Hope is a Vector?

July 2010 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 times the waves broke over top of me ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I came up cleansed from my infirmity -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Froze heart stop beating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------d--- seared soul brought nigh ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New and breathing blood beating ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alive ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Come through death to the other side ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- White washed red sea in ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walked out dry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Flung alive to the pitching waves ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And they closed over my head ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I said "I am lost" unto the flood ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can leviathan ressurect? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- November 2012 -----------------------------------------------------------------!-------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They say -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That time heals wounds -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But isn't it rather -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the slow steady current -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- which bends this water -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- cold about us? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Healing to which -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time is but catalyst? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And this ebbing tide -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chorus life -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comes over and out -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Faithful. no means to prove. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Though does it --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Healing Yielding sometimes storming -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- placid mornings -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- consistent as --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- moon on its wake -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stand then as long -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- in salty swelling blust -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'till your wounds, first made acute -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- by its drug, healing touch --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- release you at will --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return again, brinks and bluffs --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- barnacled shorelines --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- for ten thousand waves washing --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- might not wash your soul off --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Set you out ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------11-- scars as memories --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- time as grace ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soul +Art+ Destiny?

I've noticed that many people, although availed with all the terrible overproduced stereo systems on the market from future shop to value village, still choose to listen to, what i consider rather tinny music from tiny speakers that their technology plug into. Even earbuds don't often sound that great. Somewhere it seems that compact got a little too compact. I'm just saying this because i was just sitting on my futon in the dark, excepting some Christmas lights with FM radio (which i also think is under-rated: you can get an excellent fm signal with a half decent receiver) coming through my solid state amplifier into two front facing mid-range wide load Yamaha cabinets and two more heavy magnets behind me, and well, the song was "full circle" by Half Moon Run. Some songs were just meant to be played like that i think. Or live. I recently went and saw Patrick Watson live at the most beautiful acoustic venue in town. And, you know, WOW. There comes this moment, you know it maybe, when you realize that this is who we are- with the beautiful wholeness that music can manifest. And I want to be that. I want it to be me. My vices seem like trash. My shallow ambitions like tricks. I know, somehow, that we were meant for this. We meant for beauty. If music can do that, if it can point to who we are meant to be, if it can show us that we are more, even that we are created and that that makes us so much more and not less, and that this world that we know is temporal against beauty we catch at glimpses, and that that should give us joy, well, then i'd say its about completed. And by this, i believe we Glorify God.

Art and Heart

On the way to school i listened to a song by the Weakerthans. It was a nice song. It reminded me of the older stuff by death cab for cutie- you know, the stuff that was a little more raw, but which connected to me more than what they've put out since. Then that made me think about this song i used to listen to by Switchfoot, way back before they hit it big with their album “The beautiful letdown”. I thought about how the stuff they have put out over the past few years was actually fantastic, but that it didn't mean that i disliked the bit-rate garage rock teenage angst song that i used to listen to. What is all this to say? Well, as i was thinking about this, i was also thinking about music in my life, about how its like a beautiful gift and a tease at the same time. Nothing seems to make more sense then when something about a musical work all lines up the right way in my brain and drops past the pin swipes and straight into my soul. But i know that most of the time its not like that. Most of the time its realizing my inadequacy on a keyboard line, my inability on interpreting a guitar rift, my stupification on a vocal inflection. Half the time i end up pounding on piano keys from frustration and not knowing how to end a half-hour of repetitive improv. Much of the time I listen to my own recordings and mock them in my mind. Even what i admit is better is never adequate. Its always works in progress, and though once in a blue moon these sessions and let-downs accumulate to a moment of completion- and that is a beautiful reflection and metaphor indeed- often times its just a veiled hope. Even as I write all this, however, I recognize the parallels to relationship, to those truly good things in life. They take work to maintain, but are worth it and resonate deeply when the hammer meets the gong. Its not something i can just opt out of. It is a beautiful journey in which my inadequacies and attempts are like a child feebly, clumsily, uselessly trying to imitate the strength of his Father. This makes me laugh. It liberates me. It doesn't need to be perfect. You don't need to be perfect. Who do you think you are? It won't be perfect until He completes it. Until then, keep playing, keep singing, keep laughing. This is a gift.

