I live in the future. There are not spaceships or talking droids, but it is the future nonetheless.
So much of my life is spent on finishing.
So much of my life is spent trying to get to the end.
It is impossible for me to live in the present. To appreciate the here and now. Appreciate the process of life. I spend my days constantly trying to check things off my list. I am always looking for the end result. i want everything to be instant.
Instant Coffee,
Instant hamburger,
Instant girlfriend,
Instant perfect relationship with God.
I want to fast food flagulate my whole entire life. I don't want to be patient. I want growth, but i want it to happen instantaneously. I don't want to struggle with everyone else.
Clawing. Scraping. struggling.
I want my life to be like a sitcom. A movie.
And i hate that this will never be. That i will never finish. That i will never be finished. I will never be whole. Never have it all together. Frustration. Confusion. Tension. It will never leave.
But here is where i remember one of my favorite authors Brennan Mannings words on Gratefulness. That i have so much to be grateful, thankful for. Sometimes i get tired of riding my bike around the city. I ride no joke at least 6 miles a day and for the most part it is fun, except times like last night when i had to ride almost four miles on a gradual uphill slope to get home at 11:30 at night. Or when my tire went flat and it took me an hour and a half to get a bus back to my place from Hawthorne BLVd. But then i ride past 3o homeless people sleeping on the streets outside of the Salvation Army and suddenly feel like the biggest selfish prick ever.
Yesterday i was at my friend Brandons house. Brandon is a guy who helps run the college minsitry for Imago. I will be helping him and Luke with things because they admit that they have no idea what they are doing. Brandon and Luke live downtown next to the PSU campus and they have this homeless guy named L.A. that sleeps on their back porch. Yesterday he was hanging out with us before we started watching I Heart Huckabees. We were talking about life and he was telling us about how he was a ordained minster and began telling us about the end times and how the world was going to end in 2012. He actually was pretty smart and not that crazy. He was also a vietnam vet and one of our friends(Sarah) accidentally asked him what it was like to be in prison. He began crying and shaking uncontrollably. Brandon put his arm around him and begna praying for him. He kept muttering the words "you don't understand, you don't understand." I jumped up to pray for him as well. Then he began to bang his head into a pole at their house and me and Brandon had to softly restrain him and then kept praying. Finally he calmed down enough and apologized. He spent the rest of the night drinking.
This morning i was checking my e-mail and i got a message from Tim who leads the Wild Hope teen homeless minstry. Apparently a transient kid we met from the street last week had died in from jumping off the Hawthorne bridge. He and a friend were just having some fun but he was not a strong swimmer.
So this morning as i am not really looking forward to starting work or with life in general, i remember thse two stories and have so much to be grateful for.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Deconstruction
Until I was able to deconstruct my faith and get down to the trace of what it means to be love God and love others I was a bored, burnt out Christian who almost threw it all off the bridge and jumped in with it. Many times in deconstruction critics will take an authors work and completely tear it down to show how it accomplishes a purpose opposite of what the author intended. Many times I thought that Christianity was in fact the opposite of what a life of love and truth looked like. I believe Christianity is often the opposite of what God intended the church to be. The problem with religion is that instead of it bringing us to God it usually impedes our progress to have a genuine relationship with him. I believe in God and I believe in Jesus, but a lot of times where those two meet the world is a lot more confusing and grey than people like to admit or even think about it.
Deconstruction is scary work. It will shake the very core of you. But if you make it through the other side you will be stronger than ever before. Deconstructing your faith is a lot of work and freakin messy but I hope that I eventually wind up with a better picture of who God is and what that means in my life. I may never know fully who God is and where exactly He meets this world, but it doesn’t mean I can’t try. It doesn’t mean I can’t spend my life in pursuit of what it means to love God and love others. It is the pursuit, the relationship, that is important.
Deconstruction allows you to look at scripture and celebrate the paradoxes. Rejoice in the chaos of faith. Because I don’t think it is about finding a certain manual to follow. The point is God. I wonder if he doesn’t care more about us pursuing him than about our taking bible classes and theological belief system. I wonder if we miss the point when she offers us relationship and we step past her for book knowledge. Christianity helps me to make more sense of life; it helps me to make more sense of who God is. But making sense is not necessarily the point. Half of the Christian faith makes no sense to me at all. It is completely illogical and irrational. That’s okay though because the point is God, the point is others. Sure it’s nice to have clarity and an organized mind. Sure it’s nice to have some stable ground to walk on. Something solid to believe in, trust in. However, being a Christian is not about living a perfect, nice, little life. I thought it was for a long time. I was confused when life did not turn out perfect. When I did not get the job or the girlfriend, when I had more confusion than belief. I think the point though is not our stability or our perfect life. Whenever my life turns to crap is when I really start praying to God. If my days are getting longer, wetter, and darker, then is when I turn to God. Until this point I am fine as a person, but my relationship with God is not fine. I am closer in my struggles than in my security. I think God cares more about us as people than he does about our individual happiness and security. He cares more about our relationship than our prosperity. So when the shit hits the fan, it is not God’s fault and I believe he really does will the best possible life for us, but he also will use these opportunities to remind us that this life is not about life, it is about Him, it is about others.
