Tension and Truth, or, Thoughts about Life, Ambiguity, and Ferguson

It should be said by someone, and it may as well be me, that I am terribly non-committal.  All my friends will tell you that.  I just don't like to make decisions, even about simple things.  A couple weeks ago, for instance, a friend stayed a couple nights and we decided to go out for a late dinner, but he made me decide where and I kept refusing, and so instead we drove around for twenty minutes, and when we finally did decide where to go (because eventually I forced him to help me), it turned out that most every place was closed or about to close, and we ended up not really having to decide because there was hardly anything open, which made me breathe a sigh of relief, even though it didn't honestly matter where we ate, so what on earth made me so hesitant to say anything?  Anyway, you see that I'm not very good at decision-making.

It gets even worse when things are more important.  Elections always get me anxious, usually for months in advance.  I must admit that this year I didn't really pay any attention to politics at all until, well, election day, which wasn't the most civicly-responsible thing to do, I realize, but it made me feel better about the whole ordeal.  My freshman year of college was a Presidential election year, and I spent a small chunk of time campaigning, going door-to-door and handing out fliers and such, and the whole time I felt pretty uneasy about it.  I mean, I felt like I should be involved, and I generally agreed with this party's views, but I knew there was some ambiguity and some things I just wasn't totally sure about, and I knew that the people in this party tended to hold certain ideas too highly and forget about giving other important matters enough serious thought and feeling, and so I was totally relieved one day when I found out the guy I was campaigning with liked the same kind of music as me and we talked about that the whole time instead of politics.

I think a good chunk of that indecision and uncomfortability--and I hope it goes this way and not the other way around--comes from the fact that most things seem to be held in a kind of tension.  By that I mean that there is usually a good deal of truth on either side of an argument, and both sides push and pull each other, and sometimes the truth seems to be in two places at once.


And if there is a good deal of truth on either side of an argument, maybe it's true that neither is wholly wrong, that there's room for both sides to say something true.  Now don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying that there is no truth, or that truth is relative and everyone's individual "truth" is equally valid.  One of the few things I can feel pretty comfortable saying is that I think there is only one truth, and things are right or wrong compared to that standard, and I think that if you throw out that idea that there's not much of a point in talking at all.

But maybe that standard of truth, the way things really are, isn't so black and white as some people want to make it.  Maybe, in fact, the truth sometimes (or usually) holds some kind of tension in itself.

One of my favorite characters in any kind of literature is Tevye, the milkman that the play Fiddler on the Roof is all about.  I just watched the movie version again a few days ago, and one of my favorite scenes is the one where Perchik, a student from Kiev, first arrives in Anatevka, the little Slavic village where Tevye's Jewish community lives.  Tevye is selling his milk to a bunch of men, who are talking about the outside world and cursing everyone, when Perchik comes up and tells them all how silly their cursing is and that they should do something about it instead.  One of the men says that they shouldn't bother themselves about the outside world, and Tevye says that he's right.  But then Perchik retorts that "You can't close your eyes to what's happening in the world," and Tevye, after thinking a bit, says, "He's right."  "He's right and he's right?" another man asks.  "They can't both be right."  Tevye looks at him, goes to scoop another ladle of milk, and says, "You know, you are also right."

And so I know I'm not the only one who has trouble finding truth.  It just seems so terribly hidden sometimes, so awfully complicated, because there are all of these things that at first glance seem to contradict each other, and sometimes they really do, but they all seem true.  I see it in theology a lot.  One of the questions that has baffled me consistently ever since I first thought about it is about free will.  If God is sovereign--that is, he has total control over everything and can do whatever he wills, as long as it is consistent with himself--does mankind really have the ability to make decisions that make a real difference?  Well, it seems like it.  I decided to go to work yesterday.  I could have decided not to, to reject the sub job and stay home, but I went, and as a result of that I spent six hours or so reading tests to students, and I should be getting paid for it in two weeks or so.  Did God decide for me?  I don't think so.  But then, does God have total control over what happens in the world?  Well, yes.  So then, did you really have control over deciding to go to work?  Um, yes?  I think so?

You see it in politics, too (it is good to have freedom, but it is also good to think about other people and to sacrifice freedom), and in morality (it is good to love all people unconditionally, but it is not good to cheat on your wife), and in everything, really.  There is always tension.  Tension, I think more than anything else, characterizes life and being and existence, and tension makes things really hard.

The thing about tension, and one of the big problems about it, is that things are never just one way.  You can't just look at a situation and know what the answer is, because there are always 47-billion different variables, and every one of them has some effect on the whole and makes it unique, and that makes it almost impossible to categorize anything.  Even the simplest situations have so many implications that it's hard to know what to do.  Last year I had a student in class that I found out was spending a lot of time in the hallways when he was supposed to be on his way to another building.  As it turned out, he didn't go to that building at all, so I got prepared to write him up, but then when I talked with him, it didn't seem like that was the right answer at all because of some bit of information that I don't remember off the top of my head.  It didn't help that this student wasn't doing well in his classes, but I had only just developed enough of a relationship with him to help him see things a little differently and he seemed to be making some progress, and making assumptions now about his character would put that relationship in jeopardy.  And so I sat there at my desk, with all of the authority to do whatever I wanted, the write-up in hand, looking at this student in the eyes, totally clueless as to what I needed to do next.

