Friday, January 31, 2014

for those of you who wonder what is my opinion on alochol anyway

Growing up, I didn't have a lot of rules.  I was a self-regulating kid, as I like to describe my high school self, and I had no interest in alcohol or parties, in smoking or in boys.  I committed to not dating in high school and never wavered.  I never had a curfew, was never grounded.  Quite honestly, I spent my high school years either at a church activity or holed up in my room reading Christian historical fiction.

I went to college and continued self-regulating according to the model of piety with which I was raised.  I turned 21 with little fanfare - I continued abstaining from alcohol.  I don't recall ever intentionally breaking the fairly strict rules my Christian college set up for communal living.  The most rebellious thing I did was sleep in instead of going to church half of the time.  I didn't really ever connect with a church family in college.

I do remember, though, going back for my third and final summer of camp counselling after my freshman year of college.  I was nineteen years old, had lived a year on my own, and didn't really enjoy my last summer at camp.  I chafed at "lights out" on the weekends, I disliked being treated like a high schooler.  It was hard to live under someone's authority.  I was a responsible adult and wanted to be allowed to make my own decisions about things like when I went to bed.

I preferred living at home during the summers.  My parents trusted me and didn't really have rules for me.  It was great.  (Except that I didn't have a bedroom anymore and lived out of a dresser in the hallway, but that's neither here nor there).

I moved to Washington and there I grew up.  The questioning I did in college and had thought I'd mostly resolved caught up with me and I began looking at my faith through different eyes.  My faith was both stronger and less pious.  About a year in to my graduate program, I decided to try drinking.  So I began to drink socially.  Well, actually, I first drank hiding in my room by myself (more on that later).

I can't even begin to tell you how that experience changed me.  I became so much less judgmental, if only in that area, and so much more laid back.  I learned that one drink does not impair my judgment, does not make me unfit for society, and sometimes alcohol just tastes good.

I just want to say something.  I have never been drunk in my life.  There have been moments where I approached the limit, but I always stopped shy of drunkenness.  If I hadn't, though, the world would still be revolving around its axis.

I wish someone had told me these things when I was growing up.  I wish I had had role models in my life who loved Jesus and who sometimes had a glass of wine with dinner.  Not because I ever turned into a crazy party-er or because I was ever overly rebellious, but because if I had known from the start that used appropriately, alcohol can be a morally neutral activity, I would have done so much less judging, so much less assuming.  I was afraid of alcohol.  And, in the end, alcohol has no power over me that I don't let it have.

The Bible says don't get drunk with wine.  I believe this is very wise counsel.  There are good reasons to avoid drunkenness.  We should always exercise self control in order to give Jesus every part of us.  If at any point alcohol becomes an addiction or a source of dependency on something other than God, it is a problem.

Last summer, I stopped drinking.  Since then I have had two drinks, both in social contexts where I felt it was the polite thing to do.  I stopped drinking because I was trying to save money, exercise self control (prove to the skeptics - and if I'm honest, I was my biggest skeptic - I could not drink and be fine) and I don't really appreciate the taste of wine or beer all that much anyway.  Do I plan to never drink again?  Absolutely not.  I have no idea what I'll do in the future.  I'm not afraid of alcohol, though.

I have something I'd like to say.  I know I'll likely be dismissed by many as misguided.  I know that this opinion of mine puts me at odds with many in my church family (and biological family).  But it's really important to me, so I'm gonna say it.

I am coming to firmly believe that when we say we "don't want to cause other believers to stumble by responsibly enjoying a glass of wine with dinner or out with friends," that this is ridiculous logic.  In my teetotaler days, my faith was not impacted by my Christian friends who drank responsibly.  I didn't not believe in Jesus anymore, I didn't even waiver in my beliefs in regard to alcohol.  You know what I did do, though?  I judged them.

They weren't as good of Christians as me, obviously.  They weren't as strong, obviously.  They were drunks (I had no concept that one drink does very little in the way of intoxication), obviously.  They had compromised their beliefs, they were not a good witness, etc., etc., etc.  

Then I attended a small group in Bellingham where they'd have beer AT SMALL GROUP.  That was shocking.  No drunkeness.  Only lots of good discussion about God, deep study of the Word, and memorization of Scripture.  Those people loved Jesus passionately, and it showed in the results of their ministry.

Then two of my closest friends drank.  They both love Jesus, arguably more faithfully than do I.

Then I had a glass of wine in my room in my house at Bellingham, by myself, terrified I'd end up drunk and do something stupid.  I didn't become drunk.  I didn't do anything stupid.

And my world was forever changed.

So when I hear rumors of church legislation of drinking alcohol, it just makes me really sad.  Sad because in my opinion these rules are based primarily in fear and in judgment and in a dependency on piety as the way "they'll know we are Christians."  Sad because silly rules like this are driving many away from the Church and away from church ministries and in my opinion this shouldn't be a thing.  The "thing" should be whether we love, whether we act on behalf of our neighbor.

You know what makes me the saddest?

My opinion on the consumption of alcohol could very well divide me from my brothers and sisters.

