Once to Die: Reflections on the Other Inevitability

“And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment…” When I consider these two clauses that make up Hebrews 9.27, it reminds me of how many of my curiosities and concerns have changed since I was a little kid. The form of Christianity in which I was familiar and immersed from infancy to age 11 or 12 was that of the fundamentalist Baptist variety. As odd or nonsensical as this may sound, as a child I was not particularly concerned about dying, as I am not sure I could grasp what that would actually have meant. Rather I was scared to death (maybe pun intended) of the last judgment. Every sermon I can remember from that period, no matter what Bible passage it was based around, would always end with an alter call screaming about the eternal fires of hell that could even capture a believer if she or he had “backslidden.” Though I believed in Jesus, it seemed as though God was a really angry being just waiting for me to mess up so He could smash me like a bug (And what would suck about being that insect is you would feel the agony of getting crushed and the pain would never stop; we were always taught with surety that hell was literal and it was experienced eternally and consciously).

Fast-forward 25 years or so with more life lived, more books read, and exposure to the broader traditions that make up catholic Christianity, and I find myself not thinking about “hell” much at all…well, except for that week I read Rob Bell’s controversial Love Wins book that gets into all of that (That discussion is for another time). Instead, a few weeks into my chaplaincy internship at the Durham VA hospital, I find myself thinking seriously about the reality of death.

Undoubtedly, this is a bit morbid, but I do not think a day has passed since I was a teenager that I have not at least for a moment thought about the fact that someday I will die. However, many of these daily thoughts have not REALLY taken the reality of the inevitability of my death seriously. When you are young, relatively healthy, and have not had anyone close to you die, it just seems like something that will happen later and you never take to heart that later will actually come. In fact, American society as a whole takes the “later” and puts it in tucked-away places called hospitals and nursing homes, so that the rest of us do not have to face this most inconvenient and painful of truths. But now I find myself going into one of these “ghettos” every weekend and walking into the presence of other people’s “later.” It has me thinking again more intently.

What I find painful and odd about the reality of dying is how “now” it actually is for those that get there and the sense of finality that it carries that cannot be negotiated with. My first encounter as a chaplain with a woman whose husband had just died showed this. As I stood next to this woman and the dead body, I listened to her stories of him, some going back to times well before I was born. It hit me that that man had had a whole long life full of happenings, hopes, successes, and failures, many of which were walked with this woman. And yet right there in that moment—that “now”—it was over. Whatever all of that life had meant to him, it was done and there was no conscious “him” in the room anymore. His wife was left with memories and a feeling in her chest. He did not know that that day would be his last and neither did she. But it was. And there was no way for her to bring him back. Finality. Standing there with both of them I realized— though I still do not fully get it even now—that what had happened that day was very real. Someday the man in that bed will be me. Or worse, it will be somebody that I love as I am left behind. My mother’s recent cancer diagnosis, my grandfather’s progressing Alzheimer’s, and every conversation with my grandmother now highlight this in a way that was not before me as a teenager or person in my 20s.

So, what do I do with such a downer moment of clarity? I am not entirely sure. Again, it gets me thinking. There is certainly something at core about dying that is simply wrong. Knowing that he would ultimately raise him, even Jesus cried about the reality and the suffering before him in his friend, Lazarus’ death (John 11.33-36). In my moments of doubt, I fear that there is nothing more and that my life and the lives of those I love may ultimately lack meaning. I do not like thinking or feeling that; there is no stoic comfort in accepting fate and that kind of inevitability. However, such thoughts also make me grateful for the gift of faith in Christ that I have been given.

The Hebrews verse that I began with about human beings dying and then judgment is not actually the focus of the passage in which it is found; it functions as an analogy for a larger truth that I both believe and at times struggle to believe (e.g. “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.” Mark 9.24). It says that like this one death and one judgment, Christ has died once to bear the sins of many and will return to rescue his people. What this along with other Scripture (e.g. Romans 8, 1 Cor 15, 1 Thess 4) encourages in me is to trust that there is another inevitability: a new life and a new world that will come in Christ. All things will become new. That such a new life and world will be is shown by the fact that it already began with the bodily resurrection of a Palestinian Jew 2000 years ago and continues through the Holy Spirit, a very imperfect Church, and the continued witness to God that is the existence of the Jewish people.

