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.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
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
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
Monday, January 5, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
I know this is stoning worthy....but I hate christmas music
Now before you begin throwing stones at me, just hold on and let me explain...and because my mind is a sparatic nutso, I am going to use a list that may not flow logically from one point to another at all...
- To begin, christmas music, is not Christmas music. Small c, christmas, music is those absolutely annoying jingles about sleigh rides, santa, and snowmen. Now I will admit at one point they were catchy and I sort of liked them, but after having them played on the radio for 3 monthes a year for the last 21 years have made them lose their charm. I know the numbers may be an exaggeration, but radio stations now adays start playing them right after Reformation Day, if not before. I am disgusted with hearing them, and the 50 variations upon the same theme. Come on people, how many artists(and I use the term loosely) are going to make a rendition of santa claus is coming to town.
- Beyond being annoying, the jingles detract from the true nature of Christmas, and turn it into a secularized hallmark holiday. Yes thats right, I just classified christmas with sweetest day, valentines day, and all the other hallmark holidays. To prove my point we can look at the origin of many popular holiday music and see it finds its origin in advertising and schemes by companies to make more money. The entire holiday focuses on greed and stimulating the economy. The invention of santa claus is probably the most horrific sin of the 20th century. Why you may ask? Because rather than just causing physical death, like war, santa claus has caused hundreds of millions of people to be led into greed, into sin, into forgetting what Christmas really is. I know its not the only reason, but the invention of santa is one of the causes of the death of Christmas.
Christmas is a Christian feast day following the fast season of advent. Up until december 25th the Church sits in waiting and preparation for the coming King, both the rememberance of His first coming and in expectation of His second coming. The feast season of Christmas doesnt begin until december 25th, and it is a short stint before epiphany. It's time for Christians to reclaim their feast from the pagans, because despite what most americans think, they don't celebrate Christmas! they celebrate x-mas, or whatever other bastardation of the Feast of the Incarnation that removes the incarnation all together!
now you may be saying ok, I agree lets not stone him, or you may have already stopped reading and thrown a few boulders my direction, but time to move from the obvious wretched part of the holiday, to a more subtle, dangerous, and painful criticism of the Christian practice of Christmas. So we are moving from the secular holiday christmas, which needs to be abolished, and removed from the bastardizing power of satan in world, and into the Christian feast day. So lets see what trouble I can get myself into...
- The celebration of the Feast of the Incarnation has historically been within the church a culmination of the fast of Advent. Now adays Churches have a tendency to try and skip advent and jump into Christmas. Churches put up Christmas trees(whose symbolism needs to be reestablished and explained) at the beginning of Advent, if not sooner. While not common yet, I know that many congregations try and push into Christmas hymns during Advent, totally missing the point of Advent.
- Advent is a fast of preparation and contemplation, a fast of waiting. We eagerly await the coming King, and prepare for Him through patient waiting, prayer, fasting, and singing hymns of longing. I feel as though most congregations would rather skip the season and jump into Christmas.
Why? Because we are an impatient people who as a church have begun to forget what it means to prepare and wait in eager expectation. We have bought into sociteies obsessive desire for things right now, for immediacy. We have forgotten the good of longing, of desire, of fasting.
I hate christmas music....because it seeks to destroy the Rememberance of the Incarnation, and turn it into a celebration of the god of money. I loath Christmas music, because it reminds me how we as a church are forgetting to fast and ever seeking to live in 'happy times'.
Christ was not made incarnate because he likes peace and good will towards men, He did not come to earth to make us never want, to make life into a pastoral scene in which animals dont smell and dont make a mess. No, Christ came to suffer and die. We tend to forget the truth of Christ's coming because it makes us feel all warm inside if we say he came to bring peace and good will, that he didnt come to earth the suffer and die for our sins. Yes the incarnation is a glorious miracle which we should sing about and praise, but we must never forget why Christ came, why the immortal ineffable deity became frail mortal flesh.
Let us reclaim Christmas and banish the disgusting perversion that is the feast of greedy consumerism. Let us wait in bitter longing during advent and feel a painful waiting, let us stand up for Christ and His incarnation, and turn from ourselves, and our own desires for peace and good feelings, and serve God, rather than demand that he serve our own desires.
