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?

neighbours is a tough word to spell

The days have been getting longer. Tonight was noticeably spring-like. Not that imitation spring that sometimes tricks gardeners into sowing their peas in February. Tonight was the real thing. In the spirit of the weather I went for a walk, which took me up through the Dean Park residences. These are the “ritzy” homes that sit up on the mountainside above the street where I live. To be short, the homes are gorgeous and rich.
It was, however, strange to be walking up there. I’ve been back from my short life abroad now for six months, but there are feelings of confusion that haven’t yet departed. Frankly, I hope many of these feelings never leave. They include the feeling of ridiculousness that I encountered upon walking the streets of Victoria again, the feeling of purposelessness in seeing the latest flick for the simple sake of it, and –tonight- the wonder at these mansion homes alone on a mountain side.
Two brand new cars are parked outside a closed garage. I pass nobody on the road and the only sound I hear as I walk by one house is the sound of an automatic garage door closing for the evening. I stop for a moment and realize how uncannily quiet it is. There is a certain appeal in it, but also a strangeness.
Where is everyone?
This scene is incomprehensible for my Filipino friends. I imagine a world where they all inherit these homes. Every room is filled with a body and the food spills out of the kitchen onto back porch barbeques and fire pits in the back yard. Neighbors would visit one another as they transcend the streets. Music would play from windows. Of a sudden all the eligible young ladies would be right down the street at the bbq at address 3483. They wouldn’t hold back from visiting your bbq next when you invite them. There is enough chicken feet and rice for all!
No work would ever get done.
Or would it? What else are people doing on these evenings? I start walking again and am acutely aware of the sound of my feet on the pavement- slightly masking the only other noises: evening bird songs, distant traffic, the subtle whir of a electricity meter. What are people doing? Whatever it is, they are doing it silently. Are they watching TV? Are they eating dinner, reading a book or making love? Are they spending time as a family over a card game or are they preparing work for the next day? Are they surfing the Internet or playing a guitar? Perhaps they aren’t even home. Maybe they are out for dinner or at the tennis court.
Seems a shame to leave a house like this all alone…
I walk back down my own street again. On it, a community gardening unit does not maintain the shrubbery. To each their own- which is usually quite tasteful. In my Dad’s case it is evidenced in the pruned fruit trees and perennials beginning to show their green beginnings: a beautiful blend of practical and colorful culture.
I see my dad walking down the road away from our house as I walk toward it from the other direction. His gait is unmistakable. His stroll is constitutional. I think He knows who lives in every house on our street. He won’t walk by them if they are in their yard or on the street, without saying hello. I see him deviate from his path at the Lee’s. He leans over their fence- no doubt- to greet their dog. Funny thing how some dogs- like this one- will bark at you until you greet it with that inoffensive enthusiasm. Then all the fight drops into a flurry of wags and dog smiles.
Last week my dad saw a neighbor helplessly standing between their fruit tree and her pruning shears. “Do you know how to prune a fruit tree by any chance?” She asked.
Turns out she was asking a orchard hobbyist- by chance. Of course he showed her the basics before he finished his walk, but not without making better one friendship of a neighbor.
Funny that the definition “neighbor” doesn’t change whether you are best friends or complete strangers. When I think of a good neighbor I would like to think of My Dad. 25 years he has lived on this street, traversed its length with his daily walks. He has talked weather, gardens, cars and family with a medley of characters. He has walked straight through race and age restrictions, and effortlessly sidestepped grudges or misgivings. He isn’t the bubbly character who will invite his neighbors over for dinner every week of the year- that isn’t his personality. By his humble walking, walking, walking, however, he has made his way into those crucial parts of several neighbors’ lives. I’ve seen it. This is what I believe a good neighbor is.
Although harder when life in some communities is separated by endless garage doors and television schedules, maybe something can be accomplished by just walking, listening, looking at what makes up our communities, and of course- knowing how to prune fruit trees helps too.

no title

May 20

One guy says that the reality of affairs is your experience in the present moment.
most of us will accept that your experience doesn't define truth. that very example, however, goes to show that our perspectives are varied and somehow missing the mark with every conjecture. Even if one synopsis did hit the mark, how would we know?
We define reality through a thick lens of worldview. our perception is tainted or clarified by our parental upbringing, our social status, our culture, our situation.

Some say reality is closest when they are with their family. Others when they are at their office. Some when they are on coffee others while they are in pain. Some say they reach a higher enlightenment on crack. Others, when they are deprived of sleep or oxygen. Some when they are on adrenaline others when they are sober (and why they avoid it.) Some when their brain is lacking serotonin and they are relapsing into manic depression. Others tell them they are disillusioned but cannot assure them that their view is 100% correct either- just because they feel it is or because most other people agree with them.

