Truth and Jello

This post is actually part of a class assignment, and I've been putting it off for a while because I can't quite get things nailed down in my head.

The problem is that truth is like Jello.

Yes, Jello. This is an awesome metaphor that we talked about during our last class meeting. Truth is, in general, pretty solid. When you poke it hard enough, though, it wobbles and falls apart and makes a mess.

While I was in college I went through a really hard time of trying to figure out what I actually believed about God and my relationship to God as a human being and a Christian. I basically stripped everything I believed growing up and started over, carrying over some things, adapting others, and rejecting a few things completely. One of the things I have loved about seminary is having the opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about my faith and organizing what I believe into some sort of coherence again.

Actually, it doesn't look too terribly coherent because the model I used is a web, but it's honest and I like it. Once I get pictures from my computer to be able to post to the blog again, I might put it up (the jello picture is from the internet so apparently that's ok). So when we come back to truth, the things that I hold as most true are the things at the center of my web, the things that are strongly connected to almost every other part. Those three main things are the existence of God, the person and divinity of Jesus, and love. Love is actually the most central to my faith- it's connected to every other piece of my web. And I like that, too.

The problem is that even that idea gets messy when you poke it too hard. Then you come up against the unfairness and pain of reality. The events this morning at my alma mater are a perfect example: a kid walks onto campus with a gun, fires a few shots, is chased into the library, fires a few more shots and kills himself. How do you explain things like that? Or worse, incidents where even more innocent people die? My devotional time this morning, hours before I heard the news, was actually on suffering and how we fit that into our faith. It was eerie, really. And the answer I came up with this morning is the same answer I have after spending most of the day worried and/or crying from sheer shock: I just don't know.

"I don't know," has become my answer to a lot of things lately. Hopefully I'll get some of those figured out by the time I leave seminary; some maybe I'll figure out before I die; some I'll just let God explain to me when we get there. It's kind of messy. But I think maybe I like that, too.

Dr Pepper, Queso and Triceratops

Yesterday was an awesome combination of home and my new city.

If you aren't aware, one thing that Texans take pretty seriously is their food. If you go anywhere outside of Texas and get something that Texans normally make, it'd better be pretty friggin' awesome or we'll make fun of you. So when I found the Austin Grill here in DC (complete with choices like Austin Wings, Bevo Salad, and Magnolia Eggs), I was both apprehensive and excited beyond belief. A friend of ours from UT is here for the semester, so we decided it would be a good place to catch up, reminisce, and miss things like Bluebell Ice Cream.

Also, one thing you should know about me is that my two addictions are Dr Pepper and queso. I was told that I wouldn't be able to find Dr Pepper up here, so I was ridiculously excited when I found out that it's actually in basically every grocery store. Restaurants, on the other hand, still make me sad when they don't offer it, or worse, offer Mr. Pibb like it's the same thing (hint: it's not). When we got to Austin Grill and sat down the waitress said their drinks included "Pepsi products," and smiled like she gets this question all the time from native Texans when I almost yelled at her, "Does that mean you have Dr Pepper?!" Queso, unlike Dr Pepper, is something I've found you can get at basically any so-called Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurant, but the quality often leaves something to be desired. I figured with their menu, though, it'd be worth a shot. And oh, man was it worth it. It definitely wasn't Kerbey Lane, but it was good enough that I think my withdrawal symptoms should stop. Also the whole restaurant was decorated so well that it actually felt like Austin, and they have live music on Monday nights because let's face it, if you're going to claim to be Austin-y you have to have live music. So lunch yesterday was an absolutely fantastic combination of food and people from back home, and it made me happy.

After that awesome dose of home, though, I got to explore my first museum in DC. The district is basically a museum-lover's paradise, and I am very much a lover of museums. So after managing to get lost in the three blocks between Austin Grill and the National Mall, Jeff and I met up with a bunch of my youth (note: "a bunch" of my youth group is approximately 5 people, because my youth group is approximately 10 to 15) and went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which is free and awesome. We didn't get to explore the whole thing, but I did get to see three of my favorite animals.

An elephant: (sorry, this picture is kind of blurry)

A giraffe:

And a triceratops:

We also watched an IMAX about the ocean which I was very glad didn't include any super-deep-sea creatures, because those things are terrifying and it might have ruined my awesome day.

In summary:
-Dr Pepper and queso are addictive, but it's ok because I've found places to satisfy my cravings.
-If you're ever in DC and are really missing Texas, go to the Austin Grill.
-Museums are amazing and DC has approximately a million of them.
-There really should be more giraffes in my day-to-day existence.
-There really should be fewer terrifying evolutionary mistakes from the bottom of the ocean in existence, period.
-I might be able to survive here.

