Churching in my neighbourhood

My ideal church is one I can walk to. Even as much as I find theology (and denomination) important and I deeply value the concern that the church has for those within the church and their neighbourhood, I want to find these two important aspects of being church within my local neighbourhood. As unrealistic as this might sound to those of us living in North America, I was blessed in being able to walk to church for the last 15 years of my life (five of those were in Grand Rapids).

Things have changed, and I now work beside the church I attend. Living beside work is not great for a healthy work/life balance, I prefer living in the neighbourhood of the students who participate in the ministry, and I really appreciate the bike ride to work during the snow-free time of year. It seemed obvious that our current neighbourhood was a good fit, and I'm growing to love it more all the time (after all, do you have a community center only 20 minutes walk away that offers cheap ballroom dance lessons?). At the same time, I miss churching in my own neighbourhood.

Fortunately, we live a block away from a Catholic church and several blocks away from an RCA church, a sister church to my denomination: the Christian Reformed Church. Churching in my neighbourhood is thus very do-able, and I can even do both churches on a Sunday morning :)

The other week, Matthijs and I thus churched in our neighbourhood. I was impressed by the sermon given by the priest. He dared bring up pornography in the sermon, pointing out the damage and pain it caused in so many relationships and how it was not limited to one gender or age group. He even acknowledged that this was an area that he himself had struggled with. After the service in the Catholic Church, we walked to the Reformed Church where we joined in a concert of prayer. We were warmed by the welcome we received, and it was a delight to see how so many people were encouraged to participate in the prayers and the whole service. I thus thoroughly delighted in churching in our own neighbourhood; and yet, I wouldn't want to do it always: it would mean missing out on catching up with those I love in my own church.

The Challenge of Transitions

This past fall I wrote a devotional for Scholar's Compass about the challenge of transition. I used the challenges of beginning my position in campus ministry as a starting point. The following allows you to read more about how I experienced the challenge of the transition, as well as hopefully helping others who are struggling through their own transitions or other difficulties.

“And surely I am with you always.” – from Matthew 28:20
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? - Psalm 13:1

"If I had known the cost involved with starting my new job, I might have reconsidered. It’s not that I hadn’t expected it to be hard. We were, after all, moving across an ocean, and thus moving away from my husband’s family and many mutual friends. Furthermore, my husband and I were switching roles. He was quitting his job of 9 years, and I, in my new role as campus pastor, would become the one with the full-time job. I would be taking my incomplete dissertation with me, hoping to have time to finish up amidst the transition, while my husband would have the chance to explore whether he’d like to do more academic work or find work in a slightly different area. It was an amazing opportunity, despite the challenges, so how could we not be excited about it?

We’d made plans for me to start fairly quickly, at the beginning of second semester, as that seemed best for the ministry and allowed me to go ahead to get things ready for us moving there. However, we were blindsided by the more than 6 months that it took the US government to give me, a Canadian, a work visa. Thus, instead of being able to start my job early, I traveled across the ocean multiple times, praying each time that the border guards might show grace in allowing me to enter into the country as a volunteer at the job I had been hired, but was not yet allowed, to do. The uncertainty, stress of waiting, long absences from my husband, and the inability to settle into a place and make solid plans for months at a time made the move much harder than I had expected. It was easier to be in denial about the stress and challenges than to ask whether it was worth it.

Where was God in the midst of all this? Where was He in the midst of the chaos of my volunteering in my new position, instead of being paid, amidst the hardship and distance created through being an ocean away from my husband for a month or more at a time, through living in two homes but neither?...

As I look back on this past year with the hardships of the transition, it can pale in comparison to the hardships that I know others have gone through. Failures and disappointments, as well of lack of funding and support, are all too common in the world of academia. If one adds accidents, deaths, family difficulties, spiritual or mental crises, it is hard not to become overwhelmed. The Bible passage that speaks to this seems less Jesus’ promise that He will be with us, and more the Psalmist cry of how long, O Lord?"

I encourage you to go to the website to read the full devotional, especially as I've been really impressed with what others have written with this devotional.

A new year

I am deeply thankful for the beginning of a new year. Despite much good happening in 2014, our transition from life in Amsterdam to life in Lansing was harder than I had expected. Last year was hard, and I am glad that it is over.

