Revelation

I’ve always thought that I should like Flannery O’Connor. The only problem is that I have yet to read one of her stories that doesn’t leave me depressed. Being determined to like her, however, I brought her short story collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge, along with me on my trip to Poland and brought very little else by way of reading material.

I began reading while waiting at the airport in Wichita for my plane to Chicago. The story I started with ends with an old man sort of accidentally murdering his granddaughter. Not a good beginning. I made it most of the rest of the way to Poland without reading anything.

On the way back, though, I began to get bored and broke out the book again. This time, I managed to work my way through the rest of the book. I still didn’t find any stories that weren’t depressing. But I did find one that I found compelling.

The story “Revelation” tells of Mrs. Turpin, a self-satisfied, self-righteous woman. When Mrs. Turpin visits the doctor, she is surprised by the presence of a young woman who takes an immediate dislike to her and, seemingly without provocation, attacks her. In what seems to be a prophetic moment, the girl tells her, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog.”

Mrs. Turpin is shocked. She can’t understand why she, of all people, should deserve such a judgment. She has always lived in a way that she thought was right. In fact, she regularly thanks God that she is not like most of the people around her.

As she rails in anger at God, she has a vision:

She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself …, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right….They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.

When O’Connor writes that “even their virtues were being burned away,” I don’t think she’s talking about virtues like kindness, gentleness, and love. I think the “virtues” that are burned away are the things that were never really virtues to begin with. So many of the things that we think are our virtues are really nothing but thin veneers for our pride and selfishness.

Now, it’s kind of popular to complain about the hypocrisy in the church and blame the “Christian” community for being self-righteous, and that seems, to a certain extent, to be what this story is about. I’m all on board with that. Jesus certainly wasn’t a fan of hypocrisy and self-righteousness, from what I can tell.

The only problem is that when I start griping about hypocrisy and self-righteousness, I’m being a bit self-righteous myself. This is a problem that we need to address in the church, but the way we address it is not by complaining about everyone else’s self-righteousness. It is by realizing that we all are living on grace.

I’m not saying this because I want us to all start beating ourselves up. I’m saying this because, until we realize this, we can’t really accept grace.

I’m also not saying that we should stop trying to be virtuous. Instead, we need to realize that any virtue that we actually have is a gift to us. We are just dispensers of God’s grace.

I’m probably not ever going to be one of Flannery O’Connor’s biggest fans, and I probably won’t bring her along as reading material on my next international flight. But she is a brilliant writer, and she does make some valid points, so perhaps I should give her some grace…

Gonna live what I believe

When I was very young, Amy Grant's music constantly played in my parents' house. (I can still picture her leopard print jacket on that record sleeve.) And now, after many, many years of relatively Amy-Grantless life, the words of this song still go through my head: "I have decided / I'm gonna live like a believer / turn my back on the deceiver / gonna live what I believe." Not a bad idea, really. I'm all for "practicing what we preach," "walking the walk," and all those other cliches.

Because we believe we're saved by grace, we should stop acting like we're not. Because we believe Jesus loves everyone, we should love everyone, too. Or, m0re frequently harped on, because we believe we're not supposed to do certain things, we shouldn't do them.

I'm afraid that by arguing against this idea, it's going to sound like I'm advocating either hypocrisy or license. That's not what I'm saying at all.

Here's the thing. I think that how we live is inextricably tied up with what we believe. Ultimately, I think, we all live what we really believe. That's why what we believe is so incredibly important.

If we really, truly believe that each individual is precious to God, then we'll treat them as if they have incredible value. If we really, truly believe that God loves us, then we'll be more free to love others. When we fail to love others, or when we fail to live like we are loved, I think it really comes down to the fact that we don't really believe everything we claim to believe.

I think that we can tell a great deal about what people actually believe by observing the way they treat those around them. For that matter, we can learn an awful lot about what we believe by paying attention to what we're thinking about ourselves and other people.

Now, I'm not saying that we should give up on trying to believe these things or that we should stop acting on these truths until we've finally become fully convinced of them. But I think that acknowledging our lack of belief is an important first step. In order to counter falsehood with truth, you have to confront the falsehood. As one desperate father told Jesus, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).