Of course, moral ambiguities aren't the same as the state of truth, but you get what I mean, I hope.  Truth is like that, too, and sometimes it's really hard to know what it is at all.

When I was a senior in high school, we had an assignment in our English class where we had to do a good amount of research on a single word, finding definitions, etymology, common and published uses, and so on.  I chose the word truth, and of all the things I remember from the assignment (which, honestly, amounts pretty much to this one thing that I'm about to tell you, the fact that I had to actually look up my definitions in an impossibly huge physical copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, and another student's paper that inexplicably featured a mad-scientist protagonist), the thing that made the biggest impact on me is the story of Pontius Pilate.  He was the guy that ordered the crucifixion of Jesus (one of the sources we had to use was the Bible, on the account of it being the single greatest literary influence of all of Western culture), but he only did so after trying to get the people in his province to lay off a bit and let him free.  After he tries a bunch of things and finds out that the Jews really don't like Jesus at all on account of him calling himself God and such, he talks to Jesus and asks if he's a king, to which Jesus replies rather cryptically that he came to testify to the truth.  At this point I think Pilate is probably pretty flustered, seeing that he's trying to do the right thing but no one seems to agree with him, and Jesus isn't really helping because he's not giving him any straight answers, and he responds to Jesus with a short but incredibly profound question: "What is truth?"

And I think that pretty much sums up most of my thoughts most of the time, which is probably why I find myself watching movie trailers more often than I do pondering the nature of reality.  Movie trailers are a lot easier to deal with, and if there is tension in a movie, it will probably solve it for you, and it might even give you a hint about the real tension behind the truth about everything.  Just thinking about that tension on my own is pretty overwhelming, and making moral judgments about things that are really difficult seems like a really stupid thing to do when I don't really understand much of anything in the grand scheme of things.

Which is why all of the controversy in the last 24 hours or so makes me uncomfortable.  People, and by that I mean most people, and by that I mean the people that are really loud about everything and make sure that their voices get heard, have been very good about telling everyone what the correct thing to do in a given situation is.  Specifically, I'm talking about the Ferguson decision, which is really interesting because it wasn't even a trial, but everyone is certain that it was a really big deal, and it probably was.

See, I'd really like to just not comment on it, because the situation seems to be really complex, and it also seems like this decision is not at all an isolated incident but is a part of a much larger issue, and I simply don't know enough about everything to know what to say.  But it has become the socially acceptable thing to be outraged about it, and everyone who is socially conscientious is saying something and telling everyone about how important it is, and again, they are probably right that it is all very important.

But I find it really unlikely that all of these people, with all of the things that are going on in their lives like grad school and internships and jobs that demand a lot of them, know about everything that is going on, especially when the attorney on the news last night said that most of the important evidence has been kept from the public on purpose.  I think what he said about social media blowing things up is probably true, even if this really is a very important issue, because I know how some people get really excited and angry about things like how someone said something that offended someone else, and then they tell all of their friends how terrible that person is, and then that person says something publicly that sheds new light on everything and now what they said doesn't seem so awful, and then that person on social media feels silly in front of everyone and knows they made this person look much worse than they really are and repents for what they said.  Or maybe they are still angry about it and make up an excuse so that it looks like they are still right and they just continue to be angry, which probably happens just as often.

See, I think there are a lot of true things being said by people, and some of them are from these loud people on social media, and I think they are probably doing many good things by it.  I have heard a lot about how things have been very racially tense in Ferguson, and about how there are way more arrests of black people than white people and how that probably is due to severe racial profiling, and about how this racial profiling has gone on for decades unchecked and so now it's blowing up and lots of people are angry.  And I've seen a lot about how white people should be concerned about injustice too, and that it shouldn't just be the minorities who experience it the most that speak up, and I think all of that is probably true as well.

But then, I think what that attorney on TV said is probably also true, and I think that in part because of how gracious and careful he was to say everything, though I know that is not necessarily a good litmus test of bias, and that the grand jury who decided not to charge the police officer probably has a better idea about who is guilty or not guilty in this situation than pretty much anyone else in the world, even a better idea than those loud people on social media.

And so we have a lot of different bits of truth out there--truth about justice and truth about whether or not Brown actually did something wrong and truth about who knows the truth and truth about how people ought to be treated and truth about why things are the way they are--and they probably all complement each other quite nicely when they are put together the right way, when they are all lined up correctly with the big Truth of Reality, but most people only see a few pieces, and it's easy to think that things are different from what they actually are when you only have a few pieces of something.  You end up putting some things upside down and fitting some things together in ways they weren't really meant to be fit together, and if you had all the pieces you probably wouldn't do that, though even then it would probably take a lot of time and a lot of thinking to make it look the way it's supposed to.

I guess I say all this--all this about tension and reality and pieces of truth--to say that it probably isn't really fair to get angry with one another.  People are doing the best they can with the pieces of truth that they have, and there is a lot of tension between different bits of truth, and sometimes it's hard to balance when you're being pulled in many different directions.  I don't blame people for losing their balance every now and then.  I think that's probably pretty normal.

