Birth Control: A Few Words

These points were born out of a conversation about birth control on my facebook page, in response to this article: http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/privilege-and-the-pill.  The article, by the way, is fantastic and everyone should read it.

1. Population control. It’s certainly no surprise that the world’s population may reach unsustainable levels in the near future.  This is a multi-pronged problem and cannot be addressed by birth control alone (please note that when I say “birth control” I include all forms in a general manner, not just the pill).  Part of the problem is our consumption levels.  The entire world cannot consume at the level that the West consumes without wreaking havoc on the earth and our ability to exist on it.  For example, the entire world cannot eat animal products like Americans do.  It’s not sustainable already.  Birth control cannot hope to fix the problem of overpopulation, but I feel that it is an important tool.  Less babies = less people.  There is evidence to support that those who have the most children are the most unable financially and socially to care for them.  In poor countries (and even poor America), free contraceptives could alleviate some of the burden placed on welfare.  Note that I said “some.”  Just as I previously stated, birth control is not a catch-all.

2. Why is birth control “vitally important” to women’s health?  I can speak from both personal experience here, and from my relationships with many women my own age.  I am rather psychopathic for about a week and a half every month without birth control.  That in itself might be manageable, if it were not for the debilitating cramps and migraines that come along with the emotions.  Prior to to starting a birth control regimen, my cramps would be so bad some days that I could not stand up straight, and could barely get out of bed.  Birth control has all but eliminated these issues.  I am actually terrified of going off the pill when I am ready to have children because I remember how awful it was before.  For me, birth control is “vitally important” to my health (and the sanity of my husband and those around me).  Many women I know share a similar story and could not imagine going back to life without birth control.  Yes, some women cannot handle the pill as it causes adverse effects on their bodies.  My own sister-in-law was hospitalized from a blood clot caused by birth control.  There are very real and potentially deadly side effects from the pill, just as with any medication.  Nevertheless, to the majority of women who have access to it, the pill is somewhat of a lifesaver.  Some medical conditions can be treated or made manageable with the pill.

3. Birth control as a “chemical assault” on a woman’s body.  I do not agree with this sensationalism, unless we are prepared to call every medicine a “chemical assault.”  Obviously the pill effects changes inside a woman’s body.  These changes do need to be, nor should they be, classified as an assault, unless related to one of the aforementioned women who cannot take the pill for adverse health effects (just as there are people who cannot take other medicines).  I do not feel “assaulted” by the pill.  In fact, I feel much better when I’m taking it, as it prevents my body from assaulting itself.

4. Does birth control lower the rate of abortions?  I do not have any studies to cite here, though I am sure there are some to be found if one is interested in doing enough research.  I can, again, only speak from personal experience and that of my female friends.  There was a time in my life in which I thought I was pregnant, and I was not yet on birth control.  I can say without a doubt that I would have gotten an abortion if I had indeed been pregnant.  I did not have the emotional, financial, or personal stability/resources to handle the birth of a child or pregnancy, and I was terrified.  Of course I do not pretend to discuss the situation lightly and I would not wish that decision on anyone, but I do understand both sides of the argument.  I know women who have chosen to keep their children, and women who have chosen to have an abortion.  In all of the cases I can think of right now (6), the pregnancies could have been prevented had the female been on the pill or used another form of birth control.  Four out of the six women chose to have an abortion.  So four abortions could have been avoided if contraceptives had been available and utilized.  I firmly believe that a female’s access to birth control is inextricably linked to the abortion rate.

5. Are all abortions the same?  Or, what do we mean when we say “abortion”? Clearly the answer to this question depends on your view of when life begins.  If you believe life begins the moment the sperm reaches a woman’s egg, then anything that causes that embryo not to reach full-term could be considered an abortion (incidentally, as is pointed out in the linked article, a female’s body has the ability to abort its own embryos).  The question is, does potential for life equal a soul?  Yes, an embryo is a living organism with the potential to grow into a human form.  But at what point is an embryo endowed with a soul?  If it is at conception, what about the embryos that a woman’s body self-aborts?  Will we have hundreds of children dancing about in heaven that we’ve never met before after we die?  If so, will they be children, or will they be adults?  In what form will these potential souls exist?  And if these souls include the embryos that woman’s body self-aborts, there must be billions of them.
Alternatively, if you believe that life begins at implantation, or when the heartbeat begins, or at any other point further down the line, then a contraceptive that does not allow implantation would not be considered an abortant by you.  Clearly our society feels very strongly that preventing an embryo from implanting is different than taking the life of a nearly fully formed baby in the third trimester.  There is no easy answer to this question, but each individual will likely have to form her/his own opinion.

6. If we are to adhere to the belief that life begins at conception, is the abortion of these countless pregnancies by birth control a genocide?  Perhaps in the sense that living organisms have been killed, yes.  But it is folly to suggest that this is on the same level as an actual killing of a person or group of people.  For one thing, an un-implanted embryo cannot feel or process thoughts.  It cannot be afraid of its own demise, feel pain or mental anguish, or even know that it is being terminated.  In effect, it is the potential for life that is terminated.  Obviously it is preferable to terminate a life that doesn’t know it exists over a life that does.  In the same vein, quantity is not the decider of qualitative differences.  Qualitative differences themselves can act as a decider.  The simple fact that an embryo can’t feel makes it significantly easier to terminate it.

7. Should businesses be forced to provide contraceptives?  This is also a difficult question, particularly amid the sensationalism the media has placed on it.  It is not as simple as “If you don’t like that they don’t provide birth control, don’t work there.”  as we have previously seen, contraceptives are desperately needed among the poor, who may not have the privilege to just “work somewhere else.”  In my opinion, unless the business is willing to provide insurance that completely (or very nearly completely) covers pre-natal and post-natal care, paid time off for maternity leave, and some form of child-care assistance after birth, contraceptives should be provided.  I will make an exception for churches and parachurch organizations (but only those who serve a specifically religious purpose), although I feel that they should state in their constitutions or charters their belief that life begins at conception.

—
Civil discussion is welcome, as are questions.

When Your Soul is Tired

Life.
Beautiful, wonderful, exhilarating life.

We live on a roller coaster with no stop button.  When we’re tired, stressed, broken, or sick, it keeps coming relentlessly.  No one shuts down the ride when its storming or its too dark to see.  There is no slowing down the pace or taking a breather, life doesn’t answer to our demands for a little peace and quiet, a little rest.

Ugly, devastating, exhausting life.

We can only travel at this breakneck speed for so long before we feel the strain.  It’s visible in the mirror in the dark circles under our eyes, the worry lines on our foreheads, and the emotional reactions over seemingly insignificant things.  What can we do?  We can’t just disappear from the world until we recover from the barrage.  Bills have to be paid, laundry and dishes pile up, and family and friends demand the attention they deserve.
So we trudge on
and on
and on.

Our bodies are tired, but more importantly our souls are tired.  When we have no rest for an extended period of time it is not just our physical bodies that suffer, it is our spirituality.  When we’re worn down and listless reading the Bible and talking to God are often the last things we want to do.  We want a vacation, or at least the phone to stop ringing for one day.  We want the cleaning to magically get done while we spend time in the sun at the beach.  We want to be lazy for a little while and ignore the demands of life.  All of these things can help us, provide us temporary relief and give us the strength to face another day.
So we take a breather, then trudge on
and on
and on.

And our souls fade, a little at a time.  Why is it that the last thing we reach for is God?

Jesus sighs, “How often I have longed to gather you together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34).  The best place for a baby chick is under her mother’s wings.  It’s warm and cozy there.  It’s safe.  She can sleep and relax, knowing that the mother is keeping a watchful eye for any dangers.  We have access to this place, to the open arms of God, but are we willing?

I’m sitting next to a window, and right outside under a bush is a mother duck sitting on her eggs.  She’s been there for hours, sometimes resting her head on her chest with one eye open, but at the slightest sound she is up and watchful, ready to protect her babies.  Every now and then she gets up, checks every single egg, then ruffles up her feathers and sits down again.  The ducklings don’t know how vigilant she is, or how much she worries over them.  All they have to do is grow; the mother will make sure they are safe.

Do we know how vigilant God is, and how much God worries over us?  Do we know that the safest place to be is under God’s wings?  It’s warm and cozy there, after all.  We can take a breath and relax, we can let our souls be revitalized.

