Still Living in the Tension

Sometimes I write things, and they look horribly trite or snobbish upon a second glance, but over the past week I really have been struck by the messy and tension-filled nature of life that I was talking about in my last entry. A few days ago, we learned that a dear uncle of mine (I think he’s technically my second cousin, once removed) has flesh-eating disease, and while they’ve caught it early, it’s going to be a hard a hard next while for him and my auntie. They love God and those around them intensely, and I’ve learned so much about self-sacrificing love and God’s desire for justice through their wise words and work with marginalized groups in Africa and Asia. Knowing that they’re going through tough times is painful; a few years ago, Uncle Doug had a scary case of hepatitis, and when he made it through that, we were so relieved and thankful, so for him to be facing another worrisome health concern seems especially messed up. A member of our extended family committed suicide this month, and when my mom flew out to the funeral, knowing how to deal with the hardship of that loss and how to comfort everyone there was difficult. Grieving the loss of a loved one is tough as it is, but when a death is complicated in this tragic way, the difficulty of life and death are all the more evident. The thought that life would be hard enough that it wasn’t worth it anymore is a hard one to swallow, but some people really do face such hardship in their lives. Life is messy.

My favourite customer of all time (ever) is a beautiful man named Brian who has schizophrenia. Although Brian is one of the most gentle and lovely people I’ve ever met in my life, people treat him with suspicion and cruelty because of the symptoms of his disorder. Last week, the police wanted Brian to be kicked out of our café because of his appearance and unusual behaviour. When we didn’t force Brian to leave, they became even more insistent that he was a disturbance; I was so troubled by the fact that the police would want to kick out someone whose life is already so smattered with derision as it is. Brian used to come for his regular mug of House Blend every day when I worked at Bear Mountain, and now he comes to Second Cup for a medium mug of blueberry tea steeped beforehand, and in the four years that I’ve been friends with Brian, he’s never been anything but kind. My day is always brightened by talks with him about physics and his experience with war and various other things that we stumble upon in conversation. But because Brian dresses differently and talks to himself, he lost his job as a janitor two years ago, and is told by the police to leave Whyte Ave because he doesn’t act normally. I find this to be terribly backwards.

I opened Firefox this morning to find that there had been a horrific shooting at Virginia Tech this morning, and it’s impossible to read about events like this without being sickened by the sadness of it all. Not only did dozens of lives come to an abrupt and untimely halt, but whoever was driven to do this can’t have had a very easy life. While it might be simpler to condemn and rebuke the shooter who ended the lives of so many, God loves him deeply. Like Dale Lang did after the shooting in Taber, we have to recognize that people don’t fit into black and white categories of good and evil. CBC showed a clip of the shooting captured from outside the building from a cell phone, and hearing the shots being fired and knowing that a life ended with each of those shots was heartrending. I cried not just because 33 people had died, but also because it was such an illustration of life’s fragility. The students were gone, just like that. Seeing that gunman had a frightening capacity to kill all those people and devastate an entire community made me think about the human ability, and tendency, to mess up all the good that God created.

I went for a walk this afternoon with Matt and took advantage of the midday sunshine and lovely cloud-smattered sky today, and despite being a pleasant spring day, there’s still a lot of mud and plant debris remaining on the ground that was previously covered up by snow. Spring muck isn’t very pretty, but I think it’s good to be reminded of the muck on a regular basis. Although it’s tempting in a week of happifying music, unitard-shopping, Anne of Green Gables, and finishing classes to glaze over life’s not-so-pleasant parts, I don’t want to dismiss the hardship that is pervasive in the world. At our last small group, we were talking about how Christians often present life as simple, especially in places like Sunday school, or when dealing with arguments that run counter to our beliefs. When we fail to acknowledge the complexity of things, we’re not seeing the whole story. If someone has been taught about life and God in a shallow way that dismisses the messiness of life, whether it be in regards to sex, politics, good and evil, or justice, they’re going to have a hard time meshing their beliefs with the complications of real life. I think this is partly why so many people struggle with their faith when they get to university; they see a more complicated world, and learn things that aren’t always acknowledged in the church, and don’t know how to fit what they see and hear with what they’d come to believe in their past. Scientific theories that were denounced in a church seem to make sense, and new Muslim, Buddhist, or atheist friends are actually pretty cool, and aren’t entirely deluded in their notions about the world. When life gets messy, people who have been taught that life is always sunshiney when you’re on God’s side can find themselves lost.

