Failures

Recently I had a friend tell me that her biggest fear was failure, and it made me realize two things: we are obsessed with winning, and that I am a failure.

I will now list a few of my most recent failures:
-I lost two very important books to me in my travels over break.
-I have lost 4 out of 4 hockey games in the last 2 weeks.
-In the game I play online I have lost every battle recently
-I got a speeding ticket because I failed to catch a sign saying the speed limit was changing
-I failed to catch that my tabs were expired and I had invalid insurance cards on me.

Now most of these failures are minor and just annoyances, but it got me to thinking deeper and farther back. My failure at sports when I was younger, my failures as a student, my many failures with regards to my family, to my friends. My failures as a Residential minister, my failures as a researcher, quite frankly I realized I have failed at everything.

Why do we fear failure? Despite what society wants us to believe failure is the norm, success is not. Looking at the world we see tons of failure everywhere, from the failure of society to care for the broken, the poor, the sick, to the failure of individuals, the failing economy. The norm of this existence is failure. Thermodynamics and some theories of the universe teach us that the universe tends towards decay, towards failure. One day the earth will fail to sustain life, the sun will fail, and all will tend towards a state of maximum entropy and the entire universe will fail. Failure is the norm and rule of this reality. Sure some may claim some minor victories, but even if you win every battle, every contest even if you are the most successful person on earth ever, your body will fail and you will die. In the end everything you did will be for naught, a complete and total failure.

So whats the point? Why even try if it will all be failure in the end?

Because death and physics do not have the final word. The norm of this reality is not the rule of all. No there is a higher and greater Rule, a Reality which supersedes and permeates our own. It is the Reality of the Resurrection, the Fact of Life Incarnate, the one thing that ever has and ever will matter: Jesus Christ. While we were still yet living in a world of decay, death and damnation, the Life, the Light, came down an was made man. Even while He slept at His mother's bosom failure continued as Herod murdered the innocents, the society deteriorated, death ran rampant, even in the Reality of the Incarnation death claimed its hold. But the miraculous happened, and it began in His ministry. The dead were raised, the blind made to see, the lame made to walk. All the failure, all the decay began to turn back, Life had come and death was fleeing! In one more attempt to rule this world and set all to destruction and failure death claimed Christ, satan worked his tyranny to kill Life. But in the moment of the darkness apparent victory Life rose up to deal the killing blow. Death died on the cross, and satan was utterly destroyed. The enemies fought, and lost! Christ rose on the third day and Life claimed its victory. The Life came into the world and abolished death, destroyed the immanent failure of life and replaced it with the victory that is Life.


So whats the point? Why even try if it will all be failure in the end?

Even though we fail, even though the tyrants of this world still work us woe, we have the final victory. We do not try to succeed, but we try because Christ already has succeeded. We do not have to win, we do not have to succeed, the Victory has already been won by Christ, and so we are called to live in that victory. Even if we fail at our tasks, even if we end up broken on the street, poor, despondent, and shattered remnant of some semblance of what the world calls 'success' we will still have won, we will still have the Victory, for it is not ours to gain or to hold, instead it is Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit through the waters of Holy Baptism. In Baptism we admitted the ultimate failure, we admitted that we were dead, and we sacrificed every vain hope of success in those waters and rose in victory by what Christ has done, and not by any work or deed that we may or may not have done.

We will fail, the world will look at our lives and label them complete failures, empty, a tragic waste, but it will not matter for we have the Life, the Victory in Christ. Fear not failure, for even if the world crumbles around you and everything that was good turns sour, and every venture fails there is still Life found and given through the waters of Baptism, into the One True Life.

Returning Reflections- Valpo

As my time of returning to Valpo is passing midway and approaching the end I find myself reflecting and contemplating on Valpo, my time here as an undergraduate and my time here now. Much has stayed the same since graduating, and much has changed.

One thing that has stayed the same, and probably will always be the same is my love of the place. The happy memories, the friends, the chapel, Christ College, the strong values and unique perspective on the world. Valpo was the place in which I truly learned who I am and came into my own. I moved out from under the shadow of teachers and parents and truly stood up for the first time as myself. There were many triumphs, and many failures, joys and depressions, yet I would not trade any of it for the world.

When I came back I expected to find many people that I knew, many friends, but I found something different, a community of people I barely knew. I found out on returning that so many of my friends, so many of my loved ones either graduated with me, or before me. There are of course some people left, but far fewer than I realized. And now in the midst of new faces I see ghosts of the past, of times when I was first learning to live on my own, learning to be a college student, my first all nighter. Valpo is a place of living ghosts, even while new memories are made and present joys are experienced I find the ghosts of the past. I sit in the library commons in the wonderful orange chairs staring out into the snow and feel such ecstasy, all the time remembering the activities fairs, the church voc meetings, the midnight strolls gazing up into the sky wishing for things that never will be. What a haunted ecstasy!

