Overwhelmed

It’s nine hours home from Wilmore. It’s not a quick kind of ride. I have the original Nano that cannot store the entirety of my music library, which in all honesty is not that extensive. I rarely update it anyway and end up listening to the same old stuff; however, this trip home led me to explore some high school era fads, namely Five Iron Frenzy. Ahhh, my ska days…another desperate attempt for me to be both cool and Christian. Charley and I sing to the top of our lungs more reminiscing and being playful than reflecting on the lyrics. Then we get to “Where the Zero meets the Fifteen.” The song narrates a tipping point moment for its author who begins to realize the gravity of desperation around him and his own incompetence to evoke lasting change. I guess I began to identify with the music because I had to start fighting back tears.

I am learning that the counselor’s chair is a hard one in which to sit. I am charged with sifting through the pieces of a lot of broken lives. My original conceptualization, during college as I first started this vocation, was one that foresaw my “saving” people from their heartaches. I was voted “most likely to ‘save’ the world” in high school after all. So far, this vision has been shattered. Instead, I find myself crawling up beside another bent-over individual searching for the missing pieces and hoping that in some small way I am a help. I found myself crying out with the singer and asking God what it is that I contribute, really? The lyrics go,

I put my face down in my hands,

water wells inside my eyes.

What do I have to give them?

Does it matter if I try?

I can't stand to see you suffer,

I try to intellectualize,

a formula to end your pain,

it doesn't work,

God knows I've tried.

I want to try and save the world,

but it never goes that way.

God I don't know what to do,

down at Colfax and Broadway.

I don’t intend to be a wet blanket; my purpose is not to be a discouragement, but rather to express this deep yearning to meet the needs of my clients. I want them to see the love of Christ in my service to them, but I also hope for them to be made whole. I don’t have the answers for them. Most of the time I’m struggling to come up with a treatment plan that is efficacious. In my friendships, it’s the same story just with a different twist. I give a very imperfect kind of love. I offer brokenness in exchange for brokenness. It is not despair that I am evoking, but rather, it is a realization that what they need does not come from me. This would be a disconcerting idea if what I was hoping for was to be a form of salvation; however, this is not mine, my family’s, my friend’s, nor my client’s hope. Our hope is not in what I have to offer anyway; it is way beyond me. The reality is that just like the author of the song, all I have to offer is “thirteen cents and a broken pen.”

Yearning

I admit it. I am a Christmas nut case. If I could put up a Christmas tree in October, I would. Something about the excitement of waiting for Christmas day truly stirs my soul. There is an electric feeling as everyone around you is decorating and preparing for all the celebrations, parties, and community events. Gingerly, I admit that I love even the cheesiest of Christmas traditions. Bring on “It’s A Wonderful Life,” “Elf,” and the twenty-four hour Christmas radio stations I say. This is not a popular perspective in seminary circles because of the march against the commercialization of Christmas, and in reality, I also agree that sometimes it feels like the Christmas story is so mixed up that one cannot distinguish between magic elves and the greatest condescension that ever occurred—God made flesh.

Growing up Southern Baptist, I had never heard the term Advent before coming to graduate school, but experiencing this practice and the rhythmic motions of the church calendar has developed a depth to my experience I had not before encountered. It has taught me that this season’s origins promote a time to sit in the anticipation of our salvation, which is culminated in the birth pains of the incarnation. And yes, we sometimes get too caught up in the commercialization, sure; but the bigger concern is without it, what do we anticipate? Not Calvary, not yet, anyway. Easter will have its day, but now, it is time to celebrate Advent.

I really enjoy the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emanuel” because in its verses it proclaims the answer to this question and truly articulates the spirit of the season. It’s somber tone does not mix well with likes of “Baby, Its Cold Outside,” but instead, it intermingles the feelings of both sadness and hope. In its verses, one can discern Advent’s true purpose—yearning. The song proclaims “Israel that mourns in lonely exile here,” which speaks to our precarious posture of knowing and practicing the new kingdom’s tenets in a world that does not except it wholly. The church are a people that proclaim hope in the midst of suffering. We declare that which has not come to its full fruition—the eschaton. And so we wait. We wait yearning and looking to the day when Christ returns and the culmination of our faith is fulfilled.

Meanwhile, this Advent season, let me encourage you to slow down and reflect. Let us anticipate and look forward to promises not yet fulfilled as Israel and all of creation once did. Let the excitement grow. Anticipate. Hope. Yearn.

Arrogance

I was talking with someone the other day about training I was attending the following day for Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). After mentioning the title of it, she instantly seemed to discount it with a flippant remark of “I hope whoever is teaching it has kids.” I instantly got defensive, as I do not have children yet my profession is working predominantly with children and parents by facilitating and promoting healthy parenting skills. I told her that hers was an ignorant perspective. Now I could go off for quite some time about this perspective because I face it quite often. By experience, I have met too many parents who were really bad at parenting to believe that it is a magical and inherent trait that comes naturally through childbirth. I do believe that the experience of the role of parent will carry lessons that will augment my therapy and further my empathy for the stresses that it carries. In truth, I was offended and spoke out of turn; and I will rest in the reality that I have been able to help many parents with troubled kids who desperately needed my assistance.

