Living Faithfully: Trust & Obey

After reading dozens (perhaps hundreds) of college application essays this past year, I was curious of what my Admissions Counselor self would think of my high school self.  So, I re-read my college application essays.  Wow, did I have life figured out (and wrote a pretty decent essay, if I do say so myself)!

After graduating from Wheaton College, I planned to move into the city (probably St. Louis or Chicago) and teach at some struggling public school (or perhaps Scholar’s Academy).  I would eradicate illiteracy single-handedly and inculcate a love for learning in my students.  I would equip future businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, etc., who would return to the northside of St. Louis after college and rebuild our neighborhood.  I’m a dreamer, and I dreamed big.

...and then, I decided not to teach.  And I moved back to Wheaton.

At a time when I can move anywhere in the world, why would I move to the quintessential suburb of Wheaton?  The short answer is that God plopped a job in my lap, and I would’ve been an idiot not to take it.  (And I do love my job.)  However, I still despised the suburbs.  As my roommates can attest, I ranted and raved.  Part of one such rant can be found here.  Yet, I had committed to my job for at least two years, so my external circumstances were defined.  The lingering question was: what would define my internal posture?  When I named my blog (“Inner Urban, Outer Suburban - Living Faithfully”) last December, I wanted the title to remind me of an internal posture that I seek to cultivate: faithfulness.

Regardless of externalities (location, church, friends, job, family, relationship status, whatever), I am called to live faithfully within those boundaries.  Every day, every moment, I want to give up a little bit more of my self-centered self (a bit redundant, eh?) and partake in a little bit more of the Giver of abundant life.

One of my dad's favorite songs (and has become one of mine, too) is "Trust and Obey."  I want trust and obedience to shape both my external boundaries and my internal posture.  This is the best recording that I could find (you would not believe how many mediocre Christian artists I had to wade through to find this... come on, people!).

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross,
But is blessed if we trust and obey.

But we never can prove the delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor He shows, for the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.

Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet.
Or we’ll walk by His side in the way.
What He says we will do, where He sends we will go;
Never fear, only trust and obey.

Englewood & Expression

Watching a video recording of my fifth grade musical theater debut, in which I starred as one of the main characters Chrysanthamantha in a production "Ants'hillvania,"* I thank God for families who laughed at our poor jokes and graciously overlooked our amateur acting and frequent blunders.  Children learn and grow.  Adults learn and grow, too, though we often find adult blunders less cute and easier to mock.

Yesterday, at the Art Institute of Chicago, my roommate Robin explained to me the interweaving of time periods, influential predecessors, colors, textures, shapes, perspectives, emotions, light, and techniques involved in Van Gogh's haystack paintings.  Later in the evening, I expressed a sentiment that I've frequently felt while perusing art galleries... sure, it's impressive and well-done, but couldn't someone else have painted water lilies that look just like Monet's?  My wise roommate rejected this notion and, instead, articulated a vision of art as a visual representation of a thought process.  People express themselves through a plethora of avenues.  As a verbose extrovert, I often express myself or sort through lingering thoughts via talking with people.  However, playing piano and singing express my thoughts and emotions in ways that talking never could.  My ceramics pieces from last summer will probably never be displayed in a museum (nor should they be), but the process of creating and expressing was nonetheless worthwhile.

I could launch into a discussion about executing a task with excellence (highly valued in Western culture) versus embracing the messiness of learning, but I won't.

Instead, I'll share the video that prompted these thoughts in the first place.  Almost two years ago, I spent a semester living in Chicago while enrolled in Wheaton College's Urban Studies program.  During "Wheaton in Chicago," I interned with a social service called Children's Home & Aid and taught an after-school science club for 3rd-5th graders at a public school on the South Side of Chicago, in a neighborhood called Englewood.  Although I was woefully unprepared for preparing interesting science experiments and corralling 25 kids who had already spent the entire day sitting in school without recess and had a wide variety of academic abilities (some third graders could hardly read while some fifth graders could have taught the science club better than me), I grew to love these kids.

Thus, when my friend showed me a video that some of my former students and their classmates created, I couldn't help but feel proud.  Proud of my students expressing themselves through music.

