A couple weeks late, but thought I'd still post the night with Joshua Radin and Schuyler Fisk. A good show at an amazing venue (The Triple Door). I have already introduced my appreciation of his music in a previous blog (Creative Perfection) so no need to go any further. Though I see why he tends toward the whisper in his songs. He does not have the range with his voice to amaze in his live shows, but still put on a good performance.
A head on encounter with my own self in the past several weeks has led me into what seems like a paradoxical locus, a place where once again two apparently opposing ideas must be embraced at the same time.
The one side is where I find myself in practicum, the side that continually looks into the heart of my own self, the part of me that is truly me. I thought I knew who that was. But as my facilitator breaks down the paradigms that have clouded my own perception of me, I have begun to see the very raw parts of who I am.
Over the years of people pleasing and worrying about what others think and say, by conforming to what I ‘should’ do instead of what I desire to do, I have forfeited my own voice and lost my own self. This loss of self has often been compounded in the Christian realm, where I am even more susceptible to be led into areas of conformity and comparison. Even more than that, Christ calls us to ‘die to ourselves,’ and this phrase can be used to create a context where there is so much ‘God’ that there is no real place for a person. God’s will can become so infused in our thinking that we believe that this transcendent, mysterious God is all we are, yet forget that getting to our true, personal sense of volition and desire is exactly where God is.
Sitting in my counseling session last week, I was asked how I felt, and I responded in all honesty that I really did not know. For the life of me I couldn’t put a name to my feelings, because I wasn’t feeling anything. The next question was why I was not feeling anything, and then I realized again that I had been so conscientious to follow the lead of the instructor, so careful to please him and do what he would think is ‘right,’ my own self was lost and all of my feelings with it. I was lost. I was caught in the idea that a good Christian is kind and makes sure that no one gets upset. My own version of dying to my self often leaves others trying to communicate to a robot.
What do I do with the fact that I am to continually die to my self as Christ calls me to do, and at the same time fight for my own volition, my desire, my wants and my needs? This seems to be the locus, the place where dying and living are fused together in contradiction.
How do I carry both of these at the same time? I think the first step is to deconstruct my own paradigms of what dying to my self and what it really means to live. It is not a weak, self-pitying, indifferent disposition that forfeits my side. And at the same time, truly living is not a pompous, selfish greed that takes whenever it wants. It is so easy to polarize, to end up on one side, and so testing to sit in the tension of both living and dying. But knowing where we have formed our conceptions of each side is a place to start, and that seems to be where I am sitting right now.
To compound what feels like a monumental task is the fact that I would characterize myself as a ‘nice boy.’ This is part of a typology we have used in class, where a nice boy steers away from confrontation, one who will often agree to avoid conflict. Where does a nice boy fit into a bar brawl?
This is what I was left with, holding both a discouraged and excited self at the same time. Yet while I have a lot of work to do, and while I may be a ‘nice boy,’ I know there is a drive and passion that dismisses me from that same label. And Dan has reminded me of the call to step out of safety and into war.
I am reminded that Christianity is not an escape to a peaceful heaven, but a call to engage in the horrific injustices of this world. You will have to fight and lose terribly, get bloody and angry and suffer and scream at God, and actually feel something for this world, rather than pose an indifferent smile. How often I want to forget this. How often I want to turn down the knob of reality. How often I want to escape into a 'spiritual' place, yet I forget that my flesh and blood is spiritual, and we are called to engage in the flesh and blood of life.
I am obviously entrenched here at Mars Hill in the study of psychology. It is incredibly interesting and so valuable for me to engage in, to really get a better picture of my own self, why I do the things I do, my motives, etc. It has uncovered a great deal (though I have only scratched the surface I’m sure), and I think anyone really going into ministry, whether a pastor or a counselor, should know more deeply who they are, to be attuned to the entire operating system that is continuously in flux below what we know as consciousness.
However, amidst all of the psychology, all of the explanations of life, I still feel there’s much space and mystery in me that cannot be explained by science and psychology. Psychology does not fully encompass and portray the complexity of the human condition. Psychology does not define me as well as Christianity. I do not come alive by psychology – I come alive when I experience the spirit of Christ. Why after spending so much time in the books, reading about who I am, do I never get the feeling, the rush of life and confidence about who I am as I do when I feel moved by the spirit of God in worship? Last semester, in my counseling sessions, I would often try to bring much of what I have learned in class, psychological principles, etc, to my time. While that would help, it would not compare to the presence I would bring when I felt moved by the Spirit, when I really felt like I was walking with the Lord. My facilitator would be taken aback by this presence, very noticeable and different.
Quantum physics seems to reveal this same mystery that traditional science and psychology cannot explain. Much of psychology wants to be able to explain every action by a causal relationship down to the biological event that takes place. They want to reduce every emotion and movement to the root, which they say starts with the neurons that fire in your brain, bringing a chain of biological reactions that lead to your action. This is what you would call a reductionistic approach, where all explanations of life and consciousness are reduced to the operations of the 3 pound chunk of brain tissue in your head.
