Lost in our Loss

I realize it's been a while since I've written a post.  In all honesty, I found it difficult to write or say anything in the last month or two.  I'm not entirely sure if it was just a case of writer's block, or the sense that nothing seemed to inspire me.  There was a time in my life when writing was the only way for me to process through all the tangles of my thoughts.  It was the only way I could lay my grievances, prayers, joys, and musings before God.  It gave me clarity in the fog of my mind and an outlet to speak when at times I was too shy, too afraid, and too insecure to use my actual voice.  But there comes a point when words no longer suffice, and there is nothing you can write that could ever convey the depth of emotions you may feel.  There will be a time when even the eloquence of words will let you down.  And there will be a time when you are just utterly empty and entirely lost.  Strangely enough, staying quiet was the only thing that gave me peace from the storms that raged around me.   I had to face God without words, and perhaps He wanted it that way.  Sometimes words clutter our ability to hear His still small voice.  Sometimes, its not just words, but things and idols we have built in place of our worship.    

In the last couple of months, it wasn't only words I had lost.  I seemed to have lost many many things, including my way in life.  It was definitely a season of idol-stripping.  Everything I had put my hope in and worth in, God slowly removed. I could say it all began when, quite literally, my most expensive possessions were swept away by water.  I had never owned much in life, and my electronics were the most valuable things I had.  When I saw my bag sink to the bottom of the river with every electronic device I owned, my first reaction was to do whatever it took to save them.  Sad.  My second reaction was to be upset at the possibility that I could have lost all my work, all my drawings, designs, papers, and stories I had worked on over the years.  It was the only legacy I felt I had to leave behind, the only thing of value my life had produced over the years.  It was my work.  Though I was lucky enough to have been spared the latter, it forced me to think about where I was placing my identity.  It scared me to know that who I was could've been so easily lost. 

As I journeyed back home from England, I knew things wouldn't be easy.   There was no permanent place for me to stay, and with the lack of a job and money, my only option was to sofa surf.  Three months later I am still surfing, still living out of my suitcase.  I haven't been able to unpack or settle into a routine as of yet, though  I was lucky enough to return to the same company I used to work for as a temporary means of survival and source of income.  This very much reminded me of the path Peter's journey took after the excitement and disappointment of following Jesus to the cross.  He returned to the only familiar thing he knew to do; fish.  Right now, I am fishing.  There is still a very vague sense of what the next step in life is, and it's difficult to not completely lose myself in all the loss I feel like I've encountered.  It's never easy when God takes your hand and leads you into the desert to be stripped.  My only solace is to believe there must be a greater purpose.  My greatest fear is that there may not be.

Yesterday at church, we had a Trappist Monk as a guest speaker, and coincidentally the topic was on Psalm 22 and how to deal with suffering.  It seems timely in the wake of everything that has happened in the last week with the storm.  My heart and prayers go out to the families who have lost much and endured such great suffering.  I can't fully explain why life takes us down these roads, or why in our seasons of loss we feel the most lost, or why God will lead us multiple times back into the desert to be stripped.  What I can say is that each time, it gets easier, and our spirits grow quieter.  There is less grumbling and less complaining, and we remember to hold all things with loose hands.  Our tempest-tost souls learn to be anchored in the Lord.  We begin to see how worthless our idols are, and how easily our material possessions can be washed away.  If we put our hope in those things and our value in what we have, then surely we will be swept away along with them.  We are not defined by where we live or where we work.  We are not defined by what we have.    We are, and always will be, children of God.  I have in me the ability to praise and worship the creator of the universe, and even in my loss of words, I can speak of the good news of salvation.  It seemed timely to write something now, in the aftermath of so much loss for so many people.  I understand what its like to not have a home, to lose things you've invested so much time and money into.  It's painful, and it's hard to want to turn to God.  But I can testify with assurance that those who trust in Lord will not be disappointed.  Wait for Him as watchmen wait for the morning, and He will come.  The stripping is never just for the sake of taking away possessions, or even discipline.  He takes in order to give us something much better.  He blinds us in certain seasons so we learn to not simply trust in what our eyes see.  In the lack of my own words to express the deepness of these lessons, I remember those of William Blake's in his poem the Auguries of Innocence:

