Cracked and Creaking

I feel like my heart has been breaking a lot recently. It's been breaking for friends, who are so sad and hurt and broken that I can't help but cry with them and for them. And it breaks a little too when I hear people misinterpret Jesus so greatly.

I was sitting in Biology the other day, perhaps Wednesday, and the teacher was discussing the difference between science and religion. Boiled down, the primary difference was faith and proof. You can't see a physical representation of God, you can't give tangible, visible evidence of His omnipotence or perform experiments to test His power, belief in the truth of these things is based upon faith. I mean really, what experiment would you use to prove that God always was, and is, and will be? But then the teacher said something else, I can't remember how exactly it tied in, but he said (as though he were a Christian speaking), "we're always right and good, so therefore you're wrong and evil and must be put to death."

I just sat there in the third-from-the-top row of the lecture hall in Sturm and was sad, so sad. Because that is so wrong, so untrue, so against what Jesus is about! Granted, there are many "Christians" out there who act and believe that they are good and righteous and all others are evil and therefore worthy of death (cough, Westboro Church, cough). But those are the people who have clearly failed to read the entirety of their Bibles. Those are the ones who have not accepted their own sin and failure. Those are the individuals who refuse to believe that the "wages of sin is death" and that the only hope of salvation is Jesus. They don't seem to understand that we "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," and that that falling applies to every single human being. Some people seem to think that they are special, that they were "chosen," that they have some special sinless privilege that makes them better than all the "sinners" and "evil people" out there.

No, no, no. We're all evil, all sinners, we all hurt Jesus, and we all deserved death as consequence for our actions. There's no being special, no being chosen. The only difference between a follower of Christ and someone who does not believe in Jesus is this: accepting that we are broken, sinful, hopeless, and helpless people who are utterly incapable of saving ourselves. And then believing that despite our absolute horridness, for some wonderful, amazing, miraculous reason, Jesus loves us, and wants us, and cares for us. And that because of this unbelievable love, He has offered us grace and mercy by taking on our punishment for our misdeeds and has died for us. And that through His death and return to life, He has saved us. He payed for our sins with His own suffering. And He wants to adopt us into His family, to be our Father, King, and Best Friend. There is no special ingredient that makes a Christian better, or more deserving of this great grace. There is simply belief in the gift, and the promise of life with Jesus.

One of my new favorite passages in the Bible is Ezekiel 18. It paints this picture of grace and forgiveness and salvation so clearly. It says that no matter how bad we are, no matter what we have done, we are still loved, and we can still be saved by Jesus.

"²⁰ The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.

 ²¹ “But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. ²² None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live. ²³ Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?

 ²⁴ “But if a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked person does, will they live? None of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness they are guilty of and because of the sins they have committed, they will die.

 ²⁵ “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, you Israelites: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? ²⁶ If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin, they will die for it; because of the sin they have committed they will die. ²⁷ But if a wicked person turns away from the wickedness they have committed and does what is just and right, they will save their life. ²⁸ Because they consider all the offenses they have committed and turn away from them, that person will surely live; they will not die. ²⁹ Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?

 ³⁰ “Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. ³¹ Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? ³² For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!"

I simply love this. It starts out harshly. You sin - you die. That makes sense. Consequences for actions. But they God continues. If you turn from that sin, believe in Him, then these past sins are forgotten, you live. And I love the last part, "I take no pleasure in the death of anyone."

God does not delight in the death of His children, He does not rejoice if one chooses not to to believe in Him. He is hurt each time someone sins. He doesn't desire that anyone go to Hell. Why do people to to Hell, then? If God doesn't want anyone there, why isn't Heaven full and overflowing with all the people? I've struggled with this some, and I think it is a question we, as humans, will never be able to fully answer because we cannot see God's mind. But here's what I believe: free will. God chooses to let us choose. He does not force Himself upon anyone. He gives us the choice, the freedom, to accept His gift of love and grace, or deny it. But He does not wish death upon anyone, because He loves us. Oh, how He loves us.

Fear of Flying

I both hate and love flying, flying in airplanes, that is. My dearest dream is to fly like Peter Pan - no wings attached, though I'm also quite aware this is not a feat to be accomplished in this lifetime. But flying in airplanes is quite the love-hate relationship.

We'll start with why I hate it. Quite simply, flying stresses me out. There are so many things that could go wrong, and I have a deep fear of losing my baggage (which generally contains important pieces of camera equipment or art that wouldn't fit in my carry-on). Additionally, said carry-on is always quite heavy due to the large quantity of camera equipment, and running around an airport with a bag that weights far more than the 30lb weight limit (thankfully not enforced) is never the most enjoyable experience.

I'm also afraid of crashing. When the plane lands I tense up, prepared for a jolting thud as we hit the ground. The landing is always as gentle as a massive plane landing on concrete can be, and my fears are again assuaged. 