All of us need to feel some kind of grasp on a reality in order to function. Some of us thrive in simple worlds. some in complex. some people can't function because their world is constantly growing beyond their understanding. Others, in an obsessive disapproval of substitution drive themselves to the edge trying to find truth.
What is it that drives us?
What is it that makes the back of our minds know that there is something more that we haven't got yet?
What part of evolutionary advancement or intellectual enlightenment explains our search for a standard of reality that holds?
Even if we've never seen an episode of the x-files, we probably recognize it's catch phrase:
"The Truth is Out There"

Somehow this TV series, in one phrase, has connected with us on a strangely deep level.
I know that there are lot of agnostics or atheists or pagans, where technically this doesn't fit the frame, but I like to think that everyone either is wishing for God to come back and take us away or make things right or for aliens to come and do the same.

TO BE CONTINUED I know that there are lot of agnostics or athiests or pagans, where technically this doesn't fit the frame, but I like to think that everyone either is wishing for God to come back and take us away or make things right or for Aliens to come and do the same. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I suppose those who hope for the God of grace would naturally be those whose lives are messed up. If it were aliens, then they are just what everyone else saw- a failed experiment to throw out with the trash. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Those who are afraid of a God of Judgement might opt for aliens. That way there is no moral law. Everything they did was in response to how they were created. They are not responsible because they are simply measurable data. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Either fills the void that says there is something more. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The thing about aliens, also, that would make us tend toward them over God is that there would be no eclusivity. No aliens would come down and say, "I'm sorry, you believed in the wrong doctrine on Aliens, we will have to leave you behind." or "We won't be landing in Pittsburch because Pittsburgh doesn''t believe in aliens," or, "sorry pal, you can't come back to the home planet because you didn't read the right books about aliens." No. When aliens come , they are for all and they don't care who believed what. On that day those who disbelieved will be happy to throw away their cynicism. those who thought the aliens would look differently would quickly admit their mistakes and rush to shake apendages. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No-one will be judged for being wrong. How could we have known? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And where aliens didn't leave any evidence; they also didn't ask anything of us. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The thing about faith... can I be honest and say I've been going through a sincere faith crisis of late? One thing, among many, is this question of "Why Faith?!" Why are we asked to suspend belief when we follow God. I am willing to trust that he's there when I don't see him, but only as long as I know he's there to begin with. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I mean, believing is something great that brought life to this all- not so hard to concieve. To have a savior/king/friend who you have a relationship with and yet can't see- harder. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why must there be so little evidence? Or am I just looking in the wrong places? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I started thinking- what if God and his relationship to humans was all common knowledge. I guess that a lot more people would have to choose sides. Some would jump to serve the king they now see- I guess. But more- I suppose- would feel and unwilling obligation to "love" God or else realize the futility in this and opt for rebellion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is it possible that faith lets those with pain and unsurety toward God have the chance to be coaxed toward healing and love by the Father rather than coercive blantentry? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps we prefer aliens because we have a tainted view of God. We don't want God because we are afraid of what He might do. By no means is He safe. Neither are aliens. They might be coming to destroy the earth and we still prefer them. Point is, maybe we just need some love. Some coaxing. Some healing, before the light of God on a new morning's horizon becomes the most beautiful sight in our mind's eye.

The Rock

It's a funny thing to hit
Rock bottom alive.
A pin hole of blue
Is all left of the sky

You have nowhere to go but from where you came
To get up again, if you find the strength

You hit bedrock and got stuck in a hole
Long time since you freed the end of your rope

With nowhere but up, and your choice locked in this;
The strength lent your legs by the rock bottomest

Yes, you've fallen through
To your lowest of stages
But your stand at the bottom
Is on the Rock of all Ages

introspection

July 11

Seven times the waves broke over top of me
I came up cleansed from my infirmity
Froze heart stop beating
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.

July 26

Flung alive to the pitching waves
And they closed over my head
I said "I am lost" unto the flood
Can Leviathan resurrect?

Mercy

I watched "The Breakfast Club" for the first time recently. I was not quite sure if I liked it or not until I finished it and sat on it for a while, and then decided that i did.
I thought it would make a great group question to ask, "which character would have you been in high school? The basketcase, jock, dweeb, beauty queen or criminal? I immediately jumped for the basketcase. But when i got honest with myself I realized i was closer to the dweeb. Thinking upon it further I realized that the jock wasn't far off the mark either. Even the beauty queen and criminal had elements that i related to. I realized that that was the point of the movie. As it says at the end,

"we realized that we were not really that different. Inside of each one of us there was a Basketcase, a Dweeb, a Jock, a Beauty Queen, and a Criminal."

