To those who are not celebrating the new year.

During the morning service last Sunday at my home church Jubilee Community Church in St. Louis, I heard cries coming from the foyer.  A dear woman and faithful Christian – Ms. Carol – had just been told that her son Andre had been killed.

Death is strange.  It leaves a raw wound for those who knew the one who died.  It leaves a nausea and anger even in those who did not know the victim personally.  Death causes a particularly visceral reaction when involving the lives of the young.  It feels even more unnatural and unfair.  A life cut short.

To the young who died this year: you are missed.  To the parents, particularly the mothers, who outlived their children: my heart aches for you.

A few on my mind:

• Andre Harris, son of Carol.  Andre, we’ve never met, but your mom is simply beautiful.  She exudes Jesus’ love.  You are missed.
• Sherrell Smith, son of Valerie.  Sherrell, I loved watching you grow up.  You always had a ready smile and kind disposition.  Your Jubilee family is so proud of you.  You are missed.
• Troy Lee, son of Diane.  Troy, I’ll always remember playing “mafia” in youth group, acting in church plays, how you always greeted me with hug and hello.  I was shaking when I heard the news of your car accident.  You are so loved: your sister, your cousins, your church family.  You are missed. 
• David Alan Gregory, son of Kaite.  David, I never met you, but your parents loved you dearly.  For nine months, they created room in their hearts and lives to welcome you.  While visiting your parents in Lima, Peru, I saw your bedroom; it expectantly awaited your arrival with books to read to you, adorable clothes to dress you, and so much love in every nook.  You came only for a day.  You are missed. 
• The twenty children of Sandy Hook, beloved sons and daughters of many parents.  Dear children, you remind me to treasure the children that I know.  You were simultaneously innocents who are curious about the world and trust others with welcoming smiles while also being deviants who pinch their siblings and bully one another.  In all your beauties and imperfections, you are loved and sorely missed.
• The five hundred murdered in Chicago this year, beloved sons and daughters of many parents.  Dear victims, my heart breaks for you.  Although all of these premature deaths can be attributed to the abasement of humanity and evil of sin, yours perhaps hits me the hardest.  The historical sins of racism and economic injustice that create concentrated poverty and isolated desperation are paired with the continued societal sins of apathy and fear.  Your death pains me the most because no one seemed to care.  In your infancy, you learned not to trust.  In your childhood, you fought to survive.  Forgive us.  We failed, continue to fail, and will fail to love.  You are beautiful and broken.  You are missed. 

There's a grief that can't be spoken,

There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables,
now my friends are dead and gone.

- Les Miserables

I could write a whole book on this.  Pain.  Untimely death.  Grief.  I could also write a whole book on the incarnation: Christ fully entering our pain, knowing a grief greater than we could endure, and finally ripping the fear out of death.

But now is not the time or place for that book.

Instead, a few concluding thoughts...

For those in mourning: may the richness of Scripture fill your being.  Psalms, Lamentation, and Isaiah have been particularly meaningful to me (Psalm 9-13, 31; Lamentation 3-5; Isaiah 42, 59-61).

Death is not absolute.  When reading C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters this past fall, I was shocked by the following perspective on time and life on earth:

[For those unfamiliar with The Screwtape Letters, each chapter is written as a letter from a more experienced devil to his apprentice.  Hence, “the Enemy” is referring to God.]

“How valuable time is to us may be gauged by the fact that the Enemy allows us so little of it.  The majority of the human race dies in infancy; of the survivors, a good many die in youth.  It is obvious that to Him human birth is importantly chiefly as the qualification for human death, and death solely as the gate to that other kind of life.  We are allowed to work on a selected minority of the race, for what humans call a ‘normal life’ is the exception.  Apparently He wants some – but only a very few – of the human animals with which He is peopling Heaven to have had the experience of resisting us through an earthly life of sixty or seventy years.  Well, there is our opportunity.  The smaller it is, the better we must use it.  Whatever you do, keep your [human] patient as safe as you possibly can.”

May we reorient ourselves toward Christ moment by moment, living more fully in freedom on this earth, while eagerly awaiting the second coming of Christ (or our own death, whichever comes first – although the second coming will free all creation!) and the glory of finally dropping the heavy chains of sin, being fully present with the One who makes us collapse into a trembling heap, overcome with His Other-ness, sheer holiness, while simultaneously being moved to ridiculous dancing and singing at this One’s pure love and goodness.*

Come, Lord Jesus.

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*Pardon the run-on sentence.  Got too excited.

Memories and Changing Seasons

The first crisp days of fall are upon us.  This morning, I felt chilled for the first time in a long while.  As the weather shifts from sweaty days to crisp mornings and the leaves change color, I also consider different seasons of life.

Photographs on my desk remind me of these changing seasons. 