Again, cognitively knowing and articulating this Jesus story does not mean I am without moments of doubt, nor does it always dissipate the existential angst of knowing that everyone I know and love—including myself—WILL someday die. But the sharing and attempts of living out the implications of this story—acts themselves that I believe are empowered by God and what Christ has done—together with other believers helps me to not feel so alone and like my finite story is flowing into an infinite one. And if this is all true and God is for us and has not abandoned us to death, then such an inevitability is inevitable, even in the moments when I doubt it and find little comfort; my resignation still fits into something bigger. Paradoxically, that thought itself is comforting.

Sometimes You Gotta Get Up to Get Down: On Chaplaincy, Getting Lost, and Hopefully Getting Found

The following is a short reflection piece that I wrote last week for the part-time chaplaincy internship that I started with the Durham VA Hospital on September 11, 2012.  This is perhaps a fitting season for introspection.  Last month marked the 6-year anniversary of me moving from Arizona to Durham, NC, to start a grad program at Duke University Divinity School.  And it was this month four years ago that I graduated from that program.  In this season, for the first time in my adult life, I have not had a clear major goal that I was pursuing.  And I hate not having one.  The whys and hows of how I got to this place are complicated I will not claim to understand or recognize most of them.  This short bit is in some ways about trying to get back up.  At least I think it is about that.  Time will tell.

Heading into my first day of actual on-the-floor chaplaincy hours this past weekend, there was one thought among the many racing around in my head stood out: “I hope I like this.”  Behind that wish is a long season of hopes, fears, confusions, and uncertainties about what I am doing with my life.  Though it sounds overdramatic to say, I have felt fairly lost for nearly six years.  Knowing that I would be exploring something new with the Durham VA chaplaincy program’s part-time internship, I have found myself thinking the last few weeks about why I have felt vocationally lost and have struggled to maintain a sense of purpose.

            

Perhaps a saying I saw on someone’s Facebook wall sums up the “how” of losing direction: “What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.”  For me the picture I had since the end of my junior year of college was of me getting a PhD and teaching about Christianity in a higher ed context.  While not all of the particulars would stay the same in this dream, the broad picture of teaching academically about Scripture and theology remained fairly constant for almost 11 years.  Between 1998 and 2008, I was setting my life up to make this happen.  I went to seminary after college and got a master of divinity degree and then made the huge leap 2000 miles east of Mesa, Arizona, to go to Duke Divinity School for a master of theology (ThM) in New Testament; this was supposed to be the penultimate step before finally doing a PhD.  Then something in me broke.  Or cracked.  I am not sure which. 

When I finished my ThM in September 2008, I decided not to try to go on for a PhD, effectively shutting the door on the possibility of being a college professor. I am not sure I understand all of the reasons why I stopped; surely being broke, burnt out, and afraid of even more school loan debt contributed.  Regardless, I never had a Plan B and have had difficulty since coming up with one.  Sometimes I think being around other Duke and UNC go-getters “following their dreams” has led me to create a subtle voice in my head.  It tells me I have squandered opportunities and am a failure.  Though I cognitively know that such suspicions are bourgeois concerns and self-indulgent, they still haunt me nonetheless.  Where I am is not where I had hoped to be.

Stepping into chaplaincy is a step toward engaging my disappointments.  I have spent the last 4.5 years simply going to my campus admin support jobs and living for the weekends.  That has made me tired.  I want to use what I have had the opportunity to learn in seminary and in life in the Church.  I think the desire I have to teach about God’s good news is really a desire to connect with other human beings over what matters most, life with and through the Triune God.  While chaplaincy is not so much about teaching abstract theology, it is about listening and embodying to others the heart of the gospel. It may ultimately prove to not be a good fit.  But regardless, it is a chance to be there for others and hopefully get me out of my own head a bit.  It is hard to be mopey about your own stuff when you are faithfully being present to others who find there own hopes and dreams shaken by bodies that lead to hospitals.  Maybe this is my time to live into a beautiful axiom that I think is reflected throughout Scripture and has helped keep me going in life: we are not called to be successful; we are called to be faithful.

What's in a Name? Reflections on Mormon, David Mason’s Claim that Mormons are not Christians

With Mitt Romney running for president, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) has been getting a lot of attention lately and not all of it kind.  A lot of the focus has been on their faith’s distinct history and differences from other churches.  Inevitably you end up hearing some non-LDS people asking the question, “Are Mormons Christian?”   In a public conversation involving people from a variety of traditions—Christian and otherwise—I do not think there is any definitive, “absolute” way to answer this for everyone.