Sometimes, I think we have to just live what we're trying to believe-- and I think that living as if we believe helps us to actually believe. To a certain extent, belief is a choice, and living as if we believe is an important part of that choice.

I don't have everything figured out, but, to borrow Amy Grant's words, "I'm gonna live like a believer." And I believe, by God's grace, one day I'll finally fully be one.

As I was digging through my closet the other day, I rediscovered the fact that there is a shelf in the back of it, hidden behind my hanging clothes. (Please note, family members: the clothes were hanging, not piled.) Stacked on the shelf were a bunch of my old journals.

Now, I've never been very good at keeping journals, but, for some reason, when I travel, I become somewhat more disciplined about such things. This means that I have a pretty faithful record of my travels in Spain and my year in Guatemala. (The only other time I tend to write in journals is when I'm in a horrible, horrible mood, so, other than records of my travels, my journals consist mostly of hysterical rantings. So, if I die young, burn them.) :)

Rereading things that I wrote years ago is always a half-pleasurable, half-painful experience. Sometimes I laugh at the person that I was then-- so concerned about such silly things, so bad at reading myself and other people. Sometimes my laughter is mixed with embarrassment that I would think--much less write-- such things. Sometimes I'm surprised to remember struggles I had, concerns that seemed to overwhelm me, because they seem so petty now. And sometimes I'm surprised because they seem so relevant to the things I am experiencing right now.

The journal that I wrote in while I lived in Guatemala was a graduation gift. The inscription in the front reads, "May this journal give you a way to always remember how God has blessed you and allow you to watch the growth that is present in your life." I'm not sure that I really paid attention to that inscription before, but the wish it offers has come true. This journal chronicles so much about who I was then, who I had been before, and who I am now. (So I guess this one journal can be exempt from the burn pile.)

While rereading this journal has provided me with enough entertainment to last awhile (see excerpts below), it's mostly been an encouragement to me in seeing how far I've come. So many struggles that I had then seem so unimportant now, so many issues that I thought would never resolve have been resolved. Mostly, it serves as a record of God's faithfulness to me. Things that I wanted that I shouldn't have had, I didn't get. Things that I didn't want but got anyway have truly proved to be blessings.

Sometimes I forget these things. Sometimes my current problems and concerns seem so big that I lose perspective. Sometimes I seem to be moving so slowly that I forget how far I've come. But God is faithful. And, every once in awhile, I'll dig out this journal to remind myself.


A few highlights from my Guatemala journal:

Skippy (7th grade) told me that, for his birthday, he wanted me to swear in Spanish. I didn't comply with his request.

The eighth grade girls told me that they thought I was going through menopause.

My host mom told me I look like a barbie, based solely on my fair skin and curly hair, since I'm pretty sure I'm not proportioned right.

The eighth grade girls attributed my singleness to the fact that I "talk about math all the time."

Loving a Blemished Bride

Sometimes I don’t like the Church very much. Sometimes sermons make me furious, church rules make me want to cry, and churchgoers leave me wondering if they really believe anything Jesus said. Sometimes the “bride of Christ” is just plain ugly.

[Note: This is not written about any one particular church.]

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I wish this depiction were not true, but, too often, I have found it a painfully accurate portrait.

I heard the environmental movement dismissed as a bunch of “tree huggers” from the pulpit once—and far more frequently from Church members. Recently a friend of mine listened to a sermon in which the priest dismissed, off-hand, the work of a brilliant philosopher, whose work he had clearly not taken the time to understand. Even John Piper, some of whose work I respect very much, pronounced a couple of weeks ago that a tornado that hit a Lutheran church in Minneapolis was a warning from God to the ELCA (even trying to back up his point by using a scripture in which Jesus specifically states that disasters are not necessarily indications of special judgment).

It breaks my heart to see the church so quick to condemn, so unwilling to take the time to listen, so far from showing Christ’s compassion. Sometimes, I think that we would get along better with the Pharisees than with Jesus.

I wish I could say that I, unlike all of these other people, am never judgmental, never cruel, never self-righteous, but I may be the worst of the bunch. While I memorized James 1:19 long ago, I am still slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry.

I wonder if the reason we are so quick to judge others is that we somehow think that it makes us look better. If we point out the zit on our neighbor’s nose, perhaps no one will notice that we accidentally put on our sweater inside out. Maybe it will make us forget how ridiculous we must look. It feels like junior high all over again.

