hurts like Heaven.
I love my job.
But there are days that I really, really hate my job. For the most part I work with people who have had a lot of bad things happen to them. Sometimes it’s really awful- the kind of stuff that seems more at place in a horror novel then a quiet midwestern town. Sometimes, it’s the kind of stuff that leads to me locking myself in the bathroom for a time out. The worst part of it isn’t the fact that I’m a visual person by nature and thus struggle with visualizing the badness and taking it home in the form of nightmares. The worst part is that often I’m dealing with people whose lives have trained them to believe that they deserve no better, they will get no better, and the best that they can hope for themselves is to grow thick enough skins that they become numb to the pain.
There are men who learn that “real” manliness is fighting back and fighting dirtier. Women who think that they need to trade sex for safety. Kids who think that learning is for nerds and losers and the way to get ahead in life is to punch the other guy first. Mothers who reject their children because responding with sympathy to a babies neediness makes them vulnerable. Men who reject their pregnant wives for the same reason. The world is full of people who know nothing other than cycles of poverty and pain, people who see daily happiness as just as much of a fantasy as the whole family getting along over the holidays. The world has a seedy underbelly of pain and discontent that so many are blissfully unaware of- but for the people who live there, that is the entire world.
Pain, heartbreak, rejection and more pain. The smart ones learn to reject before they can be rejected, to cut more quickly and more deeply, to make sure that everyone else owes them more than they owe anyone.
It’s hard to remember that there’s hope beyond all hopes, that there is a love that conquers fear, that there is a peace that surpasses all understanding. It’s hard to remember, but most of the time I manage to. And I do my best to continue to be God’s hands and feet in this world. I offer love, and then I experience the greatest heartbreak of all: love rejected with a wary eye. Love mistrusted. Love responded to with anger and fear.
And I lock myself in the bathroom again. And sitting there, in the dark and heat (because for some odd reason our bathroom is the hottest room in the building, like a sauna, suffocatingly hot) listening to the sound of the radiator rattling like Marley’s ghost, I realize that what I am experiencing is only a fraction of the heartbreak that the Spirit feels every day when we mistrust God’s love for us, when we respond to salvation with cynism, when we judge others before they can judge us.
The answer is simple: love more strongly. Believe with more conviction. Offer more grace. Create an overflow of mercy and affection so strong that it washes away even the most stubborn of barriers. Live every second of your life in the hope of salvation. Pick up the shield of faith, wear the belt of truth, set your feet in the readiness that comes from the Gospel of peace.
We already have earned our reward if we only love those who want to be loved.
We have to love the way God loves.
And God just… loves. Everyone. Constantly.
I would say it hurts like Hell, but that’s a misnomer. It hurts like Heaven, but that’s the kind of hurt that’s worth carrying with you.
It could change the world.
Let me tell you what you need.
Working in a homeless shelter has led to a lot of interesting experiences and observations. Four months in I feel like I could write a book on the subject. Maybe that book will be written someday, who knows. But for the time being, I thought I’d herald my return to blogging with some observations about our perceptions of other people’s needs.
I came across this odd phenomenon through working with the homeless, but honestly I’m noticing it now everywhere. I’ll start with a fairly inocuous example: some guests needed winter clothes. We had a grant for after-hours care to provide them with winter clothes. A discussion arose over how we’d go about meeting that need. Do we take them to Wal-Mart? Sears? Macy’s? The high-end resale store downtown? There’s a limit to how much money we can spend, but we want them to have good things. We also want to demonstrate that one should think critically about how one spends money. Is anyone noticing the problem, yet? It’s a little sneaky, but somewhere in the conversation, we went from talking about meeting the guests’ needs to talking about changing them. We want to change them, but honestly they don’t want to be changed. Is there really anything wrong with buying a coat from Wal-Mart (where all of our guests are comfortable shopping and feel at home and unnoticed) when you’re on a budget and are hoping to get pants and sneakers too? Maybe a middle class person would approach the problem from a different angle (wanting the coat from Macy’s and hoping they could find it gently used at the resale store thus allowing them to get jeans and sneakers, too) but the fact that a middle class person would approach it from a different angle doesn’t mean that the choices made by a person in poverty are inherently wrong. In most cases, the choices made by a person in poverty are made from a survivalist standpoint. I need a coat, now. I need a CHEAP coat, now. I need a cheap coat, now, and the bus stops in front of Wal-Mart so I won’t have to bum a ride. No one in Wal-mart will notice that it’s mid-November and all I have to wear is a mini skirt. Score. I am shopping at Wal-Mart.