With the coming of a new year, it feels easier to hope and dream again instead of functioning out of survival mode, which happened a lot this past year. At the same time, it is possible that the growing hope within me has another cause. Perhaps, with each subsequent day of the Christmas season, the audacious hope we find in Christ's coming is being absorbed more and more into my soul. (I think I like this second explanation better, but I'm not sure if I'm trying to find a way to validate my, perhaps excessive, appreciation of the liturgical year!) Yet, whatever the true reason, I am thankful that hope has become more real.

Please join me in praying that others might also know a deep hope, especially those for whom 2014 brought deep sadness and pain, on account of illness, death, and/or spiritual and emotional struggles.

Needing Advent

Happy 9th day of Christmas! Somehow this blog entry got stuck in publishing, so it's being posted here later than originally planned..

I have learned that Advent is a time to look forward to the coming of God's kingdom. As we remember Christ's coming to earth on the first Christmas, we also look forward to Christ's second coming.

Whereas lent is a time of looking inward at the personal sins that distance us from God, Advent is a time of looking outward at the world around us. Even though Christ's first coming ushered in the kingdom of God, the kingdom has not yet arrived, and the world is very much not how it should be.

I'm an idealist. This means not only that I myself want to be good and perfect, but I also desperately want the world to be the same. As the world is full of sin and evil, I can not help but be disappointed and saddened by so much in the world around me. It feels wrong to me that we, as a culture and church, tend to act so often as if everything is fine.

Advent, with its recognition of the brokenness of the world and its deep longing for Christ's coming to make all things new, feels like the most honest season to me. It is only through walking through Advent and being angry at the injustice in the world that I know how desperately we need the coming of Christ. It is only through lamenting the pain of death that I can honestly have joy and hope at Christmas. 

It is only through living through Advent that I can honestly sing the words of Joy to the World -"no more let sins and sorrows grow nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow". The honesty and longing of Advent is what prepares me for the audacious hope of Christmas.

Esther and her dumb king

Growing up, Esther used to be one of my favourite Bible books. It sounded like a fairy tale: young orphan girl living in exile is chosen to be queen and later saves her whole race from destruction. Furthermore, the main character is female, the evil guy loses, and the story is filled with drama and suspense. What more could one ask for?

The challenge, however, is to move beyond my childhood understanding of the book as some kind of real life biblical fairy tale. As an adult, I do know better, but it's hard not to let this ingrained perspective continue to colour how I read it. It is easier, after all, to read the hanging and violence of the Jews against their enemies through that lens. 

One help in moving beyond my childhood understanding is the recognition of how Esther becomes queen. The Bible is very gracious in its description, describing Esther as finding favour in everyone's eyes and taking the advice of the king's advisors. At the same time, the Bible is clear that the deciding factor was one night with the king. Such immediate amazing success in the bedroom doesn't quite fit with the nice Christian girl stereotype that I'd projected onto Esther as the heroine of the fairy tale. This then allows cracks to form in my childhood understanding.

At certain points in my academic career, I've had to look at Esther again. One of the common tools is to read Esther from a feminist perspective. Vashti is often presented as a heroine of sorts, although I found that argument difficult to swallow. This is perhaps in part because of my residual understanding of her as a fairy tale's wicked queen. It also seemed to be reading more into the story than was present in the text.

The first chapter of Esther presents Vashti as neither good not bad, neither justified nor condemned in her refusal of the king. She is not the focus of the first chapter. It is even questionable whether telling the back story to the search for a queen is the point of the chapter. Why do we, as readers, need to know how the king's first queen was deposed? 

Asking questions of the text helps one to see the text anew. Hearing the text read aloud also helps. When Matthijs and I started Esther the other night, my initial reaction was how dumb the  king seems to be. As I thought through the rest of the book, I wondered whether seeing the king as being an incompetent idiot fits with the rest of what is said in the book. Further, how does this assumption about the king, other than further destroying my prince charming fairy tale image of him, help me understand the text better?

If I do assume the king is dumb, God's hand in the events of the book appear more obvious. It was no human wisdom or anything in the king's character that saved the Jews; instead, it was solely God.

I find it amazing that I continue to gain new insights into the text as I read it. And although I'd like to see myself as being more competent than Esther's king, I realize that the insights are best attributed to God and his grace.

It's been fun, but can we go home now?

I've been out of sorts lately, and it's taken me awhile to name the feeling: I'm homesick. I wasn't really expecting this, so it took awhile to recognize it for what it is.