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro’ the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

 Our worldly possessions are meant to be lost, broken, and swept away.  Even this world is said to be quickly perishing.  It is in the darkness of our nights that we begin to see God's light.  He knows all too well what it means to suffer, what it means to lose.  But He is a God of resurrection and not death, and will rebuild what has been struck down.  The Trappist Monk left the congregation with these words: "Do not waste your suffering".  There are definitely times when I am afraid that the Lord will not show up, and that all the sufferings I've tasted will be for nothing.  It's hard to re-shape my perceptions to resemble heavenly thinking.  I am still disciplining myself to let hope rise in the place of fear.  What I have learned is that God takes our words seriously, and when we say that we will follow Him, he will sometimes lead us to dry and treacherous places.  He will strip us of our idols, of all our possessions.  But we will understand, that even in our nakedness, we have the greatest thing of all.  We have the good news of salvation, and faith to believe that He is good, all the time.

Like Mother Like Daughter

I just have to say, my mom is an amazing person.  I planned on posting a different entry, but this seemed more important to share.  The last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to catch up with my mom, and sleeping in her living room sort of forced me to understand her just a little bit better.  I guess that's the thing with sleeping in anyone's living room, you have to grow accustomed to your host's habits and schedule in a more intuitive manner.  We haven't always had a smooth relationship, and at times, our interactions were just downright awful.  I guess the friction in our relationship made me gloss over the different layers to my mom's personality I just never bothered to see before.  In my younger years, she always seemed like a tyrant, but now I understand that she's a bit like me, or maybe I'm a bit like her.

I guess the first time I ever really saw some soft spots in her seemingly tough armor was the night our ceiling caved in.  This happened just a couple of days after I got back from England.  The tenants upstairs managed to flood their bathroom and the ensuing deluge had nowhere to go but down, straight down into our apartment.  There's never really a good time for this to happen, but in this instance, it happened in the middle of the night.  I woke my mom up, and even though I was a bit panicked, I didn't want to alarm her.  We both just quietly cleaned up the mess and threw away the remnants of what was once our ceiling.  It was the first time I noticed that she was worried and sad, not just angry.  I wanted to hug her, but thought it might embarrass her more.  In reality, I probably didn't want to be the one to feel embarrassed.  Up until this point, I felt as though the only emotions I ever saw her express were anger, and crazy anger.  Sadness was a new one, but it made me realize how human she was.  I always understood that there were things she went through in life that weren't great, but her pain seemed to turn into bitterness, and bitterness turned to anger.  In her older age (though I still think she's young), the anger subsided, and perhaps hopelessness filled its void.  I find myself angry, bitter and hopeless quite often and I understood all to well how she felt.  I am too much like her.

Tonight, she peeled another layer.  She was a writer, you know.  She never mentioned this before to me.  I knew she had gone to college for Journalism, but every time she talked about it, it was with a sense of nostalgia and regret.  I never asked her what happened, and I rue not having this conversation sooner.  She told me about a short story she published in High School.  I asked her what she wrote about.  "Gangsters and girls" was her answer.  No one can argue with how awesome that is.  My mom wrote about gangsters and girls.  This is unbelievable.  Gangsters and girls won her first place in a writing competition and publication, which is how she decided to go into journalism.  So what happened?  I needed to know.  For as long as I knew my mom, she always pressed into me and my sister the need to make money over being creative.  We weren't allowed to be artists, and I had to watch my sister shelve her wonderful artistic gifts in the pursuit of stability.  I was less permeated by the money making brainwashing but more so because I needed to rebel.  It was crazy for me to see my mother as a lover of writing and philosophy.  She told me about how she loved thinking and reading, and all she wanted to be was a journalist.  It broke my heart to know that the need for money suffocated her passions.

