A Letter to a Friend

I realize that my last posts have been pretty intense. The topics and themes covered in them are important to me and it just happens that this seems to be a more heavy handed season in my life, but lest anyone think that my life is always like this or that I'm not having enough fun...this will be my concluding thought on suffering, at least for now ;) But I do hope that it has somehow encouraged those of you who are in a place where things are tough for you or your loved one.

Started to write the following in a letter, but then realized it would be better to post it as a blog...so here is a part of the letter that ended up here rather than personally directed to this friend:

Dear _______.....There's a new book published called The Life of Meaning, a compilation of essays by different authors. I want to get it, but trying to break the bad habit of buying books on a whim. It looks interesting. One of the authors is Madeline L'Engle and in it she is quoted to have written,

"I know that where there is no suffering, nothing happens"

Hmmm. I don't like it, but I think I may have to agree as I reflect on the gospel meditations and hear so many people around me echo much of what you've shared in terms of doing well only to find that things can so quickly change. I'm all about claiming the triumph of the resurrection---but somehow I still mix that up with the current western culture of being just happy or content, positive all the time---and forget to acknowledge that we live in a broken world with messed up people and things...maybe the most faithful thing we can do or be is to live in the tension between the two....resurrection promise and brokenness: Because somehow in that tension we experience God.

All around me lately, I've had people who doubt God in the midst of world suffering, unanswered prayers and the general brokenness that one faces in life. Okay must include myself in there somewhere. My grand theological observation to all of this? Any type of suffering sucks and nothing can really remove that element, but I’ve also seen how God creates the possibility for blessing too… like the meaningful moments of shared suffering between friends and community; mutual empathy that goes beyond a polite, "I'm sorry to hear about what you are going through"; raw prayers that are not about how articulate you are or praying out of a sense of duty. It’s hard for me to embrace what I’m about to say, but I think it does open you up to experience the love of God with more depth and beauty and often leads you to appreciate the most basic, simple things in life with greater appreciation and value......praying for you...

Upside Down, Right side up

Recently struggling with the dissonance between the way I live/think/feel and Jesus' teachings in the gospels. With my background in therapy and living in the age of Oprah..a high goal for myself and in the way I minister to others is to be the most normal, healthy individual you can be (often translates into being "happy")--and yet I'm not sure how that fits in with what Jesus teaches. I have experienced and seen the maladies of following Jesus with judgmental legalism and non-thinking/thoughtful faith, but also have witnessed the consequences of making them palatable or less than outrageously extreme in our current culture. I've been reading Philip Yancey's "Rumors of Another World" again and in it found a great quote from Frederick Buechner which basically says that I need to be a little crazy to follow Jesus. Oddly enough, reading it makes me feel like a carefree kid who can laugh and just enjoy the day:

"If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The World says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says Drive carefully--the life you save may be your own--and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The World says, Get, and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is labouring less under the cross than under a delusion. "We are fools for Christ's sake," Paul says, faith says--the faith that ultimately the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, the lunacy of Jesus saner than the grim sanity of the world."

Aversion to Suffering

I’ve been meditating on the gospel of Luke the past few days, okay weeks. I’m only past chapter 7, so days sound better, but I’d rather be honest.  One of the things that stand out for me in these early passages is the description of Jesus going off to pray: Praying a lot; Praying all through the night before he chooses the 12 disciples. In Chapter 6, Luke then begins to list the disciples. The last one of course is Judas, the one who would betray him--reading that again made me pause. When I pray about ministry and God building it, i.e. bringing the right people/leaders, I never imagine that this might include someone or something which might test me, hurt me, even “destroy” me. I wonder at what point in his ministry Jesus knew that there was someone in his inner circle who would play such an instrumental role in his great suffering. All of this made me so aware of how often I pray and assume that everything is going to be just great if only God answers me well. I forget that following Jesus does and will include suffering: Suffering not for the sake of suffering, but b/c living for Jesus means risking and being vulnerable. Loving the way Jesus loved would HAVE to include this as a possibility. I take that back, not the possibility, but the probability. And yet I am so acutely aware in this moment of how much I surround my life with things, situations, relationships and people who make my way as safe as possible. No wonder I try to follow Jesus only to be dismayed or even shrivel up when things become too hard, too painful, too MUCH. I once heard a former South American activist say that we in the developed west surround ourselves with things and circumstance that give us the illusion that life doesn’t have to include suffering. She said that people in developing countries know better...it’s why they aren’t destroyed when great sufferings come, but also know how to just enjoy and celebrate like crazy when things are good (she was much more eloquent than that)...I’m sure nothing can quite fully prepare us for what we might face as we continue to live out our faith, but knowing that Jesus walked it before us gives me some peace.