One collage reminds me a grand road trip two summers ago to Prince Edward Island with two dear high school friends.  The memories roll over each other: line dancing with PEI locals, discovering a rope swing while driving through a small Vermont town and spontaneously jumping into the creek, meeting a Canadian who invited us to his show at a bar, embarrassing myself by ordering a “coke and rum” instead of a “rum and coke” (is that how you Americans say it? ...nope, just Christy), quoting Anne of Green Gables throughout the ten day trip, swimming off the rocky coast of Maine, wanting to become Amish after visiting Lancaster County, and so many other dear moments.

Another photograph is from my graduation at Wheaton.  My friend Ryn and I smile amidst crowds of blue graduation robes: celebrating four splendid years together, grieving the loss of life as we knew it, and unsure of what would come next.  She was headed to New Hampshire; I to HoneyRock for the summer, then St. Louis.  Little did we know that a year and a half later, we would be roommates in Wheaton and closer in friendship than we’d ever been.

One picture features my family at Ben and Trisha’s wedding last October.  Trisha had recently returned from a year in Jordan and would soon be adjusting to life in St. Louis.  Ben was excited at her return and continuing to deepen friendships and embrace life in St. Louis.  Aaron is still immersed in life at Wheaton, playing trumpet to his heart’s content (perhaps even more than that).  Caleb’s football injury has seemed to heal and now he’s back to playing a sport he loves, and he continues to develop as a leader among his high school peers.  My parents had just given their first foster baby back to his biological parents; all of us felt a void without his adoring bright blue eyes and contagious squeals of laughter.  In the photo, we’re glowing with joy, excited to welcome a new member to our family.  At one point during the wedding ceremony, I realized that I had merely been considering Ben and Trisha’s wedding as a formality for adopting Trisha into our family and not as the two of them starting marriage together.  I still like to consider her first as my sister, and second as my brother’s wife... perhaps I ought to shift my way of thinking.

The final photo on my desk is the most recent, taken last week.  This Polaroid showcases Sunday night girls’ club: I adore these squirming 3-8 year olds with their budding personalities and inquisitive natures.  The photo captures the beauty of eleven girls (five Burmese, four Burundi, and two Mexican).  I’m fairly certain that these girls teach me more than I teach them.  They remind me of the beauty of the global Church, different expressions of our life-giving Father.  As they readily give hugs, hold my hand, and sit in my lap, they teach me to welcome others with open arms.  They also remind me to question what I rarely consider (Why do we pray before we eat?  Why should we share markers?  Why should I be friends with kids that aren’t like me or don’t speak my language?  Why do people do bad things?  Why can’t I stand on the table?  Why did God create the earth?).

Different friends and family, significant moments in life, beautiful memories attached to the photographs.  Life ebbs and flows.  Through it all, I pray that slowly, surely God will continue to draw me closer and that I may further understand my joys and anxieties when placed in His reassuring hands.

My life is not a Disney movie. bummer. (maybe.)

And then he’ll swoop in on a white horse, simultaneously eradicating the world’s problems and my own, so that we can spend the rest of our lives in a charming home with darling children in our little Shire, reading books and gardening.

I’ve always had an active imagination.  Although the story shifts and sways (not always my tall, dark, handsome knight-in-shining-armor singing a love ballad while riding his trusty white steed... sometimes, he pedals into my world on a tandem bicycle, then we ride into the city at sunset and tango at a jazz club...and other times, it’s just a big, red easy button for life’s little emergencies), regardless of the form of my deliverer, I often yearn to be rescued.  I want to be rescued from my loneliness, rescued from my boredom, rescued from my apathy, rescued from my inability to sprout wings and fly, rescued from awkward moments, and rescued from my failure to set the whole world aright.

I often get lost in Christy's microcosm of reality and miss out on real life.  Christy's microcosm: Disney movie.  Real reality: our good God constantly taking our deep-seated issues and quick-fix solutions and uprooting them (often painfully), so that little seeds of simple trust and utter love can sprout into abundant freedom, and we can welcome others into that reality.  It’s not quite as glamorous, but it is good.*

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*These thoughts may have been inspired by the following quote, from Shauna Niequist’s Bittersweet (thanks goes to my roommate Ryn for sharing this with me):

