2010: The Greatest Year In Sports

Here's a look back at why I loved this year:

The Saints win the Super Bowl

Five years after Hurricane Katrina where the Saints home field was the emblem of tragedy and pervasive issues of race and class, New Orleans became Super Bowl Champions! The win was such a huge symbol of hope and justice.

The 2010 Winter Olympics

I love watching the Olympic Games and every year the parade of nations makes me cry tears of joy. It is a symbol of hope for peace in the world and the reality of the nations who walk in together in John's vision in Revelation. Although I hate the snow and cold, the winter Games has always been my favorite. This year Bode Miller redeemed himself with a few medals (after years of trying), Apolo Ohno surpassed Bonnie Blair for the most American winter medals (and he's insanely fun to watch when it comes to short track), and Evan Lysacek brought home the first gold in quite some time for the US (and against Russian Plushenko who had the awful gyrating hips heard round the world). And even though I have never enjoyed hockey before, the USA-Canada match was quite fun. Soooo much to say about those games :)

DUKE.

Let's see...Cameron celebrates its 70th Anniversary, Countdown to Craziness, Got front row seats for Duke-Carolina in Cameron, Duke beat (whooped) UNC in Cameron for the first time since 2005, Duke is the ACC Regular Season Champs, Conference Tournament Champs, Regional Champs and NATIONAL CHAMPS!! A grrrrreat year to be a Duke fan!

Isner-Mahut

Greensboro native John Isner plays the longest tennis match in recorded history. He played 183 games over three days to beat Mahut. And it took place in Wimbledon...even better!

World Cup South Africa

I have never been a soccer fan, but this year while working at Church I learned the art of watching this sport which requires careful, meticulous watching. It was fantastic to see that the tournament was held on African soil given how much the continent LOVES futbol. And yes, I even managed to watch it in Espanol! And the Team USA win against Algeria was fantastic! It is official, the US has soccer mania!

Honorable Mentions: USA takes the FIBA World Championship under Coach K; Coach K surpasses Dean Smith for most number of wins--880--and I was in attendance with the fam :)

On Envy

The sin of envy may not so much be an issue of morality than one of piety. Although it is true that envy is the breeding ground for ruined relationships, desires, expectations, and a sense of gratitude, it also prevents us from fully receiving the lives and circumstances God has given to us as "gift" and which hold the promise of beautiful redemption. If we do not live into the idiosyncrasies of our lives, we cannot enjoy the unimaginable possibilities of their redemption. Envy rejects the reality of our lives for an ideal which we often mask as a redemptive promise, forcing us to miss out on the more authentic and powerful redemption that Jesus brings.

The Youth Vote

As I was sitting in line to vote today, I noticed that there weren't many folks braving the cold with me who were in my age bracket: the youth vote. Apparently we came out full force for Barack Obama back in 2008, but what's happening this year? The media usually says that we are apathetic, but this year they are also pushing the overall prediction that Republicans are more energized this year and the electorate (not just the election) will reflect that.

However, I have a different assessment. I should be a classic shoe-in for voting. I'm passionate, always willing to give my opinion, I enjoy researching candidates and I'm a former social studies teacher. In general, I'm one of those people who just cares. But I remember the shame of not voting in the 2006 midterm election when I found a candidate I really liked and even though he won, I couldn't say I elected him. I wanted to vote, but I didn't. What is the disconnect? For me, the problem wasn't the typical type of apathy--it was location disillusionment/confusion. I didn't want to vote because I didn't feel connected to the place where I found myself.

In 2004, I voted for the first time in my hometown because I felt more connected to that place. I knew the candidates and felt that I had a stake in what happened there. Not everyone can drive 2.5 hours to go home to vote on election day. In 2006, I didn't want to place a vote in an area that I would leave in a few months due to college graduation. Why should I make decisions for a place I will leave? Why should my vote based on temporary residency cancel out a committed, lifelong resident? In 2008, I felt more stable and connected to the local area I was in, so I felt comfortable voting. A Presidential election year feels more pressing, but I'm often tempted to vote for only national-level politicians because it has a broader connection with me. Now in 2010, I feel unstable again because I have no idea where I will go next, but I voted this year because my Christian Ethics class made me deal with giving to Caesar what is Caesars--in this case, my vote. So I will vote because of a theological conviction, but the location paralysis still gets me.

I think that this issue of location and sense of place is definitely a contributing factor to why young people don't vote and it is often ignored. We are a homeless, unstable people. We want to be involved, want to let our thoughts be heard, but we are insecure about where we belong in local communities. If someone can figure out this dilemma, I think they may have just tapped into the youth vote.

On Culture Wars Part 2

A few thoughts:

According to a Christian Century blog post entitled "Fog of the Culture War" by Rodney Clapp, author of the uber-fabulous "Families at the Crossroads" (which I just finished), we need to recognize that the culture wars represent a confusing time. Clapp highlights this by citing Abraham Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address where he describes the calamity of the soon-to-end Civil War.

"Both [North and South] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The almighty has His own purposes."

The wisdom of this speech recognizes that when Christians are divided over an issue, that we often think that one side wins, and the other loses. This is often the case, but to a certain extent we both lose. There is still a great sense of loss. There is nothing that feels worse than fighting each other. Sometimes it feels good to get in the last word, the last laught, to humiliate what you disagree with, to feel a sense of self-righteousness, but when it comes at the cost of your brother or alienating another human being, it feels terrible.

The other piece of wisdom that I really appreciate from this piece is that the culture war really is a fog. It is overwhelming. It is difficult to see issues clearly. We may not get to see the truth until a century or so from now. And as much as I don't like that, I'm still called to be present in this place "now" and that I'm called to be a Christian "now." This doesn't meant shrink away from the world, but it does mean being active in the Church.

And secondly, another really interesting body of work to come out is by James Davidson Hunter, who was the Sociologist who invented the term "culture wars" over 20 years ago. In his new book entitled "To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World" (Oxford: 2010), Hunter gives an overview of how Christians see Culture and Cultural Change. See short summaries of his chapters here. Here is a great article about if from Christianity Today. He identifies that the Christian Left often mirrors the politicized actions of the Christian Right but over a different set of values. As much as I sympathize with the Christian Left, I can't disagree with Hunter's argument.

Hunter also gives an interesting critique on folks like John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas in their affirmation of what Hunter calls "neo-anabaptist" models because eventhough it rejects Constantinianism and attempts to get back to a "mythic" "authentic" New Testament model of Christianity that such an argument is built on what it rejects. I need to learn more on this.

What Hunter offers instead is a "faithful presence." I'm not sure if I am interpreting this correctly, but I think this gets to the bottom of what my heart yearns for. Faithful presence does not mean "don't get involved," but it means to act Christian in whatever situation you are in. I think what speaks powerfully to me is that it means to act with compassion and grace toward oppressors in addition to the oppressed. It would require me to think compassionately about Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as much as I think with compassion toward the poor and the oppressed. And I guess it begs the question of whether you can actually be simultaneously compassionate toward all.

