Happenings at the hospital

I'll post more later, but my dad's surgery yesterday went as well as they could have expected, and he seems to be feeling better than expected. (Of course, baselines are important--he's not feeling well, but he is feeling better than he expected to.) I've been sitting with him almost all of today, but at the moment I am hanging out in the family waiting room on his floor while he gets some time alone with my brothers. At the moment, there is a little boy in hee with me--he's probably about 6. He is wearing a football jersey and clutching a stuffed dog in a Celtics jersey. He just asked the nurses to find some cartoons on the television, and he is sitting watching Scooby Doo. I just glanced over and noticed that he was singing along very intently with the theme song. It made me smile. A hospital is not a particularly fun place; I'm freaked out here, so I feel for this little boy. But his little grip on something familiar and a moment of childish normalcy just made my evening a little brighter. More later...

Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of the holiday, I offer both a sentimental and a cynical commentary. (Note: I'm not usually a fan of being cynical and bitter on Valentine's Day--although I recognize that it is easy to bring all those emotions to a head on this day--but I generally like to just enjoy the holiday without investing too much in it. Plus, there's all that candy. But this article was just too funny.)

Sentimental story
I was leaving my house a few days ago when I noticed a bring pink envelope sitting in the front yard, upside down. I turned it over, and noticed that it was addressed to a girl in an apartment complex down the street. I figured the mailman must have dropped it, although it remains a bit of a mystery to me, because while it was stamped it didn't seem to be postmarked, so I don't know if the post office actually got it, or got it but the mailman was going to return it, or what. Anyways, I had a couple of extra minutes, so I decided to go deliver the envelope myself. I found the building and found the apartment. A confused-looking girl opened the door when I knocked, but as I presented her with the envelope her eyes got wide and a slightly embarrassed but happy smile broke out over her face. She thanked me and I left, but I spent the rest of the walk to class imagining who the Valentine could be from--and what chaos might have ensued had she never gotten it!

Cynical story
This column is from the Boston Globe Magazine this Sunday and I really thought it was hilarious--particularly the part about the "patron saint of the redundant":

Dear St. Valentine:

Well, I notice we're coming up on your day again. I realize this because my local pharmacy is now chockablock with boxes of candy the size and weight of an ATV just a few shelves over from the toothpaste and mouthwash. The product placement has rendered your celebration, shall we say, dentally ironic. I'm fairly sure that's not what you had in mind. Of course, there always was some confusion regarding your legacy. In the first place, according to some chronicles, there seem to have been three of you; most scholars have fastened on a certain Roman priest who came to a bad end under the emperor Claudius II as the genuine article. This fellow was nearly off the hook when he tried to convert the emperor, who thanked him by having him beaten, stoned, and beheaded. Against all odds, you did not later become the patron saint of the redundant. Instead, you have come to be known as the protector of engaged couples, married couples, and people who faint, who are not always the same people, but often can be. You are also now known as the patron saint of greeting-card manufacturers, which I suspect came rather later to your portfolio. Almost annually, there is a great deal of huffing about how the "true meaning of Christmas" has been lost amid the commercial noise. Where's that argument when it comes to your feast? You died a horrible death, and for what? Canoodling puppies on a card? Chocolate-covered cherries? Every year, we honor your memory by feeding ourselves so much sugary junk that some of us wind up fainting from the shock of it. It's a good thing that you're still on the job there.

Charles P. Pierce
(http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/02/10/a_saint_to_love/)

Controlling vs.Trusting?

I loved calculus in high school. I think I found it so satisfying because I could always figure out the right answer, and guarantee that it was the right answer. If I knew "a" and I knew "b" then I could determine "c"--and then I was done. No editing, no guessing, no evaluating the morality or sustainability of "c." It is true, and always will be true, because I used the correct formula.

The problem is that calculus, however satisfying, is not life, but I often try to make it that way. I think that with enough planning, soul-searching, evaluating, and analyzing I can find my "a" and "b," put them in the right order, and then guarantee "c." I realized the futility of this years ago when I started describing to a friend how I like to plan conversations. Eventually, he just looked at me and said, "But does the other person ever say what you expect?" It's funny now, but at the time I think my most honest initial reaction was, "No, but that's because I just don't think about it enough beforehand!" My problem wasn't that I can't predict another person's response; it was that I just hadn't put enough effort into trying.