spin off #2: art and soul

Sometimes I ask friends, when we are past the "where do you work, where did you grow up" part of a relationship, what really makes them tick. My theory is that this might tell me more about a person than what they actually do as a career or spend their free time on. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My rational for being so interested in this question, I think, partially comes from my own struggle with being an artist, not trying to justify it as a monetary exploit, but as something that has deeper value which I believe is important to not overlook. I've tried to stop disclaiming my creative side, since I believe it to be a gift, and a gift is not meant to be thrown back. This perspective makes me want to tease this X-factor out of other people who might also be sneaking around with their soul hidden on the inside. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second reason I think I'm interested in this question comes from an old friend who phrased and rephrased it enough times to make it stick to me. He was the one who first asked me, "what scenario is it that makes you feel truly alive" and then suggested that something about that scenario said something deep and integral about me. I've never really quit mulling that over. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I went to a church a while back, where this guy named Jeremy was speaking. He was a pastor at a church in Whistler- which I'm not sure is to say something about his lifestyle or the lifestyles of those he aims to pull from lives of degraded snowboarding... In any case, a friend apologized for his sermon after, saying that Jeremy had wandered around without ever getting anywhere- which is fairly true, but since I felt he was talking to artists, i think it might have made sense to those whose brains don't make sense on a strictly "sense" level. Frankly, art points to truth and truth of experience in a way that empirical data just can't. At least, that's how i feel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So he gets talking about how beautiful Victoria's architecture is, and how one could feel the presence of God in the Royal Conservatory building and he goes on, saying that "what's going on is that artists... can point us to the creator... have a very unique role in the church in that through [their] creativity and through what [they] create [they] have the joy and the privilege of pointing people to the Creator, And so often what happens with [the artist's] work is that they become signposts- they become guideposts, pointing the lost and the wondering to where Jesus is.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I thought that that was a rather beautiful idea. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeremy made mention of Romans 1:20, which suggests that creation gives testament to God. We, he concluded, as a part of God's creation, and a part of the redemptive process of our own creativity (as inherited from God for we see that God is creative and man is "made in his image") we, humans, can also participate in this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interesting... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I come back to the tree: just doing its job: standing there. Its very releasing to me to think that what i have to do, is not so complicated. Certainly one of the most moving lines in literature to me has been an oft-quoted one, but one of the few which has truly moved me emotionally. It is Gandalf to Bilbo- you probably know the one- its in the movie too. When Bilbo is feeling overwhelmed by the weight of his conditions Gandalf reminds him that he is not alone in his sentiment- but he cannot change conditions: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As Jeremy asks, "What are you creating?" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Its a simple question. Followed by the obvious next: has my creativity found its fullness in its giving Glory to God? Here is where I think the connection between discipleship and creativity is found. I think that Discipleship, in a big way, is finding wholeness through discipline in a world we consider fallen. It effects our creativity as it does the rest of our lives; optimizing its purpose, defining through discipline the inherent beauty from rough. Like art in itself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not saying that Christian disciples have a monopoly on this process, and surely not on art, creativity or beauty. But we also live in a world where all creation doesn't SEEM to point to God all the time. Poets have observed the tyger, the nymph and the spider and asked valid questions as "What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" Calvinists have done well to use the doctrine of "The Fall" to explain this; and i suppose i must also lean on this useful concept. However, I also want to believe that God has long been interested in redeeming the world- that it is an oft-dark canvas on which he paints his drama of light. If an artist can bear witness or play a part in this process, knowingly or not, I feel that they may find their creativity fulfilled. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If someone reading this observed me without knowing me they might cry hippocracy, since much of my art, i think, tends to the intense, the dark or possibly even the obscene. I don't know that I could apologize for this. I tease it out and try to define it in relation to God. I value honesty greatly and have reason to believe that God does more.I pray and I trust that even my honest life meanderings here on this blog have served in some simple way to point to God- not by saying "Praise, Praise!" but by being a creative creation and by living day-by-day in His grace.

spin off #1: Soul

The suggestion is that some discipline, some standards, some convictions are in place as means to a greater end, to keep sight on our greater purposes, in which is to be found greater delight. This can be hard to get a head around. The pastor at church, recently, was talking about discipleship. Basically, discipleship is a choice, not an emotional experience. It doesn't really have prerequisites as far as i can tell, other than an act of will. It sounds intimidating, but the pastor gave two examples of how making a choice happens. -------------------------------------------- First, he gave the example of this guy named Nethanael who was, although he didn't know it at the time, about to become one of Jesus' 12 disciples. Story starts when Phillip comes up to Nethaneal and basically says, you've got to check out this Jesus from Nazareth: he's the real thing. To which Nate basically replies, you said this guy was from Nazareth?... I have my doubts, but I'll come with you and check Him out if it makes you happy." When Nethanael meets Jesus, Jesus calls him "a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false". A North-American reading might see this statement laced with sarcasm, but apparently that's not accurate. Jesus saw an intelligent specimen of his society, and a skeptic at that, and seemingly was like, I can use this guy. As someone who often feels too skeptical to belong in church, this exchange evokes grace. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The other character is found in a contested bit of the bible, but skipping over schematics, here's what happened: This woman (name not given) had been caught in adultery, and the Law-elites pointed out that the Law said she should be stoned. In an attempt to trip Jesus up, these guys ask Jesus,"what do you say?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jesus said that anyone without sin could throw the first stone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At this point, the passage says, those in hearing left, one at a time, with the older ones leaving first until there was no-one there but this messed up girl and Jesus. "Jesus straightened up and asked her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? 'No one, sir,' she said. 'Then neither do I condemn you,' Jesus declared. 'Go now and leave your life of sin.'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This character was given mercy for nothing and a chance at getting cleaned up offered by the only one who was actually without sin. All she needed to do was respond. All I do is realize that the One who has enough interest in me to have mercy on me has an interest in what i become. It says more about who I am and my potential than what I've done and where I screwed it up in the past. Response seems pretty natural. Its baby steps, every one taken in the strength of His grace and the care of His mercy. (Its a hard one to nail in words). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you had asked me before my new consideration of these themes which biblical character I most related to I think I would have told you it was the man who told Jesus "I do believe, help me with my unbelief". I still like this guy, because often my belief feels weak, but I think that Gods mercy and grace has grown me a bit past this. I can't keep using unbelief as justification for not entering discipleship- not when I see He has brought me carefully into his grace of acceptance and mercy of response- not when I get a taste of the good intent and purpose of a loving Father God.

