Nothing Dreadful Ever Happens

I have slept through most of this week with little purpose or plan since I have had the week off (terrible I know). But I have come to ponder about the subject of living out a gospel-filled life focused on compassion  (when not completely wasting my educated mind). It is a topic that is similiar to what my church has been focusing on in a series and I think it is worth struggling through to understand. What I have composed here is an updated and modified version of an essay I spontaneously wrote many years ago (maybe like 3?). The purpose behind what was written was to show that in understanding the struggles of those in this world, a deeper understanding of the gospel is found full of love, compassion, and sacrifice. This post is essentially the clip show episode of any sitcom (where old material is used to suppliment an entire episode) despite how lame that generally is, I promise this will be less lame:

As I drove home tonight I was able to see heat lightning in the distance from the clouds above. It was interesting to me to think how similar the flashes of light from cloud to cloud could be mistaken for far away bombs and gunfire going off. I know that is a little bit of a stretch, but sometimes I like to think of my life as interesting or at the very least a struggle (despite how much I don’t). It is that lack of struggle in my life that I began reflecting on as I continued to drive. I am not referring to a lack of internal struggle or necessarily any struggle, of that I have. I am referring to a struggle most in this and many industrialized countries will rarely ever see. Poverty and strife has its place in society and despite the best efforts, will most likely persist long into the future; it is sadly a condition necessary. But for the vast majority of the people in the world, the populous that has a voice, has a choice, and has the ability to see those who are struggling and say enough is enough and act, most would rather sit by and numbly ignore them. I am reminded of a lyric I am fond of, “They are sick, they are poor, and they die by the thousands, and we look away…cause we don’t have the time, here at the top of the world”. It is this mindset that I abhor and as a human and Christian look upon with utter frustration (though I participate in frequently).

Now, this all started about a thought about distant heat lighting and an overactive imagination about bombs and war. Where does struggle come into its place? Don’t worry we will get there. As a Christian it is difficult to see the state of the world and the state of the people in it. Granted I don’t want to see wealth and riches brought to the masses who are invisible, starving, and dying. I want to see love, peace, and life instilled instead. Yet, I look at the church in this country and compare it with stories from those in other countries, like Iraq and China. These countries are not known for their benevolence or their charity. More specifically they have very little love for Christians and their practices. Yet, despite being persecuted, killed, and generally not treated well, I see the juxtaposition of the American church by comparison which is enamored with wealth, safety, and a voice in politics, if that isn’t a crazy idea. Instead of being persecuted by their government because of their faith, Christians in the U.S. actually have a partial hand the government. I have one thing to say about this seemingly obvious gap between American churches and struggle-torn ones, which one works? Which one is God with us? Paul makes it very clear in his epistles the promise of struggle in a Christian’s life, yet the fire of struggle that fuels so many Christians around the world, is wholly absent in this country. In fact most go out of their way to avoid struggle or in any way feeling uncomfortable in living out the gospel and loving those around them. Where a general feeling of Malaise should arise in these situations there is only a shrug of apathy. Are we truly that unloving and cold as a body of believers?

 I am a Christian because I follow Christ; I am not a Christian because I follow the church. At this moment I would be saddened to be following the state of the church in this country. Granted again, that is a huge generalization, and there are many God loving and God honoring churches in this country, however, they are not the ones with a voice or the power, as it should be. So, struggle? Where is it? That is my question, and my point. It is my belief that struggle is a necessary requirement for Christians to flourish. To me suffering and struggle create perseverance and perseverance creates a strong faith and trust in God. Those with the least generally seem the happiest with what they have (and not surprising tends to struggle the most). Without the first part of the equation we as a church fail to live compassionate lives that include sacrifice, rather it’s easier without understanding struggle to just take care of our own.  Unfortunately it is a quality that is apparent in the modern, consumerized, money hungry, and society of saturation we live in. Yes, Americans struggle, on September 11 2001 Americans struggled, when an employee loses his job and ends up homeless and falls through society’s cracks, Americans struggle. But as a society that pales in comparison to struggle around the world on a day to day basis. What would happen if your life became more like a Chinese Christian? Would your faith grow or fall away? I would hope Job is an example in that situation. The desert brothers and the martyrs of the early church set the example. Don’t be apart of the world, and if necessary stand up and take the lashing for Christ’s gift. Faith has an infinite ceiling when mixed with oppression and strife. You want to see the American church follow Christ more deeply? Watch what would happen if bible studies were illegal, gathering in worship would be illegal, if proclaiming one was a Christian meant jail time. If those things were true you would roughly have the conditions many brothers and sisters in Christ experience on a regular basis around the world. I am not saying we should push for an oppressive dictatorship so we as Christians can have it like the good ole days, I am saying this: struggle. Make life less comfortable. Don’t quest for what will make life easier, struggle to find what will challenge it. We are not supposed to be playing by the world’s rules in the first place, so let go of them. If we can’t be in struggling conditions, bring them to you. I am not saying live on the streets, become an anarchist, or become a religious extremist, but call the status quo into question. Ask not what you can do for the world, but what God can use you to do in it, regardless of the consequences.