Not only does art express the artist's emotion, but it also evokes emotion in the viewer.  Watching this video, I felt proud of the artists, yet also knew the weightiness of feeling abandoned and looked down upon by society at large and the pressure to "make it."

*This telling of the Prodigal Son featured an ant community, as well as other insects (the worm was my favorite!), with many ridiculous ant puns throughout the show.

Death by Suburbs

In the city, I’ve witnessed a drive-by shooting in broad daylight.  I’ve seen someone hurl his body through my neighbor’s glass window for no apparent reason.  I’ve had friends robbed at gunpoint.

Yet I’m terrified of living in the suburbs.

I’m terrified of living a complacent life.  I’m terrified of not connecting with God because I’m not connected with those who have seemingly been abandoned by all but God.  I’m terrified of perfect pretenses.  I’m terrified of striving for success as the rest of the (even Christian) world sees it.  I’m terrified of living for myself.

Thus, when I found this book, I knew I had to read it.  The book’s title was enough to capture my attention: Death by Suburb, How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul.

The author, David L. Goetz, grew up on a farm, but eventually found himself a resident in good ol’ Wheaton, Illinois.  In the book, Goetz focuses on eight suburban “environmental toxins” and eight spiritual practices that help counteract those toxins. 

Prior to reading this book, I had an inkling that it might be possible both to be a Christian and to live in suburbia, but I had no idea what that looked like.  Since I’m currently committed to living in the suburbs for at least the next year and a half, the book has been wonderfully practical.  The suburbs are toxic.  So is the city, in different ways.  In fact, every piece of our cosmos is in bondage to sin.  Thus, the answer is not necessarily to flee from the environment (though sometimes that is necessary, in order to see the environment for what it truly is; also, some environments are too toxic for some individuals... i.e. a recovering alcoholic at a bar or a suburban mom at a beauty parlor.  And no, it’s not sinful to have a pedicure or a beer.  But, if you have to have it, it is controlling you.  In psychology, we call those things addictions.  In Christian-speak, idols.).  Instead of running away, we must learn how to live faithfully within that environment.

In chapter six, Goetz addresses the environmental toxin of “I need to make a difference with my life.”  This toxin does not necessarily refer to the young person who sincerely wants to serve Christ; instead, it refers to a “shirker.”  Shirkers are “religious folk who inadvertently disengage from the suffering of the world and who unwittingly collect to themselves every available religious experience” (100).

Pardon the length of this quote, but I found myself quite resonating with the prototype of Shirker Mom:

The Shirker Life, ultimately, is a life of religious consumption – even the act of service – organized around life stages.

Take Shirker Mom, for example, who in midlife finds herself with more time for herself now that her last child has gone off to college.  She wants her Shirker Husband to join her in switching churches, to one that uses words like sacrament and Eucharist instead of Lord’s Supper, which their current “Bible-believing” congregation uses.  She has been feeling spiritually empty for some time and feels the need for a little more mystery and symbolism in worship on Sunday mornings.

Shirker Mom can remember the first time she “accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior”: she was six and raised her hand on the final day of vacation Bible school.  A good Shirker Girl, she participated in and became a leader in the active junior high and senior high group at her Shirker Church.  The teen mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico, where the team used homemade puppets to teach vacation Bible school to Mexican children, changed her life.

A bright Shirker Teen, she decided to attend a top Christian college, where she met a Shirker Boy, and after the spring of their senior year, the Shirker, believing that God had brought them together for a purpose, got married.  Shirker Husband then landed a job in finance, and by the time the Shirkers hit thirty, they had the largest house of the five couples in their small group from church.  By then the Shirker Family had expanded to two Shirker Kids.  After the kids came and with Shirker Husband traveling so much, when Shirker Mom began to feel lonely for adult relationships, she joined a ministry for other Shirker Moms with preschool children.  Shirker Mom loved the Bible study and spiritual friendships.  She became a discussion group leader for the other Shirker Moms.

