From belief to doubt to love part 1

From belief, to doubt to love part 2

I care deeply about people and want them to feel loved. One of my principle ways of doing this is thoughtful intentional listening and probing questions to help them open up. My goal was always to console past hurts and pains.

I had many experiences pouring time and energy into others in this way. I was always happy and joyous about the opportunity and saw the blessings and the fruit. It was a signature part of who I was and how I loved people. Then I met Eric.

Eric had previously been known to be a very happy go lucky energetic individual. Everyone on campus knew who he was. We had very opposite upbringings. He was raised mostly by a single mother from divorced parents just above poverty. I was raised by two married parents in a middle class home. However, we always respected each others point of view and enjoyed our conversations that stretched our previous beliefs. I was looking forward to my year with him as a roommate.

Unfortunately, the happy bubbly individual I had known went through an identity crisis and began wallowing in all of his childhood daddy and family issues. I was happy to help despite my own identity crisis where I was terrified of who I would become and that our conversations were rarely conducive to my sleep cycle.

He believed that he was a sham on the outside pretending to always happy. Now he was going to live in each moment honestly. He wanted so bad to have some sort of female affection. And many things like that. On several occasions I gave up what turned out to be a whole letter grade in order to spend time listening and sympathizing with him. Worth it.

I was falling into my own pit of depression, but still I made it a point to share in his life. A girl he had been good friends with had written him a letter saying he was sexy. Most of the conversation I do not remember, but this, “You know what she said, she thought I was sexy. Sexy? Me?” He was rather overweight. “She has a boyfriend and yet she has been my friend and encouraged me. She wrote me a note. The only bit of encouragement I have had all semester. No one else has tried to be a part of my life or encourage me or understands what I am going through.”

Of course not. Especially not the guy sitting across from you two hours past his bedtime who was in the middle of spiraling towards thoughts of suicide. Nope no one.

It was at that moment that I realized… People suck. People will suck you dry of all of your energy. Then, in return. They just sit there and do nothing. No growth. No life change. No progress. Just a black hole sucking up all of the attention.

My identity was wrapped up in my ability to help effect a positive change in others. I had always been able to be some sort of a blessings in others lives, regardless of how small. And now someone who I thought was going to be a close friend threw out all of my loving efforts. My care was rejected and the seed of doubt was planted. If they can just throw away all of the care and attention, why bother?

The Church and Marraige

On Marriage: To the Church, with Love

It occurred to me recently that I present my blog as a culturally involved blog, and I have not been culturally involved much at all recently. In fact, I haven’t been very involved in anything but work and close relationships. So much so in fact, that it was a few days after the recent supreme court decision to mandate the allowance of a man to be married to a man, and a woman to be married to a woman, before I heard the news. When I found out, my response was, “really? I didn’t know it was being voted on. Oops. Should have kept up on the news more.”

As a devout Christian, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that our government legalized it. I am not one of those Christians that happily adds a rainbow to his Facebook page to show support. I am not one who calls out that America is going to be under God’s judgement for this. I hold that the Bible says that the act of homosexual intercourse is a sin. However, it is also very clear in Scripture that though we are to uphold God’s truth, we do not condemn those who do not know Christ. They don’t believe in my God, so why should I hold them to His standards?

However, here I speak to the position of the church, not individuals (I believe there are slight nuances in how each should present themselves). I do not believe that the church should ever have spent much time fighting against what the government calls or does not call marriage. Because, Christians, in case you didn’t know, what the government calls or doesn’t call marriage has no effect on what God calls marriage and its place in the church.

It doesn’t change how husbands and wives should love each other or how the church should be taking care of widows and orphans. What the church should be fighting for is simply their right to continue to worship and serve God without hindrance. Pastors should never be required to perform marriage ceremonies for a couple they don’t believe should be married (homosexual or heterosexual), or host the wedding in their building. I believe that a good similar analogy would be that doctors, who take the Hippocratic Oath, should never be forced to practice euthanasia. It would cause them to act in difference to their beliefs and their character as they had made a promise. Do you think that is a good analogy?

Governments will do what they do. Our hope as Christians is that we may worship and serve him freely while showing care for all people, without acting against our conscious, or character of love and mercy as shown to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

(Note, I am not saying that we are close to churches being required to officiate weddings they don’t believe in. There is a lot of fear mongering out there of, “flaming liberals” trying to force churches to officiate homosexual unions. I have never met a homosexual who believes this, and to my knowledge these are the rare extreme, not the norm.

Furthermore, if I worded something poorly in this article that unnecessarily causes offense, please, leave a comment or shoot me a message.)

