This far, by grace

As my family prepares for our move to Laurelville, it has been interesting to think about how we got to this place. At first, it seems like a pretty drastic move: X-ray science to Christian camping. The education and work of the last eighteen years of my life would suggest that I have had the perfect job. And at the important times when I’ve had a choice between science and ministry, and I’ve been pretty consistent in choosing science. So what happened this time?

I decided I wanted to take a closer look – to “raise my Ebenezer”, if you will. I want to give thanks for what has come before in order to live fully into the future.

(If you don’t care to read this autobiography, just skip it. I’ll summarize below.)

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1990 - I was a junior in high school. Out of nowhere I received a phone call from the youth minister of Allegheny Mennonite Conference to talk about my position in the conference youth cabinet. Unfortunately, there had been a mix-up. I didn’t know I was part of the youth cabinet. Nobody had said anything to me. And it was supposed to be a two-year term, but I was leaving for college in little more than a year. Nevertheless, after clearing up all of these confusions, I ended up serving for a year on the cabinet. This mistake in communication changed everything for me…

1991 - The conference youth minister was also the director of summer youth programs at Laurelville. She encouraged me to consider being a counselor for the summer camps after I graduated from high school. Not much encouragement was needed – I had been a camper at Laurelville for eight or nine years and was glad to join the summer staff. And I met Ordinary Spouse that summer.

1992 – After my first year of college at Goshen, I really wanted to return to Laurelville for a second summer. But my advisor had encouraged me to apply for a summer program for science majors. (I was studying physics.) So I decided to use a “fleece” like Gideon: I applied for the program and committed to being a part of it if accepted. Well… I was accepted, and so I spent the summer as a scientist, rather than a counselor. This choice (science over ministry) seemed to become a recurring theme.

1993 - I spent the winter semester studying in Costa Rica. Part of the time I lived with a Mennonite pastor and his family – people who became very dear to me. My host mother told me that one day I’d be a pastor, and I took that pretty seriously. In fact, the whole semester was so disorienting (in a good way!) that I decided to take a year off in order to think about the future of my academic studies: Should I continue in science or adjust my focus?

1993-94 - I spent the school year away from school doing voluntary service at Laurelville. Most of the year was spent in the dining hall, where notions of Christian hospitality were being formed. The summer was another chance to be a counselor. At the end of the summer, Ordinary Spouse and I were engaged. I often describe this as the best year of my life; certainly the combination of this year and the semester spent in Costa Rica were profoundly influential. And when I returned to school in the fall, I continued in science – in fact, I added chemistry as a second major.

1994-96 - I finished my undergraduate studies. During the summers, I was an undergraduate researcher in Ann Arbor, where (soon-to-be) Ordinary Spouse had begun her graduate studies. I had also received a number of invitations to explore seminary studies during those summer breaks – supposedly my name was suggested by one of my professors. Those invitations went unanswered.

1996 - Ordinary Spouse and I were married at the end of the summer, and I began graduate school in chemistry immediately after we returned from our honeymoon.

1996-2002 - Graduate school. I think every grad student encounters a time when they want to quit. Four or five years in, I was starting to think about quitting going to seminary. Thankfully, Ordinary Spouse had enough wisdom to suggest that maybe my low point wasn’t the best time to change directions. She suggested perseverance in my graduate work and re-evaluation at a better time.

2002-04 - Immediately after finishing grad school, I started a two-year post-doctoral appointment at the National Synchrotron Light Source. In many ways, the work was very similar to the work that I did in graduate school, and it was the perfect training ground for my current job. This was not a time of re-evaluation.

2004 – 2012 - I knew that I couldn’t stay in the post-doctoral position indefinitely, so I was actively searching for a long-term position… in science. I was pleased to be hired to work for GM/CA-CAT – the position that I’ve held until now.

2012 - Seemingly out of the blue, I applied for a position at Laurelville that came to my attention on the day before the beginning of Lent — a position that pays one-third of my current salary; a position that I may be completely over-qualified for; a position that represents a complete break with the science that I’ve done for the last 18 years; indeed a position that is incredibly similar to the one I held during my year of VS at Laurelville. And by the end of Lent, I had accepted the position, our family had sold our house, and we were getting ready to move.

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Ok – you’ve either slogged through that biographical stuff, or you’ve come here for the summary. I’ll put it like this:

My new job at Laurelville will be quite similar to much of what I did when I worked there 18 years ago. So what was the point of leaving? What good was all this science? To put it bluntly: Was this all a waste of time?

