Making Sabbath, Brain Vomit

Katherine commented yesterday that I apparently have been doing a lot of thinking recently.

I guess meltdown cycles have become so normal to me. Just keep doing stuff, don't stop and think, then eventually, crash and my mind cannot stop spinning as it starts processing all the stuff that has caused the meltdown. So I start writing. By the time I get to just about recovery, the cycle repeats itself.

Mia and Kya asked me yesterday what my job was. I told them I was a pastor. Mia then asked what I did in my free time. I had to stop and choose my words carefully because Mia was having a hard time dealing with having to grow up. She has as much quiet confidence as one can possibly get in an eleven year old, but the thought of leaving childhood and free time behind is making her dread becoming a teenager.

I couldn't possibly fib about how much fun growing up can be if I didn't believe it myself.
I couldn't tell her I don't have much free time because I don't know how to say no, and I don't know when to stop.

I don't remember how I answered her question, but it definitely made me stop to think.

The reason why I don't have much free time is because I don't choose to make time to be free.
I'd easily make time for just about anything under the sun--except myself.
Oh, and God.

Dang.

But what's my problem? Why can't I stop? What am I trying to prove?
Truth is, I don't know.

Came across these truths in this week's lectionary readings...

"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it." - Psalm 22:27-31

This.
This should be the very reason for my existence.
This should be why I eat and why I sleep, and why I do what I do.
But is it?

Some time ago, in a discourse on pastoral theology, a dear wise friend put it (somewhat) in these words.

Creation came into existence because of God's overwhelming love. It isn't just a giant act of masturbation, but one that yearns for a response.

His words left a deep impact with me only partially because his use of the M word made the 13-year-old girl in me giggle. But it made me think.

How many times have I tried to use the things I do to try to show that I'm in relationship with my Creator?
How many times have I been guilty of trying to fill the hours of my day with more things to do hoping that it would fill some kind of hole that only Love can fill?
How much easier is it to pretend that actions earn love when the truth is I'm too proud to accept something that I can in no way claim credit for?

The truth is, Love isn't something that exists because God was showing off.
It isn't a warm, fuzzy feeling that everything is going to be ok.
It isn't even a thing, an act or a feeling.

Dr Ross once explained that the reason why God was so upset with the Israelites worshiping idols made out of their jewelry wasn't just simply because they had broken his commandment about idol-worship, or that God was jealous. In those days, jewelry were a symbol of covenant relationship (ie marriage), and to have taken their jewelry and melted them into an idol would be the present-day equivalent to taking one's wedding band off and whoring oneself to another.

It's never been simply about breaking commandments as much as it is about intentionally violating covenant relationship.

This after all, is the Lover that so selflessly passionate that it yearns for a response like a young man or woman so smitten in new love.
This is the Lover that sent a rainbow to Noah and his family saying, remain in covenant relationship with me.
This is the Lover that gave Abraham his new name saying, through my covenant relationship with you, I will bless the nations.
This is the Lover that passionately pursues Israel even after she has whored herself out to others as many times as she did.
This is the Lover that says I will die for you no matter how many times you throw my wedding ring away.

This is the Lover that says,

For my covenant that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If you simply adhere to the law just so you can be an heir, faith is null, and my covenant is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there violation. (Romans 4:13-15, paraphrased)

I've been in the middle of my fifth/sixth month lull for a while now. MaryAnn says that "5 months is about right for what you are feeling [like crap]." It's supposedly the time when the novelty of everything is starting to wear off. Chad speaks of memories of his fifth/sixth month with such "fondness".

In the midst of life happening, trying to figure out how to not screw up my job, and trying to put an end to my year of transition and change in community/whanau/gemeindschaft, I've tried to ignore my need for some sense of constancy, even if just a thin thread of something. I don't like change very much, and even if I've come to a place of acceptance of its place as a by-product of something I love far greater--the adventure--there are moments of loneliness and a deep desire for a constant. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel alone. It's just a longing for a something or a someone that has stuck around since the awkward TK days, to the time when I fell in and out of love, to the milestones in Anderson, to the times of questioning in Berlin, to the most recent year of transitions.

Something or someone that sticks around just because.

