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.

Solidarity

I love my dad.  No seriously, I think God gave me the best one.  Sorry to those of you who can't claim my dad as your own...

For the past two years, not a crumb of wheat nor a drop of dairy has touched my lips.  Ok, maybe a few morsels.  But, since I discovered my wheat and dairy intolerance, I eliminated them from my usual diet.  Although it did improve my health significantly, I've occasionally wondered why some of my symptoms remained.  Today, I learned that... not only does my body have problems digesting wheat and dairy, but it also has issues with soy, corn, and sugar.  According to my doctor (an applied kinesiologist), wheat, dairy, soy, corn, and sugar are the five most common food sensitivities.  (So, I'm normal?)

Why?

Wheat, dairy, soy, corn, and sugar are in virtually everything that comes in a package.  There's corn in marshmallows.  (Check your labels.  It's there.  High fructose corn syrup.)  There's also corn in my favorite brand of garlic salt. (Cornstarch.)  Perhaps the prevalence of these five foods in the typical American grocery store and the commonality of being allergic to them are both somewhat correlated to which crops the U.S. Department of Agriculture chooses to subsidize:



If the government pays you to grow those crops, then you'll invent a way to sell it!

I also don't think it's a coincidence that the majority of corn, soybeans, sugar beet, and sugar cane U.S. crops are genetically modified.  Then again, I also really enjoy conspiracy-theory documentaries about the U.S. food industry, such as Food, Inc., The Future of Food, King Corn (disclaimer: I haven't actually seen King Corn yet, but I like the trailer), or even Super Size Me.

However, we cannot blame the government for everything.  Nor should we.

So, what can I eat?

-Fruit
-Veggies
-Meat
-Eggs
-Beans
-Nuts
-Rice
-Potatoes

Delicious.  Wholesome.  Life-giving food.

When people discover that I am allergic to wheat and dairy (and now soy, corn, and sugar), they often think that I am deprived.  I'm "deprived" of foods that don't make my body feel good anyways.  So, I'm not terribly deprived.  I'm actually liberated.

Side note: I am not saying that wheat, dairy, soy, corn, or sugar are inherently bad for your body, depending on how they're processed and in what form it enters your mouth.  But there is a bit of common sense with food: the closer it resembles the way God made it, the more your body will be nourished (and not drained) by it.  Thus, a baked potato (unless it is smothered in dairy products, as we Americans like to do) will energize your body more effectively than a bag of potato chips.

Anyways... this post is getting really long, and I still haven't told you why I started writing it in the first place.

After I discovered these additional food sensitivities this afternoon, my daddy called me.  He wanted to support me in these new dietary challenges and will be forgoing wheat, dairy, corn, soy, and sugar in his diet during this week, too.  That simple statement of solidarity was more powerful and healing to me than any rant about the U.S. government or disappointment over adjusting my diet again.

My dad shows me, over and over again, who the Church is:

 ⁹ Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³ Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.
 Practice hospitality.
 ¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
 ¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ On the contrary:
   “If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
   if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
 ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil [or food allergies], but overcome evil with good.

- Romans 12:9-21

If you skimmed that passage, go back and re-read it.  It describes the Church.  It describes you and me.  Oh, but that doesn't describe me!  No, perhaps not, but it does describe Jesus.  Though we are to reflect our Lord, we are often clouded mirrors.  Thankfully, Christ slowly removes the debris stuck to our surface, spraying the glass cleaner and scrubbing vigorously.  One day, we will look like Him.

In the meanwhile, we let Him scrub and yank away our debris.  And we begin to see Him more clearly.

Often I see Him in my dad.

Only a Year Ago - Part II

Ok. I found one other email update from Kenya that I wanted to post.  Here it is:

October 2, 2011

 

It smells like rain.  I love that smell. 

 

The smell of a new beginning, a fresh start.  The smell of thorough weeping, a cleansing of the soul.  The smell of the earth rejuvenated, reinvigorated.  The smell of old things washed away, a purging of dirtyness.  The smell of sadness, a mourning for things lost or not had.  A beautiful, rich smell with a mixture of emotions.  The smell of how I feel...

 

A fresh start: I actually like teaching.  Sometimes, I still get nausceated by the idea of standing in front of a class, stuttering my way through a lesson and receiving blank stares.  However, this is no longer the norm.  Even my most challenging class (8th grade Pre-Algebra...15 goofball guys and 4 dramatic girls...all of whom would not consider math a favorite subject) has been tracking with me lately.

 

Thorough weeping: Due to some combination of a lack of sleep, a failed lesson, typical early-20s angst, feeling lonely, missing physical touch, and a hundred other reasons at any given time, I've cleansed my soul many times (Jessie and the tissue boxes have been quite comforting though).

