follow up verse from yesterday

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

- 1 John 4:18

conveying love and hope, not fear

To speak truthfully, I am a little angry right now. An anger that I feel is completely justified. I just came across a letter that was put out by one of James Dobson's groups, Focus on the Family Action. The letter is written from the point of view of a "Christian" in 2012 if Obama wins the election next week. The thing that upsets me about the letter is very simple (and it has little to do with my political beliefs). I see it as a blatant attempt to perpetuate fear in people's hearts (particularly social conservatives). Here is a link to the article that lead me to the letter.

Now I realize that Christians have many different views on social and political issues. And in many ways, I am okay with the fact that there are differing views because even in the Bible early Christians found themselves not always seeing eye to eye (i.e. 1 Corinthians 8) and it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I think that when the disagreement happens there should be discussion rooted in love though. There should be a recognition that we have the same hope, even if we don't necessarily have the same outlook on how that hope will come to pass.

I believe the Gospel is not about fear. It's a Gospel of love and hope. And love and hope should be our message as Christians. I heard a pastor say one time that the devil really only has two tools-a fear of future and a shame of past. I think we as Christians need to be more than wary when we see the same tactics used to influence others as an attempt to support what is "right."

love, anger, hope, injustice, joy-a few thoughts on Psalm 67

here are a few quotes that have made me stop and think in the last week...

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. - Barbara Kingsolver

We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it. - Dorothy Day

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. - Martin Luther King Jr

If we had been holier people, we would have been angrier oftener. - John Templeton

...i just found the last one, but i like it. i fear the day when i fail to get angry in the face of injustice. even now i am frustrated because i feel as though the anger fades from me to quickly. but there is hope-God is really persistent (so long as we are listening). i often hear of injustice and want to change it, but then become overwhelmed or distracted and thus, not effective in finding a solution and thus, still part of the problem. but God is persistent, i continue to be convicted in my path to being a part of a (the?) solution. my heart is being changed and although i don't know what the future looks like i find myself building up the courage to face injustice issues, be they poverty, human trafficking, preventable disease, hunger, child labor, fair trade, etc. etc., that need to be fought. that said-i still don't know what that looks like, but i am growing. i am preparing my heart for the time in which God calls me to actively be a part of alleviating the suffering for those without a voice. not that i can't be active now or that i am not active. but i have hopes that God would take the little things i am learning and make them big things i am doing and if that is in the plan, then i want to be ready.

the relevant experience of the day that i hope articulates some of this a little more-today for youth group we did an art response to Psalm 67. we read the Psalm and Ric set aside about 20 minutes to draw/paint/color anything we felt led to in response to the passage. my interpretation of Psalm 67 is that its a picture of the kingdom yet to come. it speaks of all nations rejoicing in the harvest and that God rules on high. i fully believe that God rules on high and that there can be several types of harvests, but as far as there being enough food for every one and a joy that everyone experiences because of this provision, i don't think we are quite there. so i made my art, it had a sun shining on the earth, with a wheat harvest on the bottom, but there was a lot of space left and i couldn't articulate these feelings i was having about the fact that there are nations and people who aren't experiencing a full harvest, who don't have food on the table, who have almost no reason to sing for joy and i didn't just want to leave this unstated like i have in the past. it needed to be a part of my response. i mean, i know there is still reason for joy. we are loved. no matter how little food one might have there is still a God in heaven who loves us and thus reason to have joy, but i would have to imagine when your starving and don't have clean water to drink then you find yourself hoping a little harder for some tangible expression of that love. and i think you hope to God for those things, but doesn't God hope we respond to those needs as well? God calls us to respond to those needs to be the kingdom on heaven on earth and to bring this harvest. and so we must possess a "love and hope that bring joy," which was my attempt to articulate my desired response to this calling. to be love, to have hope (because sometimes its hard) and to bring joy because that's how we can make Psalm 67 a bit more of a reality.

i hope to reflect on these types of topics in the future because really, this is a lot of what i spend time thinking about. whether it's my response, the church's response, my part in shaping people's response, or whatever. so i hope we (my faithful few readers) can talk about it some more. so comment...on whatever...maybe some discussion will better help me shape this blog and keep from just word vomiting my thoughts and experiences.

what does "processing" look like anyway?