Oh wait.
There is a someone.
And a Someone that does love me.
Someone with a love so passionate that no matter how many times I might screw up or find myself unworthy and try to walk away from the covenant relationship, continues pursuing.

I don't even have to do anything to prove myself worthy.

And so I make my mind stop spinning for a while.
And take a deep breath.
And write.

Not because I have to.
Not even because I need to.

But just... because.

Looking in the Mirror of My Books
Yesterday Seeds of Contemplation arrived and it is very handsome. The best job of printing that has ever been done on any book by me. I can hardly keep my hands off it. Jay Laughlin says the burlap effect we have on the cover is really a material they are using now on the walls of nightclubs. Well, it is the Christian technique: sanctify the saturnalia and lupercalia with Christian liturgy: turn them into Christian feasts.


Every book that comes out under my name is a new problem. To begin with, every one brings with it an immense examination of conscience.


Every book I write is a mirror of my own character and conscience. I always open the final printed job with a faint hope of finding myself agreeable, and I never do.


The Passion and Precious Blood of Christ are too little in this new book -- only hinted at here and there. Therefore the book is cold and cerebral. What is the good of trying to teach people to love God without preaching through Christ's wounds? The reason I do not do so is because I am still selfish. I find myself thinking about what we ought to get for dinner in Lent; about how to distribute signed complimentary copies of the deluxe edition of this book. I should never have gone into such a thing as a boxed special edition. I must be nuts.
- Thomas Merton (March 6, 1949, II.287)

Coffee Shop Conversations

She sat behind her computer typing away furiously with a slight frown. Occasionally she would look across the rows of trees below to let her thoughts breathe for a few seconds, and the frown would ease up just that little bit as she sipped her cappuccino.

For that few seconds, she let her mind race back to the last time she was in that coffee shop and a slight smile crept up on her face as she continued typing furiously. It was the beginning of a summer that was about to change her life, except she didn't realise it yet. And the people around that table--an eclectic group nonetheless--seemed to fit in so well with the fact that they were just outside of Berlin, Germany. "If Portland was the capital of Weird in the US, Berlin would probably be that equivalent for this part of the world," she thought to herself. Of all the places she had traveled to, it would of course make sense that these were her top two favourite cities. She was, after all, weird and proud of it.

She took another sip of her cappuccino as she furiously tried to put to words all the thoughts and theological implications that had gone through her head in the last week or so. "In every circle of friends, there has to be an old soul," she smiled as she remembered that comment she made in passing in one of those conversations. That was when she realised she had so many people in her life to fulfill the many layers of human relationships that were required for healthy human functionality. Each one of them gave her something different to be thankful for, and something else to think about. And she was becoming increasingly confident that regardless of where in the world she went to, it wouldn't be difficult to establish these circles again from next to nothing.

So lost was she in the attempt to process the current theological ramblings that she jumped when she finally looked up again and saw him sitting there.

"Holy crap, Papa! Don't do that to me again!" she let out in a harsh whisper. He simply smiled back.

"How long have you been... Never mind, don't answer that." She knew. He had followed her from the house to the bus-stop, to the train station. Then again, she was pretty sure he was at the airport with them earlier that day as well when the kids in the youth group decided to head there after church. And the last time she was at that spot. And the day she moved to Anderson. And TKGS. And...

"Ok, ok. Got it. I'm guessing we need to talk?"

Again, he said nothing and simply smiled.

"I know I've been doing a lot of thinking, and very little feeling," she finally said after some time passed since his silence. "And we both know that I've been doing a lot of thinking so that I can avoid feeling. I'm frustrated because I'd rather be in Auckland. But truth be told, this whole process has worn me down a lot, and I'm not even excited anymore. Everyday is just blah because I want a sense of "normalcy" and don't laugh because we all already know my life has been and will continue to be anything but normal. But that's not what I mean. Even if it turns out that Auckland would only be for a little while, I want to feel at "home" somewhere for that little while. I want to be able to walk into a shop somewhere and say, "I want this for my living space, and it's reasonably-priced and sized," and be able to buy it instead of thinking that it won't be able to fit into my two pieces of luggage. I've loved being able to drop everything at the last minute to go spend time with people because I don't know when's the next time I'll get to see them, but a loose schedule like that for more than just a couple of months is about to drive me crazy. I may have spent a lot of time with the Kenyan sisters this summer, but I'm still used to having SOME kind of structure. Am I ranting?"

