christmas cheer

peace on earth

Snow falls steadily outside. The deep silence calms me. I just got in a fight with my husband, but now everything is quiet. I breathe. I come to terms with the fact that there will be no resolution. He maintained his integrity. I suppose I maintained mine as well by expressing as honestly as I could my own feelings, though I’m left with mild sadness.

What I want to share with him, I may never share. Our limits touch each other, and we can go no further. One of those things you give up once you get married, I guess.

Peace on earth. My sister commented last night that this is the least sacred Christmas we have had. I suppose it comes as a result of all our years of complaining. This year we didn’t get dragged to church or communion. We didn’t have to read the Christmas story. We didn’t have to listen to (much) contemporary Christian Christmas music. We didn’t have to say one thing we were thankful for. And I think in a way, we kind of missed it, though we might not admit it to my mom.

A text message this morning woke me up saying “how God loves us” – a beautiful reminder. This is perhaps underneath everything: the love of God, so deep, so silent, so present. Enveloping the world in stillness. Comfort. Peace.

For one day, we think of loved ones around the world. We pay attention to loved ones close by. We let our hearts rest. And the entire world rejoices. Conflicts may not resolve, but something deeper takes over.

the audacity to hope

I read an article last week that was discussing the dichotomy in our society between “passionate authenticity” and medicated happiness. On one hand, our society prizes authenticity and defines authenticity as unrestrained, deep, “passionate” emotion. Most importantly, we attach this passionate authenticity with a prophet-artist, who has the ability to see – and feel – beyond the mundane layers of life, revealing what is below the surface. On the other hand, we feel that if we can't possess this passionate authenticity, the next best step is medicated happiness, artificially induced.

This prizing of passionate authenticity gets complicated when dealing with depression. On one hand the prophet-artists argue that this is a necessary part of experiencing all dimensions of life and bears an intrinsic relationship to creativity and ecstasy. On the other hand, the medical community has argued that this is a false system of thinking that debilitates individuals by preventing them from accepting the help they need, especially through medication. The author of the article wonders if there is somehow a third way…something other than using “passionate authenticity” or medicated happiness as the measure of wholeness.

I’m reflecting on all of this as I sit in my parent’s house in Leavenworth with a pot of tea and snow falling gently outside. I’m not sure I totally buy this argument – or rather I’m left dissatisfied with the author who outlines these two poles, shows the problem with each, and then leaves the reader without any clue as to what this third way might be practically in the here and now.

Whatever the case, I had a conversation with a friend yesterday and we were discussing depression, pain, addiction, identity. I remember coming to a point last year where I realized that on some level, I was resisting healing, forgiveness, integration because I was holding onto pain (and victimization) as a core part of my identity. For so long, pain felt like the most “real” and “raw” emotion that I had, and I was encouraged to tap into that. I think that process was important, but at some point a subtle and seductive myth takes over – and that is that pain defines us. We need it as part of our identity.

I think this myth is all the more seductive by the relationship we draw in our society between pain and creativity or life-force. Most critically popular art right now is prized for its authentic representations of pain, suffering, and victimization. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been equally drawn to this type of art. I’m inclined to believe that as humans we need these representations to help us recognize the suffering of the “other” in our own suffering, to draw humanity together, and to help humans come to terms with a broken world.

But I guess recently, I’ve been questioning all this once again as I've realized my desire to hold onto darkness as if it is the only true and fixed thing I know about myself is still alive. This notion of self can be intimately tied to Christian notions of sin – original sin – and it fits nicely with systems that emphasis the persistent and constant presence of evil, darkness, suffering in the world. It also fits in well with secular versions that see existence as nothing but raw struggle and pain as essentially part of our existence.

But the question again is: does pain define us, individually and collectively? I really don’t think this essentialist position is consistent with Christianity. While we have pain – and suffering, evil, injustice is present in the world – our faith teaches us that this is not the beginning. The source of our identity does not begin in pain. It begins in the goodness and beauty of God. It's important to note also that creativity does not begin with pain. It begins in the act of giving life and light piercing the darkness.

Pain does bind humans together. However, we should not confuse this as categorically defining humanity nor should we prize pain for this quality. This creates grievous glamorizations of pain, suffering and violence – often instigated by those who claim that this is the most “authentic” mode of human life. More defining it seems is our response to pain – our own or others – with compassion, with a reaffirmation of life, with healing, with justice. This reaffirms the reality of goodness that is at the core of all things.

So where does all this leave me? Free to let go of the need to prize darkness as the most “authentic” or “real” part of myself. Doing so releases the power pain holds over me and breaks its seductive myth. And something strange happens. Far from taking something essentially me away, I discover a deeper sense of self. Free from the power of pain, I can question and imagine different possibilities for myself and the world as I journey prayerfully towards hope, life, and light without denying the presence of pain in my life. I can affirm healing, redemption, and forgiveness. I can also take Zoloft without feeling guilty or ashamed.

The Scriptures speak of the end of time and the revelation of true reality not as being characterized by violence, pain and suffering as some gleefully imagine, but as a place where every tear will be wiped away, where swords will be beaten into plough shares, and humanity will live joyfully in the light nourished and sustained by love. Nations will be healed. Wars will cease. Disease will be no more. Our challenges today is to live out this vision prophetically, to affirm this vision in the here and now, and to believe in it as defining, ultimately the first and last word of all of human history and of our lives.