Are we willing?

Keep Off the Lawn!

When I get old, I’m going to sit on my front porch and yell at the neighborhood kids when their ball rolls into my yard.  Kids, with their dirty fingers and sticky faces, and no sense of healthy boundaries.  I was one of those kids.  I ran wherever I wanted, usually disobeying specific signs that told me to stay off the grass, walk instead of run, or not to touch breakable items.  I’ve since grown out of this habit (mostly), but it manifests in different ways as we get older.  We are all guilty of ignoring notices that give us instruction, especially when it causes some inconvenience to us.  We are more important, after all.  We shouldn’t have to use the crosswalk one block up because it’s too far.  We shouldn’t have to eat like civilized people when in a restaurant because they pay people to clean up after us.  We should be able to walk on the lawn if we want to – after all, it’s just grass.  Usually, healthy grass can withstand this abuse.  But we don’t always have the healthiest of lawns.  

Sometimes we’re fragile, freshly laid sod, susceptible to both parasites and heavy rain.
Sometimes we’re brittle and slightly brown from drought, easily fractured by stomping feet.
Sometimes we’re choked up with weeds that block our ability to see the sun.

Life comes to stomp on our lawn no matter how healthy our grass is.  People say careless things and step on our feelings.  They might trip on something and fall on us, expecting a cushy landing.  They might intentionally hurt us, trampling on our spirit.  They might (metaphorically) let their dog poop on us, and not even bother to clean it up!  “They should know better!” we grumble.  “Didn’t they see our sign?”  

Our beautifully crafted “Keep Off the Grass!” sign, designed to keep us safe.  We want our lawn to be pristine and beautiful, a testament to how perfect our lives are on the surface.  If someone walks in our yard, they might notice the weeds, or that our grass is unhealthy, or that it’s sparse and hard instead of that lush green blanket we want people to think we have.  

Grass is so common most people don’t give it a second thought.  It is, however, one of the most resilient forms of vegetation.  After a forest fire, the grass comes back first.  In rocky and dry areas tufts of grass poke up from the earth, perhaps the only green for acres.  In Psalm 23 we read”He makes us lie down in green pastures” and we think of fields of sweet grass and flowers with a calm stream trickling by for refreshment.  This is an interpretation of that verse that fits our modern understanding of abundance.  In reality, much of Israel is a rocky desert.  There is not a large number of lush meadows, and the psalmist would not have had access to them.  The ancient Israelites were a mountain people, scraping out an existence among the rocks and hills of Judea.  A shepherd’s job was to lead the sheep through the dry and scraggly land, finding the hardy tufts of grass for them to feed on.  They usually had to cover a lot of land in search of these “green” areas.  Grazing a herd of sheep was not an easy job and it constantly required movement.  The pasture, no matter how green (usually not very) would be soon be depleted and the herd would plod on again, guided by their shepherd.

Daily the shepherd found food for his sheep.  Daily he provided what they would need to survive.  It’s hard for us when someone tramples our lawn, when we see a brown spot in the green, or we feel brittle and damaged from the weather.  It’s hard for us to trust that our Shepherd will provide when all around us we only see rocky desert.  In times like these we mumble halfheartedly “Give me this day my daily bread,” wishing all the while for a feast and leftovers to freeze for tomorrow.  We want security in things we can touch and see, security in signs that tell the world to leave us alone and stay out of our business.  We want proof that there will be food where we’re going, and we certainly don’t want to walk a long ways to get there.  

Yet we forget the first line of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack for nothing” (NLT).  Nothing?  That seems a bit far fetched.  We feel a lack when people say or do careless and hurtful things to us.  We feel a lack when people violate our boundaries and dump emotional problems on us without asking.  We feel a lack when we’re tired, stressed out, and doing too much.  We feel a lack when we neglect our relationship with God and attempt to fill that hole with other things.  The Shepherd knows this.  So we come back to that line in Psalm 23 with new understanding – “He makes me lie down in green pastures.”  The pastures where the ground is not so green, and the lying down not so comfortable.  The pastures just for today, because tomorrow he will lead us in a new direction, towards tomorrow’s daily bread.  The Shepherd makes us lie down because on our own we would keep going.  We’d keep wearing ourselves out, putting up signs, protecting our lawn.  It’s not our job to do these things – it’s the Shepherd’s.  The Shepherd keeps us safe, gives us food and rest, and shows us the paths to take.  All we have to do is follow.

Let’s Talk: Abortion and the Female Body

Let’s talk is a series dedicated to addressing tough issues civilly.  Comments will be moderated, and anything deemed hateful, a personal attack, or all around rude will be deleted.

Abortion is one of those things that people don’t talk about, like religion and politics.  Abortion is hush-hush business, especially among Christians.  Some studies estimate that 40% of abortions are obtained by Christian women, despite the violent rhetoric of the American church’s anti-abortion lobby.  40%!  That means nearly half of all abortions in America are obtained by self-proclaimed Christian women.

It’s important to note that there has never been a time in history with no abortions.  Abortions have always occurred.  Women have formulated many ways of terminating pregnancies, and will continue to do so, whether the practice is legal or not.  Making abortion illegal will never make it stop, though it may reduce the number. We can only attempt to change the hearts of women, and in doing so change minds as well.

1. Anti-abortion Does not Mean Pro-life.

It irritates me to no end when I see Christians picketing abortion clinics, while at the same time supporting war and the death penalty.  “Pro-life” means “Pro-ALL-Life.”  If we start adding stipulations to our principle of life, it becomes easier to judge one group that kills more than another.  If we are anti-abortion, but still support killing in other avenues, then we are not pro-life, but pro-birth.

“But soldiers are defending our freedom!”  But criminals deserve to die for their crimes!”  “But, but, BUT?!?!?!”

These sentiments are commonly held, but commonality does not inherently mean Christian.  What freedom are the soldiers defending?  Did God ordain this war?  Would we still say “God bless America” if we lost the war?  Does the criminal deserve to die more than you do?  Why?  Because his crime was worse?  In whose eyes?  Your eyes, or God’s eyes?  Do you believe in hell?  If you do, why would you support the death penalty for criminals?  Is it congruent with the Christian belief that all can be redeemed to kill someone, thereby taking away their ability to ever hear the gospel on earth?  We have to be careful to delineate which kind of life we support.

2. There are Many Reasons Women Chose to Have Abortions.

Please, let’s stop lumping all women who choose to terminate their pregnancies into one group.  The decision is different for every woman.  Are there some women who have no conflictions about ending their pregnancies?  Of course.  But for most women it is a difficult decision, influenced by many factors.  As a special note, the violent anti-abortion rhetoric put forward by the church actually serves to harm some expectant mothers.  I have personally spoken with several women who were more afraid of the judgement and ostracization they would face from their families and churches than they were of getting an abortion.  Like it or not, pregnancy out of wedlock still has a massive stigma attached to it.  Some girls are so afraid of how their parents would react that abortion seems like the only option.  Despite the fact that the man or boy plays an equal role in the inception of the baby, it is most often the female who is stigmatized.

4. The Unborn Child is Not Solely its Own Entity.

There are varying opinions on the level of rights an unborn baby should have.  Most Christians agree that the fetus is a human being, and therefore deserves a chance to live.  Christians also seem to disagree with the pro-abortion proclamation that “It’s the woman’s body!”  This is both true and not true simultaneously.  It is true that the fetus is an entity with the potential to develop into a full grown human baby.  In this sense, the fetus is not the woman’s body.  However, the fetus is not self-sustaining until 23 weeks.  The child cannot exist without the mother.  The mother’s dietary and lifestyle choices all affect the baby, because it is inextricably linked to the mother, or the female body.  If removed from the mother, the child will not survive.  In this sense, then, the baby is the woman’s body.  So we see that the two cannot be made into separate issues.