He still said nothing and simply smiled.

And that was when she understood. Through all these transitions she craved nothing more than just one constant. That Constant had created all the circles she had just been so thankful for to hold her through each change, but Constant was still constant. And Constant constantly gave her space to think as she needed to think, feel as she needed to feel, not feel as she needed to not feel...

Constant constantly gave her space just so she had space.

"Hopes told you you had the gift of giving space," he finally said after she caught her breath.

"But I only have space to give because YOU give me space," she said.

"My child, I don't need answers from you. I don't need you to figure me out. I don't need you to rant when you're frustrated, sing when you're happy, or cry when you're upset.

I just need you to be you."

Remember Me

I found myself outside again this evening. It had been a long time since I last took a walk by the sea. As the waves came crashing on my feet today, I felt the dirt that had accumulated from the day's walking slowly erode away. Ahh, clean feet. I wiggled my toes just a little. Something about the salt in the air and the smell of fish not too far away brought a calming effect after a long day.


Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw him. That familiar silhouette out there on the water. Could it be? Had he returned? But no, it was all an illusion. They said absence makes the heart grow fonder. I guess this was what they meant.


I settled down on that one slightly bigger rock in the middle of the sandy shore. It had been a while since I last sat down and thought about him. But tonight, something about the sea, the fish and the water brought to mind so many of my favourite memories with him.


I remember distinctly that day when James and I were out at sea with Papa. It seemed like he had been watching us for a while before he finally came up to James and I. The words he said then did not make much sense, but for some strange reason, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people," seemed so much more appealing than spending the day out at sea with Papa. So James and I left with him.


...


And I'll never forget that day. It was Passover and he had given Peter and I specific instructions about that day's feasting. If I had only known what was about to happen, I would have made better effort to remember everything that he had said. All I remembered him saying was something about meeting a man with a jar of water. He dictated the instructions as if he already knew what was going to happen. Well... I guess he would have known. How many times had he tried to clue us in, but we never understood his "riddles"? Peter, James and I even once joked about his many riddles. If we had only known...


That night, we had all gathered in the room and were feasting. The Good Teacher was unusually quiet at Supper, but I had assumed it was because we had all had a long day. Halfway through the meal, he got up and left. Peter and I exchanged a look, but just shrugged it off as another one of his riddles.


When he returned, he had a towel tied around his waist. What happened next baffled me. We were still bantering back and forth about whether the bread should have been kept warm a little longer when the Good Teacher knelt down beside Andrew. Closing my eyes, I could still see the look of shock on Andrew's face as he looked between the Good Teacher and his feet, then around the table at the rest of us. He made his way all around the table and when he came to me, he looked me in the eye with his ever-patient gaze. And that was when I noticed his eyes were glassy. From time to time, he would look away, as if hiding his face from me, rubbing the sides of his cheeks against the sleeves of his robe. And was that a sniffle I heard? Something was up with him, but I was too exhausted that day to ask.


I allowed my feet to just graze the surface of the sea. It made me feel a little closer to him that way as I recalled the same clean feeling I had that night. As he slowly proceeded to wipe my feet with the towel around his waist and gently massaged it a little, I felt the aches and blisters being soothed away.


He didn't say much, but after he put everything away, he came back out and broke bread with us, saying something about eagerly desiring to eat this Passover with us before he suffered, and something about not eating it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. I watched his hands tremble ever so slightly as he took hold of the bread, gave thanks then broke it and gave it to us. And as he lifted the cup and gave thanks, I was worried he was going to spill the wine from the goblet because he was shaking. Oh if only I had known the significance of that moment...


Then he led the way out to the garden, he looked each one of us in the eye and embraced us. And I noticed again the tears in his eyes. Except this time he didn't look away when he realised I had noticed those tears. Instead, the look was one of... of... "If only you would understand."


