave, they're funny but not essential):
My second example is shorter, and I'm keeping it vague. Basically, I often get jealous of other peoples' friendships. I make progress in this area, then regress again, and I don't know where I'm at with it now. But recently I had the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, I am not meant to be best friends with a particular one of my dearest friends. Maybe God chose before the foundations of the world that I would only be her 2nd or 3rd best friend. This changed everything for me. If this is the case, I don't have to waste one more second wishing I were different, or competing with (any) other girl (or guy). I can be exactly myself, and love my friend in a specific way, without constantly measuring the strength or closeness of our friendship against any other. I can stop keeping score and just do my thing. I don't have to be best friends with all my friends.
This is what I think life is about: we can stop keeping score and just do our thing. [Warning: the rest of this paragraph is repetitive.] God has put us in a position where our task is to love him the way only we can love him. At onething the year I went, 25,000 people sang a song together (to God, obviously): "No one else can love you like I love you, Lord, cause I was made unique in your heart, I was made to bring you joy." The first many times I tried to sing this, even in the privacy of my room, I cried. It's true, though.* No one can love God the father like I love him. No one can love Jesus like I love him. No one can love and honor the Holy Spirit like I love him. If I were missing, if my voice weren't here, speaking, something would be missing. I was meant to be here, and to love him. I was made unique, and my function was, and is, and always will be, to be me. No one is better at that than me. Others might be better at golf, or writing, or speaking French or German, or small talk, they might date or marry sweet people that I would not have said no to, they might even be better friends with friends I love, but no one can take my place. And God does not, will never, love them more than he loves me, no matter what goes down (or up) in our respective lives.
I want everyone to know that this is true of them, too. I will put it in the second person, to this end. God made you to be you. No one can be better at your primary task in life, which is to glorify God using your unique gifts. No matter what others have that you don't, be it adventures or money or relationships, they have not taken it out of your pocket, because you're not competing with them. You're not even to be compared to them. God sees to it that you have enough of the right things for you, for now. You are never short-changed if Jesus is your king; you can't be. He doesn't make mistakes, and he's an abundant giver.
Viewing life through any other lens (as I admit to doing like 90% of the time) brings anxiety, jealousy, perhaps self-disgust, sometimes fear, sometimes confusion, sometimes even shame. And this, my friends, is why I think healthy paradigms are essential.
-
*Also the melody is charming and somehow lends itself to tears with all its high jumps.
But now I believe the only thing I should aim to be the best at is being myself. Frankly, I don't have the self-discipline to be the best at singing or ice-skating or graphic design, though I like two of those things. There is no such thing as a best writer, because everyone's style is so different, though admittedly writing seems like a weird thing to do when you consider that everyone who is literate is capable of it, and there are thousands (more, even) of very talented writers out there doing their thing. Does the world need another one? Well, no and yes. No other writer is me. Thus no other writer has been and lived in all the exact combination of places I have physically and emotionally. And no one else has my mind. If writing was purely for entertainment value, well, no one will ever run out of things to read in their lifetime, so I'm adding to the noise. But if writing is to share viewpoints in a world where literally no two people have the same one, then it's not a useless pursuit.
This is meant to illustrate the importance of paradigms. I will take two personal examples to show how a correct vision of something can bring peace of mind, perhaps even joy, though the situation has not changed in any other way.