"I was miserable because I lost touch with the heart of the story, the part where life always comes from death. I love the life part, and I always try to skip over that pesky death part. I believe that God is making all things new. I believe that Christ overcame death and that pattern is apparent all through life and history. I believe that suffering is part of the narrative and that nothing really good gets built when everything is easy. I believe that loss and emptiness and confusion often give way to new fullness and wisdom. But for a long season, I forgot all of those things. I didn't stop believing in God. It wasn't a crisis of faith. I had failed to live with hope and courage and live instead a long season of whining, self-indulgence, and fear. I'm able to see now that what made that season feel so terrible to me were not the changes. What made that season feel so terrible is that I lost track of some of the crucial beliefs and practices every Christian must carry. Looking back now, I can see that it was more than anything a failure to believe in the story of who God is and what he is doing in this world. Instead of living that story - one of sacrifice and purpose and character - I began to live a much smaller story, and that story was only about me. I wanted an answer, a time line, and a map. I didn't want to have to trust God or anything I couldn't see. Even while I prayed fervently, even when I sat in church and begged for God to direct my life, those things didn't have a chance to transform me, because under those actions and intentions was a rocky layer of faithlessness, fear and selfishness. If I'm honest, I prayed the way you order breakfast from a short-order cook. This is what I want. Period. This is what I want. Aren't you getting this? I didn't pray for God's will to be done in my life, or, at any rate, I didn't mean it. I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped in significant ways. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of trying to learn about patience or anything else for that matter. I couldn't make peace with uncertainty - but there is nothing in the biblical narrative that tells us certainty is part of the deal."

Amusing Ourselves to Death

I love reading.  In middle school, I was often “caught” reading a book when I should’ve been doing schoolwork.  Reading and eating marshmallows were probably the two most common reasons that I got in trouble (somehow my sweet tooth and the only-eating-healthy-snacks-between-meals family rule didn’t seem to get along).  I still have quite the sweet tooth, though dark chocolate seems to be its preferred mode of expression these days, and I’ve also retained an insatiable appetite for reading.

Recently, I read a book about reading.  (Yeah, you might want to re-read that sentence.)

More specifically, Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business describes the cultural shift from typography to show business.  Typography refers to a print-based culture; in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, that described the United States.  This was an era in which political debates were untelevised and easily lasted six or seven hours, usually with a break for everyone to go home and eat dinner.  Postman argues that we have become an age of show business, an era of entertainment.  This is an era in which greater and greater stimulation has become required to avoid boredom.  In fact, boredom itself is a recent phenomenon.

In a prophetic voice circa 1985 (pre-cell phones, social media, GPS, iPads, etc.), Postman critiques our new era of show business.  Unlike other critics, his objection to television (and other forms of media) is not one of content; the television certainly contains unwholesome material, but books can as well.  Instead, his critique is one of form.  Form affects what and how content can be addressed and what response is demanded of the partaker.  For example, 30-second commercials.  If you can reasonably convince me to buy your product in 30 seconds, why would I want it?

For the full story, consult the book. 

For a fascinating tangent, the following is Postman's definition of intelligence within a print-based culture.  That is, what an “intelligent” reader is doing as (s)he reads:

“Although the general character of print-intelligence would be known to anyone who would be reading this book, you may arrive at a reasonably detailed definition of it by simply considering what is demanded of you as you read this book.  You are required, first of all, to remain more or less immobile for a fairly long time.  If you cannot do this (with this or any other book), our culture may label you as anything from hyperkinetic to undisciplined; in any case, as suffering from some sort of intellectual deficiency.  The printing press makes rather stringent demands on our bodies as well as our minds.  Controlling your body is, however, only a minimal requirement.  You must also have learned to pay no attention to the shapes of the letters on the page.  You must see through them, so to speak, so that you can go directly to the meanings of the words they form.  If you are preoccupied with the shapes of the letters, you will be an intolerably inefficient reader, likely to be thought stupid.  If you have learned how to get to meanings without aesthetic distraction, you are required to assume an attitude of detachment and objectivity.  This includes your bringing to the task what Bertrand Russell called an ‘immunity to eloquence,’ meaning that you are able to distinguish between the sensuous pleasure, or charm, or ingratiating tone (if such there be) of the words, and the logic of their argument.  But at the same time, you must be able to tell from the tone of the language what is the author’s attitude toward the subject and toward the reader.  You must, in other words, know the difference between a joke and an argument.  And in judging the quality of an argument, you must be able to do several things at once, including delaying a verdict until the entire argument is finished, holding in mind questions until you have determined where, when or if the text answers them, and bringing to bear on the text all of your relevant experience as a counterargument to what is being proposed.  You must also be able to withhold those parts of your knowledge and experience which, in fact, do not have a bearing on the argument.  And in preparing yourself to do all of this, you must have divested yourself of the belief that words are magical and, above all, have learned to negotiate the world of abstractions, for there are very few phrases and sentences in this book that would require you to call forth concrete images.  In print-culture, we are apt to say of people who are not intelligent that we must ‘draw them pictures’ so that they may understand.  Intelligence implies that one can dwell comfortably without pictures, in a field of concepts and generalizations....To be able to do all of these things, and more, constitutes a primary definition of intelligence in a culture whose notions of truth are organized around the printed culture.” (25-26)

I love this book.  Read it.  It will change the way you understand our society.

Pruitt-Igoe

In St. Louis, after exiting highway 40, you’ll head north for two miles on Jefferson Avenue before turning onto my street, Hebert. 