Maybe I shouldn't even post this if it will very possibly act as a divide.  But I do believe that the end justifies the means.  This is important to me.

Let's teach our kids to love Jesus, and to love Him through responsible choices.  Let's teach kids not to judge the merit of someone's faith on their acts of piety, but rather on how well they love.  Better yet, let's stop judging the merit of others' faith at all.

It's like a friend said today: Christians teach abstinence before marriage.  When I heard about married people having sex as a kid, that didn't make me think that I was supposed to have sex.  I understood that sex had an appropriate expression, and that was within the context of marriage.  Did some kids have sex in high school or before marriage?  Sure.  Does that mean all married adults should never have sex?  Of course not.

I think kids are smart.

They'll make their own choices.  Let's model healthy ones.  Whether that means drinking a glass of wine with dinner every once in a while, or whether that means never drinking at all, it doesn't really matter.  But let's teach them principles that will enable them to make wise, healthy decisions.

Note: I of course recognize that drinking even one glass of wine in front of an alcoholic is a bad plan.  Again, I stress the importance of making wise decisions based on whether or not the context is appropriate.

for the panicky days

You took the boat back today, my love.  I dreaded this day for so long, but when it came time for this day to actually come, I was actually okay with it.  Or so I thought.  Tomorrow night you will be stuck on the boat.  It's just for a night.  Just one night.  I have other plans tomorrow anyway, I might not have even been able to see you.  At least not for long.

But I can't sleep tonight.

The fact that you're sleeping on the boat tomorrow night triggers so many fears I had forgotten I had.  One day not so many months in the future you're going to go far away from here and be gone for months and months.  

It makes me panic a little bit, love.

As 2:00 turns to 3:00 and this sleepless night drags on, though, my panic slowly turns to clarity.

I have so much growing to do, so much learning, so much stretching.  It's so easy to draw my strength from you, love.  You're so good, so strong, so wise.  But I need to find my strength in Jesus.  It's the only way I'll survive emotionally.

I am a mess.  

He is strong enough, though.  He's got me.

I'll be okay.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

For when hope clouds the clarity of sorrow

Life gets so complicated, motives so confusing. Words come to carry with them so much weight as to prevent their use. To speak, to write, to even think is to do damage to another.

Change always carries baggage, be it nostalgia or the more sinister bitterness and cynicism. How are we to live in the midst of avoidance and abandonment, in the face of irredeemable wandering?

How are we to mourn when hope is still present to cloud the clarity of sorrow?

We wander through life, all fundamentally alone, all misunderstood, all abandoned.

In walks hope, and it refuses to let us go.


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Thursday, January 9, 2014

for the Body: a story, a confession, and a plea

prologue

I'm really not sure how to start this.  I could tell you a story, I could quote a Bible verse or two, I could just come out and say it.  But it's all so complicated, the result of weeks and months of agonizing, the processing of my jumbled thoughts and emotions, the desperate prayer that this can somehow be more than powerless commentary on a less-than-ideal situation.  My prayer is that somehow my words will translate to action, most of all action on my part.  Maybe that's why I'm writing this: to come to some sort of conclusion as to how, then, I should live in this broken world.  I am writing this as it comes; it'll most likely be rambling, disjointed, the overflow of a heart that is both hopeful and broken, both thankful and longing.

This is a story, this is a plea, this is a theory, this is a confession.  This is my heart for the body of Christ.

i. a story

I sat cross-legged in a stranger's living room singing random songs campfire style with a group of people I had just met that day.  And I knew in that moment I'd come home.  I had found the community that I thought I'd never find post-college.

And for the next year, I was proved correct countless times.  I had so many conversations with friends and family back home in which I commented on the blessing it was to have friends that I hung out with almost every day.  There was always a new adventure, always someone who was up for getting dinner on 30 minutes notice.  We all lived in separate places and yet it was like we were family.  Community.

My social life was unprecedentedly awesome.  Yeah, there were some really sucky things about my first year here.  I was an emotional wreck for much of it, but never because I didn't have amazing friends who were always there for me.

I don't know why it changed.  Well, to be more accurate, I think there were so many forces at work dragging us apart.  Romance at times got in the way, tore us apart.  Some began dating and drifted away, some didn't begin dating and drifted away anyway.  Some broke up.  Ah, the curse of the "single's Bible study."  And, of course, our beautiful community was attractive.  We soon had so many people wanting to be a part of our group, and we couldn't sustain the community over that large of a group.  The revolving door of friends that is life in a military town meant that we had to continually adjust to key members of the group leaving, sometimes for good.  Life got complicated.  The community fractured.  We split ways.

But more than that, we stopped living life together.

So many times after the split I tried organizing large group events.  Sparse attendance plagued them.  I'm not the social magnet our old leader was.  People think I'm weird, I don't have good ideas, I'm shy, I dunno.  Maybe we have too many game nights and need to go to movie nights.  Maybe we need to go mini-golfing more.  Maybe I need to stop using Facebook to organize and go to word of mouth.  Maybe I need to have someone else be the ring leader - maybe they'll follow someone who is cooler than me.  Maybe it's 'cause I'm a woman.  Maybe they'd come if a man organized it.