You know what? The person who is going to Laurelville now is not the same person that was there 18 years ago…

• Eight additional years of school means that I don’t think of anything the way that I did then.
• I am a whole lot more comfortable with doubt. Challenges to my faith don’t cause me anxiety.
• Four different congregations have given me a chance to explore gifts and calling. In some ways, I think it must have been something like a seminary-of-the-world.
• I’ve blogged quite a bit about hospitality. This thinking has been refined, especially in the last few years, and it motivates this move.
• I’m married. Ordinary Spouse is anything but ordinary. It has been a joy to watch how life and faith have developed for us during this time.
• I’ve now had a taste of the American Dream. I’ve found it to be lacking.

As I’m typing these things, a couple of things occur to me. For one, each of these changes deserves a blog post of its own. For another, I realize that I have no sense of wasted time – only thanksgiving and a curiosity for what comes next.

Anyway, that’s all for this blog post. It’s a bit messy, but I’ve been writing it for a few weeks now, so I’ll let it go and work on something else.

What am I thinking?!?!

I believe that I’ve just entered a midlife crisis, but Ordinary Spouse says that’s ok, as long as I’m honest about it.

Say what?

Read on…

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My occasional readers will know that faith is a constant struggle for me. Over on my ‘About‘ page, I say this…

I’m trying to be a disciple of Jesus. Really trying. But I’m not always successful, and I have a hard time reconciling my suburban middle-class life with my faith.

And roughly two years ago, I wrote this…

On a typical work day, I begin my morning in my house in suburbia, safely isolated from the world’s pains. At the appropriate time, my garage door goes up, I pull out in my car, close the door remotely, and drive to work. Once at work, I show my ID to a guard at the guardhouse, and drive through the gate and into a fenced-off research campus. I carry out this process in reverse when it is time to go home, and I tuck myself safely into the garage once more. Everything is clean and sterile. Not once do I have to deal with anyone else’s reality. For all I know, the whole world is middle class.

To be honest, I don’t know how to live with this.

I have often described my struggle by saying that my faith and work don’t really communicate with one another. It’s not that they’re in opposition to one another. They just don’t connect. I like my work. I’m doing precisely what I’ve been trained to do. But I’m not passionate about it.

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So what am I passionate about?

Hospitality.

For a while, I’ve found that focusing on hospitality has served as a guide to me. It doesn’t necessarily tell me where I’m going, but it does serve as a standard by which I can discern my way. And what is hospitality? As I’ve come to define it…

Hospitality is opening up a safe space for each of us to be authentically ourselves, and in that space to encounter God.

But what does that have to do with a midlife crisis…?

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Sometime in the past year during one of our family’s trips to Laurelville, I told Ordinary Spouse that I’d probably enjoy working as their host. (The host welcomes guests and is generally on-call to help with any needs that arise.) “If that job ever opens up, I’d like to apply for it.”

Well – it opened up sooner than I expected. About four weeks ago, I saw it posted on Laurelville’s website. And even though I was fairly certain that there were too many obstacles in the way, I sent in my application.

Evidently, Laurelville was as interested in the possibilities as I was, and after three weeks of discussions I accepted a job offer last Friday.

I’m giving up well-paying job doing exactly what I was trained to do. I may or may not be over-qualified for what I’ll do now. But it’s a rather drastic break with the past and an entirely new direction in life.

This makes no sense to lots of people – especially the ones that I work with. Sometimes, it doesn’t even make sense to me.

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I’m writing this just before I publish this blog post. As I was proof-reading things, I realized that parts of this post might sound pretty bleak. And that is precisely what I’m not feeling right now. In fact, I’m feeling energized by just about everything (with the possible exception of trying to sell our house).

And yet, the last four weeks just leaves me shaking my head and trying to catch my breath. I hope to do some more reflecting on all of this in the coming days, but this post is already too long and our family has already started to vigorously prepare for the move. I’ll be working at Argonne through the end of May and will be working at Laurelville by mid-June.

Since the beginning of my blog, my angst regarding middle-class life in the suburbs has been a recurring theme. I wonder what happens now.

Small steps in merging faith and life

In my ongoing struggle to merge faith and belief with career, occupation, and life in general, I recently received a little answer to prayer.

I’ve written about this struggle previously, but I kept wandering/wondering without direction. Then, a friend from my congregation wrote some thoughts on her blog that really spoke to my feelings of both hope and despair…

A very big conviction of mine is something I don’t even engage in. The P-word…..Poverty. I read about it, cry at stories in the media, worry about the excess in my own life, wonder if we’re giving enough money to church & charity and dream about living in a “new monastic” community yet I continue to sit here in my comfortable suburban home, carting my kids to soccer & classes & friends’ houses, planning vacations & going to church on Sunday. It just doesn’t add up.