I know now that this is ridiculous, and yet I often find myself still trying to find that perfect formula that will eliminate all confusion and pain. I recently realized how much I do it in the area of discipline; I believe that if I can just figure out my sins, and eliminate them (on my own, of course), then God will not have to discipline me. To be fair, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. I had an older woman tell me once, "The only reason you're still single is because you haven't yet learned to be content with God. As soon as you are, then He will send you a husband." First of all, as much as I'd love to be married someday, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the notion of assuming all singleness is God's discipline, even though it can certainly be used that way. Secondly, I'm quite convinced that not everyone who is married--including that woman--have found perfect contentment with God. :) But I think that it is fairly common to assume that we can somehow "work the system." As my pastor's wife reminded me recently, though, we will never be sinless enough to not need discipline, so if that's the only reason to pursue righteousness, we might as well give up right now!

On a more serious note, I feel especially frightened sometimes when I wonder if different events in my life are God preparing me for some future suffering. These are the worst to avoid, because I find myself actually wanting to avoid ways God is teaching and growing me to depend more on Him, out of fear that once I depend on Him He will suddenly test me by taking away people I love. (As though God worked that way and were out to get me.) The root problem, I am realizing, is that I do not like to trust God. I want to control Him. I think that I am more safe in my own embarrassingly crazy formulas than I am in His arms. I forget that His arms are truly good, sovereign arms that belong to a Father who loves me.

I had a good conversation with my friend Jennifer this week that brought all of this up in my mind. Jennifer is a missionary in Romania, and in the past year has seen more than her share of suffering and death. As we talked, my heart just hurt for her, because it has seemed like tragedy is ready to meet her around every corner. She confessed that it briefly occurred to her that God could be preparing her for even more tragedy in the future. But then she said, "But I had to stop myself, and realize that I can never know or predict that. What I can know is that, even if I feel like I could never handle that now, God will provide me with exactly what I need when I need it." Her response reminded me of I Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can stand up under it." I have always heard and thought about this verse in regards to bodily temptations (earlier in the passage, Paul mentions sexual temptation so that may be why), but I looked and saw that in the broader context of this chapter, Paul is actually discussing idolatry. He specifically mentions the Israelites who crossed the Red Sea with Moses but did not trust God, and therefore committed themselves to idols. I know that my heart is so easily like theirs; I see the desert, and I assume God has forgotten me, and I cling to my pathetic idols of control, intelligence, watchfulness that I think will save me. The truth is, though, that these idols will destroy me, but God promises everything I need. He doesn't promise safety; Jennifer may still experience more tragedy (although we pray not), and the Israelites were still in the desert. But He will provide the way for us to stand up under it.

Can we?

I like this:

www.yeswecansong.com

Like a good Calvinist, however, I am still trying to decide whether I should like it so much. (That's the part where you laugh, even though I'm still mildly serious.) I think it's definitely good at triggering an emotional response, and I think in some ways that's legit--it's exciting to see people hopeful instead of cynical about government and politics. But I'm wondering if my excitement borders on celebrity worship and/or on assuming that a person (Barack Obama) or a system (democracy, the Democratic party, viral marketing, etc.) can be our "salvation" when I know the problem is bigger than that. Barack Obama, nor anyone else in America, will end sin or all of its effects. But is it wrong to be excited about someone who seems to lean more in that direction than other candidates?

I'm also wary of wholeheartedly supporting one individual--just because he is that, one individual. No one needs to be idolized, in fact it's destructive and so I don't want to take part in it. From interviews I've read it seems like his wife does a good job of giving him regularly reality checks (ahh, the power of a critical wife) so that is somewhat encouraging. :)

Despite all my moral conundrums...it's still kind of a cool song!!

Processing, Grieving, Learning

I am taking a class this semester called "Violence, Poverty, and Social Justice." I had taken the professor before and liked his teaching style, plus I thought the class would help me to explore issues--particularly on the international level--about which I was really ignorant.

What I didn't expect when I signed up for the class was how much I would feel these issues pertaining to me personally as I think about my time in Romania. I realized this summer that, in many ways, I never really processed all the things that I saw or experienced over there. I'm not totally sure why that is: I think some of it was just have been fresh out of high school and not having schema--in terms of life experience, academic knowledge, theological insight--to fully grasp what I had been part of. I think it also had a lot to do with the fact that I immediately returned to the world of "going to college," which was all-consuming and had very few "access points" for which to think about, talk about, or process Romania.

