My Take: Culture Wars, Millenial Angst, and a Dose of Perspective
So when I ran across the following in the preface of John Stott’s Basic Christianity, it sounded eerily familiar.
“‘Hostile to the church, friendly to Jesus Christ.’ These words describe large numbers of people, especially young people, today.
They are opposed to anything which savors of institutionalism. They detest the establishment and its entrenched privileges. And they reject the church—not without some justification—because they regard it as impossibly corrupted by such evils.
Yet what they have rejected is the contemporary church, not Jesus Christ himself. It is precisely because they see a contradiction between the founder of Christianity and the current state of the church he founded that they are so critical and aloof. The person and teaching of Jesus have not lost their appeal, however. For one thing, he was himself an anti-establishment figure, and some of his words had revolutionary overtones. His ideals appear to have been incorruptible. He breathed love and peace wherever he went. And for another thing, he invariably practiced what he preached.
But was he true?
An appreciable number of people throughout the world are still brought up in Christian homes in which the truth of Christ and of Christianity is assumed. But when their critical faculties develop and they begin to think for themselves, they find it easier to discard the religion of their childhood than make the effort to investigate its credentials. [emphasis added]
As true (and timeless) as Stott’s observations are about the relationship between young people and the church, what struck me more was the fact that he wrote them first in 1958--the generation of our grandparents—and then reissued them in 1971--the generation of our parents.
Trust me, I’m not dismissing the concerns of millennials, just trying to offer a bit of historical perspective and the caution that maybe we’re not as special as we think we are. Maybe we’re not the first generation to have metaphysical angst and maybe, just maybe, the very people we are fighting against have a bit more perspective than we think they do.
Faith for the Good Times
As you can imagine, it’s a high point for us as a family. And it comes with a great job in my husband’s field and a move to a fantastic region that really does offer “all the amenities of city life combined with the tranquility of a mountain arts community.” I’ve also had some unexpected opportunities open up for me personally, and our children are a constant source of laughter, love, and joy. Life is good.
And I’m having a hard time with it.
Something complicated happens when you go through a difficult season like we have for the last several years. In our case, it was an extended period of un- and under-employment, complicated by devastating interpersonal conflicts and private uncertainties. Things were so topsy-turvy at times that we wondered if the world would ever right itself. Thankfully it has and slowly we’re coming out of it. But even as we do, I’m realizing that regaining our bearings isn’t going to be as simple as getting the dream job and finally settling down. It can’t be, because our circumstances weren’t the only things affected in that difficult time. Our souls were too.
I think it’s simply that when you go through hard times, you become so accustomed to being strong, to protecting the ones you love, to being on guard, that it’s easy to see everything as a threat--even the blessing of God. So much so, that when the drought finally ends, when the rains finally come, your soul has become so dry and dusty that the healing water can’t penetrate. Instead, with each drop, with each shower, you find yourself asking, Can I really embrace this from Your hand? Can I really let down my guard and feel again? Can I really trust You?
And you discover that embracing the goodness of God requires as much faith as enduring the time of suffering.
You find that you must actually learn how to bless the Lord as He gives as much as when He takes away; you find that you must learn how to be content in abounding as much as in being abased. And like everything else in this crazy life, you learn that it takes faith. Faith to believe He is good so that you won’t fear His blessings, always waiting for the catch. Faith to believe He is sovereign so you won’t rely on yourself, convinced that you made the rains come. And faith to believe that He loves you, so that you won’t keep protecting yourself, always defensive and aloof.
Ultimately it is faith--that when the blessings finally come—allows you to accept them with an open hand and simply say, “Thank you for this gift! I love it.”
A Quiet Place
To quote the photo I posted a couple of days ago, “In this home, we do loud REALLY well.” Add to that a digital age of Facebook, email, cell phones, texting and Twitter, and life here in these four walls is pretty much a constant buzz. Occasionally I feel like my five-year-old son when he simply can’t handle it all anymore. He clamps his hands on his ears, his elbows jutting out perpendicular to his body, and yells, “Be quiet – it’s too noisy!”