How can I, after all, be homesick when there is so much here that I am thankful for? So much here that I love? I have a job I love, where I get to care for and love others, show and receive hospitality, listen and ponder, think and pray, write much and challenge others. I am developing friendships and community. Matthijs is settling in to life here and, despite the challenges of determining what's next for him, continues to view this all as a delightful adventure.

So how can I be homesick?!?

I did expect to miss my friends and the community in Amsterdam. I miss the rhythm of life there and the goodness (and ease) of attending of daily prayer. I miss the blessedness of how living in community made it easy to catch up with and show my concern for others. I miss knowing where to pick up everyhing (and having most things in house) and being able to bike or walk pretty much everywhere I needed to go (whatever the time of year).

Somehow I hadn't realized how hard it would be to miss the normalities of life there and to have them replaced with learning new normalities here. What I thus miss most, and I remember this feeling from my first years in the Netherlands, is knowing what to expect and what normal life can and does look like. Sometimes life here feels so different, from living situation to job situation to social situations, and it would be nice not to feel so caught off balance by it all.

To some degree, my being out of sorts with all  the changes is okay. It's being honest about how hard it is to upheave one's life and try to re-root somewhere else. On the other hand, writing my desires and feelings down makes it obvious that what I want is unrealistic and, to some degree, even sin. It's like I'm asking for there not to be change, and if there is change, to make it easy to handle. Life's not like that. I also don't believe that a life without difficulties and change is what the Christian life ought to look like (even as it feels hard and uncomfortable and thus part of me is whining that I don't want to, thank you very much!). Following Christ means opening oneself up to the Spirit's whispers (or shouts!) about how we live our lives. It means spending time outside of Christian circles, so that we might truly love and care for those who do not God. At the same time, it means not buying into cultural values that are foreign to the gospel: materialism, consumerism, along with entitlement and a lack of true concern for others, especially those different than us. Such a life - in the world, but not of the world, as it's sometimes called in Christian-ese - is a life of feeling off balance, of often being somewhat uncomfortable when surrounded by both Christians and non-Christians.

So perhaps what I have identified as homesickness is both a recognition of how hard transitioning can be, alongside of an unhealthy nostalgia for a life and feeling that never really existed. The first part will fade with time hopefully. And as for the second aspect? That I will just have to learn to live with gracefully, as there is no home here on earth that will every make that kind of homesickness go away.

Stuff, Stuff, and More Stuff

Today is Black Friday in the United States. Most stores have significant sales that are worth taking advantage of, especially if you're interested in making large purchases. Furthermore, many people have the day off because of Thanksgiving (yesterday), so they have time to go shopping, including potentially waiting in line for the best, and thus limited, deals.

For those of us who like to buy things cheaply (this is often known here as being Dutch), the sales on Black Friday are appealing. However, the push to acquire more stuff seems to go against the spirit of being thankful and content - the focus of yesterday as we celebrate Thanksgiving.

The messages of consumerism and materialism feel more prevalent to me here in the United States. Perhaps I am more susceptible here, as I know the stores and products better. Perhaps it is because things really are cheaper (and thus a better deal). Perhaps it is the 1 inch thick pile of advertisements that come enclosed in our Sunday newspaper. Perhaps it is the fact that I have much less than I did six months ago, having given away much of my stuff and needing to get/buy more when I first came. Whatever the reason(s), the message seems to be that I need stuff, stuff and more stuff! And this is a lie.

How, though, do we as Christians help each other fight against the lies of consumerism and materialism? It's not like stuff is evil in itself. Much of it brings joy and good into our lives, and hospitality, giving, and resting/recuperating well are all made more challenging when there's a lack of material things. But how do we fight against the selfishness and entitlement that often accompany unchecked desires to accumulate more stuff? How do we even begin to ask each other how the accumulation of stuff is good?

I don't know the answers, but I am looking. And trying to listen. I appreciate the idea of Giving Tuesday: it's a very pointed reminder in the midst of being told to buy stuff for myself that it is also good and proper to give away. I do want to be a generous giver, but how do we balance that with saving responsibly, especially if we buy a house in the near future? I also want to learn to talk about money with others, and I want to learn better how to hold on to my own stuff loosely. There is something about recognizing that someone else could be more blessed by some of my stuff that helps me remember that I'm to hold losely to the gifts that God has given me.