for a congregation

a pastor at the local church where my work (Highbanks) is located had asked me to write a little something for a small collection of writings he was putting together of voices from the community to pass onto his congregation. this is what came out of me.


I applied to Highbanks for two reasons. Quite practically, I needed a job. I had just made it home from the country of South Korea where I had spent one quite lonely year of living and teaching. Secondly, Highbanks' website promised a community to young mothers in need, and although not a young mother, I was quite in need of a community.

I have come to discover that where there is community there is God. For where love exists there He is also. So you can see why Highbanks appealed so much. I needed more of Him.

I am so privileged to work beside two wonderful woman who desire to love a small demographic of Calgary whom many ignore and push aside. It baffles me the more I work within the social system how those most in need of love and care are the ones most obviously disregarded. I believe this stems from deep socialized misconceptions.

Growing up in a Christian home, taking the role of missionary for several years and graduating from a Christian College I have had my fair share of the religiosity of Christianity. I have to admit, I was one of the best Christians. Always put in leadership in church, in missions organisations overseas, I had gained a reputation of an 'exceptional spiritual woman.' I genuinely carried this role quite humbly until eventually the pressure was too much and I began to love the image.

I am so grateful for the day God kicked me off my throne and showed me my brokenness - revealed the misconception that some were better than others for such and such a reason. Suddenly the 'them' in this world had been erased and there was only a 'we' community of which I was a part. WE who are saved only by His grace alone, not by my own 'holiness' or self-righteousness. (It didn't exist after all). I found all humans were in the same sinking boat. And it makes sense, if anyone could have made it by their own goodness Christ needn't come.

Since grace took on a whole new meaning it has become so easy to see God in those around me. So breathtaking to see Christ at work. The words of Matthew have become so real that when we give a cup of cold water, when we sit and listen, when we give a warm embrace we are taking part in the community of the Kingdom - the one which sinks in His grace.
That is what Highbanks has become to me. It is what every part of our lives really is - The perpetual potential to see Love (God) at work.

No one
Knows her name-
A girl who lives on the streets
And walks around in rags.

Once I saw that girl in a dream.
Her and God were constructing
An extraordinary
Temple.

-St. Francis of Assisi

two things

I am starting to feel a sense of belonging here!

and THIS:

"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."
-Frederick Buechner

marriage as an answer

If our relational lives were put on a linear scale from worst situation to best I'm sure it would start with isolation and end in community. Marriage would be somewhere in the middle. This has been one of the most common conversations I've had with those in my life of late. The question keeps appearing, 'What would you rather, marriage or community?' Too many answer with the latter. Strange? Now, I must add that most of these friends are ones that have experienced living in community at some point. Most of them currently living in what people have told me is called the 'real world.' So they reminisce the days surrounded in company much larger than themselves.

We live in a grossly emphasized individualistic society. I comprehended it better after living in the more communal Asia. Dr. Perry is so correct in describing our society as relationally impoverished. And we are just supposed to live with this reality? This 'real life?' It is much harder to accept when one has lived in community. You come to realize it is the greatest way of living.

I write this as both an emotional response to current circumstances and as a simple observation of how people see reality. I almost cannot blame my friends anymore for getting married and preoccupying their time and energy into this one person. How does one in a society that pushes individuals to be their own at a very young age expect humans to deal? The reality is that we can't do life alone. Not well. And since communities rarely exist in our culture marriage is an attractive option for coping with loneliness.
What I find most interesting, though, is that once the couple gets married they still face loneliness.. and then what? We must contend that marriage does not end loneliness and here I must say that nothing will. It is the human condition that we suffer with this gnawing feeling of desire, longing and loss - but I think we can learn to do it well and/or better (living in the tension - resting in tension!) Perhaps we could rest in the tension more gracefully when knowing we sit with a dozen or so people who are experiencing the same.. who share the same existence. The problem then is not that marriage exists, or that it is not good, but that we are taught it is the answer.

I still find marriage as an answer too largely limited. I believe we need dialogue and love beyond the borders of two. In fact I have many married friends who are still in search of the community they once knew. There is something so beautiful about having deep friendships for years upon years. Having friends who prove to be committed to you over time and all without a contract. I have found the greatest happiness in my life has been when living in community and surrounded by those I share deep and meaningful relationships with - men and women, young and old - learning from their experiences and perspectives, growing with them. So far a boyfriend has not exceeded this joy, freedom and love. But this is just my experience. The venting comes when I wish others thought so. You see, I'm not in community now and I long for it. Why do not others? Oh for the day when we are desperate, not for a man or woman but for people to share life with!

C'était salement romantique

hmm...

"If I have a message to my contemporaries, it is surely this: be anything you like, be madmen, drunks,... but at all costs avoid one thing: 'success.'"
-Merton

dans le musee du louvre

He looked at me intently
as I gazed at Him
He looks at everyone this way
The treasures at the louvre are walking

how shall i then live?

I have lived in many worlds. And not even many compared to some. It is very true, and has been my experience, that you become one of the world you are exposed to. To survive you must comply. You learn the ways of life in that world.. Though first perhaps strange, soon adopted. You are then a part of a larger community of those that live in that world. You understand what they understand. You speak their language. The world you all live in is understood through the same eyes.

This is basic sociology. The way humans survive in different times and places in systems that run relatively smoothly. Immigrants that move to another country must learn and in some ways adopt the culture and mindset of the people there - otherwise they are isolated and lost.

