Pamilya / ครอบครัว

“Love is such an abstract art, and we each have a different part to play.” 

I’d like to imagine that in everyone’s life, there is a moment, an experience, something that drastically changes and challenges everything they think they know. The last few months of 2016 has been that experience. I went into this season with ideas of what I thought would happen. I knew I would change, but had no idea how. I knew I would experience things, but I had no idea what things. I knew I would meet people, but I had no idea how deep those new relationships would go. Media Light, Thailand, and The Philippines have forever engrained themselves into my life. 

For me, Media Light was less about media, and so much more about people. Yeah, I learned media skills that I can use and any variety of capacities, and I will use my new skills, but that wasn’t what I learned the most of over the last few months. I learned about people. I did life 24/7 with people from all different backgrounds, and from all over the worlds. The blend of culture, personality, opinion, talents, and love was a mix that I imagine heaven is quite similar to. When we came together, we had little in common. For most of us, the only real thing we had in common was that we were relatively the same age, and had all somehow discovered this opportunity, and decided to take a few months to experience it. Other than that, we were all so completely different. But different it good. It took a while, but the shyness amongst ourselves slowly fell away, and we became family. For many of us, we became more of a family that our biological family. Those missing a father in their life, found a father. Those missing a mother, found a mother. Those missing a brother or sister, found a brother or sister. Those missing friends, found over 30. Everyone has parts of them that were missing. Over time, we began to fill in the missing parts of each other. While the reality is that many of us may never see one another again, we forged a bond amongst ourselves that will last beyond this lifetime. 

We had little in common, but we had love. 

I’m sure that after a while, people might start to ask me what I miss most about Media Light. While I enjoyed the teaching and learning, I won’t miss that veery much. What I will miss, is the community. While I came from a more comfortable background than most people there, I came from an empty life. I came from a world where everyone is for themselves. I came from a world where commitment to one another, God, and life, were shallow at best. My world is one where compassion and love for each other often goes no deeper than a Facebook post or a share on a newsfeed. My world is wealthy on the outside, and poor on the inside. As I am now back home in the States, the reality of my juxtaposed worlds has hit me like a truck. The love and community that I so very much enjoyed in Media Light, Thailand, and The Philippines, is greatly missing from here. I have no idea how, but I feel like I experienced Media Light in order to bring back authenticity to my world. I want to create a space here like I had in Thailand. A space of love, acceptance, understanding, comfort, and strength. I want to create a space where people from all cultures and backgrounds can come together to do life. I want to create a space where people can sit down and talk about the things that they can’t find the freedom to do in their schools, work places, churches, and friend groups. I don’t know how, but I so badly want that for my world here at home. 

I’ll never be able to explain it, but something happened to me when I left the Philippines that I may never be able to explain, but I am confident represented how the last few months impacted my life. While on the plane taking off from Manilla, I cried. I don’t cry. I’m the guy that shoves emotion deep down. I was just sitting in my seat listening to music while the plane taxied out and began to take off., when suddenly my chest began to tighten. My cheeks pushed up and my eyes closed up a little, but not all the way. Then, without warning, a tear streamed down my face. Than another, and another, and another. It wasn’t a full-on cry, but anyone looking at my would’ve known that something was going on. I never made a sound, I just cried. I have no idea why I did. I was fine until that point. In that moment, it became hard to leave. I had found something in the Philippines that I knew I needed in my life. When I think about it, I think the Philippines reminded me a lot of how I wanted life to be. A mix of all people, from all cultures, from all over the world had come together and became this loving world of 100 Million Filipinos. The beauty of the city, the countryside, and everything in between embedded itself in my heart. I may never go back to Thailand, but I will be back to the Philippines. There was something there that had locked onto my life and sworn to stay with me even when I left. 

I will write and talk about my experiences so much more over the next days and weeks ahead, but for now, all I can say is that the last few months changed my life, my personality, and my perspective on life. Not in a flippant, “that wounds nice to say” way, but in a way that I can feel in the change in my heart and in my soul. Its going to be hard being back home. Well, not specifically at home, but it’ll hard being back in the world of school, work, and repetitiveness that people here have perfected. 

It won’t be easy, but I trust that I can bring the same love I knew in Asia, back to my community. It doesn’t take much, it just takes patience. 