I think it's also important to realize that perhaps we don't have all the pieces we need, either.  Yes, there is a lot of truth about being socially responsible and about being just, about fighting things like racism and sexism and homophobia and all kinds of hatred, about looking after our brothers and sisters, and I think that sometimes we need little reminders to do those things, or sometimes really big, obnoxious reminders that inspire newscasts that interrupt the dancing show I was watching on TV.  (I really hope Alfonso wins.)  But sometimes very lofty feelings about very good ideas make us think funny, and sometimes we feel so strongly about things like justice and love that we become quite unjust and unloving to one another, and that, frankly, is pretty stupid.  If my lofty feelings about squelching racism make me angry enough at everyone to start saying nasty things to them, or to start throwing things and destroying things and stealing things and making places quite unlivable, maybe my lofty feelings about racism aren't very helpful after all.

Of course, it's usually more subtle.  It usually has more to do with insinuations, with people who feel very sure of themselves letting people know in very subtle ways that if they don't feel very sure of themselves in the same ways then they are very wrong and need to change very quickly, because how could you possibly think that, and don't you care about justice and goodness, and it's because you're white, isn't it, and you must not be as cultured or refined or academic or socially-conscious as I am.  And of course it goes the other way, too: don't you have any respect for the authorities, and why are you so passionate about this, anyway, and aren't there more important things.  I hope I'm not a part of either of those crowds right now.

When I think about all of this, about truth and tension and justice, I start to feel very small.  I get to hoping no one ever asks me important questions, because I'm scared that I won't be able to give them the right answer, and I probably won't have an answer at all, to be honest.  I can't solve the big questions.  I can't even solve the little questions of what I'll be doing next fall or what I'll eat for dinner or what I'll say tonight when I meet with a friend.

Of course, that doesn't mean I should do nothing, and I'm glad that the loud people are on social media, because they remind me that I ought to get out there, although I do wish they'd say it a little more nicely and not burn down Walgreen's. There are things I can do.  I can love people, giving them my time and my ears and the warmth of a friend.  I can fight racism in my school, in my town, in my heart, and stand up for the people I know that have been oppressed.  I can have the hard conversations and wrestle with the tension and find out how to love people and to love God in it all.  I can do some things, and I'm glad the loud people remind me of that.

But there are also things I can't do.  I can't reverse decisions made by juries, nor can I force my way onto one by shouting my meagerly-formed opinion loudly enough. I can't right all of the wrongs of the world, though I can fight against them in small, and sometimes even in quite big, ways.  I can't show love by shouting at people or insulting them in subtle ways even if I'm trying to help them see truths about justice and goodness.  And I can't make much of a real difference by saying something mostly because I want people to think I'm socially-conscious and educated and fashionable, either.

And I think the world would probably be better served if we embrace the tension, accept our limitations, stop shouting, assume the best we possibly can of one another, and begin to radically love other people in ways that, for someone, at least, really do make a difference.

Where I Am Now, or, Why I Spend Most Nights at Home, or, Where Do I Go from Here?

I've been in a bit of a rough spot lately.  By that I mean that I haven't really felt at peace about where I am in life.  I know that some of that is simply because I graduated a year and a half ago and haven't yet landed anywhere in particular, and transition phases are always tricky.  No one likes to be in between things, because then questions like "What are you up to nowadays?" and "So, are you in school?" get really complicated, long-winded responses, which are tiring, and honestly, I'm never entirely sure what the answer is until I give it.  The conversation usually looks something like this:

So are you going to school?
"Well, no, I actually graduated a year ago."
Oh, so you have a job now?
"Oh, er, well, I'm substitute teaching."
Ah, so you're looking for a full-time position?
"Well, no, not really, see, I don't think I want to be a teacher anymore."
You mean you're not going to use your degree?
"Uh, nope, it doesn't look like it.  I might go back to school, though."
Oh.  Huh.  Alright.

Around then the conversation gets really awkward, because I'm not really sure what to classify myself as, and the person talking to me doesn't feel like they've gotten anywhere, and so we look at one another for a while until one of us makes up an excuse to leave.  If I'm at a social gathering with lots of people, I might replay this conversation several times, each one getting shorter and more tense until I just decide I don't really care that much about making friends, anyway.  Needless to say, I don't go out that often.

But it's been rough for other reasons, too.  I've found that after college, it's hard to make friends.  (It's no easier if you're not really sure what you should be doing with your life.  See above.)  I find myself at home most nights, and it's a bit of a shock going from school and camp, where I'm surrounded by community, to home, where I have to actually find things to do.  I've read more these last few months than ever before, probably, I've watched tons of movies and even some TV, I am constantly scrolling through facebook and I've gotten addicted to puzzle games.  I have lots of time, but most of it I spend alone.

And that has effects on everything else.  My spiritual life has been pretty rocky.  I don't find myself in the Bible or praying very often because, well, I just don't have any motivation to, even when I know I should.  I've found myself slipping into old habits and ways of thinking that I thought I had reasonably controlled.  And then I find myself getting really selfish.  I have lots of time, but I don't want to give it to people, or I get annoyed when they don't say the right things, or when they say something silly, or when they say anything at all, or when they look at me funny.  I think I'm getting pretty socially awkward, honestly.  People aren't supposed to be hermits, really, but I feel quite out of place anywhere I go.

