Re: Paradox

In the tiny bit of a sermon that Randy gave in chapel today (in between talking about bow ties and new landscaping on campus), he hit on something wonderful and excellent and profound.

He said that, while we never really talk about it this way, belief in Christ and devotion to Him is hard work. It is not something that comes easily and it is not always enjoyable. We prefer to talk about the times when faith is emotional, sensational, and comforting--but those aren't the average days. Anything worthwhile in this world--with the exception of Christ's astoundingly free gift of salvation but not excluding His work of sanctification that immediately begins to follow--it all takes work.

Belief...faith without sight or touch or sensation...the days of struggle and distraction and overcoming through Christ's strength alone...those are the days of Hebrews 11 and the men and women who conquered challenges through confidence in a truth that didn't feel real. (At least, it didn't feel as real as the obstacles that stood in their way.) That's the kind of faith that conquers, comforting or not.

We know it. We have faith in it. We believe it. And even when it doesn't feel good, we live it.

A Paradox of Faith, Truth, and Reality (well, for ME anyway)

"But if I found a man that could believe in what he saw not, felt not, and yet knew, from him I should take substance, and receive firmness and form relate to touch and view, then should I clothe me in the likeness true of that idea where his soul did cleave!" - George MacDonald

Reality is a funny thing. It morphs and changes constantly according to time, perspective, circumstance. Human beings are subject to hormones, emotions, uncertainty, extent of knowledge, time, senses, and so on. The thing that most wholly characterizes the world in which we live is limits. At the same time, God looks at it from His timelessness and omniscience and it remains the same, unchanging, reliably permanent.

This is a paradox: what I feel and sense seems more real to me, yet I do not trust it at all; and while I struggle to experience and enjoy what I know in my head and even in my heart, I never doubt it. Even when I feel strongly for God, when I'm overwhelmed with emotion and sensation of love for Him, I doubt my feelings and attribute them to the worship music or my blessed (or desperate) circumstances or blah blah blah. I live day in and day out with full assurance of my love for God--a love that lacks romantic sparks or flames, though it's hotter than a blazing furnace. What I sense feels the most real but the least true. What I know feels the farthest away but I have full confidence in it.

I am the woman MacDonald describes, but there is no comfort in it.

Treatise Revisited

Woah, woah, woah, kids. I think I've almost come to half of a conclusion to part of my treatise question.

I asked a great friend whether he was a complementarian or an egalitarian. His perfect answer: "both."

I've been mulling this over and looking at it from a hundred different ways in my mind and I've almost come to a conclusion for myself. Last time I wrote on this (some five months ago), I didn't really have a conclusion because my head and my heart had different inclinations. Head said there's no reason why I should defer to a man considering my own intellect and generally rational approach to issues. Heart said yeah, but I want a man to step up and take responsibility and be a leader. My problem was reconciliation of these two organs and I think I've done it.

I think the feminism movement has had a bad effect on men. For everything it has done to promote women and equality of the sexes, it seems that many of the men who give way for this not only let women step up, but do in fact themselves step down. Put a different way, they seem to think that there's no room for both men and women to be simultaneously in first place.

Obviously there are some who aren't so passive (e.g. the friend who got me thinking about this). But I think that, with my general faith in women, I am confident that women can rise to the top without help, without any kind of affirmative action or bias in their favor. Men don't need to give up leadership in order for women to claim it as well. I have no worry for women because I'm dead confident that hell yes, I'll be a strong, influential leader. No problem there. What my heart was wanting is for men to be men. Be leaders, be strong, be influential. Rest assured, I will be too. In fact, you'll have to step it up to compete with what I have to offer. But you sure as hell better step it up. If you don't, it's almost just as disrespectful as discrimination against women.

Yes, I'm a libertarian. It all comes down to liberty in the end. Unfortunately, feminism has become to equality what a tariff is to free trade; it demands preference for one sex over the other rather than judging a person based on their individual qualities.

The question is this: if girls would be women, would boys be men?

I've never struggled with the concept of equality in a marriage. If both husband and wife are single-minded, rational, loving individuals, who does it matter who's "right"? They'll work it out in the end. What my heart was not wanting was for the man to be the weak one, deferring or abdicating any leadership responsibilities to, well, me. Not that I'm incapable. However, I would see him as not living up to his full potential and would therefore have less respect for him. And respect is pretty close to being #1 on my list of required emotions in a relationship (yes, rationalism and emotions meet!)

So my perspective is thus: I know what I'm capable of. And if we're in this together, I don't want some gimpy guy dragging me down. So you just better be prepared to match my effort, heck, maybe even make up for some of my weaknesses. Complement me. We'll complement each other.

That, my friends, is egalitarian complementarianism. And that is where this part of the treatise concludes.