Before she could finish her degree, my grandmother eloped with another man and left the family high and dry.  My mom being the next in line found the responsibility of feeding a family firm on her shoulders.  She had to work, there was no question.  Livelihood before dreams, food before fancies.  These were the things that buried her passions.  I hate to say that passions die, because I don't believe they do, they just get buried in crap until we forget they ever existed.  She says those days are over, that she'll never have the wandering thoughts she once did that lead to such outbursts of creativity.  She tells me that you never make money doing the things you love.  Journalism wasn't going to give you three meals a day.  I ask her if she'll ever write again, she says not now.  She is still worried, except this time it's about me.  She tells me that she wants me to have things settled in my life first, that I'm able to have a career, get married, and find some stability.  I am too much like her.

These days, I find myself wrapped up in the same worries.  I don't know when the sense of overbearing responsibility creeped into my heart, but it's there.  I worry about money, about where my food will come from, about where I'll live, where I'll work, and everyday seems to be filled with the anxieties of survival.  I complain that I don't have much, and these days it seems to be justified.  I worry about finding a job, because working gives me purpose and buys me a warm meal and small apartment.  I'm willing to bury my dreams for that.  I have buried my dreams for that.  I've waited years for time to just create and write, and when time came, money was absent, so time went to making money.  I am on the verge of sabotaging an opportunity to live out my dream.  I believe that nothing in life is an accident, and this conversation with my mom, this is divine timing.  It broke my heart to know how much my mom sacrificed for her family; for me.  I am ungrateful to say the least, and at the same time, perpetuating the same fate upon myself.  I wonder if it's selfish to want to escape the wheel my mom has been running her entire life.  I've condemned myself to hard work because I feel it is too selfish; too selfish to take what she's given up and use it for myself.  She tells me this is what she wants.  I am humbled.  I am too much like her, she see's this, and she knows that we can spend our days together on the same wheel, or she can sacrifice just a bit longer, just a bit more for me.  I am not worthy, I am too much like her.

She leaves me with some advice before she puts her layer back on that has left her bare and perhaps a bit ashamed.  She tells me that the secret to good writing is to be able to touch others hearts.  She is sensitive, thoughtful, encouraging.  She knows the secrets of life all too well, and will one day find herself with a pen in hand I'm sure.  For now, she says she doesn't have the time.  We share the same philosophy about writing, though I always wonder if this over-sexed, over stimulated generation wants to read about love and all things good.  I wonder if they still want to read about God?  She reminds me to just write things that can speak to people's hearts, and to believe that every heart still needs love, and still needs God.  I want to tell her that I love her, that I am too much like her, and I have never been more proud to be.  

Twice

Drip twice black liquid in the bowl;
submit the body
to the soul.

Drop twice into the metal plate;
a penny for penance
a penny for grace.

Knock twice upon the wooden door;
once for luck
and then once more.

Ask twice, the martyr and the sage
how to live
and die with age

What good is evil in man's mind
when evil has been reassigned.
What use is time when at a glance
we never get a second chance

But he who looks not once but twice
will find himself among the wise
to look beyond the world's surmise
and find a home outside the hive.

[last stanza edit as per Marc]

Ithaka

Birthday presents are fun, but there's nothing better than a thoughtful one.  I received a book today with a note that read, "see page 29 for Ithaka", and it took me a moment to remember the conversation I had with this friend, one of many, where I've talked about how much I long for a  permanent home, a place of rest for a weary well-traveled soul.  I had called it my "Ithaca".  Just last night, I thought about how much I never want to board a plane again, never want to pack another suitcase, never want to rent a U-Haul truck to shuffle from one place to another.  I thought about how much I just wanted to reach "Ithaca", for the journey to be over, at least for a season.  But it's a funny thing, how the timing of good friends always seems impeccable.  As I read the poem on page 29, I was reminded of the fact that life is so much more than just an Ithaca.  It's a journey that may never bring you one, and a well-rested soul is one that has learned that a home isn't what makes you happy, it's happiness that makes you a home, wherever life may take you.  So I thank that friend for her thoughtfulness and her impeccable timing.  It is exactly what this soul needed to hear.  

Ithaka
C.P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

I should write something...