Recently the New York Times ran an editorial written by a Mormon professor of theater at Rhodes College, David Mason.  The article’s provocative title sums up his perspective: “I’m a Mormon, Not a Christian.”   In it Mason looks at LDS conceptions of the Godhead, compares them with older Christian traditions’ Trinitarian perspectives, and correctly notes there is a difference. (1)  He also states that “being a Christian so often involves such boorish and meanspirited behavior that I marvel that any of my Mormon colleagues are so eager to join their fold.”  He, therefore, argues that being Mormon is different than being a Christian—again, he primarily roots this difference in unshared views on the nature of God—and suggests that it should be considered its own unique and separate religion fitting into the broader Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  Since I am not Mormon, I do not have any business telling Mormons how they should understand themselves.  Still, I found this article interesting because I have not heard very many LDS folks argue this way.  The Mormons that I know would not agree with his abandonment of "Christian" language.

The question Mason’s article raises is who gets to determine what the word "Christian" means and to what does it refer.  Practically speaking, the answer is both everyone and no one.  Different groups choose to self-identify in all sorts of ways that other groups--using similar language--would disagree with.  A common example is with Jews (e.g. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform) and Jews that become Christians but still call themselves Jews (e.g. Jews for Jesus, Messianic Jews, etc.).  Jews that do not believe in Jesus do not considered those that follow Christ Jews anymore and are pretty clear on the matter.  From the points of view of most Jewish communities, to start following Jesus is to cross the line into not being a part of the broader Jewish tradition anymore.  Of course, those from Jewish families that become Christians have a whole spiel and understanding in which they argue they still are Jews and claim the name (They argue that the very concept of a messiah and waiting for one is Jewish; in their minds in Jesus they are just taking Judaism to it logical conclusion).  Broadly speaking, if you look at the substance of what both groups believe, a lot of the language and concepts are the same, but the overarching story of belief they inhabit is different in significant ways.  Yet at the end of the day, both groups are calling their different stories "Jew" or "Jewish," with one group saying the other is not really a Jew or Jewish.  Who is right?

It depends whose camp you are standing in.  The "Jewish" Christians have no right or way to make the Jewish communities accept them as Jews (Given how horribly those that follow Jesus have abused, harassed, and murdered Jews historically, I cannot blame them for not being keen on allowing Jesus-worship into the mix of their self-definition).  And conversely, Jewish groups cannot really stop Jesus-followers from Jewish backgrounds from calling themselves "Jews, too."

All of that to say, what I think what is so intriguing about this professor’s article is the defiant stance that he takes in this internecine argument.  It is as if he is taking the typical argument heard among Evangelicals, "Mormons are not really Christians," responding with a, "You're damned right we are not!" and reconfiguring the negative exclusion into one of positive identity.  My guess is most Mormons would still not take to his way of thinking and the notion of sibling rivalry that he refers to suggests some sort of connection rather than complete separation (In fairness, I am not sure he is arguing for a complete sense of separation in genealogy as much as a sense that one group has moved beyond the other into new territory, thus itself becoming new and other).

What is complicated about talking about the LDS Church in relation to older forms of Christianity is language itself.   In public pluralistic conversations, words like  "Christian" simply do not tell one as much as the qualifiers that go before them such as LDS, Catholic, Protestant, etc.  The reality on the ground is that all of the various groups do not tend to accept each other even if they reluctantly share the word "Christian" in their self-descriptions.  Most Evangelicals would love to convert Mormons away from the LDS church; they obviously do not respect Mormons as legitimate followers of the Christ Evangelicals believe in.  Conversely, I have not met a Mormon missionary yet that has not tried to get me to be a Mormon even after telling them that I am already a Christian and have a church that I attend.  Like Evangelicals toward them, they believe that my understanding of Christianity is deficient, “less than,” and not part of the "true" Church.  They would not say that I am completely wrong, but rather I am not right enough to be left to my beliefs without a conversion attempt.  And in this back-and-forth battle, each side is claiming "Christian."

The LDS folks that I have met have been much nicer about the disagreement than Evangelicals I know.  Mormons do not try to take the word "Christian" away from non-Mormon churches in public discourse (I think Evangelicals could learn a thing or two from their tone in this).  But in the end each side really does think the other is wrong and would like to persuade them to change. Some people are just ruder than others in the process.

Frankly, the disagreements do not bother me, nor does the back and forth of trying to convert each other; there is a certain logic to doing this in LDS and non-LDS Christian perspectives.  I am more concerned when in the midst of it all some resort to unChristlike behavior like violence, coercion, force, or insults.   To what life, lifestyles, churches, and ultimate narratives of meaning should the word “Christian” refer in public pluralistic discourse?  There is no answer except whichever answers different groups are willing to accept and work with in their conversations and life with the Other.  This puzzle cannot be solved for everyone everywhere, even by way of the New York Times.  Mason clearly knows this and states his piece well, even if those in his own faith would disagree with him.  My prayer is that when Christians of my ilk follow suit that they would remember the character and call of Jesus and not be godless about it.