What interests me about this interchange is the measure of arrogance that comes from our rigid perspectives. I am right and they are wrong. Not only personally and professionally does this pride seem to creep into our lives, but also in our spiritual and theological perspectives. This discussion often leads to a digression into the abyss of relativism. My intention is to avoid that error. I do not purpose that absolute Truth does not exist; but rather that our grasp on it is tenuous. The nuances of a fallen creation reach out of our past and muddle our perspectives leaving us insecure and defensive. We tense at the first signs of challenge to our worldview. “How could they be a democrat! That is unChrisitian!”; “How could someone believe in Calvinism!”; or “Parenting is a skill set; stop embracing that ignorant perspective!” These come from a place of fear and insecurity; as though someone else’s non-adherence to our perspective somehow challenges our very identity.

I think that this is the key—identity. Fallibility is a difficult and unstable reality that causes us to build up our defenses with the paper mache coverings of truth (note the lower case t). We do this to protect the “truth” or reality that we create to feel secure. I really enjoy Volf’s take on this “truth” in his work Exclusion and Embrace. For Volf, truth in light of “pervasive non-innocence” is an impossible task. Neither the offended nor the offender can see from the perspective of Truth (note the big T). God alone has this perspective. If we are called to seek after Truth, then are we charged with an impossible task? In this life, I think yes. Our faith is our abiding in Christ. We hope. We must let our false coverings fall to the floor to embrace the reality of our limitations. The arrogance that we hold, to ensure the safety of our false realities, only serves to sever the relationships that we hold dear.

Apart

I had one of those dreams when you are back at high school the other night. It is a disconcerting prospect to say the least. Most of the time these consist of my having to return to take a class that is required or finding out that I have not been attending a class and there is a test I must take. Generally, dreams like this are incredibly anxiety provoking. I always wonder why these take place in my high school. I have gone to both an undergrad and graduate schools that have, academically, been much more strenuous. However, there is something about those formative years that leaves a mark.

If I were to characterize my early years with a word, it would have to be loneliness. Of course, there was the constant exertion to ‘fit in’ or be socialized; however, for me this experience was only the superficial coverings of a deeper struggle. This loneliness penetrated deep. Friendships, social acceptance, and even girlfriends seemed only to serve as a means of deferring this feeling—a distraction from the distance I felt. It never cured me. As I have matured and let go of the social pressure to be accepted, my relationships have become more satisfying, but even still, this feeling remains today. As a seminary student, I have discovered community, a deeper appreciation for scripture, and perspective on my Christian walk; but this feeling of distance shades every new experience. In my spiritual life, loneliness embarrasses me. Surely, there is some deficit or sin that causes this to exist? I recall being told once, in disclosing this shameful feeling, that it was training as a call into ministry—a ministry apart. This perspective enabled me to embrace this as a part of my vocation and calling, but if I am to be honest, loneliness continues to shade my heart no matter the coverings I choose to wear.

There it is! No real resolution or rationale to offer. This separateness is a part of me, and yet I wonder if this is not part of most everyone? If they will allow themselves to quiet their heart before God in complete nakedness without the coverings that enable our comfort and avoidance, then maybe they would discover this experience. Perhaps this is a part of the human condition that we are driven to be known without satisfaction until the eschaton? Maybe this could be why Christ promised the church that he would “be with you always” at the ascension. Why not remind the church of future glory and resurrection? Or wouldn’t the “more than conquerors” scripture reference be more appropriate here? I think that Jesus knew the very personal experience of loneliness. I must embrace this lonely feeling as a call to walk in faith and not in my feeling, no matter its pervasiveness. Perhaps this loneliness is a reminder that we confess in faith the presence of God in our isolation. While we cannot escape the long road ahead, it is a reminder that though we feel we walk it alone, in actuality, we do not.

Mourning

Pain, loss, and trauma are our reality. As a therapist, I come in contact with this daily. Woundedness is in no short supply at least in my experience; and it is the common initiation we all endure as a broken creation. To develop connections in relationship ensures this baptism of pain. With this universal reality, one would assume a level of competence in comforting those who feel its sting; however, this could not be further from the truth. It is said that “sympathy kills,” and this is truth. Nothing re-traumatizes with such acuity as much as the flippant and disconnected comments during a time of loss or pain. “God must have needed him more” or “well, you got to move on” are the platitudes that exude not only our inaptitude for comforting those stricken but also our selfishness in maintaining our own level of comfort. Those whom we can, we avoid. Those whom we can not avoid, we write off with one of these callous comments to put the distance we need between us and their pain.

Yet there is something to be shared here not avoided. We are so agitated, confused, and at a loss with how to handle the pain of another, yet this should be our central purpose as a church body. Christ was known as being “acquainted with grief” which I believe is not limited to his individual trials, but rather it includes the pain of those around him and the entirety of humanity. Are we not supposed to take on this role as his body? Mourning is a sacrament. It is a sacred practice of believers. To avoid it pushes us away from our purpose and cheapens the reality of our experience. It also undermines the very nature of Christ’s ministry that included shedding tears over Lazarus’ death, weeping over Jerusalem’s state, and enduring the sorrow of Gethsemane. We are called to mourn.