4. The Church Rarely Teaches Safe Sex.  Or, Making a Bad Situation Worse.

The Church has a long history of sticking its head in the sand when it comes to sex.  Should we teach teenagers and young adults to wait until marriage for sex?  Absolutely.  But teaching abstinence  has never stopped (or even slowed) the tide of relations among today’s youth.  Christian teenagers and young adults have sex at numbers comparable to non-Christians.  I cannot recall a single time in church or youth group gatherings that the actual process of sex was discussed. The process of a baby’s growth and development was also not ever discussed.  The typical conversation about sex in youth groups goes something like this:

Youth pastor holds up an oreo and asks who wants it.
Everyone wants it.
Youth pastor licks the oreo, or puts it in his mouth and spits it back out, then asks who wants it.
No one wants it.
Youth pastor makes comments about how a person who has had sex before marriage is like a slobbered on oreo.

This scenario is detrimental in two ways.  First, it teaches young people that they will be viewed as dirty and shameful if they have sex.  Second, it prevents any honesty from the youth who have already had sex.  Those who have “had their oreo licked,” so to speak, now know they are disgusting and they’ll never be good enough again.

As for discussing babies, it virtually never comes up.  There is no talk of how beautiful the gift of life is, the options for adoption, or the resources and support groups available for young mothers.  There are no trips to places where young single mothers congregate for the purpose of loving on them and helping them.  Despite the church’s promise that you can “Come as you are!” there is still a pervasive image of what a young female should be – read virginal, chaste, and definitely not pregnant.

5. Picketing Abortion Clinics is Not Going to Change Much.

Let’s think about this rationally.  A girl or woman is walking towards a clinic, most likely in an emotional state already, only to be screamed at by Christians holding a sign that tells her she’s a murderer.  Is she likely to turn around?  No.  If she does turn around, she will most likely come back later when things have quieted down.  What has happened, is that “Christian” has been cemented in her mind with the screaming people who made an already difficult day worse.

6. Love is All We Need.

How can we keep fetuses from being aborted?  Love.  How can we erase the stigma of pregnancy out of wedlock?  Love.  How can we make a person who has already had an abortion feel welcome in the church?  Love.

But what does this love look like?  It might be hard; we might have to work at it.  We might have to adopt the baby we told the mother not to abort.  We might have to drive mothers to their doctor’s appointments, and help pregnant teens study for school exams.  We might have to provide day care free of charge to single mothers who need to work.  We might have to pick up these children from school or cook dinner for them.  We might have to treat these mothers and children like they were our own family.  Because isn’t that what we are supposed to be, after all?  The Family of God?  I can’t picture Jesus snickering about a pregnant teenage girl, or picketing an abortion clinic, or telling someone sex outside of marriage turns her into a half-eaten oreo.

I can picture Jesus being angry at those who pile shame on women, and ostracize them.  I can picture him bending down to pick up pieces of a broken life and put them back together.  I can picture him holding out his hand and saying “There’s room for you here, come inside.”  Shouldn’t we?

Veg Out: Being Vegan is Not a Cure-All

Lots of people ask me why I’m vegan.  Sometimes I say it’s for health reasons; sometimes I say it’s for the animals.  Sometimes I shrug and change the subject, hoping that the lack of meat in my life doesn’t make people start saying things like “BUT BACON!?#@@!??”  Truthfully though, before I cared even a little bit about the animals I stopped eating many animal products for health reasons.  It turns out that I am allergic to eggs and dairy, and consistently have digestive pyrotechnics that can make my life miserable.  I’m not saying this so that you feel sorry for me; please don’t.  My body is just doing at 24 what everyone else’s body does during middle age – rebelling against a lifetime of crappy treatment.

I bring this up only because I think people have a tendency to latch on the vegetarianism/veganism as a “Cure-All.”  If I’m vegan, I’ll be skinny.  If I’m vegan, I’ll be healthy.  If I’m vegan, I’ll never get sick.  This mindset does nothing but harm fledgling vegans.  It’s true, most people who follow a nutritionally responsible plant-based diet free from processed foods, unhealthy oils, and animal products become ill much less often than the average American.  But it still happens!  Vegans still get colds, flu bugs, and fevers.  Some still contract terminal illnesses that cannot be cured by diet alone.

Every time I have a bad day, I immediately want to throw my hands in the air and say “This isn’t working!”  Every time my stomach twists up with pain, I get disappointed and want to quit.  After all, if I’m not 100% better, 100% of the time, then it clearly isn’t worth it.  It’s so easy to forget that for every bad day, I’ve had 10 good ones.  And that the bad days aren’t quite so bad as they used to be, because my body isn’t exhausted from constantly fighting itself.  

A vegan diet is not a cure-all.  But it’s a cure-some (maybe even a cure-most) and that’s more than I can say for the medicinal options.

❤

 

Complaining: Lament as a Means of Communication with God

Read these: Lamentations 1:11-12; 2:1-4, 17; 5:19-22 and Habakkuk 1:2, 5-11; 3:2, 17-19.  Does that fit your view of God?  Does it make you uncomfortable that the writers are so angry and voicing their complaints?

The passages in Lamentations and Habakkuk are striking, and unfortunately often left out of the canon taught in many American churches.  Why canonize such desperation, such wrenching accusations and cries for help?  Why preserve in sacred writings this anguish? It doesn’t fit with our modern view of a God who wants us to be “happy,” or our ever-popular prosperity theology.  The purpose of lament does not seem to be explicitly theological – by this I mean that general questions such as “Why do babies die?” and “Why do tsunamis happen?” are not at the forefront.  The foundation is personal experience.  The main problem is not that enemies ravaged cities, that famine and drought came, or that people are dying…it is that all these things happened and God stood by and allowed them.  And even worse than God allowing these horrors, God failed to respond when his people cried out for salvation.

I have a huge issue with churches who promote a health and wealth theology without making room for this integral part of faith.  We find laments in many parts of the Bible: in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Psalms, and others.  I once heard a pastor say “We should never doubt our faith; if we doubt God then our relationship with him is in danger.” I couldn’t disagree more.  If our relationship with God does not have room for doubt, we need to go back and question what we have been taught.  Throughout the Old Testament there really isn’t punishment for doubt.  It is there for disobedience, self-absorption, unfaithfulness to the covenant, abuse of the poor, and failure to follow the law, but not for a broken soul questioning Yahweh.  There will always be times that require lament; there will always be questions rooted in personal loss and devastation that cannot be silenced.

I remember many times when I was younger being so afraid to voice any complaints to God because I was taught that it was disrespectful.  Finally a teacher told me “It’s okay to yell at God.  He can take it.”  While I don’t advocate “yelling” at God over petty life issues, her statement has merit.  I cry out to Yahweh because I do not understand, because it seems as though Yahweh has abandoned me, or worse – ignored my prayers completely.  I cry out because I want the relationship to continue, not because I want it to end and so am just spewing hate.  Lament challenges God, puts him on the spot.  Lament runs the risk that God will still choose not respond and that the silence felt now could last forever.  Lament takes sacred ideas about God and demands an answer for specific situations.  Overarching theological truths have no meaning if God does not respond here, and now.

Yet lament is hopeful.  It hopes that God will respond, that God will redeem, that by crying out God will be reminded his love and return to his children.  That God will once again become the “God who saves.”  It seems to me that lament, no matter how visceral or angry, ends with a question mark.  The lamenter wants a response from Yahweh and restored communication.  The lamenter wants a God-sized answer to a human question.

The most vivid example of lament in the New Testament is Jesus’ cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Jesus knew the cup he was to drink; he understood his role and the awful things he would have to go through.  The problem was not that he was dying as a criminal – it was that the God with whom he had intimate communion and relationship had abandoned him.

There has to be lament for faith to withstand hardship.  This world is a desperately broken place.  Lament is, and should be, a step towards healing.

-as an aside, I would recommend Scott Ellington’s book “Risking Truth: Reshaping the World through Prayers of Lament” for anyone looking for more theological study on the issue.

Confessions: I am Mute

It is sobering to realize that after twenty-three years in the church, I do not know how to pray.  I do not know how to talk to God.  I only know how to talk about God.   This is normally fine, because my life is normally fine.  I have a wonderful husband, a cute apartment, and enough money to not worry much.

I am safe.
I am fed.
I am warm.
I am happy.

These are all good things.  But there are other things…things that gurgle about below.  The good things have made me bad.  Or, I was bad already, and I didn’t notice until I had good to compare it to.

I am materialistic.
I am shallow.
I do not like getting out of my middle class comfort zone.
I am lazy.
I am unforgiving.
I am entitled and elitist.