Mostly, I just feel stuck in the mud, stagnant, without direction.  I don't say that to make anyone feel sorry for me, it's just the way it feels.  Over time I seem to be getting more deeply introspective, more into myself and my current spot than in getting out of myself and looking on, wherever that may be.  The more time I spend here, the more comfortable I get, though all the while the futility of staying here grows on me.  I know I'm not going anywhere.  I know I was made for more than this.

The trouble is, I can't for the life of me figure out what.

I have ideas.  I might go back to school.  Maybe I'll leave the country with friends.  Maybe I'll give the teaching thing another go.  But all of these are just thoughts, and I don't know if I have the gumption to turn them into movement.  I feel trapped here, waiting for some I-don't-know-what.

About here is where I should have a moral, something I've learned from all of this, but I'm not really sure what that is.  Perhaps this is just a season and I'm here for a reason, though I cannot begin to imagine the reason for being so stagnant, and maybe I'm struggling through some tension now to learn something, though it feels less like tension and more like an interminable amount of slack from all sides.  Except, maybe, from below, where I'm being anchored to the spot.  But right now, I have nothing.  No glimmer of wisdom, no direction, no "and this is what we've learned today."

I don't mean to be dramatic or fatalistic, but I think it's true that we won't always have something to say or a take-away from every situation.  This is one of those times that I'm not sure I have anything clever or profound to say.  I suppose all I can do is hang on in faith, do what I know I ought to do, as difficult as that is and as unsuccessful as I have been in the recent past, and look forward.

But... where is forward?

A Letter for You, or, Happy October 11th

Dear friends and family,

This message has been a long time coming.

The truth is, I haven't been very honest with some of you. While I've tried to be more upfront about everything in recent months, there are still a lot of things that I've kinda kept hidden from many people. I suppose most people have some kind of skeleton in their closet; but it will stay there and haunt you until someone opens the door and turns on the light and shows it for what it really is. So, keeping that in mind, I think it's time I turned on the light for good.

The first time, I probably wasn't entirely honest. Let me re-introduce myself.

My name is Jacob Swanson. I'm a 24-year-old male, born, raised, and currently living in West Michigan, the oldest of four children of two pretty incredible parents. I love singing classical music and show tunes, backpacking in the woods, drinking good coffee, playing whatever instrument I can get my hands on, and reading really good literature. I have a degree in English and a teaching license. I have strange fascinations with old buildings, interesting phonology, record covers, and all things Scandinavian. Most importantly, I'm a Christian who, while always struggling to believe truly and live rightly, has learned to love and trust in Jesus.

I also happen to be attracted to men.

What I'm Learning About Friendship, or, Long-Overdue Thoughts from Summer

Five months ago I wrote that I was leaving for camp soon, and I had the enlightened idea to blog weekly about my camp experiences.  I would be able to reflect on how things were going, practice writing for a public forum, and involve others in camp ministry.  It was a grand idea!

Since then, I have written once.  Oops.

Mostly, I think, I didn't write because I lacked the time.  But to some extent, I think I didn't write because I felt I had nothing to write about.  After getting home, people will invariably ask, "So, how'd your summer go?" and I have found myself more than once in the awkward position of not knowing how to answer them.  Was it a good summer?  I guess so.  Was it hard?  Yes.  Am I glad to be done with it?  To be honest, yes.  But how was my summer?  Gosh.  How do I begin?

It was an odd summer.  For the first time at camp, I was on leadership staff, which meant I had the added task of scheduling, training, organizing, communicating, and otherwise leading 12-ish support staff.  Not only was I a leader, but I was positively old.  Most of the staff this year were just out of high school; I, a year out of a five-year bachelor's degree, was practically ancient.  As such, I was supposed to be the wise old sage that knew everything and could solve every problem.

That's how it went in my brain, anyway.

Turns out I'm none of those things.  Not practically, anyway.  It's been a struggle teaching, too.  Teachers and supervisors and those sorts are supposed to know what to do all the time, and they're supposed to take initiative.  I'm bad at taking initiative because I'm usually not sure which initiative to take.  Leadership is hard and confusing.

But so is friendship.  See, I kind of expected to have some difficulty being in leadership.  I don't tend to be overly assertive, so it's always a bit of a challenge pretending to be.  Friendship, though, is something I do a lot more often, and I think I'm better at it than leadership.  Every once in a while I think about how many good friends I have and I'm a little surprised by it.  I think I probably just got lucky, honestly.

But it turns out that it's still confusing to me, and I still do it pretty badly sometimes.  I think it was the biggest thing I learned this summer, actually, which is a little disappointing, to be honest.  Other people came out of this summer having learned amazing things about how God loves them and how they can make a difference in children's lives and how God is still moving in amazing ways today.  I learned that I need to not suck at being a friend.