I love driving on Jefferson.  Its broad lanes, formerly used by trolley cars, have minimal traffic.  On that two mile stretch, there are a few schools, a police station, gas station, a nightclub (quite busy on the weekends, judging from the plethora of cars parked outside), a fire station, old warehouses, and a small forest.  Yes, a small forest. 

I’ve driven along that stretch countless times.  Growing up, I never really considered the oddity of a forest along Jefferson.  There were many other abandoned lots, but the grass was mowed regularly.  None of them had wild-growing trees.  Why was there a small forest only three miles from downtown St. Louis?

I recently learned why.

It was the former site of Pruitt-Igoe.  For those unfamiliar with urban sociology or St. Louis history, Pruitt-Igoe was perhaps the most infamous housing project in the United States.  In the 57 acres of now-wild forestry, there once were 33 high-rise apartment buildings with a total of 2,870 apartments.  Completed in 1955, Pruitt-Igoe lasted only two decades before it was deemed an utter crime-infested disaster.  Demolition began in 1971, and the site was entirely cleared by 1976.  The forest had been growing for almost twenty years by the time my family arrived to Hebert Street in 1994.

How did this initially-optimistic public housing project seem to fail so quickly?  That is the subject of the documentary “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth.”  Here’s the trailer:

I won’t spoil the documentary for you... it's a fascinating glimpse at the intersection of good ideas, poor planning, unfortunate politics, racism, and sociological trends.  (If you’re a St. Louis resident, you can find it at the public library.  If you’re not, well, I’m not sure.  You can order the movie online or check for screenings in your area.)

One of my favorite themes of the film is the humanity of the residents.  Yes, public housing is generally designed for the poor.  Yes, poor neighborhoods often have higher rates of crime, high school dropouts, prostitution, etc. Yes, I’d be scared to walk some of the streets in St. Louis in the dark.  Yes, there’s a culture of poverty that clashes with some middle class values.  (And some middle class values clash with upper class values.  There’s an excellent book called Bridges Out of Poverty by Ruby K. Payne that discusses these class differences, designed as a resource for social workers, but offers helpful insights for anyone.  Highly recommend it.)  But, poor people are just people.  People who want the best for their children; people who need to eat and sleep, to work and play; people who hurt each other; people who love each other.  The next time you cringe at someone... whether it’s because of that person’s (or institution’s) words, appearance or actions... reconsider their humanity.

Strengthen Your Weak Knees: Running a Half-Marathon

I’ve never been a dedicated athlete.  A season of tennis, two of lacrosse, and a sprinkling of beach volleyball, ultimate frisbee, yoga, biking, and a few others sum up my athletic experience.  Quite diverse.  Very sporatic.  (Similar to the rest of my life, I suppose.)

Although I enjoy the adrenaline rush of scoring a lacrosse goal or slamming an opponent’s frisbee to the ground, I usually play sports for the social component.

Thus, when my sister-in-law suggested that our whole family run a half-marathon, I thought, you’re insane.  Why would anyone spend countless hours on an athletic endeavor with no inherent social interaction and no required hand-eye coordination?  But, I like my sister-in-law, and I like a challenge (and I figured bragging rights wouldn’t hurt either).  So, I agreed.

Surprisingly, training for a half-marathon gave me a new perspective on the Christian life.  I’d always heard athletic parallels to the journey of a Christian (Phil. 2:16; 1 Cor. 10:24-27; 2 Tim. 2:5), but I didn’t really understand.  (Similarly, I often miss the significance of the agrarian biblical metaphors since I’m not a farmer.  Maybe that will be next on my bucket list...)

With that long introduction, here begins the story...

The half-marathon would take place in St. Louis on April 15, 2012.  Thus, I began training in January.  My initial 3-mile runs (“jogs,” that is) were completed with much difficulty.  Not only was it physically challenging for my legs to keep running and my lungs to keep breathing for three whole miles, but it was also my mental limit.  3 miles = 27 laps around Wheaton’s indoor track.  27 laps = forever.  I had lost my iPod over Christmas, so it was just me and the track.  Around.  And around.  And around.  Ad nauseum.  I tried to pray, attempted memorizing Scripture... but my mental ability seemed inversely related with my physical movements.  It took most of my willpower simply to put one foot in front of the other.

Yet, slowly but surely, my jogs continued, and my mileage grew.  I can’t say it became easier because each week presented a new challenge of increasing mileage.  Nor can I say that I was steadfast in my training.  I took a two-week hiatus, partially due to a brief illness and partially due to my own laziness/apathy.  Needless to say, it was harder to jump back into my training after a significant absence.

As a general trend though, I noticed progress.  I was amazed one day at how naturally my body ran three miles.  What was formerly my mental and physical limit now came quite easily, almost effortlessly.