And here is where quantum physics is revealing something different. They are finding that the further one tries to go down the scale of physical reality, the less material there appears to be. In fact, the farther we reach into the minute space of quantum physics, the more reality seems to consist of nonmaterial information. Instead of something physical, there is space and mystery, more pure potential for matter or energy or something of the like but they are not sure what. (What the Bleep Do We Know attempts to explain this)
Thus the mind is being revealed as something that is greater than the sum of the parts that support it. The whole – that being human life and consciousness – is more than the sum of all the biological parts that make up the human body. There is mystery, there is room for the spirit, for that which is greater, to dream up a world outside of that which is caused by neural firings.
So the point of this, for me, is to again by humbled by my own endeavor to learn all that psychology attempts to explain about my own self. There is more than me knowing everything. Information only gets me so far. I can gain all the knowledge in the world, yet this same knowledge will be my downfall, for I will be too arrogant to be able to simply engage in a genuine way that will really create transformation in the other person. There is learning, and then there is being. Psychology focuses more on the knowing, and the gospel focuses on the spirit, the attitude, the engagement and presence. The learning focuses on reductions, which is helpful and needed, but can be rather anemic, fairly dull, tedious. Being, on the other hand, is rich and beautiful. It is art. It is life. It is greater than fact. Being leaves room for Glory. And Glory is the richest life has to offer. And if we have hearts to engage in this spirit of being, we can then see the Glory that exists, the Glory that is pulsating out of all that is.
This picture reveals both Glory and information. But it encapsulates life much better by the sum of the colors and objects laced together as a whole, than what any of them reveal on their own. As a whole, this picture reveals Glory. It is packed with expression of that which is greater than itself.
May we have eyes to see Glory, may we see through the lens of being, of wholeness, may our spirit bring a greater presence than what we know. Instead of simply talking with each other and exchanging information, may we engage in a way of being with one another that reveals the Glory of God. May our hearts have much room for Glory.
I have been moved to express my two hour experience of church this morning. And once again, as has been the case every time I sit down to write - the onerous task of transferring experience into words on a page, providing the reader a little bit of the fullness of what happened. The joy and art of words and language...attempted again today.
In the midst of what I have described before as death in this deconstruction here at Mars Hill, this morning I found myself worshipping in the midst of life and what I know to be true. My certainty was found in these moments, within a spirit lifted so high I felt all but a thin line between me and heaven. Lost in the moment, my body open to move and sway wherever it pleases. Where I was given the full sense of what it means to be a man. Where I was given the fullness of what it means to feel.
All of this centered on words bellowing out by those around me, singing,
“All my delight is found in you Jesus.”
The power of those words in that room - ineffable yet indelibly formed into my memory.
There may have to be doubt for there to be faith, but there is also a certainty in His presence. How can one argue with a heart that is made fully alive?
Thoughts at the end of a full, long, emotionally exhausting, disrupting and beautiful semester:
Being a part of a community of people for any extended period of time is an arduous journey and at the same time everything I desire.
God will use those who 'dont know' to teach those who 'know.’
Truth is relational (but not relative).
Modernism is not the enemy, and neither is postmodernism. They are simply the ways things are (or were), and each are both healthy and unhealthy lenses used to draw meaning.
I don’t bring my full presence when I meet you –I don’t know if you or I can handle that – or can we?
How do I live out the gospel in the midst of preaching it so passionately to you?
Transformation does not happen through information, but by encounter. People will not change by nice sayings and theory, but through experience, through engagement.
People come into therapy for a solution to their problem. We are to be involved in a process of translating the human heart into the language of the Gospel. This is not for me to simply say ‘God is good’ but to create a living experience of this truth with them.
A rough run in relationships for the past 5 years has made me want to give up hope - just in time came faith, hope, and love, and I guess I’m supposed to keep at it…hooray for hope.
“Father sing me into feeling.”
My heart frightens me in its deceitfulness and amazes me in its desire.
Spiegel im spiegel
Language. Writing. Being able to hold all that could and had to happen.
Snow on the ground = four hour gridlock.
My cash-flow is not ideal at the moment.
Life is not ideal. Changing a tire in the pouring rain in the middle of rush hour traffic on the last day of class…not ideal.
I have been blessed by the entrance of some people into my life. The unpredictability of a God that surprises us with something that is sweet, where for a moment, the true fullness of ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’ is felt. That is a blessing, and I am thankful.
I am continually drawn into repentance, my knees to the floor, by one thing: beauty.
Listening to a new artist, Joshua Radin, whose music caught my attention right away.The thing that got me the most is the way his voice moves with the rhythm of the song (I would say in particular his song Winter). It shifts and sways in a captivatingly smooth conduct. Such a way that you feel he is singing it the exact way it should be sung, as if the song was inspired, like he is awakening something, bringing life to something in the very way it was supposed to be, expressing a beauty that is already written, waiting to be given life.
We have the ability to give life to things in song, give life to the things that God is waiting for us to create, to do so in a way that it feels as though the words and rhythms are said the exact way they were supposed to be. This composing creates a holy, sacred sound.
