A Religion for Losers

I don't often write in this space about God or my faith, at least in a personal way. Not because I am ashamed of it or it doesn't exist, though you might not be able to tell from my recurring criticisms of religion and church and so on. Rather, I choose not to write about the personal aspects of my faith because I know there are many other voices with more and better things to say about who God is and what it means to follow Jesus. That isn't what I'm here to do. I don't want to muddle the conversation by entering it as if I were some kind of expert, when admittedly I am not. All that being said, something came up at my church on Sunday which I feel the need to dive into a little bit.

Awareness

This morning I visited a new church in my search for a new community, a new place to call home. It was what you might call a coffee church, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the people I met. Even better, the pastor spoke on something I've been thinking about a lot lately: the fact that if we truly believe what we claim to believe, we must step out into the communities around us and make an impact. If we're not making an impact on the people and places around us, we're simply not living the way we're meant to live.

Unfortunately, figuring out exactly what this means is far more difficult than I ever used to imagine, at least at first glance. If it is our purpose to give, to serve and to love those around us, how do we discern and respond to that calling? No two people are called in precisely the same way, just as no two parents will ever agree on whose child is more special. To think and to act otherwise is simply an exercise in beating your head against a wall.

Trust, And Other Things

I was dangerously close to becoming dangerously cynical only a matter of days ago. To be fair, I've always been a very skeptical person, bordering cynicism in some cases. Asking questions and challenging assumptions are things I do on a regular basis, and this can sometimes lead to serious bouts with cynicism. But at the same time, I've also been someone who more often than not gives people the benefit of the doubt and trusts others more than I probably should. I've often been afraid that this willingness to trust would come back to bite me. And it did. And I quickly began to doubt everything.

There Is Always Hope. Always.

The last time it happened I didn't understand. I was sitting in the place I call home, a place that I love, a place full of people I love and love me. I could not understand the level of loneliness and brokenness that must have been. The best way to describe the way I felt is confused. Completely, totally confused. No matter how greatly I tried to understand, I could not. This time is no different. I do not understand, not one bit. Yet to try and understand would be to try and step into a pair of shoes which I have no business trying to stand in. I do not understand, nor should I.

In situations like these I find myself trying to rationalize or justify or explain what just happened. I try to spin it such that I can say to myself and others "don't worry, everything will be okay", even if that simply isn't the case. The thing is, things like this aren't supposed to happen where I come from, to the people I grew up with. It's like being hit by a train when you didn't even know there were tracks nearby. It's shocking and jarring and confusing all at the same time, a crazy mix of emotions that doesn't add up to anything.

There Is Always Hope

“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
- Chuck Palahniuk

“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
- Andy Dufresne

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”
- Anne Lamott

A Different Kind of Hope

Sometimes it becomes difficult to separate Jesus from his followers. As in "if a Christian says something, they must be speaking for Jesus, right?" Well, no. Not exactly. Don't get me wrong, that isn't a condemnation of Christ-followers; rather, it is simply an acknowledgment of reality. Many Christians act as if they know God's will, and that their words are direct from the Creator himself. An "agree with me or else" kind of attitude. It is no secret that I have become very disillusioned over the years with the church. Non-capitalized. I see many differences between what churches teach and what Jesus taught. I see a difference in focus between Christ and many of his followers. Myself included. (By the way, any time I rail on the church or organized religion, know that I'm not claiming to be innocent myself...I'm speaking about myself and to myself as much as about anyone else.)

I've written often in this space about my growing passion for the broken and marginalized. Developing my heart for poverty and need is perhaps my most important goal at the moment. My home church (the Vineyard in Colerain) has recently started down this path as well, jumping on the World Vision bandwagon and pushing the book The Hole in Our Gospel, which I cannot wait to read. Sitting through my pastor's sermon about God's heart for the poor last Sunday was one of the best church experiences I have had in a very long time.

Yet, even as I see my church (and many others) beginning to focus on the broken and empty and starving and alone, I still hear Pat Robertson saying that the earthquake in Haiti was vengeance from God. I can't escape Republican talking heads spouting that we should scrap the welfare system, despite the great good it does for many Americans in need. I see judgment placed on the poor and alone, on victims of AIDS and other diseases, on single mothers and children with no fathers. If that is what being Christian is about, I want no part of it.

But then I read this and am renewed:

He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free, the LORD gives sight to the blind, the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down, the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
Psalm 146:7-9

That is the God I want to follow. The one who champions the oppressed and hungry. The one who heals the sick. The one who sustains the fatherless and the widows. The God who does the things I wish I could do, who loves the people I wish I could love when I cannot. I've seen God painted in many different ways over the years, as a warrior and a lover and a creator and a judge and a king. But God as a provider, a sustainer and a father to the broken, oppressed and alone is by far my favorite.