When the Shirkers’ oldest, a ten-year-old, came home from school one day asking whether kissing a girl’s breasts was really making out, Shirker Mom had had enough.  No more public education.  She was also tired of textbooks that taught only evolution, and besides, the education was better at the Shirker Christian academy, wasn’t it?  Didn’t the kids also get an education in character?  Plus, her two Shirker Boys would get solid Bible teaching and attend chapel at least three times a week.  Shirker Mom was not about to leave her Shirker Kids to the sharks in the public school system.  One day, as she waited for her two boys outside the Christian academy after school in her late-model black SUV, she thanked Jesus for the blessing of a truly Christian education.  She felt so blessed.

But now that both Shirker Boys were away at a Christian college, Shirker Mom felt the need for a deeper sense of Jesus in her life.  For years she had heard about a charismatic mainline church in their community that, according to a neighbor who attended, also “preached the gospel.”  It took only one visit and she knew she had found a new spiritual home.  Her spiritually passive Shirker Husband was mostly supportive; he said he never really connected with the men in their old Shirker Church anyway.

Shirker Mom loved the new angle on God and taking the Eucharist every week. (She just loved the word Eucharist; it sounded so mysterious.)  She soaked up weekly scripture reading from the Lectionary.  It was as if everything she had been yearning for spiritually the past couple of years was met, finally in this new community.  Her Shirker Husband said he liked the fact that they could now sit anonymously in the pews, with no expectation to serve.  He always hated being an usher.  Shirker Mom missed the strong emphasis on scripture in her former Bible church, and that concerned her a bit, but she began to feel a deep sense of healing in her life.  She now leads a Bible study and is excited to see other suburban moms apply scripture to their lives.  It feels so good to be involved in something that makes a difference in people’s lives.

The flow of Shirker Religion is all one direction: toward me (or my kids).  And after my kids make it safely through high school, it’s back on me again – and my need for mystery and a sense of authenticity as I move through the often muted years of midlife and beyond.  Shirkers believe the Shirker thought leaders (preachers, Christian pundits, and theologians), who always frame the problems of the suburban world in terms of too little Bible and not enough truth.  The solutions are always more knowledge and more teaching and more education and more content.  Or it’s more mystery in worship or some other new angle.  Shirkers live, mostly, inside their heads. (109-112)

This is why I want to flee the suburbs.  I’m terrified of becoming Shirker Mom.

This is also why I hate being described as “nice”.  Teddy bears are nice.  Where do you see “nice” in the fruits of the Spirit?  (Do not confuse kindness with niceness.)  No, a Spirit-filled life is not one that should be primarily characterized as “nice”.  Ranting aside...

How do I avoid becoming Shirker Mom?

Goetz’s corresponding spiritual practice is to “pursue action without the thought of results or success” (115).

What might that look like?

Goetz again: “You obey God’s mandate to help the poor and the widows and the orphans (James 1).  You find a place to serve where no matter how many resources you leverage for the kingdom of God, you don’t see much change.  You enter into a relationship with someone of raw emotional and physical need.  No doubt there are other, more sophisticated methods to make a difference in the world (protests, political influence, financial aid).  But if you detach from the emotion and reality of the suffering of others, your soul distends.  You become like Zarathustra’s ghoulish image of an inverted cripple.  Too much of the Shirker Life causes bloating” (115).

One of the most life-giving times of my week is an hour and a half on Sunday evenings, when I get to hang out and color with about ten 3-8-year-old girls who hail from three different continents and whose names I still struggle to pronounce. 

Sometimes, I wonder if I love kids just because they love me.  What’s not to love about their hugs, honest prayers, or even the way they use me as a human jungle gym?  Last Sunday, I realized that one of the girls might perhaps be termed a compulsive liar.  That’s probably a bit extreme, but that realization suddenly made the cuteness of her innocent face... not so cute.  When I feel used or my trust is broken, if I am to continue in that relationship (with healthy boundaries), it cannot be about me or my fulfillment anymore.  It’s about loving Jesus.

Emmanuel

Emmanuel.  God with us.

Sometimes, people think that Jesus was born only to die, to pay the penalty for human brokenness and allow us to know our perfect God directly.

But, Christ also came to live.  In CCDA terms, he "relocated" from heaven and entered our world on our level.  He came in vulnerability as an infant.  He dwelt among us. 

