Iron Sharpens Iron

Here's an idea to keep you honest:

Make a really close friend whose worldview is totally opposed to your own and who isn't afraid to say so, and with whom you aren't afraid to disagree either.

I don't know that it's possible to go out and intentionally do this, but I would just say that if you find yourself in this position, you might want to consider thanking God for it and learning from Him in it, instead of running away from it like I tried to do that time (and sometimes keep trying to do). Particularly if you have been intentional about finding people who do share your worldview and can make sure you're not running off the rails somewhere.

The Milk Guy's really good at calling my bluff. I don't get to start sounding all super-spiritual without having to think about what I'm saying, and if I really mean it, and if I even begin to live up to it. And every once in a while he'll come up with a zinger of a theological insight that will set me on my heels.

This week has, as I keep mentioning, been a little rough for me, and actually the weeks leading up to it haven't been exactly stress-free, either, as we at Starbucks scramble to get enough work hours to support ourselves, for example. This kind of scenario makes me grumpy and weepy and I start making up new rude words out of existing rude words and find, to my chagrin, that I am kind of delighted with them because they are clever, even if thoroughly inappropriate for a Christian. (The Milk Guy doesn't help with that so much, because he thinks they're clever, too, and has no such scruples.)

The thing about all that is that though it doesn't make me look--or feel--very good, I don't get to make excuses for myself, like I might if I were going to go to a prayer meeting that night and rehash the day in Evangelese to my friends. The Milk Guy sees my moods and reactions in all their un-glory, and there's no explaining away with him.

It's kind of a lot of pressure. And sometimes I feel like I'm making a complete hash of reflecting Christ to anybody, let alone him. (And . . . I probably am.) But he doesn't let me wallow in "I'm such a horrible Christian" mode either. Recently I said, "I feel like God's trying to communicate with you . . . but He sure could have picked a whole lot better representative . . ."

The Milk Guy paused (understandably, as I think about it), and then said, "Aren't you kind of making yourself out to be more powerful than God when you say that?"

Oh. Right. And so we keep talking. And so he challenges me and I appreciate that, and I remember from time to time that not only am I not the perfect representative of Christ on earth, but that I don't have to be--because, as the Milk Guy himself reminded me whether he meant to or not, God is God and He'll cause whatever transformations He sees fit. Including in me.

Christmas

The balloon ended up deflating in a flood of tears rather than a round of screaming, and the techs who did my first radiation treatment this afternoon (who were women, and not the guys of the initial visit) thought I was crying because I was upset about the treatment.

I suppose there might have been something in that. But mostly it's because I feel that, like the Milk Guy's appliances, my circuits are fried--by a whole lot of little things rather than one big thing. And added to that is guilt. Huge amounts of guilt.

I live in a "developed" country. I am not homeless. I have healthcare. I have friends with electricity and food and . . . heck, I haven't had to cook or go grocery shopping in weeks. The Nurse Practitioner's comment kind of rankles, because I want to be selfless, but apparently only on my own terms. I used to think I would go On The Mission Field for the rest of my life and maybe live somewhere less "developed" than this country and, you know . . . have to boil water or something. I've been in many different countries and managed the hole-in-the-ground toilets and eating mystery foods with my fingers and washing my face in a bowl of water and wearing the same clothes days in a row, and it didn't bother me at all. But I chose to go there and do those things, and those were the things that were "done" in certain locations.

Those things aren't generally done here, and I had no control over the circumstances bringing them about. It's not like a camping trip, which I don't enjoy much either, but which I can choose and modulate a little. And so everything in me revolts (as it does in many people, I've observed). I can listen to myself and think I sound absolutely pathetic, and yet I'm still a bundle of nerves because I can't flick a lightswitch and see the entire room.

I feel that the timing of this "ordeal" (which I feel is an unfair word, because this could have been so much worse--it's no Katrina) is sort of interesting. By which I mean, it's making me think of Christmas a little differently. Usually there's all this talk about "the true meaning of Christmas" and to some extent, I usually squint my brain every year and try to remind myself that the birth of Jesus is so much more important than the Christmas tree and that it wasn't all pretty and cozy and lights. Not . . . that there's anything wrong with that.

This year I'm probably about as distracted from the birth of Christ as I've ever been, but I can't pretend I'm not interacting with it on some level all the same. There's so much going on in my life right now, and there's this kind of deprivation, and there's a very distinct (if presently guilt-inducing) reminder that Christmas is actually about inconvenience and deprivation. Jesus gave up all his glory (light! weightiness! splendour!) and schlepped around in a Roman-occupied "under-developed" country for thirty-some years, talking to a bunch of people who often didn't get what He was talking about. And Mary and Joseph gave up their reputations, and had to pack up their lives and trek down to Bethlehem, and then down to Egypt, and their lives were in upheaval for, oh . . . pretty much the rest of them.

Jesus kind of does that, I think. I suspect Mary and Joseph had to come to terms with that more than once. Unless, of course, they had no controlling tendencies at all . . . I kind of doubt it. But maybe I'm just thinking like that to make myself feel better.

Annoyingly Vague

Here is a post that is likely to be annoyingly vague, but I'm going to go ahead and write it anyway.

Last week, as you may know, I found out some saddening information about a former acquaintance from high school. Even though I haven't seen this person since graduation (that is, a very long time ago), finding out this piece of information has catapulted me back in time, as it were, and I am reliving a lot of stuff I would prefer not to.