Hearing those words gives me hope. Hope that I can see the oppressed and hungry find real improvement in their lives. Hope that the fatherless and widows will experience love and strength in a tangible way. Hope that God might show me that love too. I've written before about acting in the name of hope, about doing things with that idea in the back of my mind. I'm certainly not backing off from that at all; I still believe that hope is acting in the name of truth, consequences be damned. But I'm starting to realize that those things I am passionate about are also God's passions. My hope can and will certainly manifest in actions, but now I believe it can simply be a state of being. Living in a perpetual state of hope. Maybe these are two different manifestations of hope, maybe they aren't all that different. I don't quite understand everything about that, what implications it has. But it is exciting to think about.

And so on...

The Value of a Broken Heart

“May my heart be broken.”

Last night I visited the World Vision Experience: AIDS at the Super Vineyard in Springdale. Before I say anything else, I highly encourage anyone and everyone to go. The Experience takes no more than half an hour, and it will open your eyes and impact your perceptions significantly. The Experience is here until Sunday, June 27th, open until 9:00 pm each night (Sunday it closes at 8). If you think you have an understanding of the AIDS crisis on this planet (and specifically in Africa), go anyway. You will not regret it.

The quote I included above is one I ran across at the end of the Experience, and one I will come back to frequently throughout this post. The final part of the walkthrough includes a wall where visitors are encouraged to voice a prayer on paper and tack it to the wall, where it can be used as encouragement to others. As I went to add mine to the many already present, one leaped out at me among the rest. Surrounded by prayers that filled up pages, expressing emotions and beliefs and encouragement, a single line on a single page made me stop. “May my heart be broken.” I could not look away and I could not focus on anything else. Nothing more needed to be said. In that moment, a wave of understanding and emotion washed over me.

Each of us has experienced heartbreak at some point in life. I know that my heart has been broken, mended and broken again many times – a sort of wash, rinse, repeat cycle. Society has created within us an aversion to heartbreak; this certainly makes sense, considering that heartbreak is one of the most painful things any of us can experience in our lives. In this culture, we work endlessly to remove the possibility of heartbreak; one night stands, monotonous desk jobs and a suburban lifestyle are all ways we try to compartmentalize our lives and live it without emotion. A one night stand without a name or a connection carries with it no emotion, no possibility of a broken heart the next morning. Maybe emptiness, but not heartbreak. By refusing to connect with people on an emotional level, we eliminate the power they have over us to break our hearts, to make an imprint on our emotional state. We attempt to live our lives as emotional hermits in a world that is begging to witness real, pure, raw emotion.

This attempt to live our emotional lives like a hermit on Times Square is understandable. Certainly each time my heart is broken I am less willing to make my entire heart available to the next person or the next cause. If I dive headfirst emotionally into a romantic relationship and end up getting burned, odds are that the next time I might just dip my toe in the water. I will be much more cautious, less willing to take the chance. As a good friend of mine pointed out, the first break up we have is always the hardest, and we will likely never love as freely or ‘throw caution to the wind’ like we did in our first relationship. She correctly noted that this is explained by our ability to love without fear in our first relationship; there was no history of getting burned, therefore no fear of it.

I believe that the important truth we have been ignoring is the benefit of having our hearts broken. I know, it sounds backwards. Even with all of the pain and sadness it can cause, I firmly believe that there are some immeasurable positives that can come from such an experience.

The first benefit that comes with having my heart broken is something it tells me about myself. If I do not care about something, it cannot break my heart. It simply is not possible. However, having my heart broken tells me that I cared, that I was emotionally invested. In the aftermath of a Finals Game 7 loss to the Lakers, Doc Rivers (coach of the Celtics) had the following to say (per espn.com): "There's a lot of crying in that locker room," Rivers said. "A lot of people who care. I don't think there was a dry eye. A lot of hugs, a lot of people feeling awful. That's a good thing. Showed a lot of people cared." They were emotionally drained and broken, in a real way. When this happens to me, it tells me that my emotions were not fraudulent, that I can trust myself to be passionate about something and care about it deeply without worrying that the emotions are not real. The importance of being able to trust my emotions as real is huge. If I were to lose my best friend and not bat an eye or shed a tear, if I were to respond to losing a relationship with someone I loved without emotion, I would be forced to question my ability to feel and to invest in someone emotionally in a real way. Having my heart broken lets me know that I am capable of real emotion.

Another benefit to having your heart broken is the ability to be healed. I would not claim that being healed from a broken heart is certain or easy, but when it happens the relief and peace that comes with it is unmatched. The few times I have experienced that healing have been some of the most hopeful, peaceful and exciting times of my life. Some might argue that the hope coupled with being healed is not worth the pain associated with having your heart broken; I disagree. Few things are as valuable as hope, and new hope is a commodity that cannot be replicated. As I have written before, hope is perhaps the most important thing I can hold onto. “Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” Without hope, I cannot have passion. Without passion, my life is meaningless.