From the Head to the Heart

I see life as a piece of string. Our life, from beginning to end, is a set length of string. During our journey, we have the ability to move the string. We cannot make it longer or shorter, but we can move it from side to side. As we move it from side to side, we entangle ourselves with other people, or other pieces of string. The more different the person, the more complicated the tangle. Some people don’t move very much either way, and that's fine. Some people, however, want to see how tangled they can make their string. How many people can they meet? How many experiences can they experience. 

I’ve tangled mays string over the past few months. I will never be able to completely describe the last few months, but a quote from one of my favorite songs over the last year, and coincidentally a sort of “anthem” of the last few months, is that my life has been God doing something pretty remarkable. 

“From the head to the heart, 

You take me on a journey of letting go, 

and getting lost in You.”

I’ve gotten lost over the last couple of months. I dove into an experience I knew nothing about, and can never fully appreciate. I lived life with people from every corner of the earth. We had nearly nothing in common. What we did share, however, was a thirst for the love of people and God that Jesus lived out while on earth. Politics and religion aside, our focus was love. Love for each other, for our individually unique gifting, and the love of people. We laughed together, cried together, struggled in projects together, and even argued with each other. That’s family though. Families fight, but families love. I may never see most of the people I shared life with, but we will all have eternal impacts on one another’s hearts and lives. I have no idea if I will ever use media in any significant way, but I now know how to love. I know how to see the best in people. I know how to see what people can do instead of what they can’t. I know how to depend on my brothers and sisters in Christ. I know how to share life. I know how to love life. I know how to dwell in the joy of living and the joy of letting go of the things I can’t do and to focus on what God has allowed me to do. 

I will always have so much more to say than what I am able to sit down and type, but I don’t think words will ever suffice the experience. Because, that’s what it is, its an experience. From the mountains to the seas, I have seen God’s love in a culture I never thought I’d get to love in. 

Coming home will be hard. I am coming from a Godless region where I lived in a community similar to the kind the disciples lived in while following Christ. I will go from a small, powerful family, to a world where everyone professes Christ, but where Christ is seldom seen. It will be easy to go back and boast in my experience as “seeing the light.,” but I cannot do that. To come back home, I will have to practice the hardest thing in the world for me: grace and understanding. I have a job to do now. My job is to be a humble, consistent example of the life God wants for people. I have to love everyone, reject no one, and give completely of myself. I have to be a small, powerful voice for God’s love and his will for my life. Whether that is in the form of a Bible study, a media production company, a church, a small group, or a series of coffee shop encounters with strangers, I have to do something. 

To leave my experience as a series of neat pictures, and stories about living in a different world would be a waste of this season. I have to be different. I have to live differently. I have to think differently. As Jesus was different, so must I be also. 

14 = 12

14 = 12

Mathematically, fourteen does not equal twelve. 

When it comes to Media Light, however, fourteen absolutely equals twelve. 

We are fourteen students here. There are more staff and other people, but fourteen registered students. There were twelve disciples. Twelve men who decided to forsake everything and follow a phenomenon. Those men took a leap of faith into the unknown, and now, here we are doing the same. Fourteen students from all ages, genders, ethnicities, cultures, and backgrounds.

When I first came to Media Light, I knew little of what to expect. I knew, for the most part, what it was about, but I underestimated all of it. I underestimated the depth of learning, the pace, the people, and the impact it would have on my life. I viewed Media Light as a place to get away from my life for a bit, learn some skills, and vacation a bit. I absolutely did not expect the spiritual impact it would have. 

I have a bad habit of expecting events, people, practices, and other things to change my personal circumstances in life. I went to a Christian school expecting it to make me a “good Christian.” I squandered that. I helped out at church, volunteered, and tried to make myself feel better through good works. Well, it did nothing. I came to Media Light expecting to either have a spiritual epiphany, or to put up a shield to keep myself from being affected by the spiritualness of the school. I failed in both ways. I never had an epiphany, and I couldn’t keep up my “God firewall.” 

As I sit here at 3:10AM in Chiang Man on a short break from classes, I can’t help but notice the parallels of the last month here, and the life of Jesus’ disciples. I paused life, and jumped into an unknown. The disciples did the same. I took a leap of faith knowing that “something” was out there, but had no idea exactly what. The disciples did the same. I am living together with people I never knew before now, from all different walks of life, and we are all going on this journey together. The disciples did the same. 

While we don’t have a human person to follow like Jesus’ followers did, we do have the example Christ  modeled for us through his ministry. I never really know what the next day holds for me, and I am never anxious or stressed out about that. I have made lifelong friends that are like family to me. I have discovered parts of myself that I never knew existed, and I have also dusted off old talents and gifts of God that I failed to utilize like He intended. 