Breaking Ungrace

There's many rational things which would keep us from accepting grace. I value honesty- saying things straight, but it seems to me that grace looks past the bare honest facts of who we have been to the core of who we can be, or who we are meant to be. It is counter intuitive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phillip Yancey writes in “What's so Amazing about Grace?” about this contradiction Jesus offered: “At the center of Jesus' parables of grace stands a God who takes the initiative towards us: a lovesick father who runs to meet the prodigal, and landlord who cancels a debt too large for any servant to reimburse, an employer who pays eleventh-hour workers the same as the first-hour crew, a banquet-giver who goes out to the highways and byways in search of undeserving guests.” When we wanted forgiveness, but also justice, God chose what I consider the most profound answer in history. Yancey calls the “hurt-people hurt people” law of tit for tat that marks this world, the cycle of ungrace, and after drawing on examples of pain and retribution, wrote that, “God shattered the inexorable law of sin and retribution by invading earth, absorbing the worst we had to offer, crucifixion, and then fashioning from that cruel deed the remedy for the human condition. Calvary broke up the logjam between justice and forgiveness. By accepting onto his innocent self all the severe demands of justice, Jesus broke forever the chain of ungrace.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Breaking ungrace: While like a pithy loanshark I run around with threats and demons built on the bitterness of a few unforgiven cents- a life built on wounds. Yancey concludes, “Only by living in the stream of God's grace will I find the strength to respond with grace toward others. A cease-fire between human beings depends upon a cease-fire with God.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So, why can i expect more? Because God says I have intrinsic value, proved through his grace, manifested in Jesus and through others. Only with this perception can I return to Russel's quote; that “only a life given away for love's sake is a life worth living.” Another quote I heard recently was that “I love you because I love you is the only circular argument that makes sense.” I like it. It goes a little ways to get away from trying to justify myself. Grace says that its not because of what I've done, but because of God's un-sequestered acceptance of me. It comes back to a rather simple concept: that believing this, if only bit by bit, will inevitably change my life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back to Lewis: he says that, "If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. but if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love." He goes on to say that the notion of desiring "our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing... has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My philosopher-theologian friend says that saying we are “creatures of desire” is an understatment. “We are all desires” he holds. He asked why we desire. I answered, saying its all biology, that we respond to incentives that are hardwired into our biology as survival mechanisms. He asked that if I believed this, and were, as such, a nilist then why didn't I kill myself and stop being controlled by forces outside myself. I said, because its all i got. He said, what about this: God is glorified when we find enjoyment in Him. How do we praise him? By walking around saying “praise praise praise”? Or by finding enjoyment in the things that He has designed us for? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sidenote: lets throw in some interesting Bible, Psalm 37: Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (NIV) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I went for a walk once, saw a tree, and thought, “that tree has it easy, it just has to stand there and be a tree and by doing so it glorifies God.” (I can, you see, get fairly thoughtful when I walk) Even as I was thinking this, it might be said, i was glorifying God in my enjoyment of the tree-in community with creation as it were. I was meant to enjoy it. Perhaps this is what Milton meant when he wrote that great line: that those "also serve who only stand and wait”. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Because, on a base level, maybe a simple response is all that's required of me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- like, I'm sure, many other seekers who have wanted, at some time or other, to write Jesus off as radical at least or prophet at most, I have come to see why Christianity is so fundamentally different than just another Judaistic sect. If Jesus was God then God broke the cycle of ungrace. He coaxes us back to the garden. He invites us to give up our hating and bitterness against one another and gives us the ability to heal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not suggesting that this concept will seize me impassionedly every moment. I know myself well enough that tomorrow I might well return to doubt. I know that my doubt may drive me back to compromises. But I keep seeing that this Love slips in through all the cracks of possibility, inviting me back.

"...marry, snub, and exploit."

Regaining a value of self also entails gaining a value for others. Aren't we, after all, deeply, creatures of community? C.S. Lewis said that, "There are no ORDINARY people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit." Regaining value of self seems to rise or fall on the way I see others - and vice verse. And they both depend on grace. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Often, before making my quick escape out the back after church, I would first take communion. I find it interesting how, no matter the fact that I've taken communion a hundred times, it seems that every time has presented the opportunity to meditate and realize something new or profound. My realization a few months back was that by taking communion I was being invited into Christ's community. That this was church, that i was as much an heir to the community as anyone else present- despite the fact that I sneaked out the back like a shamed beggar. It wasn't for what i could say about myself, but for what Christ said about me. No matter what I felt like, the truth was that I belonged. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is, again, not to say that healing comes quickly, but it is, so to speak, to point higher.

Ouch, My Self!

The road to entering community isn't necessarily easy. I am, personally, hesitant to give and reluctant to be vulnerable. It makes romantic relationships seem impossible. I want control over my own future, something which probably reflects as much a false ideal as somebody who puts all their hope in finding the perfect spouse. Ironically, i feel like the expectations when dating a Christian girl are higher than i can reach. A problem is fear of almost any kind of commitment- which I think is rooted in a fear of failure. I can't lead myself into a situation where i will fail at someone else's expense, so all I have is a hope that someday I'll have a reason for this to change. In the meantime I keep at friends length, the kinds of girls who have depth and quality, and wonder if i should date girls who i barely know for entirely shallow reasons as if there might be something worthwhile to gain with nothing consequential to loose. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Girls can't save you- but that's not lowering expectations, its changing them. Maybe you can't save yourself either. But maybe you can be saved, or are worth being saved- I think that's the important part. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When we talk about marriage we are dealing in high ideals indeed: it seems that my generation either must lower expectations or marry someone who is physically, emotionally, mentally, sexually and financially compatible. There should be shared interests, similar backgrounds, syncretic religious thoughts, and an overlapping taste in movies. ... The Christian answer might be that despite this, the hope for true love has been brutally undercut by sidetracking criteria, that Love in its purest is something to never stop seeking at a higher level. Unconditional love, this perspective would say, is what we have learned from God: looking for the interests of one's partner even above one's own. Its hard to imagine that this “ideal marriage” exists in pure form, but perhaps its hope exists, perhaps its journey exists. Improbable, impossible, and beautiful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes I feel like I've given enough of myself- that I've run to empty, that nothing has refilled it, and that I, resultingly, have nothing left to give. When this happens it seems easy to run to mexico. As i have, however, no apparent right to feel more this way than anyone else, my complex is compounded. I guess we all end up here sometimes, if only to show us that we really need each other. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unless, of course, you want to come to Mexico with me... In which case, forget everyone else. Let's go. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Buechner writes that “the life you clutch, hoard, guard, and play safe with is in the end a life worth little to anybody, including yourself; and only a life given away for love's sake is a life worth living.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phillip Yancey, a writer I very much enjoy, adds an intersecting point to this idea; he writes that, “the church often misrepresents self-denial. It does not mean denying one's own value or worth: Jesus never did that. Nor does it mean discounting one's gifs or abilities: Paul seized on these as our main contributions to the body of Christ. And not every person is ready for the message of self-denial... Many Christians, diminished by misguided theology, need a healing emphasis on self-possession before they can think about self-sacrifice.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, It seems imperative to truly living, that I don't lower expectations of self. My self, however, leans on others and relies on God to define it for its highest value.