When Friendships in Christ Fail

I have this almost constant battle in my mind of what should happen, and what actually does. One of the most difficult for me is relationships with Christians that fall apart. Everything in me screams that we are supposed to love each other and that Christ at the center can fix it. I hate saying goodbye to anyone. And even years after I lose contact with a friend, I still think of them fondly, regardless of what brought about that change.

He came to set us free from our sins, and really it is our sins that break relationships because if we were all perfect, we would all get along. Even within the broken world I so desperately want my relationships with my fellow followers of Christ to be different. So at the recent loss of yet another close friend (I remember each and every close friend I have ‘lost’ to a relationship breakdown, and I think of them throughout the year) I must ask myself, what am I to do? I cannot make others happy. I cannot control their actions, so when they wish to leave, I must let them leave and live in peace. But how shall I respond.

At this moment, I cry. I cry because I see that is what Christ did. When I read the story of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead, I don’t believe that he was crying because his friend died. Christ new that he would raise Lazarus. Crying over his death doesn’t make sense.

Christ tells them that he is glad that he was not there in order that they may believe, and that his sickness would not end in death, but was for God’s Son to be glorified through it. Christ tells them that he is the resurrection and the life, and not that he is the life that will bring Lazarus back from the grave then, but eternal life for, “they will live even though they die.”

When he saw them weeping, even after he explained this, he began to weep. Not because he was sad for his friend, but because his dear children did not believe. They did not see the truth of life that he had brought. In a sense he is crying because his relationship with them was broken, or at least very childish. Rather than having belief in who he is, which is required of eternal life. So he weeps.

I may be stretching this exact passage a bit, but if we look at a lack of faith as being a broken, or at least immature relationship with Christ, and that is what Christ weeps over, then we to in being like God are to cry over broken relationships.

So, as I continue to wish that Christ would return and make all things right so that I can have wonderful perfect relationships with my friends, I do what I must now, which is cry my temporary loss of relationship with them.

Listening

I was reading in a book recently about a peasant mercilessly beating his donkey that was laden with wood. The animal was tired and slowed, so the peasant whipped it. Eventually up a hill the animal gave up and just laid down. The peasant began to past whipping and just beat the poor animal. He was treating it as though it was a machine, not a donkey.

In the context of the story, he talked about how whenever we are dealing with a thing such as an animal or an idea, that we must know what we are dealing with. We need to know its limits, how it communicates, what it is supposed to do. We need to know what it can do, and what it can’t.

I immediately thought of relationships. I realized that recently in one of my friendships, that I wasn’t treating my friend as my friend. I shall call him Sue. I was treating Sue like Sandy, not like Sue. I was treating Sue how I wanted him to be able to behave, not how he was.

Of course, I expect those around me to want to grow and improve, especially if I am going to be close to them. But if I begin to treat say, a house bunny the same as a speedy wild jack rabbit, then I am going to cause nothing but problems.

In short I need to treat people as they are, as an individual who is unique with family background, genetics, a certain body, differing capabilities. To do that, I need to listen very carefully. With my ears, and my eyes. I am committing, and want to, be able to let myself go so I can really step into others. I will talk about listening in my next post.

If I want to be an effective lover, I need to know if I am loving a cat person, or a dog person, or a rabbit, or whale, or duck, or hippo or platypus. I especially need to know about the platypus because they have poisonous claws that can kill you.

Reclaiming My Soul

When I graduated from Multnomah University, I had a small house party. My closest friends came and we all played a bunch of group games. I wanted to go around and tell everyone how much I appreciated them, but of course they all objected and said they wanted to do the reverse. Two themes stood out to me.

The first was several of my friends mentioning in different words, that they felt like they were the person they were the person they were supposed to be when I was engaged in their lives. I had always tried to build a habit of seeing people as they could become, and not just where they were at. Apparently I succeeded.

The second was a story that I had completely forgotten about, was retold to me by Tamara. At church one Sunday morning we had a homeless man come in. After speaking with him for a while I led him in to have a seat. Partway through the sermon (apparently) I noticed that he could not keep from salivating on himself. So I rose, quietly went to the bathroom and brought him some paper towels to clean himself up with.

I am very grateful to Ray and Tamara for all of their input into my life. I must give much of my educational credit to Ray for all of his teaching. Most of all I am appreciative of him teaching compassion, which is best represented by Tamara’s retelling of this story. Even after all the study and education to acquire my degree, the part of college that really matters is the lives that I have touched. All the people whose futures I have believed in.

Unfortunately in the year or so after graduating that part of me that looked out for even the smallest or most outcast of people has fallen asleep. But Christ is in the process of healing the scars that have hardened my heart.

It has been a very long time since I have written any stories. As my heart is coming alive again I wish to share the compassion for the world through stories. I hope you enjoy.

Dating, worth it?