Another quick note of something I appreciate tremendously about Hunter is that he expands the definitions of culture. I both enjoyed some things and found myself really frustrated by Andy Crouch's "Culture Making," but I think Hunter spells out for me why I felt so ambivalent. Crouch defined culture primarily as an artifact. He kept talking about what we could learn from an artifact (his example was an omelete) to tell us about culture. Given that I had never had an omelete until I got to college, I felt like crying foul because there was never a question of what made the omelete "normal" for America. I'm American, my family has been here since 1619 and none of my family members had ever had an omelete. Where we are from, you scramble your eggs. I know that he was just trying to give an general yet interesting example, but to me it revealed the limitations of his definition of culture and therefore his advocacy of it. There are systemic issues involved in culture. And this has huge implications for issues of race, ethnicity and even regionalism. Sometimes culture is what we assume. In the words of Hunter, "culture is also infrastructure" (Christianity Today Article, pg. 2).

I think the other problem I had with the culture as artifact argument is that it doesn't really allow folks to question negative aspects of culture. For instance, the goodness of the convenience and amazing power of the iphone does not get into ethical questions about American consumerism, accessibility of such a fantastic product to all people rather than just rich people, labor issues, the company's business practices and political associations. All of those things are assumed. It is assumed because a strong part of American culture is capitalism. The culture is like water to a fish--you don't realize the things that are inherent and therefore most desriptive about a culture until you get into a different environment.

On the Culture Wars

Not a day goes by, especially in the summer, that I do not get overwhelmed and distracted by the culture wars.

Overwhelmed for a couple of reasons: 1) The "hot button" issues of the culture wars involve a collision of really intimate, almost private issues and a public component about various rights. Take abortion and birth control. This is a very personal issue about sexuality, pregnancy and creating life. It also involves issues of rights of mothers, a history of male coersion and a future of absentee dad-ism, issues of poverty and the questions about where life begins and how to respond to it. Perhaps you don't like my spelling out of the issues I see at play over the abortion/birth control debate, but regardless what makes this issues so overwhelming is that there are very real private and public dimensions to them.

2) There is a feeling that there is such a "divide" in the world over these cultural issues that one has to figure out what they believe. Given the often cyclical nature of various values, meaning that taking a stance on one issue often makes one have to make a statement on a seemingly non-related issue and things get messy. For instance, there is a slippery slope over the issue of "pro-life" when it comes to things such as the death penalty. So to recap that one, having to make up your mind and having to consider and sort through other issues is simply overwhelming.

3) Communication (and community) becomes incredibly hard. It is so difficult to have conversations with people who have a set of beliefs that is so different from your own. Very often we want to "win" the argument and we never really get a chance to hear the real and genuine concerns that another person may have. Therefore, feeling like you can never be heard and to also never really hear from and connect with another human is exhausting.

And finally, the culture wars are overwhelming and incredibly distracting for the Church. It divides us into so many factions that we simply stop being Christians to one another and to others.

I do not think that I will be able to really get my mind around what I think and how I will react about all of the different culture war battles and the latest skirmishes and flare-ups, but I did find some interesting food for thought today which I will share in my next post.

On the Lebron James Hoopla

Now I’m a college basketball gal. I don’t do the NBA. But I feel that I can’t help but comment on the recent hype, celebration and griping over Lebron James’ move from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat. And I must say that since I graduated in high school in 2003 (also James’ graduation and draft year), that the NBA has come to have a more direct impact on college basketball. Given that many of my fonder memories growing up centered around ACC Basketball and my Dad being a high school basketball Coach, I find that the ways of the NBA influence have therefore become personal.

So many folks have said, “Oh yes, if Lebron wanted to win a championship, his move to Miami is the right move.” And perhaps this is true. But I want to push back against that logic for a moment. Yes, Lebron is a great basketball player (so I’ve heard). And yes, he’s been able to do a TON of great things—first round draft pick, shoulders a lot of stats, won an Olympic Gold medal (under Coach K mind you). And yes, an NBA championship seems to elude him. And I see nothing wrong in continuing to fight for one, but do we have a “right” to win everything? What’s so horrible about that? It seems to me that life isn’t always like that—where you get to win everything.

The other part of this I want to push back against is that the pursuit of winning means “creating” an undefeatable team. I applaud Lebron for realizing that he might not be able to win on his own. I applaud him for giving the million-dollar check for his “big announcement” to the Boys and Girls Club and taking nothing for himself. But I don’t know if using artificial means to creating a team is what makes a “team” championship so glorious. And I know some of you may want to gag or think I’m being Duke-obsessed, but take a look at how the 2010 Duke team managed to win a championship without real “stars,” but individuals who learned their positions and how to work together. When other people ran off to pursue greatness elsewhere (ie. Gerald Henderson) and the natural loss of seasoned players to graduation, this team became a winning team on their own. Perhaps the only “it-factor” they had was Coach K. I hope that the “new” Miami Heat takes notice of how quickly the star-packed Kentucky team went down during the NCAA Tournament this season.

And as a woman, youth volunteer, former school teacher, and as a mom-type, I just want to say that the NBA folks need to remember that our kids are watching you. While you are living out your dreams, the next generation calls you their superheroes and they say that they want to grow up to be just like you. I hope that you take notice that you help shape our society and have more influence to shape it than others do—in large part because you have a connection to important people, power and financial resources and have a connection to real American people and their hardships. Secondly on this note, be mindful of how your own desires and decisions effect the rest of society. There is the issue of money, consumerism, athletics-as-a-ticket-out-of-the-ghetto mentalities, but it also means that when our kid says, “But Mom I just want be recruited by a college or a professional team…can we please move halfway across the country so I can be on a winning or noticeable team so I can have that opportunity,” that this issue eventually becomes a family issue, a family sacrifice. The pursuit of winning will somehow find its way into our living rooms.

Therefore I urge you to consider the rest of us. Know that the means do not always justify the ends. And please, let us all find completeness in something more than just “winning.”

On Christian Dating

When we hear the words “Christian” Dating, we usually think of the type of dating where it is already agreed upon by a community about what you will and will not do. Of course, the focus usually seemed to be ordered towards “Christian” Marriage. There are many forms of Christian dating, some designed to be more ordered toward marriage (courtship) and some which are oriented toward trying on a variety of people and learning more deeply about other people, relationships and the self while on the way to one day finding a marriage partner. I think what all of these varieties of Christian dating have in common is that sex belongs in marriage—therefore what makes this type of dating different than most others is that both partners will not engage in sexual intercourse even though they both may desire that.

I have definitely seen the range of beliefs on this issue. Some Christians think that any physical activity from kissing, groping and non-penetrative sex is permissible. On the other hand, some believe that one should even wait to have their first kiss in from of the congregation when they get married. Now I do not condone some of what is deemed permissible in that first group.

Although I do agree that Christian dating should be ordered in a way that respects that sex is made for marriage, but I do not think that sex alone should be the consideration of what makes “Christian dating” different from “regular dating.” And if I haven’t made it clear, I think that there should be a definite different. I think what is assumed in Christian dating is that you will date someone else who is a follower of Christ, but I don’t think we fully let those implications of “Christian” impact how we date outside of the sex issue. I’m not necessarily going to prescribe what to do, but I think there are some questions we should be asking ourselves.

What does it look like to be Christian and enter into a relationship with someone else? How do we treat someone when we aren’t interested? How do we look beyond ourselves?

What does it look like once we are in the relationship? How does being Christian affect that? Do we learn patience? Do we learn forgiveness? Do we learn the value of other people? Do we get to build up another person? What do we do when we realize our own selfishness? How do we confront another’s selfishness?