I ought to write something on the last day I'll ever be in my 20's.  Honestly?  There was a part of me that was expecting some switch to go on in my mind that would suddenly make me feel like an adult marking that shift away from those tempestuous years which brought me to over 3 continents, dozens of cities, five career changes and countless mood swings.  I guess there was a malfunction in that switch because I kind of feel the same.  Man, there were some rough moments there...but worth it.  It was certainly a decade where my driving passion for adventure and love of art really had a chance to thrive.  It's brought me a multitude of experiences, plenty of pleasures, and of course, some heartaches.  But I never lost the chance to learn some hard life lessons that made me the person I am today.  It was a decade of cultivating my creativity, of sharpening my mind, and strengthening my relationship with God.  It was a season of sowing, a harsh winter to follow, and the beginnings of a promised spring.  I'm pretty excited I have to say.  This isn't going to be so bad...waving goodbye to my good ol' twenties.  No waxing poetical here about exiting my "chrysalis" phase emerging as a smarter, older, butterfly that's nobody's fool.  I'm still a fool, and here are some things this fool is thankful for that have helped me survive thus far:

Toffee Nut latte's at Starbucks
Sara Bareille's songs
Chocolate and/or ice-cream and/or both
Bad Will Ferrell movies
Good jazz music
An occasional glass of wine
Smooth airplane landings
French pastries
Motrin
Two-ply toilet paper that doesn't flake
Floss
Christmas time in New York
My grandmother's cooking
Anything with cheese on top
Good friends
A sister
The Indianna Jones trilogy (no, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull does not count)
A cozy sweater
Chuck Swindoll sermons
Listerine that no longer tastes like Listerine
A place to sleep at night

I realize that half of these things involve edible goods...what I can I say, I'm a fatty.  Ok, well that's it, yay to the future! See you there.

Saturday Night Confessions

There is something I am very quickly learning about myself, when I am upset, I can be quite inconsolable.  I'm always amazed at how much God puts up with my temper tantrums sometimes.  Being in Cambridge, though wonderful and truly a blessing, has taken a toll on me emotionally.  As many "highs" as I feel like I've experienced, there were just as many "lows".  These last two weeks have been particularly hard.  I've been sick, tired, sleeping too little, sleeping too much, inconvenienced, interrupted, and just plain fed-up at times.  The chronic eye infections and stomach pains were only a fraction of the things I felt like I was dealing with, and to make things worse, I just felt like I needed to keep going, to push through, to put on a smile when really all I wanted to do was to curl up in a corner somewhere and cry.  I've been feeling empty more often, and getting upset at God for not filling me up again quickly enough.  I feel like I've been fighting for faith and coming up short in my battle.  I'm tired of continually feeling like I have to bury my dreams at the cross, hoping God would resurrect them again, but not being all too sure if it would be in His will to do so.  I've been worried about an uncertain future, the inevitable truth of having to start my life over from scratch once I go back to New York.  I feel directionless, without purpose, without hope, and upset at myself for having these feelings while knowing that I have a relationship with a God who can do all things.  Why is it so hard for me to trust Him?  Why does he feel so far and why does it feel so hard to believe He is working all things for good in my life?  I've been sitting in my bed for the last two hours (despite a looming deadline) just really crying out for God, and in perhaps one of my lowest lows, God did the impossible,  He consoled me.

I was reminded of a dream I had about a month ago.  There was a ship being tossed in the sea stuck in a middle of a raging storm, and I could clearly remember God speaking to me that this would be a season where he teaches me how to be anchored in Him despite my surroundings.  I remember praying that God would show me how to do this, without really anticipating what it would take to teach this lesson.  I've recently been meditating on Psalm 139, praying the words written by David over my life, particular verse 23, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."  I had forgotten that I basically prayed for everything I've been going through.  I was the one who asked God to show me how to be anchored, and it takes a storm for that to happen.  I had let everything around me determine how I should feel.  It's not to say it's wrong to be upset when life just isn't going the way you hope, I had simply forgotten to cast my vision beyond what's happening now.  I allowed myself to get swept away by my emotions, choosing to be inconsolable rather than choosing to trust in God, and in things unseen.  This was why I was loosing the battle with faith, because faith is believing in that which has not come to pass, and trusting in the goodness of God that His promises are true.  If I let the reality of my surroundings dictate what I see in my future, I will surely be discouraged.  I was reminded of all the good things that have yet to come to pass, and to be encouraged in the Lord despite the raging storms.  I feel as though I don't testify enough of the goodness of God.  I am a chronic complainer and serial whiner, but by God's grace I hope He changes that.  I grumble when I'm going through trials, forgetting that most of the time this is what I've prayed for, and the Lord will bring me through.  There is nothing greater than the love God has to offer.  He is always a tender father.  He consoles me even when I feel inconsolable.  He anchors me in the midst of a storm, and delivers me from every trial.