I feel blessed to know people who deal with life’s messiness with grace and joy. I had a picnic with Jen yesterday, with soda and chips and carrots (the carrots made it healthy), and we had a good talk about life. Jen has faced adversity in her life in so many ways that I can’t list them all; I feel silly complaining about various things when I think about her and how she approaches life with such trust in God and lack of selfishness. She knows deep-down that God loves her, and that one day she’ll be done with the struggles that she faces now. Her joy really is contagious, too; her laughter and capacity for silliness make me very happy. As I’ve spent time with Jen, and have grown to love her so much, I’ve learned that life’s messiness is best handled with knowledge of God’s love and a love for Him and others that makes everything else that gets complicated become less important. In a very apropos manner, I was reading a chapter in Tuesdays with Morrie the other day that I wish I’d read before so I could have included it in my entry from last week. It’s a conversation that I enjoyed imagining in my head:

“Have I told you about the tension of opposites?” he says.
The tension of opposites?
“Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.
“A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.”
Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.
“A wrestling match.” He laughs. “Yes, you could describe life that way.”
So which side wins, I ask?
“Which side wins?”
He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.
“Love wins. Love always wins.”

P.S. Clearly you should read Tuesdays with Morrie. It's rather lovely.
P.P.S. My mom got me a new Message yesterday, with a padded cover, numbered verses, and a satin ribbon. It's my new favourite thing.
P.P.P.S. Caitlin is leaving on Friday for three months to work at the Smithsonian. Then she's leaving for an entire year for adventures in Japan. I'm excited for her, but also sooo sad about her imminent absence. I'll have no play buddy, no one to discuss silly Christians with, no one to argue with over iced chai, and no one to keep me up to date on race relations in the country fairs of nineteenth century Europe. Adventurous and intrepid favourite friends are irksome, but I love her bunches nonetheless.
P.P.P.P.S. Music videos by Alanis Morissette, Feist, and Patrick Watson have made me smile. Canadian musicians are clearly expert music video-makers.

Living in the Tension

I’m often struck by the dialectics that define our lives. So often, we are required to balance the various aspects of our lives and find where we fit amongst the extremes of this world. Rarely is spending all of my energy on one activity, dwelling excessively on one line of thought, or identifying with a fundamentalist belief a very wise course of action. Instead, I think that life is lived most fully when we embrace the tension that defines it. Life is messy, and imagining it to be black and white is rather ignorant in my estimation. Fleshing through life’s muddledness can be tricky, and it’s often easier to deny the mess that we find ourselves in. In my experience, Christians especially get caught in this trap of pretending that life is uncomplicated. While the truth of life is remarkably simple (God loves you, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life; end of story), I’ve found that living this truth out is anything but clear-cut. Without God’s guidance and dialogue with others in my life, life can get awfully confusing awfully fast. How do I live in the world, but not be of it? Am I dismissing the command to love God sometimes when I concentrate so heavily on the command to love others? When do I need to go beyond saying the “nice” thing, and be candid? Questions like these are tricky to flesh out on my own. But I think failing to recognize that life is complicated means that we miss out on the full potential of life; working through the complications is ultimately so gratifying, and always takes me closer to the truth.


So often, North American Christians have supported black and white ideas like the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” notion, despite Jesus’ converse words in Mark 9: “whoever is not against us is for us.” Jesus teaches that the weak are strong, and says, “blessed are the meek;” straightforward logic would contradict these statements. Life is not always straightforward, though. My favourite chapter in Rob Bell’s Sex God is the one titled “Angels and Animals” which pursues Blaise Pascal’s (AKA Bono in the Lobe household) idea that “man is neither angel nor beast.” In the context of Rob Bell’s book, this means that the church’s tendency to view ourselves as angels without flesh and a sexual side misses the point, while living as if we’re untamable animals isn’t any better, of course. Instead, recognizing the tension that exists between these two extremes, and working through this tension, is where we find the truth. I feel the struggle to flesh out life’s messiness most strongly at Easter. The days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday can be so strange because I want to remember Jesus’ sacrifice and the fact that my sin put Him on that cross, but at the same time I know that He lives again, and lives in me. (If you’re reading this, Caitlin, you’re not allowed to make fun! I know this sounds absurd. It’s true though. Too bad. Sometimes the most absurd things are the most true.)

I miss Zion a lot at Easter and Christmas, but McKernan really does have a beautiful Good Friday service that makes up for its lack of Zion-ness. Everyone takes Communion receives prayer at some point, and it’s a time of vulnerability, the kind of vulnerability that I miss from Zion. It’s a time of Communion, not just in the sense of the Eucharistic rite, but also in the sense of fellowship. I’m always struck in moments like these by the ache that people normally hide when they’re being invulnerable. Seeing people’s hurt on Friday, and thinking of Christ’s pain from the physical anguish and our heart-breaking betrayal, I feel especially aware of life’s ugliness and injustice and difficulty. Of course, I was also struck in this moment by the fact that we’re able to be in communion and receive salvation through Jesus’ blood. There was a tension in my mind between contrasting sentiments, but it was a tension that led me to a fuller understanding of that day’s significance. I want to live in the reality of life’s pain, whether it’s friends who are struggling, the suffering that so many people face on a daily basis, friends at work and school not knowing that Good Friday was for them, missing my old church, recognizing that it was my sin that held Him there, or simply wishing my grandparents were in town for Easter.