Encouragement played a significant role in my training, too.  Back in St. Louis, almost my entire family was training.  Although I couldn’t physically run with them, we ran together in solidarity.  We put one foot in front of the other, headed toward the same goal.  I also gleaned from the wisdom of more experienced runners: how to stretch well and improve my running form, what to eat and drink, and how to care for my body.  Others were eager to answer my naive questions and pass along advice.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, people ran alongside of me.  Several of my friends, who were much faster runners, slowed their pace to keep me company.  Though I usually jogged shorter mileage on my own, I loved the added encouragement of someone else’s presence right next to me on my weekly longer runs, both of us putting one foot in front of the other.  Sometimes we talked; sometimes we listened to separate soundtracks on our respective iPods (my generous roommate often lent me her iPod for my longer runs); sometimes we ran in silence.  But it was enough to know that someone was right there with me.

As January melted into February, then into March, and finally April, my mind continued to fixate on one goal: complete 13.1 miles before the half-marathon course closes and St. Louis streets reopen for traffic.  I wasn’t too concerned with my time: less than three hours sounded reasonable.  My training (and racing) philosophy was to complete the mileage and avoid injury.

On April 15, with a few butterflies jittering in my stomach and the palpable excitement of 15,000 fellow runners, I started jogging.  I ran with my sister-in-law’s sister (Trisha’s sister Sarah).  She helped me keep a steady pace, not becoming overzealous in the fervor of the race.  We ran consistently, walking only at the water breaks every couple miles.

The race itself seemed to embody many themes of my training: one foot after the other with small encouragements along the way.

My older brother cheered for us at miles 2 and 4.  At mile 7 on a long uphill stretch (who knew St. Louis had hills?), we saw my parents and baby foster brother Adrien, who gave me a high-five.  By mile 8, my body was tired, but we were soon given “goo” packets for extra fuel.  My sister-in-law’s family cheered us on at mile 10, and the sugar rush from the “goo” kicked in.  I told my running buddy Sarah that I’d meet her at the finish line, and I took off.

As others slowed down and began to look exhausted, stride after stride propelled me forward.  I felt like those “who wait for the Lord [and] renew their strength; [who] mount up with wings like eagles; [who] run and [are not] weary” (Isaiah 40:31).

Before I get too hasty in my application, let’s not forget the previous verse: “even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men stumble exhausted.”  At mile 12, my sugar high had crashed.  I’m not sure who designs these half-marathon courses, but some guilty party put the last mile on a hill.  Other runners slowed to a walk. 

I, too, was physically and mentally exhausted.

I started to replay the last few months of training in my mind.  One foot in front of the other.  Keep going.  Don’t stop.  Not terribly profound thoughts, but enough to keep me going.  As I drew closer, everything within me begged to walk for the last few hundred yards.  Then I heard a familiar voice yell, “Go, Christy!”

I recognized my mom in the crowd, then heard my brother and sister-in-law cheering next to her.  Somehow, my feet picked up speed and started sprinting towards the end.  I envisioned my roommate Ryn, who, at the end of one of our long runs, had proudly broadcasted my finish to any tree or bird that cared to listen.  That
image and the distance cheers of my family carried me across the actual finish line.

Completed the mileage.  No injuries.  In significantly less than three hours (2:33:24).  Mission accomplished.

Although I’m not currently planning my next half-marathon, nor have I become a die-hard runner, I continue to learn about perseverance/faithfulness (one foot in front of the other toward the goal) and encouragement (from friends, mentors, the local and global church, and God himself).

Hebrews 12. Sums it up much better than I can.  Read it.  (It’s also where I found this blog title.)

Never Mind the Width

Pervasive distractions.  

Even as I write these words, there’s the Seattle coffeehouse clamor of chill tunes, clanking dishes, and chatty customers in the background and the internet world of creative ideas on pinterest, friends’ wedding pictures on facebook, and more blogs than I have time to read in the foreground.  Since the start of my summer break, I’ve completed entire seasons of Friends, Downton Abbey, and Gilmore Girls.  Confession: out of curiosity, I created an eHarmony profile last week and have spent several hours looking at profiles (the genius of eHarmony: you can create a profile and check out others’ profiles free of charge, but to contact anyone or respond to someone’s message, you have to buy a membership... they get you hooked on possibilities, and the next thing you know, you’re signing up!).*

As you inwardly mock my distractions (no, it’s ok; go ahead and laugh), consider your own.  Distractions are not inherently wrong (though my eHarmony profile should probably just be deleted), but they inherently distract.  It’s easy to become completely absorbed in them for long periods of time.

So, what are these distractions distracting us from?  On this point, I will defer to Sam Wells' sermon from a service at Duke University Chapel.  Not only does he have a splendid British accent, but his words also carry profound meaning.  This is one of the best sermons I've ever heard.  Lest you be intimidated by the 1:25:47 time shown, the sermon is less than 25 minutes.  It begins at 38:00.  Happy listening.