led stumbling to the campfire

For a season when I resolved that church was only just worthwhile, I would show up to a service, sit by myself, and leave immediately afterward, as a way to avoid the seemingly inevitable rejection that standing around awkwardly waiting for anyone to do better than half-sincerely shake my hand would leave rotting in me. I lowered expectations, and avoided pain. > A friend of mine who straddled a double occupancy of volunteer pastor and career carpenter recently explained that his church had been less than supportive of the numerous hours he was putting into the community, whereas his construction company gave him increasing responsibility, encouragement and backslapping. “Why can't i get that kind of commendation at church?” he asked. > Enter the adage that those who haven't lived and risked haven't lived; that those who have loved and lost, have still done a greater thing than those who were too afraid to do the first. How do these maintain, however, if you feel as if your risks get you hurt consistently; that your best efforts are stepped on; if you've lost love too many times to try again? Perhaps your ideals were unrealistic at best; lies at worst: relational realities that threaten infections in the deeper cuts of intimacy. And you ask why we so quickly settle for cheap thrills and empty sex as if the answer isn't obvious? > I, however, got a hand up this summer. > I seized a much craved chance to share some experiences with a sincere group of people. I saw lightning explode over a warm-wind-swept ocean that played itself like a stage in the dark. I challenged a hike that had teased me with its trek until i quit its jeer at the end trail head- legs burning. The sensations left memories like the fingers of energy searing the sky or like the burnt lines on the vision of the retinas turned toward them. Only camaraderie made the moments as indelible. > At a campfire we shared near-death experiences, believing that life wasn't something to shake a fist at for giving us 25 years, but to celebrate: each of its days walked under our feet was a gift. Every chance that we survived had to be grace. And this is what I wrote after the campfire: > “I'm thankful... for the characters learned, for becoming known, if only a fraction, by others. You can moderate expectations instilled by disney dreams, 'rom coms' and capitalistic ascent, but there are some goods, some “perfect gifts”, perhaps, that are pure and good enough that they must not be ignored, pushed aside, depreciated or even moderated and lowered. To know and be known, to find community is surely one of these.”

Love

Love is the conviction that i really want to hold onto at the root of my soul. If there's one thing I'm trying to hold out for, trying not to dumb down, trying not to sell out, its Love. If its real, then it just might be worth believing in. Isn't it rooted in the depths of this old world, sewn into our broken DNA? Isn't it there to be redeemed if just someone we can trust would put us under the knife long enough to give that hurt soul a heartbeat?

so this is belief

I think belief is really quite incredible. And I'm not talking about a particular belief system. I mean that, when anybody truly believes something, it tends to give strength to convictions which are willing to run against the course of culture or societal pressures. In an intro to sociology class, I learned that “human agency” is the ability of the individual to affect society in contrast to society affecting him. Lowering expectations speaks to letting society shape me. Even those who claim to be agents of change are still shaped by society, if I bend to it completely I get an easier ride; and yes, I might forgo any convictions i held which countered it, but if my morality is defined by the world that creates me, it becomes easy to justify. I do not write this facetiously, I'm trying to be honest in my regard of our condition. Belief, however, belief can change the world; not always for the best, and sometimes for the worse, but oftentimes for the better. And if belief gives value to self and to others and convicts one to search for the highest kinds of good rather than bending to animalistic momentary impulses or social conditioning, then isn't that kind of belief that which, when we observe it in someone, we value and protect and admire? Even if i think the belief system is bad- I must respect it for the discipline, sacrifice and “leap of faith” that it takes. I must admire it if it is truly doing good beyond the self- for a higher purpose or moral definition. I think its backwards, those who seem to take a particular stance (athiestic as the simplest example) for the sole motive of attacking the opposition. In this situation there seems to be a poor respect for belief. Either the attacker would respect another believer for their belief (and disagree with their beliefs at the same time if they want to) or else they don't think that their opponent has true belief, and this has sparked an antagonism of bitterness. This can be understood. The biblical epistle of James talks about faith, if without works, is dead. I think some people see this of those who call themselves believers and call cheat. I suppose that taking the name of Christ would be impossible altogether, however, if it wasn't for Gods grace. This is what believers must keep appealing to when opponents attack. I'm sorry. We don't have ideals as much as we have hope. We don't have a destination as much as a journey. We don't have a wholeness as much as a healing. Another epistle said to bear with those whose faith is weak. I'm only not out of the game by God's grace.