So a couple of days ago when I slipped away for a 24-hour hiatus, it was bliss. But it was also something else I hadn’t counted on: it was awkward. As soon as I shut the door behind me, as soon as I was alone in the silence, I wasn’t quite sure what to do next. My hands twitched as if needing motion to justify their existence; my mind whirled trying to think of all the things I should be doing, and then it somersaulted backwards, whirling in the other direction as I tried to stop thinking of about all the things I should be doing.
I quickly realized that in the chaotic joy of the last seven years I had lost the ability to be quiet. It was actually hard for me to be still. And it wasn’t just being still that was difficult.
One thing that I had hoped to do during this time away was to read and pray. While I’ve had to learn new ways to commune with God in this busy period of life, I miss the freedom of simply sitting down, relaxing, and giving myself completely over to Him. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to engage in prayer without half-listening in the background for “Mommy, I need….” – it’s as if I’ve been "on call" for the last seven years. I haven’t felt guilty about it – life naturally cycles through different stages and just like any relationship, my ability to spend intimate time with God fluctuates too. I take great comfort in this caveat by the notable Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He was frustrated with a group of medical students who complained that they didn’t have time for personal time with God. His response was brusque:
This week we entered the Lenten season, the time committed to reflection, self-denial, and quiet devotion leading up to Easter. Most Christians who celebrate Lent do so by giving up something, denying themselves a particular luxury in order to more fully identify with Christ’s self-denial in coming to earth. But this year, instead of giving something up, I’m going to try to reclaim something. I’m going to try to find the quiet places again. I’m going to practice being still.
I’m not sure what form it will end up taking—it will probably be less exegetical Bible study and more quiet contemplation—but I know that it will challenge me in places I haven’t been for years. But having reached my point of sensory overload, it will be welcome. So if you’re like me, feel free to join in. Feel free to clamp your hands on your ears and yell, “Be quiet!” And maybe then, we’ll all remember how to be still, and in being still, we'll know Him once again.
Hospitality: Freely Have You Received, Freely Give
In broken English, he welcomed us warmly to his city, to his Jerusalem, assured us of his particular love for foreign visitors and his persistent sadness over the divisions between Israeli and Palestinian, Jew and Arab, Christian and Muslim.
“Ah, if only we could all just live in peace,” he sighed. After a moment, he asked “Would you like a cup of tea?”
Surprised, we declined at first not wanting to impose on his generosity; but he insisted and quickly waved his young assistant toward a back room. He quickly returned carrying a tray with a small bowl of sugar and cups of steaming mint tea. With the first sip, its sweetness and aroma flooded my senses and in combination with the heady scents drifting from the spice stall next door, created the definitive Proust moment. So this was the famed Middle Eastern hospitality I had heard so much about, that ancient tradition that welcomes strangers as brothers and resolves differences over steaming pots of coffee and tea. Here, cradled in my hands, were millennia of generosity distilled into one piping cup of sweet tea, complete with a sprig of mint.
I began to walk around the small shop,scanning the bits and pieces on display. The shelves held much everything the same as the other shops we had passed: nativity sets carved from olive wood, brass and silver menorahs, and Armenian pottery brightly colored in a distinct blue and red mosaic.
Suddenly I saw a small olive wood statue of the Holy Family. Carved from a single stock of wood, it depicted Joseph protectively embracing Mary as she cradled the vulnerable Christ child. The three figures merged into one at the base, emphasizing the tenderness and intimacy of the young family. It was the only one in the shop; it was the only one like it I had seen all day.
I had to have it.
Hiding my enthusiasm, I casually asked my host how much he intended to sell it for. He replied, “Fifty shekels.” I went back to sipping my tea. After walking around the stall for a few more minutes, I turned to the shopkeeper to begin another longstanding Oriental tradition - bargainingand soon with the help of our Israeli friends, we settled on a price of 30 shekels. While his assistant wrapped my purchase, I paid him and he handed back my change. Like any good American, I glanced at it before returning it to my pocket, and like any good American, I was startled when I realized he had returned only eight shekels instead of the expected ten.
Not wanting to offend such a liberal host I shyly I held out my hand, displaying the eight lonely shekels. “But sir, you said the statue would cost only thirty shekels, and I gave you forty."