For the written text: http://chapel-archives.oit.duke.edu/documents/Nov27NeverMindtheWidth.pdf
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*For the curious, I have not bought an eHarmony membership.  In lieu of an online dating service, feel free to play matchmaker and set me up on blind (or not-so-blind) dates.  Haha.  Oh, dear.  Do not abuse this privilege.

Living Faithfully

After reading dozens (perhaps hundreds) of college application essays this past year, I was curious of what my Admissions Counselor self would think of my high school self.  So, I re-read my college application essays.  Wow, did I have life figured out (and wrote a pretty decent essay, if I do say so myself)!

After graduating from Wheaton College, I planned to move into the city (probably St. Louis or Chicago) and teach at some struggling public school (or perhaps Scholar’s Academy).  I would eradicate illiteracy single-handedly and inculcate a love for learning in my students.  I would equip future businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, etc., who would return to the northside of St. Louis after college and rebuild our neighborhood.  I’m a dreamer, and I dreamed big.

...and then, I decided not to teach.  And I moved back to Wheaton.

At a time when I can move anywhere in the world, why would I move to the quintessential suburb of Wheaton?  The short answer is that God plopped a job in my lap, and I would’ve been an idiot not to take it.  (And I do love my job.)  However, I still despised the suburbs.  As my roommates can attest, I ranted and raved.  Part of one such rant can be found here.  Yet, I had committed to my job for at least two years, so my external circumstances were defined.  The lingering question was: what would define my internal posture?  When I named my blog (“Inner Urban, Outer Suburban - Living Faithfully”) last December, I wanted the title to remind me of an internal posture that I seek to cultivate: faithfulness.

Regardless of externalities (location, church, friends, job, family, relationship status, whatever), I am called to live faithfully within those boundaries.  Every day, every moment, I want to give up a little bit more of my self-centered self (a bit redundant, eh?) and partake in a little bit more of the Giver of abundant life.

Are You Dating Yet?

Confession:  I’m reading a dating book. 

Disclaimer: I got it at a white elephant exchange. 

But, I am actually reading it.  And I like it.  In addition to offering insight into dating relationships, the book also addresses relationships in general.  It’s called Boundaries in Dating by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.  In the third chapter, after discussing the importance of surrendering the relationship to God, Cloud and Townsend continue:

“The alternative to surrender in dating is idolatry.  Though dating is a good thing, we can commit idolatry by demanding that dating bring us the love, fulfillment, or desire we want without allowing God to point the way.  Dating brings up powerful emotions and needs, and so idolatry can become a reality” (51).

So true.  Dating, marriage, friendship, community... relationships with people easily become my idols.  And I’m not even dating anybody.  But I often think, oh, if I only was dating this person or hung out more with that friend or joined this group of people, then I would feel less lonely.

The evangelical subculture doesn’t help much.  Singles can be seen as not-yet-married persons.  People often ask if there’s a man in my life.  Nope.  That’s my one-word response; I don’t have much else to say on the topic.  I’m single now and may be forever.  I don’t ask my married friends if their marital status has changed (and I pray that it won’t), but I’m often asked if my single status has changed.  There’s almost an assumption that it should change.  If you’re an awesome person, then someone will be attracted to that awesomeness and marry you.¹  Maybe.  Or, maybe you can use that awesomeness to draw others’ attention toward the giver of that awesomeness (which Christian married persons can do as well) and invest in His people. 

I know that most who ask if I’m dating someone are asking because they care about me and what’s going on in my life, and it’s not the only topic we discuss.  However, it does seem to reoccur terribly often and is almost the default question when we can’t think of anything else to ask.  We can easily become obsessed with marriage and romantic relationships. 

Understandably, our U.S. pop culture is obsessed with sensuality, and we (well, most of the people who are reading this blog) live in that culture; thus, we often christianize sensuality into its biblically-approved context of marriage.  Since life is meaningless without sex and romantic passion, let’s all get married asap so that we don’t miss out!  Momentarily ignoring my mockery, this is somewhat biblical: ^“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.  But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9).  But, as any married person knows, marriage involves more than sex.  Yet I often forget this.  I want to be known, to be loved.  Sex is intimate.  Therefore, I often idolize sex (within marriage) as the key to being known and loved.  However, sex (and by extension, other expressions of intimacy and community) is not about fulfilling my needs.  It’s about being fully present for the other.  For sex in particular,

Intimacy depends on the willingness to give of the self, to place oneself in the hands of another, to be vulnerable, even if that means we may be hurt... jealousy is the emotion required by our willingness to love another at all.  Indeed, I suspect that part of the reason the church has always assumed that marriage is a reality that is prior to love is that genuine love is so capable of destruction that we need a structure to sustain us through the pain and joy of it.  At least one reason for sex being limited to marriage... is that marriage provides the context for us to have sex, with its often compromising personal conditions, with the confidence that what the other knows about us will not be used to hurt us (A Community of Character, 181).