I am currently reading River Town-Two years on the Yangtze, a New York Times best seller by Peter Hessler. Hessler served in the peace corp back in '96, just the third group of English teachers to be sent with peace corp to China. I am only 100 pages, about a third, into the book and I don't really wish to critique it or anything, but more or less get out some thoughts I have been having as I read through the book. It has been interesting reading Hessler's account of his time in China. He is a great writer and its neat to see the articulation of many of my experiences and things that I haven't really been able to articulate. I do not view myself as a writer, if for no other reason as if I felt it necessary to classify myself as such I would then need to critique myself and expect things from myself and I am just not that passionate about sitting at a computer. Plus I don't know how to not type a run-on sentence. All that said, it has been good to read the book and interesting because it is referred to as "hilarious," "mesmerizing," and "fascinating" by reviewers, yet it really isn't really any of those things to me. Having experienced a lot of the same things it is kind of just well done articulation. Of course being an outsider to such events would warrant such descriptions, but having spent the time I did there I find myself nodding my head rather than finding amusement and awe. None of this is bad, but it makes me think of where I am now. Staying with Ric in New Hampshire is obviously a completely different experience, one that I am most definitely cherishing and somehow having lofty expectations for and at the same time, no expectations at all for. The people I have met have been very nice. Anytime I am introduced to somehow who has a little time to talk I inevitably find myself talking about the past year in China. Post introduction the conversation goes a bit like this "how long you here for?" "oh, i think i will stay through the month" "that's a good amount of time" feeling the need to explain myself i respond, "i spent some time overseas and have kind of been floating since my return and i thought it would be great to come see ric and study for the gre's and what not" "oh ya, where overseas" "i taught english in china for a year" "oh that's great, how was it" ...now, i am just meeting this person, but they have asked me the most loaded question i could receive at this stage of my life next to, what does the future look like for you. but for some reason, i am unphased. i just respond, "it was good. i learned a lot. a ton about living in another culture and china and about faith (faith line sometimes included sometimes not depending on what i think the persons interest in that-i actually got a follow up question for the head pastor) it was a great experience." bam. usually right around 20-25 words. and its without hesitation. i know anyone who has had a "big" experience like this knows what i am talking about and has dealt with a lot of the same, but its tough for me because as easy as it is to rattle off that response, its equally as difficult to articulate it beyond that point. the complexity of a true, in-depth answer simply overwhelms even me-the one who had the experiences and saw it all go down. i don't feel i cheated them of anything though, because i think there is still complexity in my answer. particularly in the way i communicate the word "good" in my description. it might just be me and those close around me, but often when we say something was "good" with a certain tone and body language (that i incorporate into my previously noted description) it basically means-there were tough times, frustrating times, fun and joyfilled times, and just plain crazy times and there are a lot of people who probably could have had the same experiences and hated it and wondered what on earth they were doing, but i enjoy the challenge so i describe it to you with a truly loaded, good. that might not make sense, but for some reason i makes so much sense to me. but what else could i say? i mean, not only did i have the general "cross cultural observations," but the teaching of english, the learning of chinese, the missional living and what i saw as my purpose in that place, the developed relationships-chinese and foreigner, the solitude, and the lessons learned from those direct experiences all added another dynamic that brings a profound complexity. But I can't stop there because all of that was placed in the middle of my freshly-out-of-university-22-year-old-life that already kept my mind busy enough with thoughts on relationships, purpose, future, discipleship, and the like. I didn't just cut that part out, I continued to read and study and gain fresh perspective of those things alongside the overstimulation that was china. and being post large overseas experience creates these thoughts inside me that kind of follow this line of thought- "wow, that's a lot. i don't know if i will ever really be able to process it. wait, do i need to process it? haven't i already processed it? what am i supposed to do with that? if i don't dig through it am i apathetic or irresponsible to my experience? is there really more i can learn from "working through" and "processing" all those experiences? hmmm...i'll deal with that later." and so here i am now. just typing away. provoke by my book to scratch the surface of some of those thoughts and sharing it with you, my few faithful blog followers whose curiosity can't help them from at least scanning to find out what i am up to. you are great by the way, confident that none really made it thus far to read the token disclaimer/apology about the post length and ramblyness. but don't worry about me, i truly am well. thanks for processing with me. maybe we can do it again sometime?