Lord, let me wait in bitter longing with eager expectation for your second coming, even as I await to celebrate your Incarnation and birth. May I cease to abuse your feast for my own good feelings, and remember the true nature of your coming to earth, to suffer and die for our sins. I praise and glorify your Holy Name and remember your cross this holiday season. Amen
- To begin, christmas music, is not Christmas music. Small c, christmas, music is those absolutely annoying jingles about sleigh rides, santa, and snowmen. Now I will admit at one point they were catchy and I sort of liked them, but after having them played on the radio for 3 monthes a year for the last 21 years have made them lose their charm. I know the numbers may be an exaggeration, but radio stations now adays start playing them right after Reformation Day, if not before. I am disgusted with hearing them, and the 50 variations upon the same theme. Come on people, how many artists(and I use the term loosely) are going to make a rendition of santa claus is coming to town.
- Beyond being annoying, the jingles detract from the true nature of Christmas, and turn it into a secularized hallmark holiday. Yes thats right, I just classified christmas with sweetest day, valentines day, and all the other hallmark holidays. To prove my point we can look at the origin of many popular holiday music and see it finds its origin in advertising and schemes by companies to make more money. The entire holiday focuses on greed and stimulating the economy. The invention of santa claus is probably the most horrific sin of the 20th century. Why you may ask? Because rather than just causing physical death, like war, santa claus has caused hundreds of millions of people to be led into greed, into sin, into forgetting what Christmas really is. I know its not the only reason, but the invention of santa is one of the causes of the death of Christmas.
Christmas is a Christian feast day following the fast season of advent. Up until december 25th the Church sits in waiting and preparation for the coming King, both the rememberance of His first coming and in expectation of His second coming. The feast season of Christmas doesnt begin until december 25th, and it is a short stint before epiphany. It's time for Christians to reclaim their feast from the pagans, because despite what most americans think, they don't celebrate Christmas! they celebrate x-mas, or whatever other bastardation of the Feast of the Incarnation that removes the incarnation all together!
now you may be saying ok, I agree lets not stone him, or you may have already stopped reading and thrown a few boulders my direction, but time to move from the obvious wretched part of the holiday, to a more subtle, dangerous, and painful criticism of the Christian practice of Christmas. So we are moving from the secular holiday christmas, which needs to be abolished, and removed from the bastardizing power of satan in world, and into the Christian feast day. So lets see what trouble I can get myself into...
- The celebration of the Feast of the Incarnation has historically been within the church a culmination of the fast of Advent. Now adays Churches have a tendency to try and skip advent and jump into Christmas. Churches put up Christmas trees(whose symbolism needs to be reestablished and explained) at the beginning of Advent, if not sooner. While not common yet, I know that many congregations try and push into Christmas hymns during Advent, totally missing the point of Advent.
- Advent is a fast of preparation and contemplation, a fast of waiting. We eagerly await the coming King, and prepare for Him through patient waiting, prayer, fasting, and singing hymns of longing. I feel as though most congregations would rather skip the season and jump into Christmas.
Why? Because we are an impatient people who as a church have begun to forget what it means to prepare and wait in eager expectation. We have bought into sociteies obsessive desire for things right now, for immediacy. We have forgotten the good of longing, of desire, of fasting.
I hate christmas music....because it seeks to destroy the Rememberance of the Incarnation, and turn it into a celebration of the god of money. I loath Christmas music, because it reminds me how we as a church are forgetting to fast and ever seeking to live in 'happy times'.
Christ was not made incarnate because he likes peace and good will towards men, He did not come to earth to make us never want, to make life into a pastoral scene in which animals dont smell and dont make a mess. No, Christ came to suffer and die. We tend to forget the truth of Christ's coming because it makes us feel all warm inside if we say he came to bring peace and good will, that he didnt come to earth the suffer and die for our sins. Yes the incarnation is a glorious miracle which we should sing about and praise, but we must never forget why Christ came, why the immortal ineffable deity became frail mortal flesh.
Let us reclaim Christmas and banish the disgusting perversion that is the feast of greedy consumerism. Let us wait in bitter longing during advent and feel a painful waiting, let us stand up for Christ and His incarnation, and turn from ourselves, and our own desires for peace and good feelings, and serve God, rather than demand that he serve our own desires.