I admit that this is sometimes hard for me to swallow. I’m suspicious of any narrative that proposes deliverance from pain and suffering because it seems irrelevant and dangerous in a world of pain and suffering. But the path of faith is to embrace this as reality as we question our own. Doing so – at the very least - breaks the seductive myth and endless cycle of pain and violence. Breaking this myth doesn’t remove pain in the here and now. It just helps us see it more clearly by destroying its power. It helps us see it as something we have agency in response to and calls us to work and walk towards peace, justice, life, healing, and hope. For lack of better analogy, faith puts pain and hope on an equal playing field and asks us to choose what is more compelling, what will have the most enduring claim on us and our world. Faith forces confrontation with the most enduring forces of human life: dignity and depravity and prompts us to choose the final word. Perhaps the “third way” is recognizing that both forces our present in our world and within our own self. Both the narrative of pain and the narrative of hope in some way shape and define us, and yet the question today and every day is what will we hold onto as enduring and what will we release as myth? What narrative will we decide has claim on us, our world, our families, and our relationships, and which claims will we resist?

Christmas is here

Last night Than and I celebrate our first Christmas in Texas.
A neighbor gave us this little fake tree, which we decorated.


Topping the tree is Stingy - the sting ray Than made me at the Chicago aquarium last Christmas. Stingy is usually stuck to our living room wall, but he balances nicely on top of the tree.

Our three ornaments.

Light in the darkness.

race matters

Barack Obama, South Africa, and Race

Reading this recent story about a professor at Calvin College, I am struck with how much we still don’t “get it” when it comes to race, culture, and faith in this country. Calvin insists that all of their professors be Reformed, but faculty member Denise Isom has struggled to find a reformed community where she feels comfortable racially and culturally, event though every other (white) faculty member has this luxury. So faced with this choice, she decided to voice – very convincingly – her reasons for attending a Baptist church and asked for an exception to the requirement. Calvin refused this request citing maintenance of their institutional faith identity. If Isom refuses to attend a Reformed church, she will be taken off her tenure track and given a one year contract after which she will be terminated.

This is outrageous – especially, when the university simultaneously claims to be pursuing diversity. Calvin already is 97% white, and I guarantee that the few students of color who are there depend heavily on faculty members like Isom. Isom’s letter could have been an opportunity for Calvin as an institution to stare deeply at itself – to question why people of color do not feel comfortable in reformed communities and perhaps in their institution. Instead of approaching her concerns with sensitivity and inquiry, they responded with a defensive expression of their own institutional identity, which appears to have no room for the particularities of people of color.

What makes me sad about this incident is that reading between the lines of Isom’s letter reveals a story I have heard all too often behind closed doors. I’m not sure when we – white people – are going to get it. It’s mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally exhausting to be a minority representative in a majority culture. Isom already has to play the culture game five days a week absorbing and translating white, reformed, culture while at the same time being viewed as a symbol who speaks on behalf of all African Americans. This sounds like a job she was more than willing to do, and at the same time, she needed respite. While white liberals often extol the multicultural church, I’ve seen up close the absolute need for students/faculty/staff of color to identify with their own communities; it’s a question of survival.

I wish that white people would take the time to hear stories – and pleas – like Isom’s, and stare deeply into our own practices and institutions. Sadly, too often we disregard these stories. And then we wonder why we can’t diversify our institutions. Why the token faculty member of color burns out and leaves. When stories like Isom’s surface – I can’t help but think: it’s so obvious! I applaud her for having the courage to articulate so publicity a reality that is often only shared in hallways and behind closed doors. Unfortunately, her prophetic voice has gone unheeded. It remains to be seen if public opinion will be enough to prompt a reexamination by Calvin. I doubt it. They have said in clear terms that what is at stake here is identity itself: the particular vs. the universal – and in this battle, the universal (white) has won.

Orientalism Revisited

Here are the results of my recent foray into Christmas cookie swapping. After four hours of baking, I emerged with several dozen gingersnaps I could actually use!

books, coffee, god, profit

If you are interested in theory and design, check out this project. A gothic church has been converted into a bookstore, but what I find most interesting is the range of comments and responses to the project.

Initially, I responded to the aesthetics, but after a moment, I realized there is much more to contemplate in this intersection of sacred and secular.

We pass this billboard every time we drive to Dallas.

blowing in the wind

It’s been a long time since I have posted. Partially, the long absence is because I have been busy. Since my last post, I’ve made two trips to Dallas and one trip to Seattle/Hawaii. I had plenty of ideas for posts along the way, but they never quite make it to written form in time to be relevant.

I’m finally starting to feel settled here. I’m starting to care about this place, and I find myself wondering what’s going to happen once I leave. I feel invested in my job. I have been invited to a cookie swap next weekend. The homemade glittery invitation sits on my desk.

It’s a bit disconcerting when the present gradually replaces the past, when I realize that my life is here and I have moved from one stage into another. What this stage is, I’m not sure, but no doubt, I will look back and perhaps it will make sense. I feel a bit ageless at the moment: not young, not old, not sure, but not conflicted either. It’s so different from the last two years.

I am obsessively following Barack Obama’s campaign. I don’t feel like I can place all my hope in one election, one man – but change feels possible. That the world could change through a shift in perspective blows my mind, but I know it’s possible. And what I like about Obama is that he has the courage to imagine a better world, without denying the reality of its complexity. I’m tired of people mistaking such vision for inexperience because they themselves cannot fathom a different world. They are so wedded to a world built on fear, security, and dominance, that it is unthinkable to tear it down.

But history has a way of playing tricks. bringing the mountains to the ground. So, I guess at the moment I’m banking on that more than anything else. And though I’m not sure when it appeared, hope has arrived. Hope that although everything our hands touch dies, love will still keep us alive. Yes, AIDS is still here. Bombs are still exploding. Wars still rage. But, today I feel hopeful.