I think that all I have is mine and that I am the ruler of my kingdom.  Who has time for God in all this self-obsession?  Who has time for neighbor?

Love God, Love People.   I am not very committed to doing either.  Because I love myself, all dialogue is with myself.  This is a confession: I do not know how to pray.  Because I do not communicate with Love (God, who is all love) I have no love to give others.  Because I do not communicate with God I cannot love him.  How can I love that which I don’t know?  I pretend.  We pretend.  It is easy to speak of God, difficult to speak to God.  For what can we say, except “I repent?”  I would have to start every conversation by admitting that I am wrong, broken, hateful, selfish.

It’s easier not to speak.
It’s easier not to love.
It’s easier to be mute.

The Bible is full of stories, of prophets, of sinners, of great people.  None were silent.  The sinners proclaimed their sinfulness; they boasted in their success as if they had created it.  The faithful sang of their faithfulness; the doubtful whispered their doubts.  Silence is the enemy of relationship.  Relationships are messy.  They’re hard work.  People in relationship have to stop being selfish, stop trying to “win,” and stop ignoring issues.  People in relationships have to open their mouths.

Do you know how to pray?  Do you only speak with yourself?  Talk to God.  To God.  Start with “I’m sorry.”  Start with “I don’t know how.”  Start with “I don’t like this,” and “This is hard.”  You’ll get distracted; you’ll get discouraged.  But suddenly one day you’ll realize that you were talking to God without thinking about it.  Then listen.  For a minute, for an hour before you start speaking.  And then one day you’ll realize that God is talking back.

The deaf will hear.  The mute will speak (1).  We will love God, and it will be easy to love neighbor.

——–
Notes
1: Matthew 7:31-37

Politicking and the Poor

It’s that time again – the time every four years when two powerful people sling insults at each other and their respective political parties, hoping to gain the confidence of a nation.  Presidential candidates used to advertise on the radio.  Then television came onto the scene, and with it the potential for unlimited amounts of money spent to raise awareness for a campaign.  President Obama’s campaign is expected to raise over one billion dollars and the Grand Old Party (GOP) hope to do the same for their candidate.  That is a phenomenal amount of money.  One billion dollars can do a lot.

It could buy up every Super Bowl ad slot.  For 4 years!
It could buy 600 Bugatti Veyrons – the most expensive car in the world.
It could buy 40 private islands.
It could buy 284, 900,285 Big Mac sandwiches from McDonalds.
It could buy a gallon of milk for every single person in the United States.
It could buy a 30 month supply (on average how many months it takes to potty train) of disposable diapers for 666,000 children.

If you had 1 billion dollars, and you spent $1,000.00 every day, it would take you a million days to spend that much money.  That’s almost 2,738 years.  The average person in America makes roughly $29,000.00 per year.  To make one billion dollars, a person making $29,000.00 per year would have to work for 34,482 years.  And that’s not spending a single penny!

Seems like a lot of money to spend on advertising for one person who wants to be president.  The interest groups lobbying congress spend easily as much.    Michelle Obama was quoted in 2008 as saying “Someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”  One billion dollars buys a whole lot of pie.  It would buy a lot of food for the hungry, clothing for the naked, and shelter for the homeless.  According to Fox News, from 2000 – 2004 the Obama’s gave $10,772.00 to charity – less than one percent of their income.  And while any contributions are appreciated by those that receive them, that doesn’t seem like giving a very big slice of pie away so that someone else can have more.  To be fair, there are plenty of other politicians who give one percent or less; don’t think that I’m just picking on the Obamas.  Across the board charitable giving does not appear to be a priority.

There’s a common misconception that there’s not enough “pie” to go around.  There isn’t enough money to erase poverty; there isn’t enough resources to stop aids; there isn’t enough food to stop world hunger.  Those ideas are simply wrong.  There is enough money, resources, and food – but they’re not being prioritized correctly.  One billion spent by one candidate for an election (whether democrat or republican) isn’t a correct priority.  At least, for a Christian.

Isaiah chastises the rulers of Israel in scripture for their misuse of resources: “Your rulers…love bribes and chase after gifts.  They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.”(1)  American Christians place a higher priority on the defense of their stuff than they do on care for those without stuff.  The United States military budget for the 2011 fiscal year was about 680 billion dollars.  We spend a huge amount of money as a country on the latest technology that can erase governments and peoples that pose a threat to our way of existence, but less than half of that amount on the families that are struggling just to exist in the first place.  Americans as a whole (including corporations) donated roughly 300 billion dollars in 2009 to charitable causes, about half of which went to religious institutions such as churches.  That’s nothing to sneeze at, but it could certainly be more.

America is the richest nation in the world.  American Christians are some of the richest religious in the world.  We pour millions of dollars into constructing beautiful sanctuaries with impeccable landscaping and state of the art cooling systems and sound equipment so that we can be comfortable and entertained on Sunday mornings when we worship.  Should we care for the building we meet in?  Of course.  Should we do everything well?  Of course.  But what is the value of a beautiful sanctuary if the people inside are not cared for?  Isaiah speaks the word of the Lord again, rather angrily: “Stop bringing meaningless offerings!  Your incense is detestable to me…I cannot bear your evil assemblies…They have become a burden to me; I am wearing of bearing them.  When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen.  Your hands are full of blood.  Wash and make yourselves clean.  Take your evil deeds out of my sight!  Stop doing wrong, learn how to do right!  Seek justice, encourage the oppresed.  Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the cause of the widow.”(2)

God asks, “What do you mean by crushing my people, and pushing the faces of the poor into the ground?”(3)  What can we answer?  We can we say when buying meaningless items to satisfy our materialism when not a mile away a single mother struggles to pay for diapers?  What can we say when we parade against abortion, but condemn and ostracize the teenagers who have babies out of wedlock?  What can we say when we drop a dollar or two in the offering plate for missions, then spend fifty on a Sunday lunch?

What is there that we could possibly say?  Only one thing – I repent.  Then perhaps the seraph (angel) will come with a live coal and touch it to our lips, saying “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”(4)

Perhaps then we could defend the cause of the fatherless, and plead the cause of the poor and the widow.  Perhaps then we’d worry less about who’s president, and more about how to love our neighbor. Perhaps we would spend less on entertainment, and more on real relationships with others.  Perhaps we could offer hope – the hope that Christ came to give the world.

(1) – Isaiah 1:23
(2) – Isaiah 1:15-17
(3) – Isaiah 3:15
(4) – Isaiah 6:7

Beginning Again…Again.

Today was the first day of my new job as a Claims Adjuster at GEICO.  My husband already works there, also as a Claims Representative, and I’m super excited that I now get to bother him whenever I feel like it!

So I work for the Gecko now.  This means that I will soon have all kinds of gecko related paraphernalia, and I will obnoxiously try to convince everyone that they should switch to GEICO.  Awesome, I know.

We had to turn in a paper today that listed all of our work history for the past 5 years.  For some people, that would be easy.  It took me an hour to fill out that paper.  When all was said and done, I counted 13 jobs over the last 5-6 year period, since right before I started college.  It’s true that 10 of them were part-time or summer jobs that overlapped with my studies, but 13 is still a pretty large number.  That’s a lot of new beginnings.  A lot of new people to meet, a lot of new-hire orientations to sit through.

And here I am, beginning again.  There’s something exciting about beginning, about starting over.  You can remake yourself in a new place, to new people, doing a new job.  There’s new opportunities to explore!  The only issue with starting over in a new place is that you will still be there.  New places don’t magically make new people.  What’s on the inside stays there no matter where you find yourself.

Sometimes, it takes more effort to stick with it than it does to begin again.
Sometimes, a new beginning is just an escape from an old new beginning.
Sometimes that’s okay.
But sometimes you have to stop beginning, and start the middle.

No book would ever be written if the author only wrote beginnings.
No music could be heard on the radio if the composers only composed the first few stanzas.
No marriages would ever work if during the ceremony the vows never got past “I.”

It’s not just “I.”  It’s “I do.”  And it’s not just “I do.”  It’s “I continue to do.”  If you stop doing, then all that’s left is the “I.”  The “I” isn’t much good alone.  Not in a marriage.  Not in a job.  Not in life.  It has to be accompanied by the “do.”