Lowering Expectations

While I was living in Manila, I was taught a strategy to avoid disappointment. It worked like this: when one was, say, ordering food in a local restaurant “Moderate expectations” became the wink-and-a-nod phrase which meant that if you ordered a western plate, like pancakes and received something foreign and unfamiliar, like sugary puffed rice patties, you were supposed to accept and eat them with a shrug and a smile. The exercise was a mechanism for optimism and preparedness and was well applied to those little inconsequential things. I, however, was reminded of it later when I began to work a similar philosophy into the face of larger and heavier concerns. In short, what happens when you don't just moderate, but lower expectations every time that life lets you down? Is this a practical coping mechanism to help deal with reality, or are you actually cheating ourselves out of potential greatness and realized ideals? Ideals. They say that the male brain is not completely formed in the teenage years. It lacks rational, which is probably why nobody should have given any of us our driver's licenses. It's probably also why idealism sprouts so easily at that age. I wasn't in a football team, or a military club, but plenty of idealism was fostered in me while in a church youth group. Lets, face it, high school in general is often rife with pipe dreams. Not that shooting for the moon is a bad thing, but if you get out of highschool without a few broken relationships, unplanned pregnancies, or a sudden death, then you are probably set up to fall harder later (and if you don't make the moon, and miss the stars, “about course!” Come back to earth). Parents die from lung cancer, marriages break up over money, and the class clown develops a mental disorder and ends up on the street with a crack addiction. (We'll run into him years later at the bottom of a stairwell as we stumble for a place to take a piss after a late night at the pub and only find the situation disturbing because of the way he looks at us with pity in his eyes.) It seemed at first (as i write i remind myself that my brain still isn't completely formed) that the idealism of religion could keep me afloat amid the mess. Faith is a beautiful thing, but I think it took me coming down a few more notches before i learned that not only was a mustard-seed apparently enough, but it might be all I got. An alternative coping mechanism, however, is to hold on to what we've still got, stop stressing out, and live life with lower expectations. Volunteering in Manila and Uganda challenged me a lot. I knew I couldn't save the world, but it was a reality check to realize just how true that was. The world is complex and people are diverse. While this can lend healthy humility, it can also be overwhelming. I thought that if i encountered brutality and pain it would only shock my idealism into resolve. Instead it brought visions of oblivion. Life isn't what it was cracked up to be: so lower your expectations. What was life cracked up to be? Disney made us dream even while we knew that the white picket fence was increasingly a phantom. I went to a prosperity doctrine church once, and it more-or-less scared the sh*t out of me. I think it took what a lot of our pagan culture expects out of religion and shoved it in my face. Does God promise us prestige, massive incomes, numerous children or a marriage that won't end up on the rocks once in a while? Ideals might keep us going for a while, I guess, but what if they aren't even the right ideals?Delayed pleasure, I begin to think, is more a product of the capitalist dream than some sort of inherited Christian tradition. Wouldn't I be right to lower my expectations of some of these great farces? I sometimes feel worn out by Christians, who look at the world or some ugly situation and say to pray as if God will either make it right or give us perspective. Neither of these seem to happen most of the time, at which point its like I have to pray harder and work my soul into a knot to will it to be. If its crap, it stands a good chance that it will still be crap tomorrow, no? Acceptance, apathy; i can understand these things. Maybe praying for a better world is also expecting too much. What can we expect? What can we count on? What has real-time value? I think community is huge. We want to be known. But what if community doesn't catch us when we fall? What happens when the idealism that we learned from church and took abroad and clinged to upon return feel like lies? When the voices who spoke them first are strangely absent? Here is what to do: When the friends you thought you wanted don't emerge, find who you can and get drunk with them. Lower your expectations and your convictions. Don't be a pretentious prude. And if the thought that you aren't half the man you once thought you were, or even held potential of being, threatens to rob your sleep, don't get depressed. Fall asleep with the television on, take a pill, and lower your expectations. If you can't get happy, stop thinking you shouldn't drink alone. Don't expect much. Don't give much. After all, no one is holding you to a standard. Find community by joining the degraded, the realistic, and the mortal. If you look at yourself and realize that what you thought was altruism was simply selfishness and that you do what you do because of societal influence, for a sense of identity, because of a desire for restitution, and for veiled bragging rights- when you realize that your self idealism was false, you've lowered self expectations. Welcome back to earth. Is there any place to draw a line? If there is, we could call it conviction. In a broken world, for convictions to work I think they need something called belief, and belief isn't rooted in idealism. Its rooted in hope. A biblical epistle said that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. When I looked back on my life philosophy for lowering expectations and replaced the word “ideal” with “hope”, the implications changed. I think that ideals get people killed while hope keeps them alive. But what things are worth hoping in? Can we be assured that we aren't getting up just to be knocked down again? Truth is, I've made the earth my home now, and its going to take a steady hand to pull me to my feet.

Reflections 10: That's how the light gets in

The one thing I can't bring myself to fully deny as delusion is the thing that some Christians say identifies Christianity as unique. Relationship. There is no denying that I had a relationship with God, with Jesus- truth or delusion, the relationship was there. It still is. I still talk to God daily. I have seen too little to simply believe without doubt, but I have seen too much to simply walk away without qualms. Admitting possibility means possibly walking away from God. That's what can make his elusiveness so frustrating. You'd think I'd be able to see him, to feel him in some way that I could hold on to. At the same time, I am somewhat afraid that he will show himself and force me to come face to face with what i can not reconcile. Perhaps His invisibility is as readily grace in this moment as it seems grand apathy in another.

Grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.

There is something else that I can't deny. There's the good, the mountaintop, the unfettered beauty. There is the joy, permeating peace, senseless satisfaction- things which characterized days, many of them just memories, that yet give me hope that, even while I'm wrestling these snares out, grace might, one day, lead me to where I belong.

Reflections 9: There's a crack in everything

At this point it begins to seem more attractive to let down my guard completely; I could still call myself a Christian if i wanted to, I suppose, if i wanted to fit in in my current society. Importantly, however, it would mean to let go of all that baggage of sunk costs. I would be free of a dying investment. I would be liberated from a sense of responsibility that doesn't benefit me any more than it apparently benefits anyone else. The feeling, sometimes, is akin to the one you feel when you've been at a dead end job too long. It no longer pays the bills, its the same unfulfilled routine, its taking away from other opportunities and you don't even really like your co-workers that much anymore anyways. When you look at them, half the time, you see exactly what you never want to become. No, leaving church altogether might be the best option. I could always hang out with the ones that would accept me despite me outside the institution.
Seriously? Not likely. Once raised in a certain manner, it is especially unsavoury to break ties and habits.

