reconciliation

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i don't know how to start my train of thoughts! it's like jumping onto a circular train track that's going too fast for me to accurately judge the most appropriate time to jump. the past few months i've been reading "exclusion and embrace" by miroslav volf and "the cross of christ" by john stott on and off. i've also attended four sessions of therapy, and i've had to work through ten years' worth of conflict and hurt. i've most recently undergone a handful of conflict resolution with people who are very precious to me, and i've had to re-evaluate the armful of emotional investment i've previously committed to while feeling increasing fatigue and increasing bitterness and regret for the pain that accompanies love. in this context of emotional weight lifting, a few thing stand out to me at the end of this year:

1) i'm tired 2) i've experienced many miracles 3) i've only just begun.

i'm tired because i carry relationships in my heart and on my shoulders. they lift me up but also bring me much pain, and even as i wonder if it is worth it i find myself reaching out once more or offering myself once more or seeking to care once more. i realize over and over again that i am so very frustratingly human and that friendships require grace upon grace that i cannot possibly conjure up on my own.

i've experienced many miracles because within these relationships, i realize that reconciliation is a fundamentally un-human, divine act - and in that nature it is therefore a miracle. there is no logical reason to justify me desiring to willingly and actively forego judgment upon someone who has done me harm. reconciliation entails not only foregoing judgment but sacrificially extending a hand to the offender as a gesture of invitation to pursue a future relation-ship. there is engagement, activity, and work involved. everything in me resists the notion of suspending judgment upon injustice; there is a deep aching within me that tells me forgiveness and reconciliation are fundamentally wrong. in some senses i suppose they are: god's grace is the gravest injustice in the history of mankind and yet it is by this grace that my life was/is intended to be shaped by. 

i'm only twenty one and everything ahead of me is kind of incredibly terrifying. please be gentle with me, i'm filled with apprehensions and i'm twenty one.

sidenotes;

why do we all want to be saviors of the world because lol

despair

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if this is what despair feels like then it's bitter and sharp and brutally indifferent. i want to punch things and in the morning i want see purple and yellow shapes on my knuckles as an outward manifestation of what's inside. i don't care to pray, i've never felt so lucid and cold and dead inside. and i feel alone because no one can step in and feel these things and know with certainty that i'm not crazy. i hate explaining. i can barely validate myself, let alone legitimate myself before the many hands outstretched in a helpless gesture. i can only give you stale morsels because i myself am starving

i'm only fucking twenty one

sidenotes;

in a really not good place

complicated grief

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mine is a story of loss
and it is unfinished
of grieving things i did not know i lost
of future subjunctives and future unrealities that haunt
and shape the contours of my insides as i
wrestle emotional amnesia and concussion

sidenotes;
had first counseling session, secured a bomb winter qtr schedule, attended prison divestment conference, had two bouts of food poisoning (?) in two weekends, spent time with favorite people, came back to a clean and rearranged apt (!!), got professor's approval for research, researching postgrad options, hair is long enough to put in bun without hair tie, moopity moop everything is so weird and scary

apparently for half of my life i have exhibited most of the signs of situational depression. lol. always thought it was relatively normal to be sad about things often. guess not ???

reflections

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this quarter/year is off to a really interesting start.

1) i feel as if the most prominent responsibility characteristic of adulthood for me is to understand my emotions -- to reign them in, to live with them, to give them necessary space, to own them, to befriend them. i am reminded of a quotation by joshua harris that says, "if we want to feel deeply, we must think deeply... true emotion- emotion that is reliable and does not lead us astray- is always a response to reality, to truth."

2) something about foreign words/concepts is very attractive lol, two of my favorite words right now are conscientização (friere) & cariño (duncan-andrade).

3) today self care involves feeding myself pesto pasta with sauteed asparagus & sweet peas + roasted tomatoes & mushrooms, drinking citrus sparkling water, going rock climbing, going running, blogging, and updating my ipod.

4) pain is an interesting thing... it "becomes a strange friend...but even in hours spent examining it and learning from it and even befriending it, it is ultimately from an external source and until that source relinquishes its power, the pain remains." -dr. charlene jin from isaac's 6th symposium

5) commonsensical practices/habits that i learn in a romantic relationship are for some reason not so commonsensical in my platonic friendships and i wonder why that is. i want to develop a more substantive understanding of platonic relationships and how they in fact may be the greatest of all loves... but even as i do so, how do i reconcile this heart-changing information with the isolating potential of implementing it in friendships where we are no longer on the same page? this is a rhetorical question. i realize that the goal is not to be right but to understand and submit and meet in the middle to move on.

6) everything that i assumed i knew about committing to a fellowship is being shaken as i find myself in a reality in which i desire to withdraw for my well-being. and even in saying this i feel myself subject to the condemnatory judgment of my brothers and sisters...

7) i need to be conscious of my expectations of others and keep them in check. unfortunately i don't generally become aware of my expectations until they are violated/unmet.