“Yes," he quickly replied, "Thirty shekels for the statue. And two for the tea.”
Paper Money
In all honesty, the last few years have been a struggle for our family financially. While we didn’t suffer the direct effects of the housing bubble, we, like many of you, have had to tighten our belts, learn the difference between want and need, and pray a lot more. And at times, it has seemed like no matter how hard we work, we can’t get ahead.
For us at least, The American Dream simply isn’t.
But luckily, we have other dreams. Ones that rely less on picket fences and picket lines and more on picking our joys and learning to live in contentment and generosity. Ones that realize that even if we’re never in the 1%, we’re already among the wealthiest people on this planet simply by virtue of being born where we were. And ones that believe that the only things of true value are the people around us.
Yet for all my starry-eyed idealism, I still struggle. I struggle as I watch friends and family move on, I struggle with having to say “no” to my children, and I struggle with the day-to-day weight of being forced to choose between good things. And apparently I struggle more than I’d realized.
A couple of weeks ago, my daughter made a list of the things she thought we needed to pray for as a family. And four out of the five were directly related to employment or income. (The fifth was about her daddy’s ability to sing, and the least said about that, the best.) As I read her list, my heart dropped and I realized that whether I’d meant to or not, somehow I had taught her that the most significant thing in life is money.
For those of us going through hard times, it’s easy to start thinking this way—maybe even easier than for those who are economically stable. Because when you lack money, it suddenly becomes your greatest need, and the next promotion, the next big windfall, the next extreme couponing experience will be your savior. When you’re poor, it’s easy to start thinking that the god of frugality will rescue you from your guilt, embarrassment, and helplessness.
And you forget, that all the money in the world is pointless if you loose your own soul in the process.
Trust me, I do understand how this world works, and I’m not demonizing frugality or poverty or even wealth for that matter. Money is essential to life and there are plenty of desperate people out there who need more of it. I’m just learning to not let my soul be consumed by it. I’m learning to pray that God will simply give me what I need—no more and no less. I’m also learning to be thankful that I have a roof over my head, food on my table, children that love me, and a husband who is my best friend. I’m learning that I’m rich already.
So rich in fact, that I can use money for bookmarks.
Limitations
If you’re like me, you probably grew up with the notion that the sky’s the limit; if you can dream it, you can do it. You also learned that if you work hard enough, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. It’s only ever a matter of commitment and discipline. And so in the end, we celebrate those who “achieve” success and judge those who cannot. We pride ourselves in our accomplishments and feel belittled and embarrassed when we fail.
But with each busy week, each passing year, each new frustration and disappointment, I’m learning that there is a lot I can’t control. That success and failure are not always a result of what I did or didn’t do. And that the underlying assumption that we control our destinies is an insidious lie.
Because at its root is the belief that we are God.
These last few weeks have reminded me that I am not. And in an odd way, coming face to face with my humanity has been incredibly freeing. Because when I finally accept my limitations, I’m able to embrace His lack of them. And when I accept that all my work is useless unless He works for me, I can finally rest.
Ultimately it won’t change the fact that I’ll continue to dream and work hard to pursue those dreams. It just means in doing that, I have the hope that making them a reality doesn’t depend on me. That it never did. Instead, pursuing my dreams means throwing myself on the mercy of the One who does control it all, has already saved the world, and gave me my dreams in the first place.
Hideko
But before she was my aunt, she was Hideko.
Born on a small island in the Pacific, she was a toddler when WWII invaded her tropical home and turned it into a major battlefield of the war. To escape the firestorm, her family and neighbors fled to isolated caves where provisions and medical care were scarce. When she contracted an infection, there was nothing to do but move her to a separate part of the cave, administer meager doses of black-market drugs, and endure the shunning of the other refugees.