I don't mind telling you that a month ago I was in a pit of depression and doubting my faith. I felt like the bible and Christian faith were not adding up. God seemed distant and I realized just how invisible He was.
Funny thing about faith; you can't really prove it any more than you can disprove it. If you're getting caught on this statement you are thinking too hard. Forget I said it if it helps. I'm saying that it is not usually logic that makes people accept their faith, and I do not think it is usually logic that makes people walk away either.
When everything felt at the brink of breaking for me it was missing one final ingredient and it was not reason. It was relationship. Like it was probably a relationship that brought you to faith, it was the need for a broken relationship I felt i needed to walk away. God did not need to betray me. The church would do. If a solid christian in my life misunderstood me right now then I would have all the justification I would need to walk away from the faith.

This wasn't going to happen. Despite doubt, disillusionment and depression, I didn't have despair yet. I certainly did not have a church who would betray me. I knew them too well. They are wonderful people, the Christians who support me. The thing that makes them wonderful is not their lofty unshakable convictions either. Nope. Its their honesty, venerability. It makes them approachable. If I tell them that I'm drowning, they won't cut me loose. They will put on a life jacket and jump in with me, letting me hold onto them until i stop hyperventilating. They are not too "holy" to touch me and they are not too high up to reach.

Looking back on this situation, though my clothes are still wet from it, I realize a good thing that came from it. I believe I've grown in mercy and compassion.

As a teenager I led a youth Bible study/discussion group. Because of the informal nature of the meeting, it often attracted the kind of people who had trouble breathing inside a church.
Although I was not a perfect leader, I like to think (and hope) that I got one thing right. I remained approachable and venerable. I was a kid, I did not know all the answers and i did not pretend to. If friends lived their lives in contradiction to my moral set or did not agree with my beliefs, I like to think that i focused on who they were rather than drawing a line between the two of us based on contrasting moral convictions.

I'm glad I didn't make you-me distinctions, especially in hindsight. This difficult time I've gone through has made me grow in empathy, sympathy, compassion, understanding and admiration for the likes of doubters, depressives, intellectuals, artists, spiritual seekers, self-proclaimed agnostics, people of other faiths, addicts and users.

Because I think I was open, and accepting of who people were, I can still look these friends in the eye if i cross them on the street or in a coffee shop to this day. Neither of us drew lines or closed a door. They seem to respect the way I live my life and my faith, maybe partially because I respected who they were. Therefore, the conversation is ongoing.

I remember the scene in John 8 (which I recognize is a contested part of John, but I'm going to pass by that right now. Its not enough to make me write it off.) In the scene Jesus confronts the scene of a woman caught in adultery. Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." (ESV)
Then, one by one, they leave until it is only Jesus and the woman left. Jesus, who Christians hold to have been the only man without sin, is therefore the only one justified to throw a stone. But He says, "Neither do I condemn you".
You better believe that it was mercy and not condemnation or a high moral code that made her "go, and from now on sin no more."

What is it that those outside the Christian faith see, our convictions or our mercy?

It seems that the people who Jesus had the least tolerance for were the Pharisees. the Pharisees were the ones with a high moral order. In fact, their disciplines were so high that they might be historically argued to have preserved the Judaistic faith, traditions and scriptures.
However, it is the pharisees who Jesus accuses- the ones who were technically the most sinless.
I love that we see Jesus act mercifully toward a Pharisee when he comes to Jesus to check his notes. It is in John 3, which is careful to point out that the Pharisee comes to Jesus "by night".
By Night. I bet you that this Pharisee's "gospel truth" was shaking, and that he was scared. He wasn't sure enough about this Jesus to let people see him going to talk to him maybe. But under the cover of darkness, he could disclose openly his questions. I like that Jesus meets him at this level. He doesn't come down on him for acting stealthily. Instead he goes ahead and explains and answers questions- even if they sometimes only seem to lead to more questions.

I understand why Christians speak above their level of knowledge and grasp for pat answers and rock solid doctrine. I understand. Coming face to face with hard questions and leaving them unanswered at the end of the day is scary and uncomfortable.
Fear is a dangerous motivator though. I read recently that the most repeated command in the Bible is to not be afraid. Do not worry, do not be anxious, do not be afraid, do not be terrified; the Bible is full of such sentiment.

Imagine if the members of "The Breakfast Club" held onto their fear and never opened up to each other. They would never have become venerable, shared, and in the end, liberated. There is something about truth that sets us free. But something about fear that binds us.

I'm not sure what would have happened if we threw a "born and raised Christian" into the mix with the Breakfast Club.