Oh I wish I hadn't been that tired and had kept watch with him. I don't know how many times he returned that night, rousing us from our sleep and asking us to pray as his anguish grew with intensity. But no, rather than staying up to pray with him, we fell asleep. Time and time again. Oh, if only I had known.


We finally woke from our sleep when the fuss they made from coming to take him away startled us. But instead of staying to protect him or try to do anything, we each ran away, trying to save our own skins first. For all that he had taught us about love, we still ran away when we had the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that self-sacrificing love he taught us about.


I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The guilt and anguish from that night had been riding on my shoulders for a long time now. For whatever reason, they had started calling me his "beloved" but yet I failed him. I FAILED HIM.


A sudden gust of sea breeze swept by almost knocking me out. And all of a sudden, that same look he gave me that night as he stood by the door leading to the garden... Then that image of his face drenched with sweat, tears and blood flashed through my head.


And then I understood. The greatest love he taught was what happened that weekend. I was his beloved not because of anything I had done. It was because he chose it that way.


-An interpretation of Matthew 4:18-22, Luke 14:1-6 and 22:7-46 (Excerpts from "John," from the Easter 2009 series)



His name was John. I woke up this morning thinking about him again, and how much my life this week probably resembles his back when he was actually living through the sacred events of this week.

There's the life stuff: finding ways to put food on the table, relationships that need to be worked on (papers to write, bills to pay...)

And then there's the celebration of tradition and the stuff that's supposed to be spiritual. How many times had John celebrated a Passover feast? How would he have known that this meal would be any different?

I guess John and I have both done a very good job of keeping the spiritual/tradition and the life stuff separate. Because when I woke up this morning, I felt like John... Like I had completely missed the point of this week because I had gotten so concerned with trying to figure out how to get to the man with the jar, and how to approach him without sounding completely ridiculous because I had no clue what I was doing. We were so busy trying to get things done that we couldn't see that something very, very sacred was happening in the midst of all this doing. So with Mark Schultz's "Remember Me" running on loop through my head, I resolved to find the sacred in the midst of everything else.

That resolve lasted... oh, maybe an hour before I went on with the rest of my day. Evening came and it was time to gather at church for Seder meal #1. I slip in a few minutes late because errand-running took up a bit too much time, and try to get my brain to settle down and get back into the "Remember Me" mode.

Right. Because that's how it works with spiritual things. You turn it on and off like there was a switch for it. Somewhere in the midst of all the liturgy-reading and meal-time conversation where (surprise surprise) I got flooded with questions about what plans are for after May, the switch went off again... Or maybe it was never really on in the first place; I don't know.

Anyhow, it wasn't till I was heading home after Round 2 of Seder-ing with the Red-neck Saints where road-kill was consumed and a good amount of blasphemy happened as we tried to solve the world's problems over table-fellowship, that I started thinking about that whole "Remember Me" thing again. And then I felt like John again, as if I hadn't taken the Seder meals seriously enough because we've joked around a little too much.

This was, after all, the night when blood, sweat and tears mixed as Jesus begged his disciples to stay up with him a little longer in Gethsemane as he suffered the anguish of knowing of his impending fate. If I may hazard a guess as to which moments Jesus felt most human in his human/divine state, this would probably be second only to the "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" moment. I'm not sure we can get anymore human than in those few moments where his anguish could not yet be revealed to his friends. The few moments when the emotions can be so overwhelming but you know you can't explain everything to others so they can carry part of the burden for you. I wonder if he just wished they would understand. But I wonder also, if he wished he could keep protecting them from what is to come.

But... Jesus didn't come to die just so the world's problems could be solved. The events of Cavalry didn't immediately provide physical sustenance for them for the rest of their lives. They still had their humanity and their sinfulness that they had to deal with that was hindering them from true relationship with others.

No, he came so that those who had a relationship with him would be set free from themselves, and into an authenticity that can change the world. Because I think if Cavalry was an end in itself, then that would limit Agape from truly manifesting itself -- which is the very reason for the existence of Creation to begin with anyway.

And it is because of Cavalry that we get to choose life, gemeinschaft, and authenticity.


Pardon the mild explosion of academic ramblings. I do wish I had the ability to write like that back when I was in Theology class with Greg. It would have made my second year of seminary a whole dang lot easier.