Edit: Blogspot and/or my internet is failing, and I can't actually upload my pictures. Sad day. I'll do it soon, I promise.

"Your sons and daughters shall prophesy..."

It has been my belief since I was in high school that it is in fact the youth of the church who have the best handle on what the church needs and what it needs to be doing in order to best live out its mission. Teenagers have those two lovely qualities- which their parents and teachers may find frustrating, but which I think the church ought to acknowledge as useful- of believing that they know best and being willing to challenge you on it. Now, having been a teenager myself when I came up with this idea, I recognize that my word might not be precisely reliable. But  this is a belief that I have seen lived out in countless youth since then, and, now finding myself part of the young adult cohort, I gladly include them in the group of potential movers and shakers.

Each generation has to rethink how the church works and how it can be effective. The last generation gave us the return of the small group. Not the sterile Sunday School class, but the messy, walking with each other and living as a part of each others' lives small group. The effect on the church as a community has been enormous.

This generation, at least in part, has been lucky enough to grow up in churches where community is emphasized, where people are encouraged to be open and live life with one another. Now, as we begin to step up and share in the leadership and direction of the church, we have to build on that foundation.

This past week I attended my first-ever church council meeting. As I am still new at the church and to my position, most of my time was spent trying to catch up as each group presented its recent activities and its plans for the upcoming months, but I was struck by one in particular. A friend of mine gave the report on the young adult group that meets every Tuesday, which I have been unable to attend thus far. As he talked about the plans the group was making, he quoted another group member as saying that while the discussions that have been happening have been insightful, she felt that the group was becoming "too cerebral;" and therein lies the key not only to this generation but also to our insight on the church's relationship with the world.

I want to share here a quote from an incredible book on the church's relationship with this generation. It's called Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation, by Sarah Cunningham, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is, knows, or cares about a young adult. Sarah writes:

"Don't get us wrong, Church. We value these theological questions. We really do... Frankly, we admire thinkers within the church for wrestling their own generation's questions to the ground. However, we must note: their hang-ups are not our hang-ups. We twenty-something Christians can't focus too much energy on analyzing intricate church doctrines because, quite honestly, our peers aren't even close enough to the church to know what the doctrines in question are. Unlike some previous generations, our peers are not delaying their salvation based on unresolved questions about Creationism. More times than not, they are delaying their salvation based on unresolved questions, anger, or misperceptions about the church itself."

That, my friends, is the charge of this generation to the church at large. We have spent a long time working within ourselves to try to create a space where we can encourage and admonish one another. This is fantastic. And yes, we acknowledge that the church has done incredible work in sending the Gospel out into the nations (I grew up giving to the Lottie Moon offering every year, too!). But we are asking the church to remember that mission is not something you go on; mission is something you live. We are asking you to get your hands dirty right where you are. Serve somewhere. Stand up for something. And at the end of the day, be glad that you have a community to come back to, to commiserate and rejoice with, and to send you back out again.

Improvisation: Good Food, Bad Faith

If you're reading this just because you like me but you happen to not care so much about Jesus, I'll start with the food for you. If you're reading this because you like me AND you like Jesus, feel free to keep reading after I'm done talking about cooking. I'd encourage you, though, to read the whole thing regardless. I mean, I wrote it. Come on.

Seeing as my husband and I are both poor grad students, financial aid doesn't come in until next week, and we desperately need to go grocery shopping, tonight's dinner was courtesy of let's-see-what-I-can-make-from-what-we-have-left. Lucky for us, it came out pretty tasty. Simple, but tasty.

Let's call it a creamy chicken and broccoli bake. That sounds good, right? Unfortunately, I completely forgot about pictures until we'd already started eating, so these are the leftovers. Sorry, it's not nearly as pretty as when I took it out of the oven. I know that it looks so tasty that you all want to run to the kitchen and make it right now, though, so here's the (super simple and very approximate) recipe:

Ingredients:
-8-10 oz. egg noodles
-16-20 oz. alfredo sauce
-1-2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (1 really should be enough, in my opinion)
-1 1/2 cups frozen broccoli
-1/4 cup onion, chopped
-rosemary and basil to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook noodles as directed; drain, set aside. Meanwhile, in large skillet, cook chicken breasts over medium heat, seasoning with rosemary and basil. Once fully cooked, remove chicken from skillet and chop. Pour sauce into skillet, add chicken back in. Add broccoli, onion, and more rosemary and basil to taste. Cook over low heat until warm. Pour noodles into 9x9 baking dish, then pour sauce mix over top. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.