But as much as I hate the airport experience, I do love being in the air. I love looking down at the tiny world below me, the patterns of earth and city making abstract art on the ground. Long pale lines snake around like geometry problems from tenth grade homework problems.

And then there are the clouds. Clouds are amazing from the ground. Looking up at them, they look so inviting, soft, and fluffy. Being above them is such a different perspective. They're flatter, spread out across the sky. In some areas there are only a few tiny splotches of cloud floating about the sky. Their shadows can be seen on the earth below. What, from the ground, seems like never-ending shade, is just a tiny blotch of dark on the great canvas of earth.

Some layers of cloud are stretched thin, like butter or jam spread over a piece of toast. Others look like smoke, frozen in the sky.

From above, the earth and clouds are like a work of art. Abstract and unassuming, specially there for only those in the air to see or experience, and only if they're looking for it.

A Watery Dance

The light cut through the water, creating shadows and reflections on the pool floor. The bottom of the pool-floor-canvas looked like the soundwaves on a GarageBand screen, secret music playing for no one to hear. The waves morphed into crossing and connecting lines, like arteries and veins, pumping life's warm red blood. And sometimes the peaceful, dancing patterns were disrupted by abrupt circles. Water flying from my fingertips, splashing down into the water, creating ripples like a small stone thrown into a glassy lake. A bit of the world's modern art, painted and dancing on a pool bottom.

Power, Prayer, and Butterfly Wings

Prayer is great. It's our direct line of communication with God. I mean we have the Bible to read, a letter of sorts from God, but prayer is just us talking straight to Him, and sometimes Him speaking directly back to us. 

A few Sundays ago at the church I've been pseudo attending (the Journey in Tower Groves), the pastor talked a bit about prayer, specifically how the prayers of a believer are powerful. Now I've heard that before, and nearly dismissed it as common knowledge I need not heed, but it stuck with me. James 5:16 talks about the great strength of prayer, saying, "therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."

 

I don't feel like my prayer is especially powerful, effective, strong, or great. Yet I hear so many stories of the power of prayer. Sick, wounded, or broken people are prayed over and made whole, healed. Money comes in at just the right moment, miracles are performed. James 5:17-18 says that, "Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." 

My prayer does not create rain, stop rain, or produce crops. I pray all the time, though. I talk to God throughout the day, He is a constant companion who I inform of probably way too many of my thoughts. But I don't see the power of prayer played out in my life, I don't see these miraculous results. 

About a month ago I was telling my mom about one of my atheist friends. Her response was, "well have you been praying for them?" And I suddenly realized that no, no I had not. In fact, I had not been praying really for anyone. And I realized that the vast majority of the time, though I pray a lot, I usually pray about myself. I pray about the things I want to change in my life, pray for strength, guidance, humility, joy, to not bite my siblings heads off every time they annoy me...the usual. But I wasn't praying for others. I wasn't beseeching God to save the lives of my lost friends and family. I wasn't lifting them up and placing them in His loving hands. I wasn't praying for the widow and orphan, I wasn't praying for anyone but myself. 

 

Thwarted, yet again. Everytime I pridefully start to think I've lost some pride, it rears back up to remind me that I naturally make myself the center of my universe. Daily, daily, I must lose myself and put God on the throne. Each day I have to eject myself from that seat and put Him back up there. 

I would never deign to call myself a "righteous man." I aspire to one day be somewhat close to slightly righteous, but I am too sinful to make such a classification of myself. But I will pray, and not just for myself. But I'm still selfish, self-centered, and screwed-up. So I forget a lot. And though I begin my prayers with great hopes of praying for everyone I've ever known and begging for the healing of all the hurt and sick I am acquainted with...I usually end up just talking to God about me, me, me for lengthy periods of time. So, I'm making a prayer book, like Aibileen does in the book The Help. So if you have people, places, or things you would like added to this list, go right ahead and tell me, and I will begin to pray.

Got Milk?

I like the British spellings of words. Colour. Favourite. Recognise. Moustache. Theatre. Realise. Somehow they seem more story-like, making an ordinary sentence extraordinary.

I also like how my computer thinks I spelled the word wrong, but really I didn't. It's like I know a secret my all-knowing internet doesn't.

And no, my title has literally nothing to do with this post. It was random. Like the words above.

Thank you, and have a simply smashing day, darlings! (Please read that with a British accent)

Just A Little Theologizing

I don't really church hop. Not legit anyways. But I've tried a few churches on for size recently. I was raised Presbyterian and love the church I grew up in, New City Fellowship. But this past summer it just hasn't felt the same, so many people are gone and it was just different. I found Denver United in Denver and like it a lot. I love the worship, though sometimes I don't agree with all that is said in the sermons. I love Passage though, with all my heart. And then I've been going to the Journey here in St. Louis a little this summer as well. Denver United is non-denominational, and I don't know what the Journey is.