Of course, I want to rejoice always, and live in the reality of life’s beauty as well. I spent the morning with my oh-so-lovable family, remembered Jesus’ self-sacrificing love with a church that I care about very much, cooked a turkey dinner with some beautiful friends, walked around in the chilly-but-sunny Albertan spring, and spent the evening with some of my favourite people enjoying fellowship, silliness, and food (even under-appreciated hot cross buns and red Ecuadorian bananas). Matt, my corn-loathing friend behind such hit albums as Can You Say Indie? Volume 3: A Collection of Kintrasts, sent me Vega 4’s “Life Is Beautiful” a while ago, the chorus of which goes “life is beautiful, but it’s complicated.” It’s incredibly cliché, but true nonetheless. No matter how tough the going gets, I’ll always know God’s love and grace, which matter infinitely more than anything else. Even when life is easy peas, though, I don’t want to stop praying for friends who don’t know God’s love, I don’t want to become complacent, and I want to be able to share the burdens of others and hurt when they hurt. Life is messy, and I want to be willing to get dirty in the muddled disorder. There’s a tension in living between Jesus’ salvation-giving sacrifice and the time when God will restore everything, and there’s a tension in being part of an upside down Kingdom, and I embrace that tension.

On another tangent, I’ve become increasingly aware of the fact that, as Mr. Longbrake puts it, the less you have, the better off you are. I was bothered by my love of clothes and pretty furniture last fall, and have been praying about it since then. I don’t really want to want possessions, but it’s hard for me to shut off that desire. God’s somehow managed to convince me of this truth (in the way that my heart knows it, not just my head), and I’m caring decreasingly about these things. There’s nothing very profound about my diminished desire to consume, but I’ve found it to be quite encouraging and freeing to know deep-down that I don’t need things, and that God can work in me in ways that don’t seem at all plausible. I finished Sex God the other week, and Rob Bell speaks on lust for a portion of the book. Lust, as Bell paints it, is about buying into the promise that something will gratify and fulfill us in a way that nothing but God really can. Whether it’s sex, the admiration of others, pretty turquoise Lux ballet flats from Urban Outfitters that cost $39, or a trip to NYC, the good in these things is ultimately meant to point to God and live in the joy that He intended for us; these things were not meant to replace God. I’m not a very big fan of capitalism, and our small group was pondering the inescapability of “the system” in our society last week. We can’t really not go to school and subvert the get-a-job and make-a-living way of life in North America, because each of us is best equipped to love others by following this system to some extent in a capitalistic society. But as Shane Claiborne writes, we’re called to do “small things with great love,” whether in Calcutta, the grocery store, or our workplaces. It kind of stinks that I have to be a part of this system, but God can work even in this greed-based society that we’ve created (amazingly enough).


I would just like to reiterate how beautiful life is as I wrap up today’s blog entry. This morning, I woke up at 5:30 for some reason or other, and the sky was too beautiful to not get up and enjoy. I love orange skies, no matter what C&C non-city friends say about the city sky. The orange just looks so warm, and reminds me that there are people all around me contributing to the orangeness of the sky in some indirect way. Especially at 5:30 in the morning, God’s presence is so very apparent, even in the sky and falling snow and frosty wind. I was pondering God and life and people (the best things to ponder, of course), and the sky became the most remarkable shade of indigo purple. It was a beautiful moment, and it was so clear that God is so much bigger than anything else I’m facing. He’s bigger than the hardships of my friends, the things that money can buy, the poverty and injustice that exist in this world, and my exams and assignments and readings. He’s much bigger than even the sky, which is, of course, the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. There’s not really anything more comforting than that. Not that His bigness or the backwardness of capitalism and competition give me an excuse to not care about any of the aforementioned things, but the fact that He loves me unconditionally and matters more than any of these things gives me a great deal of peace. And with that, I’m off to study! I trust that you’re all enjoying the snow rather than bemoaning it ceaselessly, as has become a trend at work. It’s cold and a nuisance, and really not suitable for springtime, but if you resolve to enjoy its delicate prettiness, it’s much more bearable.

P.S. Any of you who voted for peas on Saturday night have pained me deeply. Your betrayal was very harsh, and I don’t think I will ever cook corn for you again. Except that I will cook it again because you must all learn that corn is FAR superior to putrescent peas.
P.P.S. I am currently in love with Patrick Watson’s “The Great Escape.” Find a copy of it for yourself; he’s my latest favourite Canadian artist.
P.P.P.S. John Mayer is here in 18 days! And then Feist! And the Police! Plus, with K-Days, the Folk Fest, jazz concerts, and various other music fun, I’m exceedingly thrilled about the music that this summer has in store for Cait et al.
P.P.P.P.S. Jesus died for you. I pray that you know that deep-down.