When I was, oh, I don't know what age(s) exactly, an adolescent, my body changed from that of a child to that of an adult. Pretty cool, huh. The thing was, though, that for years I didn't understand what a woman's body should look like. Or I will rephrase, the shape a woman's body normally has, on average. I never thought about it at all, and then when my body started looking different, I suddenly cared. But I was all wrong. I cannot imagine where I got all my warped views, but I thought the waist was located at the hips, and that it was supposed to be so small you could almost span it with your hands. I thought that thighs were to be completely straight with no roundness to them. I looked at my body and thought, "What the heck is going on here?! Why do I look like this?" I hated the tops of my little legs for each having one long curve down the front of them, because I thought that roundness was an indicator of fatness, and I didn't want to be fat. In retrospect, I guess most of the women I'd seen were curveless models, broken up by the occasional Disney princess. In fact, I'm sure that if I had tried to draw my mental image of what women look like (a combination of those two), it wouldn't have made any sense and I would have more quickly discovered my error. As it was, I don't remember how or when I was put right. I think I read something somewhere that jolted me out of my preconceptions. After this, I do remember noticing the hourglass shape on basically all women, once I started to look for it, and being surprised every time that we all look like that! But when I finally got it, I stopped being bewildered, confused, and vaguely resentful of my body. My body hadn't changed, but when my perspective finally did, it changed everything.
These are the waists I grew up seeing (the words I could take or leave, they're funny but not essential):
My second example is shorter, and I'm keeping it vague. Basically, I often get jealous of other peoples' friendships. I make progress in this area, then regress again, and I don't know where I'm at with it now. But recently I had the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, I am not meant to be best friends with a particular one of my dearest friends. Maybe God chose before the foundations of the world that I would only be her 2nd or 3rd best friend. This changed everything for me. If this is the case, I don't have to waste one more second wishing I were different, or competing with (any) other girl (or guy). I can be exactly myself, and love my friend in a specific way, without constantly measuring the strength or closeness of our friendship against any other. I can stop keeping score and just do my thing. I don't have to be best friends with all my friends.
This is what I think life is about: we can stop keeping score and just do our thing. [Warning: the rest of this paragraph is repetitive.] God has put us in a position where our task is to love him the way only we can love him. At onething the year I went, 25,000 people sang a song together (to God, obviously): "No one else can love you like I love you, Lord, cause I was made unique in your heart, I was made to bring you joy." The first many times I tried to sing this, even in the privacy of my room, I cried. It's true, though.* No one can love God the father like I love him. No one can love Jesus like I love him. No one can love and honor the Holy Spirit like I love him. If I were missing, if my voice weren't here, speaking, something would be missing. I was meant to be here, and to love him. I was made unique, and my function was, and is, and always will be, to be me. No one is better at that than me. Others might be better at golf, or writing, or speaking French or German, or small talk, they might date or marry sweet people that I would not have said no to, they might even be better friends with friends I love, but no one can take my place. And God does not, will never, love them more than he loves me, no matter what goes down (or up) in our respective lives.
I want everyone to know that this is true of them, too. I will put it in the second person, to this end. God made you to be you. No one can be better at your primary task in life, which is to glorify God using your unique gifts. No matter what others have that you don't, be it adventures or money or relationships, they have not taken it out of your pocket, because you're not competing with them. You're not even to be compared to them. God sees to it that you have enough of the right things for you, for now. You are never short-changed if Jesus is your king; you can't be. He doesn't make mistakes, and he's an abundant giver.
Viewing life through any other lens (as I admit to doing like 90% of the time) brings anxiety, jealousy, perhaps self-disgust, sometimes fear, sometimes confusion, sometimes even shame. And this, my friends, is why I think healthy paradigms are essential.
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*Also the melody is charming and somehow lends itself to tears with all its high jumps.
Friday, January 20, 2012
All or Nothing, revisited / Empty Space
Something has been bothering me for months, and sitting here today I finally realized what it was. I had been turning around and around in my mind the idea of "either things matter, or they don't."
What I meant by that was either our actions and our sins have consequences and eternal weight, or they do not. It's obvious that our sins do have consequences even if we are forgiven of them (example: a baby that results from adultery, which is also an eternal result). It's obvious that even if Jesus forgives you for making all the wrong choices, you still made them.
I was having trouble finding some idea to hold on to to sort of anchor my thoughts.. I felt like I was thrashing around and never colliding with anything substantial as I tried to make sense of how it was possible for grace to exist, and what it could mean, because if it doesn't wipe away the sin completely, then what does it really do? By the magic of external processing, I have just realized that I think an action is categorized as a sin (or not a sin) based on our attitude toward God as we do it (with some sort of exception for mental illness, I guess?), and that alone. Thus grace restores our relationship to God (again and again and again). That's what it does. Because we can't do that on our own.