The problem with this minor amount of church-hopping is that I sometimes don't really agree all with the theology presented in the sermons. Like today at the Journey. The sermon was great, and I got a lot out of it. But at one point the pastor began talking about how there was a significant chance that all physical ailments (including a bad back) could be attributed to a problem in one's relationship with the Lord, and that by examining one's walk with Jesus and fixing that problem, the physical ailment would also be resolved. I could have misunderstood him, but that's what I took from it and I'm not sure I really agree with that. I don't believe that God orchestrates bad, and giving us physical illnesses to tell us we need to step up our game with Him seems like a punishment.

Anyways. There are often theological points I don't agree with, and part of this is because I haven't "picked" a specific denomination and theology as of yet. I've decided to simply be non-denominational and let it rest. I don't know what I believe about predestination. I don't care what age a person gets baptized at. I don't understand why it is such a big problem when women are pastors or deacons or elders at churches. It doesn't matter to me if communion is a weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, or completely randomized event. These are some of the things people fight over, the things that dictate different denominations, parts of people's theology.

Some things I don't care about. Some I don't understand. Others I don't know enough about to make a credible decision about and truly stand behind, and I will not believe something simply because my parents or pastor told me to. But here is what I do know, and here is what I believe. This is my theology: love. I believe in love so strongly. I believe in serving. And I believe in relationship.

When we get to heaven I suppose we can ask God about when we were "supposed" to take communion, if He cared what age we were baptized, or what He thinks about the songs we sing in church. But the only way we'll get to heaven to ask God our questions, is if we believe in Him, if we love Him with all our puny hearts, and if we serve Him with every breath. The message of the gospel is love! Jesus rebuked the pharisees so many times during his years on earth for their legalistic practices. I believe that what Jesus truly cares about is the simplest thing of all: love God first and love and care for your neighbor above yourself. That's my theology. That's what I believe.

Here and Gone

Death's just one of those things you never get used to. I mean I suppose if people were dying all around you, day in an day out, you'd become accustomed to it. But for the average Joe, I don't think we ever get used to death, dying, and destruction. 

Eating lunch and browsing/stalking (whatever you want to call it) facebook this afternoon, I came upon a status saying "RIP lil keith." There's a guy involved in my church youth program (now an adult, so really a helper with the youth program) named Lil Keith...

I scrolled down and saw another status, also from someone at my church, also in remembrance of a Lil Keith. 

I kept scrolling down. 

Another status, and another. 

I texted my friend, Karen. 

Lil Keith was dead. 

My first thought was that he'd been shot, since he lives (I think) in the ghetto. He used to, at least. Or spent a lot of time there. He wasn't shot. He just died, out of the blue. In the middle of a basketball game last night he collapsed, his heart stopped its beat of life, and he was gone.

I didn't know him that well, but the news still struck me and saddened me. I used to know him. A few years ago we went on a missions trip together to Arizona with my church youth group. It was an amazing trip. The team was fantastic, we all got along, and we had a wonderful time together. But that was years ago. 

Lil Keith wasn't very little. Actually he was pretty big. But he was smaller than Big Keith. I remember him always being at youth group my junior and senior years. Maybe sophomore too. I can't remember now. He and Big Keith were the life of the party, part of the group of kids from the Delmar area that Otto brought to the church every Wednesday night.

I've always been glad our church was like that. It wasn't just the church kids on Wednesday nights, we had a very diverse group. I feel like that really encompasses what New City Fellowship is about. Reconciliation and love and acceptance, being like Jesus, and Jesus loved everyone. 

But back to Lil Keith. 

He was loud-in-a-good-way and funny and had a great personality. As far as I could tell, everyone loved him. I never knew him super well, but he was a great guy from what I could tell. And from what I've heard from people today and seen on facebook status', he was a really great guy. Karen's facebook status said, "Keith was hilarious and encouraging and sometimes really frustrating and a great leader for the teams and a good friend to so many people. and he was only about 20. i don't understand it, keith, but I know God always brought good things from your life and I know He'll still do it now."

I think that's probably a good way to sum it up. And I don't know where he was spiritually when he died, since I never had those sorts of conversations with him, but Karen and Otto (our youth leader) and others are quite sure he had put his hope in Jesus. And so I plan to see him again in heaven.

Death always seems like such a bad thing. I wonder to myself, how could this happen to someone so great? Someone with so much potential? Someone who had a bad past and was stuck in a place that many people never get out of, but was instead making something of himself? A good guy? I wonder that. How, how could God allow something so bad to happen to someone? 

Then I realize. Death isn't a bad thing. Not for someone who believes. Maybe really it was a blessing, a gift. Keith doesn't have to deal with the bad of this world anymore. No more pain, no more hurt. No more bad relationships or getting sick. Nothing. Instead he gets to be in the best place imaginable, with the absolutely most wonderful Jesus ever. And that's not bad. That's beautiful. So my hope and prayer is that Keith is up there with Jesus right now, making Him laugh with made up words like "gword," which he made up on a missions trip in Arizona just a few years ago. 

RIP Lil Keith.