I used to plan my life to a T, but I found out you can’t plan people and people are the best part of life. So I’ve mostly ditched planning these days.

For the last 9 years of my life, I've spent each day in constant anticipation of what's to come. I look forward to this, schedule that, need to know how something will turn out in the end.

For the last 9 months, I've felt like every day I've been on the brink of something. God has been preparing me for each new day and something marvelous always seemed to be on the horizon.

Today, I'm suddenly struck that waiting is over. I'm done planning my life and constantly waiting for something new to happen.

I'm suddenly struck with the painful thought that after May 23, my life will never be the same as it is in this period of love and learning. Suddenly, I'm afraid once more that I will lose something at the end of the spring semester (though it hasn't even begun yet.)

I was always waiting for something to come...now I'm afraid that I'll lose what I've gained...is life really always this unsettling?? Is it constant flux, unending anticipation of change? It seems to demand a patience that I am so unable to procure in myself. I sometimes feel like I can't deal with it. I just want things to stop for a moment and let the world revolve without anything else changing.


And yet...


"Nothing ever really ends but something new doesn't begin. When something ends in our sight, it begins somewhere else where we can't hear it or see it or feel it."

With the threat of things going badly also comes the possibility that they will become even better somehow. (I could make an economics illustration here, but I'll stand against that impulse.)

Anyway, I'm done making plans. What bull! My plans are so pitiful. And then I try to make them come true by my own measures, though that's never miracle enough to be of any good. Forget that trash.

I Am Learning to Be Apathetic

Is this a bad thing--to let my head take over in all cases? What do I lose but the potential for heartache?

Okay, I'm not really apathetic. Nah, I'm frequently passionate, and about a hundred things. I'm an extremist. It's better to soar in the heights and crash into pain and suffering than never leave the ground. You learn more by struggling and failing, I guess.

And I know this too. I know from experience and from others' experiences. I guess it's hard each times...to realize it all over again.

But seriously, I am shifting or maybe drifting from this in a way. I definitely try to avoid hyper-emotionalism more than maybe I used to. Seems like the more serious issues are the ones when I try to keep to thoughts rather than feelings. (Haha...I suppose that's WAY logical of me.)

Is it a bad thing to seek emotional security over what seems like a more sensitive life? Usually I'd say yes. And economics once again come to mind: quite often, with risk comes reward, but do not create an unnecessary risk...

My thoughts must remain in check, tethered to the Holy Spirit and to wisdom. Now, that doesn't mean I'm safe from suffering. Hell, no. Sometimes my greatest, most intense passions come from thoughts and knowledge than from anything else. I don't need sensation or over-sentimental emotion to be vulnerable and raw and subject to pain.

I admit, I thrive on risks and I'm emboldened when I realize my self-consciousness. Yet despite the certain necessity of vulnerability, it has a rational limit.

Rampage

Sometimes I wonder what the HELL I'm doing in media communications. Do I really think I can make it? And if I did, do I really think I could change how people think? Heck, could I even get them to think at all? People go to the movies as a form of escapism. Any message they really take in is subconscious, if at all (it seems). How could you reach people, educate them, challenge them--through something that's hardly more influential than a dream??!

How would I be any different than the radio station that helps faceless, nameless kids through instant messaging? It feeds our neglect of personal, one-on-one relationships. Hell, how do I deal through that when it's what I consider the BANE of our society and civilization??

What would I do if not media? Probably some combo of economics, theology, philosophy, and God knows what else. There's not time enough on the earth to learn what I want to know. That may well be my downfall. (P.S. I'm currently browsing a book about modern youth culture. Why? Because it interests me.)

So what about now? There's not a snowball's chance in hell that I'll drop media com. Not only would that be STUPID at this point, but I'd probably be tortured and burned alive and, hell, probably excommunicated for it. And frick, I don't really want to drop it anyway. I love media and it excites me. But how does it contribute the the fulfillment of my hopes, dreams, and desires? How does media relate to politics, economics, human dignity, theology, the pursuit of knowledge, and the FREAKING HUMAN CONDITION IN GENERAL?? HUH?!? Tell me that, Andrew freaking John Bruner!! (Don't worry--I do love you. :)

Ahem. (expletive) Now I won't fall asleep for hours.

No mother imagines how fast her child will grow up. When he’s that tiny, you hardly understand, though you may think, “One day, this soft, tender, delicate human infant will be a man, with passions and convictions and responsibilities.” No, when he isn’t even big enough to wrap his fingers around your thumb, he’s just yours.