A Journey in the Dark, or, A Long-Expected (Bachelor) Party

I haven't written in quite some time.  I had grand aspirations to blog weekly about my fourth summer of camp life, but that clearly didn't work out.  I feel like I will have plenty to say about all that later.  The last few days, however, have been phenomenal, and there ought to be a written record of it somewhere.  Besides, it gave me an excuse to use Lord of the Rings chapter names as my post's title, which makes my soul inexplicably happy.

So, a few weeks ago I was asked by a friend to be an usher at his wedding this summer, which gave me an in to his bachelor party as well.  Usually these are fun but predictable and fairly forgettable: a few rounds of laser tag, a few drinks at someone's house, a short game of golf turned into a longer game of golf-cart polo.  (Well, that last one was pretty cool.)  Mostly they are a time to cut loose, have fun, "be guys" (whatever that actually means), but not commit to anything too extreme or time-consuming.

But my friend Kellan is a bit more, well, extreme than that.  I met him my second year at summer camp, when we were both counselors together.  At the time, he had a mountain-man beard that scared the crud out of me.  He was training to be a police officer, and he had the build and stature to prove it.  He carried around weights in his backpack everywhere he went, simply because it was a challenge.  (Rumors varied between 40 and 60 pounds of additional weight, put there for no good reason but to be heavy.)  This man was not about to simply play laser tag for his bachelor party.

So we decided to go backpacking--because carrying everything needed to survive with you for three days is decidedly more manly than a game of golf--and we settled on a trail in a national forest about an hour's drive from home.  Even though he was the groom, Kellan ended up doing most of the planning and the packing, just because that's who he is.  (He would have paid for the whole thing if we'd let him, and he probably paid for most of it anyway, bless his heart.)  He'd hiked the trail a few times before, so he was our guide more often than not as well.

We left home around 8 p.m., which didn't put us on the trail until almost dark.  We hiked for an hour or so before it was too dark to go any farther and then set up camp.  (My hiking and camping experience is pretty small, and my backpacking experience prior to this trip has consisted of nothing more than day hikes, so this was a bit of a challenge.)  After s'mores over the fire, we went to bed, just before midnight.

It's an interesting thing to go hiking with people you know well; it's a stranger thing to go hiking with people you hardly know at all.  The groom himself was the only guy I knew with any intimacy; one other I had met a handful of times, another I had seen but never talked to, and another I didn't see until we met up to head out.  Now on an extended hike, there is nothing to do but walk and talk.  When you know your fellow hikers well, conversation comes pretty naturally.  When you only know one out of four half-way decently, it's a heck of a lot more difficult.  Even though I hit it off pretty well with a couple of them, there was a lot of silence--not necessarily because conversation had been exhausted, but because we didn't really know how to have it in the first place.  The first night was awkward and wieldy, and it felt like it was strained and shallow.

But you learn interesting things about people when you spend three days together without showers or electricity or, you know, any kind of building to speak of.  I learned that Blair liked to stare at cool views and take photos; I learned that Alex sings all the time, whether real songs or not; I learned that Jason likes to run up hills, which is actually kind of helpful and not just lunacy like I thought at first.  And over time, we got past the awkward "So, what's your major?" questions to the more interesting "Where would you go if you could visit any country in the world?" questions, and even the stupid poop questions that for whatever reason guys tend to ask each other when they feel comfortable.  (Why the discussion of bowel movements is an indicator of male bonding, I may never know.)  It was when we started making up alternative greetings ("Why do we tell each other that it's a beautiful day?  Let's tell people we pass that there's a bear ahead instead...") that I knew we'd gotten somewhere as a group.

But I think the best part of the trip for me was simply getting away from the craziness of life and slowing down.  The beauty and frustration of backpacking is that, for the vast majority of the time, there is simply nothing to do besides hike and talk.  Even when you set up camp, you don't have anything to occupy yourself with besides conversation and exploring.  I spent a lot of time just looking, sitting, being, which was marvelously refreshing.  No papers, no planning, no organizing or scheduling or anything.  Simply being.  It is good once in a while to take time to be.

And even I was surprised at some of the views we found an hour away from home.  I went hiking in Kentucky a year ago and saw some of the most incredible landscapes I've ever seen, but there were bluffs and waterfalls and valleys on this Michigan trail that could take your breath away.  I didn't bring a camera, half on purpose--I wanted to enjoy without feeling the need to document--but part of me wishes I had.  I spent a few minutes every morning taking in the view apart from the others, watching the river wind around the trees from 100 feet above, the other side of the valley rising, forested, in the distance.  There's something beautiful and wild about a forest, something that is only augmented by the smell of campfire smoke and the hard ground underneath.  I didn't even bring a sleeping pad, and I think I'm almost glad of it.

This afternoon we left the forest, celebratory.  We hiked about 15 miles yesterday, which was long for our out-of-shape legs, and it was relieving to get back to pavement and motors and speeds above 3 miles-an-hour.  But there's something downheartening about leaving these four guys, and something even more depressing about knowing I'm going back to work tomorrow, even if "work" is running activities at camp.  Still, I suppose life can't be lived in solitude, and there are things to be done, and I am always surrounded by the beauty of earth if I only look for it.  I'll see these guys again at Kellan's wedding, and I'll have the grandeur of Michigan in the summertime until then.