So where do I go from here? Hmmmm. Good question. And I pray.

Just reading that was, in some sense, a relief. There are other people who are struggling the same way that I do. (And not just “other people”, but rather my friends!) So I left a comment and exchanged some emails and we’re trying to figure out how to continue this discussion. I’m hopeful for what might come out of this conversation.

MWLR II: My personal roller coaster

Music and Worship Leaders Retreat ended over a week ago. The entire weekend was predictably awesome, if one can predict such things based on just a single year of previous experience. I’m still scrambling to get my head around everything the resource team had to share regarding our theme of rituals.

The weekend was also something of a roller coaster for me – an emotional one brought about by some of the challenging topics we were considering. I’ll begin at the end: that I’m energized and hopeful and looking forward to wherever my journey of faith might lead. But sometimes the short-term is frustrating – really frustrating.

What follows here is fairly personal, although I don’t mind sharing it. After all, my ‘About’ page says that I’m going to attempt to write about “trying to live a faithful Christian life in the suburbs.” Well, for me – this is it. It doesn’t get much more raw or real than this…

(But be warned! This gets long. And it’s basically just me processing. Nothing that makes for good reading.)

Living with the Now and the Not Yet

(The thoughts and links in this post have probably made appearances before on my blog. However, I’ve been processing and arranging them again, so I figured that they could make another appearance.)

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There is a tension that Christians encounter: the push and pull of what is and what will be. Or, to put it another way, there are things we would like to do and ways we would like to act; and we find that those are not consistent with what we actually do and how we actually act.

We encounter this tension in ourselves. I understand Paul completely when he says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Or maybe I think about the letter of James where he writes that we demonstrate the reality of our faith by what we do. When I am judged by that standard, do I have any faith at all? As Peter Rollins answered when he was asked if he believes in God:

Do I believe in God? Well, while I am drawn to the idea that there is a Supreme Being I must confess that I don’t believe in God, at least most of the time.

But if you ask me whether I aspire to believing in God then, with all of my being I say yes, yes and again yes…

So here we are – struggling with sin, and yet adopted as God’s children; made holy by God, and yet longing for freedom from the weights that we still carry; the now, and the not yet.

This tension fascinates me. It is a thin place where sinfulness meets grace, where doubt meets faith, and where hurt and injury meet healing and hope. And I believe that God asks us to embrace this place, not just within ourselves, but also when (maybe even especially when!) we encounter it in others…

I’m recalling a number of times in the last year when friends have deeply grieved or injured other friends. I was never the one directly offended (which I count as a blessing) and usually I didn’t witness the offense – I only heard the pain from those who had been hurt. But I was left asking questions. How could my friends have acted in ways that hurt others? And I’m left holding two contradictory things. On one hand, an offense has been committed. On the other hand, the person that I know – the beloved child of God – wouldn’t act that way.

Increasingly, I’ve been trying to live with that tension – to allow the tension to be unresolved. Or maybe even to bring these opposing beliefs and convictions together, because ultimately what I desire to see is reconciliation. I haven’t found this to be easy, and frankly it might be impossible sometimes. It might be like trying to force magnets together when they really want to turn around and go the other way. So be it. I’ll just keep holding. I can be stubborn.

Parker Palmer talks about this in a beautiful essay entitled, “The Broken-Open Heart“. In it, he refers to this place of tension as the “tragic gap”, and he writes:

To live in this world, we must learn how to stand in the tragic gap with faith and hope. By “the tragic gap”, I mean the gap between what is and what could and should be; the gap between the reality of a given situation and an alternative reality we know to be possible because we have experienced it.

So – now we find ourselves in the Easter season. We are like Mary. Standing in the garden, we are met by Christ, and suddenly we know what is real and what is possible. Christ asks us to go to others – to speak into the “now”, to share the hope of what is “not yet”.

The Prayer of St. Francis

Lord,

Make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
In pardoning that we are pardoned,
And in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

Jesus’ humanity

Let me preface this whole post by acknowledging that I don’t understand the mystery of Jesus’ dual human/divine nature.  I might make the mistake in this particular blog of ascribing too much to his humanity.  On the other hand, I think that there also might be a tendency by Christians to downplay Jesus’ human side of things when his deity seems to be under attack in our pluralistic society.  Nevertheless, I think that there is something to be learned from stories where Jesus seems to be a bit too human for our own comfort – stories like the cleansing of the temple, for example, or the story I’ll discuss below.  Maybe we’ll learn a little about the nature of sin; about what God regards as sin; and about what masquerades as sin, but which really only offends our sense of politeness, social propriety, or political correctness.