Acting against what you know to be right, or against what you feel God's telling you, is sin, whereas the same action performed by someone else might not be a sin. And we could be hurt by an action that was not a sin, if someone has good intentions for us. Like if you were allergic to penicillin (spelled that right on the first try, nbd) and someone administered it to you in some sort of medical situation that requires penicillin, thinking it would save your life, but the result was you got much worse and were in much more pain, that's completely different than someone who knows you're allergic and wants to hurt you.
So the reason something is a sin is because it ruptures your relationship with God somehow. It could be you making your own choice despite what you believe God wants for you, thereby supplanting him as ruler of your life and know-er of all that is right (knowledge of good and evil?). In fact maybe that's all it ever is, but it just takes different forms. That's not a very original idea, I admit.
What does this all have to do with my revelation? I think most people, and most especially people my age, are looking for meaning in their lives, for some evidence that whatever we're doing isn't a waste. Either it's a waste, and we should change something, or it isn't a waste, and it's okay to keep many things the same. Either we have time to try harder later, or we are scorning God's gift by not trying hard now. All or nothing.
Living in France is neat, and one reason I like it is because the first thing that jumps to mind isn't "waste of time," when I think of "spending a year after college working in France." But really, just as atoms are mostly empty space, and outer space is mostly empty space, and lots of things in between* are mostly empty space with a few significant little pieces that give the rest meaning and identity, my life here has a lot of "empty space" between moments of importance or significance. Because I work about ten hours a week, and have between 2 and 3 "church things" a week, and the rest is up in the air and can be settled any which way.
So I find myself thinking, "oh, if I am wasting time here, Jesus will forgive me," and then I think, "but wasting time is squandering my brief existence on earth" and then I think, "I love being in my room! The only thing I don't love about it is this fear that I'm wasting time." Then I look at some blogs of women who put up 5-7 pictures of themselves in different outfits posing in different ways every few days, with the designer or store where they got each article of clothing neatly and perhaps painstakingly typed up beneath, and I think "what a waste of time, but also I'm jealous because so many strangers are complimenting their style" and THEN I think, "if what they are doing is a waste of time, then what do you call what I am doing reading these blogs?"
In short, I tried to look at my status as a child of God for confirmation that I am not wasting my time. It didn't work. Because I guess deep down I think things matter. But then, is that being blasphemous? Aka, am I really okay with coming to a conclusion that leaves me feeling sort of ashamed because frankly I can't see myself giving any more effort at this particular moment of my life without it becoming direct, unmitigated legalism? I can only be assured of not wasting my time on a macro level. I can be sure that good works are being done through me (I generally consider Jesus' commands to us to be promises fulfilled by the Spirit in us, a la The Shack), and that God has me here for a reason, which I occasionally glimpse, but the amount I realize his reasoning has no bearing on how good of a reason it is.
But I was not convinced that I am not wasting my time. I thought about what I would be doing if I lived in America instead. In my imagination that, too, was mostly empty space, because summers between school years growing up had their camps and stuff but were largely empty space. School leaves less room for empty space, because if you're in school you probably have friends there who you'll hang out with, and extracurricular activities that take up enough of your time that you don't have as much space to wonder if your life has meaning, and at any rate at the end you have a degree or something. But school is over for now. And even when I worked 35 hours a week last summer, the job I was at was definitely mostly empty space. I sat at a desk for 7-8 hour shifts and staved off the boredom the best I could, then came home to no homework.
Then that one guy made that youtube video about Jesus versus religion and I read a response to it that pointed out that Jesus was, in fact, sort of a fan of rules when he said (John 14:21a paraphrased) "If you love me, follow my commandments." And I said, "Am I really following those commandments? Most of the time I am not interacting with other people, in fact I have been known to sometimes avoid opportunities to interact with them when I am sure that interaction will not be fun or manifestly fruitful." But I am consciously following some of the commandments, some of the time. Here, too, is mostly empty space.