Valpo is not the same place. The old union is closed, the new union is open. It is a massive place of modern design and immaculate sterilness. I am sure it will be great and students will love it, but it is not my Valpo, it is not the dim and dark corners of worn out benches and stained carpet, much loved crevices of solitude, or of intimacy. Valpo is different and yet the same.

And the people are different, those individuals who made my time at Valpo so wonderful are changing. Friends are moving on, getting married, off to different parts of the world, and all things are different, and yet there is still a deep nostalgia, a deep love that unites us together in past shared experiences, unites us in love for Valpo.

I can never return to my Valpo. The place has changed, the people have changed, and no matter how wonderful the times were that place is gone. Returning reminds me of those things, and brings a warmth to my heart, but I am no fool. I know that these feelings are fleeting and cannot be held onto, that I must move on with my life, not living in the past, but living in a way that reflects the past.

Father, may I live in a way which reflects my time at Valpo, a life of love and service, a life of uniting faith and knowledge, of acting in ways that reflect belief and as a shining beacon in a world of darkness. 'In luce tua videmus lucem' In thy Light we see light. May I ever live in the Light and let my life be a reflection of the Light. May I live a life worthy of the ideals of Valpo, one in which the Light effects all aspects of my being and that I may be a city on a hill, the salt of the earth, a true disciple of Christ. Amen

Cabin Fever, balance and Valpo

Now I do love my family, and like the place I grew up- my parents place- but I found myself this break experiencing immense cabin fever. Every time I go home it seems to get worse, because every time I go home the less and less its like the place I grew up. My friends have moved out and aren't around, the places I used to go to are in some cases gone, or changed in a very unfamiliar way, and this all adds to me experiencing a restlessness. I mean it is a great place to visit, for a time, but I don't know if I can call it home. It has nothing to do with family, instead it is the fact that it has become foreign to me. There are new faces in the places I worked, there are new buildings, new sights, just new every where. It is foreign to me, and how can we call the foreign home? It is now my parents place, and my home is in WA.
What does this have to do with cabin fever? Well over break there were things I wanted to get done, which are easy to do in WA because of how my place is and the familiarity. At my parents place there was an unfamiliarity which made me feel unable to do work, and in turn made me restless. I want to make clear that I am not making a judgement on places, neither is better than the other, but they are different, and therefore my interaction is differently. There is no quiet sanctum of prayer at solitude at my parent's place like at mine, but they have a huge TV and cable so I can watch the Red Wings. Both places are good but in different ways. I think that this difference and this foreignness brought me to a terrible case of cabin fever after about a week. I experience the same thing every time I go on vacation to a different place whether it be MI, or Mexico or Germany. I get restless after about a week of being somewhere and want to go home.

To continue on this train of self discovery, I discovered something about myself when I was on the train from MI to Valpo: I thrive on balance. Now when most people hear the I triple majored in physics, theology, and math they assume that I am crazy and must have had a miserable time of it...but they are wrong. I am finding that I am far less fulfilled and enjoying school doing one subject than I was when I was doing three. Such a terribly specialized focused study is unbalanced. It does not engage all parts of being and so leaves me(and maybe every body) unfulfilled. So far in my life, the most fulfilling and enjoyable times were those where I would be discussing trinitarian theology while calculating the ground state energies of a perturbed hydrogen atom.
I am a hybrid creature, a being dwelling in the thermocline of Reality and reality. In order to be happy I need to be rooted in the Real even while exploring the real. Now I may be unique, but I don't think so. I think that all humans are this hybrid creature, and most of our depression and sorrow arises because we either try to live in the real, or the Real, and never realize that we were made for both. We need balance.

I am visiting Valpo currently which is of course doing a number on my heart and soul. I love this place, the calm warmness of the Christopher Center commons, with the wonderful orange chairs, the peaceful contemplative narthex of the Chapel of the Resurrection, and of course the glorious awe inspiring Christus Rex and stained glass windows. It feels so terribly good to be back, and yet it inspires a nostalgic sadness as I realize that this Valpo is not my Valpo. There is a new Union(which is amazing) a new pastor, and tons of new things, as well as a lack of most of my friends. It is a similar place, but not the same, and it saddens me with the realization that my Valpo will never be again. Which is fine, it is all part of growing up, but I still can be sad about it.

Well time to go and enjoy some valpo cuisine and to just be happy being here again and seeing some friends at least.