Tim Unwin, How I Sing Your Praises: Issues of Technology and Social Justice

There are several reasons why I want Tim Unwin's unborn children in my belly, these are just a few of them.  On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending his lecture at the Faculty of Education in Cambridge, and man o man, how I love a fellow conspiracy theorist!  The lecture was about Open educational resources, and how technology can and should be used to help the underprivileged (and the sad truth that they just aren't being utilized that way).  Any one who opens their speech with, "You'll think I'm a bit of a pessimistic conspiracy theorist" is already o.k. in my book, but my praise goes beyond just his critical analysis.  Yes, we must know that capitalism drives most things, whether we like it or not, and we've come to know it as a necessary evil.  Tim reminds us that most tech companies are privately owned for the purpose of making money (even though they'll have you think they're changing the world for you), and most technology is expensive (not in the manufacturing sense, but the hours of pre-production and  hiring the top minds in the world is not cheap).  This is problematic in developing free educational resources.  In an ideal world, everyone cares about others, and we are able to put our brother's needs before our own, but what I'm learning is that ideal worlds only exist in ideal minds.  I remember writing in my application for this program that what I hoped to do with my degree after graduation was to "introduce and allocate funding for technology in underprivileged communities".  Deep down inside my heart, this is still what I want to do (as Tim's lecture has reminded me), but I laugh a little at my own naivety in thinking "this is totally possible".  It's possible, but its not easy.  It requires more than just a will and desire for social justice, it requires shifting the beliefs of the world and unveiling certain truths that most people probably don't want to listen to.  It's something that requires not just one person, but generations of individuals devoted to a common vision and of course, God's favor.  I believe that most aspiring humanitarians hold true and fast to a bottom-up philosophy, but in a world run by corporations and money, "trickle-down" economics always seems to be the first solution presented.  If my tenth grade history class has taught me anything, its that trickle-down economics never works for those who are starving and poor.  The argument that if we let the rich get richer, they will somehow generate more opportunities for the lower classmen and distribute their wealth amongst the refuse is imbued with the same idealism that lets your brother eat before you eat; it just doesn't happen.  Bailouts don't work, tax break for millionaires don't work.  We need more Roosevelts and less Tafts, and Tim reminds us that the gap in equality is even greater now than it ever was, and technology has been historically developed to serve the interests of the rich and the powerful. 