She thought the same thing. I mean, who wouldn’t? After you carry an 8-pound baby in your abdomen for nine months, after his every movement affects you, you feel every time he kicks or squirms, it feels like he’s part of you. And then you spend hours and hours in pain, just praying, “God, get this baby out of me!” and you struggle and suffer… you are in agony…finally he is expelled from your body in blood and mucus. The nurse wipes him off and lays him on your flattened belly and you turn his face to suck your sore nipple, and you know that this baby belongs to you. He is your flesh and blood.

Through the years you change his diapers, nurse him, tend to him when he is sick or injured, and stay up with him when he can’t sleep. Why wouldn’t you? He’s your son. And you love him with everything that’s in you.

You watch him grow up. You guide him, you instruct him, you try your hardest to demonstrate what it is to be good and moral, hoping beyond all things that your best might be enough. He becomes a complicated, thinking individual. Sometimes you hardly recognize the little boy who needed you for every little scrape and splinter. One day you are forced to acknowledge that he is indeed a man. You’ve awaited and dreaded this moment for so long. But you’re proud of him. He’s your son.

But she never had that. He was never hers, not from day one. In fact, he wasn’t hers from day negative 1000. On behalf of Israel, Isaiah said, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” The angel told the shepherds, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” He was never hers, just hers, only hers.

My oft absent maternal instinct kicked in recently and I am struck with sympathy for Mary. I'm not the type that loves every single child who crosses my path, but I know that when motherhood comes upon me, I will love my children because they are my own. My own to love and teach and watch grow up.

I don’t know if Mary knew that or suspected that 33 years later she would be weeping inconsolably because her child, her baby boy was brutally murdered like a criminal. He was hated and scorned and mocked. This sweetheart about whom devout men and women prophesied and angels sang was her own darling son—now up on a rough wooden post with dirty nails in His flesh.

If she guessed that at all, it would have been the most unbearable thing on earth to hold such a perfect child (because “every baby is the sweetest and the best”) in her own tired arms. The agony of childbirth was nothing to the devastation of watching as he slowly dies before your own eyes. And you can do nothing but watch. And as you watch, you remember your baby’s rosy cheeks, his little feet and tiny toenails, his bright eyes and toothless smile, his velvety hair, and his grasping hands…now they’re dripping with blood. Who would have, could have thought? Not even she imagined that this would happen to her baby.

Lyrics from my two favorite Christmas songs:

“Precious miracle of life, Child of Love, gift of hope, the gift of life from the Father above. And you were made for all mankind, but you will always be mine…”

“Oh Mary, Joseph rest your eyes. Try not to think of the ending. World full of empty, He will die…but tonight He is still just a child. …Have you cursed at the wind? Have you cried to the heavens? Have you fought with this mercy you don’t understand …And did the stars shine much brighter that night, when you gave birth to the death that would bring us to life? And did the mystery keep you awake, or was the sound of His little heart too much to take?”

Isaiah 9:1 "But there will be no gloom for she who was in agony."

The Philosophizing Movie-Watcher

I just finished a more personal journal entry which I won't share here, but it caused me to do a bit of integrative thinking (my favorite kind).

I was journaling about how certain things have changed my perspective of late on a particular subject. That particular entry was sparked by a movie I watched, Tsotsi. It's a unique movie about a young criminal in South Africa...but it didn't provoke thoughts about social justice or crime or poverty or what-have-you. The thoughts and ideas I came up with may seem a long way off from the point of the movie, actually.

But at the moment, I can't share those ideas. The problem is this: I don't watch movies like most people watch movies. When I'm at school, I have no time for watching movies and when I do, they're usually just because everyone else happens to be watching a movie and I never really care what the movie is. (For instance, Cool Runnings or something like that.) Usually those movies are just fun with little to really process and think about. When I'm home and I have time to watch movies more often, I never have anyone to watch them with me. My parents are rather sensitive to rough content in movies. My dad (Lord love him) doesn't like a lot of f-words and he usually avoids anything with sexual content. Well, that's okay, I guess. But I am compelled that we live in an R-rated world and it's naive to go through life avoiding certain things--like f-words. And my little sisters are obviously too young for most of the stuff I watch.

So I watch movies by myself most of the time. I see it more as an academic exercise than entertainment. There's more to a movie than jsut what moves your emotions and that's what I enjoy so much.

But the problem is that I watch these movies by myself--and get more out of it than I would from watching High School Musical *3* or Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman (my sisters' pick)--but have no one to share it with. Unfortunately, I don't think that's what philosophizing is for. The purpose of any revelation is to share it with others. "Now go, and tell about what you have seen here." That's my calling: to share with others the depth and essence of my experiences--whether firsthand, vicarious, spiritual, personal, emotional, etc.