These reflections used to depress me, and sometimes they still do. But my perception is slowly changing. It’s not that, this time, I remembered to put my sweater on right-side out. It’s that this time I’ve realized that God loves me no matter how my sweater looks. And, not only that, but he doesn’t really mind that zit on my neighbor’s nose.

In Ephesians 5:25-27, Paul writes that Christ, “loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” I am getting to know a God who knows all of my wrinkles and blemishes but who loves me deeply anyway—a God who died to make me beautiful.

Teach Us to Sit Still

Hello. My name is Leta, and I’m an overachiever.

This is not a new revelation for me. It’s something I’ve been working to change for a long time. (Please note the irony that I’m working on not working too hard.)

Even though I’ve known this for a long time, it hit me anew the other night, when one of my friends commented, “You know, all of the really good things that have happened to me have just happened. I didn’t do anything to make them happen.”

The truth of what she said struck me immediately. In my life, as in hers, good things have come when I haven’t expected them, much less deserved them. So I asked myself, once more, why on earth I keep trying so hard. I have seen, again and again, that blessings are just waiting for me to stop running after them.

Jesus promised, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30). Whatever yoke it is that I keep trying to carry, it is obviously not this one. I want this one.

I’ve decided to give up on praying that God will help me to achieve whatever little goal I’ve decided that I must achieve next. Now I’m praying a new prayer. Lord, give me the grace to stop trying so hard.

While I in no way endorse some aspects of T.S. Eliot’s life and thought (and I frankly don’t understand many others), lately I've found myself praying these words along with him:

I no longer strive to strive towards such things….
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain….
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will…
-- “Ash-Wednesday”

This is what I want, and this, I believe, is what God wants for me.

The first of the 12 steps of recovery programs is to admit that we can’t control the things that control us, that we are powerless over our own lives. I’ve decided to take that step—to stop running around frantically trying to fix everything.

Lord, teach me to sit still.

The Trouble with "The Trouble with 'X'"

One day, in heaven, I plan to have C.S. Lewis sign my copy of the Chronicles of Narnia. Or, since I suppose that it's probably true that "you can't take it with you," I'll probably have to borrow a copy from heaven's library to have him sign.

But, one day, in my heavenly book club (which I will invite him to join), I'm afraid I'm going to have to take him to task for a few things. One of those things is his short essay "The Trouble with 'X'." (You can read it online at http://www.btinternet.com/~a.ghinn/the.htm.)

This essay, in short, argues that all of those people that we have trouble getting along with-- collectively named 'X'-- are really just like us, and it would really be more worth our while to think about our own faults than about theirs.

I more or less agree with him, but there are a few places where we disagree, and I think those disagreements are significant.

My first disagreement is his statement that, even if all of the other circumstances of our lives were all in line, "real happiness would still depend on the character of the people you have to live with - and ... you can't alter their characters." I agree with the second part-- that we can't alter other people's characters-- and I can certainly testify that those around us affect our mood. But I don't agree that other people can destroy 'real happiness.' I believe that real happiness is not based on anything as fickle as other human beings. If our happiness is based on people whose characters are anything like ours, then I don't know that we'll ever be really happy. I don't believe that we were designed for that.

But enough disagreement for now. This next bit I agree with:

He [God] sees (like you) how all the people in your home or your job are in various degrees awkward or difficult; but when He looks into that home or factory or office He sees one more person of the same kind - the one you never do see. I mean, of course, yourself. That is the next great step in wisdom - to realize that you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

Further, Lewis says, "We must love 'X' more; and we must learn to see ourselves as a person of exactly the same kind." Both true. We like to pretend that we're innocent victims, and we use this to justify our anger and self-righteousness. Instead we need to realize that we're often as much in the wrong as everyone else (if not more so), and we need to love them as they are, not as they might be if they stopped annoying us.

This next bit I agree with for the most part, but here, I think, Lewis has the main idea right and some of the details wrong:

Abstain from all thinking about other people's faults, unless your duties as a teacher or parent make it necessary to think about them. Whenever the thoughts come unnecessarily into one's mind, why not simply shove them away? And think of one's own faults instead? For there, with God's help, one can do something. Of all the awkward people in your house or job there is only one whom you can improve very much.