For the single person, we are also called to be fully present for the other and not shy away from the demands of intimacy.  Celibacy is not about independence.  Singleness is not about forgoing responsibility and fleeing the demands of community.  No, all Christians are dependent upon others, and ultimately, dependent upon God.

We must not confuse creature and Creator.  I must flee from thoughts that center around myself.  Marriage exists for my needs to be met.  Sex happens so that I can feel known and loved.  Flirting with that cute guy makes me feel desirable.  Flee.  Flee.  Flee.

Instead, knowing God and who I am in relationship to Him must be the core of my identity.

At this point, I must apologize to all married and single persons reading this.  I do not wish to make anyone feel guilty for asking me if I’m dating someone.  By all means, feel free to ask!  Chances are, if I’m actually dating someone, you will have probably already heard about it through the grapevine or I may actually mention it myself since it’s a reasonable life change to mention to someone who cared about me.  But I’m also ok with making you feel a little guilty for expecting all single people to get married or inadvertently suggesting a superiority of marriage over singleness. Sometimes, marriage seems viewed as a sign of adulthood, implying a deficiency in those that never marry or perhaps marry later in life.

“Marriage is not the default.  Neither is singleness.”²  Both are beautiful expressions of the Christian life.

________________________________________________________________________

¹A variation on this message has also been perverted to promote abstinence.  If you save sex for marriage, then you’re both guaranteed eventually to get married and to have mind-blowing sex that will be worth the wait.  Funny how we use sex to sell abstinence.  For more perspective on this topic, check out Dr. Christine Gardner’s book Making Chastity Sexy: the Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns.  (She’s a Wheaton communications professor.)

²Dr. George Kalantzis.  Dr. K is a Wheaton Bible & theology professor who led a breakfast club last year with me and a handful of others... perhaps the highlight of my senior year.  We read Stanley Hauerwas’ A Community of Character, which quickly found a home in my favorite books’ list and may poke its head into future blog posts.

Death by Suburb

In the city, I’ve witnessed a drive-by shooting in broad daylight.  I’ve seen someone hurl his body through my neighbor’s glass window for no apparent reason.  I’ve had friends robbed at gunpoint.

Yet I’m terrified of living in the suburbs.

I’m terrified of living a complacent life.  I’m terrified of not connecting with God because I’m not connected with those who have seemingly been abandoned by all but God.  I’m terrified of perfect pretenses.  I’m terrified of striving for success as the rest of the (even Christian) world sees it.  I’m terrified of living for myself.

Thus, when I found this book, I knew I had to read it.  The book’s title was enough to capture my attention: Death by Suburb, How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul.

The author, David L. Goetz, grew up on a farm, but eventually found himself a resident in good ol’ Wheaton, Illinois.  In the book, Goetz focuses on eight suburban “environmental toxins” and eight spiritual practices that help counteract those toxins. 

Prior to reading this book, I had an inkling that it might be possible both to be a Christian and to live in suburbia, but I had no idea what that looked like.  Since I’m currently committed to living in the suburbs for at least the next year and a half, the book has been wonderfully practical.  The suburbs are toxic.  So is the city, in different ways.  In fact, every piece of our cosmos is in bondage to sin.  Thus, the answer is not necessarily to flee from the environment (though sometimes that is necessary, in order to see the environment for what it truly is; also, some environments are too toxic for some individuals... i.e. a recovering alcoholic at a bar or a suburban mom at a beauty parlor.  And no, it’s not sinful to have a pedicure or a beer.  But, if you have to have it, it is controlling you.  In psychology, we call those things addictions.  In Christian-speak, idols.).  Instead of running away, we must learn how to live faithfully within that environment.

In chapter six, Goetz addresses the environmental toxin of “I need to make a difference with my life.”  This toxin does not necessarily refer to the young person who sincerely wants to serve Christ; instead, it refers to a “shirker.”  Shirkers are “religious folk who inadvertently disengage from the suffering of the world and who unwittingly collect to themselves every available religious experience” (100).

Pardon the length of this quote, but I found myself quite resonating with the prototype of Shirker Mom:

The Shirker Life, ultimately, is a life of religious consumption – even the act of service – organized around life stages.

Take Shirker Mom, for example, who in midlife finds herself with more time for herself now that her last child has gone off to college.  She wants her Shirker Husband to join her in switching churches, to one that uses words like sacrament and Eucharist instead of Lord’s Supper, which their current “Bible-believing” congregation uses.  She has been feeling spiritually empty for some time and feels the need for a little more mystery and symbolism in worship on Sunday mornings.

Shirker Mom can remember the first time she “accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior”: she was six and raised her hand on the final day of vacation Bible school.  A good Shirker Girl, she participated in and became a leader in the active junior high and senior high group at her Shirker Church.  The teen mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico, where the team used homemade puppets to teach vacation Bible school to Mexican children, changed her life.