8) i really freaking need to say no to things. because i'm hecka dumb and say yes to commitments and then regret it.

sidenotes;
nrk

31st

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today is the 31st. i give myself permission to cry randomly over stupid things like opening the fridge and not wanting to cook, or buying a cold pressed juice that turns out tasting gross, or when people miss my calls. today i give myself permission to post depressing melodramatic vague things on social media as a reckless and desperate vie for attention. i will avoid contact with people just because i feel like it and i will ignore the nagging need to explain myself. today i will indulge in angry unreasonable thoughts and let myself be irritated at all the halloween festivities. today i will also practice self care and exercise and cook even if i don’t feel like it. i will also try to tell at least two people about my dad. and cry about stupid dad jokes. i also hope it rains today because then it’ll be a rainy friday. and i will eat ice cream and watch tv or something. i might splurge on some new shoes. and i won’t sleep until midnight because this is the one day i’ll let myself do these things

sidenotes;
lol herp

wordsmith

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words are a tool. it is my heart that yields this tool and that can either be reassuring and life giving or terrifying and awful. sin is not sourced in my right eye to be plucked out or my right hand to be cut off, but rather sourced in my heart from which all things flow. maybe when words are difficult to come by it is to humble me and strip me of power

sidenotes;

so ya idk

rage

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rage feels like expletives tearing out of my gut and up my throat and past my biting teeth. it feels like thick hot fast blood shooting through my veins and it feels like recklessness trembling in my limbs and my clenched fists. rage feels like the cold amusement of remembering that my knuckles are made of soft skin and bones instead of steel. soft, ripped skin. rage is a violent and powerful substance that fills me from my gut to my throat, destroying my stomach, puncturing my lungs, freezing my heart, twisting my esophagus.

this week i have felt these things. today i did push ups until i couldn't and said fuck a lot and punched the mattress because i didn't want to destroy my knuckles.

sidenotes;

why do we react in anger to hurt? why do i scratch my eczema when i'm distressed? why do i have random thin scratches on the left side of the bridge of my nose?

life is moving at a very uncomfortable pace right now
emotional left fielders hecka messing with my sleep schedule and my study life

throwback

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lately i have forgotten the sweetness of being confident in God's love for me. he feels distant, unsympathetic, impatient, contemptuous. i feel like i'm drowning in my anger and that there's no way a holy God would dare reach through the layers of sticky and thick hatred to save me. i am beyond saving and left for dead. i have forgotten the crux of the gospel that embodied God's love and grace in the life, death, and resurrection of jesus who willingly died by the hammers and nails of our sin. i've forgotten the sound of jesus crying out that "it is done," and that guilt and shame and chains are no more. i don't know how to speak truth to myself but apparently my nineteen year old self can. today i finally filled the last page of my fifth journal and can move on to my sixth (?) journal and when i grabbed my fourth journal from freshman/sophomore year of college and randomly flipped to a page, here is what it said:

"there is something off when i pray, 'lord, i just want to please you.' when i am burdened with some kind of heavy desire to please god, what i don't realize is that i already am the purposed object of his concentrated love and pursuance...he sees me in the future, right now, as his perfect bride, ready for eternal fellowship with him. no pain, no tears, no sorrow. he sees me right now, at the spot he intentionally placed me in, after guiding me here and refining me thus far. he sees every tear and heartache and does not look at me in contempt. he sees my every weakness and my past, present, future sins--but in dying on the cross, he declared conclusively...that not only has my lifetime of sin been acknowledged in its full ugliness, but it has also been thoroughly eclipsed and overcome (not merely excused as to diminish its offense before God) by the lashes on jesus' back, the thorns upon his head, the blood in his lungs." -december 23, 2012

thanks, nineteen year old eunice

sidenotes;

is there something significant in the last entry of my fifth journal being about this particular phonecall idk

friendships

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“In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,' can truly say to every group of Christian friends, 'Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.' The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.” 

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

i recently bought a new bike (i am in love with her!) and i also bought headlights because i have evening classes; unfortunately i do not have a screwdriver so i wasn't able to install it, so when i came home a few nights ago, an old man came up to me and chided me: "if i may offer a suggestion: you really ought to have headlights and backlights, you are much too young to throw your life away with a mistake like that..." i admit that i am not often ecstatic and receptive when random people give me unsolicited advice, and that i am very capable of misdirecting the conversation and/or verbally assuring the person that i appreciate their input even if inside i am seething in self-righteousness. i use this caveat to introduce the topic at hand: correction and friendships.