And that is what Joshua does. The way his songs travel, the way they move, so effortless, it seems as though he is bringing to life something the amazingly beautiful and creative way it was supposed to be given life. It is creative perfection. It is awakening, giving expression, a revelation of the beauty of God.
Before the family got together this week, my dad sent the bros a picture from a past vacation, a time when we all had much more hair and a much better tan...
And as for this new place of Mars Hill...I'm not sure, I'm more confused about where I stand, what they all think of me. I don't think it is in any way their fault - if anything that is expected when you meet new people in a totally new place - but it definitely has its affect.
I was informed of news of an old relationship that has moved on to someone else
Something I knew that was inevitably going to happen or already was
Yet in hearing the reality of the way things now are, I was really taken back at the degree I was affected, and I sat in the moment, awkward and uncomfortable, and very, very sore
My mind was confused as it compared the past and everything that was shared with what it now imagines is the present situation – and the two don’t fit together, they don’t make sense
My heart is then forced to deal with the swelling emotions, and amidst much wrestling it cannot carry it alone – there must be some expression, some sharing. A deep need, an inexorable desire to divulge, to release this and have it held by someone
This need was met by a friend, someone who took the entire evening off from their own needs and diverted all attention, who took me on a drive, played me a song as many times as I needed to hear it, gave me full presence and space to be what I needed to be.
And finally, who offered me a story about a longing, a longing that my heart ached alongside with as the words were spoken. It was a longing deeper than any relationship with a woman, it was a longing for romance deeper than the reality of this world. The character spoke these words:
“Come, long expected love. Come, long expected love.
Let the sacred finger and the sacred breath stir up the pool.
Here on the lowest step I wait with festering limbs, with my heart in pain.
Free me, long-expected love, from this old burden.
Since I cannot stay, since I must return into the city,
come now, renewal, come, release.”
God, I praise and loathe this burden, this longing for you, this beauty and pain, this immense, enormous hope that you ask for again and again, and this desire implanted that will not leave.
Jer 20:9 “But if I say ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary of holding it in, indeed I cannot.”
After spending a couple weeks with the same kid at work, it has been hard not to get attached to the guy. His name is Brandon, he is 20 yrs old and autistic. To be honest, at first I was a little freaked out by him, he can be pretty loud when he talks in what sounds like gibberish, and usually rocks back and forth sitting down or sways side to side standing up. But after a little while with the guy, you're all of a sudden in a very interactive relationship, picking up most everything he tries to communicate, and enjoying his company.
To say I was hooked up is an understatement for this night. Eden and Nat got me a belated birthday gift with a ticket to Regina Spektor. And not only that, but as I came from work I walked into the theater to see that a front row seat was saved for me.
I have wanted to talk about the title of my blog, Life in Slow Motion, and after writing my Faith, Hope, and Love paper again, I was led into the notes and ideas that inspired the title (along with David Grey’s great song titled just that…Life in Slow Motion).
There is a lot here that has to do with the past, present, and future. Dan has talked about the different kinds of time in class. There is the kronos time, which is the Greek word for sequential, chronological time. And there is kairos time, which is the Greek word for time that is held in the moment. It is the time that we have the ability as humans to hold, where along with the present we are able to engage with the past and future. We operate on this level of time over and over throughout our day, most of which does not hold significant meaning, like remembering what you had for breakfast or knowing what you are doing tonight.
But there are also certain moments when this time is able to hold for us the deepest, most intense times of desire and joy and sadness all together, where the implications, the importance, the magnitude of the past and the future are met in the here and now, as if that moment is a culmination and expression of everything your life has been about or long for it to be. The good and the bad, the heartache of loss and yet the hope and desire and even greater capacity for joy that rises out of that, all groaning towards the hope for what is to come.
Much of the memory I have of times like these have in many ways been found in past relationships, and what I do know of some of those times is when the girl was able to simply be with me, when she didn’t have to do anything or say anything, but we were able to just sit in the moment, we had such a level of intimacy that time appeared to stand still. That intimacy held so much of the past, so much of the longing for someone to know at such a deep level that was finally becoming real. It also provided a glimpse, a taste of the magnitude of intimacy that would be fully met in what is to come.
I look for that in the women I meet around me. I look to see how they sit with me, how they hold themselves. How they react when they think I’m too quiet or for some reason am intimidating, or even have an interest in me and don’t know what to do with it. How do they hold their heartaches and losses and desires and hopes when they encounter all of mine? Will they cover that up with another self? Will they try to be someone else? Will they talk so much just to fill the time and drown out any real meeting and showing of who they are?
All I know is that when I am able to sit and hold all of these things with someone (doesn’t have to be a girl) usually something amazing happens, something that allows for God to come in. When I am in community, when people are able to simply be, when they are present with one another and not trying to be someone else, that is something amazing. That is something that can create the moments that seem to move in slow motion, where time stands still and the past, present, and future convene.
...so after reading A River Runs Through It for class, I came across a section that seemed to paint this idea in the life of a fly fisherman. The character just lost the biggest fish he had hooked before, the moment standing still in time. He says:
