Prayer and Contentment

I like to try to take time to read the Bible and pray on a fairly daily basis (its a lot easier now that I am unemployed and not in school). I use a book given to me called, "A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants" given to me by Becky Modesto. Each week there is a new Psalm, and each day a new passage to read, but it always has the same statement for prayer, "V. Prayers: for the church, for others, for myself." Sometimes I find this incredibly broad and difficult to approach. I'm sitting there in my sweats drinking my tea thinking "...ok I pray for the church uh... that you would help..." it's a very unmotivated prayer. Then I realized that in order to pray I have to have an element of discontentment with things. I have to have a will that is similar to what I know God's will to be. Perhaps the reason I cannot pray comes from my present contentment with the world in my own experience of it. Its easier for me to pray when I am anxious about something, but for those precious days or weeks when I find myself content, I have no reason to pray. However, this is worldly.

Peace and contentment should come, though. Philippians 4:6-7 says, "...by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guide your heart and your minds in Christ Jesus." Of course this contentment comes right when we are least hospitable to it. If we really align our will with God's will (so as not to be content in our own worldly experience) we start to get these rules for ourselves like, "I will only have peace once every homeless person in San Diego has the option to stay indoors" or "I will only have peace when everyone in the youth group has a relationship with Christ" or "I will only have peace once there is peace in Africa." Ministry is a response of faith! Yet, often it leads to more discontentment than if we had never gotten off the couch in the first place. That ain't right. This discontentment again is worldly. It is walking a thin line of being concerned about being involved in the work of God in the world, yet remembering that it indeed is God's work in the world. Ministry is the faithful way of living. Once it becomes a task force or a cause, it will not lead us to contentment. Somewhere, we are need to find contentment and peace in the act of faithfully calling on God with our words, through prayer, and our actions, through ministry.

I think this peace comes from our belief that we are being obedient to God, and from a greater belief that God is ultimately going to win, that God is ultimately going to restore peace and wholeness to creation, and drive out evil and death. The former type of belief is called faith; belief in what God has said and done as it is known through scripture, church tradition, and personal experience. The latter belief is called hope; a belief in what God has said God is going to do, even in spite of our own present experience.

Rules

So tonight I'm doing the Salvation Army thing, serving out some coffee and chatting with people and this theme of rules came up in two of my conversations and I feel like there's something about that. I'll start typing and we'll see what we figure out.

The conversation was with a man I talked to last week. He's a Christian, very sensible and well spoken. He started a conversation by asking me about the rules of fasting for Lent. If you should eat meat on Sundays and what not. I started to share everything I know about ways of practicing Lent; the differences between Catholic and liturgical Protestant ways of doing things. He said something to the effect of "I just want to know the rules. I think it's good to follow them." Then I talked about how there's not really rules, even in the Church there are different ways of practicing Lent. And we can't overlook the words of the prophet Isaiah: (do yourself a favor and read the whole chapter)

Isaiah 58

"5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

So yeah, fasting isn't a show. It isn't an end in itself. It's a means to an end. The "rule" of fasting, as my friend put it, is only a way to come to a deeper understanding of our need for God. However, the rules that we choose to follow or not follow for the season of Lent tell something about who we are.

Okay, so then I run into another friend who I hadn't seen in a year. I barely remembered his story. He remembered me though. And he started telling me about his life. He had gotten drunk the other night and woke up to find himself detained by the police. He's lost all his stuff, and is pretty fed up with life on the streets right now. We started talking about his options, and I mentioned the SD Rescue Mission as a possible way out. "No I couldn't do that. I couldn't handle all the curfews and stuff. All the rules." I thought about that a bit and we talked about it some more. I pointed out that in my life, there were choices that I make and as a result there are certain rules and obligations I have to follow. For example to stay in the nursing program I have to maintain a certain GPA, to stay in my house I have to pay rent. However, he revealed to me that when you live on the street, you have a new reality. There are no rules; the only rule is survive. As long as you don't mess with people's turf, you pretty much come and go as you please. It's hard to make that transition back to understanding the value of rules for survival and life in society outside the streets.

So I'm thinking about rules; about how our rules dictate our reality. Or vice versa. There are rules, obligations, orders, that keep us committed to what we do. Our rules and commitments are means for upward mobility and growth, but they also define our growth; they identify those who are able and those who are unable. In some ways that is a good thing. I do not want to visit a doctor who has not followed the rules in attaining her position as a doctor. The classes she passed, the clinical work she did identify her as a professional, more worthy to assess and aid my health than the person who bags my groceries (more often than not). Granted however, it is not the following the rules that makes someone a good doctor, just a licenced one.

In the same way, my friend who doubts his ability to follow the Rescue Mission's rules has his identity as one who is unable to cope with the realities of living in what we call functional society. Those rules separate him from me.

So I'm not saying rules are bad, I am just saying that we have to be aware of the rules we follow. We have to be aware of how the rules that we follow define who we are and who we are not. We have to love people despite what rules they follow.

And ironically these two conversations come full circle to reveal the real rule. There are rules like fasting, tithing, praying, but the rule that sums up all other rules is to LOVE. Especially remember to love those who do not and/or cannot follow the rules.

^"Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard."

Lent

Lent starts this Wednesday (Ash Wednesday), Feb 17. Lent is a time where we focus on the imitation of Christ's suffering and passion on the cross.

It becomes clear as we're reading the gospels that Jesus is not a superhero content with gallantly meeting the needs of people. Christ's life on earth was about being obedient to the Father. The Father is surely concerned with the plight of people who are poor, imprisoned, orphaned, undocumented, widowed, addicted, depressed, and ultimately poor in spirit; and I'm convinced that it is impossible to follow God without caring for the needs of others. Yet Jesus did not come to earth to start a non-profit. Jesus came to earth to show us obedience to God. In Jesus's life we see the love of the Father for humanity revealed to us by sending Jesus, his son, to die on the cross.
The cross is a struggle for every disciple to understand. It may even be true to say that the cross was a bit of a struggle for Jesus to understand. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? If God is all-powerful than there should be no need for God to jump through hoops to save God's people. I can't reason it out any other way than to say that God chose to have Jesus die on the cross out of love for humanity. For the Jews living in Rome, a picture of God's Son dying on the cross was an image that could lead them to begin to understand the mystery of God's love for people. In our response of faith to the faithfulness of the Son we are saved.

The image of the cross is something that doesn't necessarily translate to our culture today. We have no capital punishment that quite equates and we've lost an understanding of atoning sacrifices. In spite of all that we come this week to the season of Lent. The 40 days leading up to Holy Week where Jesus suffers on the cross.

Lent then is our chance to echo St. Paul's words to the church in Philippi:

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

So in this time we fast from something in attempts to be reminded of God's sacrifice. This is a time where we as the church can live with the disciples in the second half of the gospels as we seek to understand what it means that Christ would die. In advent, we anticipate the joy that comes with God's coming. We can see why that is exciting. Lent is a little more somber. We join with the disciples not really getting it. It is a time where we seek to understand. It is a time when we walk on the road to Emmaus and find ourselves surprised. Our eyes are opened, and we find our hearts burning within us. Christ is risen! The scriptures are opened to us! Now I get it! I didn't see this coming! But hallelujah Christ is risen! The mystery is being revealed!

Burrito Love

Well it's been a while since I posted something on here. I'd like to get back into it, but until then feast your eyes on this poem. I won a free dinner for 2 to chipotle! (not because it was any good but merely because I entered the contest). But this was fun. "Who will you take to chipotle?" you may be asking yourself...well it depends on how nice you are to me!

Burrito Love

Yes, I see you burrito

From the outside you're not much to look at

A large, bland tortilla

White and somewhat crusty...

But I see what's within

Hot and steamy beans

covered shamelessly with cheddar cheese

please!

You tempt me with your foreign rice

and sexy spice

and oh! I know!

Cilantro!

Carne Asada

Send me to Tiajuana.

Salsa and guacamole,

I'll pass on posole

and just say "si" to your

burrito love.

The Crude and Insensitive Reflections of a Nursing Student

Your lungs don't work? we'll put you on a ventilator.
Your SA node gets off beat? we'll give you a pacemaker.
Your sphincter can't hold it in? we'll give you a Foley catheter.
Your kidneys refrain and retain? we'll put you on dialysis.
You can't digest this? We'll give you total parenteral nutrition.

This is not poetry, there is nothing poetic about this.
There's no beauty in the words sphincter, dialysis, total parenteral nutrition.
I'm not going to dignify them by trying to think of their rhymes.