I still have a month left here, and I do miss home, but this is already a time of my life that I will never forget. A time when 30+ people came together for a time and a place that could only be divinely woven together. I would be lying if I said I knew what would happen after this school, but not knowing doesn’t bother me. If anything, I have learned that to plan out life is to limit myself. When I start making lists of what I want to accomplish in life, I limit myself to only those successes. While they may be good, they become my box. My benchmark by which I use to grade my life. 

God is a creator.  He creates and makes new things. Nothing he makes is the same. As God created and molded the heavens, Earth, time, and space, I know that he will surely guide my life if I let him. I must make more leaps. God wants me to trust him. He wants to show me how powerful and amazing he is. Before Media Light, I am not sure that I would easily let him. I was too comfortable in my little patch of life. So afraid of it cracking, that I would not give myself the opportunity to grow and be stretched. 

I have been stretched here. Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, this has been both one of the most stressful times of my life, as long as one of the most satisfying and beneficial. Whether I go on to do media or not, I can show the love of Christ through whatever medium God blesses me with. While media is quickly evolving and more easily accessible than ever, media means nothing without a intentional meaning. A meaning of hope, life, love, and grace. Media Light doesn't just give me the tools I need to produce excellent media, but it has taught me how to connect and be intentional with anyone and everyone I meet, and to show them the love of Christ in the most genuine and originally intended way as possible. 

Like the twelve disciples, we are fourteen students. Fourteen people on a journey to follow Jesus and to be a intricate part of his purpose for our world. Media Light is not just media, its love. Its grace. Its passion. Its growing. Its learning. Its God’s will for our lives. 

More Than A Feeling (Not the song by Boston)

Something happens every once in a while that, when it does, you want to record and relive it every second of every day for the rest of your life.

It can happen in a coffee shop, by a river, on a plane, in the morning, in the stillness of the night, in a bar, drunk, sober, during a breakup, amidst heartache, in celebrations and through tears. 

I don’t know how or why, but once in a while, I feel God. 

I usually find myself thinking about life, and where its taking me, and then all of the sudden, I feel it. I feel Him. I feel Her. I feel this force that spun the galaxies and stirs the ocean currents. Its overwhelming, and I usually do well to hold back tears, but its peaceful. 

I overthink everything. If there’s four ways to think about a problem, I spend time thinking about it in eight ways. I can every scenario of life and simultaneously play out every possible conclusion in my head, usually convincing myself that the worst ones will be my path. 

Here I am in Thailand, at a school I hardly even took seriously until mere days before arriving. I come with baggage and burdens, as all do. I come with the expectation that this will teach me a few interesting things, beef up my photography/videography skills, and then I’ll leave with a chapter to add to the book of my life. 

The problems of life, home, relationships, God, love, sin, its all still with me. It all still plagues me. It all still exists. But, once in a while, when I least expect it, I feel it. I feel that peace. I feel that assurance that everything will work out, that it all has a place in my life where it fits perfectly. 

When people make the mistake of asking me for advice or for my opinion, I usually know what to say. I know how to make them feel better, and to move their thought process onto something more vague and positive. However, I know myself. Because I know myself, I can’t console myself. I just keep everything in, locked away, buried deep, until it boils out and I have a silent, undetectable, existential meltdown. I don’t know what to do then. I just suffer through it, and learn to familiarize myself with the pain, so much so that I come to welcome it and find it comforting. 

It is then, that I feel it. 

That peace. 

It sends chills down my body, floods my mind with memories, soothes my soul, and drowns me in a love for life that I often lose and subsequently long for. 

I wish I could trap it, save it, and keep it near, but I can’t. It has to come fresh. Though it often feels the same, its not. It is almost as if its “custom built” for the moment. Whatever size the hole is in my soul, its the perfect fit. 

Its indescribable. 

It cannot be imitated

replicated

reproduced

saved

recorded

relived

revived

It has to be God. 

It has to be that force that hold humanity together, despite our constant tugging and pulling apart. It isn’t a chemical. It cannot be studied or seen. 

It has to be God.

Now what does it mean? 

I have no idea. 

Often, I feel God, and its amazing for a while, but then life happens and the memory of the moment fades into times. 

What do I do with it?

I have no idea. 

I wish I could harness it and plow through life with a confidence and self-assurance that people so often long for. Right now though, I haven’t had that. Maybe I will one day, but right now, nope. 