And finally, the one that I don’t think we much give any attention to, but how do we act and be Christians when we are breaking up? How do we treat one another? How do we reintegrate back into Christian community? How do we orient ourselves to understanding that although the privilege of American Christianity is perhaps finding another Church or not having to run into an ex, or having the “right” to ignore the other, how do we live into the reality of that we are both members of the Kingdom of God? I think sometimes we brush off this reality by saying, “Oh, we won’t notice the other person while in heaven, so it is ok.” But what does this mean for bodily resurrection? What does this mean for the Day of Judgment?

Ultimately I think as Christians that we are supposed to look different. I think that people should feel like stopping in their tracks and saying, “Dude, what’s going on over there?” Why do they love each other like that?

Aloneness, Loneliness and Self-Denial (Self-Denial Part 2)

So if the type of self-denial which Jesus calls for and which Paul attempts to describe is to bring a sense of freedom, what in the world does this mean for someone like me who lives alone? I’ll be honest that I do really try to live and be for others even in the times of my aloneness and my singleness, but it is really easy to either despair when others do not also give of themselves (and therefore making me feel like an unpaid laborer) or to even become self-righteous in my attempts of self-denial. Being alone can make one more prone to loneliness, but it is important to remember that we can also feel lonely while in a crowd, a marriage or a Church setting. So I realized that even though self-denial is meant to be other-oriented, I can still practice and receive the benefits of self-denial when I am alone so that it can tackle my loneliness and hopefully keep me from the edge of despair.

Here is a scenario. I hate doing the dishes. Absolutely hate it! I think that the easy answer in this culture is to say that one day I will be married or live in a communal setting where someone will do the dishes out of love for me. I could say I will do the cooking (which you hate, and I love) and you could do those pesky dishes because you either like it or don’t mind it. I could say that we could do the dishes together and experience the fruit of quality time over something that is menial, exchanging the negativity of something I do not like for something that is life-giving like conversation, presence and co-suffering. Or I could realistically say that I would do the dishes, something I hate, out of love for someone else. I could do that as a means of showing my love by doing something I don’t like or I could do it because I don’t want someone I love to have to do something that I would not want to do myself. All of these things are fine and good in themselves, I do believe, but at the end of the day as a single, living-alone person, the dishes are my responsibility.

Currently my dishes are piled up high in the sink and around the kitchen counter. I have a brilliantly mapped out 2 week plan for cleaning the house on my fridge which many other singles (and not-so-singles) compliment me on. But the reality is that I have never accomplished my brilliant plan! It seems that singleness and living alone gives me the advantage of getting to live solely unto Christ and the Church (not a bad thing at all), but sometimes I still think that it gives me the right to live unto myself in a way that compromises my discipleship. Let me take a step back to say that one of the beautiful advantages of living alone is that if there is a crisis at hand (sickness or death in the family) or something of importance that I need to give my time to (research or volunteering with an organization that builds up the Church and the world) then I do not have to worry about keeping the house clean or even functioning for that matter in way that a home with other people may need. But the point that I am trying to make here is that sometimes we can let the freedom of being responsible only to ourselves be a means to keep us from learning to follow Jesus by diminishing our egos.

Granted I know that sometimes the marriage partnership and even communal living can provide certain benefits and various meeting-of-needs that come with mutual submission and mutual self-denial. I also know that the pain of the single (especially when friends are married and find most of their fulfillment in that relationship, other friendships and duties) is the pain of feeling worn out, giving of yourself all day with no one besides God to pour into you while the rest of the world seems to get the fulfillment of God and others. When we get home, we feel justified in saying, “now it’s time for ‘me.’ I don’t want to go home and do the dishes—and I don’t have to because not doing it affects no one else but me.”

If the road of discipleship is self-denial—especially a self-denial oriented toward others—I am obligated to practicing this virtue not only toward others, but to practice it in a way that orients me toward Jesus. I don’t think that necessarily means I should get off my rear and announce to the world that “I am doing my dishes for Jesus,” that just sounds silly and over-religious. But I do think that there may be something to learning self-control as a fruit of the Spirit. What if I were to catch myself when my mind says, “I don’t want to do that.” Or what if I was able to let Jesus save me from the reality of despair in a world of isolation (even when the Church plays into that reality) by saying “Instead of comparing myself with others, I will not grow weary in doing good, I will not grow weary in following Jesus. Rather, I will do those dishes for the very reason I don’t want to do them—because my self-absorbed nature says that I don’t want to do it.” I think that that is a very different reason than saying that I will “pick myself up by my boot straps and do it,” different than “I’m a strong, confident woman who can take care of myself, thank you very much,” and different from saying “I’m an uber-responsible android who believes in doing things perfectly and I will keep myself busy to avoid feeling the depths of my humanity” This is about self-control and dying to the self.

I’m going to try this over the next few weeks. Of course my gut instinct is to always go hard-core immediately, but I think I’m going to start by doing one task a day that I don’t want to do. It might be doing the dishes. It might be cleaning the litter box. It might be writing an email that I fear writing for some reason. It might be turning off the television. It might be heading to the library to get some work done. It might mean taking the time to cook a healthy meal rather than an adequate one. But I’m going to try it…recognizing when there is something that I don’t want to do (which is good for me) and doing it as a means of expressing allegiance to Christ and denial of self.

**Self-denial doesn’t mean not having an identity. If self-denial is the way of discipleship not only because Jesus and Paul said so, but that Jesus also was the embodiment of this virtue (Philippians 2) then it involves acknowledging what you are giving up and what pains you are taking on. It is knowing how much we love a Snickers bar that brings pain when we give it up. It is someone else knowing how much we love that Snickers bar and therefore give it up for someone else to have and to enjoy which communicates our love for that person. This is the beauty of self-denial. I think my current attitude is finding that we can practice self-denial even when others are not around to receive the benefits. I can practice self-denial in a way that will pave the way for better relationships, a better view of myself (because I am not letting my ego get the best of me…and my chores will be done and my home will be prepared when someone wants to come over and is in need of love or if they want to come and love and enjoy me), and ultimately a cleaner heart that can love God better.

***Also, if my gut reaction is to alienate myself from others because of the stench of their self-absorbtion, tackling my own ego problems can be helpful for me. 1) Taking the log out of my own eye first in accordance to Scripture 2) Loving the sinner, hating the sin 3) Re-establishing relationships 4) Gaining humility by recognizing that I do the very things I condemn others for

Independence Day vs. Self-Denial

In the past few weeks, I have poured over issues of the self. I watched documentaries, I read books, I analyzed ethical issues, pondered my own “self” and attempted to find some help from the Scriptures. Now keep in mind that I did not turn over every rock and every stone, but I think I have come to a few conclusions. Yes, as Americans, we have an almost narcissistic view of the self and our discussions of ethics and politics often center on individual rights, thoughts, feelings, ideologies, etc. And as American Christians, we are often no different, assuming that our status as members of a heavenly Kingdom gives us entitlement in various areas. And perhaps the most alarming way in which we argue for ourselves is saying that “we are free in Christ.”

Yesterday, the 4th of July, the United Methodist Church lectionary landed us on Luke 10 and Galatians 6:7-16. Now the passage in Luke concerned Jesus sending out the seventy with a harsh word about how to do “ministry.” The seventy are told to take nothing with them on their journey and to rely on other people to provide for their basic needs. Jesus said that “the laborer” or those sent out “deserved to be paid” for their efforts but his instructions implied that the disciples would both be rejected by some (perhaps those they would expect to provide for them) and accepted and provided for by others (perhaps those they would not expect to provide for them). It demands a roller coaster experience for the ego of being rejected and received (even for our basic needs).