First, I don't think that ignoring people's faults-- or "abstaining from thinking about them"-- is always right. In most cases, this is the best option, but there are exceptions. In some cases, it is our unpleasant duty to confront people about their faults. (If we don't think it's unpleasant, we probably had better keep our mouths shut.) In other cases, when other people's faults involve abuse-- emotional or physical-- we must respond to their faults by distancing ourselves, either emotionally or physically. It is not loving to allow people to continue self-destructive behavior or to allow them to abuse and manipulate us.

The second part of this paragraph that I have qualms about is Lewis' suggestion that we should replace ruminating on other people's faults with mulling over our own. To a certain extent, Lewis is right. For the most part, it would be beneficial if we thought less about what other people do wrong and more about what we do wrong. But this can be gone about in the wrong way, and it can be taken too far. If we simply replace our angry thoughts about our brothers with angry thoughts about ourselves, we haven't made much progress. And if we spend too much time thinking about our own faults, we may, in fact, be going backward, not progressing.

I believe that instead of replacing our anger toward our brothers with anger toward ourselves, we must replace both with grace.

Lewis is right that we are the only people that we can change. Unfortunately, however, I have found that the amount I can change even myself is pretty limited. God is the only one who can change me or anyone else, and, fortunately, his grace is much more abundant than mine.

I suppose that my heavenly book club will probably have better things to discuss than how much to think about our own and other people's faults, since it'll be a moot point by then anyway. But I'm pretty sure we'll never get tired of talking about the grace that covered our faults-- that took away all of "The Trouble with 'X'."

Bueno es Dios, siempre fiel

It's been a long time since I've posted on here. Last time I wrote, I didn't even know that I'd be going to Guatemala. Now, I've gone and come back.

My trip to Guatemala was sort of last minute-- a group from my church was going and invited me to come along as a translator. Not having been back to Guatemala since I left three years ago, I was happy to accept.

On this trip, as before, I was struck by the ironies of life in Guatemala-- beauty contrasting with squalor, joy with pain. I think the whole group struggled to know how to deal with these issues, after seeing a few of the 10,000 people who make their living scavenging through the refuse of Guatemala City's "sanitary fill" and being welcomed into the tiny, dirt-floored homes of indigenous Christians in San Pedro La Laguna.

After the group left for Guatemala City, en route to the US, I headed further north to Xela. I've traveled by myself in Guatemala before, so I wasn't particularly worried, even though I had heard that the country has grown more dangerous in the last couple of years. It's funny; in the US, I worry about everything. In Guatemala, I pretty much accept the fact that I don't have control over anything and thus worry very little.

I hadn't realized traveling with the group how much the situation has gone downhill in the last couple of years. It wasn't until I saw increased security measures in places where I had been before and talked to Guatemalans that I had known when I lived there that I realized the degree to which things have changed. (Don't be alarmed, those of you who tend to worry about me. I am always careful and was never in danger.) :)

When I visited my host mom, Flor, she told me that my host dad and brother had been held up at gunpoint at 10:30 in the morning just a few blocks from the house a couple of weeks before. She seemed concerned about me traveling back to the city, although my host brother assured us both that the likelihood of me having problems was very low. Before I left, she told me, "Go with God in your heart, and you'll be fine." Not quite the kind of assurance that I think my mother would want!

This kind of assurance seems much more real to me when I travel, for some reason. God seems more real when everything else seems uncertain. Parts of the Old Testament, too, seem much more relevant when read in this context. After seeing the dump and the poverty in San Pedro, I found comfort in Jeremiah's words in Lamentations 3:

For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

After hearing about frequent armed robberies, I read Psalm 10:

the wicked man...lies in wait near the villages; from ambush he murders the innocent, waiting in secret for his victims.... Arise Lord! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless.... But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand....You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

When I'm living my comfortable life in the States, I can ignore some of life's harsher realities. When a few of my physical comforts are removed, I find it much easier to turn to my true Comforter.

The words in the title of this post are from one of my favorite Spanish songs, which I had the opportunity to sing at a couple of church services we attended. "God is good," it proclaims. "He is always faithful. In the darkness, his love will shine. God is good, God is good, always faithful."