Endnote:


1. Unfortunately, Mason actually gets the difference wrong in that he does not describe a Trinitarian understanding of the Godhead accurately.  He says that such Christians believe that "Jesus is also the Father and the Holy Spirt."  This is precisely what classic trinitarian formulae do not say.  Instead, they say that the Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit and yet the three are of one essence and purpose and are one God, not three distinct beings or three gods.  The Trinity in such Christian thought is ultimately an unexplainable mystery.

Poetic Lives in a Material World: Why Genesis 1 & 2s' Creation Story Should Not Be Taken Literally

NOTE: This is a post from a couple of years ago that I had up on Facebook.  A friend recently asked me a question about Genesis and creation, so I thought it might be helpful and interesting to have this post available on my blog as well.  This bit came about March 10, 2010, when I posted a link on Facebook to my friend, Matt Rundio's blog that had three video clips on why the creation stories in Genesis do not have to be taken as "literal" history in the modern sense of the word ( http://mattrundio.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/genesis-1-videos-worth-watching/). In particular, I suggested people watch the video on Matt's page of N.T. Wright on Adam and Eve. After doing this, another friend of mine responded concerned that N.T. Wright was making some logical errors in this video and that the notion of symbols in a story did not mean that the story could not also be true in a literal sense. I started to address his concern, but my response got so long that I thought it would make a better note on Facebook (and not blog entry) then it would a long comment on a chat thread.  Keep in mind that when you start reading it, it will feel like jumping into the middle of the conversation.  It should not be too difficult to follow, though.  So, here it is. It is not polished so please forgive any typos. Cheers!

Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach (1472-1553)

My response:

I completely agree with you that recognizing or finding symbolism in a narrative does not disqualify it from also being historical. I cannot even think of a true story that could be told that could not have symbolism attached to it. In the case of Wright and Genesis 1 & 2, his beliefs and arguments on the matter are certainly more complex and nuanced than what a short video clip could allow for. He would definitely not make the equation that the telling of a story fraught with symbolism equals not historical (In fact, he wrote a 738 page book against liberal theologians/biblical scholars, arguing that the bodily resurrection of Jesus was an historical event and not just some type of spiritual metaphor).

I think a big part of what is going on in this discussion is that people like Wright are making the point that there is more than one faithful way to read for a faithful Christian to read Genesis 1 & 2 and that there are some pretty compelling reasons to not read Genesis 1 & 2 as scientifically-oriented descriptions of how the universe and the first human beings were made. Of course, how one ends up reading and interpreting the Bible depends in great part upon what one assumes going into the reading upfront. One assumption I would argue against is the one that fundamentalist Christians and some conservative Evangelicals hold, which is that the entire Bible should be read as if it all should be taken as conveying all historical facts (i.e. If one had videotaped the events referenced in the Bible, those events would correspond directly and almost exactly with the Bible's descriptive stories). When people say, "Either it is all literally true or it is all literally not true," is really problematic because it does not seem to take seriously the fact that the Bible is full of different types of literary genres and that different literary genres have their own rules for being read. The Bible has narrative, poetry (and within its poetry different types of poems), prophecy, history, gospels, epistles, apocalyptic (i.e. Daniel and the Book of Revelation), parables, etc. (Of course, history in a modern sense of the word may or may not be present in each of these genre types). And certainly you do not read apocalyptic literature the same way you read narrative history.

When you, in essence, asked how Wright could say on one hand Genesis 1 is not an historical description of how creation happened, but then say that he believes Genesis 1 is true, perhaps the best answer to that would be the analogy of Revelation as apocalyptic literature (In biblical studies, "apocalyptic" is the name of a particular genre of Jewish writing during the intertestamental period). Most orthodox Christians would read Revelation and say that it is completely true and yet are not expecting to see wicked-huge wasps and dragons flying around killing people in the last days. The reason for this is they recognize that the nature of the writing style and genre is not meant to be taken as literally conveying what will happen even though all of the symbols are referencing expected aspects or events at the end of this age. The same type of thing can be said of Genesis 1 & 2. Genesis 1 & 2 say that God created all things that exist and that God created the first human beings and that they broke faith with God and that changed their fate, relationship with God, each other, and the world. I do not think N.T. Wright, you, fundamentalist Christians, Evangelicals, or I would disagree with that being the truth that Genesis is telling. That is absolutely true. The difference is folks like Wright and I do not think that the way these creation narratives in Genesis 1 & 2 have to be read like literal descriptions of what materially happened in the creation process or of how the first humans, Adam and Eve screwed up (Keep in mind that one thing English Bibles do not show well is that in Hebrew the word "Adam" gets interchangably used as a proper name and as a way of saying human. We just always seem to read it as a proper name, but that is not how it works consistently in Hebrew. And, also, Eve's name "Chava" in Hebrew also means "mother of life," which is a great name for the first human woman, whoever she was, whether the proper named woman, Eve, that conservatives believe in, or symbolically as the character in the story that references the first human woman.) .