while that old man was a stranger and i will likely never see him again, i wonder if i would have reacted differently if a close friend told that to me. lately i have been blessed (a word i use intentionally albeit with a weary sigh) with many opportunities for conflict resolution, some of which are still in medias res. sitting in the tension of conflict makes me fear for the friendship as it feels like the foundations are being tested; it particularly grieves me when the depth and growth of friendships is stunted because of the unwillingness of one party to be seen and corrected. in my search for guidance and direction, i searched "spiritual friendships" or "christian friendships" online only to find relatively few things in relation to "christian relationships." i wonder whether we have so glamorized romantic relationships that we have placed it on a pedestal, and i wonder if the potential of spiritual platonic relationships have inadvertently been overshadowed and dismissed.

do we understand the implications of desiring a "Christian friend?" when we ask God for a Christian friend, do we understand that we are not just asking for a buddy to bear our emotional pains with and to rejoice in victories together. we are also asking for someone who is likewise under the authority of scripture that commands us to "love one another," to "bear one another's burdens," to speak truth to one another to the purpose of sanctification.

i once heard "intimacy" described as this moniker: "into me i let you see." as a friendship grows in intimacy, you begin to see the messiness and ugliness in his/her life just as he/she begins to see into your life. at every point both parties have the choice to opt out and to hide areas of their lives from each other, but i'm beginning to think that there is great potential for friendships to be used of god and the holy spirit as a means of gracious sanctification, and that it would be foolish of me to idiomatically "toss the baby out with the bathwater" by throwing up guards and denying my sisters and brothers the space to see into my life and exhort me towards holiness.

with these guiding principles in mind however, what follows is the very messy and scary execution. i notice that while we may theoretically welcome correction, it doesn't necessarily mean that the friends around us know that we do unless we verbally create a space for them to do so. i also notice that i have a tendency to err towards the side of acceptance and encouragement and justify it as an act of grace and mercy. what i fail to remember in doing so is that to correct someone is equally if not even more so an act of grace (unmerited favor) - who do i love enough to dare to venture into a potentially contentious and destructive space with the purpose of pointing out sin, and who loves me enough to do the same for me? doesn't the gospel say we are simultaneously more sinful than we know and more loved than we can imagine? is the full message of the gospel manifested in our friendships if we omit the reality that all have fallen short and are in need the grace of God manifested in our friends' willingness to correct us?

some questions to ask myself:
-who do i allow to speak correctional truth into my life?
-who do i allow to rebuke me?
-why those people and not others?
-in what ways do i resist correction/rebuke?
-how do i move forward as i grieve the implications of friendships that may be damaged through correction/rebuke?
-how can i encourage certain friends to be bold in correcting/rebuking me?
-how can i correct/rebuke certain friends in a way that is translated as an act of love?

Verses on Correcting
The "one another" commands
Relevant Magazine's "How We Misunderstand 'Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin'"

sidenotes;
someone sat next to me at whole foods when there are plenty of seats elsewhere, so uncomfortable lol. he has broken social norms uhhhhhhhhhh
my brain and heart definitely have a lot more to chew on and engage with during the school year... when i'm idle i feel like a dead thing

leslie

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on my first day of class god sent leslie to me. i had just finished eating my pad thai, fried rice, and shrimp roll and was walking to chat with my ethnic studies classmate whom i haven't seen all summer when i saw her across the room. she was an older white woman with unruly gray hair sitting conspicuously by the window, the single unmoving figure in the midst of just under a hundred asian students (mostly freshmen) who were conversing with thai teas in hand while waiting for the APSA board to call out raffle numbers.

distracted, i asked my friend, "does she come often?"
"yeah." my friend nodded.

"does anyone talk to her?"
"no but it's not like we can kick her out."

i didn't respond to that but told him that i'm going to go meet her. when i knelt next to her and asked if i could sit with her, she gave me a huge beaming smile and quickly moved aside her empty plate that seemed to signal to people that the space next to her was unopen. i sometimes do that to discourage strangers from sitting next to me, especially in the morning at class when i'm not awake yet. her body language was closed - she was hugging her knees and her face was empty and guarded, but the moment i asked her how her day was she brightened up and shared at a breakneck speed about how she spends her time, about her awe of the opportunities presented to us on campus, about her love of learning. i remembered that she had bright blue eyes just like melissa's. i noted that she didn't smell homeless. and when she told me about rape and murder and lies and attempted murders, her tone was distanced and impassive, as if it wasn't her story. she could've been telling me about someone else's nightmare from last night for all i knew. i was distinctly aware of the curious eyes of the students in the foreground. let them stare, i thought. the holy spirit is here, do you feel him?

it was as if God was welcoming me back to san diego and telling me that he has people for me to love on. here am i, use me.

sidenotes;

i am itchy like a monkey

via dolorosa

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my loneliness feels like

a pair of glasses, an unfurnished room, an asthma attack, a mental ward, an immigrant's journey.

it feels like a pair of glasses because (and here i am doing some intense projection onto the world and/or making sweeping assumptions about humanity) i find it hard to believe that there are people who never experience loneliness. because it is presently a salient theme in my life, i am particularly sensitive to spotting loneliness in other people in my life. i think we are created to be wholly and perfectly loved but by nature of the fall we feel that tension on this side of forever as it reminds us that we are pilgrims in this world, and that our hearts long for something that has yet to be fulfilled.