Carrion Comfort, or, Hope for the Lonely

Today is a beautiful, sunny, blue day after a week of clouds and rain.  I've just gotten home from a weekend full of meeting new people, playing silly games, and worshiping.  I've just been invited to a wedding and learned that a friend is thinking about proposing.  I'm about to re-pack, fuel up on gas and coffee, and head over to the east side of the state to visit a friend or two for a few days.  Looking at it all from a distance, everything is really good.

But, to be perfectly honest, it doesn't feel that way.

I feel really lonely.  I don't know why this snuck up on me the way it did.  I mean, I have been surrounded by people that I love this last weekend.  I was back at camp for spring orientation, and many of my good friends from last year were there again.  I had some great conversations with some of them.  I ran around a lot and made myself sore, which is strangely and oxymoronically pleasant.

But here I am, moping in front of my computer screen.

I don't know why I fall into these slumps.  It happens a lot more often than it should.  I have reflected on my surroundings so many times and been astounded by the faithfulness of God in giving me incredible friendships that I never even asked for, and yet I feel like there is no one who really knows me.  This is patently untrue, but for some reason I have the hardest time fighting through the sadness, the despair, the apathy that settles in the pit of my stomach.

One of my favorite poets describes despair as a "carrion comfort."  That image has stuck with me; despair is not a thing that is alive and well, but a thing that is dead, rotting until it is no more, a thing for vultures to devour.  There may be comfort in it, but it isn't a comfort that revives; it's a comfort that consigns itself to death, to sorrow, to endless misery.  It assumes that the way things are is the way they will always be.

But they won't.  Hopkins, the poet, says that he won't give into despair, and even as he struggles to know what to do instead, he says that he can hope.  He knows that his struggles are meant to make the "chaff fly."  It is all a part of the process, of being sanctified and purified, and that it will eventually turn back to joy.  Even his choice to choose hope instead of despair is a part of it.

1 Peter begins with a reminder of the hope we have, that God, "according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."  But what he says next is really interesting: "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."  (1 Peter 1:3-7)

Peter acknowledges that we are going to be grieved.  We will have times in our lives where we have difficulties, and it won't always be pleasant.  But still, "In this you rejoice," not discounting the various trials, but remembering instead the "living hope" to an unfading inheritance.  Though, for whatever reason, I might be battling through a sadness and a loneliness right now, I know that I am looking to "the founder and perfecter of our faith" who has made a way for me to have hope for an eternal inheritance.  If, perhaps, I don't feel I belong now, I must remember that I am looking forward to a time where I will belong, where I am a son who has an inheritance for all time.

At times, without the tangible feeling of belonging, that is little comfort.  But in my head I know it is the best comfort I can have, that these small trials are only "for a little while," and I have to let my heart follow my head in these times.  I think, often, that that is the essence of faith: I trust God, even when my experience and feelings scream in protest.  And so I must choose hope instead of the carrion comfort of despair, knowing that it is so my "chaff may fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear."

Friendship, or, Why Aren't Any Of The Words I Use "Real"?

Hello again, blogosphere.  It's been a while.

Today* I went to see the new Captain America movie.  This is significant for three reasons.  Firstly, I don't often go to the movie theater because I'm cheap, and when I do it's usually an event instead of a spur-of-the-moment decision.  Secondly, I'm not a big superhero-movie fan, so me going to see this movie of all things is pretty weird.  Thirdly, and this is most significant, I went with one of my guy friends, and this was the second time we'd hung out this week.

This school year has been a tough one for me, mostly because I've felt pretty consistently lonely.  It's an odd thing to move back home after five years of school.  All of the people I used to know and love have gotten older and left, and I'm left with a shell of a town that, beautiful as it is, seems to have lost most of its heart.  I still know people, of course, since my town could all enroll at my school twice over and still have spots left (and in towns as small as mine, you know just about everyone), but I don't know hardly anyone well.  What you're left with is a bunch of shallow relationships that you don't make any deeper because everyone assumes they already know you even though you've gone away for five years and everything's changed.  But hey, he still goes to church and sings in the choir and acts in community theater.  He must be the same old Jacob.  Of course, they didn't know me that well before, either.

Anyway, it's been hard to break into circles and find people to connect with, especially having been obscenely busy doing a long-term sub gig at the high school for four months in the middle of it.  The other day, though, I happened to cross paths with an old camp friend.  We sort of grew up together--in high school, for a while, we were kind of doppelgangers and would get confused for one another all the time--and we spent two summers together working at summer camp, but still I don't think we were ever very close.  We got talking and realized we were both pretty lonely and dreadfully bored, so we set up a time to get together the next week.

On Tuesday we met at a local hot dog place.  It was new in town, and the only place I know of that you can get mac & cheese on your hot dog.  (Is that a thing?  Really?)  We sat down with our incredible edibles at about 4 and didn't stop talking until 6:30, at which point I was almost an hour late to my next thing.  I was surprised to find conversation to be so easy with this guy that I had known for years without really knowing hardly at all.  I was even more surprised to get a text at 1:30 that night (/morning?) saying that he really enjoyed it and wanted to get together again on Thursday, which we did.

