the me i'm not sure i'm all that okay with

The following is my attempt at defining myself as closely as possible.  I'm not at all sure I'm okay with who I am, but I am realizing how important it is that I am okay with me.  So I'm going to get it all out there so I can hopefully begin coming to terms with the monstrosity that is me.  I know that a lot of me is a work in progress, so I don't expect that these things will always define me to the exact letter.  In any case, this is who I am right now.

1) I'm not very feminine.  I don't know how to do my nails, my hair, or even my makeup beyond the extreme basics.  I don't really have the desire to do most of those things, either.  On occasion I do like dressing up, but I think my definition of such is quite different than most girls.  I'm competitive and can be outspoken once I'm comfortable.  I don't have a cute girly laugh, and I would much rather hang out with the guys than do girly things like nails or shopping.  One of the happiest times of my life was in Washington, where most of my friends were guys and where I was not treated any differently than one of the guys.  It's awkward to me to be treated like I'm weaker or need protecting.  I don't feel weaker than my guy friends, and I know for a fact that I am independent and capable.  When I'm not capable, I try to readily admit it, but I would rather people not assume that because I'm a girl I want to be bossed around or babied.  In saying I'm not very feminine, I don't mean that that I'm not a girl.  I definitely have moments where the above does not apply.  But as far as how I'm treated by others, I hate being approached differently because I'm female.  And yet, I want to fall in love.  My personality makes this so difficult.  Sometimes I feel as if I'm too strong for a relationship and try to make myself appear weaker so that a guy will pursue me.  It never works.  I'm hopelessly single, and it may always be that way.  But I'll never stop hoping that one day I'll be swept off my feet.  Not because I think I need protecting or love to complete me, but because I desire companionship.  At times it stinks doing life alone.

2) I'm not politically conservative.  Then again, I don't have strong political opinions on anything because I think politics are highly overrated, so people who are either extremely liberal or extremely conservative tend to irritate me.  Or, rather, their opinions irritate me.  I tend to really like the people, either liberal or conservative.  It's the blind, unwavering confidence in a political party that bothers me a ton.

3) I'm an evangelical Christian who isn't always okay with evangelical Christianity.  People who run around trying to save souls make me feel awkward, or rather their rhetoric does.  And yet I feel strongly that who I am and the hope I have needs to be shared with the world and the people who God puts in my path.  I have no problem talking with non-Christians about my faith, and do so on occasion.  I'm somewhat of a walking contradiction when it comes to this issue.  I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but I am coming to see the nature of this inspiration differently than how I used to see it.  (more on this in a few days when I review an amazing book I am currently just finishing)  I hate proof texting, and people who read the Bible as entirely applicable in its literal form to life today make me uncomfortable (especially in regard to women's place in the church, marriage, and society).

4) I often give in to fear.  I'm terrified of who I am.  I'm terrified of being wrong.  I like black and white answers.  I seek truth in all things, and it's never that simple, and this terrifies me.  All of the above things make me extremely uncomfortable, and I'm terrified to publish this post.  I am thankful that God is working in me and constantly changing me and the way I think.  I am strangely thankful that my beliefs are always in flux, and that I'll never "arrive."  The process of getting to know the God of the universe is a blessing even if it is terrifying.

on dreams

Dreams are funny things.  You can go to sleep thinking one thing, backed by certain experiences, and you wake up having lived an entire day in your dreams.  And then you are required to go about your real day as if the previous day had never happened, because it never did happen.  It was only a dream.  And even though it never actually happened, you still must deal with the emotional ramifications of a dream that was so vivid that it could have been real.  And it was real.  So real that it pollutes your every waking hour with its memory.  So real that you are tempted to make decisions with it in mind.  So real that you aren't sure how to live in the real world anymore.  You're not sure what is real.  The dream was a nightmare in so many ways, and yet it represents the fulfillment and loss of that which you want more than anything.  For that reason you don't want to leave that world.  After all, to leave is to back track in time and experience.  To leave is to begin again, but with knowledge of at least one possibility of the future.

Dreams really suck.

C.S. Lewis - The Great Divorce

One of the things I am hoping to do with my spare time post-grad school is to read some theology.  I hope to review the books I read here.  The first book I have read is The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.

In his exploration of heaven and hell, C.S. Lewis writes an allegory of his imagined trip to the afterlife, where he visits both heaven and hell and talks with George MacDonald, a theologian that Lewis greatly admired.

Lewis' background as a scholar comes through immediately.  He writes:

When, in our whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on which all turned: whether after all the supernatural might not in fact occur?  When did we put up one moment's real resistance to the loss of our faith? (Lewis, 37)

One of the first topics that Lewis addresses in The Great Divorce is directed toward what he views as the religious: theologians, intellectuals and questioners.

I have nothing to do with any generality.  Nor with any man but you and me.  Oh, as you love your own soul, remember.  You know that you and I were playing with loaded dice.  We didn't want the other to be true.  We were afraid of crude salvationism, afraid of a breach with the spirit of the age, afraid of ridicule, afraid (above all) of real spiritual fears and hopes. (37)

I am a questioner, an intellectual.  At times I prefer the process to the result.  And I ask myself: Why do I ask questions?  Am I in love with the process of asking, never satisfied with answers, or am I truly searching for the truth at the end of all this?  After all, inquiry is for answers.

