What We Practice We Become

Graduating college was strange. After 5 years of practicing school, practicing music, practicing sports, practicing relationships, practicing multi-tasking, I was all practiced out. I was used to practicing lots of things and neglecting other things.

Having your first job is even more strange. All that practicing of college was done and then I just had one job to do. No more practicing school, or sports, or as much multi-tasking. It shook me for a loop. It was a shock to the system. Over those 5 years I had become something - a college student I suppose. And then, overnight, I had to become something else. And what was supposed to prepare me for that, didn't prepare me well. I guess I learned how to learn and I learned how to multi-task, but I'm not sure I had yet learned much about how to live. We're in such a hurry as a culture aren't we? But where are we going and what are we becoming? It seems we scarcely have the time to ask such questions seriously.

I did something unusual. Most people don't do things like this. But I decided to quit. Just quit just about everything I was doing and stop becoming what I was becoming. I suppose it was Jesus that stopped me and forced me to slow down. Sure I was becoming an athlete, becoming a musician, becoming a teacher, becoming all of these "good" things. But I was also becoming a mess. I was overworked, exhausted, broken, and really confused with no coherant worldview, just remnants of the small one I once had now demolished by the University. In all my becoming I was failing to become healthy or whole or content, but I suppose those were my goals all along. But was I was practicing wasn't getting me where I really wanted to be. And so I stopped "doing" and decided to think about what sort of person I really wanted to become. And I was also struck by the kind of person I was called by God to become. And it was beginning to look like I might become a very new sort of person. I wasn't sure what to do, and I'm still not sure what to do, but I am sure I am supposed to become something different than what I am today - something new.

When Christ invades our lives, our hearts, our psyches, our world, we are asked to become something different, something better, something that resembles someone more like him. But I've been so used to becoming so many other things. Becoming what my parents want, what my coaches want, what my peers think is cool, what society says is good and respectable, what intellectuals think is worthwhile, and what I think I want to become. But none of that satisfies does it, really? It never does, but why do I keep looking for these things to satisfy when now I know they never will? They weren't meant to be ends in and of themselves. This life was meant to be the training ground for a new kind of life.

So now, I must become something different, someone different, someone more whole, more creative, more loving, more filled with strength, joy, and peace.

How do I do it?

What I practice I will become. The Lord says that whatever we ask for in his name, we will receive. So, I must first of all ask, but then I must also practice. Every day we are becoming more of something. We are becoming more of what we will be forever.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us" - Hebrews 12:1

We are called to become more of the person He created us to be by simply offering ourselves to him each day, one day at a time. And we must pray and practice if we are to become more like him. And someday, when this life filled with joys, cares, and sorrows comes to an end, we will become glorious.

What does the "Gospel" mean to you?

I've been reading a really interesting book called "Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard. In the first couple of chapters he's laying out a historical and theological problem of today where the Gospel itself isn't really communicated or understood. I find in my own life, in my history with the church, and even after conversion, I have had a tough time understanding what it means to be a Christian. So many people use that word today, many of whom I have very little in common with. I new a girl in college who was very serious about the fact that she was a Lutheran, but she had no qualms about sleeping around (with men or women), drinking, and the like. I couldn't understand how she could reconcile the two. What it meant to be Lutheran to her was very different than what it meant in Luther's day.

My confusion, most often increased by the church, led me in college to lose all faith in God and religion. Ultimate truth could not be known and it was unlikely you'd find a genuine Christian around who happened to also be a pretty good human being, on you would want to talk to and hang out with. At least that was my experience at the time. Fortunately, that is no longer the case, but my heart goes out to people who wrestle with belief, who struggle with big questions, and I'm pretty angry with the people representing "Christianity" whose lives seem to have little to do with the life of Jesus.

One point Willard makes in the book is that the Gospel today (in America at least) has been reduced to the "Gospel of Sin Management". In this, Christianity is being viewed as only how to deal with sin. Our actual life and how it is lived on earth has little to do with salvation, but more just that you believe your sins are forgiven. (I'm oversimplifying here). He then goes on to describe other ways the Gospel is understood, which in many cases seems to have little to do with the historical Judeo-Christian tradition or with what the Bible actually says. He argues that "there is no Gospel for human life and discipleship, just one for death and social action." Here is what he argues for instead...