I was secretly glad that his roommates couldn't make it to the movie.  As much as it would be great to get to know them, I kind of wanted to spend more time alone with my friend.  Some time after the trailers ended, amidst our whispered "Woah"s and "What the heck?"s and "Did you see that!?"s (or maybe that was pretty much just me.  I'm not a particularly quiet movie-goer) I started to feel something I hadn't felt in a long time.  Here I was, sitting next to a friend, enjoying something together.  As I realized the simple beauty of this sudden togetherness, a thankfulness suddenly started shouting inside me like a redneck's truck stereo on the Fourth of July (is that just a small-town Michigan thing?) and it was all I could do to keep myself giggling.  Yes, sometimes I giggle, and I'm ok with that.

Due to circumstances that I'll probably write about in the near future, I've always been a little hesitant to show or even feel affection for my guy friends.  But I've done a lot of reading lately, and it's causing me to re-evaluate what is "good" and what is "bad" in friendships.  In the past, that internal warmness of delight in my friend probably would have made me terribly uncomfortable, but the other day (I'm always so terribly slow at writing these posts) instead of quelching it** I risked basking in the glow of it.  I allowed it to inspire a wondering at the beauty of the world, a being-in-awe at the nature of friendship and love.  Slowly, the corners of my mouth started stretching upward, and I found myself grinning and thanking God for the person sitting next to me--for a friend.

I think our culture has done us a disservice in reserving affection for romantic partners only, in the process diminishing friendship to a strange, distant sort of relationship that often looks more like what co-workers would share rather than what family would.  I haven't come to many conclusions about it yet, but without getting too theological or doing too much hastily-put-together proof-texting, I have a feeling that the "Love one another"s in Scripture weren't just of the detached, "Don't-make-me-touch-him" type, but of the sort that requires great sacrifice and, maybe consequently, great devotion and even affection.  It seems a little silly to assume that our friendships (perhaps out of a disproportionately-heightened defense of personal chastity?) should be completely devoid of feeling, but that's often the message that we Christians send to one another, especially to the guys.  Men don't feel anything, you know.  *facepalm*

Anyway, the surge of feeling pointed me toward God and his goodness and grace toward us.  How good to feel not only loved and valued by another, but to feel love for and value another!  What a wonderful thing to know this man as my brother and to feel the joy that comes from that!  And how incredible to know that this friendship in some way points toward the friendship (what an astounding word to be able to use!) that we share with the God of the Universe that made us and loves us!  Sometimes that relationship seems too abstract to be of any good, but some days, like Thursday, I am blown away by the incredible intimacy that we share.  Maybe, in part, that's why God gave us human friendship: to know that we are known, not only by one another, but by the one who made us in the first place.

With much love and much hope,

Jacob

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*"Today" being, at this point, Thursday, two days ago, when I started writing this blog post.  I don't know how more consistent bloggers find the time.  I really don't.

**I am finally coming to fully utilize the capability of hyperlinks!!  I never realized how much non-standard verbage*** I use, but as a bit of a word nerd, it kind of fascinates me, and I'm glad not to have to defend myself in the actual text of the post.  Not that anyone except me honestly cares.

***But I care, and apparently 'verbage' isn't really standard, either, but is even more confusing.  I mean it as, apparently, a "rare alternate spelling of verbiage," which itself means "diction, wording, verbal expression" according to the word's second OED definition.  In case anyone was wondering, which you probably weren't.

Walking in the Spirit, or, Why I Wish Christianity Was About Rules

"No matter what the issue is, we as humans prefer rules, regulations, laws and checklists to Jesus himself. Rather than asking the Spirit what the real issue is inside [someone's] heart, we simply want them to externally modify their behavior."  --http://www.believe.com/articles/The-Idolatry-of-Modesty/

It's been said (maybe too many times) that Christianity is "not a religion; it's a relationship."  I have struggled with that phrase a lot, because I don't know exactly how honest it is.  The sentiment is true, I think; as a Christian, I should be less concerned with rules and the letter of the law than I should be with being proactive about my relationship with Jesus.  Still, that's not to say that there isn't a place for rules, and it would be misleading to not call the Christianity of Bible-Believing Evangelical Christians a "religion."  It's not like we're a bunch of disconnected mystics that have magically all arrived at the same conclusions about most things that are fundamentally important.

But there's probably more truth in the phrase that I'm comfortable with.  Honestly, the thought of needing to be be "in step with the Spirit" (Galatians 5) is just a bit frightening to me.  I'm not sure why that is, exactly, but something about it makes me uneasy.  It's heavy and weighty, dreadfully serious.  It means that the important thing is not what I do.  The important thing is where my heart is, my own willingness to follow the Spirit moment by moment.  The important thing is willful obedience.

The truth is that I am an incredibly obstinate person.  Part of that is undoubtedly growing up in the instant-gratification generation I was born into, some of it is the exposure I've had to my family, who are for the most part just as stubborn as I am, and part of it is probably the fact that I hate not being in control.  I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it, and I get frustrated frustrated when I can't.  So when Paul says, "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh," I start to get uneasy, because that means that I can't just do whatever the heck I want whenever I want to.  It means I have to defer to someone else.