The third benefit is the one I am concerned with the most, as I believe it to be the most important and as having the largest impact. The simple premise is this: I believe that without having our hearts broken, we cannot experience compassion for others in a real way. That truth is what I realized as I wondered at the wisdom contained in that single sentence on the prayer wall. “May my heart be broken.” I have written many times before about my search for my passions, and how I believe that part of my purpose is to fight against poverty and economic injustice. The thing is, my heart was never truly broken for victims of poverty or AIDS or war. Sure, I felt bad. But no one wants to hear about genocide; it isn’t proper table conversation. Average churchgoers don't want to hear about the slums and ghettos all over the United States; instead we just ignore the drug and poverty problems in our country and blame the issues on a lack of morality or something along those lines.

For years I have wanted to do my part, but I think it came more from a sense of duty than anything else. I saw a problem, I wanted to be a part of the solution. That’s how my mind functions, and that is how my beliefs on social justice developed. But yesterday, hearing the stories I heard and seeing the problems as nakedly as I have ever seen, my heart broke. My passion to fight for these people isn’t coming from a sense of duty anymore. It is coming from a broken heart that feels immense compassion for them. No, I do not understand what they are going through, and I almost certainly never will. But when my heart broke for them, my perspective shifted. While my passion for action and change will not be different, the motive behind it is. It isn’t an equation anymore; now I feel. Now I ache. I hope that all of us have the opportunity to experience a moment of heartbreak. The compassion I felt last night, the compassion I feel right now - I want to see that imprinted on other people. If we begin to ache for the marginalized, impoverished and forgotten, we will seek out ways to make an impact, be it at home or abroad; if we begin to feel compassion, in a real way, maybe we will actually do something.

May all of our hearts be broken. And so on…

A Battle to Fight, part 2

I am a passionate person. Wait, let me back up. Let’s start here: I am not a reactionary person. I consider (almost) every word that comes out of my mouth carefully. I refuse to make assumptions about people. If you try to offend me or trash talk me or get in my head, I promise you that 99 times out of 100 you will fail. But back to my first statement: I am a passionate person (who wants to be more passionate and develop my passions). While it is difficult to get me fired up about day to day things – during a pickup basketball game, for example – there are certain topics that I care about deeply and will elicit emotion from me if brought up. Earlier this month I wrote about my need for a battle to fight; in the time before writing that piece and after, I have considered the things that create passion and emotion within me. I have written on some of these topics previously: the prevalence of divorce in our society, the dangers of marrying young, the monotony and waste of a white-collar life. However, the biggest passion I have discovered revolves around the rampant poverty which dominates much of this world.

I grew up in a middle class family, two parents and two siblings. We always had food on the table, never were in danger of losing our home, and my siblings and I were able to attend private schools. I have been able to live comfortably and safely, without any worry of being on the street or going hungry. The vast majority of people I consider to be my friends have a similar background. Many come from families with more money than my family has. This is not to say one family is better than another, or that coming from one background is better than another; rather, it is to explain where I have come from and to reveal something about my past.

Because I have never been in danger of going without, poverty was the furthest thing from my mind. Why think about something if it has nothing to do with you? Without question, it was a situation of ignorance being bliss. Once my eyes were opened to the problems and prevalence of poverty in this world, I began to wonder earnestly at how to fight this massive problem.

My education and future career revolve around the financial industry. Money is part of everything I do. As such, efficiency and proper use of resources is not only something I am being trained in, but something I care deeply about. I think this greatly impacts how I approach the issue of poverty, and it leads me to a handful of frustrations. Let me explain: we all understand how blessed we are to be living in a country that provides us with opportunity and freedom. We have access to food and water and shelter. In Africa, India, Vietnam, this is not the case. I believe that it is our duty as human beings to seek to improve the lives of other human beings, and to do so in as significant a way as possible. This brings me to the idea of wasting resources. When Solid Rock Church chooses to spend large amounts of money on rebuilding a giant statue of Jesus that serves nothing but vanity, I get fired up. Use that money to fight AIDS in Africa, or to improve the economy in Afghanistan. When I see countless youth groups and others taking short term missions trips and spending more money on travel and sightseeing than on the people they are going to “serve”, I get fired up. Do mission work in your community, and send the monetary resources down to used most efficiently. (I want to write more on these issues in the future...now is not the time.)

I am constantly thinking of ideas and plans for how to make dents into the problem of poverty, but many of these cannot and will not be realized until I am a much older person or because I have no idea how to implement them. I need to find ways to make an impact now and in the near future. Thousands of individuals die each day from starvation. I have an obligation to fight for their right to live another day. And so on. I know that I am not the first nor the last to want to wage war on poverty. I certainly am not the most passionate or knowledgeable about the subject. However, I am determined to find a way to at least dent the problem. I am discovering that this may be the battle I am supposed to fight. The passion I have is certainly no accident, and I refuse to ignore it. I do not know what the next step is, but I am looking for it.

I have a great deal more to say about this subject; this post is only skimming the surface of what I believe and what I want to say. One thing I have realized about myself is that while I do not have the answers, I have more than enough questions. If my purpose is to ask the questions, I will continue to ask them in earnest. Perhaps my questions will spark someone else to find the answers. I do not know if this will happen, I can only hope. And hope, dirty or not, is the most important thing I can hold onto. If we choose to act in the name of truth, consequences be damned, I believe we can make a difference.

And so on…