it feels like an unfurnished room that i imagine to be a white walled room dimly lit by watery and lukewarm sunlight from one unimpressive window. it feels sterile and i feel small. the sounds of my steps magnify as they travel from wall to wall in disconcertingly regular intervals. this is what it feels like in my mind when i am lonely, because my thoughts echo back to me with no new insight, feedback, or solution. it is infuriating and mocking and i hate hearing my own voice.

it feels like an asthma attack because i feel it in my chest as my heart constricts and then constricts some more in response to my resistance.

it feels like a mental ward because i feel stripped of my legitimacy as a logical, conscious person. i feel dismissed as a sorry little creature who has the misfortune of still existing. crinkled brows of pitying concern make once familiar faces strange.

it feels like an immigrant's journey because when i try to explain my experience to someone, it's as if i am speaking a different language. and as frustration spills out between the sounds of my mouth and chokes out the words i had so painstakingly put together, i find myself stripped of language and isolated from my friends. i become unable to invite them to care for me. i am denied a safe space where my loneliness is allowed to just be. i am an immigrant pioneering strange lands.

i have illustrated for you what it's like for me to feel lonely. it isolates me, makes me a stranger, and makes me illegible. and then i think about how Jesus was isolated when his disciples abandoned him, and about how he was made into an illegible crazy man claiming to be the messiah even to the point of death by crucifixion. he has beckoned us to receive healing in his wounds and has called us to be his disciples, demanding us to abandon our homelands (identities, falsehoods, idols) and cleave to him who is now home, family, lord, husband. we are passerby's in this world tasked with growing his flock and bringing them home. i am an immigrant pioneering my strange lands of loneliness, and as henri nouwen called it, i am learning to articulate the depths of my dark corners so that i may offer myself to others as a source of clarification. but to do that is to be alone and sometimes it's so so awful. via dolorosa!

sidenotes;
i have 13 freaking bug bites
zombie run app is amazing
heppy one to me and e :)
there is something in my eye!1!!!! >:
i can never predict when i'm gonna write something, it's often at dumb times like at night when i should be sleeping because i have work tomorrow.
so i often need to be cared for in tender and specific ways but very few people know how to do so and i hate having to be a teacher because it defeats the whole purpose of being cared for

amnesia

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"i am certain that the dimensions and content of my heart's landscape and layered architecture is undergoing some kind of pivotal activity. what will it look like? who will it hold? how much will it be able to hold? what beauty has been unearthed and what frightful things must still be uprooted and destroyed? what things have been built, are being built, are being torn down, reconstructed?" may 22, "effusive"

"i am certain," i said.

lately i have largely collapsed inside myself and withdrawn all of my processing into places where only choice few are capable of entering. the landscape and layered architecture of my heart is indeed mutating, but in ways that i am unfamiliar with. with wounds this severe my capacity for vulnerability exponentially withers away. processing this particular wound looks like repeatedly and knowingly traveling a well worn road where a traumatic event happened, reexperiencing the pain, and resurfacing with amnesia. and when i share with people it just sounds dumb coming out of my mouth and i feel more defeated with every word i speak. explaining hurt is really difficult when what i really need is for people to step into my pain without me having to walk you into it! exclamation mark!

sidenotes;

also i have this huge amount of affection in my heart for this one person and also a huge amount of hurt in my heart from this other person and idk how such diametrically opposed emotions can coexist, i feel so bipolar and contradictory. jk capacity to love and capacity to hurt may very well be more related than i give credit for. herp

apparently "intrusion" is a theme in how i understand interpersonal relationships. hecka introvert status

third culture, quadruple consciousness: the asian american church

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i think about these things when i hear the term, "the asian american church": immigrants, first gen, second gen, intergenerational silence, forgotten history, unaddressed ethnic identity, insular focus, service driven, teaching driven, silent exodus, international missions, family brokenness and hurt. these resources have a wealth of knowledge:

Tim Tseng, "Why Evangelicals Don't Get Race", part two

"Third Culture"

Philip Chan, "Empowering the Asian American People of God for Justice"

Nate J Lee, "Asian American Christians"

Therapeutic Gospel

blessed are those who mourn

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"nothing wounds like elusive love."

my bouts with loneliness feel like awful echoing emptiness inside my hollow frame. this space exerts gravitational pull on all things untrue and condemnatory, and as the voices which accentuate my unloved state get louder i find myself withdrawing like a wounded animal, unable to reach out for help. in these moments my deepest fears of being unloved by certain people surface. who do i reach for in these moments? why?

i am conscious of the way triggers layer and snowball, and of the richness which arises from the soil of my woundedness when i welcome jesus' healing presence into my tender mess. i am seeing that people in this world are so, so lonely. tonight i recoiled into jesus' arms and saw that i am blessed because i mourn, and that he turns weeping into dancing.