I never know when or where these moments will happen, but I do know that they come at the perfect time. They come when I least expect them, but need them the most. 

Maybe I will come out of this season will a handle on this peace, or whatever it is? I sure hope so. If not, I will still be okay. They will still happen, I trust, and I will keep pushing through life day-by-day, until this peace takes me home. 

Wedding Dress

If this post reads like a hodgepodge of random thought and confusing analysis, its because that’s what it is. Hence the name of my entire blog… But still, as is the usual, I apologize in advance. I also, much to the chagrin of every English professor I've ever had, never read over my writing. I already delete 95% of the things I write because the moment after I write them, they seem ridiculous. So this is me pushing stuff out before I have a chance to delete it. With all that said, good luck. 

When people ask me what my favorite verse or Bible story is, without hesitation, I go to Ezekiel 16. 

Go read it. Its interesting. In fact, its so interesting, that some Jews refused to read it because of how “interesting” it is. Seriously, go read it and then come back here.

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Crazy, huh? 

I love it. I love it, but I also hate it. I hate it because its so depressing,. I love it because its so depressing. Depressing, yet exciting. Depressing, yet, dare I say, hopeful. 

Its graphic for a reason. Its graphic because its about us. Well, its about Israel, technically, but us as well. We are the child in the desert. Here we are, little nothings on the big blue Earth. We’re thrashing around in our desert lives, left out to shrivel and die. Sadly, a lot of people do just that. Maybe not literally, but figuratively that’s all most do in life. They, and by they I also mean myself, go through life trying to do everything on our own. We try to be successful on our own. We try to learn on our own, find our own way, do our own thing, love what we choose, love who we choose.

Love who we choose. 

Dang. 

That’s me. That’s us. That’s the woman in Ezekiel 16. That’s the church. That’s not okay.

I can’t speak for other peoples’ lives, but I can for mine. 

I do all of those things. I’m the woman in the story. To God, to others, and to myself. And the worst part is…I’m aware of it. 

One of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced in my life, is watching someone go out of my life, and into someone else’s who cares so little about them and has nothing to give. That hurts. When you know you can love someone better than anyone else, but they go, still. 

Here’s why Ezekiel 16 is my favorite, because I’m both characters in the story. I’m the man who rescues the child and wants to give her everything she ever needs, only to have her give herself to others. I’m also the child as a woman, who throws herself to those who only want to take and hurt. Its a strange situation, I suppose, to play both the protagonist, and antagonist, but its a magic trick I seem quite adept at pulling off. 

So how does one who hurts others who care about them, but who is also hurt by others who they care so much for, untangle themselves? 

“Good question, Nathan.”

Thanks Nathan! I wish I knew! 

“Wedding Dress,” by Derek Webb, is a song that highlights that exact question.

Go listen to it. Seriously. Then come back.

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Feel like crap after that song? Good, that means the intention of the song got through. 

Its humbling. God loves us, has everything for us, will do anything for us, yet we try to get his love elsewhere. We throw God on like he’s a magic fix-it-all, when sometimes, we have to deal with the consequences of our actions.

Its Paul sneaking up on us through Romans 7:15. We know what is right, but that’s not what we do. Why? 

If I could somehow take every intellectual though I have about what to do in life, and actually do it, I’d be in a very good place. But no, we have emotions, desires, and wants. Things that make life better, but also just seem to pester us. We see a decision that needs to be made, and go “Yeah, that’s the right choice I should make! I’ll do it!” Do we? Of course we don’t. I don’t. I make the choice that I know I will regret, but in the moment, its the short term satisfaction that distracts and bids be come forth. 

I give love to the wrong people, and get uneasy when people that God sends my way, try to show His love to me. I’m repulsed, but politely, at least. 

God has rescued me from the desert, cleaned me up, dressed me in the finest clothes, and wants only for me to love him as much as he loves me. But I just can’t seem to do that. Its a switch I can't flip, an intellectual conclusion I can’t reach, a mountain I can't climb. I want to love people like God loves people. I want to choose God’s love over the waining and fleeting love of others. 

I don’t imagine its an easy thing to do, otherwise no one would ever have these problems. Ezekiel 16 wouldn’t exist as an example. 

Stretching

Thailand. I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I’d be here for two and a half months. I never thought I’d be stretched like I’ve been stretched. 