(Easier said than done I'm afraid).

Growing Up: What we leave behind

I have been thinking a lot about the future lately, the future that might be, and the future that could have been. For me the future includes pictures of family and friends, but also my career. I feel like also to many, the future includes a heavy emphasis on a job or "career" as the cornerstone to their desires and hopes (I mean going to college means you get the job of your dreams right?). It is interesting how that despite how incredibly vocationally focused our culture is (people are known for their jobs rather than who they are as people), we spend so little time thinking about the importance of selecting it. I tend to wonder about the dreams we had as kids and what happened to them? At what we imagined we could be before we were taught that dreams are foolish and told we are limited to our perceived skills rather than our potential.
Growing up I wanted to be a fireman, a marine biologist, and my personal favorite an egyptologist (all before the age of 10 no less). I also always wanted to be a toy-r-us kid forever. But what did you want to be when you grew up? Now what do you want to be now? (I ended up becoming a counselor so go figure). However, is the better question here what do you wish you could do now? Is there a difference or incongruency still between the two? Certainly. But all too often I feel that people get "stuck" in a career and end up looking back and wishing things were in a different place as if the pieces in the puzzle got put in the wrong order. This does not necessarily mean people can't happenstance into a job they would have never wanted for themselves and end up loving it despite its lack of initial appeal because that happens and can be a great blessing. However, at what point does having a more "realistic" trajectory become more important than doing something your heart loves (this is always the conflict in plotlines involving parents and their art major college students). I've heard too many students who take a major career path because of the perceived outcome later (high paying job) and have no heart in what they do beyond the paycheck or the ease in getting a job. (Can you blame them though? America(ns) loves their money and prestige).  But I feel like more and more there are those walking around that look back and think of the job they really would have loved to do, but didn't because it wasn't practical or not high paying enough... (this is not to say the economy always works the way you would like it to when you make leap of faith in a career-path, which makes job selections incredibly complicated at times, but sometimes...it isn't). I agree that money is important, but it is only a means to an end and not an end itself. So while you shouldn't turn down a job or go after a career that has a high payday, that shouldn't be the lone driving force either. If you could have any job in the world, regardless of pay, location, or education, what would it be? Is it a high paying job?

"When you grow up, your heart dies" says the sad and unhopeful voice of allie sheedy in the breakfast club. This has been a phrase that has replayed in my head as I have grown up and even now. I thought for so long this was true, and inevitable, you get older and the things you thought were important when you younger disappear and are considered unimportant. I think in a lot of ways this is true for many, you graduate college or find a job, and you no longer have the time or brainspace for thinking about "childish" things, life tends to make sure of that. That makes me sad to think about. In the end I think sorting out a career or a job can really be benefited with a little imagination and creativity that our hearts used to contain, which is ironic given those ideals are the first thing that goes out the window in the "real" world. I remember being anxious for months before graduating high school in figuring out the trajectory of my WHOLE life (being dramatic is part of being a teenager right?). I felt capable in taking multiple career paths, but couldn't decide which one was "me", not which one would make me the richest or which one would be the easiest to swallow, but which one would make the me inside happy (that's the real trick isn't it though?). I ended up deciding on one that I could not just live with, but that would fulfill me, and continue to challenge me with the skills I had and since then I haven't looked back or regretted a single moment (God really blessed me here, and these results are not guaranteed, selecting a career is a process).

The job you may love may not be the job that comes to mind first or second, or fiftith and the skills you have may not be immediately applicable to a job you are aware of, but I think looking inside at the kid you left behind year ago might serve you well in that quest, after all the world could use a little more childish fearlessness and hope and not just in the area of vocation, but all across the board in our lives.

The Wandering Christian

Ahh it feels good to back in front of a computer screen typing . After many a week of academically induced slumber I am back putting thoughts to digital paper. This is definitely not the blog post I was expecting to write, but this is what flowed, it is personal, it is honest, it is me. I wanted to open with a snippet of lyrics from As Cities Burn:

 

"Hearts aren't really our guides.
We are truly alone.
'Cause God ain't up in the sky,
Holding together our bones.

Remember we used to speak.
Now I'm starting to think,
Your voice was really my own,
Bouncing off the ceiling back to me.