She survived and eventually the war ended. But the lush paradise she once knew had been destroyed and rebuilt and repopulated by US military bases with an ever revolving collection of American GIs. By her early twenties, she had adapted to this new normal and caught the eye of a young Marine far from his home in rural Pennsylvania. One whirlwind romance later, they were married and welcoming a daughter with the same dark eyes and black hair as her mother. Eventually he was discharged and hoping to find a quiet life as a family, they left her Pacific paradise for his home in the States
But what she found there were the wintry hills of Pennsylvania, trees stripped naked of all green life, fields of mud crusted with ice, and skies that never cleared but forever changed from gray to black to gray again. Instead of pots of rice and freshly caught fish, she found rice mixed with greasy ground meats wrapped in boiled cabbage leaves. Fish was strange frozen rectangle coated in yellow batter and plunged in hot oil. And yet, she blossomed. She soon had a son and despite her limited English, quickly learned to navigate the continuous cycle of doctor’s visits, bus schedules, PTA meetings, and after-school practices. She became a faithful member of a church, mastered the pot-luck, and saw her husband become a deacon.
All this, seven thousand miles from where she had been born.
After her death, my uncle confessed his misgivings about bringing his bride to such a foreign place. Early in their marriage, he had opened a bank account in her name and deposited $1,800 in it. He told her that if she ever found her new life too overwhelming, too lonely, or if she simply wanted to return to her family, she was to use the money and go.
She never did.
Instead she stayed and chose to be part of our family. She left her own mother, father, brothers, and sisters and embraced her husband’s mother, father, brothers, and sisters. She left her own nieces and nephews and embraced me and my cousins. She traded life on a Pacific island for life in rural America with the man she loved. Growing up, it seemed pretty unremarkable to me that Hideko was my uncle’s wife, my aunt.
Today it does not.
Promises
Ten years ago today, when my husband and I were young enough to be confident, we stood in front of friends and family and promised things to each other. We promised to freely give our love, our time, our bodies, and our wills. We promised that to the best of our ability we would model Christ and His Church.And it was beautiful.
Almost too beautiful, because little did we realize what we were actually promising; little did we understand that giving all those things actually meant sacrifice. And not in the poetic way we had used the word. No, it meant what it is: broken, bloody, excruciating death. It meant dying like Christ. It meant crucifixion.
And it meant failing because even our best promises that day were destined to be broken. Instead of loving, we have been selfish, we have been petulant, we have been angry. Instead of faithful, we have been faithless. We have suffered, not simply for each other, but because of each other--we have driven the nails into each other’s hands.
But there was another thing that we didn’t realize that day--Someone else was making promises too. Promises like,
I will never leave you or forsake you.
I am close to the brokenhearted. I rescue those whose spirits are crushed.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.
I know the plans I have for you… plans for good, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
I am the resurrection and the life.
And it has been these promises that have brought us through the last ten years; it will be these promises that will carry us through even more. It is the promise that in the thousand deaths we have and will die, He will raise us up again; that when everything seems beyond hope, He will stretch out His hand with mercy and love; that He will be our resurrection and life.
So, today, I smile a bit to think how blissfully ignorant we were ten years ago, how utterly incapable we were of keeping our promises. But today, I’ll also laugh out loud with sheer joy to think that He wasn’t and He isn’t.
First Things
I suppose it all began with one conversation too many, then a book with the perfect title, and an article about Weebly. Add to that, one very creative sister-in-law, a supportive husband and –BAM- I’m in over my head starting a blog. Actually for some time I’ve thought about blogging, but always came down on the safe side.“Really,” my practical self would counter my dreaming self, “how egotistical are you to believe that people actually want to read what you write?”*dreaming self hangs head in shame*
“Besides,” p. self continues “we’re talking commitment here, real down-in-the-trenches, day in, day out, when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-going commitment. Which both of us know we don’t have.”
The turning point came one day when I was trying to get my daughter to complete a project for school. As is often the case, my emotions were in play, and I quickly extrapolated her failure to finish this assignment to a future of shattered dreams, unfulfilled expectations, and wasted talent. Always the dreamer, never the doer.
Truth is, that was probably more how I viewed myself than her.
Take that practical self.
So this blog is an experiment in following a dream to write, modeling commitment for my daughter, and desperately hoping not to fall flat on my face. You’re welcome on the journey and quite frankly it’d be rather lonely without you. I don’t claim to be exceptional or even always interesting - the title is “Sometimes a Light” after all. The best I hope for is that somewhere my passion and your needs will intersect, and when that happens, we’ll both be one step farther along to becoming what God intends us to be.