What I realized today was not an answer to my question "so, do things matter or not?", but I realized why I was asking: I was asking because by any reasonable standard, my life right now is a giant waste of time. The internet is full of well-meaning people telling you to seize the day, every day, and to get off the couch. Well, my couch is in a room that doesn't get internet, so often I don't even have the benefit of being on the couch. I am a step down from wasting my life sitting on my couch- I am wasting (most of) my life sitting in bed. -100 points. People say be creative and follow your dreams, that it's always worth it. I believe those people. But I don't even know what my dreams are.
Part of me thinks if we could just find contentment where we are, we would have defeated Satan for good, and the other part of me thinks that's exactly what Satan would want, so that we'll stop reaching higher and eventually just remain exactly where we are, getting too fat to be healthy. This clearly demonstrates the problem of having such a black and white mind as the one that animates my body.
I conclude that we should "just give our best and the rest will come," (thank you Sleeping at Last, this is the second time I have quoted this exact line on this blog) and grace will cover all the other things, but I don't know what my best is, or how to give it. That's life, huh?
[Hahaha this sounds like such an emo rant, but I promise it's not. I feel very even-tempered as I write this, perhaps even peaceful. I know I make myself sound bad and/or boring, but I'm not very afraid of that. I guess because I believe I can't be the only one with these questions. Also, though I guess I believe deep down that things matter, I know I also believe that everything will be okay.]
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*My "in-between" example is a city, especially if you think of it as including the airspace above it and the earth below it. Only the things at about ground-level, which take up a relatively small chunk, determine what city it is.
What I meant by that was either our actions and our sins have consequences and eternal weight, or they do not. It's obvious that our sins do have consequences even if we are forgiven of them (example: a baby that results from adultery, which is also an eternal result). It's obvious that even if Jesus forgives you for making all the wrong choices, you still made them.
I was having trouble finding some idea to hold on to to sort of anchor my thoughts.. I felt like I was thrashing around and never colliding with anything substantial as I tried to make sense of how it was possible for grace to exist, and what it could mean, because if it doesn't wipe away the sin completely, then what does it really do? By the magic of external processing, I have just realized that I think an action is categorized as a sin (or not a sin) based on our attitude toward God as we do it (with some sort of exception for mental illness, I guess?), and that alone. Thus grace restores our relationship to God (again and again and again). That's what it does. Because we can't do that on our own.
Acting against what you know to be right, or against what you feel God's telling you, is sin, whereas the same action performed by someone else might not be a sin. And we could be hurt by an action that was not a sin, if someone has good intentions for us. Like if you were allergic to penicillin (spelled that right on the first try, nbd) and someone administered it to you in some sort of medical situation that requires penicillin, thinking it would save your life, but the result was you got much worse and were in much more pain, that's completely different than someone who knows you're allergic and wants to hurt you.
So the reason something is a sin is because it ruptures your relationship with God somehow. It could be you making your own choice despite what you believe God wants for you, thereby supplanting him as ruler of your life and know-er of all that is right (knowledge of good and evil?). In fact maybe that's all it ever is, but it just takes different forms. That's not a very original idea, I admit.
What does this all have to do with my revelation? I think most people, and most especially people my age, are looking for meaning in their lives, for some evidence that whatever we're doing isn't a waste. Either it's a waste, and we should change something, or it isn't a waste, and it's okay to keep many things the same. Either we have time to try harder later, or we are scorning God's gift by not trying hard now. All or nothing.
Living in France is neat, and one reason I like it is because the first thing that jumps to mind isn't "waste of time," when I think of "spending a year after college working in France." But really, just as atoms are mostly empty space, and outer space is mostly empty space, and lots of things in between* are mostly empty space with a few significant little pieces that give the rest meaning and identity, my life here has a lot of "empty space" between moments of importance or significance. Because I work about ten hours a week, and have between 2 and 3 "church things" a week, and the rest is up in the air and can be settled any which way.