God, this can't be.
God, this can't be,
God, could it be that all we see is it?"

 

This passage of lyrics literally haunt me from time to time depending on where my head is, and has slowly become an albatross attached to my soul, unable to be thrown off. There is something about the honesty of the human experience expressed in them that is hard to deny and shake off as incorrect. I can tell you many Christ followers struggle with disbelief, whether they would openly admit it or not. In some ways, the Christian faith is a bit crazy to a human mind who seeks to control and understand everything. We get eternal life and forgiveness of transgressions by accepting the belief that Christ is God and came to save us. In a purely transactional way, that is hard to say no to, however, our logical minds find a way (mainly through doubt, and alcohol). Thus these lyrics speak to that area of my heart that I fear God cannot take away, but I also enjoy (what a predicament). I see some health to questioning God as a Christ follower. I think it gives a potency to a faith and strength in belief, without doubt to sharpen the truth in Christ, you just end up with stagnant beliefs with no true understanding of them like in the case of many atheists and misguided christians (questioning nothing, and accepting falsehood as truth). I think more Christ followers could use an increase in doubting, questioning, and  theological wrestling matches with what seems to be concerte truth on Sunday morning. With that being said, there is a responsible way to dig into the more mirky areas of the Christian faith, and a way that is essentially playing golf in a lightning storm (you will eventually get electrocuted, just before getting that hole-in-one). Scripture is the best interpretation of scripture, and making conclusions about it should be made with caution and not with your own interests in mind (see: heresy).

 

The problem for me then becomes when a simple apologetic exercise such as doubt sticks and creates a real crisis of faith. I've suffered many waves of this attack, and have overcome them each time, but in the moments in between I have wondered if I might succumb to my doubt, as there are times my faith seems less than certain. There is an undeniable piece to my psyche that tells me my doubts (biblical inconsistencies, miraculous occurances, etc) are equally valid  as my faith is. It becomes as simple as saying to myself "what if God doesn't exist, it seems incredibly possibly it is just a human fallacy". Questions such as these become especially more difficult when many churches have no follow up when tough questions arise. They are either unequipped to deal with them or afraid of going there and not having a definite "right" answer. The more and more I wrestle with this I discover that faith in Christ is an increasingly messy, confusing, and frustrating process (after all, Christ did not promise an easy road). This realization plays directly into my pre-Christ self that refuses to relent and bow to Christ, and lives to fight another day when I look into areas where my faith is still weak because of doubt.

 

We all rebel against God whether intentionally or not, our hearts due to sin are built to hate God, but for me rebellion is a part of my personality (See: Punk Rock). Now I am to the point that I wonder what it will take for God's truths to be truely written on my heart, and not in dry erase marker, but chiseled there. There is a subvertive part of my heart that seeks rebellion in all areas, and that includes submitting to God and becoming a truely new creation. But also fighting against the righteousness of God is the secular arguments I absorbed growing up. I can see the logic in doubting God and all of the points that seek to poke holes in the narrative of Christ and any number of other areas. I am a scientist and a logical creature at the core (thanks Star Trek!) so the giant illogical entity known as God seems like a fallacy, but IT IS NOT. I hope through all of this God is working, and one day will take my wandering heart and make it one after his own, as this process of doubt is wearing because at the end of the day I don't wish to be the wandering Christian I have become. 

the Digital age, too much info not enough thinking

I've been pondering about the digital age, and my place in it recently. My wife and I just gained some cred in the digital age by getting our first smartphones. First it is odd to feel that we may have been "behind" in some way prior to this acquisition. As if culture had passed us by and we were the technological equivalent of a monkey rubbing sticks together (thanks apple for making me feel uncool). But the more I thought about it the more I realized this is the way of the world. Change always comes, you adapt to it, or allow yourself to be left behind by it. The same is true with the digital age. However, I feel that in some ways we are losing something real in the switch to 1s and 0s.

 More specifically this is the pattern I had noticed in my own choices in slowly switching over, but there is part of me that is unwilling to let go of my pre-digital self ("analog boy in a digital world"). I have a kindle to read, an ipod to listen to music, netflix to watch television, but do all of these digital things have the same essence as their analog compadres? The same feelings of ownership? I find myself resisting the switch because there is a tangible connection to analog things, it's a mindset for me. The feel of a book, the hum of a record, the honesty in a conversation, these are all things that are real, lucid, and true. I don't find the same truth in their digital counterparts, they seem rather shallow in comparison. Do you feel the same way in talking to an old friend on facebook as you do hanging out and catching up? At what point are we giving up on real honest connection for what is the going replacement for it? God made us for relationships (with humans, NOT computers) and I think technology masquerading as relationship cheapens that gift. I think in making the digital switch we as consumers, and more importantly as humans are giving up a lot. While I see technology as a good thing, it is more akin to a tool like any other invention than a social revolution. Thus, it is not a direct replacement for the activities it seeks to make easier (or circumvent). While the social network has the ability to spread information quickly, this ability has some downsides when it is the only resource some seek out. So it is surprising to me how many rely for news and updates from twitter posts and facebook statuses and form opinions and values from them without any outside information or research. Closing thought: There is a reason internet usage/computer usage can be classified as a process addiction. The need for instant gratification technology brings is rewiring brains (Wired article). The internet and technology are wonderful tools for education, communication, and information gathering however, but when taken as the new normal, they leave us with a breadth of knowledge but a lack of depth.