Now, speaking in generalities, I'm alright with that.  I don't really have a problem with saying that Jesus is Lord of my life and making the big decisions in light of that.  Where it gets sticky is in the little moment-to-moment things.  I think that's mostly because I always like to have a plan, and I get a little panicky when things don't follow the plan, and following the Spirit in the moment sometimes means going in a direction that is different from the plan.  (Again, I like to be in control.)

To illustrate: Since I've been back home, I've been working as a substitute teacher.  I had a long term gig this last few months, which was hard in that I was essentially a first-year teacher for four months, but it was great in that it was consistent.  I knew what to expect.  That gig ended a little over a week ago, and tomorrow I will probably be woken up with a phone call asking if I can come in to sub.  I am not happy about this.  This means that I will go to bed tonight not knowing whether or not I am working tomorrow.  I won't know where I'm working, or in what subject, or with what age group.  All of this not-knowing makes me want to not do anything, and chances are that because I'll be sleeping and I won't want to change plans quickly, I won't even go in to teach in the morning.  If this keeps up I'll get depressed, and then I'll never want to do anything, and I'll probably default on my loans and become a homeless man that lives under a bridge, or maybe that guy that never moves out of his parents' house and gets pale and socially awkward because all he does is look at a computer screen all day and pretend he has friends.  All because I'm stubborn and didn't want to do something without having a plan to do it.

See, here is the big-picture plan for the life of Jacob the Christian: Jacob the Christian is a sinner, Jesus dies for Jacob the Christian, Jacob the Christian accepts grace that he can't earn, and Jacob the Christian is justified, his sins are forgiven, and he lives his life for Jesus.  I like this plan.  It definitely works out in my favor, and even though it requires massive commitment and re-alignment of priorities, I'm cool with it.  But here's the super-close-up plan for Jacob the Christian: Jacob the Christian wants to do something that probably isn't kosher, Holy Spirit says to Jacob the Christian that he should not do that but should instead follow Holy Spirit's prompting, and Jacob the Christian does.  This plan I don't like so much.  This plan requires that I change my plan and not get what I want to get, and Jacob the Corporeal Being doesn't like that because Jacob the Corporeal Being is very stubborn.

So back to the religion vs. relationship thing.  If everything were just about rules, I'd be alright.  When you break a rule, you can pay the penalty and fix it.  If I want to skip a college class, I probably can, because I probably have a set amount of classes I can skip without penalty, and if I'm doing well enough in class I can get away with it even if it does hurt my grade.  If I park where I'm not supposed to, I pay my parking ticket and everything is back to normal.  I know that all my sin is paid via Jesus' death on the cross, so I'm all good there.  The thing is, relationships don't really work that way.  If my friend wants to talk because they had a bad day and I am stubborn and selfish and click through facebook instead (purely hypothetical, of course), I can't just go back and pay them $20 and get it taken care of.  That offense is going to stay on my record, and it's probably going to come back and haunt me in some way, even if my friend is really awesome about it.  Not that I have done that, of course.

God isn't quite so penal as to constantly remind us of our wrongdoing by way of punishment, I don't think.  Love keeps no record of wrongs, and there's a great amount of truth to the macro-"God-forgives-all-sins-when-we-put-our-faith-in-him" story.  But there is something to the relational side of Christianity, as well.  I can't in good conscience do what I know the Spirit is telling me not to do (or vice-versa) because I know it will  be "taken care of" by Jesus' death.  In a legal sense it will, but there is something deeper going on, something relational, and when I look the other way and follow my plan instead, I in some way make things worse.  It's hard for me to articulate what that really looks like, just as it would be in the case of the friend that I ignore, but something there is being damaged in some way.  To walk "in step with the Spirit" is to acknowledge that relationship, to acknowledge God's sovereignty over my life in every moment, and it requires a great humility and great commitment to this God/man relationship.  It requires that I be flexible and willing to alter my plans in favor of something that is better (according to someone that is not me).  That, for me, is really hard.

The quote at the beginning is from an article on modest dress becoming a sort of idol, and I think it gets to the heart of this issue.  What I do is not really what's important.  Where my heart is, where my loyalties lie, is far more significant, and, probably not coincidentally, much harder to deal with.  There's no faking it or correcting it in the future.  My heart, my attitude towards the Spirit's guidance in my life, is only really relevant in the moment.  In that moment, I decide whether or not to walk in the Spirit.

Turns out God is pretty concerned with the heart.  Paul knew that, and so his advice to the Galatians who were preoccupied with the law was to forget about it and instead focus on having a heart that was willing to listen to the Spirit.  Galatians 5 starts out saying "Do not submit again to the yoke of slavery," but the slavery wasn't to sin; it was to the law.  The Galatians would rather have had a set of rules to follow than have to do the hard work of preparing their hearts and submitting to the Spirit moment by moment.  Sounds familiar.

The take-away?  Ouch.  I have a long way to go.  I have built up such a resistance to the Spirit in my life that it will take tremendous effort to do what he tells me to do.  But the way of the Christian is not one of rules and law and legalism.  It's a way where we walk by faith, not by sight, by the guidance of the Spirit--and by constant humility.  What a difficult thing to do well.  God has had much grace on me thus far, and I only pray he will continue to do so as I stumble through.