Lord, let me wait in bitter longing with eager expectation for your second coming, even as I await to celebrate your Incarnation and birth. May I cease to abuse your feast for my own good feelings, and remember the true nature of your coming to earth, to suffer and die for our sins. I praise and glorify your Holy Name and remember your cross this holiday season. Amen
Saturday, December 20, 2008
traveling agnst
I am currently sitting in the Spokane airport waiting for a flight to get me out of here, and I have been waiting since 6:30am, and wont even know if I can get on a light til 3:05pm......over 9 hours of waiting in an airport.....sigh.
So I am continuing this post in Chicago, which I got to 36 hours after I left from Pullman. Ugh traveling sucks. But highlights....
-I got upgraded to first class on my flight from Spokane to Phoenix, and oh how wonderful it was :-). What a wonderful, and probably once in a lifetime treat. There were free drinks, the seats were comfortable, and there was tons of leg room......sigh, it was wonderful.
- In Phoenix it looked like I would be stuck again, the plane had to cancel 4 spots because of weight restrictions, and things were looking sour, when at the last minute there were a few cancellations and I got on :-).
- It is great being in Chicago again, I've missed it alot, and am extremely excited to see Hugs and Rizzo and whoever else is around...still not sure of who all is here.
- I stayed at the Wyndham hotel because I couldnt get picked up at night, and well..it was also wonderful. The bed was exceptionally good, and their restaurant has wonderful coffee....which I am enjoying as I write this along with some soup. I really should write more often, it is good for the soul, like a good cup of coffee or scotch.
- Did I say I got upgraded to 1st class for free? :-) Wonderfulness
But alas and alack I will end this post to begin a more critical and cranky one.
So I am continuing this post in Chicago, which I got to 36 hours after I left from Pullman. Ugh traveling sucks. But highlights....
-I got upgraded to first class on my flight from Spokane to Phoenix, and oh how wonderful it was :-). What a wonderful, and probably once in a lifetime treat. There were free drinks, the seats were comfortable, and there was tons of leg room......sigh, it was wonderful.
- In Phoenix it looked like I would be stuck again, the plane had to cancel 4 spots because of weight restrictions, and things were looking sour, when at the last minute there were a few cancellations and I got on :-).
- It is great being in Chicago again, I've missed it alot, and am extremely excited to see Hugs and Rizzo and whoever else is around...still not sure of who all is here.
- I stayed at the Wyndham hotel because I couldnt get picked up at night, and well..it was also wonderful. The bed was exceptionally good, and their restaurant has wonderful coffee....which I am enjoying as I write this along with some soup. I really should write more often, it is good for the soul, like a good cup of coffee or scotch.
- Did I say I got upgraded to 1st class for free? :-) Wonderfulness
But alas and alack I will end this post to begin a more critical and cranky one.
Monday, December 8, 2008
labor
It is fascinating how manual labor can be so refreshing, and so rewarding, in the midst of a life of study, and mental abuse.
Grad school is like boot camp for the mind. In boot camp they push you to physical limits and break you down in order to build you up, here in grad school I find that they beat your brain to a pulp with a large amount of complicated and extremely taxing mental labor, plus I sometimes believe that grad profs find profound glee in tormenting grad students and giving grades like 65/170 and calling that a B+.
In the midst of this tremendous difficulty, and new mental landscape I find myself not finding comfort where I once did. In undergrad where I had mental power left after doing school work for reading and writing, I find that my mind cannot contemplate anything after the extreme stress of my work and therefore I find myself in need of a new method of maintaining sanity. And surprisingly manual labor has risen as an answer.
Well I should probably realize that it is not surprising given my studies and my predilection to monasticism. 'Ora et labora' The cry of the Benedictine order, work and prayer. The Benedictine's follow a rule of balance, a rule of simplicity. They pray, study, and work; a life which most of us can't imagine, believing it drab and dull, or difficult. Yet I continually find myself returning with joy to patterns of life that I had while living among the Benedictines. Prayer, maual labor, study: It seems that when all these things come into balance life is slightly less crazy, and my sanity is more well maintained. Maybe there is something deeply ingrained in human nature that requires all three, without which there is dissonance.
