#1: A Health Conversation Gone Wrong with my Granddad
Granddad: It scares me all the obese people these days. I just can't believe it. We didn't used to have people so obese like this. You know what? I bet it was them who voted for Obama... he promised change - I bet they thought that meant more food.
(I search my Granddad's face for any sign that this is a joke... nothing)
Granddad: (turning to me) Emily, you are an Obama fan aren't you?
Me: (long pause) Yes sir, I am.
Granddad: Well - (long pause) - I guess I love you anyway.
#2: Nephew Bonding
My sister's 2 year old son Ezra gets in trouble and has to go to time out. This is my brother's 3 year old son Ethan's response.
Ethan: (very serious) Mommy, Daddy, I don't like Ezra.
My brother: (trying not to laugh) Son, that is not very nice.
Ethan: But really Daddy, I DO NOT like Ezra. I DO NOT LIKE EZRA!
Ah, holiday family fun.
Ok, and now moving on to the real story, numero dos.
Perhaps you've heard it before. Once there was a God, who chose to give up his godly form, and godly dwelling to become a man, and live as men do, to know them face to face, and love them.
The Christmas story was told to me twice as the holiday neared, but with a focus that was, if not completely new to me, unusual.
The first time was in a book by Henri Nouwen called The Selfless Way of Christ: Following Christ on the Road of Downward Mobility. The subtitle drew me in. I am yearning for a way out of the American productivity, cosumeristic obsession. I am yearning to join and help the meek.
His thesis was that as Christ stepped down from heaven to be with us, so we who follow him are called to give up our upward striving, to instead join the powerless. It is not a new take on the Christmas story really, but a different interpretation of what the implications are for us. Usually I think our reaction to the story is thankfulness. As in, "I'm so thankful Jesus came to save me," or, as I am asked so many times when people find out I lived in a third world country last year, "aren't you so much more thankful for what you have?" Well, truthfully, no. Truthfully thinking about what I have when others have not makes me angry and disgusted. Why should seeing starvation make me thankful when I am overly stuffed? The stark difference between my life and the lives of the multitudes in underdeveloped countries knocks the air out of my positive attitude, and pushes me not toward thankfulness, but toward (I hope) getting my fattened excesses trimmed away and put to use where they are desperately needed. It seems the Christ story should do the same.
Randy Harris, the most insightful, humble (and humorous but that is straying from the point) theologian I have ever had the great blessing of hearing speak, took a similar stance on the story of Christ's coming in a sermon I heard the Sunday before Christmas. He pointed out that Jesus gave up his home for us, and defined home has people - I guess in this case God-people... angels maybe? - and feelings of security and comfort. In doing this, Harris said, he extended home to us. And once again, in following, we are called to give up what we are most driven to protect, our homes, our security. Harris posited that in giving up our homes - in loving our poor, needy neighbors; our international neighbors; our enemy neighbors, rather than protecting ourselves from them - we are in fact, extending our home. Thus the beautiful paradox becomes that by giving up our home we gain a home which cannot be taken because it has no bounds.
I love these takes on this story. They make my heart beat faster and bring tears to my eyes. Yes, I think, this is what I have been called to do, and I love the God who calls me. But after the sermon has ended and I've finished the last page of the book I find myself at a loss. A loss for the how. I can't tell if all this searching, weeping, writing, and railing is going anywhere. Passion is simply a child's tantrum if it has no road to travel.
Harris' sermon, though pointed, did not contain practical steps, but only a challenge. Nouwen's book, on the other hand, was very practical about the way he believes one should endeavour to follow the road of downward mobility, namely: go to church, read the Bible, and pray. Those of you who have had religious conversations with me recently can probably see my problem with this. What can someone like me, who has been jaded by a life in a conservative middle-class church and a year in a 3rd world Muslim nation, do with this command? No. No Nouwen, I need to do something besides these things that I've been doing my whole life. I've gone to church, I've read the Bible, I've prayed. Now give me action.
Even as I type and my zeal against the passivity of the American church rises, I know there is truth in Nouwen's words. From my youthful perspective, the truth has something to do with living a life that is somehow above this world, above its endless running and needing, above the voices who tell us what to do. He is saying that pursuing these disciplines transforms us into people who walk a different path. I just haven't had the experience he had, and I see few others who have. I don't know how to follow his wisdom.
A sinking feeling of hopelessness is rolling over me as I write this. I am tired; the Christmas break wore on my heart and spirit. A friend challenged me recently to be more forward in my words about the state of the world that I saw in Bangladesh and my condemnation of the way we Americans go about life in spite of it. The challenge was deeply validating to my grief, and yet, I can't follow it. I can't because I have no answers. I know many of you, my dear friends, yearn to see the kingdom come for all humans as fervently as I do (and more so), and thus it is simply... well, I can't find stronger words than I have used before, it is heart-wrenching to look on the reality of the world when you have faith in another way. Many times it paralyzes rather than inspires. Where is the road to the kingdom? I'm not ready to try to put anyone else on my path till I have some idea of whether or not it is leading to something good. Perhaps it is a road to a cross of salvation for all mankind, or maybe it is the railings of a silly, emotional girl with too much time on her hands and verbal ammunition.
I am tired. This is my second Christmas story.
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ReplyDeleteEmily-
ReplyDeleteAMAZING post. I know exactly how you feel when you want so passionately to change the world, but have no idea what steps to take to make that happen. I guess sometimes God wants to take the time to prepare us first, but I know that (for me) its hard to be patient though the preparation- I just want to get out there and do something that brings people joy and makes a difference.
Oh, and I nearly died when I read the conversation with your grandad- HILARIOUS!
Your grandad is hilarious :) This comment won't do this thought-provoking post much justice, but I loooove Henri Nouwen, and I'm surprised that we never talked about him over coffee! Or did we? I read The Return of the Prodigal Son, which I recommend to anyone and everyone. I'm always searching for his books at used bookstores. Also been searching for Real Sex, but I'm about to break down and buy it via Amazon.
ReplyDeleteBut back to Nouwen, maybe this book is an earlier one of his, but he did do more than go to church and pray, he left his academic career and became a chaplin at a home for the mentally retarded. He writes some about this in The Return of the Prodigal Son, and he also writes a lot about his struggles the Elder Son, who was faithful to the Father, yet perhaps just as lost as the Younger Son. Don't know if any of that will help you figure out what actions you should take, maybe it's just a defense of Nouwen, letting you know that he did take action, more than the traditional Christian path.
Also, church is action. Not the passive typical American church that you're rightly disillusioned with, but real, living, breathing church is action. If it's not, there's no point to church.