this summer has not been a bad summer. but it has been a lonely, fast, unrestful, and unfed summer. i have been like a delusional and disoriented sheep wandering the fringes of the pasture: ears ringing, eyes swollen, stomach growling. i need him to be gentle with me because i cannot see the tenderness in his eyes as he reaches for me.

sidenotes;
i have hecka bug bites

mundane

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"Throughout these forty days Jesus fasted from food so that he could all the more fully enter the divine feast. Then...God allowed the evil One to come to him with three great temptations...they were temptations for Jesus to access for his own use the three most prominent social institutions of the day -- economic, religious, political [turn stones into bread, leap from the temple and be caught by angels, and lord over all the kingdoms].

...but Jesus knew that domination and force were not God's ways. He rejected coercive structures because he intended to demonstrate a new kind of power, a new way of ruling. Serving, suffering, dying -- these were Jesus' messianic forms of power.

In those forty days in the wilderness Jesus rejected the popular Jewish hope for a Messiah who would feed the poor, bask in miraculous heavenly approval, and shuck off oppressive nations. And he undercut the leverage of the three great social institutions of his day (and of ours) - exploitative economics, manipulative religion, and coercive politics." Streams of Living Water, Richard J. Foster p.6-7

"wisdom as a charism of the Holy Spirit is far more than knowledge or information, more even than truth; it is truth applied to the heart and the mind in such a living way that the person is transformed" p.9

"we must recognize that the majority of Jesus' life - and of ours - is found in our families and homes, in our work and play, among our neighbors and in our everyday surroundings. This tangible world is the place we most fully experience the outflow of love, joy, peace, and all the fruit of the Spirit. Here and nowhere else. It was true for Jesus; it is true for us." p.21

i include the first two excerpts just for record keeping sake but want to address the last quotation. this summer i have been feeling, as i usually do during the summers, dry, purposeless, empty, dead. when i write, i write impulsively upon emotional waves and find that the act of writing feeds my soul as well. life circumstances will trigger my thought processes and my heart quickly follows as it connects long thematic arches and attributes it to God's work. but when life slows down, my heart, ill-adjusted to this speed, atrophies as its vision of life's grand meanings becomes frustratingly veiled.

so in light of the tone of my past two posts, i find that this summer is not a bad summer at all. god has placed me squarely in the midst of the social justice community in sd; i have found a new friend in jesús m.; i get to see my favorite people every weekend; i get paid; jackie is with me so that i'm not alone in the evenings.

things that give me life this summer: caring for people, thinking about the asian american church, meeting with trish and being rejuvenated by the kindred dreams i have in her, reading from nouwen and foster and lewis, sleeping, eating well, my new makana candle

swept, dazed

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i don't really know what i'm doing. after my quarter ended, and after three weeks of sleeping at home and hanging out with someone every day of the week, i came back to san diego to start my internship with CPI's SEJ program in mid-city. i had one week of training, a three day independence day weekend (highlights include playing with cats, munchkins, lbp, hiking in killer heat, going to la), and this week i started at my assigned site, ICWJ in north park. the past two weeks i have missed freeway exits at least once a day because freeways in sd are convoluted and patchily built. i hate sd freeways. today i helped load boxes into the truck for the refugees and none of the staff stopped to ask my name.

after getting home i eat dinner, feel lonely, chat online, go to bed. i spend a lot of energy listening with my heart and asking god to show me the hearts of my coworkers; he gives me insight with which i know not what to do but pray throughout the day in the cage (haven?) of my mind. i want to make heart connections but it feels out of reach because from what i gather from the spiritual climate, they don't seem to be very aware of the depths of their heart to be able to share. and to the extent that they are aware, they stash it away from the workplace. is it okay that the work i want to always do is heart work? i miss the women in tenderloin. i feel far removed from anything that gives me life.

e said that god has given this internship to me because he loves me and knows what i need - and i suppose that is to be in san diego, to be in the midst of social justice work, to be in the midst of people who have yet to know jesus, to have physical separation and emotional room to think and be silent. but in the midst of it i am more aware of my heart's longing for substantial human connection; i miss the company of those who nourish me, even if i see them on the weekends.

will you ask me what i've been learning? will you hold the things on my heart with me, because sometimes they're too heavy by myself? do you see me? are these not near fundamental human cries that we as humans have sometimes? do you hear these cries in the everyday interactions of those around you?

i feel like that moment of disorienting unfocus as i frantically try to focus my camera lens and fumble with inexperienced hands. give me the eyes to see that which i cannot by nature.

sidenotes;

sometimes i feel like an insane person

snapshots

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life has no glorified destinations on this side of eternity. we are nomads in no man's land and i am only twenty. here are multiple threads lying in my quivering palms, i'm not sure how god will hold them together:

i feel as if i live from obstacle to obstacle. i often feel the need to cohesively understand all that is occurring in my life so that i may articulate it to my loved ones, but when i am incapable of doing so it's as if i look inside and see emptiness and lies and fakery.