When we think about technology being in the hands of the rich and powerful, we imagine old, white men with slicked back hair wearing pin-stripe suits with ascots diving into pools of gold (yes, I just referenced Scrooge McDuck).  But we forget that we (me and you) are the rich and the powerful.  We are the ones that technology helps and advances further up the social and economic ladder.  We are the ones that benefit from new programs and applications that help us research, write, analyze, design, and photograph the things we need in order to stay competitive, linked-in, up-to-date, and relevant.  Another one of Tim's major concerns is how can we ensure that the benefits of economic growth are fairly distributed, and what, indeed, is fair?  And what, indeed, are the needs of the poor? As much as I complain about the paltry state of my bank accounts, I am not poor, and I would be foolish if I thought I could speak on their behalf.  Part of the problem is that all too often, those in positions of power and wealth start thinking they know what poor people need and what's best for them.  Hardly ever do we set out initiatives that gives them a voice.  Do they need computers?  Do they need to know how to use twitter?  Do they need us to film another documentary that goes viral? Or are we just exploiting them out of our own selfish desires that revolve around our own notions of justice and fairness?  Is teaching inner city kids how to use digital design software something they really need?   These are questions I wrestle with on a daily basis.  There is a sense of social responsibility that those who have should give to those who don't have, but when do we cross the line between servant and Messiah?  Serving is different from saving, we all think we can save, but only God can do that.  Part of Tim's beliefs is that teachers should be less like teachers and more like facilitators, and as I do agree with this point, I still wonder if facilitating is enough in certain situations? The issue of providing open education resources is only the tip of the ice-berg.  Below are greater questions regarding the role of education in promoting social justice, and the responsibility of the individual in carrying out that role.  Providing tools and software to those who cannot afford them is only the beginning, and it opens us up to a world of questions that should be asked when thinking about the needs of others.  I do believe that education can be a the great equalizer, that was something I was taught by my immigrant mother and part of her dream for me when she left China for the States.  And I also believe that technology can do the same, and I end with one of the best Tim Unwin quotes from his lecture, that the "best use of technology starts in prayer", and really, anything we set ourselves out to do should start with deep contemplation before God.

Stepping Back, Moving Forward

It's funny how some of the things we spend a life time learning, are the things we need to unlearn. This week, I planned to carve out some long needed alone time with God. Since the end of the last school term, I've been running off of adrenaline, going from one task to the other. I could feel myself getting a little cranky and overwhelmed. It's difficult to try to cleave yourself away from work when it feels like there's so much that needs to get done. On Tuesday, I got to go on a kayaking trip to Granchester with my friend, I finally started to feel relaxed. We passed by a tree with a rope tied to it and I thought about how much fun it would be to swing into the water. Later on, my friend and I discussed the possibility of making that "tree-swing" one of our adventure goals when the weather gets warmer. Before we both could even commit to the possibility, we thought about all the dangers associated with simply swinging from a rope into the river. She thought about the dead bodies that may be lurking in the water that would brush up against her, and the possibility of shallow waters and paralysis. Before she finished her thoughts, images of river parasites burrowing into my eyeballs shot into in mind. It's strange that entering into adulthood sometimes teaches us to be cautious at the expense of adventure.

When we grow up, we're taught to be more independent, more reliant on ourselves to make things happen. We're taught to be more cautious, to be responsible, to clean up after ourselves. We're taught to stop asking people to do things for us, and start doing them on our own. These are all great grown-up characteristics to have, but I started to feel so dependent on myself, which only seemed to draw me away from my dependency on God. That's when the thought first came to me, maybe what I needed to do was unlearn things, rather than learn more things. This is what my week of worship was for, to understand that I need God. I need Him to provide for the things I could never provide for myself. In learning to do this, I needed to unlearn some things first. I had to unlearn some of my independence, and be o.k. with being needy, and to allow other people to fill that need. I was reminded of a separate occasion where a good friend of mine tried to wash my dishes. I bumped into him at our college kitchen, and he totally caught me off guard by offering to wash my stack of dirty plates. I'm not even sure why, but I felt so embarrassed. I kindly refused his kind offer, hoping it would end there, but it didn't. Being a God-loving man himself, he grabbed my dishes and told me I needed to allow people to spoil me once in a while. I never felt so weird in my life. I stood there awkwardly for a minute, watching him scrub away at my mess, and felt the overwhelming need to have to do something. I danced around him dusting and cleaning whatever crumbs I could find just to make myself feel useful. The thought of someone else cleaning up after me seemed so foreign. I was so used to picking up after my own mess. Dirty dishes were a private affair, and someone had just invaded that privacy! I chuckled to myself a little because I knew I must've looked like a crazy person. I had to relax, let him do the work, and just come back later for my clean plates, this shouldn't be so hard.