So I find myself thinking, "oh, if I am wasting time here, Jesus will forgive me," and then I think, "but wasting time is squandering my brief existence on earth" and then I think, "I love being in my room! The only thing I don't love about it is this fear that I'm wasting time." Then I look at some blogs of women who put up 5-7 pictures of themselves in different outfits posing in different ways every few days, with the designer or store where they got each article of clothing neatly and perhaps painstakingly typed up beneath, and I think "what a waste of time, but also I'm jealous because so many strangers are complimenting their style" and THEN I think, "if what they are doing is a waste of time, then what do you call what I am doing reading these blogs?"
In short, I tried to look at my status as a child of God for confirmation that I am not wasting my time. It didn't work. Because I guess deep down I think things matter. But then, is that being blasphemous? Aka, am I really okay with coming to a conclusion that leaves me feeling sort of ashamed because frankly I can't see myself giving any more effort at this particular moment of my life without it becoming direct, unmitigated legalism? I can only be assured of not wasting my time on a macro level. I can be sure that good works are being done through me (I generally consider Jesus' commands to us to be promises fulfilled by the Spirit in us, a la The Shack), and that God has me here for a reason, which I occasionally glimpse, but the amount I realize his reasoning has no bearing on how good of a reason it is.
But I was not convinced that I am not wasting my time. I thought about what I would be doing if I lived in America instead. In my imagination that, too, was mostly empty space, because summers between school years growing up had their camps and stuff but were largely empty space. School leaves less room for empty space, because if you're in school you probably have friends there who you'll hang out with, and extracurricular activities that take up enough of your time that you don't have as much space to wonder if your life has meaning, and at any rate at the end you have a degree or something. But school is over for now. And even when I worked 35 hours a week last summer, the job I was at was definitely mostly empty space. I sat at a desk for 7-8 hour shifts and staved off the boredom the best I could, then came home to no homework.
Then that one guy made that youtube video about Jesus versus religion and I read a response to it that pointed out that Jesus was, in fact, sort of a fan of rules when he said (John 14:21a paraphrased) "If you love me, follow my commandments." And I said, "Am I really following those commandments? Most of the time I am not interacting with other people, in fact I have been known to sometimes avoid opportunities to interact with them when I am sure that interaction will not be fun or manifestly fruitful." But I am consciously following some of the commandments, some of the time. Here, too, is mostly empty space.
What I realized today was not an answer to my question "so, do things matter or not?", but I realized why I was asking: I was asking because by any reasonable standard, my life right now is a giant waste of time. The internet is full of well-meaning people telling you to seize the day, every day, and to get off the couch. Well, my couch is in a room that doesn't get internet, so often I don't even have the benefit of being on the couch. I am a step down from wasting my life sitting on my couch- I am wasting (most of) my life sitting in bed. -100 points. People say be creative and follow your dreams, that it's always worth it. I believe those people. But I don't even know what my dreams are.
Part of me thinks if we could just find contentment where we are, we would have defeated Satan for good, and the other part of me thinks that's exactly what Satan would want, so that we'll stop reaching higher and eventually just remain exactly where we are, getting too fat to be healthy. This clearly demonstrates the problem of having such a black and white mind as the one that animates my body.
I conclude that we should "just give our best and the rest will come," (thank you Sleeping at Last, this is the second time I have quoted this exact line on this blog) and grace will cover all the other things, but I don't know what my best is, or how to give it. That's life, huh?
[Hahaha this sounds like such an emo rant, but I promise it's not. I feel very even-tempered as I write this, perhaps even peaceful. I know I make myself sound bad and/or boring, but I'm not very afraid of that. I guess because I believe I can't be the only one with these questions. Also, though I guess I believe deep down that things matter, I know I also believe that everything will be okay.]
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*My "in-between" example is a city, especially if you think of it as including the airspace above it and the earth below it. Only the things at about ground-level, which take up a relatively small chunk, determine what city it is.
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