"To counteract this we must develop a straight forward presentation, in word and life, of the reality of life under God's rule, through reliance upon the word and person of Jesus. I this way we can naturally become his students or apprentices. We can learn how to live our lives as he would live them if he were here. We can enter his eternal kind of life now".

I guess I am having trouble with this. Maybe feeling at times a hypocrite myself. Or having to weed through all the confusion and have confidence to grab on to the truth. Being able to discern and sift that truth out as well. I guess this is touching a sensitive place for me, because it has been such a long struggle and complicated process of accepting the simplicity of the Gospel. It isn't entirely simple, but I was just never told it or it wasn't presented in a way that made it desirable or good news or trustworthy. Not only is it about life after death, but it's about life now. It's about being a disciple/student of Jesus. I guess I'm needing to be discipled and needing to understand at the core of my being the true Gospel message.

Any thoughts?...

j.r. suggested typing a list of questions/topics and then deciding collectively what we'd be interested in writing about. I feel like I'm posting a lot (and mostly just because my head's spinning with thoughts), but please feel free to submit more or offer suggestions as to how to go about this...

Is Death the End?

My friend's mother is dying. She picked her up today and took her to the hospital to get a blood transfusion. She told me she is really weak, her skin is pale, and she is not functioning nearly as well as she has been the past few weeks. Her mother is dying and needs the fresh blood to keep her alive until spring. She asked God if He could keep her alive until then. My friend is panicky. Her job is really horrible and she is losing her mother. Our mothers are the source we entered life through. The connection is so deep. The loss: one of security, of life, of love. My friend will watch her mother waste away and soon take her final breath. Let's hope and pray God will sustain her until spring.

Nearly two years ago the most influential mentor I had passed away, unexpectedly to me. She was 41 and she left behind two beautiful little children ages 3 and 5. I didn't believe it. Sometimes I still find it hard to. She was a mentor to me and in some ways a mother-figure. I thought she was so wise, she really understood life and what was truly important. I believed she could do anything - nothing could break her. But she wasn't strong enough to beat death. She couldn't fight even a tragic one.

Until you experience it. Until you watch it unfold before your eyes. Until then, does the fear hit you. And afterwards, a long silence follows. I wondered why she loved me so much and why she got so attached to me. Now I realize, she had lost before. She had seen death. She was aware of how short our time together on earth is. She made the most of it.

And now I struggle to believe the claim or do I believe and understand it more now? Death is not the end. It does not have the final say. In Christ we live forever. Have I ever taken this seriously enough? Do we take this claim seriously today?

I'm not sure what my friend believed. I'm not sure who she believed Christ to be. I know that she believed life did not end after death. How did a communist professor from a socialist country come to believe this? I'm not sure, but she did. And now she knows if life continues and how it does, if it does.

The silence grows louder to me now and so does my own fear of death. The reality of how small we are even if we appear so big. We are finite and we are born to die. Jesus Christ said that there is another kingdom that awaits us and we can enter it, but only through a narrow gate. It is through Him that we enter Paradise and through Him alone. This is hard for people to swallow, but I'm not sure if that's for the right reasons. Many don't see that this is good news indeed. It's because we don't ask the right questions. If we have trouble with the claim, we have to ask, what do we believe awaits us after death? Is it really nothing? Is it the end? Then isn't our quest for meaning, progress, and transcendence quite futile? Or do we think just any kind of kingdom exists after death and we can't really know for sure? Well, is anyone else offering us one? One that we can know quite a bit about? Did anyone else prove it existed? Like by dying and reappearing? I'm afraid not.

Perhaps the grave is the end, or perhaps there is something beyond, but we can't know it. Or perhaps the unique claim of Christianity that the one true God sent his Son to point the way to the kingdom of life after death. In his death and resurrection He proved to us that death does not have the final say, and a new kingdom awaits us when we die. Our longings and hopes will someday have fulfillment in a new life. And our fear of death can be transcended by the hope and assurance that death is not the end.