I had no idea what to expect when I came here. I had some ideas. Learning new skills, being immersed in a new culture, spiritual growth, I could’ve named all that before I got here. I’ve been sideswiped by the time. Usually when you know you will be experiencing something outside your comfort zone, you can mentally prep for it. You can shut everything down and focus intensely on getting through a challenge unscathed. What you can't plan for, however, is the endurance. I love being here, and I love the community that exists here. Its as close to what kind of community Jesus intended people to live in as we can get in today’s society. 

I underestimated how prepared I would need to be mentally and emotionally. 

I have far too little patience for others. Yet here I am learning patience.

I struggle even saying “I love you” to people. Love runs this entire place. 

I try to do everything on my own. My whole time here is spent as a part of a team. 

I hide my emotions and “disappear” from the world for a while. I am with people 95% of my time here.

I take people and relationships for granted back home. Being away brings a new meaning and so much more appreciation to everything I have back at home. 

Being so far for so long is one of the hardest, yet greatest, things a person can do. It pulls you out of your comfort zone, then makes no attempt to make life easy. Its not the family that I miss, although I do miss my family, its the lack of appreciation I had for them while I was there. This is a time of stretching. 

People don’t stretch for fun, they stretch so that when adversity comes, they won’t hurt themselves while battling through it. 

Life is a battle,………………………and I’ve never stretched. 

Relationships are hard,……………. and I’ve never stretched. 

Walking with God isn’t easy,……… and I’ve never stretched. 

Love is hard,……………………….. and I’ve never stretched. 

As I go through this time of stretching, I pray that isn’t doesn’t become easy, but that I can accept its importance. I pray that I can appreciate this opportunity. I pray that I can look into my life and be able to know how much this season will mean to me.

God is Absurd

The Absurdity of God

God is not what/who you thing it/he is.

          What is god? Let’s start with what god is not: a man, a woman, something in between, white, black, American, human, a church, a sermon, the Bible, a Christian, superman. god is not what we think, and nor should it be. To revere god in the way that we describe him, simply trying to describe him at all should be shunned as blasphemous and profane. The great thinker, St. Anselm, described “god” as “greater than that which can be conceived.” god, is greater than even what we can even conceive. Think about that. We can think that there is something greater than what we can think. god is greater than even that! To even begin to name god is to degrade who he is. Christians may sometimes think the Jews are a little odd to not even dare utter the name of god, but if you think about it, that is the only true way to describe god, you can’t. 

           Some people view god as an projection of their ideal selves. I am not always honest, therefore god is always honest. I am not always loving, therefore god must be all-loving. It is a nice approach, and it feels good, but that cannot be who god is. If god is merely a perfect version of a life, then is he not on par with the ancient Roman and Greek gods? Some see god as slightly more “god-like” than the aforementioned. he is all those perfect attributes, but he somehow exists outside of our understanding. He is everything we are not, but in a way we cannot yet understand. This still limits god. 

          God is may other things. Countless theologians and philosophers have dedicated their lives to understand who/what “god”is, and what such attributes of a being would be. To me, god has to be so much more. The more I experience life and learn about how differently god looks to each and every person, the more I want to gain the greatest understanding of how to think about god, but without creating an idol out of the search for god. 

          God is the absurd. God is exactly where you think he is not. God is the homeless, the drug-addicted, the broken, the sinful, the beaten, the scorned, the raped, the murdered, the deceived, the dead. How can one read through the parables of Christ and not be left in utter bewilderment. Each parable ends differently than expected. The father welcomes the son home, the Samaritan in the one who stops, the shepherd turns from the many to go after the one, the man sells all he has for a seemingly barren field. While on paper, we may agree and often claim to have foreseen the outcomes of the parables, we live in a way that negates our agreement with Christ’s teachings. We beg for justice. We scorn the wicked. We cast out the sick. We ignore our hurting enemy. 

          Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel once described god through the story of his concentration camp experience and witnessing of the hanging of two men and a boy:

           

                    “Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their                             tongues were hanging out,

                    swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still                         breathing...

                    And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death,                             writhing before our eyes.

                    And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed                           him. His tongue was still

                    red, his eyes not yet extinguished.

                    Behind me, I heard the same man asking:

                    ‘For God's sake, where is God?’

                    And from within me, I heard a voice answer:

                    ‘Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows…’”

           God is hanging from the gallows…

          God is will never be where you expect god to be. God is in the eyes of the beaten and broken. God is in the tears of the orphans and the prayers of the desperate. God has to make us uncomfortable. If god becomes a force that we use to justify beliefs and ideals, then I pray for god to rid us of god. 

