Endings. Beginnings. Transition.

Sometimes it feels like its going to be easier to write an update if I just wait out the plan or until it or something else materializes. I have waited too long and now I am two months and some behind. The thing is, each month bursts with activity and commotion; trips, tours, atypical meetings, and random encounters; that was until I came back to the States where different activity and commotion swallows up my time - work, applications and reconnecting. Probably not so different from too many others. So here goes another attempt at trying to frame my present quandaries and the last two months’ highlights...

I’d like to think that significant change follows a significant experience... like journeying in Israel and Palestine - the encounter with people, engaging presence of place, and explicit contextualization of a document that I have grown to love. Affect is inevitable. The questions that are now a part of my every day experience surround how this affect affects re-entry. For example, does Wal-Mart feel more abnormal? Do everyday conversations annoy me now that I can understand every loose cannon and every slight? 

Truth is, my transition back into these American things is less obtuse than I would have imagined, though I am sure I still think about these things more than most. For instance, I almost think I wish I had been more annoyed with big-market-mentality and more empathetic to the little guy buried in the bureaucracy of having to maintain in the face of inexplicable bills and regulatory taxes. The sad reality is that even with invested experience, I don’t empathize too well or not well enough. Maybe this is the more bothersome reality. It seems like our situation is something dealt to us and if we are a part the majority, no matter how small, our language is full-up with compromise and syncretism is the new normal. We only celebrate separatism when things or people infringe on that systemic norm. I’d like to think that acknowledging these things is the first step to change. 

About finding a place back in American Christian circles, I have thought about how scary certain heritages are because of their propensity to carry gossip and superiority complexes like handbags... security blankets that dispel internal jealousy and anxiety. For instance, it wasn’t last week and I’m hearing a missionary with plans to land in South East Asia detail “news” about a brothers “sin” with that casual judgmental superiority so comfortably in place in our circles. This makes me sad and mad, especially because this is a pledged and funded emissary of the “good news”. What’s good? His obsession with fall-outs and commitment to make sure people get theirs? Its my belief that “Jesus became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”... that “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us”... and that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins”. These are only a few texts that situate things for me. If God poured out his Wrath on his Son so we wouldn’t have to endure it, what is this new obsession in Evangelical circles with making sure people get theirs? I guess its not a new thing, just a bad ol’ thing. I feel like we are back with the Pharisees, stone in hand, asking for judgment. Its high time that we love grace and forgiveness as if it were something that we have been given...

June carried a number of tours and the frantic feeling that I would be moving state-side in July. The work was timely and needed. Then I transitioned into travel mode and attempted to say goodbye well; this, at the end of the month. Saying goodbye is especially difficult when you know you may never see people again. It solicited tears and reflection because I wanted to verbalize what I thought of their contribution to my life... it wasn't easy, because so many gave so much. This was a very meaningful time for me!     

Presently, I have been home a little over a month and I am feeling strangely normal. I have been working in Grand Rapids since the beginning of August. Water activities and church occupy my weekends: work and applications, my week. I am looking for a teaching placement or a research assistantship for next fall and I would appreciate your prayers in that. Once again I am in transition mode... searching for a proper job and trusting that God will provide for our needs in His way and in His time. 

May the Lord bless you and keep you! 

Seth

May Memories

   While initially I had plans to leave Israel in June, I have been gifted with a bit more time. My visa finishes in July and so I will stay until then. When it came time for my monthly, I found myself caught in a kind of desperate wave of feelings, from constant goodbyes that wore on during the first third of the month to the arrival of short-term groups to the natural hustle and bustle of Jerusalem life, not least the celebrations of Shavuot and Pentecost. Shavuot is one of three pilgrimage feasts in Leviticus - Feast of Weeks. It memorializes the giving of the Law to Moses on Sinai. For what its worth, its connected with Pentecost and the giving of the Holy Spirit, in the least, by sequence.
   In Exodus, blood was shed and applied to various things so that judgement might passover. This results in escape and a mysterious kind of deliverance. 7 weeks (49 days + 1 day leaving = 50) later God reveals himself in a kind of outpouring that culminates in the giving of the Law (An event later memorialized in Shavuot, something celebrated on May 15). Immediately after (this giving of the Law), Moses finds Israel steeped in sexual immorality. Then he and the Levites execute 3000 of Israel.
   In Acts 2, a narrative ensues following important happenings. Remember, after Jesus died to save a people from their sins, rose to conquer death, a duration of time passes and culminates in an event called Pentecost... from 50. No doubt connected to the intermediate time between Pesach or Passover and Shavuot. Again, Pentecost remembers the outpouring of the Spirit, after which 3000 are saved or converted. So the sequence looks a bit like this: blood - passover - 50 days - revelation from God - 3000 affected in both situations. It seems obvious enough that this link between Law and Spirit are contrasted by one thing - the juxtaposition of life and death. In all, the literary connections emphasize God's gifts affect change.
   This months happenings include thinking through these kinds of things. However before, Shevuot and Pentecost, the JUC long-term students left for their respective homes. Goodbyes are, in short, another group of friends gone. Naturally, these goodbyes engender reflection and affection - hugs and affirming toasts. The investment in people pulls on internal strings and the sadness tastes bigger the better the friend. Saying goodbye has two faces - the leave-er and the left - and in the end I will wear them both. My own time here is rapidly coming to a close and, in the confluence of my own drama and the desire to say goodbye well, I feel added pressure weighing heavier and heavier as my last day approaches.
   I have been thinking a lot about this lately. The last day... or chapter endings before the next picks-up. What does my next chapter look like? Reflection draws together what is a conglomeration of influences mixed-up in different experiences related in tenuous and inexplicable extensions. It's like this: memories of random radio broadcasts, unexpectant inconviences, and dinner conversations joined together in a present momentary reflection. Inevitably, we make decisions informed by a line of strange experiences, memories, and examples like these. The decisions are weighty and lead us, "onward and upward", I'd like to think. This is why it's important to think holistically about our past even as we engage present opportunities.
   Our past shapes our present. Ol' baggage sticks to our bodies like barnacles building an interlocking scenery of past images and memories. Set it in juxtaposition to present goals and future hopes and the mix-up carries a consciousness. The point is that we are constantly becoming, ever affected and affecting. Arriving, as we are, in whatever place we are, we are here different than we were a moment before. This is the affect of aging, forgetfulness, new books, old stories - there is no way to stay the same. No way back to innocence; no way back to childhood.
    For what its worth, I have found Mirsolav Volf helpful in this case:
We must name the troubling past truthfully - we must come to clarity about what happened, how we reacted, and how we are reacting to it now- to be freed from its destructive hold on our lives. Granted, truthful naming will not by itself heal memories or wrongs suffered; but without truthful naming, all measures we might undertake to heal such memories will remain incomplete. 

   The past has a bearing on history, doesn't it? Isn't this how we avoid spectacular errors, by observing how things ought not to have been done, accessing the consequences of bad decisions and rethinking a better course? While we wrestle with the slew of residual drama that is a part of each of our narratives, there are ways of getting up, shaking off the dust, as it were, and moving on, no matter how spectacular the error.
  This, for me, is the mystery of mercy. Where confession and mercy kiss. This exercise in "naming" connects us to past offense and offenses... or recalls, "Confess your sins and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). However hard it gets, the cycle subtly undermines power-plays and pretense. The more attuned I am to my past problems and present frequent failures, the more thankful I am for Jesus. It induces authenticity, humility and fidelity. This narritive from Passion to Pentecost changes us and bids us to live earnestly and free.

 

 

 

April

    Drawn in by the lure of the unexpected, time moves at a more mysterious pace and the future seems more unpredictable. Each sigh blurs a mass of irredeemable minutes gone by and we stand on the cusp of anxiety, success or failure.
    April reflections again remind me that life runs-on irrespective of its occupants; it wisps away its journeymen without pause or permission. The thing is, too many cliches fit this kind of entry. "I can't believe how fast time how gone", as if time had a mind of its own and because the feeling is so accessible.
    This month ran-on full with normal activities: work, school, volunteering and recreation. Our garden bursts with blossoms, school awaits a final two chapters, my students continue to put up with my scheming and I still find Thursday night soccer one of the most helpful outlets to this Jerusalem life. Yesterday, I ran yet another small tour hoping that this kind of work looks good on my CV or that the connections made here will procure a job there, wherever there is (and because its so fun:)).
    I suppose there were a few exceptions. The month started off ending Pesach, then a week in we remembered Holocaust Memorial Day; two weeks in, I.D.F. Memorial Day and Independence Day. The twenty first I started digging at Tel Burna with a mix of Israeli's, students and tourists. The dig lasted a week and uncovered new features and material belonging to the Iron Age and Late Bronze Age. Last week, Lag BaOmer marked the thirty-third day of the omer, a celebration venerating the memory of Shimon bar Yochai. This is done with camp fires and so fires and smoke dominated the city from Saturday night to Monday morning this year. These were the more significant happenings in April.
    This month I have wrestled with what it looks like to embody injunctions to not worry about tomorrow, to rejoice always, and to love. Maybe it's all too cheeky to spell out three rather general trials, but they have been particularly challenging in light of old fires and new flames, tired chores and tricky applications, saying goodbye and awaiting opportunities. These personal challenges are not in any way unique to me. Though my experience of them perhaps provides a personalized set of variables, many have traveled through similar and more difficult roads, humbled by God's kindness and faithful in his service. And so it is, failing or falling doesn't determine the man, that we can get up each morning is itself a grace...

March Madness

    The thrill of the center burns with the same pace and friction as the beginning and end, though it lacks motivation of entry and pressure. The semester here has crested into a middle ground between entry and exit and somehow I am hoping coffee might miracle my manic, fear and frustration that accompany too much to do and too little time.

    This year March hosted the passion and resurrection of Jesus, at least its memory and celebration, and for a moment offered a massive kind of reprieve from the daily grind. The whole month in a small sense was directed at this event with Lent an important part of things in Christian circles here, so I felt the force of the holiday with a bit more awareness than I have in previous years.

   While the progress of the month drew on other time-line worthy elements, I found myself wandering with pilgrims of all sorts from Bethphage to Lions gate on Palm Sunday. I walked from the Western Hill to Gethsemane, and then to the Herodian quarter on Maundy Thursday. A group from school made sure to visit the Holy Sepulchre on Good Friday, watch a Holy-fire Catholic procession in the Christian quarter on Holy Saturday, and then wake up for a sunrise service on the Mount of Olives Resurrection Sunday, which were followed by visits to the Garden Tomb and the Holy Sep, once again.

   This Maundy Thursday, I was struck by the ominous night lit bright with a full moon and so littered with shadows. Remember Passover follows a lunar calendar and is therefore set on a full moon in Nisan. Jesus would have made his way from an upper room dinner somewhere on the Western Hill in Jerusalem to a garden space somewhere east of the Kidron Valley. And so we followed a similar itinerary and read Luke's account in its corresponding setting having chosen to walk about at a corresponding hour. The four cups of wine, thanksgiving-type dinner, and usual nature of feast time leisure would have been reason enough for the disciples to have struggled with understanding why staying awake at midnight would have been helpful and appropriate.

   Along with these physical setting and contextual factors or maybe because of them, I found myself identifying with Peter's character. Peter's unwitting humanity full of relentless presence was emblazoned onto my psyche as I heard countless cock crows. Think of it, the last time that you see your most trusted mentor, he is carried away as a shameful castaway, seemingly discredited publicly by nature of an horrific execution. This, after you look heavy into his eyes after having denied any sort of meaningful connection with one who solicited your loyalties and then you hear it. Would you not also find yourself conflicted? Remember, it’s not as if the disciples were seated together on Saturday waiting on Sunday to come 'round and it’s not as if cocks only crow on time, if you will. Failure would have been the mark of the whole rigmarole. That of dating a giant only to find out he comes down with a stone or investing in promising stocks only to watch the whole enterprise crumble with your contribution among the whole.

    Also, thanks to Danny Kopp's reflections on Saturday morning, I found myself deeply moved by Jesus' interactions with the thieves and how the whole narrative follows. Three apparent failures expelling last breaths close enough to be heard one by the other: one mutilated ex-Messiah figure and two thieves. The one mocks and the other asks to be remembered. Jesus follows with promise that must have sounded just as foolish to onlookers as to the mocking miscreant, "Today, you will be with me in paradise". This is truly compatible with his message, after all, he had said to Pilate he was born to die and earlier he had said this was to save sinners from their sins. However, it looks so confounding and pathetic that you can empathize with the disciples despair and the thief's mockery. Instead, I found myself identifying with this deserving reject who has come to terms with the reality of his situation. He has come to his end without anything and finds a figure that warrants his trust. The thief understands Jesus doesn't deserve the death he is dying and he sees reason to believe that this "King of the Jews" indeed has a kingdom.

    It's here that these gospel stories take on real character and substance for me. Where I can identify with figures of the past and their estrange sentiments, thoughts and emotions. They are, after all, clothed in more flesh and blood than I had realized... more than cantata drama all told in graphic detail in their respective accounts. They all tell of a God-man that figures into a heritage and tradition selected to be a light among the nations only to live a life that men should have lived, pay a debt for failing, as we do, and procure a promise for those who believed, believe and will believe.

    This, of course, is dependent upon the resurrection. Without it, the whole exercise in sacrifice stands for very little. God raised him from the dead. For those who believe, this is the greatest news in the world, for those who don't its either a stumbling block or a bit of rubbish, that's all… perhaps, a good story with a crazy revolutionary, but hardly a Gospel that warrants any kind of attachment. Can you now understand the panic and haste embodied by Peter and co. as they run to the tomb? Can you begin to appreciate why their hearts would have burned within them as they make sense of the peculiarity and necessity of his death? It made all the difference in the world for them... and for me.

  I thought it worthwhile to share a few reflections from the month seeing as it was full on all kinds of activities and celebrations; however sensational or boring. My March started off with a half-marathon, entertained six tours and pressed on with the normal: volunteering, work and school. This, as I continue to look for a teaching placement or other work for this up and coming summer and fall. Your encouragement along the way has been extraordinarily meaningful to me. Know that I am deeply thankful for the generosity that has been extended. As always, I am grateful for your prayers and support!

Love,

Seth