What I learned on my summer vacation (halfway edition)

I'm at about the halfway point for my internship experience (OK, so a little past, but I uh, might have been at the beach when the halfway point hit...yeah), so I figured it was time for some reflections. I can't really say that I had any expectations coming in, so it's tough to find a standard for comparison. As such, I think I'll talk more about lessons I've learned than about things I've done. The most striking experience I've had was a Bible study I lead last week. The text I used was the passage from Mark about Jesus and the rich young man, and I knew going in it'd be a challenging text for me. I wasn't prepared, however, for how radically I thought about it. For quite awhile now (I suppose partially because of the whole econ major thing), I've thought about how absolutely twisted our idea of necessity is in the US. We "need" a new iPhone or 3-D TV or Macbook. Technology is a status symbol in our society, as it has been in so many before ours. We are not unique in this capacity, but we are obsessed and we have so much more with which to be obsessed. I really, honestly believe that this attitude runs counter to an actually Christian life, but any of us would be hard-pressed to break it. We're so heavily socialized into being "plugged into" our culture, not realizing the cost of doing so. We're numbed from that which is important by the sheer omniscience of what is not. This is certainly not a new thought; it's been around for generations, but not much has changed, in that regard. I've felt it more distinctly recently, though, and I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't do something about it, in my own life if nothing else, but I'm not sure how to cope living outside of this culture. What else is there to do? What does life consist of when the basic necessities come to so many of us so easily? I think that's the issue we've run into with our society, that we've got what we need and are having trouble figuring out what else to do with ourselves. Until the past century, or probably even more recently, existence was a struggle for the majority. I recognize that for many, it still is, and until the attitudes of those for whom it is not undergo a drastic change, that fact will remain.

In the "musings about the future" category...

What do I want? What does God want for me? What does God want? These are the questions, in ascending order of importance. I'm thinking it's best, now, to start working backwards from the order in which I've written them. What does God want? Well, as succinctly as possible, and in what is possibly a massive generalization, to be revealed in truth to creation and to seek relationship and be sought. It would follow, then, that God wants me to seek God out; to study, to learn, to pray, and primarily, to do. It is in action that we incite others to do the same. What good is belief if it is not transformative? What good is orthodoxy--or, to avoid the connotations, right-thinking--if it does not lead to right action? Of course, what good is right action if it is not built on a foundation of right thinking? The former is easier to answer then the latter.

The question, then, is: what is right action for me? My gifts, my blessings, and my journey mean that what is right action for me is not necessarily the same for someone else and vice versa. What we do have before us, though, is the example of Jesus' life--he was counter-cultural, but he was counter-cultural for a reason, and that reason is the love of God and the love of God's creation.

We are called by the love of God to a love of God's creation. Random acts of kindness are great; purposeful acts of kindness are better.

But what is better--to change one person, one heart, one mind, or to change the system that inevitably produces the hearts, minds, and character most prevalent in society today? Is there a better system? Can we really lift people to the station that human dignity demands simply by changing the system? I am of the belief that there is a better way, but I also think changing minds first requires changing hearts and changing perspectives. How do we go about such a grand mission?

How can we change a culture that pervades our entire lives, that claims the entirety of our reality and our consciousness? How can we convince people that we are, all of us, subject and not object? That the things we take as our objectives are simply object, to be used, enjoyed even, but not idolized? How do we convince people that these things are not a necessary part of the abundant life, and indeed can even detract from that life? It's said so often it's cliche, but yet it is still true and is still not followed. It's believed, even, but few truly adhere to it. We're just as capable of double-think as Orwell prophesied. How do we counteract that--how do I counteract that in myself? Here, I think, right-thinking comes back into play--praying, studying, reading, thinking, experiencing, reflecting--all done intentionally, with purpose. So with that in mind, what does it look like to live a Christian life today? How do we start--well, no, how do we re-start a revolution...?

And a second

One from this week. I've been on a Job kick lately (mainly because that's just where I'm at in my reading at the moment). It's so wonderfully written, it's a shame that gets overlooked sometimes:

Job 7:17-18—What are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on them, visit them every morning, test them every moment?