Me? A Missionary??

I know it's WAY too late for me to be up writing, much less to try to be coherent, but my brain is still hyperactive so just let me ramble for a little bit if that's ok.

Patrick asked me earlier today if I wanted to be a missionary. If you had asked me that question three years ago, the answer would probably have been an easy, "Yes, sign me up!" But tonight, it took almost everything within me to not laugh in his face and say, "Are you kidding me? I've worked alongside enough of you, and for a long enough period of time to know how stressful the lives of missionaries are. Do I WANT to be a missionary? Heck no!"

So what exactly do I want to do, you ask. Well, three years ago you asked me those questions, and three years later, it's still the same answer.

I don't have a clue.

Maybe the loftiest ambitions I have for my life are still overly simplistic because I haven't seen enough of the world to dream any bigger. But honestly, those dreams of working at a little coffee place, running a Bed and Breakfast style of a retreat space, and basically just hanging out, meeting people, listening to their stories and encouraging them to take time to care for their souls... Those dreams from three years ago, they haven't gone away.

If you consider that ministry, then yes. I want to do ministry.

And I know that no matter where I move to, I'm already too culturally messed up to really claim anywhere as my home base. So yes, I want to live cross-culturally - or rather, I don't really have a choice about that anymore.

And if you consider cross-cultural ministry being a missionary, then yes. I want to be a missionary.

But no, I don't want to write reports about how many people I've hung out with, making my new friends nothing but mere statistics, and their stories nothing more than just another project to be filed away in the "prayer request" drawers. No, I don't want people who don't know the stories of my friends' lives to tell me I should spend more time convincing them to share my beliefs just because I am dependent on those people for my meals and living expenses. And no, I don't want to read books or go to "training school for cross-cultural ministry" to learn what it means to live in a new city - I want to learn hands-on from my new friends.

And yes, I do know that this means I will take a lot longer to figure out where the heck I'm going to land after seminary because I don't want to merely conform to the system just so I can get the results. Honestly? Call me headstrong if you would like, or whatever word you can come up with, but I don't care about the results. I don't care if I have coffee daily with the same friend and I don't end up convincing them to share my beliefs.

Because if we think about it, Christ's agape is unconditional. We were created as an expression of his love: a love that existed before - and in spite of - us. And whether we respond to that love or not is our choice. He doesn't try to convince us one way or another - He just loves.

And we think of Hosea - a human example of unconditionally loving his prostitute wife no matter how many times she walked away again. And Hosea was human - how much more then, is Christ's agape? And so, in the frailty of my humanity, that is all that I could possibly offer - agape, not belief systems. Because agape is all that Christ gave me, not my belief systems - those are merely human constructs.

But I also know sometimes if I would just work with the human constructs (like perhaps a sheet of paper that says "Master of Arts"), the little agape has the potential to reach further distances.

And for that reason, I will stick around to work with the human constructs.

But me? A missionary?

You decide.

Revelation on Love and the After-life...

I think I was hit in the face with a new revelation this morning.

I don't know much about the "after-life" besides what is found in the Bible. And even with that, the Bible may be the authority of my life, but that is because of my faith in it, not because of its complete historical accuracy. I could get into a debate about how some ancient mythologies parallel the creation story and the one about the virgin birth, but I won't.

Having said that, I can't claim that I will go to heaven or hell after my time is up with this physical body and place. Mostly because I don't know what I believe about heaven or hell anymore. Perhaps I haven't dug enough into the scriptures, so forgive me for that. But what I know about who I am, what I believe in, to whom I belong and how that relates to the physical place I live in has been slowly revealed to me. And that is what I hold on to. I have no control over my after-life either way.

And because of this, I am in no place to tell the next person about what will happen to them in their after-life if they don't share my beliefs. Revelation is personal - at least, that's what I believe for now.

So what about the Great Commission?
I can't say I know enough about "the good news of salvation." And to be honest, maybe I haven't read enough, but I don't find the word "salvation" used in either of the Great Commission scriptures (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8). But the good news for me is the knowledge that there is a Being whose very essence is love - for me, for my neighbour, and for the created world I live in. And this is the only thing I can bring to Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.