In society's eyes, Jesus was a failure.  "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"  After achieving a decent following, he died.  What happened to establishing his kingdom, saving the Jews from Roman oppression?

His teachings did not reflect what the Jews wanted.  His teachings were hard.  "If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles" (Matt. 5:41; NLT).  A fiery zealot might refuse to accommodate this common service for a Roman soldier (and perhaps suffer for his defiance).  A law-abiding Jew would carry the military gear for the required one mile, probably muttering profanities under his breath.  What lunatic carries the pack for more than the required amount?  A disciple of Christ.  Christ's love is strange.  It defies human categories; it's transcendent.  For the radicals and conservatives alike, it astounds us.

Last Christmas, while my dad and I were strolling through our north St. Louis neighborhood, he commented about how hopeless it would feel to live here without Christ.  Without a Redeemer, it is hopeless.  But, Christ changes everything.  Even in my neighborhood, the buildings may still be falling down, but the disciples of Christ are slowly being transformed and transforming their environment. 

Where is hope? 

Dandelions grow through the cracks of sidewalks, amidst the glittering of shattered glass.  God's people.  A city on a hill.  A light in the darkness.

I took the following pictures within a few blocks of my St. Louis home.  Each one tells a story.

Just Dreamin'

I wrote this when I was planning to move back to St. Louis after graduation... and ideally, move into my next door neighbor's vacant upstairs apartment.

Wednesday night, March 30, 2011

Dream big.                                         

Dream with me for a moment.  Imagine a bright fall day in St. Louis.  The leaves have started to change color, and a delightful breeze flutters down Hebert Street.  The Krumsiegs are home, no doubt about that.  The front door is wide open, and a drum set is heard from the basement.  Caleb is lovin’ his life.

Next door, the Levels sit out on their front porch, sipping ice tea.  Mr. Levels talks to whoever walks by, and Mrs. Levels fans herself lightly. 

The door to the upstairs apartment is flung open, along with all of the second floor windows.  An upbeat bluegrass tune emanates from someone at work in the apartment.  If an observer cared to check, the dumpster in the alleyway is full of decrepit furniture and various moth-eaten items.  The second floor apartment is sparklingly clean.  The mothball smell lingers slightly but is overpowered by a whiff of paint.  Standing on the tarp protecting the wood floor, a woman pushes back her blonde bangs with the back of her hand and dips her paint roller into the pan again.  Three of the four walls already display the myrtle green color, only one white wall remaining.  At the top of the staircase, a younger woman gingerly adds pieces to a mosaic enclosing the hexagonal mirror on the wall.  The young woman’s father and older brother can be heard wrestling with an unwieldy bed frame as they climb the narrow back stairs.

A call is heard from below.  The young woman turns to see an excited three-year-old with blonde pigtails and a young mom with a baby in tow at the bottom of the stairs.  The young woman greets them.  The three-year-old squeals then scrambles up the staircase.  Soon, the three-year-old animatedly helps the young woman with the mosaic.  The young mom chats with the painting woman while the two men begin assembling the bed.  Another young woman holding a platter of chips, salsa, hummus and guacamole announces her presence at the bottom of the stairs.  Her fiancé sets down his wrench next to the bed frame and hastens down to help her carry the food.  The mosaic-maker grabs an assortment of glasses for water, and everyone sits down on the floor to share the snack.  All carries on pleasantly until the three-year-old somehow manages to rush into the other room and, beckoned by her mother’s call, emerges with a mischievous smile and her hands, face, and shirt covered in a myrtle green hue.

The party breaks up, as the young mom scoops up her two children and walks them down the street to clean up at home.  The men return to the bed frame.  The engaged young woman picks up the paint roller while the blonde woman paints the edges of the walls with a small brush.  The mosaic-maker continues her art. 

A few hours later, the mosaic-maker sits and reads on the back porch of the Krumsieg home.  She smells barbeque ribs and glances over to see her neighbor, a renowned chef, grilling in his backyard.  She waves at him then walks over to the garden to water her budding sunflowers.  Returning to her chair, she hears the laughter of Pastor Gill and Ms. Donna, interweaving with her father’s boisterous voice and her mother’s softer comments.  Yep, God is good. 

She resumes her reading.