One reason for not feeling the need to read Genesis 1 & 2 as literal "video camera" descriptions of what happened is that it would not make sense for these stories to be trying to answer scientific questions about the material creation process, since no Hebrew or Israelite back when these stories were told and written down would have even thought to ask such questions. The scientific method as we know it with all of its questions and concerns for how the materially world materially functions (physics, biology, geology and all of that good stuff) is a product of the Western world well after Christ. So, to expect that God would even be trying to answer questions for the Hebrews/Israelites in these stories--questions that they did not even have, know to have, or even would have cared about--about how scientifically long it took the universe and the planet to be made, the order things were done, and how people were made seems a little stretching it. In fact, most biblical scholars recognize that Genesis 1 & 2 are actually two different creation narratives arguably told and written in different periods that were later put together (This can be seen in that God is consistently referred to by name differently in chapter one versus chapter two, that the stories seem some what redundant in what they cover and yet are different, they use vocabulary that seems to come from different periods of the development of Hebrew language, and Genesis 1 reads more like a sub-genre type called Priestly literature that is akin to the type of writing in Leviticus in that it cares about demonstrating order and ordering, whereas Genesis 2 reads more like a standard narrative.) So, one can see arguably that even early on in Israelite history that there was not one version of the creation story that Israelites had and that they must have thought them both true--even though taken literally they would have some contradictions in them--because they honored both stories as the Word of God and sowed them together in the form that we now have them today. I think it would be egocentric of people today to assume that God would have really be leading the authors of Genesis to be answering our modern questions about the astrophysics of creation even though the early Hebrews would have known nothing of such things. Why should our perspectives and concerns be more important than theirs, especially since there concerns would arguably still be a part of ours today.

While this is pretty much a cliche now, perhaps a good way to look at science's description of creation with a big bang and the Bible's creation story is analogous to how a poet and an engineer could witness the same car accident and yet would describe them completely differently. A poet would use big flowering language and metaphors, whereas an engineer might describe things "literally" in terms of velocity, impact, the way in which the metal crunches together, etc. If one were to look at their two descriptions and ask which one is true, the answer depend upon what you were actually wanting to know in asking the question. If you want to know an answer laden with physics than you will want to read the engineers description and you will say that is true. But if you want the aesthetic sense of what happened, than you want the poets answer. In this way, both are true.

Now, I am sure this non-literal way of reading Genesis 1 & 2 may sound like some creative new liberal way to gut the Bible in the name of science. I would say this is not new at all. In fact, many of the early Church Fathers who knew nothing of contemporary theories of evolution or the Big Bang, did not read Genesis 1 & 2 in the same literalistic sense that fundamentalist Christians seem to think is the time-tested faithful way to read. (Here is a link to an article that lists several quotes from Church Fathers on this. Look particularly at St. Augustine's. http://www.catholic.com/library/Creation_and_Genesis.asp). Also, C.S. Lewis, himself, a figure beloved by Evangelicals and considered a faithful and noble Christian did not read Genesis 1 & 2 literally (He talks about this rather extensively in his book "Reflections on the Psalms," in chapter 11; this chapter is well worth reading). Of course, quoting popular respected Christian figures does not prove in and of itself that Genesis 1 & 2 should not be taken literally, but it does show that among people that the Church universal has accepted as faithful orthodox believers, that there are different possible ways to faithful read the creation stories and that non-literalistic approaches are older than many conservative Christians may think.

So, I do not take Genesis 1 & 2 as literal scientific-esque descriptions of creation and I do not see the necessity for doing so. I think such readings are well-intentioned mistakes that create a level, amount, and quality of tension and animosity between Christians and the scientific community that I think is for the most part unnecessary in this particular matter. There are plenty of issues I might argue with scientists about, but I am not so much interested in this one. The point to me is that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." I believe that with all of my heart.