I was one of the not-coolest Not Cool Kids, and it is tempting to try to garner pity for this role. I could probably do it, too. Nobody else was very perfect either. But the fact is that I was also not a very nice Not Cool Kid. The only thing I felt good about, in my painful insecurity, was my spiritual life, which I managed to completely undermine by projecting a terrified and scornful self-righteousness on all and sundry (and particularly on the person referred to above). I don't know if it was hurtful to anybody besides myself, although I do know I got on a lot of people's nerves.

Anyway, I am currently trying to process the person I was in high school, and it is turning out to be at best an embarrassing, and at worst a painful endeavour. (Partly it turns out that I'm not really as different now as I would like to think I am--I'm just better at facades.) I'm trying to figure out if I need to make some amends to people, and if so, who they are and how to go about it. I'm trying to figure out what God wants me to do and learn in all of this--how He wants me to change.

So that, if you want to know, is my excuse. It's hard for me to write about anything at the moment, and if you wonder why you don't see me here for a little while, this upheaval is probably the reason.

Keeping Promises

Although the church in which I grew up (and which I now again attend) is more liturgical that most Baptist churches, I mean, come on--it's still a Baptist church. I never heard of giving up anything for Lent until some time in late elementary school. Since I hadn't, I assumed when my friend Jackie told me she was giving up chocolate for it that either such a practice was evil or unimportant. (I spent most of my childhood operating under this "logic," which is why in third grade I thought "beer" was a swear-word. This detail is now rendered hilarious for multifaceted reasons. At the time, my younger brother would taunt, "Beer, beer, beer!" and I would say "SHHH!" in a very annoyed tone of hush.)

I don't remember ever having a conversion experience about it--a moment of time when I went from thinking it was not-okay to thinking it was okay. But I do remember when I decided to start observing some sort of discipline for Lent. It was when I lived in London and a once-Muslim friend said that the thing he missed most about Islam was the fast of Ramadan. And I thought about it and decided I'd probably disappear if I went without food for twelve hours a day for forty days, but I could observe the Christian tradition of Lent and it might be a good discipline and provide a sense of solidarity with other Christians. So I started.

Since then, I have found that I usually break my Lenten "promise" at least once during the season. It kind of bums me out when it happens, though I believe that it doesn't mean I'm going to Hell. On the other hand, I also believe there are some fairly serious implications to breaking a promise made before God, even if it's just giving up caffeine for a while. The thing is, up until this year, I don't think any of the things I've given up for Lent have really had a moral element. I mean, it's not like caffeine (in moderation, as they say) is bad. Mostly I've just given stuff up to remind myself that I don't need it, and for other beneficial psychological reasons like that.

This year I decided to give up saying mean things about customers.

I broke the promise three times yesterday, and it was only the day after Ash Wednesday.

This fact is making me take a long hard look at the Nature of Jenn. If you asked me point blank, I would say I'm not a good person on my own, but am a sinner saved by grace (or some less religious-jargoned phrase if I could think of one). But I'm pretty sure I really do think I'm a good person. It's mightily dismaying to find I have so little love to offer people who mostly just want their coffee and aren't really that in tune to anything else. Sometimes, granted, they aren't very nice about it. Sometimes they're downright selfish. But I think the reason I find this so offensive is because in fact I'm downright selfish--I'm just annoyed that they aren't thinking of me. Since I, however, am, I can say something bitingly funny about them behind their backs, all my colleagues laugh, and I feel better.

This is when I realise that Lent is about more than discipline. It's about repentance. It's about staring my own ugliness in the face and acknowledging that, apart from what happened at the end of this season--the death and resurrection of the Perfect Man--I'd be stuck with it forever. By which I mean forever.

Not-saying-mean-things-about-customers is kind of like a New Year's resolution, I guess. Because it's not like I hope to engage in a frenzy of customer-bashing at the end of Lent, like I might (but probably wouldn't) drink a triple espresso after giving up caffeine. I hope that maybe after forty days of trying to see people more as Jesus did (or to see Him in them), I won't feel the need to be cleverly malicious. But it's different than a New Year's resolution, too. This is me, trying to put a rather cherished habit on the line, before God, and saying I'm sorry. And asking Him to take it away. And I have to be intentional about it, because there's still a part of me that doesn't want Him to.

Season of Discipline

There's something good about Lent, too, though. Sometimes I give stuff up. Sometimes I try to start new, good habits. Either way, it's a solemn endeavour.

Sometimes I think my whole life is Lent. Not that I'm suffering all that much or anything. Maybe I'm just being grandiose. But sometimes you try to be intentional about "pursuing shalom with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12.14, CJB).

And then you look around and it seems like no one else is trying to.

And then you feel like maybe thinking like that is just being judgmental. (Because it probably is).

And then you wonder if you have a completely messed-up view about what holiness actually is, and if you aren't trying too hard to live up to standards Jesus never even set--as if you left the room to go to the bathroom or something when they were explaining the rules of the game and when you came back, you tried to play by the rules you thought you knew but everyone else was playing by different ones and was secretly laughing at you and at how long it was taking you to figure it out.

I felt like that this weekend. And then I thought about it and prayed about it, and maybe I'm still wrong, but I still sense that I have to pursue whatever holiness I can manage to grasp. It's just that it's a discipline, which is often "not pleasant at the time" (Hebrews 12.11, NIV). But if there was no discipline during Lent, I might well be distracted from or immune to the riotous hallelujahs, the fulfillment of all holy hopes, that come with Easter.