The Galatians passage seemed to give much comfort to those who would easily “become weary in doing good.” I can only imagine that the discipleship roller coaster would bring about such a feeling that could lead to despair and giving up of doing, practicing and being good. But Paul says to the Galatians to not grow weary because there is a real time where the fruit of our labors will appear. And that seems to assume that those who reaped bad things will eventually get their due as well. I wondered what provoked Paul’s words here and I was also struck by the appearance of the word “freedom” throughout the letter—a popular word to notice on Independence Day. When I scrolled backwards from my place in the lectionary passage, I came across Galatians 5:13, which read very differently to me than it had before.

"For you were called to freedom, brethern; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another"

It seems that “our freedom” is not something that is really meant for ourselves, but it is supposed to be oriented toward another. I think this is an extremely foreign concept for American Christians given the suppositions that I highlighted above. It causes one to pause and think, “you mean, I’m not free for myself?” Or perhaps it makes us respond by saying, “I thought we were freed from the law by grace so that we would not have to do things anymore?” I think the answer is a definite “yes” with Paul when he says “It was for freedom that Christ set us free” (Gal 5:1a) but our freedom may not look how we want it to be. I think part of what we forget is that Christ is coming to set us free from ourselves. Our freedom, according to Galatians 5:13 is opposed to the self, the flesh or the old sin-nature which was a preoccupation of self.

Reflections on my Month of Documentaries

1. Supersize Me

After two years of trying to push through a thyroid disorder, I have been amazed at the importance of the relationship between food, our bodies and God. As Dr. Wirzba says, eating reminds us that we are still creatures, reliant on God and God's creation. Supersize Me shows the underside of what eating the wrong things can do to you. And to make things even worse, marketing plays a role in skewing information and leading us off course into territory that has us degrade our bodies.

2. The Century of Self (BBC)
I highly recommend this one. It comes in 4 parts.

The first section focuses on Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud and the founder of "Public Relations." Not long after Freud had compiled and sythesized all of his thoughts and ideas on the power of the unconcious, underlying animalistic desires, and a certain depravity of humanity that is a danger to society, Bernays brought those ideas to American business. I can almost see it happening so innocently, an appopriation of knowledge that is dangerous. Ironically, I think that the Church had probably tapped into some of that for years. Anyway, Bernays used this information to get people to buy into various ideas. One of these ideas was consumption. Bernays was already "in bed" with business so to speak, so he used psychology to get folks to buy more products. Part of the idea behind filling folks with products is that the products could represent their desires and the people could assume that they were happy. Meanwhile, folks wouldn't worry about things like democracy if they were chasing "stuff" or thought that "stuff" made them happy. Keep in mind that Bernays was originally was in charge of "propaganda" but he changed the name to "public relations" because it had been closely associated with Nazi Germany. Yet again, when you think about it, this is the same information that the Bible has been telling us for a while: idolatry, love of money, treasures on heaven vs. treasures on earth, etc.

Part 2 focuses on Freud's daughter, Anna, as she attempts to carry on her father's work. While Freud seemed to be very pessimistic about society, Bernays saw the information as something to exploit (to become incredibly wealthy and politically powerful), Anna honed in on child psychology and pragmatically believed that society could shape us in such as way as to tame our inner badness. Her teachings reflect the leave-it-to-beaver era of the 1950s and which slowly began to be questioned throughout the 60s and 70s. By those later periods, psychologists were beginning to advocate letting the devil out of you rather than trying to repress it. While this is a fascinating shift, I wanted the BBC to follow that lead to how we deal with ideas about our inner badness, but it didnt' go there. However, they made a shift toward explaining that whoever you are once you release all of your inner badness and society's pressures, then you both arrive at the real self or you can be so stripped of self that you can create a new self. Either trajectory resulted in people who now sought out a certain means of self-expression, a need which advertising would eventually pick up on. Part 3 in particular goes in depth of how business could now target not just a general audience, but could focus in on particular subsets "the prep," "the hippie," "the jock" and people who buy stuff to fit their lifestyle as a means of self-expression. Yet again, advertising, marketing and consumption would be able to manipulate the inner workings of the human desire--in this case to be oneself. I think these two segments should speak to the Church in how we describe the self. The only way I can pull my head around it is using the language of the old and new self as described by the apostle Paul. The new self does bring freedom and the old has to be stripped away. I think the Church might actually have a lot to say about this.

I was not as impressed with Part 4. It centers on President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair as examples of how the techniques that were born in the marriage of business and psychology come to politics. The previous section showed that Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were able to win elections with assertions of the individual which appealed to the new understanding of the self. In the case of the rise of the New Left, both Clinton and Blair used focus groups, polls, etc. to pander to swing voters in attempt to always please the people. Although the political focus seems to be a offswing from the previous three sections premises about business, self and consumption, a certain truth rises at the end. If you try to pander to the public, then you are always at the mercy of the sway of people's opinions and desires. The individual reigns while a sense of community is demolished.

Although this documentary was made in 2002, I almost felt that Part 4 could have easily gone into the impact that "the self" has had in Church culture. All I could think about was the algining of the Christian Right with George Bush and a focus on "personal relationship with Jesus Christ," making a "decision" for Jesus, arguments concerning the individual's right to choose (and even how all of that gets into the culture wars). I'm not articulating it very well, but there is so much that we can talk about as far as the Church and the individual goes. Unfortunately today, the easiest consumers, most easily decieved consumers are Christians. Sell a piece of decorative wood with a Scripture on it, a Christian will buy it. Sell a knock-off t-shirt from a popular advertisement and substitute the logo with "Jesus," a "conservative" Christian will buy it. Sell a t-shirt that says something about AIDS, poverty, Africa with a small percentage of the proceeds going to those causes, then a "liberal" Christian will probably buy it. Why else do you think Bono chose to base the Product Red campaign on corporations? I heard him in an interview say that the market has become the way that people excersie their democracy (and I wonder if this is sometimes how we attempt to exercise our faith). Consumption has totally taken over the Church. I no longer feel comfortable in most evangelical Churches, not just because of politics or on certain hermeneutics, but because everyone dresses so nice it makes it seem like you gotta be rich to be a Christian--or at least stylish.

To be continued.

Why the Church has a Dating Crisis

What can be more American than dating? Boy likes girl. Girl flirts with boy. Boy gets the nerve to ask out girl. Girl says yes. Boy wants to kiss the girl. Girl wants it to be like a fairytale. Remember, it is first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes their spawn in a baby carriage. And of course, they will live happily ever after. We laugh at this story, but I think deep down we believe it. But I’m not sure if the Church should be believing this story.

What kind of stories does the Church believe in? What do we believe about people? I think we enter a danger zone when we act as if the destiny of Church members is to get married. I am not saying that marriage is not good. Surely it is good! Jesus may have been single, but he retained the rigor of marital fidelity. Paul too was single and he promoted singleness first and foremost while also building up marriage. And clearly, Genesis tells us that leaving and cleaving with a spouse is good. But I’m not sure if getting married, having 2.3 kids, a well-paying job and a house in the suburbs is one of the promises that God gives to us.