Advent Reflection: When Waiting Is Not Enough

This may come as a surprise to some of you considering that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has well passed, but we are not in the Christmas Season right now.  If you take seriously the traditions of the Church, the period shortly after Thanksgiving and before Christmas Day is the Advent Season (Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas).  While I am sure many people would say, “Whatever.  Who cares?” I believe it is important for the witness of the Church and the spiritual formation of Christians to recognize and take seriously the difference.

Advent matters because it teaches us not only to wait, but to wait in hope of Jesus Christ.  Admittedly, I am not very good at this.  It is not so much the waiting part that trips me up.  Certainly, like most Westerners, I have gotten used to instant gratification.  With Netflix I can watch nearly whatever I want whenever I want.  In a world of cellphones I can call or be called in my car, in a restaurant, or even in a pristine national forest.  It does drive me crazy, too, when it takes more than half a second for a webpage to load.  But in spite of those examples—in the big scheme of things—I have gotten better at waiting.

For me, it is what I am waiting for that I still struggle with.  If you asked, I could tell you a nice, orthodox cognitive response about how what I am waiting for is the final day when Christ comes and fully restores all of creation, makes everything right, and I get my full head of hair back.  However, in my day-to-day life and the way I live it, I am waiting for all kinds of things, but God is quite often not one of them.

What I find myself waiting for is something amorphous and unclear called “better.”  And I sometimes fear that “better” is not coming.  As a single person in my late 30s, I am waiting to meet a woman that would be dumb enough to marry someone like me.  I am waiting to feel like I am doing something meaningful with my life (I am also waiting for clarity on what that might be).  I am waiting to find the motivation to do more with the gifts and opportunities that I have before me, instead of squandering them as I frequently do.  I am waiting to no longer feel so lonely.

Aside from my self-center, middle class white people problems, I am also waiting for people to stop starving in a world with a ridiculous amount of food and resources.  I am waiting for governments and political militants to stop using violence and killing—most of which they get young poor and working class folks to do—to achieve their goals.  I am waiting for children to stop being molested and beaten and for men to stop raping women.  I am waiting for people to treat animals a little more like responsibilities and less like things and commodities.  I am waiting for me to actually do something about the things for which I am waiting.  And when the sense overwhelms me that none of these things will ever come, I find myself waiting to die; if nothing else comes to pass, this surely will. 

What the above self-indulgently dark words show is that I am waiting and wallowing in my own story with little reference to God beyond lip-service platitudes about “seeking God’s will” that I do not mean but have to say because I am a Christian.  I end up waiting in a fragmented life that will end like every life ever has.  And this is precisely why Advent matters.

Advent is the ultimate reminder of what is worth waiting for.  That it is called Advent—Latin for “coming”—reminds us that life is not simply “one damned thing after another” heading nowhere.  God is coming to finish making what is wrong right.  We as Christians have faith that God already started this 2000 years ago at the first Christmas with the birth of Jesus the Messiah, God incarnate.  He came to live among us, show us more fully the nature and character of God, and to liberate humanity from sin, which has manifest itself both in individuals and corporately in the deification of empires, the love of money, and domination games that the powerful play over the weak. 

While this in-breaking of God into the material world has thus far not eliminated sin, it did conquer the inevitability of Sin’s power and its resultant eternal death and separation from God.  That God will not abandon humanity to decay and nothingness is evidenced in God’s son, Jesus.  What has been done in him and through him in his new life and resurrection body will be done for those who are in him and for creation (cf. Rom 8; 1 Cor 15). 

Of course, we must wait till the return of Jesus for this current age to wrap up and be followed by a new one in which all of creation is whole, in communion with God, and death, suffering, and selfish ambition are no more.  But perhaps the supreme beauty of the first Advent is that it means not having to wait for the second one to start living under the reign and healing power of God that will eventually complete what God started in Christ’s resurrection.  In God’s imperfect Church—through the power of the Holy Spirit—loneliness, fear, greed, lying, and idolatry can begin to end now.  

And that is what Advent is all about, Charlie Brown.

When God Only Knows: Theological Reflections on Alzheimer's and the Day My Grandfather Forgot Me

In September televangelist, Pat Robertson, stirred up controversy on his show, “The 700 Club,” when he suggested it would be permissible to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer’s to marry another as long as the ill partner was provided for. When questioned about how this fit with Christian wedding vows, he responded, “If you respect that vow, you say ‘till death do we part.’ (Alzheimer’s) is a kind of death.”