A bright Shirker Teen, she decided to attend a top Christian college, where she met a Shirker Boy, and after the spring of their senior year, the Shirker, believing that God had brought them together for a purpose, got married.  Shirker Husband then landed a job in finance, and by the time the Shirkers hit thirty, they had the largest house of the five couples in their small group from church.  By then the Shirker Family had expanded to two Shirker Kids.  After the kids came and with Shirker Husband traveling so much, when Shirker Mom began to feel lonely for adult relationships, she joined a ministry for other Shirker Moms with preschool children.  Shirker Mom loved the Bible study and spiritual friendships.  She became a discussion group leader for the other Shirker Moms.

When the Shirkers’ oldest, a ten-year-old, came home from school one day asking whether kissing a girl’s breasts was really making out, Shirker Mom had had enough.  No more public education.  She was also tired of textbooks that taught only evolution, and besides, the education was better at the Shirker Christian academy, wasn’t it?  Didn’t the kids also get an education in character?  Plus, her two Shirker Boys would get solid Bible teaching and attend chapel at least three times a week.  Shirker Mom was not about to leave her Shirker Kids to the sharks in the public school system.  One day, as she waited for her two boys outside the Christian academy after school in her late-model black SUV, she thanked Jesus for the blessing of a truly Christian education.  She felt so blessed.

But now that both Shirker Boys were away at a Christian college, Shirker Mom felt the need for a deeper sense of Jesus in her life.  For years she had heard about a charismatic mainline church in their community that, according to a neighbor who attended, also “preached the gospel.”  It took only one visit and she knew she had found a new spiritual home.  Her spiritually passive Shirker Husband was mostly supportive; he said he never really connected with the men in their old Shirker Church anyway.

Shirker Mom loved the new angle on God and taking the Eucharist every week. (She just loved the word Eucharist; it sounded so mysterious.)  She soaked up weekly scripture reading from the Lectionary.  It was as if everything she had been yearning for spiritually the past couple of years was met, finally in this new community.  Her Shirker Husband said he liked the fact that they could now sit anonymously in the pews, with no expectation to serve.  He always hated being an usher.  Shirker Mom missed the strong emphasis on scripture in her former Bible church, and that concerned her a bit, but she began to feel a deep sense of healing in her life.  She now leads a Bible study and is excited to see other suburban moms apply scripture to their lives.  It feels so good to be involved in something that makes a difference in people’s lives.

The flow of Shirker Religion is all one direction: toward me (or my kids).  And after my kids make it safely through high school, it’s back on me again – and my need for mystery and a sense of authenticity as I move through the often muted years of midlife and beyond.  Shirkers believe the Shirker thought leaders (preachers, Christian pundits, and theologians), who always frame the problems of the suburban world in terms of too little Bible and not enough truth.  The solutions are always more knowledge and more teaching and more education and more content.  Or it’s more mystery in worship or some other new angle.  Shirkers live, mostly, inside their heads. (109-112)

This is why I want to flee the suburbs.  I’m terrified of becoming Shirker Mom.

This is also why I hate being described as “nice”.  Teddy bears are nice.  Where do you see “nice” in the fruits of the Spirit?  (Do not confuse kindness with niceness.)  No, a Spirit-filled life is not one that should be primarily characterized as “nice”.  Ranting aside...

How do I avoid becoming Shirker Mom?

Goetz’s corresponding spiritual practice is to “pursue action without the thought of results or success” (115).

What might that look like?

Goetz again: “You obey God’s mandate to help the poor and the widows and the orphans (James 1).  You find a place to serve where no matter how many resources you leverage for the kingdom of God, you don’t see much change.  You enter into a relationship with someone of raw emotional and physical need.  No doubt there are other, more sophisticated methods to make a difference in the world (protests, political influence, financial aid).  But if you detach from the emotion and reality of the suffering of others, your soul distends.  You become like Zarathustra’s ghoulish image of an inverted cripple.  Too much of the Shirker Life causes bloating” (115).

One of the most life-giving times of my week is an hour and a half on Sunday evenings, when I get to hang out and color with about ten 3-8-year-old girls who hail from three different continents and whose names I still struggle to pronounce. 

Sometimes, I wonder if I love kids just because they love me.  What’s not to love about their hugs, honest prayers, or even the way they use me as a human jungle gym?  Last Sunday, I realized that one of the girls might perhaps be termed a compulsive liar.  That’s probably a bit extreme, but that realization suddenly made the cuteness of her innocent face... not so cute.  When I feel used or my trust is broken, if I am to continue in that relationship (with healthy boundaries), it cannot be about me or my fulfillment anymore.  It’s about loving Jesus.

Let's try this blog thing again...

Previous blog posts can be found at http://christykrumsieg.blogspot.com/.  I will re-post a few of my favorites on this blog as well.