And yet also the Benedictines teach us that while these three seem separate, they are in fact, and should be inter related. It is not just ora et labora but also labora cum ora. Not just work and prayer, but work as prayer. We were not meant to live a disjointed unbalanced lives, instead God created us in such a way that we should live in harmony with ourselves and with one another. But this harmony isnt just a balance, or a hermenutical meeting of otherness, but a realiztion of the ways that the other express the self and vice versa. We work and pray, yet also we pray by working. What a joyful comforting realization! That when we strip away all the brokeness and imbalance we can find a place in which working becomes a prayer and a restoration. Coming home to do laundry after having gone to class, taught and graded no longer has to be a stressful and painful thing, instead in the quiet mundaity of laundry, in which I am not thinking of physics or of grades I can begin to simply pray and give thanks for the things God gives me: for clothes, and shelter, clean water, and a way to wash clothes. I find that all the small little things of life become an opportunity of praising God while also finding refreshment and renewal of a grad school weary spirit.
Lord let me always remember you in the little things. Amen
Grad school is like boot camp for the mind. In boot camp they push you to physical limits and break you down in order to build you up, here in grad school I find that they beat your brain to a pulp with a large amount of complicated and extremely taxing mental labor, plus I sometimes believe that grad profs find profound glee in tormenting grad students and giving grades like 65/170 and calling that a B+.
In the midst of this tremendous difficulty, and new mental landscape I find myself not finding comfort where I once did. In undergrad where I had mental power left after doing school work for reading and writing, I find that my mind cannot contemplate anything after the extreme stress of my work and therefore I find myself in need of a new method of maintaining sanity. And surprisingly manual labor has risen as an answer.
Well I should probably realize that it is not surprising given my studies and my predilection to monasticism. 'Ora et labora' The cry of the Benedictine order, work and prayer. The Benedictine's follow a rule of balance, a rule of simplicity. They pray, study, and work; a life which most of us can't imagine, believing it drab and dull, or difficult. Yet I continually find myself returning with joy to patterns of life that I had while living among the Benedictines. Prayer, maual labor, study: It seems that when all these things come into balance life is slightly less crazy, and my sanity is more well maintained. Maybe there is something deeply ingrained in human nature that requires all three, without which there is dissonance.
And yet also the Benedictines teach us that while these three seem separate, they are in fact, and should be inter related. It is not just ora et labora but also labora cum ora. Not just work and prayer, but work as prayer. We were not meant to live a disjointed unbalanced lives, instead God created us in such a way that we should live in harmony with ourselves and with one another. But this harmony isnt just a balance, or a hermenutical meeting of otherness, but a realiztion of the ways that the other express the self and vice versa. We work and pray, yet also we pray by working. What a joyful comforting realization! That when we strip away all the brokeness and imbalance we can find a place in which working becomes a prayer and a restoration. Coming home to do laundry after having gone to class, taught and graded no longer has to be a stressful and painful thing, instead in the quiet mundaity of laundry, in which I am not thinking of physics or of grades I can begin to simply pray and give thanks for the things God gives me: for clothes, and shelter, clean water, and a way to wash clothes. I find that all the small little things of life become an opportunity of praising God while also finding refreshment and renewal of a grad school weary spirit.
Lord let me always remember you in the little things. Amen
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thanks and giving.....the holiday before christmas
As the years go by there seems to be a trend about this time of year. A trend to skip over Thanksgiving, over Advent, and jump straight to christmas. In years past stores resisted putting up christmas decorations and items until after Thanksgiving, radio stations played everyday music til at least Thanksgiving. But now stores have skipped Thanksgiving and some even hand up christmas products before Halloween was even over. A radio station in Detroit started playing Christmas music on November 1st, nearly two months before the holiday, and every ad on TV, the radio, and the paper seems to be about christmas shopping and products. It is interesting that the richest and most greedy population on Earth are the ones who have decided to skip over there own holiday Thanksgiving and go onto a more tolerable holiday of self indulgence, greed, and selfish desire.
Writing on how christmas has lost its meaning in America is a very long and drawn out topic, and is for another time. No, for now is the time of Thanksgiving, despite what the media tells us. It is time for American's to give thanks for what they so abundantly have. It was pointed out to me by a charity worker that even the poorest of the poor in America get more to eat, clean water to drink, and shelter than a good part of the world, I think he said a number even as large as 75%. To realize that even our poorest, most destitute citizens are richer than 75% of the world! And we skip over giving thanks and demand more!