One of my friends and I were having a conversation about relationships recently.
“You know what will be great about heaven?” I said as I pointed out the hope, “when we get to heaven we will get to be friends with all of the ones we have lost or never had a chance to have along the way. And we will be perfect so no drama!”
“Yeah. And you know what else will be great about heaven? There won’t be any dating. Want to know how I know there won’t be dating? Because the Bible says there won’t be any weeping or gnashing of teeth.”
A while ago I talked about the question of, “Are people worth it?” which now I usually have decided that they are. However, now I often find myself asking, is dating worth it? I have seen few friends attempt the cultural oddity and come out unscathed. Most have had enough bad experiences that I do not need to focus on all the hurt pain and ‘darkness’ that can come with the territory.
Instead, in light of my last few posts on light and darkness, I want to share just a little hope. Hope that is there even with all the negative issues that may arise, and hope that can be applied to all relationships in which there is a loss—either from a broken relationships, friendship or other, or just after saying goodbye.
Idina Menzel is the wonderful singer that sings the hit song “Let it Go” from Disney’s Frozen. (The irony of that song alongside dating is intended) As the first Disney princess I ever wanted to marry, when I found out she sung a lot of other songs I immediately looked them up. I found one song, “Better to Have Loved.” The song is marginal, but the lyrics are poignant. Better to, “fall into the earth for a trip into the sky.”
This song, though intended romantically, pushes forward the idea that the light is worth the darkness. That good in the world is always worth fighting through everything that is bad, and that we should do that good whenever possible. The good in the song being love, the bad being the loss of the object of affections.
I had a good conversation with another friend recently where he told me a story about the Christian musician, Keith Green. Keith Green, in reference to his wife, (paraphrase) “Even if I had never had the chance to marry her, I would have been thankful just for the opportunity I had to know her.”
The only change I would make (If the paraphrase is in fact correct) is that it is worth it to have the chance to love whomever it may be that we lose. It is not dependent upon who the other person is, but a thankfulness that we have the opportunity to love another. I am thankful for every instance I have had in which I am able to love any and all of my friends, past or present, here or there, whole or broken. Loving them is the good I love in and of itself.

Out of Darkness Into the Light

The answer to the darkness is never to stay in the darkness. The hurts and pains in our lives can never be fixed, or soothed just by talking about them. When I share with my friends my darkness, my hurts, pains, and everything that is wrong with the world, I need a listening ear and I need to hear their stories. But it cannot stay there.
For years I my relationships with people revolved almost solely with exposing and working through hurts and pain. When I found myself in a relationship with someone who had difficulties in life, but who did not need deep probing questions, did not need someone to sit and hold them in the darkness, I didn’t know what to do. She would be sad, I would listen, and then they she be fine. Or would have been if I had not kept digging. She had talked herself out of depression, and was drawn to the light more than the darkness. I did not know how to have a relationship with her, or anyone else that didn’t need, what I call, commiseratory, darkness wallowing rescuer .
Other friends I knew were drawn to the darkness. I would listen and commiserate. They were all too eager to keep going back, and bringing up more and more hurt and pain. Because I wanted to ignore my own pain and hurts was very quick to live vicariously through them. I know it did them good to have a friend, but I could do them better.
Part of this does come from my struggle to enjoy the world just because. I struggle with enjoying people just because they are them. (Which my purple friend is greatly helping me with) I am learning though. I know that it is good to listen and sit in the muck with people for a while. But you can’t stay there. There must be some good, enjoyment, happiness, love, that moves us forward. For some, all they need is the innate goodness of a relationship with someone that cares to listen and understand. For others though, they need something more.
I propose trying an adventure, playtime, laughter, tickling, happy stories and the color purple. Go outside and experience something new. Give your friends a relationship with you, and the rest of the world worth cherishing. Because it is not our relationship with the darkness that defines us, but the relationship with the light.

Brokeness from Lost Relationship

Though I have not written on this in depth, mostly because I am still figuring it out, one of the ways in which I cope with a belief that nothing is worth it, is relationships. My relationships with people make life worth it. They fill me with joy and love. (Though I have my own set of struggles when it comes to valuing people).
However, the more relationships I have, the more I see brokenness. As I watched The Croods tonight with my family, I was struck by one of the scenes. As the father was about to throw his daughter across a ravine to be safe, which would leave him behind unable to cross, the daughter resisted shouting about things left unsaid and a broken father daughter relationship she doesn’t have time to fix.
Time to fix. Words to say. I went to school in another state. Every single time I left from school, or left home I always had a deep feeling of having not said enough. I wanted to tell my friends how much I cared about them and how much they meant to me. But never could find the words. Eventually I came to not worry as much. After enough trips back and forward I realized that those relationships I really cared about were always there for me to pick up. Goodbye became, “see you later”
But this doesn’t apply when a relationship comes to an end or is broken. Even if you see some friends again, you may never be in a position to say what you wished you could have said. I can think of several friendships, where I will never be able to tell them how much they mean to me. I will never be able to apologize enough, or fix what I had left broken. I will never be able to share the dreams I had with them.
And this bothers me. It is a brokenness. And I want to fix it. I want to leave everything at peace and in good order. But I find, that at times I can’t. I know that I am trying to earn love. To earn their memory of me being one of a good friend and not one that ran out. But I cannot.
There is a way to respond to the darkness and brokenness in life, which I will write about next, but there are so many things that the solution moves outside of our grasp.