God gives us many promises. I, the Lord your God, will never leave you and will never forsake you. I will remove your sin as far as the east is from the west. I will give you eternal life. I will send you the Holy Spirit. I will make you, as a member of my Church, my bride. These promises are good. These promises are eternal. But the promise that is made in marriage is to death do us part. We will always have God, therefore our primary relationship is the one we have with God. And although our faith is not contingent on our keeping of God’s commands, the law, but Jesus summarized the commandments as loving God and loving neighbor. These two things we can do without being married. So this is the goal, not marriage, though marriage may be one aspect of living out the Great Commandment.

Instead of asking what marriage is, I think we have to start the conversation with what we believe about God and what we believe about humanity. Perhaps a good place to start is to insert a statement of faith, the most broadly accepted among Christians being the Apostle’s Creed. This is a good starting point for understanding what we as the Church believe about God. As far as humanity goes, we find that we are messy. We are made in the image of God, We are sinners, We are Saints and are becoming Saints. We are living in the in-between of Jesus coming to save us and the Kingdom which is coming on earth and already is in heaven. This in-between stuff is just messy.

I’ve made the claim that the Church has a dating crisis, and here is why. I would suggest that we don’t love God or our neighbors very well in the ways in which we date. Too often we give baggage to one another in ways that does not build up the Church. Forgiveness, redemption and transformation builds up the Church, but too often I think that we say that those words are too “heavy” for the casualness of our culture’s dating habits.

Here is one real-life scenario:

By the time Elinor entered the evangelical dating culture, she had waited to date, assuming that Christian dating meant that one had eyes on marriage and taking things slow. So she dated Isaac. Isaac had already dated Melody. When she first got to school, she had a crush on Evan who at the time was dating Melody. Melody eventually married Frank who was a Senior member of their college fellowship. Frank had dated Mary, another Senior, two times. Mary was best friends with Scott, who tried to date Elinor once things didn’t work out with Isaac. Scott was also friends with Frank and Evan. Scott made Elinor think he wanted to marry her, but snuck away and married Heather. Scott and Heather eventually showed up to be small group leaders at a Conference, where Mary was in charge of setting up small groups. Out of the awkwardness, Elinor ended up hanging out with Celia, Scott’s ex-girlfriend, who she had met at the Conference the year before when she still thought he wanted to marry her. Elinor and Celia never knew or spoke about their Scott connection. Meanwhile at the same conference, Elinor’s friend Anne was dating Ken, who she at one point in time also had a crush on. Ken broke up with Anne the night before Elinor and Anne headed on a mission trip that included Isaac, who still had not really resolved things with Elinor. Meanwhile, Mary started dating her eventual husband Matthew, who was best friends and co-workers with Michael. Elinor had had a crush on Michael since the year before, so she thought about asking Anne to hook her up with Michael as Anne’s job transfer made her Michael’s co-worker. A few months later, Michael and Anne start dating and yes, eventually married. And to make it all that much more bizarre, they were all part of the same Christian fellowship group.

Such a scenario looks more like a who-dunnit puzzle than the Church. Although there are safeguards about physical boundaries in dating in that subculture, dating creates a trainwreck for those relationships. And it seems that relationships, how we treat our neighbors, is what is important to God. I think it is more than just “not having sex.” It is about loving our neighbors. I’m not sure how to quell the relational awkwardness that American-style dating can have for the Church, but I think it is definitely worth thinking about the effect it has on the Church and how it narrates what we believe.

Attention All Helicopter Parents...

...and those who who think that they don't fit that bill.

Your baby came out of the womb at his or her own pace.

Your newborn suckled at its mother's breast without being taught how.

One day after trial and error, your toddler walked when he figured it out.

She told you when she was ready for a big girl bike.

The government deemed that when they are 16 they have what it takes to drive and when they are 21 that they can handle the alcohol choice.

And the Bible says that there is a day that a man will leave his mother and cleave to his wife.

They may be put into your charge to teach them about life on the earth, but first and foremost they are God's. They came from God and are meant to return to God. And most likely, they are an important part of your sancfication. There is a time to return them over to the care of the one who Created them.

On Time-Sickness

**Taken from an unknown source

"We have forgotten how to look forward to things, and how to enjoy the moment when they arrive. Restaurants report that hurried diners increasingly pay hte bill and order a taxi while eating dessert. Many sports fans leave sporting evnets early, no matter how close the score, simply to steal a march on the traffic. Then there is the curse of multi-tasking. Doing two things at once seems so clever, so efficient, so modern. And yet what it often means is doing two things not very well."
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"'Time-sickness' can be a symptom of a deeper, existential malaise. In the final stages before burnout, people often speed up to avoid confronting their unhappiness. Kundera thinks that speed helps block out the horror and barrenness of the modern world: "Our period is obsessed with a desire to forget, and it is that desire that gives it over to the demon of speed..."
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"The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form of innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation with violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys her own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful." --Thomas Merton

The Activity of the Activist

I do not have anything against activists. In fact, I consider myself one. I used to think that I was not a political person, but on hearing Jonathan Kozol's definition I realized that it must define me. He said, "Politics is what you do in the morning about what you thought about at night." In my increasing understanding that action is necessary to following Jesus and embodying the already-here-not-yet Kingdom of God, I have also found that changing the world cannot rest completely on my shoulders. This is God's work and God is gracious enough to let me play a part as a means of worship in God's redemptive plans for the world. I cannot do eveything and I must give honor to my status as creature: I must eat, I must rest my weary bones, I must take time to sabbath, etc. This is not simply a worldly battle and it is not simply a spiritual battle.

Granted I was not always able to be present for worship while volunteering for a conference of Christian activists, but I was overwhelmed by the sense of busyness, meetings, networking, "make it quick," gotta-have-it-now mentality of a number of the conference attendees. There is almost a spirit at times of "if God doesn't connect me with this organization or get me a network meeting with this associate, then God has no plans for me." Or it goes even further to if I don't put myself in those positions, then God can't find ways to speak to me and/or help me make connections. Or perhaps it is with resources. If I don't take that book now or ask for special permission to have it held for me while I get money, then someone else will get it.

It is amazing to me how folks who use the language of "we are one community" or "one church" as a means to becoming involved in social justice and reconciliation, yet on a personal, mundane level folks had trouble living into the virtues of dying to oneself, patience, listening, trusting in God's providence, sabbath, truthfulness, empathy, etc. I saw a lack of teamwork and a rise in exclusiveness and individualism. It seems that we as the Church have a lot of work to do in embodying the Gospel in everyday encounters and with the world and with God at large.

Final Duke Semester Reflections

Here it is, a summary of what I learned this semester...

In no particular order...

1. The Church often fails in how we talk about the Holy Spirit. We either ignore the Spirit completely or overemphasize the Spirit--all in a way that does not accurately convey who we say we believe in the Holy Trinity. This has PROFOUND implications in theology and practice. In the words of Dr. Turner, it is all about learning about who the person of the Holy Spirit is!

2. There are some major problems with substitutionary atonement. If we are not talking about what we are saved for then we lose the mission of God. The mission is not "saving" but getting involved in why and how God is saving. God is saving more than human souls--God is redeeming the world for a purpose. Yet again, understanding this has HUGE implications for ministry. This is huge for evangelism, how we explain salvation, how we ignore sanctification, etc. It also ties in very closely with a diminished view of the Creator God, the Resurrection of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit.