Recently, it seems that pain has been introduced to my friends and family—losses that cut to the core of our family or community’s identity. It seems we are faced with the choices of avoidant comfort or mutual sorrow. For me, I embrace sharing this pain with them, because one cannot force hope or faith especially in light of acute pain. The others in our lives must stand beside us and take on that role. We can have hope in the light of our loved one’s hopelessness; we can have faith when our friends cannot believe that God is good; we can stand in the gap when the false foundations of religion crumble to the storm of honest despair.

As tragedy occurs, death creeps into our lives, and unforeseen losses overtake those we love let us not run and hide but rather let us tear our clothes, put dirt on our heads, and beat our chests with mutual sorrow and pain. Let’s suffer with them by mourning and crying out to God the injustices of our world.

Expectations

Last night, Charley and I, with some friends, went to an Alton Brown book signing at a local bookstore. Alton, as we are on a first name basis now, took questions from the crowd and responded in his TV persona’s quirky way for most of the night. As the questions progressed, a girl in restaurant kitchen attire timidly stood to ask for advice as she plans to go on to culinary school. Alton emphatically stated “Don’t go; at least not yet.” Alton’s response could be seen as a little rough; however, the brusque honesty gave way to concern as he explained that college should be her first step. We were a little taken aback as we watched this girl’s expectations crashing on the floor, but watching the interaction between them, we felt redemption as he promised her a job if she completed college. Wow!

I turned twenty-nine two days ago. I have promised myself to forego the dreading of age, to embrace celebrating each of life’s stages, and to avoid the pitfalls of too much self-reflection on my birthday. This book signing was part of my birthday experience, and this witnessed exchange caused me to break my third rule (or ‘Rule #1’, of my Dad’s accounting). I could not help myself from ruminating on life’s expectations. I have always avoided facing those standards because I always set them so high. Like this poor girl, I often find myself lost in the false hope of my “life’s plan.” At twenty-nine, I am only just now beginning my career; and after three and a half years of graduate school, I am still lacking the credentialing that will take me another two and a half years to complete. After all of those obstacles are conquered, I will still be almost at the poverty level of income. Ha!

In terms of vocation and calling, expectations are a poor marker or standard of success. Expectations are void of maturing and ignore the lessons of life. It is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Spiritually, they are themselves the obstacles of a life called by God. A certain income, a status achieved, a level of recognition, or even a ‘righteous’ spiritual goal is a boast that we hold within ourselves the key to life. It is as if we could produce a formative purpose and plan. Expectations are our hopes placed on the what of our life instead of the who. It is a faith in anything but Christ. While I am still tempted to be disconcerted by those leering expectations, I am learning that if my expectations had been met, then my purpose would have been lost. I am thankful that I have encountered a moment like the prospective chef—a tough clarity. With this clarity comes some mourning of my lost expectations, but without them, I am free. Free, indeed!

Ambiguity

Choosing schools, for me, was more akin to drawing lottery numbers than a real and intentional search or decision. I was going to go to New Orleans Theological Seminary when Katrina changed my plans for me. Undergrad was just the same. I went to Samford merely because I went to Samford. It was the only school I applied to for some reason. I often feel like I am stumbling into whatever circumstances without any real plans. I have never understood those individuals who were waiting for God’s final say. They look for a neon sign hanging over every encounter they come across that depicts the direction they are to go. I guess I have just missed the boat. All I can think is that I am sorry for those individuals that whip themselves trying to manipulate God to answer their insecurities and fears.

I have come across two verses in my life that have changed me to the core. Only two have really bent and formed me so dramatically. One of these comes from Isaiah and speaks to this very issue. Israel has turned away from God; God is going to bring them back in the usual method; and God’s grace is reaffirmed. Then…there is this odd phrase:

“Your ears will hear a word behind you, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right or to the left.”

Right or left? This ambiguity is a little uncomfortable for us isn’t it? We want the lighted path. We want to know the mind and will of God. Isn’t that what it means to be a Christian? We follow the path laid out for us—the lamp at our feet. The scriptures have all the answers, like when I need to pick between renting or buying a home here in Wilmore…right? Or maybe "God is not the micro manager” (Meeks, 2010) we are so desperate to make him. I don’t mean to imply that we should cease praying. No, no, no. I do mean that faith is stepping out first and trusting that even with an unfortunate choice God will mold us closer in his image. In the Isaiah passage, the voice is a metaphor borrowed from shepherds, who use to follow their sheep, and recall them when they go out of the way. It is a loving affirmation that the choices we make matter little in light of God’s loving intention for us.

Ambiguity should not be confused with insecurity. This ambiguity that I boast is the most secure I have ever lived. It finally resolves itself in the resignation that the voice affirming my every move is the culmination of my faith. The choices that I am faced with day-to-day serve to give me opportunities to stretch me upward. My rather peculiar and blind stumbling, though hard to watch for many of you, is a beautiful boast in the one calling out behind me. This leaping out can be difficult, but somehow, I find this to be the single most amazing grace in my life.