But is that all it comes down to?

We see what we want to see. I observe that a significant shift has occurred in my psyche. I used to want to see God and from the Christian power-of-Jesus paradigm, but over time it became harder to see. Then, it shifted. I came to the point where i would have preferred to see from an agnostic paradigm. I used to say that despite having never seen enough to believe, I have also seen too much to walk away. Now I say, “like what?” Have I ever seen an undeniable miracle? I certainly haven't had one happen for me, not that couldn't be explained away. Yes, there is benefit to religion. There really is. But if one can't truly believe, can one really benefit?
I wonder, now, if, just like those who want to see miracles see miracles, I've chosen to ignore the possibility of such because of what I want. I can't bring myself to believe the whole of the Christian belief system, and so I can't bring myself to believe a portion. If I am forced to admit to a true miracle, then I might have to face the whole thing again, and I don't feel like i can do that.

Frankly, I feel too broke. I can't go back now.

So “surely your 'miracle' was either fallacy or farce.”

But it can't possibly make me believe.

Reflections 8: Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn

I was pretty much through with church, mostly through with church people. I was getting more and more worked up. I would still go though. Today I would still go.

I smoked a few cigarettes to try and calm down.

As I sat in the congregation I couldn't focus. I couldn't take it. I didn't need to back further down, I was becoming aware that I was at the end of my rope. There was nothing left to hold onto.

A bulletin informed me that there would be a seminar series starting. It was conducted by a pastor with a degree in theology, in history, and a phD in philosophy. He would be addressing some of those issues that confront people that are having trouble reconciling their pithy faith with the real world. His sessions were especially pointed at students who were confronting real intellectual problems in their first years of university.

I signed up for every session.

Let it be said that, despite what may sound to you a mostly emotional tendency on my part to get away from faith, I was also a student confronting intellectual barriers. I wasn't, however, just the regular first year student hitting philosophical errors for the first time served up fresh from a vehement atheist prof. I'm not an intellectual, but I did read books. I had spent three semesters studying theology, exegesis and biblical history at seminary. I had the advantage of a world-view shift from Canada to working in environments steeped in Catholic, Anglican, western protestant, and indigenous paganism and culturally “other” experiences. The world was big and complicated, and I wasn't a first year student fresh out of my Christian high-school with my pop as pastor and mom and housemaid. My background, like any-ones, was distinct and I couldn't expect everything to translate.

I also had a few years on the average freshman. People would say I'm young, and I am, but they also say that the twenties are the years of your life, and I'm almost half way through mine. If they promise to be prime, you'd think I should make some calls to make sure I'm making good my years.

The leader of this seminar series said that he was helping young people make paradigm shifts through a time in their lives when their brains weren't completely formed. Apparently completion doesn't happen until you are mostly through your twenties (and most of those “good years” are gone.) He wanted to make sure no one gave up their faith without giving it the fair run that it deserved.

I won't disagree with him, but I will say that with all the running, its hard to imagine, some days, that it's going somewhere.

He said that many of these young students want to give up their weak faith partially became there is a party going on in the next dorm, and they really want to get high and laid. As fun as those things would be, I am not really that kid. I have been holding on to the morals attached to my faith quite religiously in hope that doing so is worthwhile- even while many of my contemporaries (many of whom also seem to have no problem still identifying as “Christian” by the way) have not. Can you blame me, however, for courting abandonment. Its viable. In which case, hell, maybe my morals don't have the value I thought they did either.

But as I said, hedonism is not my lone motivator.

At the least, these seminars have proved that there are some Christians who really work out their faith, who directly confront everything and yet don't find the crux compromised at the end of the day. Its challenging. I can see why so many people fall on pat answers. The truth is much harder to work with.

I might have reached the end of my rope, but there might be another rope, and it might be longer.

reflections 7: Does it dry up?

Economists talk about “sunk costs” and “opportunity costs.” The sunk costs are your investments- what you've already put into a project. Opportunity costs are what staying in that present endeavor means you are giving up by not quitting it and reaping the benefits of a new project. The simple moral is to get out of something that is not paying out, even if you've been in it for a long time. Naturally humans are bad at doing this because we want our past investment to be validated. Pride can undermine the data which says we should give up and let ourselves fail.
The perplexity of my faith is made further difficult if this rule applies. In this vein, a decision is not merely economical. I have sunk a huge amount of investment into the ideals promoted by my spirituality and my religion. As I have outlined, recently my sentiment has been that it has not paid me out. You can argue that its not all about me, or that benefits will come later, but that's an annoyingly elusive motivation to hold up. They are both possibilities that are as unconfirmable as they are said to be lucrative. The natural state of things tends to show that without some kind of incentive that plays out within the near future, humans do not respond very well. If you find a committed and invested church patron, you will find someone who says that their faith satisfies them with some kind of benefit in the here and now.
Sure, I'm probably missing some profundity. Maybe I had a hold on it once, but I don't feel it anymore. I can't deny another experience either, if it can't relate. The case being, I'm just trying to understand why mine is different.

