Breaking Things

I wrote a paper last week where I compared the horse whisperer/trainer character (Tom) in the movie Seabiscuit with the Holy Spirit. I wrote about how Tom had to "tame" Seabiscuit's angry and bitter behavior in order to give the horse the freedom to be a racehorse. This has been sticking with me.

I keep talking about my sadness. It might be getting obnoxious. But it's just so present. In terms of my own experience right now, I keep getting the image of my body being full of bones that have been broken and healed improperly. I just kept trying to get past the pain by ignoring it, and now those bones are being broken so they can be set correctly, and healed correctly. This is my process of being tamed, and my light at the end of the sadness is the hope of a new sense of freedom.

Damn, every week, more broken bones. Everything hurts. Some times I start to get scared that I am getting used to this state of being, other times I feel like the pain is too much to bear. I question whether or not I am forcing myself to stay in a hard place when I should just be getting over it and moving on with life. And then I wonder if that attitude is exactly what led to so many broken bones healing so poorly.

So tomorrow begins my weekly process of being broken all over again. But I am finding that the more I stop fighting this process, the more I feel cared for in the midst of this process.

Wrestling

In the midst of sadness, there has been major wrestling. I wrote a paper last semester describing my personal hermeneutic as one of wrestling with God, Scriptures, Truth, etc. I think it is a good metaphor for me. I know I don't struggle with much grace. My most unkempt moments are those of struggle.

I am wrestling with diversity, multi-culturalism, reconciliation. My month at mhgs has been one filled with talk of oppression in various forms, from the somewhat trivial (adult popularity contests) to the severe (my acts of oppression on a friend), and there have been some in-betweens as well. I suppose it is a sliding scale measuring depth of impact, and in the end I can only be accountable for how I oppress others. But how?

There have been many conversations, some very heartfelt apologies and very real tears on behalf of others. There is the helplessness of simply being born into a situation that is oppressive to others (white, middle class, suburbia). There is the empowerment of reconsidering my belief systems and embracing new ideas. There is the hope of breaking through the awkwardness and fear to enter into what diversity, culture and reconciliation even mean to begin with. There is the systems level dreaming...what if the western Christian church stopped talking for the next 2000 years and just started listening to church leaders in other cultures (as asked by my inspiring prof Dwight Friesen)?

I can only pray that this is the start of more reflection and ultimately action. I can feel the wrestling leaving my body and mind...I know it could so easily slip away into "a difficult conversation I had that one time years ago." I don't want that. Too much is at stake for my friends, the church, and my own transformation into the likeness of Jesus.

For Comfort, Mourn

The last two weeks have been a time of mourning for me. The sadness, frustration and hopelessness have felt constantly present, which has led to a lot of tears and even more time in bed. Bed has become my one place of comfort. I just feel in constant need of being held, and my bed is the only thing available that envelops me.

For a class this week I read a 4th centurty exegete's sermon on the Beatitudes. He had a simple phrase that brought a little hope in the midst of this uncomfortable sadness: if you seek comfort, then mourn. It certainly twists the order of the words of Jesus, but in a way that opens comfort up to all people if they choose to mourn. And some days, I think there is so much for every person to mourn, even if it is just on behalf of another.

This little sentence has also caught me in all my efforts to create comfort in order to avoid mourning. I have worked so hard throughout my life to avoid pain and suffering, as if the bad feelings are what needed to be comforted rather than the actual loss that caused the bad feelings to begin with.

So here I sit in the midst of the sadness, laying in bed with wadded tissues all around me, just hoping for comfort.

Time

I pick up Time magazine to read about the presidential race. I am flipping through the pages and came across the factoid that a measles vaccine costs only $0.16 and most Africans can't afford it, but you can also buy a bottle of beer for dogs for $2.14. I flip a couple more pages to the election coverage and find out that it costs $100 million to run for president and there are currently 20+ candidates, which means there is about $2 billion dollars potentially in play to elect our president.

I admit that the poverty statistics in Africa have never really moved me, but for some reason reading all this in a matter of 5 minutes just really pissed me off. If I did my math right, if we bypassed the mudslinging tv ads we could vaccinate over 12 billion people, which I know is ridiculous because the world population is only 6 billion. And beer for dogs? really?