So the question remains: is this the right way to do things? I believe movies are meant to be shared with others. Is it worth it to watch by myself and revel in the philosophy that comes but not be able to share it with others? Or would it be better to not experience it and not have this passion that I simply can't communicate to others? I will have to explore and find out.

One of the best moments of my life came to my mind the other day.

I was standing on the roof of an apartment building in Washington, DC. I could see the Capitol building just in front of the sunset. I brought my Bible up with me and just read for a while. I opened up to one of my favorite chapters, Romans 8 and remembered something from this summer.

I was walking along the beach at night on Grand Traverse Bay. I could see the lights of the docks across the water. I had seaweed in my pants. Dad was up by a picnic table with his Bible. I was mostly alone. The waves drowned out all my words. It was excellent. I stood with waves soaking my pants up to my thighs. Sand and seaweed.

I shouted at the very top of my lungs, "WHAT THEN CAN WE SAY IN RESPONSE TO THIS?!"

I was very tempted to shout that again from the apartment building.

Spiritual Renewal: Too Dope to Pass Up

At like, 7:15 my generic Ritalin was totally wearing off and my brain was fritzing. I was walking to Spiritual Renewal evening chapel and I had a bazillion half-ideas in my mind and nothing I could do with them. Philosophy class, the sermon at Exit on Sunday, Monday's chapel, my insane busyness, and all this other BS I've been thinking about all creates this web of thoughts. One of my chicas on the wing said it's a blessing...but I don't know about that. It's bullcrap, really (hate that word. Everyone knows I mean to say bulls*** but scruples prevent me from actually saying/writing it.) Anyway, here's the guts of it:

First, there's spiritual renewal. This stuff is compelling. Not that it's new--but according to Socrates, you know everything that is knowable anyway. What's the point of revisiting the Gospel and plan of salvation? I mean, we're all saved here at TU anyway, right?? No, man. This stuff is deep and it doesn't stop with "Jesus, come into my heart."

I've thought about what "the Human Condition" entails until my mind has been drained shizless. I think there are three parts to it: 1) an understanding of oneself, 2) an understanding of the people around us, and 3) an understanding of God. Between Sunday's sermon and the last two days of chapels, all three bases are covered, plus one: we are born in alienation. We’ve fallen off the balance beam before we even got on. We are incapable of fully understanding ourselves, each other, and the Creator.

So Sunday: Darren was talking about marriage. He was giving this argument that God intended man to get married. Now, I haven't always been convinced of this. I mean, what's the real point of marriage? Is it companionship? Why isn't that possible without marriage, like with friends? Is it for children? What if I'm not prepared to have children or don't feel like I'm supposed to become a parent? Is it for sex? Isn't that shallow?

I don't have answers for these; and that used to kill me. However, I'm not as anti-marriage (for myself) as I used to be. The turning point came when I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (stop laughing. really. I mean it now.) There was just this idea of love as being independent of virtue…loving, neither lifting up (on a pedestal) nor smothering, not “in spite of” (what right do I have to love “in spite of” your problems, as if I deserve anything better?)…”to love and not devour,” essentially.

And it’s not just marriage where we fail, either. Even though we may have intense relationships with God, how does that translate to friendships? Spiritual Renewal speaker Colin Smith said that if I could see the glory that God is about to reveal in the believer sitting next to me (Danny Loudermilk), I would be sorely tempted to fall down and worship him. And eventually, nothing will compare to the Glory that Christ will reveal in each believer.

Ah, but I can’t finish that thought…ADD is a painful thing that leaves me with incomplete ideas that morph into other ones more rapidly than a generous soul might smack me across the face and spare me this ridiculosity.

Our relationship with God is something we talk about a bazooka-load here at TU. No fear, I love chapel. I love worship—more than anything, really. But there’s the concept of communication with God…an interchange with him that is ongoing and continually morphing. How does that stay fresh? To quote the SR speaker, we have a shriveled view of the Gospel, one that is unworthy of Christ’s salvation if we think it stops with the forgiveness of sin. We grow closer to Him, we grow deeper in righteousness and confidence in His Spirit.

Self-confidence is also something Pastor Smith briefly addressed today/the other day/I don’t remember. The Holy Spirit comes, not only to break the curse of sin, but to reverse it. The theological term (and I love “terms”) is sanctification. To quote the epitome of Christian knowledge and philosophy, John Avery Whittaker, “It’s a matter of the spirit. Our spirit links up with His in an eternal relationship that gives us the right perspective to understand Him better.” And not only that, we grow more like Him. If we’re growing more like Him and have Him on our side, as my dear Paul says, “What then can we say in response to this?? If God is for us, who can be against us??”

Argh. And my mind has yet more crap-o-la! to speak of. But I'm tired and organizing that mess is absurd when I have class to worry about...dang. I still have to finish reading for tomorrow.