Light and Darkness

I often like to think of life in poetic themes. One of the themes that I find myself coming back to is one of light and darkness. Light, is everything good and right in the world. Laughter, hugs, love, coffee, candy, sunshine, rain, swimming, and relationships. Darkness is everything wrong and broken in the world. Hunger, tears, pain, death, wrath, jealousy, and conflict.

As often as I have moments of brilliant Dead Poets Society inspired expressions of good in the world, I have a love affair with the darkness. My sister and I both do. No one else in our family, does. Not our parents, grandparents, or any of our cousins. We love the macabre. Dark comedies, antiheroes and just plain dark material. Edgar Allen Poe, The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello, and any number of other authors that kill their darlings.

My sister and I have very different reasons for our love affair with the darkness (definitely an affair). I don’t entirely understand why for my sister, but for me it is because to ignore it, and not give voice to it is deafening to my soul. I am all too aware at every given moment of the sadness and despair that everyone carries with them. Hurts, betrayals, loss of loved ones, and all sorts of wickedness, all leave a mark people.

I see these marks in their eyes. I see it in the way people walk, I hear it in cracks in voices, and I see the tears that it causes. I don’t forget it. I remember the hurt and pain I have seen in others. The only way I knew how to deal with this is to turn it into stories. Dark and macabre. To help people tell their painful stories. To listen to tails of darkness, and then share my own.

Marvels Agent’s of Shield is the best show I have ever seen that shows us how we are supposed to react to evil. In the beginning of the series Colson follows faithfully with SHIELD’s modus operandi of keeping secrets and only telling what needs to be known, begins to change and has faith in people to handle secrets.

Rather than hide the truth from Skye, Colson tells her of all the people who have died, and all the chaos that has happened around her. As we watch her respond, Colson narrates for us, “The world is full of evil, lies, pain, and death and you can’t hide from it. You can only face it. The question is when you do, how do you respond, who do you become?” How do you respond? Who do you become?

Life Worth Living: Purple vs Green part ii

Life Worth Living: Purple vs. Green part ii
Purple. Green. Yellow. Purple. Or green. Why should I like purple or green? Or purple instead of green. I often wonder why people like anything. If I was an evolutionary naturalist, it would make sense for me to question such things.
After all, according to evolution, every aspect of a person is the sum total of all of the random chance that came before me. My emotions are merely the sum total of my biochemistry, (genealogical input) plus the stimulus I receive. If I like purple, it is because I have been condition that way. If I believe that it is better to work hard than be lazy, it is because of my upbringing. A romantic evening is all random chance and physics.
However, I am not an evolutionary naturalist, I believe in a living Holy God who deeply loves his people. He has given them the whole expanse of creation to enjoy, and has given His only Son in order to draw us into a perfect relationship with Him. But I get hung up on the eternal focus. Why bother with the imperfect when the holy awaits? After all, we already established that the wicked will prosper and the righteous will perish. Children will cry, and lovers will be broken.
But here is the catch, here is what I cannot escape even though I feel that I am often running. Christ’s love finds us, his creation, in our sin and imperfection. God did not wait to love us until we were made perfect. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were imperfect. He is also continuing a good work in us until its completion in the day of Christ.
Even though the world is broken, as the tears of a single child make it that way, it is still meant to be loved. God knew his creation would fail, and become imperfect. Yet he made it anyway. He also knew that his creation would cause him deep pain, as to love deeply is to be hurt deeply. And he still chose to create us, and love us.
I feel a call to love everything God has made. To run in the wind and enjoy the sun. To climb, (or kiss) trees and enjoy the sunset. To laugh at nothing like a little child simply because Christ has chosen to love, and one of his gifts is the world around us. Imperfect, but enjoyable because he is working redemption despite the brokenness.
And yet. As I look at a beautiful morning sunrise, that slowly changes the clouds from pink, to purple, I am afraid of that love. The love that I have no control of. It is there because it desires to be there. I cannot earn it. I cannot make a claim on some higher principle that it should always love me. But I must rely on the Love of God Himself. Just as God swore by himself to Abraham, and Abraham trusted him, I must make the leap of faith that his love will not leave. And in that peace, I can enjoy his creation.