Christianity is like donuts. You can spend all day coming up with theories and doctrine surrounding why donuts are the way they are, what they are made of and so forth. There comes a certain point however, when you should just stop and enjoy the donut. You may not have it all figured out, but that’s all right because donuts are for eating, not for textbooks. I don’t even understand the whole theory of deconstruction. I don’t even understand Christianity. But that’s all right because a relationship with God is worth experiencing, not studying. It cannot be structuralized or formalized. It is about living, not examining. This is also why it is hard to articulate to someone what the Christian life is like. It is not just some head knowledge or system of beliefs. It is a relationship, a marriage, an experience that is hard to understand unless you are in it. It is not a religion. It is community, a journey, a story. So how do you sell people an item that can’t fit into a store, won’t fit into a package or stay in a box? People will not accept Jesus like He is a product. You can market it that way, but it doesn’t work. It’s like going to pick up girls.
“Dude were gonna go get some chicks tonight bro! Chicks man! Let’s go pick em up!
“Really? Just like that. We’ll just go to Walgreens and pick up chicks? Go to aisle 5 with the chicks?
It’s not that simple. Following Jesus is hard to articulate.
Deconstruction is scary work. It will shake the very core of you. But if you make it through the other side you will be stronger than ever before. Deconstructing your faith is a lot of work and freakin messy but I hope that I eventually wind up with a better picture of who God is and what that means in my life. I may never know fully who God is and where exactly He meets this world, but it doesn’t mean I can’t try. It doesn’t mean I can’t spend my life in pursuit of what it means to love God and love others. It is the pursuit, the relationship, that is important.
Deconstruction allows you to look at scripture and celebrate the paradoxes. Rejoice in the chaos of faith. Because I don’t think it is about finding a certain manual to follow. The point is God. I wonder if he doesn’t care more about us pursuing him than about our taking bible classes and theological belief system. I wonder if we miss the point when she offers us relationship and we step past her for book knowledge. Christianity helps me to make more sense of life; it helps me to make more sense of who God is. But making sense is not necessarily the point. Half of the Christian faith makes no sense to me at all. It is completely illogical and irrational. That’s okay though because the point is God, the point is others. Sure it’s nice to have clarity and an organized mind. Sure it’s nice to have some stable ground to walk on. Something solid to believe in, trust in. However, being a Christian is not about living a perfect, nice, little life. I thought it was for a long time. I was confused when life did not turn out perfect. When I did not get the job or the girlfriend, when I had more confusion than belief. I think the point though is not our stability or our perfect life. Whenever my life turns to crap is when I really start praying to God. If my days are getting longer, wetter, and darker, then is when I turn to God. Until this point I am fine as a person, but my relationship with God is not fine. I am closer in my struggles than in my security. I think God cares more about us as people than he does about our individual happiness and security. He cares more about our relationship than our prosperity. So when the shit hits the fan, it is not God’s fault and I believe he really does will the best possible life for us, but he also will use these opportunities to remind us that this life is not about life, it is about Him, it is about others.
Christianity is like donuts. You can spend all day coming up with theories and doctrine surrounding why donuts are the way they are, what they are made of and so forth. There comes a certain point however, when you should just stop and enjoy the donut. You may not have it all figured out, but that’s all right because donuts are for eating, not for textbooks. I don’t even understand the whole theory of deconstruction. I don’t even understand Christianity. But that’s all right because a relationship with God is worth experiencing, not studying. It cannot be structuralized or formalized. It is about living, not examining. This is also why it is hard to articulate to someone what the Christian life is like. It is not just some head knowledge or system of beliefs. It is a relationship, a marriage, an experience that is hard to understand unless you are in it. It is not a religion. It is community, a journey, a story. So how do you sell people an item that can’t fit into a store, won’t fit into a package or stay in a box? People will not accept Jesus like He is a product. You can market it that way, but it doesn’t work. It’s like going to pick up girls.
“Dude were gonna go get some chicks tonight bro! Chicks man! Let’s go pick em up!