3. Protestantism has some problems. These limitations are most present in #1 and 2. We make things all about the cross, all about Jesus, all about Scripture. There is nothing wrong with these things, as they are critical yet not the full story and therefore not the full Gospel.

4. Hitting children in NO way fits into what we as the Church believe about God, humanity and how people learn. And it is WAY more theological than we would EVER want to imagine.

5. There is a Church that exists in the prison. And unlike my previous thoughts before taking a class in Prison Ministry, it isn't just because prisons are filled with those who are innocent or political/religious prisoners. If we want to really know what redemption means, then we desperately need to hear from these Brothers and Sisters.

6. This semester Sam Wells wanted to give us the gift of knowing how to dismantle arguments. And therefore I learned that you can argue about something until you are blue in the face both thinking you are right unless you learn how to explain the perspective in which you or another person is coming from. In the words of Dr. Jennings, it means getting closer rather than moving apart.

7. There is great beauty in redeeming birth and death from insitutions. Both are a windows into what it means for us to be creatures who were made by and for God.

8. The nation-state is an Enlightenment concept and therefore there are some real problems with it. We would be wise to not see it as providence, but to see it as an imperfect tool to help us to get closer to the type of people and world God would want us to be.

9. I need to learn more about the theology of beauty and the body.

10. The beauty of the Church is that we are supposed to provide the gift of alternatives to the rest of the world. We are freed for new ideas and are being sanctified by the Creative force of the Holy Spirit.

The National Championship and the Church

Okay, forgive me people, but Duke basketball analogies are constantly on my mind...and even for Carolina fans it has the potential to bring good news...

1. The little things

This year Duke had one of those teams that in the beginning of the year no one thought would make it very far. I remember losing so much of my confidence with the loss of Greg Paulus (the emotional heart), Gerald Henderson (the slasher), Elliot Williams (the up-and-coming freshman) and some of our key bench players (Dave McClure, Marty Pocious, and Olek Czyz). But in the ashes of these loses emerged a Duke team that relied on teamwork and became winners because they were a unit rather than talented individuals. What would the Church be like if we could learn to play like a team that works well together rather than be rugged individuals? What would the Church looked like if we learned how to cherish our memories together? What would it look like if we learned to look for miracles in small places?

2. The Glory of Victory

Although I watched the game from Cameron, it took me a few days to realize that we had won. It began to sink in once I saw the bookstore fill with National Championship t-shirts. When campus started to flood with outside visitors. When even the ghettos of Durham were even pumping out their own $5 T-shirt designs in honor of the win. When the coaches and players returned to give their testimony. When we as fans gathered to remember and talk about what happened. Even in the days and weeks afterward folks began to proudly wear their newly minted Duke gear. And then it made me realize that someone else, namely the team, had to secure this win so that the rest of us could have the right to say that "we" too had won the National Championship. I think this is what Church is supposed to be like. Gathering to remember, to witness, to testify...all because someone else secured our victory and gave us a right to have a new name (National Champions/Beloved of God) written on our chests and hearts.

3. The Discipline of Celebration

The excitement around following the win was amazing. It came with deep laughter, light-hearted love and amazement and butterflies! I can't help feeling the elation again when I watch videos from Cameron where the students erupt into pure joy!!! My eyes water, my heart skips a beat and a smile cannot be quieted from my face. At first I jokingly told my friend Allison who is an IV staffworker at Duke to play Cascada's "Everytime We Touch" at the regional summer camp in front of everyone at dinner. I knew that the song would cause the Crazies to jump out of their seats and into a jumping frenzy! To rationalize it I said, "Just tell the others to enter into our joy" and to "rejoice with those who rejoice." And then I realized that maybe that isn't too far from the Church's job. If we practiced these disciplines of sharing with one another and celebrating together then how much more could we learn to be One with each other as Jesus prayed while in the garden of Gethsemane (John 16)?

Great Expectations

In the past few days, expectations has hit me over the head--but this time, in a positive way. It is fascinating to me how much our lives revolve around having expectations and reacting to them. In the therapy world, there is a lot of talk about the pressure and reality of false expectations. I find it really interesting that we often leave discussions of "expectations" in the realms of dating and sex. These conversations arise out of relational conflict, so it made me pause to think that perhaps "expectations" are present throughout our relationship.

For example, I utterly and completely clash with my family when we go on vacations. I get mad and angry when my precious vacation time is violated. For instance, at the beach I want to sleep in, grab breakfast at home, read all day long on the beach, return for a shower, go out to eat, watch a rental movie and go to bed--and most importantly--NEVER turn on the television. So when I get woken up early, get conned into an afternoon activity or get sucked in by a TV that's left on, I end up feeling angry and resentful. In reality, we simply have different ideas (and therefore expectations) of what a vacation is like.

To avoid the drama this year, I tried hard to state clearly to my family what I wanted to do on our vacation. I even tried to do some flexible planning so that I wouldn't get grumpy and frazzled so that some of my expectations could be fulfilled. I tried to gage from others what they wanted to do as well. Although my attempts didn't work out so well, I think next time I would advocate assertiveness and sharing my expectations and preparing folks for the inevitable emotions that come with unmet expectations.

Now the old therapy discussions of false expectations is real. If you are on a limited budget, you probably can't expect to go on a $100 per person dolphin sight-seeing excursion, but you can use other people to help you identify realistic desires and help others to realize them. For example, if dolphins are what propels the desire then go visit the Aquarium or if its about the adventure, rent a kayak or jet ski.

"Go with the flow" or "just be open" never really works. Just as one of my history professors says that every "unbiased" historian has an ideology, every just-wanna-be-open-person has expectations. I think underneath that attitude is a desire for people-pleasing and stifling ones desires so that they won't be hurt. I think that there are some rare occassions where "going with the flow" is real, but it comes out of a deep desire for abiding with ones company. In that sense, one's expectation is to enjoy and be with people. I don't think that either is a more holy place than the other.

One of the things that I'm finding about being honest about expectations and setting boundaries is that it leaves room for you to enjoy what you have. Having expectations is inevitable, so things become less messy when you can be honest about them. But it also creates room for beauty. There is a bizarre mix of healthy goal-setting and even a more authentic sense of openness when expectations are clear. Acknowledging expectations allows you to truly enjoy something for what it is. For instance, if you say that you want to spend a week reading on the beach or take an excursion then you can not only enjoy those moments, but there is a sense of fulfillment that your goal has been met. Perhaps it didn't radiate every expectation you had for it, but there is a sense of satisfaction of "crossing something off your list" as my friend Katie describes it. And then if you take care of some of your more important expectations, then you have room to explore other things without feeling of loss when your own needs and desires aren't met.

So the word is...figure out your expectations, communicate them, compromise and enjoy :)

Abounding Beauty

(this is Jen fixing a previous post, May 6)

For the past few weeks, my mind has been incredibly opened to the power and presence of beauty. Perhaps it is the arrival, the in-breaking and the blossoms of Spring that have sprung this one on me. I have a tendency to let reality stifle creating beauty in my life. But for some reason, beauty makes me thankful, hopeful and joyful. This should not be a surprising find given that some Catholic friends I met who have a prison ministry in their home spoke so much about a theology of beauty and how their home was meant to reflect that.

When I actually get around to cleaning my house, it pushes me to be more thankful for what I have. There is something bizarrely wonderful about taking care of something, polishing it up, experssing a hidden inner beauty, and having the comittment to tidy everything up just a week later. But I know that when my house it clean, I get a chance to rejoice in the beauty that I create through decorating as it fuses with God's gifts: bright sunlight coming through a room, an inherited piece of furniture or birds chirping as background music to a beautiful morning waking up in a room of calming colors.