i enjoy walking around barefoot until my feet are raw and my mind is quiet and my heart is full with the richness of conversation with my favorite person. being known, being loved, knowing, and loving are gifts to me in this moment.

i don't know how i can experience such polarized worlds of emotions, but the god who authors romance also is revealing some hefty things. there is this one area of my life that i wish i could claim even a mustard seed sized faith. it is ugly and dead and i am seeing by the grace of god that this is one area that i do not allow the light of gospel truths to penetrate and take root. here i am only a sinner engulfed in anger; here i am a lost cause, i am the target of god's wrath. here the cross of jesus is small but in the darkness of his tomb i will await his resurrection. he brings life from death does he not. let praise arise from my mangled voice

in every moment i am where i am supposed to be. nothing can fall outside of god's sovereignty; to sit in the entirety of god's sovereignty is to consciously avoid diminishing his sovereignty in "bad" times and avoid augmenting his sovereignty in "good" times. he is fearfully and wonderfully sovereign in all things.

effusive

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tonight i am thinking about the role that expression plays in our human experience. how joy is effusive and cannot be borne alone lest it lose its luster and become unbearable because when another enters to share that joy, the experience is somehow sweeter, richer, and more complete. when a couple shares about the delight they feel in carrying the other person's heart, because to them this delight is weightless and precious - sometimes to be protected in secrecy but other times to be celebrated in public. or when the weight of life drags at our heels, pulls at our shoulders, lingers on our sallow faces - and all that is within is cry out "who will have compassion? who will suffer with me?" because this too, becomes sweeter, richer, and more complete when shared. the common factor of these two illustrations is in the act of entering into the sacred space of sharing. it's in the presence of others that we are able to unabashedly bare our unprotected souls and together experience depth beyond our individual sensory capacities. we enrich one another in the safety of relationships marked by tender and fierce, nurturing love.

it reminds me of the way that delighting in God is likened to a having joy like a fountain: it is pleasant, exciting, bright, overflowing, moving, public, exuberant. or like a candle that ought not to be hidden shamefully under a bushel in a dark room. in a similar way, i cannot help but give public and effusive praise about my siblings. we are each other's skeletal support; we hold each others' hearts and read each others' minds. we taste each others' pain as our own, we hear what has yet to be uncovered and expressed, we speak in a verbal language made of downright stupidity but understand all things nonverbal and unedited. idk how it happens, it's kind of magical lol

tonight i can give praise in a way i have been incapable of for the past many months; and because i asked for joy i have received it tonight in the space of my relationships with my sister and brother. they are my anchors when my other spaces are temporarily on hiatus, temporarily unsafe, temporarily distant, temporarily under construction. my written tongue, so dry and thirsty, has been refreshed in the fountain tonight. "come to me," he says, "all who are weary and heavy laden, and i will give you rest. do not labor for what i have taken away; i will give you Me when i take away. i will shower upon you gifts because i want to, but i am your living water and you need nothing else."

he gives to encourage life, he takes to prepare for life, he provides to nurture life. he is life! these past few months he has heightened my sense of emptiness, the space that was once occupied by relationships he has temporarily put on hold. this is a space i trust he will fill in abundance with newness, rebirth, intimacy, fecundity. i am certain that the dimensions and content of my heart's landscape and layered architecture is undergoing some kind of pivotal activity. what will it look like? who will it hold? how much will it be able to hold? what beauty has been unearthed and what frightful things must still be uprooted and destroyed? what things have been built, are being built, are being torn down, reconstructed?

sidenotes;

also e has been a place of safety and rest and is so precious to me :)

undone

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i am undone with big gaping holes
quicksand dissolving what once brought me life

these caverns pockmarking my 'sides

my in-sides my out-sides

holding captive, echoes

of unworth in its

awful empty

silence

lingering by the fragments of these chopped up

sentences are the frayed ends of my leftovers,

my remains, the imprints of my once vibrant reserves

now empty

i am inside-out undone

sidenotes;

i'm burnt out and needy lol
poems happen when words fail and last time i've resorted to inarticulate jumbles was february 2013

what does god's reconciliation with me and the world say about my practice of reconciliation in real life
do people link principles and knowledge to on the ground, gritty action and obedience with a lifeline thread of grace enabled by Jesus or a rotting rope of human effort and condemnation for failure

object of my hope ii

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Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life—gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God...We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next...But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, “. . . believe also in Me” (John 14:1), not, “Believe certain things about Me.” -Oswald Chambers, 4.29 utmost

There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the "green pastures" by the side of the "still waters," but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, "Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen." Oh! say not so, thou who art walking in darkness. The best of God's saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of His children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God's full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope. -Spurgeon morning meditation, 4.29

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Psalm 43:5

interrogate my soul, strengthen myself in God

anchor: God's active outworking

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Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. Psalm 127:1

god to david through nathan:

“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’ 2 Samuel 7:5-7

david's prayer in response:

“Lord Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. Sovereign Lord, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant.” 2 Samuel 7:27-28

"Waiting is a movement. People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow. This is very important. We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a moving from something to something more.