“Really? Just like that. We’ll just go to Walgreens and pick up chicks? Go to aisle 5 with the chicks?
It’s not that simple. Following Jesus is hard to articulate.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Robots and Rebels
I once was a robot. I was the perfect Christian. I didn’t knock up any girls or buy cigarettes for minors. I didn’t cuss or drink, or smoke, or partake in anything remotely secular. Not to say that today I buy cigarettes for minors or get girls pregnant, but I didn’t do it back in the day either. I was programmed to be a completely functioning moral spiritual being. Much in part thanks to my parents and the religious structure known as the church. I had other fellow robot friends. We were all basically the same person. We believed in the same things, went to the same events, participated in the same activities. We all lived in the Greenhouse. We were the kids who when other parents would complain about how Johnny was smoking crack in the basement, our parents would be like “Well, Levi didn’t make Gold honors this year, but he still got silver, so I guess it’s all right.”
I had some other friends. They were rebels. They most definitely bought cigarettes for minors and occasionally had a pregnancy scare. They most definitely did drink, and cuss and smoke and watch porn. They would go to parties on the weekends and sneak off from their house to go to hookah bars on school nights. They had piercings and listened to secular music. They also went to the religious structure known as the church and had parents that taught Sunday school there. But for some reason, they became rebels. Often times these people would play along with the whole church thing and then go off to college and forget about it. Other times they would pretend that they were following God because they went to church on Sunday but would very rarely be sober enough to have any sort of real conversation with.
Throughout high school I was friends with the robots and the rebels. It seems like almost everyone I meet in Christianity is either a robot or a rebel. They are either a Christian because it is what they are supposed to believe, and they do it for their parents approval or out of political party obligation (the robots).These people do not always think for themselves and believe what everyone else tells them. Then there are the people who go freakin nuts because they are so freaking sheltered their whole life that they don’t know what to do with themselves (the rebels.) The rebels are people of action but are tired of being told “don’t do this and don’t do that” and so they go out and do everything they are not supposed to do because there is nowhere for them to put their energy. They go out on the weekends and go to town like freakin lions that just got off the Adkins diet. They are the Christian version of Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan. They start off cute and innocent, but before you know it they are throwing up day old organic spinach thanks to a stomach full of Bacardi 151.
Christianity has done an excellent job of manufacturing both robots and rebels. There are few who make it beyond these two camps.
I had some other friends. They were rebels. They most definitely bought cigarettes for minors and occasionally had a pregnancy scare. They most definitely did drink, and cuss and smoke and watch porn. They would go to parties on the weekends and sneak off from their house to go to hookah bars on school nights. They had piercings and listened to secular music. They also went to the religious structure known as the church and had parents that taught Sunday school there. But for some reason, they became rebels. Often times these people would play along with the whole church thing and then go off to college and forget about it. Other times they would pretend that they were following God because they went to church on Sunday but would very rarely be sober enough to have any sort of real conversation with.
Throughout high school I was friends with the robots and the rebels. It seems like almost everyone I meet in Christianity is either a robot or a rebel. They are either a Christian because it is what they are supposed to believe, and they do it for their parents approval or out of political party obligation (the robots).These people do not always think for themselves and believe what everyone else tells them. Then there are the people who go freakin nuts because they are so freaking sheltered their whole life that they don’t know what to do with themselves (the rebels.) The rebels are people of action but are tired of being told “don’t do this and don’t do that” and so they go out and do everything they are not supposed to do because there is nowhere for them to put their energy. They go out on the weekends and go to town like freakin lions that just got off the Adkins diet. They are the Christian version of Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan. They start off cute and innocent, but before you know it they are throwing up day old organic spinach thanks to a stomach full of Bacardi 151.
Christianity has done an excellent job of manufacturing both robots and rebels. There are few who make it beyond these two camps.
The Greenhouse
Growing up as a Christian was like growing up in a Greenhouse. All of us Christians inhabited our little house of warmth and sunlight where we were firmly planted. Everything was taken care of. We had our food, our sunlight, our water. We were planted in this Greenhouse and here we would live forever. Why would we live here forever? Well it was really quite simple. We could not exist outside the Greenhouse. If we were yanked up by our roots and tossed outside we would shrivel up into raisins. We could not bear the heat, the reality. We could not bear the atmosphere on the outside. The conditions were not right. It was only in this bubble that we could exist. Everywhere outside of this greenhouse we would die a slow, inevitable death.