Do We Really Need a Savior?

Hitler tried to save the world. He tried to save it from the Jews and the Communists, from women and the disabled, from the "inferior" and the "weak". Less famous and harmful people try to save the world. Environmentalists struggle to save the environment. Ecologists try to save the whales. Social workers try to save children. Psychiatrists try to save minds. Teachers try to save society. Activists work to save the hungry. Doctors attempt to save lives.

We all try to save things, and there are some things we can and do save, for a while.

But who will save us when we need the saving? Who will save us when the money runs out? When hurricanes hit? When our children become alcoholics? When wars ravage cities? When millions are hungry? When the doctors say, "There is nothing more we can do"? Who will save us then?

And why do we need saving?


(This is just the beginning of a much longer article I'd need more time to think about. In the mean time, could make for a good discussion topic? )

Does Religion Matter?

Why is it that many people are so comfortable with religion? There are those who cling to it like a comfortable habit and those who reject it as the greatest example of human ignorance and evil. And there are, of course, many who are somewhere in between.

Does it matter?

I think that's equivalent to asking the question, "Do ideas matter?" Any reasonable, thinking person ought to realize that ideas are everything. Ideas are our realities: they inform everything we do from whether or not we change the oil in our car on a regular basis to what political candidate we vote for. We base our whole lives on our ideas about life.

What if our ideas about life are all wrong?

What if what we hold to be true is actually false? What if the whole of our lives has been a misguided and futile attempt at survival and we go to our graves empty-handed to find that there is another world awaiting us: one we weren’t ready for?

Does it matter?

If we merely enter the ground and our deaths become mere silences, than I suppose it doesn’t matter much.

But what IF we never die?

I would hope in that case, something would wake us quickly from our sleep, shake us like lightning, and shout loudly through a megaphone, “It does matter!”

“Our lives matter!”

I think then, we would be a little more interested in ideas, the truth, and learning how to live in reality.

I’m thinking of beginning this blog discussion (which hopefully doesn’t turn out just to be a discussion with myself (but that might prove to be helpful to me in any case:)) with religion. I start with religion since most science does not attempt to suggest that there is, with any certainty, a life beyond this one. If science has the final say, I ought to stop writing all together and figure out the best mode of survival: perhaps learning to enjoy my life more and get a full-time job to start. If science is not ultimate truth, than this surely would not have been a complete waste of time…

Calling All Brave Souls

I am not a writer. I am not published. I am not an academic. I am not accomplished in any field. I am confused much of the time, inspired most of the rest of the time. I am ordinary, but I long for the extraordinary. I fear greatness and I fear oblivion. I am discontent with the way things are. I am discontent with the ways that I am. I want the truth more than I want money or even happiness. I want to be less selfish. I am terrified of rejection and I fear making mistakes. I have a need to be known, but I'd rather not be. I often don't see myself the way others do. I am human.

I have no agenda. I am not interested in forcing my opinions or beliefs on anyone. I am interested in what is true and what it means to be human. I see that quest as quite possibly the most important thing to devote oneself to. It saddens me that so many people either don't care and are satisfied with what they've come to accept or believe the ultimate claim to truth that there is no ultimate truth.

All the many claims on truth...there is an exhaustive list and an even more exhaustive history. Where do we begin? All beginnings start small, like seeds. I've been wanting a place to start for a long time. A place to wrestle with the different claims on truth. A place to try and understand them, weigh them, see myself in them, see the world through them, see if they hold up. And I'd like to make some informed decisions. But before we begin (yes we, I'm inviting you along on the journey), I must admit that much of my current wrestling involves the one man in history (to have had any major significant and lasting impact on civilization) to claim to be absolute truth itself.

I wrestle with religion. I wrestle with philosophy. I wrestle with politics. I wrestle with others. I wrestle with myself.

This blog is an effort at a more organized mode of wrestling that doesn't just exist in my own brain. I'd like to invite friends, strangers, fellow thinking human beings to come along on the adventure with the hopes we might come to discover something together and we might become more human in the process.

It's risky to talk about these things, but I am afraid it may be more risky not to.

"Calling all brave souls"...