But what about when you don’t want to do anymore?
When you’re tired?
Grumpy.
Hurt,
or lonely?
What if you just want to give it up and begin again someplace else where no one knows you?

Then you call a friend.  Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 states, “You are better off to have a friend than to be all alone, because then you will get more enjoyment out of what you earn.  If you fall, your friend can help you up!  But if you fall without having a friend nearby, you are really in trouble” (CEV).

Having a friend means being able to write the middle of our story.  And Proverbs 18:24 says that “There’s a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (NIV).  A friend that’s there 24/7, 365 days a year.  A friend that won’t care how late it is when you call, or how long the conversation is going to be.  A friend that has an extra comfy shoulder to lean on, and won’t mind if you snot all over it.  Plus, he’s capable of giving you a zillion cheezburgers if that’s what you need.

Okay, that’s a little metaphorical.  You probably won’t need a zillion cheezburgers when you’re sad, unless you happen to be a lolcat.  But it doesn’t matter what you need.  This friend can meet that need, and even more importantly, he’ll be there for you through the whole thing.  Who’s this friend?  It’s Jesus.  Jesus can give you the strength to face anything (Phillipians 4:13).

Even if facing “anything” just means sticking it out a little longer.
Standing strong, instead of turning and running away.
Writing the middle, instead of writing a new beginning…
…again.

10 Things I Hate About American Christians

Let me begin with a disclaimer – this should probably actually be titled “10 things I hate about narrow-minded, mean, divisive, holier-than-thou, American Christians.”  But that’s just not very catchy.  The disclaimer is to save my skin, and because every American Christian does not exhibit the traits I’m about to complain about.  There are plenty of genuinely wonderful, Christlike people leading and attending churches across the United States.  They love on people, help people, care for people, and do their best to make a difference in the world.  This is not directed at those people.

1. The teaching that if you just say a prayer, getting “saved” will make you RICH/HAPPY/YOUR ENTIRE LIFE WILL BE SUPERDUPERAWESOME!  (Otherwise known as Prosperity Theology)

Um.  Not so much.  In case you haven’t read the Bible, Jesus died a horrible agonizing death only reserved for slaves, pirates, and enemies of the state.  And for all of you who want to point out that he had to die as part of the divine plan to save us from our sins, let me ask this – what about the disciples?  They were all killed too, with the exception of John.(1)

Looks fun, right? Right?

Sure, it could be in God’s plans that you get rich, that nothing ever goes wrong in your life, and that you live happily ever after until you die.  Or, he could want you to give up your riches and go help malnourished babies in Libya.  He might want you to stop being materialistic and live a modest, quiet life, serving in your community.  There might be some pain and hard times in the plans for you.  God never promises that we’ll be “happy” or that we’ll have possessions.  He promises that he’ll never leave our sides.

Faith in Christ is not a “fix-it” pill.  It’s a process, and sometimes it’s really, really hard work.   Telling people otherwise isn’t just false advertising.  It’s a guaranteed recipe for failure when something goes wrong.

2.  Dress Code

We’ve all heard the phrase “Sunday best.”  Dressing up to go to church was a staple of American society for years.  It’s just what you did, and no one questioned it without negative repercussions.  My mother used to make me wear pantyhose and dresses, even to Wednesday night services.  We were going to the house of God, after all.  There’s a flaw in that logic that it took me years to uncover – the church building is not the house of god.  We are the house of God.

Which means God sees me all the time.
No matter what I’m wearing.
He sees me even if I’m not wearing anything.
He did create me, after all.  I doubt he’s offended if I, his perfect house that he created, walk into a building that man created, wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

Seem familiar?

What I am positive is offensive, however, is how people who don’t meet the dress code are still treated when they walk into some churches.  Those are his babies.  He created those people.  It might have taken a very long time and a very long list of circumstances for those people to set foot inside a church door.  They might have come looking for answers, or hope, or peace, or some story they didn’t quite believe about a God that might care about them.  Instead, they get talked about because their clothing doesn’t meet the status quo.

Grow up, people.  If a person wearing baggy pants won’t come in to your church  because all the men are wearing suits, check yourself.  If a girl with neon pink hair and combat boots won’t even look your way because every woman is in a dress and heels, check yourself.   Make it fit with the culture of your area – if your church is in a place where only business types gather, maybe a business dress is appropriate.  But you might want to preach a few sermons on how God wants to reach everyone, and then take a few field trips to the areas that aren’t so businessy.  After all, Jesus spent most of his time with the people who had nothing.

3. Fat Pastors

This is a touchy one.  Like, really touchy.  Weight is something we don’t talk about in church.  We’re not allowed to be addicted to alcohol, or cigarettes, or porn, or crude tv shows, because those things are all “bad.”  But we are allowed to be addicted to food, and no one says a word.  Having a youth event?  Pizza’s #1 on the menu.  Having a 4th of July barbeque?  Well…might as well eat a hot dog, a hamburger, and a sausage.  What better way to celebrate being American than stuffing our faces full of processed foods that have almost negative nutritional value?

I once had a (very large) church lady lecture me for ten minutes on the definite evils of the half glass of wine I was drinking, while stuffing her face with a large nugget meal from McDonalds.  Her argument?  My body was the temple of the Holy Spirit.  How could I be putting that crap into it?  I could’ve asked her the same question.

It's okay. My temple for God just has a little extra cushion!!

We eat and eat and eat and lie around and watch tv and never ever exercise.  And then we want God to just heal us when we have heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, diabetes, and a myriad of other ailments that we bring on ourselves?  Pastors, of all people, should take care of their temples.  They are the examples for the rest of us.  Somehow, pastors seem closer to God.  If it’s okay for the pastor to be fat, well, then it’s okay for me too.  God must not mind what I do with my body.

I think I’ll have another slice of that pizza.  Oh, and two scoops of ice cream.  With hot fudge on top.

4. LGBT

LGBT – or just “those people” in most Christian circles.  For those of you who don’t know, LGBT stands for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender community.  Fundamentally, LGBT people think they should be given the same rights that people in heterosexual relationships are given, and would like to be recognized as human beings.  Also, they’ve adopted the entire color spectrum (the rainbow).

Now, I am not here to start a debate about whether being LGBT is right or wrong, whether people who have those tendencies should remain celibate, what the Bible says regarding the issues, etc.  If you’re looking for a fight, go somewhere else (if you’re looking for honest, humble dialogue about LGBT issues, check out http://gcnjustin.tumblr.com/).  I’m simply here to complain about how the church treats LGBT persons.  Most of the time there’s little to no dialogue, and an enormous amount of judgement.

I have a happily married straight friend who recently walked into a church hand in hand with a friend of hers as part of a research project.  The two girls went in, sat down in the back row, and were not very politely asked to leave within 5 minutes.  5 minutes!  For all the drivel the church puts out about how Jesus loves everyone, he sure seems awfully picky.  It feels like Jesus doesn’t love those people, and won’t until they stop what they’re doing.  Everyone can come as they are…except LGBT persons.  And if we do let them in the building, God forbid they don’t give up their lifestyle immediately.  After all, we can’t have “those people” around our children.

Those people?  Those people are God’s children.  He created them.  He loves them.  He probably gets really pissed off when people hurt them using his name.  Sure, they have sin.  So does everyone.  Beating someone over the head with a metaphorical Bible is never a good way to save a soul.  If I walked into a church and someone told me to leave because I had pre-marital sex or told a lie or stole something, I would probably never go to another church.  Stop being sin snobs.  Try actually having a conversation for a change.  You might realize that the LGBT community is made up of people, not sins.

5. No Care for the Environment

Now I sound like a tree-hugging, whale-saving, hybrid-driving hippy, right?  I wonder why that has such a bad name.  Is it because saving trees and whales and fossil fuel is inherently wrong?  Or is it just because it’s inconvenient for us, and it’s too much work, so we don’t want to bother.  If we were going to save the Amazon rainforest, we’d have to stop eating so much McDonalds, since it’s getting chopped down for farmland.  If we were going to save energy, we’d have to turn up the air a few degrees in our houses and open the windows.  Maybe we’d have to take showers instead of baths, and drive cars that got better gas mileage.  Maybe we wouldn’t use so much disposable dishware and plastic bottles that end up in landfills, never to decompose.