I realize that I need to take some steps back in order to move forward. My "maturing" had some how taken away from what it means to abide in Christ. When I was first saved, I trusted God in handling my pain, my grief, and all those things that I felt were so out of my control. Somehow, all those things have fallen back on my plate of responsibilities. I've been trying so hard to deal with my issues, trying so hard to make things happen, trying so hard to tidy up my life to make it clean. With all these things to do, I had forgotten one of my earlier prayers to God; that He would lead me on a life filled with adventure. The chores and fears of my daily life seemed to be choking the joy out of simply living. As Easter approaches, I think about the death and resurrection of Christ and what it means. I have to remember that the sacrifice God made was intended to clean up the mess we could never clean ourselves, and the work accomplished on that cross is complete and final. There are no crumbs left for me to sweep away. The only thing I need to do is trust in that simple truth. It seems that the more the world teaches me, the more I unlearn this simple truth. I could only pray that God continues to show me how to unlearn what the world has taught me, so I can once again embrace his gift of grace. And should a moral be drawn from this story, let it be this: once in a while, let someone wash your dirty dishes, and if you ever see a rope tied to a tree, swing from it.

Garbage Pie

True story, a couple of days ago, I ate an apple pie out of the trash. The worst part of the story is the fact that it wasn't even good apple pie. I had thrown it in the trash for a reason, the apples were sour, the syrup too sweet and the crust was like cardboard. There was nothing appealing about this pie, yet in my moment of depression and weakness, I reached straight into that trash and shoved that garbage pie down my gullet. It was a sad moment, probably one of my darkest moments that should remain untold. In the middle of my gorging, I stopped to ask myself why I felt like I needed to eat this pie? Sure, I was sad, feeling really down about myself, but couldn't I exert the energy to put on pants and maybe get something worth drowning my sorrows in? The next day, I thought about how I often reach for "garbage pie" to feed that emptiness inside of me. Whenever I feel down, I go straight for the self pity, the booze, the credit card, the criticism, whatever trash I can find to fill the emptiness. Does it ever work? Obviously not, considering that I recently found myself fishing in the trash for food.

I always knew that part of this is because I don't think I deserve anything better. I constantly tell myself I'm unlovable, disgusting, not worth anything. Awful words, I know. I couldn't even dream of saying those things to my enemy, so why I can't I stop saying them to myself? There are days when I even convince myself that God hates me, and he's someone who's supposed to love everyone. Today, I had a good conversation with a great friend, someone who I esteem to be strong and capable, and we talked about why we have the need to sabotage ourselves from ever having anything good. Part of what I discovered through her discovery is my codependent tendencies. I never thought of myself as codependent, rather, I thought I was independent. But according to Wikipedia, I am most definitely a codependent mess. I wrote down 28 characteristics that I felt like most expressed the things I struggle with. Here are just a few of those statements:

1) I mask my pain in various ways such as anger, humour, or isolation
2) I judge everything I think, say or do harshly, as never "good enough"
3) I compromise my own values and integrity to avoid rejection or others' anger
4) I do not perceive myself as lovable or worthwhile person

At the end of the list, I wrote these words: "But right now, I pray that the blood of Christ covers it all, that I believe God has made me new, and I don't have to walk that way anymore". It was the single most liberating sentence I had scribbled down in my journal. The truth is, the list could go on and on. I could always find something that's wrong with me, something I'm not happy about, something that I feel like I need to change, but liberation doesn't come from only identifying problems, that's only one part of it. Liberation comes when you can accept the grace of God to cover all those things, and to believe you don't have to be that list of 28 or 28,000 shortcomings. Will I be cured tomorrow morning? Probably not. Freedom can be instantaneous, but sometimes healing takes years. I'm grateful that I could see behaviors I was so dependent on for so long. It's helped me realize how painful events in my past were perceived incorrectly, how I have blamed God for so many things. For a long time I think I had a hard time understanding why God would allow my father to die, but in light of what I've realized about myself, I know now I was unable to see his death as a result of his own addictions and his own demons, and not of God's failure to be good. It's something I need to continually give up to God, even though my instinct is to blame Him for the pain I feel. I am truly thankful for the good friends he's surrounded me with whose courage and wisdom inspire my own journey towards being a stronger person. I'm glad that God chooses to reach down into the dumps to lift me out so I don't have to fish for "garbage pie" to fill my hunger. I'm glad He gives me the chance to say, "this is who I used to be". Hopefully this will be the last time I eat something out of the trash.....no guarantees.