When I was in middle school and early high school I remember what it meant to be a good Christian. I went on mission trips, went to youth group, sang all the right songs and believed all the right things. I went to church 4 days of the week at least, sometimes more. From the time I exited my mother’s womb till the time I graduated high school I was always at church. First it was Sunday school and Vacation Bible School. Then it was Cornerstone Club-an afternoon elementary program. In Sixth grade I was homeschooled by my own choice and every Friday there was a common co-op homeschooling day at our church. This was a day when all the homeschoolers from the my hometown, Bailey mountain area would join together to go to church together to learn from other moms and play games with other people’s kids. I found it somewhat ironic that homeschoolers met publicly and learned in a public setting. I guess this meant that the real problem was not public schooling, but rather secular public schooling. It also meant that us mountain people were too poor to drive to Faith Christian Academy in Denver where most good Christian parents enroll their spawn. After one year of homeschooling I called it quits. I was bored as hell and wanted to hang out with more than just three people a week. This was one of the best decisions of my life, though I can’t imagine I would ever be a homeschooler forever because that comes with the condition that you must also be socially retarded which I am not. Seriously, have you ever known a normal person who was homeschooled? I have friends that were for a few years and they turned out all right, but the lifers are just weird. They usually wear glasses glasses and read Spider-man comic books. They cannot have a normal conversation with you unless you talk to them like their mom but who wants to do that. If homeschoolers were characters in Star Trek they would be Spok. Really smart, but socially handicapped. From an early age I lived in the Greenhouse. On the weekends I would go to Christian conferences. These conferences had “Christian” skateboarders, football players, rappers and musicians. They spoke to us about standing up for our faith.
They reiterated the fact that being a Christian did not mean we were un-cool, which was a relief because most of us were. Very un-cool in fact. We were so un-cool we made computer nerds look like Brad Pitt. These conferences passed out a cornucopia of Christian material. Christian CD’s, movies, t-shirts, stickers, patches, water bottles, skateboards, hats and Christian literature on how to separate yourself form the world. They handed out information on churches, bookstores and any other Christian store we could hope to go to without leaving the Greenhouse. There was nothing you could not buy in the world that was not Christianized by some location. There were even Christian granola bars and Christian vitamins. There were Christian ties and Christian insurance companies. The only thing that is still missing and we need to get on it, is a Christian grocery store/mall. Here we could go get all of our supplies for the next month and never have to run into any one who wasn’t a Christian or support Atheist companies like Safeway. We have Christian amusement parks and Christian museums, why can’t we get some mall action going on. I don’t want to buy my Strawberries from some pagan at checkout four. Next we could make Christian Wal-Marts and employ only white-middles class Republicans to run our sore for us. That way we wouldn’t have to deal with minorities or liberal either.
When I was in middle school and early high school I remember what it meant to be a good Christian. I went on mission trips, went to youth group, sang all the right songs and believed all the right things. I went to church 4 days of the week at least, sometimes more. From the time I exited my mother’s womb till the time I graduated high school I was always at church. First it was Sunday school and Vacation Bible School. Then it was Cornerstone Club-an afternoon elementary program. In Sixth grade I was homeschooled by my own choice and every Friday there was a common co-op homeschooling day at our church. This was a day when all the homeschoolers from the my hometown, Bailey mountain area would join together to go to church together to learn from other moms and play games with other people’s kids. I found it somewhat ironic that homeschoolers met publicly and learned in a public setting. I guess this meant that the real problem was not public schooling, but rather secular public schooling. It also meant that us mountain people were too poor to drive to Faith Christian Academy in Denver where most good Christian parents enroll their spawn. After one year of homeschooling I called it quits. I was bored as hell and wanted to hang out with more than just three people a week. This was one of the best decisions of my life, though I can’t imagine I would ever be a homeschooler forever because that comes with the condition that you must also be socially retarded which I am not. Seriously, have you ever known a normal person who was homeschooled? I have friends that were for a few years and they turned out all right, but the lifers are just weird. They usually wear glasses glasses and read Spider-man comic books. They cannot have a normal conversation with you unless you talk to them like their mom but who wants to do that. If homeschoolers were characters in Star Trek they would be Spok. Really smart, but socially handicapped. From an early age I lived in the Greenhouse. On the weekends I would go to Christian conferences. These conferences had “Christian” skateboarders, football players, rappers and musicians. They spoke to us about standing up for our faith.