Robertson’s assumption here—not an uncommon one—is that what fully makes us “persons” and our lives worth living is our cognitive understanding of ourselves and our stories. However, there is a problem with Christian leaders viewing personhood and social-spiritual commitments this way. It does not match up with how God has created and operates in the world and the Church. Our individual lives and stories do not end when we start to forget who we are.

This issue became personal to me this summer when for the first time in my life my grandfather forgot who I was. For the last several years, I have taken the week of my birthday off from my job in North Carolina to visit my grandparents in their small Michigan town. We have always been close as they raised me from infancy till age 8 when my mother remarried.

This particular visit was different from the previous ones. I had scanned hundreds of old family photos from ca.1903 and onward with the purpose of sitting down with my grandparents and typing out the names and stories behind each one. For a history geek like me that wants to preserve where we come from, this documentation is important. So, in edition to eating lunch and dinner, running errands, and watching “The Price is Right” together, the first several days we also spent a lot of time on the back porch chatting about family history and going through photos while I played scribe. Then midday on Tuesday, July 26, 2011, it was like a switch was flipped and reality changed.

Having been on the porch for about 10 minutes with both grandparents going through pictures, my grandmother and I got up and went into their backyard storage shed to try to find some old records that my grandfather had recorded. (In addition to his day job, he was a country musician in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. We were shocked to recently discover that an MP3 from an extremely rare 7-inch record he did in the early 1960s called “Skid Row” is on a radio station’s website. It is the 6th song listed, by Conrad Stoneburner.  He is the one singing and playing guitar. Click here to listen.) After being in there just a few minutes, my grandfather came in, pointed right at me and said angrily to my grandmother, “I want him out of here now! I don’t know who he is, but he needs to go away.” I stood there stunned and quiet. On one side of this moment stood his disorientation and on the other side mine. Over the next several days he would try to throw me out of the house four times, only to be stopped by my grandmother’s emphatic reminders of who I am.

My grandfather is the one on the left, Conrad Stoneburner. This picture is from the early 1960s.

In an instant I became a stranger to the man who taught me how to tie my shoes and to ride a bike. He is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and my grandmother is taking care of him. The experience left me disoriented and wondering who this man is now that he has forgotten me. Looking to Scripture, the answer became clear: he is still my grandfather.

One of the most fundamental realities that the Church can learn through the Bible is that we are known, loved, and cared for by God first (e.g. Ps 139; Jer 1.5; Gal 4.9). This is reflected in the very shape of life. We all start out as infants whom are known by our parents and families before we know them. To be known when we are not able to know makes our lives possible.

Our individual stories—which carry and convey our personhood and lives—do not end because we start to forget them. This is true because they have never been just our own. Each of our stories is interwoven into those of others, as wife, husband, son, daughter,  grandson, neighbor, friend, etc. God has others around to carry us and to remember our stories when we no longer can; each of us becomes part of the narratives of others. In this, our finite connected stories are taken up into the larger story of Christ.

A person does not ultimately exist as a person in her or his cognition, but rather in a story, a story told by God through communities of people. In this, faithfulness to a forgetful grandfather who knows not what he does becomes a reflection and a playing out of the faithfulness of God through Christ to a forgetful world that does not remember where it comes from, that it is loved, and that it is ultimately heading toward being beautifully restored. Someday grandpas will no longer forget and will be rescued, because God has not forgotten them and will never leave them behind like faded memories. This is something that even televangelists should try to remember.

This is I, my grandmother, Betty, and my grandfather, Conrad, in front of their place in Michigan

Losing Your Way: A Reflection on Good Friday, Easter, and Uncertainty in Life

I am not going to lie.  I have had easier Lenten seasons.  I find myself in a place of doubt and uncertainty about what I am doing with my life and where it is heading.  What is disconcerting is not that this feeling is new, but that I still find myself in such a place after all of this time.  I find myself walking, but not actually sure if I am heading anywhere.    However, while I am not particularly confident that I will find the clarity or answers that I want anytime soon--since most existential problems are not “built” in a day, they are not deconstructed in a day either--I am at least hoping that the Good Friday and Easter stories that we have just remembered and walked through as a church will remind me of where and who God is and what my relationship is to him.  

Compared to real problems in the world like starvation, weather disasters, and revolutions, my troubles are pretty common and bourgeois, but right or wrong, this is where I find myself.  What I had hoped for my life during my 20s and early 30s is not panning out.  