Anyway, this morning I was reading this coming Sunday’s lectionary passage from the gospel of Mark.  At the end of Chapter 7, I have the impression that Jesus is just really exhausted and would like to get away from it all and go on a little vacation.  He’s gone to Tyre, which is on the Mediterranean Sea, and the scripture says…

He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.

Sounds like me sometimes.  (Well, actually I probably want to take a vacation at the slightest hint of weariness.  I have the impression that Jesus got a whole lot wearier than I do.)

So Jesus is off on vacation, but he isn’t even able to rest there.  He’s found by some Gentile woman who has heard about the kinds of amazing things that he has been doing and wants him to heal her daughter.  At this point, Jesus seems to be a bit exasperated (and that’s putting it gently).  He tells her that his work is with the Jews and not the Gentiles, but he’s a bit more gruff than that (at least to my ear)…

Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.

But check out this reply:

Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.

Now this is where I don’t quite know how to understand Jesus’  humanity.  I wouldn’t suggest that Jesus needs grace, at least not in the sense that the rest of us do.  But doesn’t it seem like that’s just what he’s received in this woman’s response?  Hasn’t he just called her a dog?  And didn’t she just let that one slip by?  I know I’m interpreting this one from a 21st century middle-class North America cultural viewpoint, but still…

Anyway, maybe the woman has ministered to Jesus’ need.  Perhaps, in this time when he’s on vacation for some rest, she has reminded him of the faith that he inspires in people, and perhaps that is an inspiration to his own faith, as well.  (I do think that Jesus needed faith in his Father to achieve his work on earth.   I don’t think that is too much of a stretch or a threat to his divinity.)

Ok – let me move on to take a quick look at the next story.  Jesus is on his way home from vacation, and some people bring him a man who is deaf and who also has a speech impediment.  Jesus takes the man aside to pray for him and only utters one word, “Ephphatha”, which means, “Be opened.”  But look at what else he does – he sighs.  I’m not a scholar of Greek, but my understanding is that this is the same word found in Romans 8 where Paul describes how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.

What is happening here?  Does Jesus sigh because of lingering tiredness?  Does he not know what words to pray, or does he express a deeper prayer from the depths of his soul?  Does the Holy Spirit also intercede with the Father on behalf of the Son?  Do we learn that at times there are prayers that reflect the heart of God that just can’t be expressed with the words that we have?

Today, I’m reminded that Jesus’ humanity was not an impediment to his ministry, but rather a vital part of it.  It was only by becoming human that Jesus was able to show us the way back to God.

Wrestling with God

I love stories of people who wrestle with God – stories about people who have great faith and who walk closely with God; people who aren’t afraid to name injustice when they see it; people who are willing to say, “God, how can you let this happen?”  In some sense, it might seem presumptuous to question God.   Job’s friends certainly thought so.  But I think that a deeper look reveals that people who wrestle with God have moved past outward appearances and are working on an intimate friendship.

Here are some of my favorite stories…

Jacob – Of course, I need to start with Jacob, the original wrestler.  He was involved in the ultimate all-nighter (Genesis 32) and would have prevailed, except for what seems to be a dirty trick by God.  (What’s up with that, anyway?)  Nevertheless, Jacob still hangs on and demands a blessing from his previously unknown adversary before letting him go.  Anna Maria Johnson has reflected more on this story in an article in The Mennonite.

Habakkuk – I learned to love the Hebrew prophets during a class that I took from Jo-Ann Brant at Goshen College.  The prophets were all wrestlers, although some were more willing than others, it would seem.  Habakkuk begins his prophecy with this complaint:

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble? (Hab 1.2-3, NRSV)

So God answers Habakkuk, and when Habakkuk doesn’t like the answer he complains again.  And then he has the audacity to insist on an answer:

I will stand at my watch-post,
and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what he will answer concerning my complaint. (Hab 2.1)

A Canaanite woman – Matthew 15 records the story of a woman whose daughter was  tormented by a demon.  She wanted help, she knew Jesus could provide that help, and she wasn’t willing to stop her shouting until she got that help.  (And she didn’t care one bit if the disciples were bothered or not.)  Jesus tested her, saying that his ministry was to Israel, but she (in faith) anticipated the broader reach of his work to the nations.  And so, her faith was rewarded.