I'm finding that beauty abounds in the most unexpected of places and it brings joy to my heart! Typically I identify beauty as costly and shallow, but the joy in my heart is what cries out for a balance. Look at the woman who anoints Jesus with oil--she is a testimony of abundance and beauty where she pours an expensive perfume on the Savior's feet. As the disciples get tongue tied wondering why this woman should let something go to waste, Jesus reminds them that this woman will be remembered for her faith for generations.

Now I am an opponent of the health and wealth Gospel, but I cannot deny that this woman used something costly and material and used it to point to the new reality of the coming Kingdom that Jesus would inaugurate with his death and resurrection. Perhaps there is room to experience and express beauty as a reminder of the coming Kingdom and the beauty of the love and character of God.

Posts for the coming weeks: The Theology of the Body, The Creative Spirit...who knows, maybe I'm slowly becoming Catholic!

dfjdk

Duke Basketball: Favorite Images from 2009-2010's

Countdown to Craziness!!

Check the highlights.
Hilarious videos: Kyle and the lemurs, and Nolan and the "Titanic" stare

Return of the Champions!!

Nolan Smith as Johnny Dawkins for his attempt at winning hte dunk competition

The bye-bye Vasquez poster! Word of advice to the Crazies for next year: use hand sanitizer before touching the blue sharpie to sign posters to avoid all-campus flu-like symptoms outbreak!

Getting my game face on before the Duke-UNC game. Thanks Dad for the paint job!!

And the Div School is back to foul shot antics. Glad to say that these folks might one day be your pastor :)

In your face!! I bet Harrison Barnes wishes he signed with Duke! Next year you can skype your one-and-done status.

Jon Scheyer--never afraid to battle for the ball. Check out Jon's mom who has a petrified look on her face. Is it scary that I did the exact same thing she did?! Mr. Scheyer seems to think his tough son will be alright.

Only regular season shot that I can't find is Miles Plumlee getting stiches in his head and coming back for a dunk!

Zoubs picking up Wojo after the National Championship game!

Nolan in front of the 1980 Championship logo after winning his own championship in 2010. His late father won in the same city in 1980!

And of course, who can live without my view of Duke winning the 'Ship from inside Cameron! With Zoubek "Z" in view. Rushing the court. Screen view.

Jen's Trend Alert!!

Here it is, a few of my favorite things!

1. Nail Polish

Check out O.P.I.'s You Don't Know Jacques--Matte or Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Commander in Chic. I never thought that I would be a nail polish fan.

2. Chambray

photo: Gap tote, $34.50

3. Bags from saribari.com

Inexpensive bags made from discarded sari's and stitched together by women in Calcutta's red light district. FAIR TRADE!!

photos: saribari.com, approx $20

4. Earrings from Ten Thousand Villages

photos, tenthousandvillages.com, double hoop brass earrings made in Kenya $18, scrollwork hoop earrings made in India $16, layered spirals earrings made in Kenya $10.50

5. Leather Flip Flops

photos: abercrombie.com, leather flip flops $46 also available in kids

The Power of "We"

I have a pretty massive tendency toward self-righteousness. I know, some of you are sighing relief that I'm actually aware of this. I am quite thankful to Marshall Benbow for pointing out to me how John Perkins uses the word "we." It is a word that is inclusive and points to realities that we all need to be aware of. It points to shared life and ownership.

So I was quite intrigued on Thursday when Sam Wells, Dean of Duke Chapel and my Christian Ethics Professor (who is from England) mentioned that "we" in the South have a problem with race that stems from the history of slavery. This isn't his words exactly, but when he mentioned the need to move into the prophetic voice about the South's problem with our racial history I was ready to take a beating. The horror of this history for me as a white daughter of the South is incredibly burdensome to me, but I've also found that it pushes me more torward Jesus in my recognition of sin.

I am quite used to situations where the awful tension exists when Southerners, Northerners or white folks whose families immigrated to America after the abolition of slavery or whose families were part of immigrant populations to other parts of the country in the 20th Century say that the "race problem" is not their problem. They claim that they are innocent. So imagine my surprise and giddiness when a British man who has only lived in America for five years used the inclusive "we."

In that moment I felt freedom. Freedom from judgment. Not the type of freedom from judgment that lets me off the hook, but the type that includes all of us into our sin problem and the realities of the contexts in which we live. It was an embrasive call toward a future reality of recognizing a real problem that matter for the Church and for people.

I was also surprised that upon asking him his reasons for using "we" in regards to the American South, that the answer was in his relocation. I naturally thought that it was theological or historical reference about culpability, but I was encouraged by his genuineness to seek a life here in my country and take on my culture with all of its beauty and problems. I wonder what it would look like for me to adapt this understanding of "we" and cross cultural community?

Location vs. Identity: The Church, The Margins and the Status Quo

Maybe Tim Tebow has a point--I need/want to live with John 3:16 posted so closely to my eyes that it forces me to reimagine the world. I am not a fan of the one-verse trumps the whole Bible method of reading, interpreting and living Scripture, but that verse is certainly not a bad one. When I try to super-spiritualize (and even legalize) who the Church is, it is good for me to go back to this verse and note that God loved (not just me) but the whole world and that "whosoever believes in Him will have everlasting life"--emphasis on whosoever.

This verse forces us to ask the question of "who is the Church?" And, "where is the Church?" This question becomes increasingly difficult when they are applied to Christian ethics. For instance, I understand that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." But what does this mean when only 1% of the world has a college education--a fact that immediately makes those of us with a degree automatically be considered part of the world's wealthy. What does this mean for Christian ministries who are committed to working with college students? Does this mean that these folks are really "not Christian?" I don't think so.

Another argument that has been posed to me is: "Every Christian should go to seminary to become a better Christian"--as if there is a connection with education and morality. Please don't think that I am dumping on seminary or education (you must remember that you are talking to an education guru), but the problem with that statement is that it assumes that the poor and the illiterate cannot operate well in the world to bring their discipleship to fruition. It assumes that we can only have good theology, good ethics or good interpretations of Scripture if we have become education--read become rich.

The implication of this might even be that if we as the "educated Christians" call for an ethic of marginality and downward mobility as a universal ethic, that this will have bizarre implications for the poor. Does this mean if I am poor that the only way to become more like Jesus or the become more Christian is to become "poor-er?" Or the other scholarly implication I have heard is that "the Church isn't about me and Jesus or me and my Bible, but it is about living in community." What does this mean for my brothers in Christ I met earlier this week who are incarcerated and not allowed to live in community? Are they not real Christians then?

These two paradigms seemed to clash in our class, the Nation-State and Theology of Africa. Our Professor eagerly tried to get us to see how locating or relocating the Church on the margins was a method for allowing our Christian identity to interrupt the way of the world as a means of creating communities and practices of resistance against the status quo. I noticed that the groups that were all-white tended to want to stick to the belief that our Gospel incarnation model shows us that we must be "centrally" located and not "marginally" located. I could almost hear our evangelical stories telling us: "You must put Jesus at the center of your life," "you must use and steward your gifts in a way that put you in the realms of power," "true humility is letting others take the credit for our hard efforts because Christ credits us righteousness."