You think that, because hitherto you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect.  I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom.  Your thirst shall be quenched. (40)

Lewis continues:

'Listen!' said the White Spirit. 'Once you were a child.  Once you knew what inquiry was for.  There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you found them.  Become that child again: even now.' 

'Ah, but when I became a man I put away childish things.' 

'You have gone far wrong.  Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth.  What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.' (41)

When Lewis references the putting away of childish things, he is making an allusion to 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV).  Here I quote verses 8-13.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

"Now I know in part; then I shall know fully."  It seems that it is not so much about putting childhood behind us, but about the simple truth that "we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face."  In heaven, where true love conquers all, only faith, hope and love will remain.


Lewis makes a clear distinction between religion, which he seems to identify as the philosophical pursuit of speculation and reasoning - endless questions with no answers; and Christ, who is Truth, end of speculation, Fact.  For Lewis, religion means hell:

Hell is a state of mind...And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own  mind - is, in the end, Hell.  But heaven is not a state of mind.  Heaven is reality itself. (70)

Lewis sees time in a very unique way.  For Lewis, time is merely a lens through which humanity sees things during our time on earth.  In heaven, that limitation is removed.  In this way, Lewis is able to represent choice between heaven and hell as continuing beyond one's earthly life.  He writes that those who choose to stay in hell will in the end see even their lives on earth as hell, and those who choose heaven will see their earthly lives as mere extensions of this life.

Ye cannot fully understand the relations of choice and Time till you are beyond both.  And ye were not brought here to study such curiosities.  What concerns you is the nature of the choice itself: and that ye can watch them making. (71)

This choice is not always clear for those who have not yet made it.

There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery.  There is always something they prefer to joy - that is, to reality. (71)

This concept changes everything.  Our choices in this life reflect the same sort of choices we would make in Lewis' afterlife.  Choices like not being willing to sacrifice oneself, not being willing to let go of desire.

Lewis and his guide, MacDonald, walk through Heaven and observe souls from Hell interacting with those in heaven.  Some choose life, while others are for various reasons unable to choose joy and love.  They choose hell, not knowing that dying to their desires will bring the pure joy of Heaven.

...it must be one way or the other.  Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.  I know it has a grand sound to say ye'll accept no salvation which leaves even one creature in the dark outside.  But watch that sophistry or ye'll make a Dog in a Manger the tyrant of the Universe. (136) 

homesick

I'm trying so hard to see the bright side.

I have an amazing job.  I have made amazing friends.  I'm not in school and am finally having the chance to read things I want to read.

But if I'm completely honest, it is a constant battle with loneliness, a constant process of reminding myself why I am here, of the blessing that my job is.  When I'm on the island, time flies.  I love it there, and have such a good time.  I wish I could work all the time.  Then there wouldn't be time to think about what I lost when I drove east across the Cascades the second week in June of 2012...

a prayer

Daddy,

The last few years have been absolute craziness.  I feel torn this way and that by the prevailing winds of the moment.  It's hard to know which way to turn or down which path I should walk.  I desire more than anything to find You at the end of the road, but the way is narrow and it is so easy to walk off the path.

I am so thankful that You are bigger than my feeble questions, my confused wanderings.  I'm so glad your grace is enough.  I'm so glad that You love me even when I hide, afraid that to be honest with what I'm thinking might result in being ostracized.

I pray that You will guide me.  May I follow Your voice and Your voice alone.  May I walk honestly and humbly before You.  May I love without reservation.  May I serve with humility.  And may I be a light in the darkness, hope for the hopeless.  May I play just a small part in bringing justice to a marred world.

I thank You that You have freed me from the power of sin, freed me from the law, and enabled me to serve You with my life.  To You I give all that I am.  Although I may be a confused liberal, a blind conservative, a wandering cynic, and an ashamed questioner with no answers, You offer me hope.  In Your Son I find my peace.  To Your Word I look.  Toward You I run, knowing that at the end of all of this, You'll be there.

Marilee

church visit

I visited a church last night.  It was so terrible that when the service was over, I literally slunk out the back to avoid having to talk to anyone.

The sermon was based on the premise that America should no longer expect God's blessings on account of her sins.  Sins included abortion, alcohol/drugs, murder, sexual deviance, and homosexuality.  Much effort was made to remind the congregation that we must not be naive about the poor moral state in which our country finds herself.  Judgement is coming.

Okay, so I agree that people in America are sinful.

I don't agree that America as a nation has ever been worthy of God's blessing.  Nor do I think she ever will be.

Furthermore, I do not agree that the church should set herself apart from these "sinners," and claim that our prayers are solely that crime will become less and that abortions will cease.  Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners.  We are to love the unloved and we are to preach justice for the afflicted.

The sins of this nation come when we fail  to love and care for the afflicted, not when we self-righteously set ourselves apart from them in outward conduct.

When a church's pulpit becomes a platform for the pastor's self-righteous personal political opinions, I wish to have nothing to do with that church.

I won't be going back to this particular church.  In fact, you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming.