Same as it Never Was?

LittleRiver

Same as it ever was.

Same as it never was?

Well I think it’s more complicated than anything that can be reduced to a trite and familiar cultural idiom: the more things change the more they stay the same? Hmm…

Heraclitus says, “You can not step twice into the same river. ” King Solomon contends “There is nothing new under the sun.”  Lately I find myself somewhere in the middle, wading out into a dizzying current that feels like change on all sides, yet staring at the sun thinking there is something strangely familiar about all of this.

I have been thinking about scrapping this blog for more than a while now. I have been thinking about a reboot: a new url, a new site name, a new direction. This is all a very surfacey representation of what is going on deep within me.

In the last two years life has consisted of a swift and often bewildering array of changes. I became a father, twice! My daughter Rena turned two years old yesterday. And I can barely believe our son L.J. has been with us nearly half a year already. I rejoice in each new day with them. Part of me can scarcely remember a time before them. Each day brings new joys. But part of me wakes each day with hopes and dreams, patterns and behaviors, insecurities and idiosyncrasies that I have had all of my life.  Some of these things represent the best of me, things I hope to pass on to my children. My passion, my love for God, for words, for poetry, for rock & roll. But some of it consists of ways of thinking, feeling, reacting  that I have spent a lifetime trying to rid myself of. Self absorption, self doubt, childish explosions of temper.  Things a father would never hope to pass on.

In the last 18 months I have also lost over 200 lbs.  After years of trying to no avail to lose weight, of spinning my wheels on a cycle of diet, minimal weight loss, depression, weight regain,  I opted to have bariatric surgery.  The decision came with the discovery that Erin was pregnant with Rena. I wanted to be able to run and play and keep up with my daughter.  I entered a web of self discovery that included meetings with clinical psychologists, nutrition specialists, exercise specialists, as well as medical doctors.  I realized that not only was my relationship to food out of order since childhood, since I used it to cope with depression (actually I think I already knew this) but I also discovered that I actually had quite a severe thyroid problem that exasperated my situation a great deal. Finding proper medication together with my surgery and several lifestyle changes has led to some outstanding results. I think that I naively thought one of these days I would wake up and be a different person than I have ever been before because of this all. Feelings of physical inadequacy – too fat, too ugly, too pale – surely these would just go away. But these were always symptomatic of something deeper, a deeper distrust of self, of others, of God. In many ways I am different. I am healthier physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. And in many ways I am the same insecure person in a smaller shell with less to protect me from the world I fear.

In the last couple of years I have experienced changes in relationships.  Drifting. Growth, time, distance, circumstances see some relationships all but dissolve and others take significantly less priority than they once did. With at least one friendship a wall of irreconcilable differences was crashed into head on as we grew in very different ways. And at the same time new proximity, new interests, new challenges have brought with them new faces, new hearts to discover, new friendships to explore.  And with the new comes familiar anxieties as well as joys. Haven’t I stepped in this river before? Haven’t I waded these waters with another pilgrim on this journey? And the inevitable, will this too come to an end?

In the last year I have finally found a church home, a place of worship and an ecclesial tradition to settle down in. It would probably be more accurate to say that through a long and meandering journey the tradition and the particular church body in many ways found me. Actually, bright and early tomorrow morning I meet with the elders in my congregation in the first step of a two year process to become a minister of word and sacrament in the Reformed Church in America.  The Christian tradition, broadly speaking (all Christians everywhere from the Vatican to the snake handling congregation in the hills of Virginia and every ecclesial body in between) is about – among other things – community, community, community. The church, or to use the New Testament term, the ἐκκλησία. The assembly. Assembled to participate in the good work God is doing in Christ. I have found my community. The community to lead me to guide me. The body for me to wrestle with: to agree with, to disagree with, to find our way together, ever reforming.  And this is good. And this is really what any church I have ever been a part of was doing, succeeding and failing at it as we always do.  Following the Spirit and succumbing to the game of church politics. No group I have been a part of has been exempt for either.  All things are new, and yet much is familiar.

And here I am, 3/4 of the way through my seminary journey. In the last couple of years I have learned a lot. I have been given valuable hermeneutic and exegetical tools to help better understand and explore scripture with the rest of the community. I have learned a lot about our history, the history of Christians at various times and places, spanning the globe and two millennia. A history full of saints and sinners like me, like you, like us. If we are careful students of history, sometimes we can avoid repeating our mistakes and better formulate better solutions, even articulate better questions.  But the task and privilege of the seminarian, of the pastor is the same as it is for those in the pews, the same as it was when I came forward in to the front of a little Baptist church when I was 7 years old. Together we grasp and grope, stumble and sometimes… sometimes soar to new heights. All the while we cry, in the words of an old favorite hymn, draw me nearer, nearer precious Lord!

Maybe sometimes we just need a new way to talk about the things we hold dear. And sometimes we really do need to change what we cling to: those behaviors or attitudes we don’t want to pass to our children, make changes to improve our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.  In this time in between times -while God is making all things new in Christ and old ways of living and thinking continue to call for our attention – I am reminded of one of the earliest prayers I learned: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

While I have been fumbling to know the difference, I have been often left without the words to express whats been going on inside. I am coming to learn this is not always a bad thing for someone with a tendency to talk too much and listen too little. I have been trying to do a lot of listening lately: to God, to my wife, to my kids, to my professors, my friends old and new. And I think I am ready to talk again.

I have woke up many days to find myself in beautiful (seminary) housing, with a beautiful wife (and children) and found myself asking how did I get here? To continue shamelessly ripping off the talking heads, the answer is in part that life is the same as it ever was. But the river of change is also very real. It must be in a world with a God who says “I make all things new!” This is the sound of one discontent to Let the days go by, one refusing to let the water hold me down, one learning to adapt, to change, to pray, to love, to know when to paddle with all I have against the current and when follow it where the Spirit may be leading.

Shalom,

Wayne

Day 7

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It is the end of day 7 of Lent. The creamer in my coffee and the peanut butter cookie are reminders that I have once again failed to keep even the simplest of Lenten vows.

Tomorrow is another day, another journey with Jesus into the desert, to the top of the mountain where all of the peanut butter cookies in the world pale into insignificance in comparison to all of the kingdoms of the world.

Moreover, it is another chance to journey to the place where any sacrifice that I may make pales into insignificance in comparison to the one who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped but rather took on the very nature of a servant on my behalf and on behalf of a world that God is reconciling to God’s self in Christ.

Oh how I need it now, to take the cup, to drink it slow, I can’t let you go. Oh but how I must be an acrobat to talk like this but act like that.

With fragments of scripture and rock songs on my lips as prayers, I ask that tomorrow be a better day.

It was a Good Day

Today was a good day. I had class all morning. I passed a long dreaded Hebrew quiz. Then I caught up with an old friend in the afternoon and had a couple of drinks at a local pub here in H-Town. This evening Erin and I had dinner with the seminary group that went to India in January I will try to post more about my trip to India sometime soon. In the mean time here is a video that the leader of our trip put together:

Tonight was a chance for the spouses that didn’t get to go with us to hear about the trip through people other than their spouse. I

After that I hung out with some friends playing poker, listening to some tunes and just chilling out. There was a guy doing magic tricks and card tricks like I’ve never seen.

Today was a nice break from stress and worrying about deadlines. I will try to write something more substantial soon. I just thought that I would give an update and try to stick to this daily blogging routine.

Until next time…

Peace,

Wayne

Reverend, Reverend, Is this a Conspiracy?

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I have just been invited through a facebook group I am a part of at seminary called “Prayer at the speed of life Chapel” to take a ten minute break from the mundane. At one point in time that would have probably meant for me taking a break from writing on my blog or checking my blog. Today it means for me taking a break from the business of home work to just pray aloud on my blog.