The book of Job is one of my favorite books of the Bible. It is truly representative of a “thin place”—a place where the divide between human and divine seems not so large. In his despair, Job unwittingly finds God nearer than ever, available for conversation, even, though it is probably not the conversation Job would most want to have. Here, Job asks the question many of us find ourselves pondering, in both good times and bad—who are we to be children of God? What is so special about our species that we find it possible to commune with the Almighty? The question in answer to our question, though, is who is God, that God should deign to seek relationship with us? The answer to that, of course, is greater than we can ever know. God is love, and God is loving. God is patient, God is compassionate, and God is faithful. In Jesus, God is revealed, also, to be a God of suffering love. God is not abstract, not content to sit far-removed and watch creation play itself out. No, God suffers with us. Our suffering is God’s suffering, because God has created us and called us good. We are called to find joy in our suffering not because we are to be masochistic or just because our trials make us stronger, but because we have a faithful companion in our suffering, an empathetic God. Remember that, in your times of trial and tribulation—God is with us, has been with us for all time, and will be with us until the end of time and beyond. Recognize in suffering the opportunity to find those thin places, and cling to God ever more strongly as God carries you through to the other side. This is the source of our greatest blessing, and with it we should rejoice at all times!

Some devotionals I've written while here in lieu of thoughts about the experience, to come later

I swear I'm actually going to get to writing about the experience of the internship itself at some point, but for now I'm going to content myself with these. Hope you enjoy...I'm doing these weekly this summer, and have written these two thus far. First one:

Jeremiah 18:4-6—The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

Our lives are ever being shaped. Although dramatic turning points and momentous decisions are generally the things of movies, change is possible through means both gradual and quickly. “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,” says Paul, and indeed the potential for living a Christ-like life abides in each of us. The beauty of the Christian faith is that we are never out of the reach of God. No matter how much we may seemingly try at times, we can never remove ourselves completely from God’s love. No matter how misshapen our lives may appear in the human scheme of things, the artistic hands of God can bring out the beauty in each of our lives. It is the great truth of Christianity that we are loved, perfectly and unconditionally, which leads to our great hope that we may ever strive towards Christian perfection in love. As you go forth into the day, remember that God does not hold our imperfections against us, that we may live each moment anew, and that we always have the opportunity to live a more Christian life.

I do hereby solemnly and earnestly vow to update the blog this summer

So I'm going to be interning at a church this summer--a church that is vastly different from the church I'm used to, in a lot of ways. And that's a good thing, if not a great thing. Not that I don't love the church from which I come, but we cannot grow or move forward without change, and I'm hoping that this experience gives me an even greater idea of what the church can and should be.

With that being said, orientation and such over the last week has gotten me thinking a lot about what direction the church is taking, and what direction would be true to the mission of the church. Some of those thoughts...the church has gradually been taken in by the same corporate attitude that pervades much of our society. It seems to me that church (and by proxy, the gospel) has become something to be packaged, marketed, and sold. We're so concerned with how church is presented and how that will appear to those who we are hoping to attract that we tend to lose sight of what it is we really are. We only leave our walls to serve because we think we owe it to the community to justify our existence, not because it is what we're called to be. It's a subtle difference in attitude, but it's one that makes a great deal of difference in mission--we do it because we want to appear "good," not because it's part of who we are. We have a good thing. The gospel, and the Christian spirit, do not need to be repackaged to be relevant to the world today. They simply need to be lived--not just talked about (this kind of "evangelism" inevitably comes across as hypocritical and condescending, at least in my view), not just used, but truly lived. And to be lived, for the church, it means getting out of our four walls, dismissing the old idea that we are some kind of bastion of goodness in a fallen world and realizing that we are a part of the world, just looking to change it. It means recognizing that the world we live in is God's creation, that we should not profane that which God has called good (to borrow words from Peter's vision), and that our work is to find the goodness in creation, to find God in creation and bring that goodness to fruition. The potential is there for all of us, and all of creation to be Quality, and our job as the church is to help bring that potential out and reconcile the intention with the actuality.

Call this my first draft--I hope to refine, rethink, and rewrite (literally and figuratively) this as I move through the summer and beyond.

I just finished reading Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz." I'd heard good things from others about it, but I'm always skeptical when I hear the kind of hyperbolic praise of the power of a piece of literature that accompanied much of those reviews. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic book, but in the end it's still just a story of one man's faith journey, it's not the end-all, be-all of modern Christian spirituality (as I'm sure Miller would agree). That's the biggest question the book raised for me--Miller, at times, seems to teeter dangerously on the edge of offering answers to questions that are not answerable, at least in this lifetime. I think he does a good job of walking that line, and centering most of his discussion around Christian spirituality in relation to how we live our lives as human beings trying to relate to an unknowable God. Therein lies the rub, ultimately, in writing about the Christian journey--it's tough not to get stuck in the vagaries of estimating God. That's the lesson I took away most strongly from "Blue Like Jazz"--there's a pretty reliable record of what we, as human beings, have been given in our search for God, that being the Bible, especially those parts relating to Christ (given that that's the time when we, as Christians, believe that God had His--Her?--closest interaction with the human race). Really, that seems to be what Miller is driving at--modeling one's life after Jesus' teachings. Although we each discover other facets of God throughout our lives, and we learn and grow when in Christian community with others and sharing what we've learned, that's what makes our beliefs such a personal thing--God is so immense, so incomprehensibly perfect in power and in scope, that it often seems that God reveals a different part of God's self to each of us.