I realized that our group was speaking of bastions of power and central locations, "development" and "partnership" in ways that our Professor was trying to get us to move away from, but it didn't really hit me until I saw one of the black students start to laugh while our group shared. It hit me. We were a group of all white people. We could not imagine a way for Christianity to interrupt the world in powerful ways that was not located from a central place of authority. We as white Americans (especially in the context of Africa) have always operated from a central location seeking change rather than trying to influence from the margins. We may think we are on the margins if we relocate ourselves to the middle of Africa, depriving ourselves of real luxuries and means of power that we have available to us in the U.S., but we can only imagine true change coming from the center and we forget that our very identity as Westerners automatically labels us not as "one on the margins who is replaceable or disposable." If the Church is meant to be at the margins, can we really become marginal by relocating?

What I think this means is that there must be something deeper than just seeing our Christian ethical lives by living through an idea of central location or marginality. I think what I am pushing toward is what does it mean to simply "become Christian?" I think it also means that we must be careful in how we speak "universally" about what Christianity should look like. We also must be aware of our context. But more importantly, we must become Christian, whatever that might be or mean.

Jen in the City

It's official, I have spent my first summer and semester living the city life. It has been quite a comical journey as I try to navigate what that means having grown up in the country my whole life. So here is a list of "firsts" and weird encounters:

1. Recycling! My first true chance to recycle was back when I was in Governor's School and there was a recycling bin at the lobby of our dorm room at Salem College. But for the first time ever, I have my own recycling bin!! And to top it off, the city of Durham has upgraded from blue recycling bin to a blue recycling trash can with wheels!! Double thanks to my neighbors who politely moved my bin to the correct side of the road.

2. Trash pick up. Apparently you have sign up for these things. Living in the city, you must put out your cans in specific places, if you don't then it won't get picked up. So long days of the trash man taking your trash to the street for you and returning it to its proper place. I found this out after desperate attempt to explain to Durham Waste Management that I'm a country girl and needed help to understand the process!

3. Street Sweepers??!! Seriously?! I have never in my life heard of a street sweeper! It used to terrify me when it came by at about midnight along my alley and streets. It sounds like a vaccum meets a power plant! I'm still confused as to why we need this.

4. Seeing traffic and racing emergency vehicles was a relatively new experience. I no longer run to the window to find out what frightening thing might have happened.

5. There is a mysterious brown trash can that is used for clearing brush in an urban area. And the other super weird thing about it is that everything that goes in the trashcan must be put into landscaping bags!! I started to wonder about this as I was trimming things in my garden, curious as to what to do with it. My gut instinct was to throw it in the woods behind my neighbors house (sorry Tyler, Parker, Tommy, George and Emma!) Where I come from, we compost out in the woods!

6. I never had to think of this question until now...how in the world does the city get rid of everyone's Christmas trees?!

7. At any hour of the day, city workers can show up outside your home to check how various things are functioning. And I'm still getting used to the fact that they can come and cut down trees in your yard. I always wanted to watch how you get rid of a stump. Apparently the city wants new "prettier" trees to line the streets. When I was a kid, we used to pull out the water hose and water guns on civil workers who we thought were infringing on our land lol!!

8. City buses are quite a sight! And even cooler, there is a new hybrid bus!

9. I thoroughly like watching parents and children walking to school. I also enjoy watching the kids play on the playground at one of the elementary schools on my own walk to campus.

Loss of the Instinct

Post-Urbana I'm finding that the call of the missionary is the call to loss one's instinct. Being removed from one's home context means losing the sense of "the gut feeling" that comes with being raised in a particular culture. There are two major implications of this.

The first is that the instinct is something we often take for granted and it must be used as a tool. The instinct about our home culture can give us vital information and help in a sticky situation. It helps us to read cultural interactions clearly. Sometimes it helps us to take smart risks, but keeps us from taking "dumb" risks.

In the loss of the instinct when one leaves one's home culture for a different one, one must become fully reliant on God and the new surroundings to develop a sense of risk and way of life. In many ways, the Christian life is not just about smart risks, but "dumb," senseless risks like pouring an expensive jar of alabastar on someone.

The mere thought of this potential loss makes me realize just how much I rely on my gut instead of God. I'm not going to argue that this is essentially wrong, but that moving out of one's culture and comfort zone costs us this comfort but will force us to strengthen our listening ears and trust muscles toward God.

The Matching Jar

Money is a huge issue for me. I struggle, wrestle really, with how to spend my money well. It wasn't so much a problem when I had a stable job, no debt and more than enough money to both pay the bills and give away. I no longer budget because I never have enough money to budget period. It is a pray, wait and see sort of thing. To make matters worse is that I struggle over issues of tithing and giving money away when I'm technically not bringing in any money.

After my the ideas from the Advent article and an email from a friend with a similar idea, I have decided to make a matching jar. In the eyes of many folks, I live on a fairly minimal budget. I am a penny pincher. But the issue of money is still eating me up inside. I have discovered that the idea of the matching jar not only helps me to commit to giving money away, but it also helps me to see just how much I'm still able to rationalize for myself even when I have such a small amount of money to live on.

The idea is this, when I buy something for myself, go out to eat, buy a gift on a friend, spend money because I didn't plan well (ie. pay to park at school vs. walk or take the bus) then I match the dollar amount to give away. Rather than become a huge black hole of guilt, I feel much freer to confess my idolatries toward stuff. Already I am blown away at how much money I spend frivolously.

All in the Family: Divine Right of Kings

I'm currently reading Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie, a biography of the the last Romanov monarchs. I have always had a deep fascination for all things royal, but this book is striking a different chord in me. The idea of "royal family" is blowing my mind.

The beginning stages of the book gives a humanized picture of the Tsar and Tsarina. Nicholas is nice, polite, somewhat humble, well-educated, God-fearing and loyal to preserving a more folksy Russian culture than a modern, European way of life. His wife Alix is devout, devoted to her family, and sacrifices much of her own culture to marry someone she truly loves.

Perhaps it is our American patriotic and egalitarian values that causes us to look down on those who inhereited the lineage and birthright of kingship, but such a humanized account as Massie presents helps me to see how prejudiced such a worldview can be. When I look at Nicholas and Alexandra, I'm heartbroken over their plight. They did not deserve to be brutally murdered. They were good people who raised a beautiful family. They were subject to prejudice all around, Alix in particular, as the Russian people never liked that she was German. The irony in that is that the royal families across the globe were actually all family at the time. They constantly married into one another's family. The movie Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola shows the sacrifice that royal women in particular had when it came time to marry another royal of a different culture. There is this beautiful and shocking scene at the beginning where Marie is stripped of her German garb all the way down to her little dog and is given all French wear and accessories. The cultural transformation is so immediate and even tragic, yet in the person of Alexandra, we see a woman who truly comes to love her new home and new people.

Another point that seems to me so ironic and such a lost opportunity is that the royal families all deeply feel called by God to rule their countries and feel burdened to rule well. Yet, war is still inevitable. How bizarre that WWI would plunge nations against one another when the royals who approved of war were often blood relatives or immediate relatives by marriage to a royal in another country. Marriage and blood did not prevent sovereigns from becoming enemies in war. How easily they could have said, "we are family, let's make peace." It seems that this model had such potential for peace, if only the kings would work together. It is so frustrating to see this missed opportunity. How do those who seem to be so God-fearing seem to miss such a gospel-inspired opportunity??