None of this matters though, right?  I mean, we’re all just going to die and go to heaven, and if it does matter, it’s only because our kids live here.  Wrong.  We’re not “going.”  Heaven is coming here.  The Bible doesn’t say that God is going to “make all new things.”  It says he’s going to “make all things new.”  Which means that all the things will still be there, and that they will be the building blocks for the new heavens and the new earth.

Don't lie. You'd totally take your kids for a swim here.

In Genesis 1, right after God created humanity, he blessed it, and told it to “rule over the earth.”  Another way to say that is to “be responsible” for the earth.  Be responsible.  Drinking water from a different plastic bottle that you don’t recycle every day isn’t responsible.  Driving a vehicle that guzzles gas short distances when you could ride your bike or walk isn’t responsible.  Throwing things that could be recycled or given to thrift stores away isn’t responsible.

It’s convenient, but it isn’t responsible.  Let’s stop pretending we care about the environment just because we bought a trendy reusable sports bottle.  Yes, every little bit counts.  But it’s not enough.  In the words of a famous superhero, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  Step up, Christians.  Stop and plant some roses before there aren’t any for you to smell.

6. Women aren’t Allowed to Minister

Now, this isn’t always true.  Some churches and denominations have women pastors on staff; some even have a few women leading congregations.  As a general rule, however, the church is a male-dominated society.  There are all kinds of debates about this – whether the Bible allows for women in leadership, whether women should be silent, whether women can minister, but can’t be the “head” pastor.  I am not going to list those debates here.  There is plenty of literature on the matter.  Educate yourselves.

My point is simply that the church is just one more place where women have been oppressed throughout the centuries.  Even in churches that say they allow women in leadership, there can be little opportunity to minister.  If women are allowed to minister, it is usually only to children, other women, or as part of a husband-wife team.  And why is that?  Because we are only capable of being a “helper”?

We have something to say, but our lips have been closed by oppression.

The holy community of God’s believers should not be just another place where women feel oppressed and marginalized.  We have a voice.  A strong voice.  There are more women than men in churches across America.  Don’t believe me?  Look it up.  We have an enormous pool of talent, experience, and resource in the women in our churches.  It’s wasted, because no one bothers to fight the status quo.

7. “Jesus is American!”

I don’t actually know anyone who would say that phrase outright, but too many live as though they believe it.  “God bless America!”  “God’s on our side!”  “America’s a Christian nation!”

…Yeah….right.

Last time I checked, the only nation God was ever on the side of was ancient Israel, and that was only when they were following his express commands to a T.  When they weren’t, he let all kinds of terrible things happen to them.  America definitely isn’t Israel.  And it definitely isn’t a Christian nation.  No, that’s not because they took prayer out of schools, or the 10 commandments out of courtrooms.  It’s because the people who make up the nation aren’t Christian.  Like, at all.  I know that may come as a shock to some of you, but it’s true.  America doesn’t really care about Jesus, except as a trendy wardrobe item or a laughable badly drawn adult cartoon.

Jesus' heart is red, white, and blue! YEAH!!!!

Stop pretending that Jesus is a blond haired, blue eyed, pageant king wearing a white bathrobe and a blue beauty sash. Stop pretending that Jesus hates gays, muslims, liberals, and those people who just stay on government disability and never get a job.  Stop pretending that Jesus would support blowing up the world if it’s in America’s best interests.  Jesus is NOT American.

In case you missed it, Jesus is a little more global than 1 continent with severe ego issues.  He looked like an Arab.  And he hung out with the people that the church rejected – like the gays, the people with a different religion, the liberals, and the poor.   In fact, you probably wouldn’t want to hang out with Jesus, if he just showed up on your doorstep.  Think about that, before you go saluting God and country.

8. You don’t believe in Hell

What?!  That’s outrageous!  Of course you believe in hell.  You talk about it all the time!  Those sinner people will burn there and stuff, if they don’t get saved.

You don’t believe that.  You don’t really believe that.  If you really thought that there was a literal place of terrible agony and eternal pain where nearly all of the world was going to go once they died, you would do something about it.  If you believed that your unsaved mother was going to get thrown into a lake of fire that burned so incredibly hot that you couldn’t see the flame (think the part of the flame closest to the wick) for eternity with no hope of escape, ever, you would try to save her from it.

Oooooooh this place looks awesome!!!

So make up your mind.  Either you believe it enough to try and actually save people from it, or you don’t.  If you don’t (which, clearly, you don’t), then stop talking about it.  Make it one of those parts in the Bible that never gets brought up, like all of the sex references in the Song of Solomon.  “What?” you say!  “We can’t just take out part of the Bible!”

If you don’t believe it, what’s the point?

 9. Donating.  Not Doing.

We’ve all seen the videos that missionaries bring in of starving children in faraway places.  Pregnant mothers that have no shelter or water.  Girls kidnapped and forced into the sex trade, boys carting around guns at 7 years old.  It tugs at our heartstrings.  Makes us weepy.  Makes us feel guilty, even, since we have so much.  So we get out our checkbooks and write a nice sum and send them on their way, able to feed 2 more children for a year.

Meanwhile, we don’t actually ever do anything.  It’s easy to ignore the starving babies in Rwanda – they’re super far away.  But what about the homeless people right down the street?  What about the pregnant women in your community that can’t afford proper nutrition during the 9 months before they give birth?  What about the fathers that can just barely afford the rent for their families, and the mothers that have to take their children back-to-school shopping at the Salvation Army?

Are you the Good Samaritan? Or are you just going to walk by on the other side of the street?

You could help.  But helping isn’t as easy as writing a check and sending someone else on their way.  You have to actually do something.  And that just isn’t pleasant, now is it.  Again, you probably wouldn’t really want to hang out with Jesus.  Because he’d be doing something.  Not sitting on the couch, or in a church pew.

10.  Use your brains!

Of all the things I hate, this one bothers me the most.  American Christians don’t use their brains.  You don’t think.  You just take what people tell you (so long as it fits in your comfortable lifestyle) and absorb it.  Never questioning, never analyzing.  And then the thoughts are left to stew in the cauldron of your brain, never seasoned with new knowledge, until someone challenges you.  Then the brittle beliefs bubble up and out into the air.  To everyone else, they’re stale, not defensible.

It is not enough for a Christian to go to work, come home, eat, watch tv, and go to sleep.  You have to expand your horizons.  You have to learn, think, grow, challenge, expand.  God created your mind.  Don’t let it stagnate into a puddle of disgusting putrid mush.  No one wants to listen to that.

Trust me.  You’re not just making yourself look dumb.  You’re making God look dumb.  You’re his ambassador.  Sounds cheesy, but it’s true.  Ambassadors are not supposed to be stupid.  So turn off the reality television and learn something, will you?

____________________________________

1: John died of natural causes.

Peace is a Verb.

“We pray for peace!” cries the Christian, the Buddhist, the Muslim, and the Hindu.  “We need peace,” grumble the businessmen, the traders, the CEO’s.  “We voted for peace,” complain the democrats, the republicans, and the independents.  “We fight for peace!” shouts the soldier; “We pay for peace,” sighs the taxpayer.  The world is peace-hungry.  Peace is a fad; peace is a commodity.  Politicians trade it like currency; beauty queens include it in their winning speeches.  Colleges offer classes on peace for those privileged enough to attend, and pastors sermonize it weekly for the masses.  Peace signs appear on backpacks and buttons, t-shirts and jewelry.  It shows up in songs and movies, at poetry readings and anti-war protests.

Few ever bother to define peace, and if they do, it’s often a miserable slogan designed to promote various political or religious agendas.   Even the dictionary limits peace to  “the absence of hostility, a state unmarked by violent conflict.”  What can we say about peace to the millions of starving children in India, to the thousands of broken and destitute families in Rwanda?  What can we say to the countless abandoned infant girls in China, or the Palestinians still confined to refugee camps?  What can we say to the American Indian whose ancestors were victims of genocide and the Japanese whose grandparents were vaporized by an atomic bomb?

What can we say to ourselves, we who so often ignore the suffering and misery of others?