And thus concludes another successful experiment in cooking, where you can usually throw together things from your pantry that sound good and it'll come out pretty tasty. Within reason, that is. Adding chocolate to this mix probably wouldn't have been too good, despite the fact that I have perfectly tasty chocolate chips sitting in my refrigerator door, calling my name.

Which leads nicely to my theological thought for today. Yesterday, actually- this was an issue that came up during my Intro to the New Testament class yesterday morning. Pantries and refrigerators, on one hand, are full of all the random things that sounded good to you when you were walking through the grocery store with an empty stomach. They're designed to hold all of your miscellaneous ingredients until you decide to take a few things out, mix them up and eat them. The Bible, on the other hand, is neither a pantry nor a refrigerator. Its contents may vary from poetry to law, romance to mourning, but taking it as a whole there are themes that run throughout and everything contained within it is there for a reason. Those reasons are multifaceted in themselves, but that's a completely different post.

The point here is that the Bible isn't something we can pick and choose from. When we focus exclusively on one Testament or the other, or quote a single verse without giving it its proper context, we are effectively creating for ourselves a "canon within the canon," to quote my professor. And if we're honest, that's pretty much our tendency. If you think about the "Bible" that you carry around with you from day to day, the parts of it that you think about and live by, it's likely just the parts you like best. The parts that fit in with your view of the world and the way it should be. Thomas Jefferson, for example, literally took scissors to a Bible and compiled the parts that he thought were best, boiling the Bible in all its complexity down to a thin book of philosophy. What we do may not be as drastic as that, and you probably can't buy my mini-Bible on Amazon, but we do the same thing in spirit.

Now, I can't even begin to tell you how every verse of the Bible should be interpreted. Some (most) of it, I'm not even sure of myself. What I am sure of is that it at least needs to be acknowledged. When we cut and past the parts of the Bible that we like best, it stops being a living book that speaks to us and becomes instead our custom-made philosophy on life, telling us only what we want to hear. And that's not the Bible I want to read.

Intent

First, the intent of this blog's existence: today marks approximately year 15 as a Christian, month 18 as a United Methodist, day 67 as a married woman, day 2 as a seminarian and day 1 as an official youth minister. You might be able to tell that I keep pretty busy and usually have a lot to think about. Maybe you'll think what I have to say is interesting and maybe you won't, but as a wise friend once told me, it's better to put it all down in words.

Second, the intent of today's blog in particular: to talk about intent. This has been a theme of the last few days for me. Why am I in DC? Why am I at seminary? Why do I want to be a youth minister? Why do I care about this or that issue?

As I said, I very recently started seminary; as you may not know, this is terrifying. I get the distinct feeling, both from my own harried thoughts and from the way the administrators keep reassuring us that everything is going to be okay (as though they are used to people breaking down before classes even start), that doubt is pretty common around here. Sure, you were certain when you applied that God wanted you here, that it would be an incredible opportunity for learning, growth, and service. Then, as you go through the process of registering for classes like Missional Evangelism and you listen to people talk for hours about all the things you'll do while you're here and when you're done, you start to look around and wonder if everyone else knows that you're not good enough to be here. In fact, you probably start to think that maybe you were lying to yourself about your call from the beginning, and really you're just here so people will think how incredibly devoted to the faith you are.

Two things come to mind here.
-Doubts aren't necessarily based in fact. Not everyone in the universe wants you to be here, and making you question your motives is a good start to sending you packing.
-Should your doubts actually be true, another piece of wisdom from a friend should be considered. She was talking about mission trips at the time, but I think it's pretty applicable no matter what kind of call you're [not] following. She told me, "Heather, hardly anyone goes for the right reasons. They  might think they do, but really, they go because they think it will be fun or they think it will make them look good or they just think that it's something that they should do. The awesome thing is that no matter why you go, God can use you anyway if you let him."

That being said, now you're [I'm] here, regardless of why you [I] came, and you [I] have to decide to actually use this as the time of learning, growth and opportunity you originally thought it was. If you don't, you're wasting your time and energy as well as the time and energy of everyone who is going to be investing in you from here on out. Following your call, both generally as a Christian and specifically as a minister in any means, means periodically evaluating your path and your motives and correcting one, the other or both. If your intent is really to grow in your faith and be used for the kingdom, I think it'll probably work out, no matter how much you think you've botched everything. So to close, a quote from David Lowes Watson about the Christian's call: "Mistakes there will be, and shortcomings. But there must be no compromise of intent."