They reiterated the fact that being a Christian did not mean we were un-cool, which was a relief because most of us were. Very un-cool in fact. We were so un-cool we made computer nerds look like Brad Pitt. These conferences passed out a cornucopia of Christian material. Christian CD’s, movies, t-shirts, stickers, patches, water bottles, skateboards, hats and Christian literature on how to separate yourself form the world. They handed out information on churches, bookstores and any other Christian store we could hope to go to without leaving the Greenhouse. There was nothing you could not buy in the world that was not Christianized by some location. There were even Christian granola bars and Christian vitamins. There were Christian ties and Christian insurance companies. The only thing that is still missing and we need to get on it, is a Christian grocery store/mall. Here we could go get all of our supplies for the next month and never have to run into any one who wasn’t a Christian or support Atheist companies like Safeway. We have Christian amusement parks and Christian museums, why can’t we get some mall action going on. I don’t want to buy my Strawberries from some pagan at checkout four. Next we could make Christian Wal-Marts and employ only white-middles class Republicans to run our sore for us. That way we wouldn’t have to deal with minorities or liberal either.
Portland Week 1
I have just finished my first full week in my newly aquired residence of Portland. Right now I am at Stumptown Coffee killing some time before I have to go back and pick up the church signs after the 12:00 service gets out. This morning i helped with setup and put out all the sings for the church. i have been gbetting invovled everywhere i can so as to inject some community in my veins and stop my withdrawals. On Wenesday night i wen to this homeless ministry called Wild Hope where we walk around downtown and tlak to the street kids. Portland has the highest number of street kids of any major U.S. city. There are tons of homeless people here. Part of it is because the coty itself is very friendly to the homeless population and part of it is because there are tons of programs and food distributions. Imago has like 5. Saturday i wen to the 3:00 people which sets up a tabl with drinks and food every saturday at three for people to stop by and get some food. Tommorow night i am going to the newly started college minstry and am going to help lead that. I am also attending a connection group tommorow based ont he idea of Discipleship. It is taught by one of the other itnerns here who is a masters of Divinity at Harvard.
have had no lucks with jobs but have much more peace about the whole situation. I have to be patient and relaize that i have been here only a week. God reminded me that he doesn't care about my job situation or my current purgatorial state as much as he cares about me. I have to remeber that at the end of the day this lif eis not about me. It is not about me getting a good job a good career and a girlfriend. it is about Him. It is about others.
i have been writing alot so i don't waste my time when i have no one ot hang out with and nothing to do.
The setup process at Imago is quite elaborate. 50 people or so are involved. They rent a school and so everything is packed away into 26 foot trailer and has to be set up every week. The childrens church takes up an entire gym and consists of putting up portable walls for every classroom. Today was the service was dedicated to Imago global mission and a band of orphan Rwnada refugees led worship. they are not child orphans, they are college age. I am getting to know the staff and the major players here. All the programs here are very entrepreneurial. Meaning that if you want to start some house group or minstry you just go out and do it. You don't have to be on leadership or staff, you just have to be a member and take a few classes and meet with a few people. It is kinda grassroots in a way. All of the minstries are more or less extensonsions rather than programs instituted by the church. But the church supports and works closely witht he majortiy of them. I am learning alot and doing my best to not go into depression being by myself. I have definentley grown alot jsut in the last week. I know that this is wher ei am supposed to be for this part of my life. I am learnign alot about this church and love it so far. Everyone here is superchill. The whole city is chill. No one is ever angry or stressed.I think there might be THC in the water.
have had no lucks with jobs but have much more peace about the whole situation. I have to be patient and relaize that i have been here only a week. God reminded me that he doesn't care about my job situation or my current purgatorial state as much as he cares about me. I have to remeber that at the end of the day this lif eis not about me. It is not about me getting a good job a good career and a girlfriend. it is about Him. It is about others.
i have been writing alot so i don't waste my time when i have no one ot hang out with and nothing to do.
The setup process at Imago is quite elaborate. 50 people or so are involved. They rent a school and so everything is packed away into 26 foot trailer and has to be set up every week. The childrens church takes up an entire gym and consists of putting up portable walls for every classroom. Today was the service was dedicated to Imago global mission and a band of orphan Rwnada refugees led worship. they are not child orphans, they are college age. I am getting to know the staff and the major players here. All the programs here are very entrepreneurial. Meaning that if you want to start some house group or minstry you just go out and do it. You don't have to be on leadership or staff, you just have to be a member and take a few classes and meet with a few people. It is kinda grassroots in a way. All of the minstries are more or less extensonsions rather than programs instituted by the church. But the church supports and works closely witht he majortiy of them. I am learning alot and doing my best to not go into depression being by myself. I have definentley grown alot jsut in the last week. I know that this is wher ei am supposed to be for this part of my life. I am learnign alot about this church and love it so far. Everyone here is superchill. The whole city is chill. No one is ever angry or stressed.I think there might be THC in the water.
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