Our economy is shot, we are all afraid of losing money, all our savings, being unable to support our dry houses, our clean water, our daily supply of food. Oh how terrible it is to be an American today! What we as a country spend on our venti half caf lattes a year alone could end world hunger if not more! And yet we think we have a right to pray to God to save our economy, restore our fortunes and save us from actually living thankful lives. Because no, we do not want to give thanks, we do not want to admit that what we have is a gift, we want to believe that we achieved it all on our own, that we are strong enough, smart enough, independent enough, that we do not need God or His gifts.
I am not saying that wealth is inherently bad, or that we deserve the crisis we are in, but I am asking us to return to reality. To realize that we are blessed above every other nation in the world by God, and because of that we have responsibilities. We have responsibilities to give thanks, and to properly use our wealth. God gives gifts not because he wants to please us, but because he wants to teach us to give. We all are nothing on our own, we all have nothing, and so we cannot give on our own. It is only by God's mighty grace that we have anything to give. God desires us to become like him, to become loving, to become full of Life through love. When we hoard and store and turn our backs on the world we sink deeper into sin, deeper into our selves, farther from God and deeper into death. God desperately desires that we would turn outwards, acknowledge the gifts we have been given, giving thanks everyday, and as a corollary to share those gifts with others spreading God's love and grace. And maybe, just maybe we will find that when our hearts are turned outwards and we give more than we want, and we thank more than we whine we will find that God gives so abundantly that we cannot hope to give it all away, that we will find that His Love, His Life is a boundless spring which seeks to permeate the universe with infinite Glory, infinite majesty, harmony and joy. God desires so much more for us than we have, if only we would cease to cling to the clay sculptures that adorn our hearts and let the refining fire of God's grace and love fill our heart's instead. It is my hope and prayer that I can live by my own words, but only by the help of the One who came to help the helpless, and bring the dead to Life. To God be the Glory, Father Son and Holy Spirit now and forevermore. Amen.
Writing on how christmas has lost its meaning in America is a very long and drawn out topic, and is for another time. No, for now is the time of Thanksgiving, despite what the media tells us. It is time for American's to give thanks for what they so abundantly have. It was pointed out to me by a charity worker that even the poorest of the poor in America get more to eat, clean water to drink, and shelter than a good part of the world, I think he said a number even as large as 75%. To realize that even our poorest, most destitute citizens are richer than 75% of the world! And we skip over giving thanks and demand more!
Our economy is shot, we are all afraid of losing money, all our savings, being unable to support our dry houses, our clean water, our daily supply of food. Oh how terrible it is to be an American today! What we as a country spend on our venti half caf lattes a year alone could end world hunger if not more! And yet we think we have a right to pray to God to save our economy, restore our fortunes and save us from actually living thankful lives. Because no, we do not want to give thanks, we do not want to admit that what we have is a gift, we want to believe that we achieved it all on our own, that we are strong enough, smart enough, independent enough, that we do not need God or His gifts.
I am not saying that wealth is inherently bad, or that we deserve the crisis we are in, but I am asking us to return to reality. To realize that we are blessed above every other nation in the world by God, and because of that we have responsibilities. We have responsibilities to give thanks, and to properly use our wealth. God gives gifts not because he wants to please us, but because he wants to teach us to give. We all are nothing on our own, we all have nothing, and so we cannot give on our own. It is only by God's mighty grace that we have anything to give. God desires us to become like him, to become loving, to become full of Life through love. When we hoard and store and turn our backs on the world we sink deeper into sin, deeper into our selves, farther from God and deeper into death. God desperately desires that we would turn outwards, acknowledge the gifts we have been given, giving thanks everyday, and as a corollary to share those gifts with others spreading God's love and grace. And maybe, just maybe we will find that when our hearts are turned outwards and we give more than we want, and we thank more than we whine we will find that God gives so abundantly that we cannot hope to give it all away, that we will find that His Love, His Life is a boundless spring which seeks to permeate the universe with infinite Glory, infinite majesty, harmony and joy. God desires so much more for us than we have, if only we would cease to cling to the clay sculptures that adorn our hearts and let the refining fire of God's grace and love fill our heart's instead. It is my hope and prayer that I can live by my own words, but only by the help of the One who came to help the helpless, and bring the dead to Life. To God be the Glory, Father Son and Holy Spirit now and forevermore. Amen.
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