I have been serving since September as chaplain intern at a retirement home here in Holland. It has been a terrific and some what restorative experience for me. The last several months as I have grappled with some pretty big spiritual and existential questions, it has been much like a safe haven for me to just be me and do things God has created me to do, namely loving and serving others by listening to their stories and entering into their life experiences with them.

The residents there range from some quite independent folks who still get out a great deal to some who are visited regularly by nurses and are moving toward the nursing home stage. It has been a delight to get to know many of these wonderful people as they share with me stories from their various life journeys.

It has also had me thinking a great deal about entering into a CPE (clinical pastoral education) program next summer so that I can eventually serve as a chaplain. I am not set on a particular setting. But some of the options I am entertaining are residential (like where I am now or perhaps a home for people with special needs or circumstances), hospital, college campus or possibly even prison.

At this point I feel quite certain about this slight change in vocational goal. However, I do not want this to be born out of a reaction to negative experiences that I have had with the church or relationships that were fostered in the church (like the incident I recounted on my previous post). I want want my chief consideration to the experience and affirmation I have received in this area thus far as well as an assessment of my strengths and weaknesses and how these characteristics could  best line up to serve others. It does help to have a few friends who take time to offer a listening and discerning ear.

However it can be really hard to discern motives sometimes. It can be really hard to discern if this all stems from reaction to negative experiences or a posture of leaning into positive and affirming ones. So long story short is that I have been looking for a part time position in church work for this summer to help with that discerning process. But I am also interviewing for a 10 hour a week intern position in assisting the chaplain at Holland hospital. This would help me greatly it would seem when applying for a CPE program next summer since numbers of openings are limited. There are only two health care facilities in West MI that offer CPE programs and I would prefer not to have to go out of state.

Erin and I are quite excited to have our second child, a baby boy on the way. He is due in June. A part time position – or two – adding up to 20-30 hours would be ideal so I can still help at home. It is a really exciting time in life right now. But at times it can feel like a lot. It is a lot to think ponder and pray about in the coming days.

Until next time…

Shalom,

Wayne

Guess Whose Back?

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Guess whose back? Do you remember when rappers always used to ask that at the beginning of their songs? Anyhoo, it has been a long time. In the past I have compared shorter absences and the expectation of my return to the long expected Chinese Democracy. Perhaps it has just been too long and my return will go as unnoticed as that album was upon finally being released.

Anyway, it has been a while. I have been licking some wounds and trying to recuperate from some horrific experiences. I have been questioning a lot lately. Big picture questions. What does it all mean? What am I doing here? Where am I going? After having a close friend of 15 years question whether or not I am a Christian based on his discovery that I tend to vote democrat and don’t hold to modernists descriptions of scripture (namely inerrancy), I have to admit, I thought for more than a moment that maybe he is right. Maybe I just don’t belong. I’ve always felt too conservative for my self described liberal Christian friends and too liberal for my conservative Christian friends. So, “Maybe…” I thought “maybe he is right. Maybe Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam after all.” This led to some painful questioning about what the hell I am doing at seminary. Which my friend suggested I do because he was worried I might lead people astray, possibly even to hell because I don’t believe in a flat earth, that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds and I voted for a “Marxist baby killer.”

It sounds like I am bitter. I really don’t mean to be. But perhaps I am. But I am on the mend. Perhaps to the consternation of my friend, I am still a Christian and at least in my own estimate a fairly conservative orthodox one at that. The story of the life death and resurrection of Christ is the only thing I have found that provides hope in this crazy world we live in, the hope that the resurrection is the first fruits of all things being restored, recapitulated in Christ. And the church – the bride, the sign and sacrament to the world that God is restoring the world – is sort of a package deal with Jesus. So yes, I am still in seminary trying to learn and discern how I can apply this experience to better serve Christ, the church and the world.
In the coming days I am going to try really hard to write regularly on here. Until then, goodnight and good luck.

Shalom,
Wayne