In the middle of unfathomable tragedy, ancient words whisper.  “‘Peace, peace to those who are far away, and peace to those who are near.  I will heal them,’ says the Lord.”(1) The Hebrew word for “peace” is Shalom.  It is more than a state of mind, of being, or of affairs.  It encapsulates a reality and hope for the individual, for societal relations, and for the whole world.  It is wholeness, completeness, and oneness, both within the person and the global community.  Shalom does not merely speak of what is or what could be.  It describes the process, the activity, and the movement towards restoration.

Peace is a noun, a thing, an entity.  It does not spontaneously appear; it cannot create itself.  It needs a verb to set it in motion.

We are the verb.

We can’t just talk about peace.  We can’t just advertise peace.  We can’t just dream about peace.

We have to work at it.
And work at it.
And work at it.

Peace demands a struggle against violence, discrimination, poverty, hunger, abandonment, greed, abuse, neglect, sickness, exploitation, and war.  It requires courage, commitment, endurance, vigilance, and integrity.  It is built on preemptive measures taken before conflicts escalate and on acts of service in places where conflicts have already occurred.  It is founded in unconditional, unwavering love and an acute awareness of the global human family.  In the sage words of Mother Theresa, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another.”

The child born with AIDS in Somalia is our child.  The pregnant mother forced to abort her baby because of population control laws in China is our sister.  The radical violently defending his religious ideals in Lebanon is our brother.  The little girls kidnapped and forced into sex trafficking, the CEO’s who exploit overseas workers, the druggies that sell their own bodies just to get high, the parents who neglect their own offspring – these are all our family.  Man’s skin has many colors, but underneath all his blood is red.

We belong to each other.  We are each other’s future; we are each other’s past.  Lao Tzu, a philosopher in ancient China, penned a poem that has now spread throughout the world:

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

Peace begins with us, right here, and right now.  It begins in our homes, with our families.  It begins at our workplace and at our sporting events.  It begins in our minds.  A group of children were recently asked to define “peace.”  They came up with this:

Peace is the only battle worth waging.  It may sound simple, but it requires of us every dream, every ideal, every strength, and every hope.  It is right, and it is our duty.

To these children, peace is having a future.  It’s up to us to determine what kind of future it will be.

(1) – Isaiah 57:19

Spiderweb Gospel

A dear friend recently expressed to me his overwhelming desire for deep, intimate connection with other human beings.  He made a statement that I always will remember: “Perhaps we all have a sense of loneliness…for when we wish to pour our heart and soul into another, it cannot be fully grasped.”  It is as though togetherness and perfect mutual understanding are butterflies, beautiful ideals that disintegrate at the merest touch.  Humans daydream of being in unadulterated relationship with other human beings.

We want to find that one special person that will understand us without effort.
That one we can’t live without.
That one that will make our entire lives fulfilled.
The one thread of life that will intertwine with ours and make us complete.

Our view of relationship is tragically flawed.  We are not autonomously existing entities that weave together with other autonomously existing entities as we so choose, allying ourselves here and there with what pleases us, and disengaging subtly from what doesn’t.  Neither are we only half of a cord, perpetually waiting for the one other person that will complete us and make us strong.

We are, instead, threads in a spiderweb.  We are intimately connected with every other thread, and cannot exist apart from them.  Only in community can we find strength, purpose, and commonality.  We were created to need more than just one who has everything.  If we were, would not God alone be enough?  He certainly isn’t lacking in any area. What we need is all around us, scattered here and there in various personalities, worldviews, and opinions.

I used to think that the connections existed for the few moments of perfect understanding that exist in any relationship, when everything is right and good and perfect, and no explanation is necessary, and the channels of communication flow unhindered. I find that I was wrong. There is infinite beauty in the struggle to connect with others.

Even when we know they’ll hurt us
misrepresent us
misunderstand us
love us selfishly instead of unconditionally
and at times, ignore, annoy, and lie to us,

even then we must seek connection, for we cannot exist without each other.  Humanity needs us just as much as we need it.  We need each other for when we fall, for when we rejoice, for when we work, and for when we rest (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).  Personhood requires personal relationships with persons (plural).  Only in plurality can unity be found.

Perhaps, in a mystical finality, it’s not being understood that matters so much. Perhaps it is the connection itself that is the pinnacle, and understanding is merely the shrubbery that graces the slope.

Puddle of Blood

The world seems to have a strange, sick fascination with blood.  Movies full of gory violence and dramatic bloodshed appear in ever-increasing numbers; books about vampires and other mythical creatures that exist only by consumption of blood have obtained something akin to a cult following.  Blood is a precious commodity, sought for both by those suffering from disease and those interested in perpetrating it.  Countless wars have been fought for the sake of bloodlines.  Entire countries crumble because their citizens perish from tainted blood.  Martin Luther, later quoted by Benito Mussolini during World War II, stated “Blood alone moves the wheels of history.”  Leviticus 17:11 intones, “The life of a body is in its blood.”

Yet, for all the world’s enchantment with blood, very few seem interested in conserving it.  Conflict, oppression, and mass murder have left jagged scars on the history of the last century.  In the last decade alone, roughly 105 million people have been killed as a result of war.  In Afghanistan, 2 million have perished.  In Sudan, 1.5 million.  In Rwanda, 800,000; and in Bosnia and Burundi, 250,000 each.  The list of countries is nearly endless; the list of names practically infinite.  Tragically, once large numbers of people have been killed, they cease to have names.  How can we name one out of millions?  How can we keep track of unfathomable devastation?  How can we atone for such immeasurable desolation?  The heartbeats that pounded through the veins of millions have been obliterated.

I wonder how big a puddle the blood of 105 million people would make.  Would it be a swimming pool?  Would it be an ocean?  It amazes me how easily tragedies are categorized in lists, as if one can be ranked higher than another.  Should not the life of just one be infinitely important to us?  Should not the loss of even one child, one mother, one brother, or one grandparent fill our hearts with grief?  To feel the abysmal darkness of the death of others is an integral part of love.  It is part of a love exemplified by God himself, who is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).  Can we fathom the heartbreak of God when his precious children are killed, and then become just another tally mark on our lists of dead?

Blood is incalculably precious, for in it is one’s life.  It is with blood that we were redeemed.  It is by blood that we can approach the throne of God.  It is blood that allows us to share hope with others.  “It was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you…but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

One puddle of blood repaired the connection between humanity and God.  May we accept the enormity of that event, and may we love so intensely that we dedicate our lives to the spread of that sacrifice.  May we do our best to spread peace wherever we go, for, as an ancient proverb hums, “Man’s skin has many colors, but underneath all his blood is red.”  We are all kin.  May we, being made new in our inner beings, spark a revolution of hope instead of hate, brotherhood instead of division, and faith instead of fighting.  May we move the wheels of history, and transform the future.

Infinite Love

Humans are such needy creatures.  We spend our entire lives fighting with each other so that someone else will tell us that we’re important, that we’re needed, that we’re valuable, that we’re the best.  It’s as if we have no idea who we are or why we’re here but we still need to be reassured that our existence matters, that we matter.  When other people don’t appropriately affirm us, we get offended.  How could they not see how important we are?  We set about proving to everyone that we are valuable in many ways.  Some people acquire things, some acquire knowledge or position.  Some need others to be dependent on them and some pretend like they need no one.

All of these things are able to give momentary affirmation, but when the moment fades we’re back at square one, needing someone else to tell us who we are.  We want to feel wanted.  We want to feel appreciated.  We want to feel loved.  But we can’t create those feelings by ourselves; these feelings only exist in relationship.  So, we set about trying to have community, trying to have relationship, trying to find our identities.  Sadly, all we seem to find are cheap substitutes.  Our shallowness has caused us to ration out affection and devotion, replacing things meant to be unconditional with “ifs” and “buts.”

“If you really loved me you’d have sex with me.”  “I’ll be friends with you, but only if you do this for me.”  “Don’t expect me to talk to her, she hasn’t called in three weeks!”  The list could go on endlessly.  Somehow we’ve taken things that by their very nature belong to others and made them about us.  Any rejection or affront is personal, from a refusal of a date to being cut off while driving.  It threatens our personhood and our identity.  We have a fear, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious, that we’re not good enough and that we never will be.  We cave to the demands of others because of what they might think if we said “No.”  We are constantly afraid that someone, somewhere, is not going to see us the way we think they should.  They might perhaps get a glimpse of something they don’t like and proclaim us “not good enough” by an action, a glance, or a word.