 

Rejuvenated:  Sharing dinner with several families, feeling my eyes light up as I talked about CCDA philosophy of ministry with a parent who found such things also quite fascinating, making yet another random Wheaton connection (your niece's in grad school at Wheaton and just started dating a guy who worked at the same camp as me...wait, does his name happened to be ___?  yep, it is a small world...and once you go to Wheaton, it gets about 732 times smaller.), absolutely loving the past two weeks of teaching my advanced Algebra class (solving equations on individual whiteboards for two weeks!  now, this is my kind of math.), listening to little Joshua at dinner tell a hilarious, ridiculously animated, 10-minute version of the story of Joseph (so, they threw him in the well, and Joseph was like, "Ahh!"...), and watching the glorious sunset as I jog home from Rosslyn.

 

Old things washed away: Slowly, God is healing my fears of teaching.  After a rough experience in Chicago last fall, I almost changed my major and dropped education completely.  While I still don't know if I want to be a teacher, I now see that I could be a good one, if that's where God wants me.  (...but Lord, I would prefer not being condemned to that fate.)

 

Sadness: Sadness that I cannot spend longer with my students (note: I did not say "spend more time teaching"); sadness that the missionary community seems quite isolationistic (where is the incarnational ministry?  where is the living among the people?  where are the widows, the orphans (ok, we do have baby Jane with us!), the poor, the untouchables, the children (ok, I see a lot of children regularly), the sick, the dirty, the prostitutes, the people that Jesus would be hanging out with and loving?); sadness that school politics are still present at a Christian school; sadness at the racial segregation, cliques, and occasional cruelty of the 7th graders to each other (words wound deeply); sadness that people cling tightly to their denominational ties rather than Christ (who destroyed all barriers that humans like to put up to keep others out).

 

Mixture of Emotions:  I helped out at a dental clinic in Nanyuki, a city a few hours from Nairobi.  Our dental team consisted of my host dad Mike & dental student Joshua (our two dentists), a dental technician, three dental assistants who work at the various dental clinics with Mike, and my host sister Nikki and I.  We saw about 100 patients that day.  I learned more about dentistry than I've ever known in my life and saw my life's quota of teeth being pulled and cavities filled (the cavities were actually really cool; teeth being pulled was also interesting, but a little too bloody for my taste...no pun intended).  I'm now an expert at preparing syringes (for numbing), using suction, washing dental instruments, and holding flashlights (for extra visibility).  In Kenya, there's one dentist for every 200,000 people.  Yikes.  But anyways, something that struck me that day was seeing the way Mike and Joshua came alive while seeing patients for 10 nonstop hours.  Mike didn't even eat anything for 10 hours, and Joshua only stopped for 30 seconds to wolf down a sandwich, but it was as if they didn't even need food because they were so energized by what they were doing.  These two men were made to be dentists.  

Similarly, that's something I loved about watching Jessie teach: she comes alive when she's in front of a classroom talking about math.  She was made to be a middle school math teacher.  I'm not sure that I was made to be a middle school math teacher (one big difference between Jessie and I is that she is always one to ask, "Why?  Why do numbers work this way?  Look at these awesome connections between the way this works and the way that works," whereas I generally ask, "How?  How do I solve this equation?  What's the process?" ...number theory/asking why is an area that I would need to develop tremendously if I choose to be a teacher because I wouldn't be content being a good teacher, I would want to be an excellent one...there's that Wheaton perfectionism rising up in me).  But I don't know that I want it badly enough.  Teaching is not just a career; it's your whole life.  And I'm not sure that I want it to be my life (then again, it doesn't really matter what I want...we'll see where God puts me).  

After the dental clinic, we had a good conversation in the car on the way home about career possibilities (the sky's the limit), and I realized that I love working with people one-on-one.  I love helping people understand the way that their brain works, the way they communicate, the way they show love to other people (personality tests, love languages, learning styles, etc.).  So, I'm considering going into counseling (I probably should go to counseling first...ha!).  I haven't chucked teaching out the window, but I am exploring other possibilities as well.

 

The smell of how I feel... sorry there wasn't a more concise way of expressing how I feel (if you made it this far through my email, I'm quite impressed...either you had nothing else to do or love me a lot...I'd like to think it's the second).  I can't believe I only have four weeks left.  Also, I've added more pictures to my facebook photo album titled "Nairobi 2010," so feel free to check that out.  I have no profound words of wisdom to leave you with, but I've realized again this semester that God loves us to let us stagnate.  The growing pains hurt.  But my God is also a Healer.