The internal dialogue that guides my choices isn’t even on the radar for them, so why judge them and try to force them to change based on my own experiences? Just because my experiences are different and were fulfilling to me, that doesn’t mean that their experiences are worthless or ought to be devalued in favor of inserting my own will.
Faithful readers- you may be wondering what any of this has to do with the normal tone of my blog. Hopefully that last line reassured you that the old Lindsey is still here plugging away. See, we all have experiences. Many of us have a lifestyle and worldview that is fulfilling to us. Some of us want to spread our contentment with our choices by trying to force other people to make the same ones.
We really are very silly creatures.
If I, as a person who once experienced poverty but is making a successful transition to “middle class”, try to force my lifestyle and choices on the homeless, I’m making a huge mistake. I can model my own happiness, but if I try to force my hand I alienate the people I’m trying to help. The same thing goes for Christians trying to evangelize to people who really don’t want to hear about God’s love (but could maybe use a free ham for Christmas or help fixing their car) and heterosexuals who decide that what lesbians really need is to hear how awesome the penis is.
Seriously, folks- we can model good choices all we want. That’s life. You can radiate your own happiness. But don’t assume that your brand of happiness will taste the same to everyone else. For some people, it’s going to taste awfully bitter.
And that’s okay.
Another life update
I’m employed! Starting tomorrow, I will be working for a non-profit organization that helps homeless families. This means a lot of changes for my family- almost all of them good ones. We’re no longer dependent on a factory income to keep our heads above water. In Elkhart County, IN, that’s a very good thing. My husband is now free to pursue a part-time income or go to school and be more actively present in our children’s lives. That’s a very good thing.
There are negative things to the change, as well. Working full time means that for the time being I’ll only be free to post on weekends. I’ll do my best to be consistent. Oddly enough, I think that working full time will lend more time for me to blog, as working to make up a part time income from home while job hunting was a major drain on both my time and energy level. It’s hard to be creative under that kind of constant emotional stress.
I’m so grateful for all of the relationships I’ve gained through this blog- getting to know all of you has been such an incredible blessing. I am a bit nostalgic for the past, for the time in my life where I could easily devote an hour of every day to this blog, to your blogs, to growing our circles of influence and trying to engage the world in a discussion. It’s been some time since life has afforded me that, and it may be a very long time before it ever does again. (If it ev er does again)
But despite my new work, I don’t think my work here is done. So I’ll still be around, banging my head against the same old wall. Maybe we can manage to put a few more cracks in it.
A prayer request:
Please, everyone, pray for Gina. She’s a long-time reader of this blog- not a regular commenter, but a member of our little grace community just the same. She’s recently run against hard times, and needs to have a miracle for her and her children.
All I’m asking is that you pray. When the faithful raise someone up towards God miracles can happen.
If you’re interested in learning more about Gina’s situation or helping in a more substantial way, she’s set up a site for people to keep in touch- Help Gina. Give if you want to, but even more than that I think Gina needs to know she’s not alone. Let’s walk with our “neighbor” while she’s in that dark valley. Help me remind her that God is real.
In Which Lindsey Rants about the “Free Gift” of Salvation.
So, we’ve all heard it said that “Salvation is a free gift.”
I hate that phrase. It’s dishonest at best and a flat out lie at the worst. I know what people are saying, what they are basically saying is that all you need to do to get to heaven is say a simple prayer, it’s the easiest thing in the world, everyone should do it just in case. Ugh. I’m a gentle person, but that makes me want to smack someone. First; if one says “Jesus I’m so sorry forgive me of all my sins” but they don’t mean it, it’s only fire insurance, do you think Jesus is going to see that as honoring his sacrifice? If we bully and nag and break people into saying a simple prayer just in case do you really think that is honoring God or that God will honor us in turn?
Oh, but someone might say, it’s still a free gift, even if it’s not meant that way. If we wish to follow Jesus, he asks for nothing more. Oh, really? Really? Please, explain to me in the Bible where someone told Jesus “I want to follow you”, and Jesus responded, “I ask nothing of you but your desire to follow me.”
I call bullshit.