I am 36 years old.  I had hoped to be married by now and yet find myself single again and recognizing that the problem is really not them but me.  And for more than ten years I had wanted to get a PhD in New Testament and teach.  I have two theological masters degrees, two bachelors degrees, and an associate’s degree thrown in for good measure.  I am not suffering from a lack of formal education.  Yet what I have is not enough.  For a variety of reasons--many being economically related--I decided not to pursue a PhD and have spent the last several years coming to terms with what this means; I have not been doing a great job of emotionally letting go of this one.  It had been Plan A and I had never made a Plan B.  I have been frozen for three years, uncertain of what to do next.  I am in that fun place that everyone over 50 warns you about, but you never quite get it till you are there: this is the time when you realize that you are not going to be all of the things you had hoped and dreamed you would be.  In “Fight Club” parlance, “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile.”

This is where I look in desperation to Good Friday and Easter.  Admittedly, the fabric of these stories does not provide me with particular answers to the problems haunting me.  Nowhere do I see three easy steps to not being a mediocre boyfriend or guaranteed ways to discover a new fulfilling career path.  Instead, what they show is a picture of God’s unbounded love meeting and absorbing humanity’s unbounded fear and cruelty. From this comes a perspective, and a reminder of who and what is important.

If you want to talk about dashed expectations and dreams, from the point of view of Jesus’ disciples, Good Friday initially must have been utterly hope-shattering.  Having bought into the idea of Jesus as the messiah, they had expected he would violently throw the Romans out of Israel and that the day of the Lord would be there making them a free people again.  Instead, all of the dreams that they had left their fishing nets, homes, and families behind for vanished.  Their messiah did not overthrow the pagan Roman state, but was executed by it, and they went into hiding, cowering in fear, afraid that they would be next.  Their one way out to freedom and a life without fear was shot.  And let us not forget, poor Jesus was abandoned by his closest friends and even for a moment was forsaken by God the Father himself.

But then the most bizarre, unbelievable comeback and reorientation from disorientation of all time: the resurrection.  Despite what 20th century liberal theology has suggested, this was not a fictive metaphor for overcoming nor for the triumph of the human spirit or even of faith or hope.  Jesus was bodily raised from the dead, declared that the same would same day happen to us and creation, and said that he would always be with us.  He did not avoid, sidestep or even destroy the Roman politics that confronted him, but rather offered a proto-politic of the Kingdom of God to be lived out now in the Church and fired it up and empowered with the Holy Spirit.

After seeing the resurrected Christ, did the disciples go on to have fulfilled and successful lives that were absent of pain and doubt?  No.  They were promised suffering in ways akin to Jesus’ suffering (John 15.20; 2 Tim 3.12).  Between the post-Easter ascension and the return of Christ someday, in some paradoxical sense life got both better and harder.  In Scripture you read of people living faithfully and with more hope and love, while being ridiculed by those around them.  The apostle Paul spent plenty of time in jail and at points talked about despairing of life (2 Cor 1.8-11), and yet he found hope in his faith in Christ and the faithfulness and life of his fellow Christ followers and the new age to come.  

What I am wanting to learn and accept from this past Lenten season is that I may not get any new, vibrant dreams anytime soon; I will have to struggle for them against the backdrop of my own dysfunctions.  But in spite of this, Easter shows something very real.  Jesus was raised from the dead into a new kind of life, eternal and inseparable from God.  In our baptisms and in the Church, he is now with us and for us as we imperfectly follow him.  This is a sign that a new world and a better future is coming for people and the universe.  And until then, in my failings and whatever I do not know about myself and where my life is heading, I am not alone; God is with me even when I do not notice him.

I would also be lying if I said that faith felt like enough; it often does not.  But, while how I feel is not nothing for me, it is also not everything either (There is a life at the center of the universe making all of life and existence possible and it is not mine).  This is where a poem written in prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian that was executed by the Nazis, speaks calmly and best:

Who am I?  They often tell me
I step out from my cell
calm and cheerful and poised,
like a squire from his manor.

Who am I?  They often tell me
I speak with my guards
freely, friendly and clear,
as though I were the one in charge.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bear days of calamity
serenely, smiling and proud,
like one accustomed to victory.

Am I really what others say of me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, yearning, sick, like a caged bird,
struggling for life breath, as if I were being strangled,
starving for colors, for flowers, for birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness
shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult,
tossed about, waiting fro great things to happen,
helplessly fearing for friends so far away,
too tired and empty to pray, to think, to work,
weary and ready to take my leave of it all?

Who am I?  This one or the other?
Am I this one today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once?  Before others a hypocrite
and in my own eye a pitiful, whimpering weakling?
Or is what remains in me like a defeated army,
Fleeing in disarray from victory already won?

Who am I?  They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am yours.

(Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers From Prison in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol 8.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. Pp. 459-460.)