Abraham – In Genesis 18, God shares with Abraham the judgement that he has declared against Sodom and Gomorrah.  In response, Abraham questions whether God would carry out his judgement against the wicked even if there were righteous ones present.  God relents, and says that he wouldn’t execute justice if fifty righteous people were found.  Abraham proceeds to question God further, and the number is reduced: forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty, then ten.  Philip Yancey points out that Abraham stops asking for mercy before God stops granting it!  He further wonders,

Was God, so quick to concede each point, actually looking for an advocate, a human being bold enough to express God’s own deepest instinct of mercy?

It is a question we should each ask ourselves.  Let the wrestling begin.

Maintain the unity of the Spirit

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.  (Ephesians 4.1-6, NRSV)

A couple days ago, I wrote about bearing with one another in love.  Since then, I have been trying to envision what ”maintaining the unity of the Spirit” might look like.  In other words, how do we go beyond an uncomfortable existence to actually living a Spirit-filled life with those with whom we disagree?  There’s nothing new here, but I find it helpful to come to some of my own conclusions, so I’ve brainstormed a few ideas…

• Fundamentally, we should agree not to question the authenticity of another’s salvation, faith, or beliefs.
• We should honor the other’s gifts.  This might involve gifts offered in a worship or study setting, for example.
• Do not neglect the difficult discussions…
• But conduct those discussions at safe, mutually acceptable times.  Find respected people to help facilitate or mediate.
• Pray for one another…
• But don’t pray in a way that you wouldn’t pray for yourself.
• The Church isn’t a democracy.  The well-being of the minority should be vigorously defended.

There are some initial ideas.  Let the discussion begin.

Some thoughts on Grace

(A few months ago, I shared some personal reflections on grace with my congregation.  Since grace is such a central part of my faith (or at least I’m trying to make it that way) and since the intersection of faith and life in suburbia is on-topic here, I thought maybe I should post my reflections here, too…)

Roughly eight years ago, I read Philip Yancey’s book “What’s So Amazing About Grace”.  It has possibly had more effect on how I approach Christian faith than any other influence since.  Grace, says Yancey, is our “last best word”.  I have found this to be the case.  I ask myself, “What do I have to offer to the world?  Or, what evidence do I have that Christian belief is authentic?”  (And those are valid questions, because unfortunately there is a lot of stuff that originates with the church that isn’t very pretty.)  When I have little faith left, I ask similar questioins:  “Why should I believe any of this Christian stuff?  What keeps me from walking away?”  The answer is Grace.

Here, you have to understand a little of where my mind is coming from.  I’m a scientist.  I weigh evidence.  I dissect arguments.  I’ve been trained to doubt.  And for some reason that I can’t fully explain, Grace withstands my scrutiny.  In my mind, I can tear down just about everything about Christianity.  Not Grace.  Perhaps, it’s because I see Grace as the only thing that can keep humanity from ripping the world apart.  Even if the Church doesn’t do it well, I haven’t found it anywhere else.

Well – that’s a glimpse of the dark, doubting corner of my mind.  When I’m operating there, it may be because I’m going through a faith crisis, so let’s move on from the darkness to being amazed by Grace.

One area where Grace has amazed me is prayer.  I love prayer.  I’m not very good at it, but I love it anyway.  I love stories about people who wrestle in prayer – who have the audacity to wrestle with God in prayer.  Consider this Psalm:

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
Praise him in the heights!

Now consider that it was brought to us by the same people who gave us:

O daughter Babylon, you devastator! 
Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! 
Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!

How do you pray something like that?  And how do you get it included in Scripture?  I cringe when I hear that.  But I’ve come to realize that God knows that we have this darkness in our hearts whether we speak it or not.  And God, in God’s Grace, is big enough to sort through our junk (insert your own more colorful word), especially when we’re honest with it.  The end result is that Grace purifies our prayers.  Amazing.

Jim Croegaert has a song that says:

Here by the water
I’ll build an altar to praise You
Out of the stones that I’ve found here
I’ll set them down here
Rough as they are
Knowing You can make them holy

I’ve seen these stones that he’s talking about.  There’s a stream near our house where my girls like to play.  They find shells and crayfish and even snakes.  And they turn over all the rocks – all the slimy, mucky, muddy rocks.  It’s not pretty.  But this is what God makes holy.  It’s Grace.

I’ve come to realize it’s how God relates to us, and it’s how we’re to relate to the world.  Sometimes, I think we Christians (and by we, I mean me) are hesitant to interact with the world for fear of getting stained with the muck and sin of the world.  But I think God might prefer if I trust in the cleansing power of Grace a bit more and dare to get a little dirty in the process of sharing his love.  As Martin Luther said, “Sin boldly.”  Allow Grace to be amazing.