The statement that Jesus asks nothing more than that we follow him is semantically sound. Yes, all Jesus wants is our obedience in following him, but that obedience to actually follow him leads to all sorts of things like us having to treat our family like they are dead (Matthew 8), selling all of our possessions to give to the poor (Matthew 10), denying our own selves (Mark 8). Not only does this call to sacrifice for Jesus’ sake come in those three places, but it is reiterated throughout every single gospel. There is a cost. The disciples did not walk beside Jesus down roads lined with flowers and people cheering (okay, they did that once, but Jesus was crucified shortly thereafter so I’d still argue that it’s not entirely a pleasant affair), it was a long hard slog through many trying, sometimes treacherous, and sometimes terrifying affairs. In Jesus’ scant two years of ministry he still somehow managed to change the world. Not because of hearts and roses and come on everybody let’s love one another- there was that, one cannot deny that- but there was also work.
There was sacrifice.
There were tears shed, long and hard prayers, countless miles logged and nights that dwindled into morning.
There was blood shed.
Ask the disciples, that last night in the garden, if they felt that their salvation was something free. As Peter, as the rooster crowed, if he counted any cost. Ask Paul, as he lay suffering blind, if he felt that Jesus’ call was a joyous thing.
It’s not free.
It’s worth the price, but it is not free.
I hear the words “Salvation’s Free Gift” with the same jaded ear that hears a salesperson in the mall asking if I want a free bottle of perfume. Sure, it’s free, after I finish paying out all the contingencies. Now, at this point I’m sure someone is thinking about the fact that we pray the Sinner’s Prayer and are guaranteed entrance into Heaven and all those nasty bits are about the reality of pursuing a holy life here on earth. I could argue the theology that backs that realm of thought, but instead I’ll ask a practical question:
What use is it to be saved, if one does not actually desire to live out that salvation? What use is my own salvation, if I have no desire to live in God’s light and offer up love for my fellow man?
If the only reason I gave my life to Christ was for my own selfishness, I don’t want him to let me into heaven.
And any Christian that would trap someone in selfishness in order to get them to follow God is as foul as the salesperson who claims that the bottle of perfume is free. That’s no way to run a Kingdom, especially in the name of God.
/end rant
Who I am and what I’m not.
Yes, I am a Christian. For a long time I didn’t self-identify as a Christian because I hated the fact that people would always make certain assumptions about me. One instance stands out particularly in my mind. I saw a table that said “Friends of the GLBT” at the associations, groups, and clubs event my first week in college. Something prompted me to go over and strike up a conversation with the handful of students sitting there. At first the conversation was great, but then someone made a disparaging comment about the Evangelical group. Even though I wasn’t sure about what I believed, I felt a chill. I wanted to say “not every Christian is like that,” but I was worried that the moment I did I would paint myself as sleeping with the enemy.
That moment is iconic of the choice I’ve had to make every day since I came back to my faith. Do I say I’m a Christian, and allow people to make false assumptions about what I believe? Do I say I’m a Christian and try to create a new paradigm? One in which someone who acts evangelical (as opposed to Is An Evangelical) isn’t a gay-bashing anti-choice gun-totin’ Bible-bangin’ war-lovin’ conservative-votin’ unimaginative non-intellectually-inquisitive probably secretly scared-of-everything uh… you get the point. The assumptions people make about someone who is vocally Christian aren’t always the kindest. And in many ways, I’m the opposite of many of the stereotypes. So, for the record, let me be clear about what I am and am not:
- I don’t think gay people are the enemy of society. I like my gay and lesbian friends, and only want them to change if they want to. Honestly, the complexity of this one is way too much to fit into a single bullet point, so suffice it to say this: I don’t think gay people are the problem, I think judgmental and legalistic attitudes are.
- I’m politically pro-choice. Personally, I’m pro-life. I could never imagine a circumstance in which I would have an abortion. But that doesn’t mean that I want to tell other women what to do with their bodies and their lives- there is no ethical argument to keep an unborn child that doesn’t rely on faith in God, so a secular society should allow women to have choice.
- I’m a registered Democrat, mostly because I wanted to vote in the last Presidential Primaries. In my time as a registered voter, I’ve actually voted for both Republicans and Democrats. I believe in voting based off of who you’re voting for and what their record shows, not based off of party. Just do not tell me I’m a Republican who’s afraid of change. I will end you.
- Guns scare me.
- I don’t believe the Bible should be used as a weapon. It is for worship, for exhortation, for meditation, for the strengthening of the body… not for destruction.
- I don’t believe in quoting the Bible to people who don’t read it. Which is why I so rarely quote it on my blog, and why fellow Christians sometimes assume I don’t read it. I do, I just think that Christians should be able to make logical arguments without spraying Bible verses into the fray like bird shot.