Waiting is also active. Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. But none of this passivity marks the waiting in scripture. It is active, because in our waiting we know that something is growing from the ground on which we are standing. Active waiting means to be fully present to the moment in a conviction that something is happening where you are and you want to be present to it." -Henri Nouwen, “A Spirituality of Waiting”

God, as he has divinely revealed himself in the word, is a God who is actively and personally involved in this world. He claims all the glory not by stealing the credit of human labor -- but because he is the one who is laboring, and he presents us with the privilege to work alongside him in obedient participation. he prepares people for ministry (moses, joshua, david, joseph, samuel, etc); he makes the situation impossible so that it is clear that it was he who granted the israelites victory or rescue; he graciously emboldens and encourages those who are discouraged or fearful (joshua, elijah, gideon, jonah etc). this is the God i serve and he requires me to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him. he requires me to love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength - he does not command me to know everything that is going on, to control everything, to ensure that things go according to plan. he knows that it is beyond my limits to oversee results so to work for his glory is to let him shoulder the responsibility of the "results." he is the sole active pronoun in the bible and i worship him by the inner posture of rest and dependence that i adopt as i embrace the daily allotment of work he grants me. to forget that he was the one who brought me to this point or to forget that he has promised to be with me in the future is to fail to give him all the glory by my lack of utter dependence upon him.

sidenotes;

i think i am always thinking about what season i am in. maybe today i can just sit in the season and be still and know that he is God
also i think God grows me most in my utter dependence on him and so it is through pain, suffering, loss, failure, discouragement, etc. that he strips away my sense of wellbeing and security in other things so that it may rightfully rooted in him.
if i were to sum up how i've been feeling since coming back from sf, i'd hands down say "needy"

processing vulnerability ii

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there is much on my heart but i feel like i'm not wearing glasses because everything is kind of fuzzy. things i am processing through:

-we project our childhood wounds into the present. a useful tool is to differentiate how we interpret present situations from internalized lens of interpretation; the key is not the interpretation but rather the lens. what do the lens say about you?

-we may sometimes (often, or always) be unaware of the ways our childhood wounds inform the way we presently think, feel, and act. are you walking around unaware of your injuries while suffering the pain?

-while triggers of worthlessness and self-images of pride/worth seem diametrically opposite, they are indicators of the same wounds. we overcompensate because we are fearful creatures; the things that we lean upon as sources of reassurance and strength say more about our tender spots than about the things themselves.

-God uses present needs and emotional states as resurfaced symptoms of deeply rooted wounds; if we are attentive to the surrounding triggers that jarred our sense of emotional well-being, we'll see that we may be presented to an opportunity to pinpoint root issues.
-your needs are uniquely yours and not to be compared, exalted, diminished, dismissed, or otherwise hampered. give yourself permission to see your needs as sites of God's tenderness
EDIT// -how i understand love today may be directly related to how i understood being unloved

sidenotes;

i feel reaaaaally tired

processing vulnerability i

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i seem to have a vast, churning internal world that i allow few people to fully access. it is hugely disconnected from my external world, and connecting these two worlds is a fragile bridge which i guard fiercely by trumpeted principles of "intentional investment" and "proven trust" and "introversion." while i love the way God has created my temperament, and while i am able to sit in my inner world (able to process), i am largely unaware of how to welcome others (who haven't "proven" themselves) into this space - & idk when this is required or if it even is required. the turmoil consumes substantial energy and leaves my muscles for movement between the inner and the outer atrophied. in other words, i not only have a difficult time communicating with others that i need company to cross the bridge, but i also have a difficult time communicating when company becomes a threat. in the first situation i find that i shut down and wallow in self-pity. in the second situation i find that i shut down and quiver in my bomb shelter of "duty" that shouts down my own needs in order to meet the needs of the friend (unintentional threat?) knocking at (stomping cluelessly on?) my bridge.

it is also easier to be retrospectively vulnerable by way of presenting nicely packaged stories of brokenness and healing than it is to be concurrently vulnerable by way of digging up messiness, airing it to communities of faith, wincing from the expectation of backlash, and receiving the confounding gift of acceptance and grace.

now, all that being said, i can content myself in embracing my God-crafted temperament, processing style, and needs. however, i need to practice my atrophied muscles and frequent that bridge. also i am falling asleep as i type this soooo lol

sidenotes;

mer

john stott & new quarter

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“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the cross.' In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering. 'The cross of Christ ... is God’s only self-justification in such a world” as ours....' 'The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak; they rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.” 