          God is found in the writhing boy hanging from the gallows, and god is also found in the love of one another. God is found in the sunrise and sunset. God is found in the tumbling waves and the sounds of the forest. God is found in the first cries of a newborn and the last parting smiles of a loved one. God is all around us. God is that sudden realization we sometimes have that life really is better than we often think and realize. God is the freshly fallen snow and the morning dew. God is a song, a dance, a painting, a poem. God is in everything and god is everything. God can only create good. Everything good comes from god. Laughter is good. Fellowship is good. A loving partner is good. Sex within the bounds of god’s love is good. God is good. 

          I get so tired sometimes when I hear people use god to justify their beliefs, or to condemn people who think differently. God is whatever pushes us—makes us uncomfortable. Jesus was not this being or symbol that came into existence to call together to the lost the downtrodden into a group of their own so as to rival their oppressors. Jesus came to tear apart every preconceived notion of who god was, and is. Jesus’ ministry was not to give us a clean and tidy set of instructions on how to escape hell. No, Jesus’ ministry was meant to wreck our lives and rattle us to our core. Even Jesus’ disciples did not fully understand Christ’s mission. Read the story of the woman at the well in the fourth chapter of John’s gospel. Jesus knew that the disciples would so heavily question his actions, that he sent them into the city while he meant with the woman who would later become a resounding echo of the love of Christ to all those who cast her aside and counted her out. 

          God is love. God is what we feel when we love. God is pain. God is there in our darkest and most painful moments. God is not a superman who rescues us from every trouble, but rather a loving father/mother who sometimes painfully allows a child to endure a hardship, knowing the strength it will build in them in the end. God is uncomfortable. God is comforting. God is gracious and merciful. God is the unexpected and unpredictable. God is the unreasonable and illogical.

God is the absurd.

Losing Our Religion

Our religious liberties are under attack in America.

Under attack from what?

Nothing. 

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American Christians have recently felt under attack, worried that we will lose our religious liberties and be forced to live in disagreement with our religious beliefs. Worried that our beloved pastors will be forced to marry homosexual couples. “Under attack” is the phrase I have seen pop up a lot recently. “We are under attack!” No. No we are not. 

When you are raised in a society that affords you everything, the loss of anything is felt deep in your core. 

The older I get, the more I realize that American Christians cry about being persecuted, while truly persecuted Christians suffer in silence. 

As a white Christian in America, I realize that I have extraordinary privallege. “This country was founded on Christian principles!” So, right from the beginning, if you believe like us, society is going to work more in your favor than for person down the road who believes differently. We cry for religious freedom, but only want Christian prayers in schools. We cry for religious freedom, but we only want our ten commandments on the steps of the courthouse. We cry for religious freedom, but talk down about and degrade muslim communities wanting to build a mosque to worship in. 

Christians do not want religious freedom. Christians want Christian freedom. 

As a Christian, this hurts my soul to a level so deep I sometimes find myself feeling physically sick when thinking about it more than I ought. 

Christians flock to the internet in outrage when a bill is vetoed that would have allowed them to discriminate based on religious preferences under the guise of religious freedom. 

We rally around a cake shop that refuses to provide a cake for a homosexual wedding. We want to move heaven and Earth to allow those people to refuse service to those they disagree with. Just as Jesus refused healing to those who did not want it or were different. 

Oh wait, Jesus served everyone. In fact, God’s example for our lives in that of His son Jesus, went out of his way to serve those people least expected him to help. If we claim to love God, and follow Jesus’ example, shouldn’t we be against things that would allow people to refuse service to others? Shouldn’t we WANT to serve those who believe differently than us?

As a Christian, I understand why people do not like us. I wouldn’t either if I were them. We grow up and embrace an attitude of accepting those that accept us, and bashing those who disagree with us. 

We fuel a society that says you either believe totally this way and you’re right, or you believe totally one way and you’re wrong. You can’t love Jesus and love non-christians. We say we love all people, but do we really? We love people who haven’t made a choice yet. If they chose to be on our side, then welcome to the club! But if they chose the other side, we throw hell in their face and want to be as far from them as possible. One side or the other. Republican or Democrat. 

The more I learn about Jesus, the more I realize how stifled his voice would be in today’s society. Jesus wasn’t the leader that the Pharisees wanted him to be, and he wasn’t the conquering ruler that even his disciples thought he would be. Jesus was his own. Loved all, hated none; forgive many, despised few. 