I cannot repeat enough the importance of being a part of community. So I go on to say that I have lived in many worlds. And not even many compared to some. The worldview has been predominantly Christian. My understanding was shaped according to Christian ideology. But specific Christian ideology - for there are many.

I have uprooted myself time and again and relocated to various communities. I have adopted the charismatic evangelical Christian worldview with more passion and fervour that I have still yet to beat. I have been positive of things that I now question. I had faith that I believed could raise the dead. I was loved. And everybody agreed with me.
I moved to places where no one knew me. I lost that feeling of security and love. That feeling that told me God existed. God was gone.
I was accepted into another community that told me this was ok. God was not about feeling. God existed outside of feeling and experience. I was able to be. I found peace in not knowing. I learned to be ok with questions, with doubt.
I lived in another community that valued the Christian tradition above experience. That laughed at those who thought such things were possible.
I found one that taught me how religions were formed. How spiritual experience was fabricated or merely a biological normality of chemical release in all humans. How believing in God was like believing in Peter Pan. I found a community of reason.
I found a community that believed in God but saw that religions were completely flawed. A community that accepted all on the basis that none of us really knew very much anyway, and if God is a God of grace, we're all in the same boat.

I come back to a community that tells me that loving homosexuals is unrighteous. That drinking is unholy. That 'that girl' who smokes and is a bad influence. That my feelings are again a true display of God's communication. And the underlying message that lays unseen is what I experienced as a teenager - self-justification. The society of SELF has seeped into all areas of human existence including and perhaps especially in religion. Communities whose authority is based on their own certainty of their own rightness. The right thoughts about God, according to self. When we will finally come to the conclusion that SELF is and has been our only goal from the beginning. When will we understand that something outside of SELF is the only way to find hope.

"Since the practical aim of all human religious activity is self-justification and self-sanctification, it constitutes a barrier that must first be removed before people can receive revelation, which comes only by grace." -Karl Barth On Religion

Now tell me, how shall I then live? As one who has uprooted herself to various communities and received education and from numerous worldviews? How do I survive in this current community that I so once understood?

5/09/10

myself as alice :)

I give myself very good advice,
But I very seldom follow it
That explains the trouble that I'm always in

Be patient, is very good advice
But the waiting makes me curious
And I'd love the change
Should something strange begin

Well, I went along my merry way
And I never stopped to reason
I should have know there'd be a price to pay
Someday...someday

I give myself very good advice,
But I very seldom follow it
Will I ever learn to do the things I should?

made for community

I often feel very alone. I am not completely isolated, and much less so than I was in Korea and yet the feeling is very real for me here at home many days. Is it because you don't expect it at home that it feels so much greater?

I just attended a conference on mental disorders and one lecture in specifically was really meaningful to me. It was given by Dr. Bruce Perry a well-known clinician and researcher in children's mental health and the neurosciences. (You may know him from his book, "The Boy who was Raised as a Dog.") His lecture brought me to tears. I have never had a biological explanation for my need of community.

Dr. Perry works with children and adults with various mental health issues. His main message was that the brain was plastic and fully able to change by means of sustained patterns (this is most significant as most of the mental health issues addressed were ones that are often deemed irreparable). Any affective therapy has to be relational and continuous. He showed us brain images of people before and after 'therapy' which he described as sensory repetitive actions that may include music, rhythm and movement (reflections of the heartbeat in the womb) and repetitive actions of emotional care and closeness, touch, respect, love, etc. The underdeveloped or damaged brains actually grew to fully functioning 'normal' brains as a result of this kind of therapy. This of course requires people to be regularly committed to people's lives. And as Dr. Perry described in ways that we might find so simple such as simply sitting with people, listening to them, respecting them, being honest and genuine, etc. These experiences and interactions actually grow humans brains! They heal them from former abuse or illness.

It was fascinating to hear that these 'slight' works of human closeness and connectivity are the answer to so many of our mental health issues. Sadly, the relational commitment that is needed for this type of 'therapy' is hardly valued in our society and is often unavailable and unfunded. Dr. Perry lamented how money is used to throw medicine upon patients when it may only aid symptoms at a small scale. He repeatedly asserted that other people and communities heal these problems, not doctors or medicine, etc. (this coming from a Doctor!) I felt as though I was in a sociology lecture by a biologist who was claiming that we live in a relationally impoverished society and that we need to re-engage. Our mental health issues are a social issue and relationally enriched environments actually promote and sooth the brain's growth and change.

He also talked of mental health issues growing in the elderly or those that live in environments where positive human contact is limited or absent. I immediately thought of myself in Korea for the first three months or so. I went to get a manicure (which I never do) and as soon as the woman touched my hands I actually had to try to hide the tears rolling down my cheek. At that moment I realized I hadn't been touched in months and how much that affected my being (in ways I don't even know). I ended up getting more manicures in Korea than I have in my lifetime.

The point, I know, is very clear and most of us attest to. We need other human beings. We need community, love and support. We know we need it when we are alone and sad and wish someone was there to sit with us. We know that when we receive encouragement and hugs our spirits and emotional states are lifted. And now for me I was given another point of view by Dr. Perry on how much people actually affect our physical and mental states. It is as though what I have been longing for was further confirmed. I am on the verge of a mental breakdown! Just joking... BUT, I feel that when I am alone, something is wrong. And that is a right feeling. It is wrong in that we are not meant for it. We were made for community.