The Ecosystem, Famine, and Consumption

After I watched the video from my first post, I started to wonder if I was being called to become a nun or start a ministry like S Claiborne’s……then I had this flash image of living alone in this hole in the wall apt. crouched in a corner, totally miserable, which had me immediately cracking up. The following morning I woke up brushing off my forehead what I thought was a lint or piece of hair; it turned out to be a giant roach. I remained pretty zen or calm b/c I was so intent on catching it and killing it (Steve, the Sr. pastor at church pointed out that if I was truly being zen, I would have caught it and set it free). So I remained calm and killed it, but that night anything that brushed up against my skin had me freaking out. Thankfully the exterminator came and explained to me that my place is clean and said it was probably an isolated incident. Those things combined almost sounded like God saying, “Keep it real girl.” Or at least “not right now.” Lol.


Last weekend the big news was about the crisis of high energy cost and food shortage in much of the developing world. (Obviously an ongoing problem, the news gave it attention for one weekend and then let it go to cover Jeremiah Wright, so, so sad, but that’s another entry). Of course there are a lot of layers as to why and what we can do about it, but much of it points back to our consumption and waste. We live on a planet that is rich with life and yet needs a balance of ecosystems to make it work. So often we assume that what “I do in my home” doesn’t affect people in other parts of our world. I think the recent news coverage of this food crisis has pretty much exposed that as an illusion or ignorance.

Recently I watched a video called “Strange Days on Planet Earth” by National Geographic. In the documentary, one scientist began to study the disappearance of wildlife w/the exception in the increase of the baboon population in Ghana, Africa. This is not just about conservation of animals like lions, giraffes and other wildlife species. Nothing against Baboons, though I think they are so ugly and mean, but an overflow of them means dire consequences for PEOPLE. It means greater risk of disease, more children staying home from school to protect the farms—and a lack of education always has a negative effect on a local economy that is a part of a larger one that competes within a global market.

Investigation into the history of wildlife revealed that locals were hunting them for bush meat, unusual b/c the Ghanaian diet consists mostly of fish. When the catch of fish is bad, the price of it goes up; the bush meat is cheaper and the over killing of wildlife begins. Here is where you and I in America or in more developed countries come in—the bad catch of fish is not always due to a natural phenomenon. Our voracious demand for things like fish, fuel, or just about anything requires artificial means that produces toxins and mass production that depletes our resources before they can replenish in a healthy and good way. I could go on, but I’ll leave it here for you to consider the effect your habits, consumption and demands has on others.

If I’m not called to be a nun or to live like Shane Claiborne, what does it mean for me to live as a believer who doesn’t “conform to the patterns of this world”? There are many ways of course, but one that I wouldn’t have automatically considered was living simply and with minimal waste. I and those of you who can afford to read these blogs usually live in a culture and society that is constantly telling us what we lack and what we need. “Just do more of this or buy more of this and you’ll be happy.” “What? Your children don’t have this yet?” “Just use that, life will become so much easier and less of a hassle.” For me, reflecting on the ecosystem, the high energy and crisis of food shortage has helped me to see how much I still follow the patterns of this world—at the cost of our beautiful planet and the people I think I care about.

Intensely Beautiful

Watch this video to experience an intensely beautiful moment. It's 50 minutes total, but if you don't want to listen to the whole thing, go to the 40 minute mark and wait. I just learned about this guy Shane Claiborne. He was featured on a program on NPR. He is not a dynamic speaker, but his words are powerful because of the way he lives.




Here is an excerpt from Shane Claiborne's book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. Chapter 5

“Coming out of college, my friends and I were pretty unwilling to “conform to the pattern of this world,” as the Scriptures say (Rom. 12:2). We knew all too well most people would take it, but we also knew that there is a narrow way that leads to life, and we wanted to find it (Matt. 7:13 – 14)….

We went to the ghetto. We narrowed our vision to this: love God, love people, and follow Jesus. And we began calling our little experiment the Simple Way. In January 1997, six of us moved into a little row house in Kensington, one of Pennsylvania’s poorest neighborhoods, just minutes from old St. Edward’s cathedral. It felt like we were reinventing the early church for the first time in two thousand years. (We were quite ignorant.)

We have always called ourselves a tax-exempt 501c3 antiprofit organization. We wrestle to free ourselves from macrocharity and distant acts of charity that serve to legitimize apathetic lifestyles of good intentions but rob us of the gift of community. We visit rich people and have them visit us. We preach, prophesy, and dream together about how to awaken the church from her violent slumber. Sometimes we speak to change the world; other times we speak to keep the world from changing us. We are about ending poverty, not simply managing it. We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it.”
If you want to read more…check out http://www.thesimpleway.org/shane/sampler.pdf

Still don't know too much about him. We all have ways of living out our call, but ever since I learned of this ministry and watched this video I have been challenged and moved. Hope you will be too. When I watched this video for the first time, I focused on the nun as the incarnational presence of Christ, but the more I watch it, the more I see Jesus in the eyes of the little boy who looks at her.