A friend made this statement:

“I am so scared I’m going to forever be good enough to f*ck
But never good enough to love.” – Beautiful

I signed her name as “Beautiful” because she is.  Not because of her appearance or her brains, though to the naked eye they might be appealing, but because she is a creation of the Almighty God.  To call her anything less would be to lie and indeed, this cannot even come close to doing her justice.  Her statement embodies one of the most deep-seated human fears – that of being only a stepping stone in another person’s need for affirmation.  You may think me wrong for having posted her words (one word, in particular).  I cannot apologize.  Sex is one of the most intimate things two persons can share.  It is also one of the things that can make a person feel most used.  There is perhaps no other action that can cause such a range of emotion and consequence.

I could reword it, though, for palatability’s sake.  “I am so scared that I am forever going to be good enough to use, but never good enough to keep.” It is a terrible thing to realize that you are the victim of someone else’s need.  What can be done about this?  How can we take our conditional expressions of love and make them unconditional?  How can we find affirmation and worth in such a broken system, made such by us, the broken?  Can we ever expect wholeness and unity with humanity?

It is almost like we are children lost in a big store.  Our parent had just been close, and we were safe, secure, and happy.  But now we’re lost, seemingly very small and insignificant, insecure because we feel alone.  Donald Miller writes, “How terrible it must feel, no longer feeling God, the ache of emptiness and the sudden and horrifying awareness of self.” We were wired for someone else to tell us who we are.  We were created to not be able to function without being connected to someone else.  That someone, of course, is God.  Tragically, that wire has been broken.  We’re just scared children, lost in a store, running around trying somehow to convince all the other scared children that we’re not as desolate and neglected as we feel, that our “parent” hasn’t forgotten us, and that we know exactly which aisle we’re on.

There is a chance, a little glimmer of hope for us lost children.  Jesus has repaired the connection between God and man.  If we would only take the step up to the outlet and plug in, we could experience wholeness, oneness, love, and devotion, all without cost, all without fear of rejection.  We no longer have to prove to the world that our “parent” hasn’t forgotten us, because He will be standing right next to us, holding our hands.  1 John 3:1 excitedly tells us “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!” We no longer need to struggle with insecurities.  We are children of the Most High, heirs to the universe, and loved and cared for by the Creator and Savior of all.

When we are plugged in, when we are told by God who we are, we no longer have to ration out love and affirmation to others.  The storehouses of God are full of these things.  We can always get more.  We can love and love freely, because love is infinite.  God is infinite and God is love.  We have an infinite supply flowing to us.  Sparing a bit of it for someone else is easy when we’re no longer afraid we’re going to run out.  We can be patient, kind, without envy, never boastful, never proud, never rude, never self-seeking, and never easily angered.  We can keep no record of wrongs done to us and never wish evil on others.  We can always protect and trust others, hope and persevere.  Before 1 Corinthians 13 tells us what love is, chapter 12 speaks in an often overlooked verse.  It reads, “And now I will show you the most excellent way” (verse 31).  We can live constantly in the most excellent way – love.

This love, this beautiful, wild, indescribable love can be ours.  We can know who we are.  Instead of something miserable or angry or sad, we can say with Emily Logan Decens, “Happiness pulses with every beat of my heart.” And it will be an infinite happiness based on an infinite love that we can infinitely share with everyone we come in contact with because it will never run out.

Because God never runs out.

Confessions, Part 1: I am Broken.

Stopping is just so difficult.

I am a very busy person.  To be sure, there are thousands, perhaps even millions of people busier than I.  But I am still a very busy person.  I am constantly caught up in twenty different things, going twenty different places, talking to twenty different people, and somehow keeping everybody involved at least marginally happy.  Sure, there are days when I have “nothing” to do, but busy is a state of mind for me, not just a way of life.  Even when I’m sitting still, my mind can be racing millions of miles an hour.  There’s always something to analyze, ponder, and worry about.

I don’t like stopping.  Stopping is dangerous.  Stopping forces me to face what I’ve been ignoring for so long while drowning myself in business.

I’m a mess.

I’ve been broken for so long that I don’t remember what it’s like to be whole.  I’ve been tired for so long that I can’t remember what it’s like to be rested.  I’ve been empty for so long that I can’t remember what it’s like to be full.  There’s no running away from it, no hiding from it, no avoiding it.  I’m just simply a mess.  I’ve got all these secret pains and aches and feelings stuffed into places where no one will see them.

Every once in a while the miserable soup bubbling somewhere in the cauldron of my heart gets a little too hot.  Every once in a while there’s a blip on the radar, an incident that seems trivial, or a desperate word or two that escapes unawares.  There are days when I don’t want to be nice.  There are days when I’m sick of myself.  There are days when I have nothing to say, and days when my brain is so full it gives me a headache.  There are days when I don’t want to pray, think, or smile.
There are days when I don’t want to believe.

Not in God.

Not in anything.

On those days, it’s hard to be busy.  Obligations feel like chores and the tiniest trifle feels like a problem of monstrous proportions.  On those days, I just want to take my keys and drive somewhere far away, where nobody knows me and nothing is familiar.  The only issue is that I’d have to take myself with me.  It’s hard to run away from the problem when the problem is inside of you.

Salvation has become such an eternal concept in today’s church.  Everything is based on heaven, hell, and our respective places in them.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe salvation has an eternal aspect and determines our entrance into heaven or hell, but there’s one tiny problem.  On those days, I don’t care about eternity.  I don’t need a God for after I die.

I need a God for now.

I need a hope for now.

I need a healing for now.

Sure, much greater things will come in the future.

But now, right now, I need help.

It’s funny how a lot of Christian self-help books tell us to pray and trust and such and that things “will get better.”  It implies the future.  It’s just that a lot of times we don’t need things to get better at some point in the future; we need them better now.  We need peace now, love now, and above all else, faith now.

Luke 8:43-48 recounts the story of a woman who had been plagued for twelve years with disease.  After she touches the tassel of Jesus’ garment, gets found out, and casts herself at His feet, Jesus tells her, “Go in peace.”  The Hebrew word for “peace” is shalom. Our Western understanding of peace is usually the absence of conflict.  Ancient rabbis would not have limited shalom to this.  The shalom of God is the presence of the goodness of God.  It is wholeness, completeness, and oneness.  It is not simply the absence of conflict; it is the presence of an overwhelming love so powerful that it transforms the person enveloped by it.  It is not just a momentary peace.  It is an infinite peace, because it is an attribute of God, and God is infinite.  Philippians 4:7 speaks of a “peace that transcends all understanding.”  This is shalom.

When Jesus told the woman to “Go in peace,” He was really telling her to go in the whole and complete goodness of God that was transforming every aspect of her being.  There’s another word in that short phrase that catches my attention – “in.”  Jesus tells her to “Go in peace.”  He does not tell her to wait for peace, pray for peace, hope for peace, or work for peace.  He tells her to go in the realization of a peace that’s already there.  She goes, enveloped in God’s person.

That’s what I need.  I need God to be a person.  I need God to have ears when I want to scream, a shoulder when I want to cry, a hand to hang onto when I trip, and lips to kiss my boo-boos.

I so appreciate a statement made by Rob Bell – “It is possible to be a good Christian and go to church services and sing the right songs and jump through the right hoops and never let Jesus heal your soul.”

This is a confession.  I am a mess.  I am tired, empty, and broken.  I have not always forgiven, and I have not always repented.  Sometimes, I can barely hang on, and sometimes I climb over people.  I do not have all the answers, but I pretend I know it all.  I cannot exist alone, but I still keep people at a distance.  Very often I do not love.

Yet all of that is okay.  God is a person; He’s a God of now.  And now, right now, the personal God of now has His arms around me, His heartbeat next to my ear, and His lips kissing my boo-boos.

I’ve learned that a lot of people give up.  Anyone can quit.  Quitting is easy.

But I don’t want to quit.  In fact, I can’t wait for the next moment, because God is already there.  This may seem too raw, too honest.  I’m okay with that.  Being broken is beautiful.

Stopping is difficult.  I beg you, though, to stop.  To assess, to confess, and to allow the overwhelming shalom of God to wrap you up.  It’s an exiting place to be.

I’m excited, at least.

 

Because Jesus is healing my soul.