This whole idea is well discussed in the following blog discussing the Kony 2012 debacle and the spread of social media in replacement for actual thinking and logical reasoning.

When am I an adult?

I'm not going to lie, writing up my first blog post took an incredibly larger amount of time than I originally imagined. It can be nerve-racking to write thoughts down and wonder if they are relevant, and matter to anyone outside your own mind.  But without further ado, here is Digging Deeper's first blog entry.

Am I an adult? I am 25, married, and in graduate school (seems grown-up enough right?)

Despite this I feel as though the modern sense of what adulthood is and when it begins is an ever evolving catch 22 for those of us in our mid-late twenties, especially for new college grads. I think there is a distinct difference between being an adult through the tasks/behaviors you are involved in (getting married, working a full-time job, taking responsibility) and how the world and society views you. You can be as adult like as you want with how you interact with the world, but there are times society can completely discount those adult behaviors due to appearance. So I think the second distinction is where I hit a snag. It seems to be almost universal that no matter the situation I am in, I'm continually "the young guy" or get comments that are equally invalidating. I am 25, not 16, and while it may be polite to point out my youthful appearance, it makes it difficult to be seen as a professional who is competent and knows what he is doing.  I feel like 30 is the new 20. It has never been so "in" to be young (even when you are not young, I'm looking at you Joan Rivers), yet on the flip side being young in American culture gets you less respect thanks to the American cultural heuristic that tells us older = good/better. At what point does the "young guy" treatment end?  I feel as though you aren't seen as an "adult" in an job/career until you are into your 40s, you are an adult when you take on real life responsibilities like getting married and having kids around 25-30, and you are an adult and can kill people at 18 according to the government. Having different social lenses with which to view adulthood makes the internal feeling of being an adult a moving target. In a lot of ways there is always another step to be "more" adult, and finding that adult "identity" has been nearly impossible as I have gotten older. However, none of this matters if I don't believe in how I view myself. I am an adult, but does that make me an adult? It sure does. The self-fulfilling prophecy will only continue until I accept the part of being an adult, whether I believe others see me that way or not. The social lense is a nice barometer of truth, but at the end of the day you are what you eat (or for this metaphor you are who you eat...errr rather you are the person that you accept you are).

 I will leave this post with some lyrics from a band I respect a great deal and a final thought:

"it seems my life is always under par...When does my life become my own?"

Am I an adult? I love God, Love my wife, care for those around me, and take life seriously...is that enough?

Introduction to Digging Deeper

Greetings. I wanted to start out my blogging career with a description of why I am writing this blog at all. Purpose before action is an important thing to me, and I hope to allow those who read this blog to understand my heart and purpose for creating this space. A little over three weeks ago I turned 25, which might strike some as unimportant, but it seemed signifcant to me, and perhaps a jumping off point for reflection and search for meaning of who I am, where I stand, and what is important to me. I know I am not 50 or retiring so why all the self-reflection? Well first, I am in a counseling master's program, and self-reflection is not only the name of the game, but it literally is a game (we practice on wednesdays), but also I have always had a focus on myself internally (i'm an introvert, what can you do?) and what I am doing with my life, almost like a life report card (unfortunately there are no discounts for high grades). It has always been important to me to dig deeper in my life, with people, with God, and in issues that are important to me. "The unexamined life, truly is not worth living" rings true to me in many ways. As I was pondering this certain inclination of myself, I slowly began to realize that digging deeper is a giant area that seems unimportant in American society. Shallow is replaced for deep connection, and no one is the wiser (did you hear about the ipad 3?!?!). I am guilty of this consistently as well, but in turning a quarter century, I felt it time to start a discussion that might be challenging and maybe push you to go deeper with yourself, and others. I don't know about anyone else but I love discussions like the one I am describing, and you know when you have just had one, because it's all you think about for hours or days. It changes you, it makes you think, and makes you feel something. I want that for this blog, and I want that for myself, so I ask will you dig deeper with me?