Information Processing

The first trimester of school passed by so quickly, and now I find myself soon approaching another whirlwind of business and activities. In the last few weeks I've been reflecting on what I've learned thus far in this experience. At the suggestion of a friend, I decided to write down a couple of things that I believe are different about me. The biggest thing is what I've learned in terms of critical thinking. A huge part of conducting research (or rather 'good' research) is the need for diligence in observing certain details. I realized that shortcuts only lead to dead ends and re-writes. I used to gloss over certain information and extract only the neccessery quotes that fit my argument close enough. This time around, close enough is not enough. After a devastating last minute re-write that left me frantic, I realized that good work is hard work. It takes time, time to think, to read, to reflect, and to question. The greatest advice my supervisor gave me was that anything you read should not be taken as truth. Everything is a point of view, an idea postulated by an individual. We have the right to agree, and the right to disagree. Research is really the process in which we "search". It is our reasoning, our analysis, our gaining of insight and knowledge, not just an argument.

Recently, I had a discussion with a friend regarding a video that went viral on a spoken word poem written by Jefferson Bethke, called Jesus > Religion (you can watch the video by clicking through the link. We talked a bit about what we thought, and maybe reasons for why the video went viral. Both of us felt as though perhaps he was a bit harsh on religion. I won't discuss too much on the details of what I think, as there is more than enough information on the internet regarding different positions on the matter, including an article shared by my friend Dorothy on The Gospel Coalition. What surprised me most about the discussion was that there was actually a discussion taking place. I respect Jefferson for putting his point of view out there, and all the others who responded. No matter what we think Jesus' convictions were, I believe that he was a man of reason, open to discourse and discussion. His early life was spent in deep learning, something the gospels made a point of mentioning. He cultivated his wisdom by asking questions to the teachers in the Synagogue. Even during his ministry, he allowed space for discussions. He often engaged people in thought, and asked for their opinions on certain matters. I used to wonder about the story of the Canaanite woman, and asked myself why Jesus was so harsh on her? But I believe that the encounter was a chance for the woman to reason with her own faith and to reason with Jesus. Jesus ignored her request for healing at first, then responded that it's not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs. She responded with a counter reason that even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their Master's table. She had an opportunity to challenge Jesus, to argue for what she wanted, and she got it.

Have Christians lost their ability to reason these days? It makes me sad that whenever you see a Christian portrayed in a movie or tv show, they're often unreasonable fanatics, or unintelligent uninformed individuals who fold under the powerful reasoning of scientists. Perhaps it is not only Christians, but an entire generation of individuals who aren't encouraged to question, to be skeptical, or to search deeper into matters, to discuss intelligently the ideas put forth. The Internet is strewn with information, and our ability to sort through what we should listen too, and what not to listen too is even more important these days. Robert Bly in his book Sibling Society writes that American culture can no longer demand difficult work from individuals, instead "sloppy technique becomes evidence of honest expression". Close enough is good enough because it's honest, it's human, and human's are made to be imperfect. Has this become an excuse? A reason to not reason? It scares me to see that culture, even christian culture, has become just a talent show. We show off what we can do, our skills, our "gifts", but rarely do we discuss what we do. Rarely do we discuss God, or faith. Rarely do we question the more difficult things. The Jefferson Bethke video opened up discussions between an urban youth culture and perhaps a more scholarly culture. It's a shame that they have to be separate. Does Jefferson have talent? Yes, I believe so. I also believe that he is an intelligent young man who is in search of something, but at the same time, I hope he chooses to listen to some of the counter responses and use them as a chance to grow even deeper in his own understanding, that a poet can become a scholar and vice versa. Faith can exist with reason, just as grace must exist with righteousness. Just because we have one, doesn't mean we forfeit the latter. I hope that in the greater search for truth, christians and non christians alike, we take the time to reflect and learn, to work through the more difficult things with patience instead of lowering the standards to make things easier.