reflections 6: world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs

Since I was about 15 I had been involved in one kind of ministry, public-service, volunteering thing or another, mostly youth ministry, with some music playing for church services. The music was usually fun, but became disillusioning if you looked around and saw a static stagnation of routine characterizing it (“Now lets send off the congregation with an up-beat song!” How I'm sick of hearing that old drum.)
Youth ministry could be rewarding if you could find those youth who could genuinely say that what you had contributed to had made their life more worth living. In all reality, however, the greater landscape of their lives will probably have more of a pull than what you did. The overbearing worldview of parents, of teachers, of friends of events shape our horizons and pull us more than we like to believe. Now, if we do believe in the power of God and that it is beyond our little efforts, that's something else. I had certainly hoped in this. Now, however, its hard to remind myself of it, if I run into a youth on the street whom I had invested in with prayer and relationship. I get the feeling that most of them consider the ministry a blip on the radar. Good while it lasted. Ultimately they had continued mediocre lives, and whose to say whether they were better or worse off for it.
I didn't start feeling so disillusioned until some time after I arrived home from my last “big” ministry experience. What I felt coming back was that I couldn't fully engage in the same sorts of ministries that I had before. I did at first, when I came back at the same time summer camps were happening and i poured what I feels like was my last portion of passion into that. I've become increasingly less engaged since. Basically, I was tired of helping people. I needed someone to help me and my best efforts at asking for help (which, I'll admit, weren't always great) reinforced the idea that no-one was interested (again: “if no one cares, why bother?”) Even when I wasn't directly involved in a formal ministry position I had always made a point of helping someone. I guess I thought I was finding purpose and acting righteously by investing into others.
But now I was loosing my grip on any kind of commitment.
“Sounds like a classic case of burnout” were the words of someone kind enough to finally hear me out.
With this realization, however, I still couldn't seem to make quality contact with anyone who seemed interested in helping me. How do I heal from being “burnt out”? My town felt like it was full of flakes.
I could move.
I almost did, twice. Few people knew how close I was to doing so. Both times, however, something pulled me back, to pick up and carry on resolute in my career vector, though perhaps not in that of my soul. Could a change in scenery really help anyways? That said, I am a runner. When things look bad I like to run. But when is that actually a good idea?

Reflections 5: Does it explode?

Something else happens, I've found, when the people you hope will approve you for a certain moral life don't seem to notice you exist. You start to wonder why you bother keeping face. Sure, there are certain morals that I held personally valuable outside of societal pressures, some I felt were too imperative to my relationship with God to compromise, but when my word-view of values was shaking and my relationship with God felt so pithy, it wouldn't take much to set the bar lower.
Its not like I was alone in my flailing either. That much was apparent. Young marriages I watched die, seemingly reliable characters fall apart and pray to vice. Those standing were often self sustained within a bubble of ludicrous religiosity.
Probably my biggest motivator to live up to a certain standard came from the work with youth I had done for most of my adult life. I was kept accountable by children. I, however, was working less and less in this field, and, despairingly, I was at a point where I had seen enough of these youth come of age and throw all caution to the wind regardless of my best efforts. What did it matter what I did?
A journal entry that reflected on this past autumn adds to the sentiment in the following:

“Nothing made sense! Leave it to the philosophers to 'disprove God' in their own logical way. As someone looking at history, I couldn't see how anything added up. It was, is, and is heading for chaos. My delusions have created a mechanism for me to believe in hope, love, the soul, purpose- and now that was all slipping away. And without faith, what were morals? Without the soul or purpose, what is conviction? My grip was slipping, and I would admit that it would only take an inclined tap to say yes to [here I insert some common vices that i thought better of printing] Frankly, how different were we all....? Where God seemed absent I became more aware of a world of people affected like me, treading water, making their best guesses, and feigning altruism to hold one another up. I had denied myself access in some sense of self-righteous arrogance. Now I wanted not just to hear other stories, I wanted to join them.”

Reflections 4: And I Feel Fine

One day, around April I think, I was in a bad way. I knew that things were very wrong at the soul level and I was seemingly incapacitated to do anything about it. When I stepped forward in an especially moving church service, two friends who I had grown up with- but didn't spend time with anymore- stepped forward, prayed vigorously for me, saw my desperation laid bare. One offered coffee. I took him up with immediacy and intent. He had dealt with depression too, worse than mine, but was now doing better, on top of the world in his social and spiritual life. We talked out my situation for a long time. He said he had great hope for me, having his own life as reference. I bared my fear of meaningful relationship, that I might drag down someone who counted on me. He said he understood, and told me to hope.
I was too realistic to believe that one church service and a good talk would fix everything, so I hoped that our conversation wouldn't be the last.
But it was.
Perhaps my expectations of relationship got re-arranged when i was abroad. I came to believe that they should last, be supportive, be healing. I guess that maybe my north American life could never be this way. It was too much to expect?
I pulled up my bootstraps for a while. Went to the church where something good had happened, but slowly, my hopes for betterment faded and life went on with its dips and swings. Maybe never as deep again, or else I just became adapted to it, a living with the numbness.

reflections 3: What happens to a hope deffered

Arriving back had all the units of experience one is told to expect on re-entry to home culture: high to be home, disillusionment with a system which one is a part of, compromise, and eventually a re-settling into a more informed value system. For me, however, resettling hardly ever happened. Compromise was a coming to terms with my loneliness and the fact that I didn't need to come to rest, that my questions would not be answered, and that these things were best to continue defining me.

The things that I used to think so important for maintaining a proper lifestyle: no smoking, no cussing, moderate drinking, healthy eating, tolerance for all, a quiet and submissive spirit- they hardly mattered. The bigger picture was so much bigger, the size of our lives was so much smaller. Even doing those proper things that a good Christian should do, praying for a quotient of time, reading a regulated portion of scripture, trying ones best to interpret it, be at the ready to defend ones faith, going to church and not leaving half way through because your soul is breaking- they fell by the roadside too.
Oh, and I hated war-metaphor.

Who was I fighting?