- I’m a pacifist. I was raised in the Anabaptist tradition, which means I was raised with a keen awareness of the multitude of people who were martyred for the Faith. Martyred, that is, at the hands of the Catholic church, which leads to:
- I believe that people should be able to worship God as they wish- no matter how much you disagree with them. Not everyone agrees on all the tenants of faith. I don’t think I’m right and you’re wrong, I’m more likely to believbe that we are all wrong.
- I actually do have an imagination, really I do. In my other lives I am a novelist and a jewelry designer. I have no fear of thinking creatively.
- I have no fear of other religions. In fact, I study Buddhism and live out some of it’s practices. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Dalhi Lama. I respect anyone who practices their faith with compassion for others, regardless of what their faith is. I think Christianity could learn an awful lot from other religions.
- I have no fear of being questioned. Don’t believe me? Question me. Debate me. If I can’t argue my faith rationally, I don’t want to have it.
- I have no fear of being wrong. I’ve done it before and it didn’t hurt too badly. If I am forced to examine a belief and find it lacking, so be it. Better that I know now than go through my entire life mistaken.
My name is Lindsey. I am a Christian.
And I may be a pacifist, but if I ever met Fred Phelps, I’d probably have to drop kick him in the balls.
Just so we’re clear on things.
Abuse.
I want to talk about abuse. It’s an issue I care deeply about, but something that oddly has been seldom discussed on this blog. Recently I read a post that very eloquently described the social rules that allow rape to continue to happen. I had to let things ferment for a few days and really ask myself why that post got under my skin so thoroughly. Then I realized: while the post was talking about women and men, the same social rules cause children to be abused.
It’s horrifying- but let me explain.
Children are taught from birth to respect people in authority. While to a point this is necessary, it’s often abused. Some children are taught, for instance, never to question an elder. Children are taught to wordlessly obey anything that an adult requests of them, “except for strangers.” Wait- what qualifies a stranger? Often the dangerous people don’t look like drunken panhandlers, more often the person a child ought to be afraid of is “Uncle” so-and-so from the local church.
This is a very insidious thing.
And it’s not just physical abuse people need to worry about- it’s emotional and intellectual abuse. I hate it when children are taught not to question. There are some kids who are from a young age stripped of their inquisitive nature. They are told it is wrong to correct a teacher, that questioning their parent’s philosophy is evil, that doubts they have about faith or about who they are were put there by the devil. This sort of brow-beaten indoctrination is just wrong, and too often leads to children who grow into adults who are lost, even if they are where their parents would have wanted them to be.
And I’m not even going to get started on sexual abuse by church elders. Suffice it to say that I’ve heard stories.
We need to teach our children to have boundaries and to enforce them. We need to teach them to draw back if they are uncomfortable. We need to teach them to question if they want to question, to argue if they want to argue, to stand up for themselves even if it’s uncomfortable for us.
We need to teach them strength.
And for the love of God- we need to stand up for ourselves.
Are you driven?
Let’s talk about passions. The things that keep us going from day to day, the things your life would seem empty without.
I know one guy who loves making short films. It started in the sixth grade, when his class was given the option of writing an essay about a Shakespeare play, or making a video essay. He got his family to help him put on a production of Romeo and Juliet, with a running joke that went, “what, is that FORESHADOWING?”. It was clever, got him an A, and made him want to do the same thing for Micheal Crichton’s Jurassic Park the next year. His love for short film has been going on 16 years now, and fills shelves full of homemade DVDs with everything from stop animation to puppets to religious inspirational fare.
I have another friend who loves to build things. Give him anything, even a wire hanger and a snips, and he’ll make something. Conversations over coffee lead to the food on his plate becoming a sculpture, or place mats folded into elaborate designs.
And then there are the dancers, like my daughter. Awkward when just walking around the room, she’ll hit her head going through the doorway. But put on some music and her five year old body flows. She glows with happiness, she comes fully alive. She adores dance, she lives to sing little songs about how much she loves the little things like birds or her brother or birthday cake. Why does she do it? She just does. Ask her, and she’ll respond that it’s happiness.
It is.
There is a school of thought that says that some people are artistic, some aren’t. That some of us have creative drives, some don’t. I refuse to ascribe to that thinking. We all have creative drives in some areas of our lives. Some people plan menus with an amazing depth of creativity. Some stay-at-home-moms order their days with mind-blowing creativity. Some executives run their companies in incredibly creative ways (and these are the ones that are successful- cardboard cutout executives are a dime a dozen). I think that tuning into that creative streak and allowing it to be a part of your daily life is one of the most fulfilling things a person can do.