Back to the book. The greatest issue it raised directly, for me, was the fact that Jesus was a radical, a revolutionary, and so must we be if we are to truly follow Him. It bothers me that the church, as a whole, is thought of as almost the polar opposite of this--conservative is often a word that comes to mind when Christianity mentioned. Yes, it's good that the church aims to be a bastion of moral values, but this seems to primarily manifest itself in negative instruction--don't do this, that is wrong--and not in positive action. This mindset lends itself more to judgment of others than to betterment of oneself. This is the area I'd most like to see the church separate itself from politics--Miller says something to the effect that legislation will not bring about God's kingdom on earth. I'd love to see more of that energy that is currently used in political jockeying used in direct action. It seems to get to the point, at times, where the church is the politician's tool, rather than vice versa. Now, I'd also like to make the caveat here that much of this deals with the church's perception, regardless of the church in actuality. There are plenty of congregations who are doing just what I've talked about, who are making a real difference and (rightly) just not asking for (or receiving, sadly) the attention and recognition these other factions are getting.

It often seems that Christians themselves are the biggest obstacle to a true Christian church, which is not a revolutionary thought, I know, but is frustrating nonetheless. I don't know if it's a generational thing or what, but I've recently become less and less comfortable with my home church. Actually, less than a generational problem, I think it's more of a demographic problem--I'm just not comfortable with a small-town congregation. It's, well, small, and the focus seems rather narrow and incapable of shifting outward. I don't mean to be critical of my dad's church (literally, my dad, not talking about the Heavenly Father here), because I think he's doing a fantastic job with the resources he has here, and I do like the direction the church is heading. I think it's kind of an "it's not you, it's me" sort of thing. Which brings me to the root of the problem--I think any Christian's greatest insecurity is that he or she is not doing enough to really have earned the title of Christian. I certainly feel the same, often, if not all of the time. Yes, God's grace, Jesus died for our sins so we don't have to worry about it, etc, etc, but there always seems to be more I need to be doing. I don't really know what my call is, vocationally, but I know that I have the same call to follow in Christ's footsteps that we all have, and I'm struggling with how exactly to do that in my life, with my resources. It feels like I'm not doing enough, but there's a huge gap between knowing and doing something about it, and that's scary, and the prospect of getting out there and trying is scary. Which brings me back to Christian community-I've always felt that Christian community exists as an enabler (in a good way), a sort of whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts arrangement. I've been rather disillusioned with the actual practice of Christian community lately, though, and I wonder whether this theory is practicable in this day and age. I think it is, I believe it is, but I haven't seen it in awhile, at least not personally. Returning to my previous point, I know the problem lies within, at least that part of the problem that's within my control, but it's tough to change, and scary to change, and at some point I begin to wonder whether change is really possible, and whether there exists a community in which I can change, and hopefully help others make the same change.

Anyways, that's my thoughts for the day. I'm pretty sure I'll have more tomorrow. Or maybe later today. But that's as much as my amazingly finite mind can handle for the moment.

So, as the girl pointed out, I'm about, oh, a half decade late (if not more) in picking up on this blogging thing. Ah, well. Better late than never. I suppose this should be a sort of "about the blog" kind of thing, given that it's the first post and you have no idea what you're going to be reading (you will be reading, right? Please?). Here's the deal, in bullet point format:

• The name: well, quite simply, I used to be a keeper. Literally. I played high school soccer. Not as dramatic or depressing as it might suggest.
• On that note, I do hereby solemnly vow not to be depressing or "emo," as the kids say. My goal is to be, shall we say, interesting. If I have pity-poor-me things to write, they will go in a personal journal, kept safe from the world (though mainly vice versa).
• So what will I write? Thoughts. I will write things I think. Those things I think may concern, but are not limited to: Music (I have--not to go all hipster on you--rather eclectic tastes. I may share some of that with you occasionally. But you have to go out and get the music yourself, I won't post it here. Mainly because I'm not sure how to, but also sort of because I'm not an enabler. Freeloaders), sports (it might be the understatement of the year to say I kind of enjoy basketball. A little), fiction I write (God help you all if I get around to posting that. And on that note--), God (I grew up in the church, have remained a part of it all of my life, but I'm as prone as anyone to the occasional crisis of faith), and the catch-all, life-in-general-family-friends sort of things.

That's about as far as I've gotten, my focus may broaden or narrow over time, and may even disappear. It's been known to happen (seven majors--what?). So...yeah.