And maybe we fell apart because I was too cynical.  After all, if I've learned anything in the past year and a half, it's that small things and insignificant people can cause an avalanche.

God forgive my cynicism.

ii. sermons and scripture

There's this sermon that I've listened to a few times now by Jonathan Martin, preached the weekend after the Boston Marathon bombing.  He talks about the gift of prophecy, and how it's not prophetic to make commentary on a broken world - anyone can do that.  It takes true faith to look at a broken situation and speak hope into it, to see the restoration that is on its way despite the hopelessness of the present.

Above all, that's what I want out of this post.  I want to speak hope, not just cynically comment on something that has caused me pain over the past months.  And I want to speak words that I can back with action.  Words are so useless if they're not accompanied by action, if they're not reflective of a heart that is soft toward God and one's neighbor.

In Matthew 25:40, Jesus says, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."  Why exactly does he say something like this? I grew up hearing this verse repeated again and again, but I don't know if I ever understood it exactly.  I am coming to believe it is because we are the body of Christ.  We are the manifestation of God in this broken world.  If we do not reflect Christ in the way we treat the least of these, we not only misrepresent Christ but also injure his very body.

I have been coming to see my faith as, rather than an individual and pietistic pursuit in which I strive to be a better person, a communal effort in which I band together with others of like (and sometimes not so like) mind to serve God as the body of Christ in this world.  If I'm the elbow, there needs to be a hand and a foot and an ear and an eye and a mouth.  We need one another.  The world needs us, not as individuals, but as a body.  That's where the power is located, when God's people live in community.

iii. the paradox

I don't think my small group ever had it right.  Sure, things were pretty great when I first moved here.  God moved in us as we lived in community.  And yet, we were pretty narcissistic, even if communally so.  We were focused on the fun we had, on the social elements of life in our small town.  And I think that's ultimately what took us down.  We were so focused on how awesome we were that we forgot that we are only Christ's body as long as we exist for others.  Not just ourselves.  We forgot to reach out.

We had so much fun eating food together, going to the beach together, watching movies together.  Those things were all good.  But eventually it was no longer enough.  God's people aren't God's people so that they can have like minded friends.

Every Wednesday night at 6 we visit a local assisted living center and talk with and play music for the residents there.  For a while there were so many of us going that we talked about splitting off and having some of us do other ministries.  Every night after we were done we'd go eat together as a group.

Maybe that was our downfall.

The focus (even if only for me) was on the food rather than the assisted living.  I went to the assisted living because it meant I'd get to hang out with my friends afterwards.

I think that's often why we go to Bible study, why we go to church, why we do pretty much everything.  Church or outreach are good excuses to do something "good" and something social all at the same time.  But until God's people exist for the other, until the heart of everything we do is to offer a drink of water to the thirsty and food for the hungry, until we empty ourselves completely in order to serve, we are nothing.  My life is so me-focused right now.  There are a few things I do for the church and more generally for God, but those things take up a minute portion of my time, and often I do those things for ulterior motives.

I want to live to make God known.

But I can't do it alone.  After all, I'm only the elbow of the Body, and a chapped one at that.  And that's where things get so insanely complicated.  I need my brothers and sisters.

But they're gone, it seems.  We're hopelessly fractured.

iv. a resolution

I resolve to live for others, to poor myself out in sacrificial ways for my brothers and sisters and for the aliens within our gates.  This will take the form of daily decisions, both small and large, to die to myself and to put those around me before me.  I resolve to live prayerfully, humbly, and boldly.  I resolve to welcome those around me even when my introversion screams at me to not.  I resolve to curse my social awkwardness and reach out anyway.  I resolve to take steps to orient my schedule increasingly for Kingdom pursuits.

I can't do it alone.  I resolve to pray continually that the body of Christ will rise up, that we'll come together, that we will be one.

epilogue

God forgive my wounded pride, my selfish desires, my bitterness.  God forgive my cynicism and my anger.  God forgive me for making my life about me.  God forgive me forgetting to serve my brother and my sister and the strangers in our midst.  God forgive me for making excuses, for resorting to passive aggressiveness and gossip.  God forgive me for forgetting that this is Christ's body, and that what I do unto the least of these, I do unto Him.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

for all of the horses of the king and all of the horses of the men.

We say what we mean.
We're most of the time not nearly enough.
Not enough for each other.
The words fall and they ensnare and destroy and mislead.
The words burn like a raging fire.
The words shatter before they hit the ground.
And alll the king's horses and all the king's men...

I wanted her to be there for me.
She said everyone feels that way.
I believe her.
The words fall and they communicate without needing to say anything.
The wordless words.  The doing.
The words shatter before they hit the ground.
All the king's horses and all the king's men...

The words wash over me like rain
Destroying, shattering, heart-rending words.
We say what we mean.
We laugh, we explain our words away.
With empty words we try to escape the fallout.
The words shatter before they hit the ground.
And all the king's horses and all the king's men...