I read a book this summer about street children and that sort of kick-started thinking about it all again, and now in this class we're reading about chronic poverty, structural oppression, street children, etc. and it's all coming back to me in waves. I started a book this week about sex trafficking that is haunting and powerful and just makes me very angry--I think I have to be careful about who I talk to after I've been reading this book because it shakes me up so badly. While the book doesn't relate to my experience directly, it does bring to mind so many old memories and events and even just observations that I never fully realized before. It's a bizarre experience--grieving and aching for the first time over things I saw nearly 4 years ago. I'm struggling, too, with some shame over my responses at the time. I think so many things just passed by me unnoticed; the child at the Day Center who became a prostitute, the kids who were lured into making pornographic videos, even just the everyday stories of alcoholic fathers who made them leave home. I know at the time I felt like I cared, but my responses to it all seem pitiful now. I feel like I didn't know how to cope with it all, and so to some degree I just held it all at arm's length. Reading these books, talking to friends, and just thinking about it make me wish that I had done so many things differently.

At the end of the day, I know this will be an ongoing experience. Hopefully, I will always be maturing in a positive direction, and that will mean that I will always be able to look back with a greater awareness and wish that things--really that I--could have been different. But while repentance is important, I'm not sure what to make of this regret. It's certainly not productive; I cannot retrospectively wish maturity on myself, for all my desire to. I can continue to learn, though, although I have no idea where it will take me. This seems to some degree so passive, but I am trying to process and discover as much as I can and simply wait, trusting that this will all be used and redeemed--whether I go back to Romania to live or whether I never get the chance to even visit, but I use what I have learned in other ways and in other places.

Everyone should read The Natashas by Victor Malarek--devastating, but important.

more quotes

I haven't read this in quite some time, but I used to have it hanging on my wall and I thought of it today somewhat out of the blue. (It probably has something to do with the fact that I have work to do and do not feel like doing it!) I first saw the quote hanging in the laundry room at a camp where I worked. Its presence in that dingy old laundry room, where confused high school counselors, trying to sort out a profound understanding of faith and life, washed "pee sheets," has always made it much more profound to me. It's by George MacDonald, who was a Scottish theologian who had a pretty major influence on C.S. Lewis.

Troubled soul, thou art not bound to feel, but thou art bound to arise. God loves thee whether thou feelest or not. Thou canst not love when thou wilt, but thou art bound to fight the hatred in thee to the last. Try not to feel good when thou art not good, but cry to Him who is good. He changes not because thou changest. Nay, he has an especial tenderness of love towards thee for that thou art in the dark and hast no light, and his heart is glad when thou dost arise and say, “I will go to my Father.” For he sees thee through all the gloom through which thou canst not see him. Will thou his will. Say to him: “My God, I am very dull and low and hard; but thou art wise and high and tender, and thou art my God. I am thy child. Forsake me not.” Then fold the arms of thy faith, and wait in quietness until light goes up in thy darkness. Fold the arms of thy Faith I say, but not of thy Action: bethink thee of something that thou oughtest to do, and go and do it, if it be but the sweeping of a room, or the preparing of a meal, or a visit to a friend. Heed not thy feelings: Do thy work.

--George MacDonald

Juno

So here's the skinny: it's a movie about teen pregnancy, the harsh realities of love lost, growing up in an age where marriages never seem to last, and outcasts. Doesn't seem like there's much to be happy about. And yet I think Juno was the most delightful movie I have seen in a long, long time. To be fair, it did not devote a great deal of time to dealing with those themes I mentioned. They were present, but not necessarily the focus of the movie. At the same time, though, they were not simply ignored; the best way I can think to describe the "outlook" of the film is to say that it imagines a world where all of those factors are present, but none of them gets the final say. Instead, hope and love--albeit unexpected and perhaps at times complicated and painful love--are the real story going on. And they go on in the midst of as much teenage awkwardness as you can possibly cram into two hours. It reminded me vaguely of Napoleon Dynamite in that sense--except, it was humorous and touching awkward, not gasp-and-twitch awkward. Plus the actors are all wonderful and all develop their characters in quirky and, for the most part, really human yet really lovable ways. In summary, I loved the movie. I would probably go see it again if anyone asked me to. I will also probably buy it, and I almost never buy movies, but I want to own this one.