― John R.W. Stott, Cross

“[Christian rebellion] arises from the doctrine of mankind made in the image of God, and therefore protests against all forms of dehumanization. It sets itself against the social injustices which insult God the Creator, seeks to protect human beings from oppression and longs to liberate them… it protests against every authoritarian regime, whether of the left or of the right, which discriminates against minorities, denies people their civil rights, forbids the free expression of opinions or imprisons people for their views alone.” 

― John R.W. Stott

“Jesus never concealed the fact that his religion included a demand as well as an offer. Indeed, the demand was as total as the offer was free. If he offered men his salvation, he also demanded their submission. He gave no encouragement whatever to thoughtless applicants for discipleship. He brought no pressure to bear on any inquirer. He sent irresponsible enthusiasts away empty. Luke tells of three men who either volunteered, or were invited, to follow Jesus; but no one passed the Lord’s test. The rich young ruler, too, moral, earnest and attractive, who wanted eternal life on his own terms, went away sorrowful, with his riches intact but with neither life nor Christ as his possession…The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half built towers—the ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ’s warning and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so called 'nominal Christianity.' In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent, but thin, veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved, enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great, soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life, while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience. No wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism…The message of Jesus was very different. He never lowered his standards or modified his conditions to make his call more readily acceptable. He asked his first disciples, and he has asked every disciple since, to give him their thoughtful and total commitment. Nothing less than this will do.” 

― John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity

tomorrow is the beginning of spring quarter. out of my solitude with God today, i will peptalk the future me for the next three months of my life:

prioritize your emotional, spiritual, mental, social, and physical health. know that it's okay and normal to be in your twenties and not have your life figured out. you fret and are easily overwhelmed and are of little faith; cling to the disciplines of the faith with the entirety of your being engaged because it is out of solitude with your Maker that you will 1) thrive and not just feebly survive and 2) be seen and fully known by your Heavenly Father who desires to carry your chaotic mess. interrogate your downcast soul and remind it to rejoice because God is worthy of this response, and because all things are purpose-full in the outworking of your salvation.

sidenotes;
this season of life as i currently see it is marked by blessed delight, adoration, fear, weariness, choked panting, deep breaths

1 samuel 29

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1 samuel 17-31 details david & saul's journey; the author intentionally juxtaposes the two men to highlight how they both egregiously fail and get themselves tangled in impossible situations, but they respond differently in where they put their trust. this is what sets them apart from each other -- not because one is intrinsically better than the other, but because one bows to the King in his helplessness. on 1 samuel 29:

"Saul goes off to consult a witch; David strengthens himself in the Lord his God. There is the difference. Saul never seems to repent, never seems to have a heart for God. David does have a heart for God and does repent. David, like most of us, finds that many of his turning points are during times of suffering and sorrow, in the dark times of his life. But in this dark day of David’s life, when he has no one else to turn to, he turns to God.

How does he do it? How does he strengthen himself in the Lord his God? We should note that the author gives us little detail here. He does not give us a formula, a series of fail-proof steps. We live in a day when people want a quick fix with a sure cure, and often by the performance of a set of neatly laid out steps – a formula. In the final analysis, I do not think the Christian life is lived by formulas, but by truths and principles. There are do’s and don’ts, but these are not formulas. Let us note here that David finds his spiritual strength in the Lord his God.

...If David strengthened himself in the Lord, we can probably infer that just as Jonathan did earlier, David must have reminded himself anew of the character of God and the promises of God. If God is who He is, in terms of His character (His attributes), we can be assured that what He promises, He will do. Paul put it this way:

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).

For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day (2 Timothy 1:12; see also Jude 1:24-25).

...David not only strengthens himself in the Lord, David inquires of the Lord. He seeks after God. He seeks to know the will of God in this situation, and then he does it. How different David is from Saul in this regard. David’s strength then seems to come from contemplating who God is, what He has promised, and what He wants us to do. David may have gotten himself and others into a lot of trouble, due to a foolish decision, but he also turns back to the God to whom he has entrusted himself." source

“Jesus of Nazareth always comes asking disciples to follow him--not merely 'accept him,' not merely 'believe in him,' not merely 'worship him,' but to follow him: one either follows Christ, or one does not. There is no compartmentalization of the faith, no realm, no sphere, no business, no politic in which the lordship of Christ will be excluded. We either make him Lord of all lords, or we deny him as Lord of any.” -Lee Camp

with all that i am, all my messiness and inabilities and stupid ways, i want this. bruised knees, callused feet, eager hands, heart splayed open and life surrendered to the King who reveals himself to me in the word as a God who delights not in my suffering but in my dependence on him, my trust in him, my obedience to his commandments. he delights in rescuing me. [list of god's saving acts]

sidenotes;
i am currently sobered by the enormity of what it means to follow christ and by the narrowness of this path. i feel grief as i think upon people in my life who choose not to surrender and follow. have mercy god.