I imagine that He'd be the most afraid of opening up. Especially about his faith, because he wouldn't be able to stand under the fire of questions that would be inevitably thrown at him. He's only a teen. His own confidence might slip! Would he be open about the f***ed up part of his own life? Or would he be afraid that he would "betray his wittiness" by looking as if he were living beneath his own moral standards or faith ideal? If anyone else opens up about their garbage, however, he can't help but think, "sinner". He can't help thinking this because its how he runs his own life. He is a sinner when he sins and better than everyone else when he doesn't. This is how he justifies himself.
Everyone would despise him. Not because he is being the least like Christ, but because he's a closed door. If his disposition doesn't reek of judgement, than it certainly is drawing a line between him and everyone else. "If he's so much better than everyone else then he probably doesn't want to touch us lepers" the criminal would say. So in the end they would put him in the closet and lock the door. Everyone would be glad.
But what if he is better than everyone else! Let his convictions speak!
No. Let mercy speak.

Let compassion speak. Let truth speak. Let the Holy spirit have a clear, unbound, and fearless vessel through which to set free and speak life.

In Luke 6 Jesus says that,
"the Most High... is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful"

And he continues,
"Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you." (ESV)

One of our moral convictions as Christians is mercy itself.

In John 4 Jesus meets a Samaritan woman with a confused belief system and a messed up life. Jesus points out her moral shortcomings, but it is not as to condemn her. He had already passed the social barrier of speaking to a woman, and the social barrier of friendliness to a Samaritan. It was as if he was pointing out that he was willing to jump over the barrier of her sin as well. He shows her mercy.

Fear not only keeps us from our own healing and letting the Holy Spirit use us, but it draws lines between us and others when it means we are not willing to cross the barriers to get to who someone is (and show them Christ's mercy.)
This is exactly what the Pharisees were not doing (exactly what we as "Church-going Christians" have a danger of not doing). Maybe, like the Pharisees, we are afraid of breaking a rule, getting our hands dirty, touching the leper. Afraid. I understand. We need to remember that mercy should be front line in our arsenal of convictions. Remembering also that we have been shown great great mercy. Remembering where we came from. If we aren't motivated by this, then maybe we have to check ourselves. Have we received healing mercy in our own lives? Is our lives about how good we are or about how good God is to us? If we let God's mercy reign, we are justified. Free to be fearless in The Breakfast Club.

Because honestly,in me there is a basketcase, a jock, a dweeb, a beauty queen, a criminal.... and Jesus.

Parola

Jun 12

This squatter community is near Divisoria. Like Nevotas it is also situated on the water, but more of the houses that I see, in this case, are situated above the shore line. Consequently I found myself sitting on a narrow walkway, trying awkwardly not to get in the way of the residents going by, watching Noli talking to one of the moms that the ministry works with, and looking out at the water.

The beach does not have shells or sand or rocks as its bed. It has garbage. Literally, the ground is composed of garbage, much of which is also to be seen floating out in the ocean. This doesn't stop children from playing on it or swimming, however. No matter how strong their immunity systems must be from living this long in this kind of environment, there is nothing I can think of that justifies swimming in that.

A woman walks up to me and speaks in english that betrays a likely education (suggesting that perhaps she is too, just a visitor)
"What do you think of this place." The question was surely trying to illicit a response to the immediate seen in the slum, and as there was no right answer to it, I play the aloof visitor and speak generally instead.
"Hot!" I say, (which it was) "mainit!" I add, proud that I know the Tagalog word.
Bullet dodged.
"Many children," she comments, gesturing to the kids playing on the beach. "This place is good at producing children!"
It is said with an air of humor, but I could see the underlying statement.

Family management and planning are hot topics in the Philippines. They are the answers, some would say, to, "why do the children swim in waste?" or "why do families have so many children when they can not afford it"
"Overpopulation" is also an inevitable buzz word. I picked up a book recently which seemed to suggest that it was one of, if not the Philippine's primary problem.
I would be slow to call human life a problem, but there is no doubting that there is a correlation with the amount of people and economic disparity etc. The book looked like it was going to start railing against the catholic church's war on contraceptives. This, is another hot topic.
Just yesterday I saw on the news, a catholic protest against sex education. I guess the idea is the one of schools sex ed classes only causing more sexual curiosity and therefore activity and the promotion of condoms and the idea of "safe sex" at the same time.
On Valentines day an authority handed out condoms to a boatload of people. The result was an uproar. As you can imagine, the government saying that it wasn't their idea, a few liberals saying that it should have been their idea and the Catholics in a state. The action of the individual who pulled the stunt would be called by most, "irresponsible" but by a few, also "shrewd." For it threw the country into an debate forum. A conversation in which also STDs can hardly be avoided as subject manner. Timely since the Philippines has just recently come out with the numbers that show AIDS is no longer "Low and Slow" anymore, but a very serious and immediate problem.

The people at Parola were friendly and once asked Noli if I was alright.
"Oh because I wasn't smiling and looked all serious right?" I said to Noli afterward.
"Yes" he chuckles.
"Darn, that's long been a problem with me. I'm not unhappy or anything. That is just the way I look when I'm thinking."