Yesterday the internet was flooded with Christians burning the Governor at the stake because of his vetoing of the “religious liberties” bill. Seeing friends and people I respect jump on the bandwagon really hurt me. Seeing Jantzen Franklin pen an open letter against the governor really hurt me. 

Where is the Christlike attitude we are called to emulate? 

Pastors have never been forced to marry someone they didn’t want to, and won’t because of the First Amendment. And how does the right to religiously discriminate sound good to Christians? How is that spreading the message of Christ? What kind of message does that send to those looking to us to be an example of the Jesus we profess to follow?

We claim to be living examples of Jesus. So if we claim that, then we need to serve as Jesus served. Serving a cake to someone who believes differently than us is our “woman at the well.” Our Lord went out of his way to serve and spend time with a woman who knew her place was so low in society that she could not even get water from the well at the same time as everyone else. She was the least of these. 

We must find the least of these in our society. They are all around us. They are begging to be loved like Jesus loved the least in his day. They are dying without hope and living without life. We have become too comfortable with serving those who see life as we do. We have become so closed to people different than us that is cares me.

Preachers, Romania, and Horseradish

Preachers, Romania, and Horseradish

I’m cynical and doubtful. I always assume that things are just a coincidence and that there can always be “signs” if you look for them. Confirmation biases help people find evidence for anything they want to believe. 

Growing up in the Bible Belt, its not too infrequent that people will approach you and say they “feel led to talk to you.” Whether it be a genuine feeling, or simply and opening to a proselytization attempt, they never seem to be much of a surprise. As a server, I will sometimes have tables ask if they can pray for me and if there is anything specific to pray about. Usually I agree to be prayed for and often talk about how expensive my school loans are in hope of a nice tip. 

Lately, as I have been reading, researching, and studying the things I believe, I have been at a sort of crossroads. I know what I believe, want to believe, and how to believe it; but the implementation process varies by individual and has been quite difficult for me. It has been like a spiritual growth spurt, discovering new ways that faith and religion works, but still learning to live day-to-day with it. 

I have had at least a half-dozen instances in my life where things have happened and people have spoken to me about things, and in a way that is unexplainable. I have had people talk to me about things I have shared with no one, and sequences of events take place in a way that cannot be explained with chance. 

This Sunday at work I had a table of 4 gentlemen come in. They were nice, and I enjoyed serving them. The older gentlemen asked me my name, and responded by recognizing that my name is Biblical and asked if I new the origin of my name in Hebrew. I told him I did, which opened the door to a discussion of faith. I thought this was another “praying table” and was ready with my response of school loans to their inquiring of things to pray for. Over the course of the conversation, he told me he felt like I was at a crossroads. I had spoken very little besides responses of “yeah”, and “that’s right” as he talked about faith. But yeah, I was at a crossroads; a simple coincidence. The conversation went on, and he talked to me about prayer and how there is no “in-between” faith. The younger man across from him then chimed in and mentioned briefly that he was Romanian. WHAT? I am Romanian… Honestly, what are the odds. I asked him what town he was from, and it was the same town as my uncle… This is just getting weird at this point. They then talk to me about how they were literally in the Applebee’s parking lot, and decided at the last second to come to Longhorn. The odds are dropping at this point. Mind you, I still have told them very little about myself other than my Romanian heritage and my Biblical names. The older gentlemen is talking again, and is talking about how I am young and how it is important to “go down the right path in life.” He is talking and says something along the lines of “you’re 22, you’re at a point where you have explored both options in life and are making a decision.” I never told him my age… So these men come in at that particular time, that particular place, sit at that particular, one guy is Romanian, they speak about my life as if they’ve known me for a while, and they tell me how old I am. Honestly, if scenes like this had not happened to me a half-dozen times before, I would brush it off as a crazy coincidence. 

My problem, is that when things like this happen, I am self-aware of biases people have towards recognizing sheer coincidences as divine. If someone wants to believe that dogs understand calculus, they can find enough vague things to put together to convince themselves that my out could be my math tutor. I understand that, yet the odds of these things happening, coupled with recent internal struggling and deep exploration of faith and theology lead me to believe that these occurrences are, in fact, divine in nature and cannot be ignored. 