I was so often assuaged with this feeling from Sunday morning services that I had to go out at attempt some impossible feat- to fight the fight! Defend the faith! When my pastor found me working at one of the prominent cafes in the middle of town he gave me a grin and a fist jab and said, “we're taking over!” As if I had positioned myself there directly to push an agenda that “we” upheld.
“us” “them” “take” “infect” “show” so more often used than “listen” “learn” “relate” “befriend” “be freinded”

As time went by and I processed my trip, it slowly came to me that the one thing I predominantly was taught – if someone asked me how I'd grown. I grew in an appreciation for the experience of others. It was humbling to understand more deeply that everyone has their own experiences, which in turn affect the way they act and the choices they make. How could I judge anyone without understanding the depth of their experiences?

I wanted to get to know people so badly.

When I moved back to my hometown, my closest friends had moved away and I was left treading water, trying desperately to make contact with new people. I tried to connect with people at school, at church, at work- mostly it was like knocking on a brick wall.

I started working at a cafe, and this, at least, was a valuable social sphere. As I got to know snippets of my co-workers life, and them mine, I found these people to be my contemporaries more than objects of an agenda. I found, also, that as I listened, genuinely for the no-strings-attatched purpose of getting to know their stories I could also share mine honestly and without censorship. My experience was what it was, and they weren't in any more a position to attack it than i was to attack theirs- so they didn't. Somebodies experience is their own, and you can't deny them that. Dialogue builds relationships, not walls. I didn't want to “Fight the Fight!” I just badly wanted to talk.

If the gift of humility was lowering my walls, was that bad?

Church continued to be the hardest sphere to break into. Strange, since I was mostly raised within it and I should feel comfortable there. I can't say I blame the congregations I attended. The fault might have been mine. It just seemed that if i could make contact with any social group within a church community that felt remotely on level ground it was short-lived and shallow. I began working through people, deciding that if they weren't going to give me enough of their time, I wasn't going to give them mine. I was on the hunt for people who would converse. Though, it seemed that those who gave me a quotent of time often didn't give me much quality relationship. I grew very sick of sitting around expensive bars with shallow conversations. I began walking away as soon as church ended so that I wouldn't be forced to face the empty awkward rejection that was the feeling that accompanied the defeating attempts to make small talk.

Reflections 2: The end as we know it

I felt broken, abandoned. God felt far away, if he were there at all. In a sea of flowing souls tossed more by the waves of this world than any deity, it was at least easier to believe that God had, at best, simply wound up the clock and left it spinning. But how much of all this feeling was a symptom of the depression that had set in with the culture-stress, homesickness and overwhelmingness? I swung and swayed back and forth on the pendulum which found ecstasy at the opposite side of those days when I preferred not to get out of bed.
Its like the rest of that good stuff, once you compromise a part of your paradigm, it leaves the rest vulnerable- there's no going back. How did the evolution of species, for instance, fit into my understanding of human relationship to God? How do other religions' explanations fit? Where did we get this Christian ethic set which the authoritative Scriptures don't necessarily even support? Unlike some of that other good stuff, however, the quest for truth not only left me wanting, it as easily left me low as high.
Certainty, I thought, was a blissful delusion.

Reflections 1: There's a crack

I wasn't a half bad young Christian man. I mean, I not only went to church. I gave of my time to transmit the love that I felt God had given me. Plus, I felt like this was fulfilling. I felt like I was making a difference or something. At the least I wasn't nominal. My belief infected the way I acted. I couldn't have thought of the world in much different terms. Not that I was overly dogmatic or anything. In fact, when I was on the brink of spending some time abroad I told several people that I was looking forward to having my world-view shattered.
I didn't know how much that would hurt.
You know, it's bizarre how much our lens effects the way we read things. Take the news; we can easily read that there are mass amounts of people who live in extremely different experiences in entirely different geographies, but for me, it took landing in the middle of Manila to take some of the romanticism off the news reports. The rational I had used to interpret my own society didn't work in my new context. I had to realize that there were very real individual experiences bumping into each other and going their way in response to social cues and motives born out of life experiences that I could barely understand, hardly expect to significantly influence, and certainly not discredit.
I was so far a minority, my presumptions entered a survival mode of transience. I couldn't assume I was right on any given point, and so was marked a crack in the wall of my belief system.

A real challenge came on when I started reading the Biblical gospels again. I had just finished reading the old Testament and had come to love the passionate metaphor of the prophets, the rich (and relatively abstract) symbolism of the law, the heartfeltness of psalms, and, I suppose, the sense of story and journey that the entire thing conveyed. For Christians, however, the climax comes in Jesus- and it was with his harsh words that I began to trip. Up to this point, they had been explained away by theologians or historians who used contextual renderings as a way to dumb the soliloquies down for a more temperate audience. My assumptions, however, were off their guard. I saw for the first time the yelling Jesus, the pre-modern Jewish Jesus, the Jesus who mentioned grace less often than the expectations God seemed to have for us. I held desperately to Jesus' words on mercy and non-judgementalism from Luke's account, to the story of the prodigal son. I imagined that all I needed was to work on Gods farm and I would be taken care of. It would be enough.
By standards in Canada I was righteous enough. Now i realized that if i really believed in social justice, my best efforts were pathetic in comparison to the generosity of paupers I met everyday. To him who much had been given much would be asked? I was surely damned for my pathetic life.
A little further and I found the inconsistencies of the epistles, the rambling of an old (and irate?) apostle and then quit before I began on his visions- feeling that if i began down that road I would be lost to the possibility that they were merely confused rantings. Why would they be more? These things which Christians held so dear to, these ramblings and hopes and delusions- if one of them was inconsistent, then what happened to the rest? Held up by a framework of societal norms, the faith of my Western church was falling down around my ankles like pants without a belt.
Was abandonment viable?