So what’s your streak? Where are you driven to think outside the box, to dazzle a little more than the average bear, to flourish? Don’t fight it down. Don’t force yourself to be average.
Embrace it, and shine.
Trust who you were meant to be.
You were made to be something. It may be a mother, a brother, a writer, a creator of things, an executive, a worshipper, a friend… whatever it is, God has made you to be that. He has made you with certain drives and certain dreams for a reason. I don’t think there is any greater crime against God than when we fall prey to the needs of this world and trade our dreams for material things. How many people go through day after day working to exhaustion, coming home too tired to engage with their families, too busy for friends or church? How many people cauterize their wounds with the television and empty relationships, covering up their hurts with this months fashion or drowning their sorrows with the radio? How many people don’t truly live their lives, but simply mimic what life should be like, like Pinocchio on strings?
We want to be the real boys and girls of God, but we settle for appearances- we settle for things, instead of living out our callings.
Let me tell you something: don’t give up. Don’t trade your dreams. It may seem impossible- there’s never enough time, never enough money, never enough sureness in life to truly pursue what our hearts call for. But if you were made for something, everything you need is already in your hands. The only thing missing is faith.
So believe. Trust God. Trust who he made you to be. Like King David in the Bible, when other people raise doubts, simply remind them of who God made you to be. Remind them that if God wishes it, it is already true, we just have to catch up with God’s word.
So never let go. Hold on to who you are meant to be. Have faith.
Believe.
Counting the cost.
When I was younger, I thought that gay people were disgusting. I thought that being gay was a sexual perversion akin to being attracted to animals. I thought that having gay sex led to any number of medical complications and a shortened life expectancy. I thought that HIV was somehow connected to having sex with monkeys. No, really, I did. Part of it was because I was incredibly young and didn’t fully understand the conversations I was hearing- but some of it was an honest reflection of what the people I was around thought. And as I got older, the misconceptions persisted. Bisexuals were “hos” who wanted to have so much sex they couldn’t settle for just one gender. Lesbians were women who had been sexually abused by men or just hated men so much they could only have relationships with other women. Gay men were either effeminate and weak or bearish and hairy and nasty, but either way it was all about truly disgusting sex.
Thinking about gay people would make me want to vomit in my mouth a little.
For a long time I didn’t feel a reason a reason to question my beliefs. The Bible had passages that condemned homosexuality, so I felt safe in my prejudices.
Then I turned seventeen, and I was being pushed to the limits of my thinking. I was already going down a journey of questioning my beliefs. I stopped reading the Bible to reaffirm why I was right and started prefacing every meditation with “what’s the cost if I am wrong?” Around that same time, a close female friend confessed to thinking she might be a lesbian. And another friend came out as Bi. (Let me just say- someone having a crush on you as well as one of your brothers at the same time- awkward.) I had to step back and ask myself what was going on. My friend was not a lesbian because of being abused or because she couldn’t get along with men. The Bi friend? Not a whore, a virgin. So what was this whole “aberrant sexuality on a slippery slope to all out debauchery” thing all about?
Aberrant sexuality was given a new face to me: innocence. Young kids, like myself, overwhelmed with emotions they were only beginning to make sense of. Crushes and longings and whispered confidences that were not about sex, but about identity. Who am I, who do I want to be, who do I want to be it with? Who loves me, wants me, desires me? Am I allowed to dream, or have my dreams become my enemy? Do my thoughts betray me? Can I ever be loved?
It’s hard enough to be young when you’re what other people want you to be. It’s hard enough to have your first love when it’s someone you’re allowed to want- but to deal with all of that emotion in the face of rejection, in the face of being told it was put there by demons- knowing if you were honest, you might lose all your friends… Think of the cost of keeping a secret. The way it gnaws at you. Try to remember what it is like to be young, and ask yourself how much it must tear these kids up inside, to feel like they can’t be completely sincere. They have to hide the truth from their friends.
I’ve seen things I wish I could forget. Kids at their most vulnerable, questioning their Creator for not making their sexuality normal, hating God for not taking this burden from them, being thrown to the ground and commanded to release their demons.
Regardless of what one truly believes, or why, it is never okay to reject someone in their weakness, to cast them out in their time of need, to belabor them with your good intentions until they are broken beyond repair.
Love.
We have to remember how to love.