Now let’s pretend that I hate God. Let’s pretend I choose to believe in no god and that my way is best, and that religion is a way for weak people to feel strong. Even if that was how I believed, and even if that was true, I have seldom met people as genuinely happy about life as these 4 gentlemen. They all went around and told me their stories. With near-tears welling up in the Romanian’s eyes as he talks about the moment he gave up his own way and deciding to let God take control, no one could have denied the authenticity of this man’s faith. EVEN IF his faith was misplaced or false, he was happier than I am. He has more joy than I do. He loves people more than I do. He is a better person than I am. He is everything he failed to do on his own. 

While this wasn’t something to spark a belief in God, this was undoubtedly a reminder for me. It reminded me of the things that have happened before, and the faith I had as a child. While I believe that studying and knowledge is important, I recently had gotten too deep in the theology of God, and was missing the personal nature of God. 

I am not perfect. I fail everyday, and I often hate myself for it. But there is a way out. The joy on these mens’ faces, the joy of an adopted orphan, a fed child, a cared for widow. These are things that when I see, I am reminded and convinced that everyone has two options. Live my way, or God’s way. I had spent too long trying to prove the existence of God and being denied proof by the hypocrisy of Christians, including myself. I realized that to judge something perfect through imperfect people is simply foolish. The greatest movies of all time, with 100% favorability ratings still have SOME people who don’t like them. Whether it be the guy who wasn’t cast for the lead roll, or your 90 year old grandmother who didn’t understand the story, there will always be people who misrepresent something. To judge something without going straight to the source to explore personally is foolish. I have infinite respect for someone who explores Christianity with an open mind and comes back finding generally nothing they agree with, than someone who dismisses faith in a God because of a bad experience with people. While understandable, to not explore something warranting research just does not make sense. 

I listen and follow a group of progressive Christians made up of poets, singers, and “science guys.” One of the people in the group was a former atheist who explored Christianity and put together a list of things that show how, at its very basic form, faith is highly beneficial. As I pursue this, I hold to these things as a base for belief. They are basic concepts that can be proven by believers of faith AND science. They remind me to not give up the pursuit. 

Faith Axioms 

God- is AT LEAST the natural forces that created and sustain the Universe as experienced via a psychosocial model in human brains that naturally emerges from innate biases. 

EVEN IF that is a comprehensive definition for God, the pursuit of this personal, subjective experience can provide meaning, peace, and empathy for others.

Jesus- is AT LEAST a man so connected to God that he was called the Son of God and the largest religious movement in human history is centered around his teachings. 

EVEN IF this is all Jesus is, following his teachings can promote peace, empathy, and genuine morality. 

The Bible- is AT LEAST a collection of books and writings assembled by the Church that chronicle a people group's experiences with, and understanding of, God over thousands of years. 

EVEN IF that is a comprehensive definition of the Bible, study of scripture is warranted to understand our culture and the way in which people come to know God.

The Holy Spirit- is AT LEAST the psychological and neurological components of God that allow God to be experienced as a personal force or agent. 

EVEN IF this is all the Holy Spirit is, God is more relatable and neurologically actionable when experienced this way.

Faith- is AT LEAST a way to contextualize the human need for spirituality and find meaning in the face of mortality. 

EVEN IF this is all faith is, spiritual practice can be beneficial to cognition, emotional states, and culture. 

Prayer- is AT LEAST a form of meditation that encourages the development of healthy brain tissue, lowers stress, and can connect us to God. 

EVEN IF that is a comprehensive definition of prayer, the health and psychological benefits of prayer justify the discipline.

Salvation- is AT LEAST the means by which humanity overcomes sin to produce human flourishing. EVEN IF this is all salvation is, spiritual and religious actions and beliefs that promote salvation are good for humankind. 

Sin- is AT LEAST volitional action or inaction that violates one's own understanding of what is moral. Sin comes from the divergent impulses between our lower and higher brain functions and our evolution-driven tendency to do things that serve ourselves and our tribe. 

EVEN IF this is all sin is, it is destructive and threatens human flourishing.

The Church- is AT LEAST the global community of people who choose to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. 

EVEN IF this is all the church is, the Church is still the largest body of spiritual scholarship, community, and faith practice in the world.

The Afterlife- is AT LEAST the persistence of our physical matter in the ongoing life cycle on Earth, the memes we pass on to others with our lives, and the model of our unique neurological signature in the brains of those who knew us. 

EVEN IF this is all the afterlife is, the consequences of our actions persist beyond our death and our ethical considerations must consider a timeline beyond our death.