Human, where are you?
What are you doing for yourself?
If I want care for you I will care for the machines.
Maybe you'll heal.
Maybe you are only a temporary ROBOT!
Or maybe not.

Maybe your lungs and kidneys have gone to heaven.
Maybe they are waiting for you next to your memories, reason, and sense of humor.
What are you doing here?
Who's keeping you?
This all sounds terrible.
What should I apologize for?

"The Spirit of the Marathon"

Yesterday I watched this documentary called "the Spirit of the Marathon". It follows the stories of 6 runners preparing for the Chicago Marathon. Two of the runners are elite athletes in who hope to finish first in their gender groups. The others are runners of various ages and experience levels. It really protrays the uniqueness of not only the sporting event, but also of those participating in it.

The marathon is such an interesting event because few people can just wake up one morning and decide to deck out 26.2 miles, however, I also believe that few people, with adequate training, are incapable of completing a marathon. So in that way it takes oridinary people and transforms them into someone extraordinary, someone who can complete a 26.2 mile run/walk/jog whatever you need to do to finish it.

And that's what I like about a marathon; everyone has a story for how they got to the starting line. Training your body to be able to take 26 miles is not something you have to do to be human, so why do it? What does it mean for people to complete this? What are they competing against? What motivated them 4+ days a week for the last few months to get up and run for hours on end?

I've volunteered at the finishline of a marathon before, and its quite an amazing experience. People's emotions and expressions at that place show me that they have done something much greater than running 26.2 miles. And that's what I really like about it; you take your challenges, doubts, demons, divorces, weaknesses, whatever it is that drives you to run, and you move through them. You don't just sit and journal, but you take your mind's thoughts, your soul's dreams, your exocrine gland's sweat, your muscle's glycogen and ATP, your lung's oxgen and whatever else you carry with you and you physically move yourself for 2-6 hours (depending on who you are). Finishing a marathon is a holistic victory.

Working Through Money

Today I was in the office talking with Ruth Bloom and all the sudden she hands me a check. The check isn’t from her or the mission; someone sent that check to me. Now that check doesn’t have the largest amount of money I’ve ever received (ahem, I did work in the school cafeteria), but it is probably the most significant check I’ve ever gotten. It’s hard to swallow because you see; it’s not really part of the deal. The deal is that I come here for the summer, work hard, try to live out the kingdom with all the grace I can muster, and I get to stay and eat here for free. I’m staying in a trailer usually occupied by teachers, and I eat whatever the church groups bring, or what the Bloom’s provide for me. I have all things necessary to my salvation. I don’t need anything at the moment (though my school loans may tell a different story, but I get a six-month grace period). Then I get this check, like I’m a real missionary or something. Unlike many missionaries, I didn’t have to ask for money to come here, but someone sent some anyway.

We like to say that every Christian is a missionary. And until today, I never really questioned that. But one big difference between local church ministers and those in “missionary” situations is this thing about money. This check feels nothing like a pay check. When I get a pay check, I might think about how I’m thankful to have a job and the privileges and skills I have that make it possible for me to keep the job, but mostly I look at the hours, wage, taxes, and think, ok, that’s fair. But this is a gift with no tear-off part at the bottom to show me how it worked out. And for some people, that’s the reality of their Christian life. It’s beautiful isn’t it? To work purely to serve. Yet it’s scary (for those lacking in faith, such as myself), to have to wait and hope for provision. That’s a huge reality of being a missionary that I haven’t experienced much of in my life.

So now what do I do? With the money. With the thoughts. With future money I “earn.” If I really believe that every Christian is a missionary, then maybe I should only take what I need from my pay check and give away the rest. Does it make sense to put my money in the bank so it can accrue interest, when I could put it in the church so that it can be used to store up treasures in heaven (and I don’t mean heavenly segways that take you from cloud to cloud-but not down stairs, I mean souls). Maybe that’s not being wise. But that’s often the question for Christians isn’t it? The tension between generosity/hospitality and responsibility, between giving and saving. It’s thick mud and I’m always getting my feet stuck in it. When that happens, pray I get out by grabbing a vine of faith, not greed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful, I really am. Whoever sent this money is going to help get me back to San Diego in August, but it means a lot more to me than that. I want to get what I can from this experience, but not overthink it too much. Ruth said I should rejoice in my gift, so I think I will.