Partially meeting expectations

It’s that time of year when performance review conversations happen at my company. I left the meeting with my manager one afternoon feeling rather deflated and angry. Afterwards, I sat on the floor in front of the freezer in our kitchen, my feet unsteady. I’d avoided looking directly at her as she spoke in vague terms about my performance, gesturing as if weaving together invisible cobwebs with her fingers. In essence, while my work is “high quality,” I just didn’t have the “conduct and cultural impact” needed to merit a high rating. That’s corporate speak for: If you’re to make any progress in this place, alongside churning out excellent design work, you have to actually be visible and charming and way chattier than you currently are.

This is not the first time I’ve been told this, and while I try to do my part, chiming into small talk with my two cents about the weather and showing up to most of the team bonding activities, it often feels like I’m stuck in a cycle of having to play a character I can’t master on a stage unfamiliar to me, reading a script written in another tongue.

In the days since receiving that review, I’ve been more sullen than I’d care to admit. I’ve swallowed back a few tears and allowed myself to indulge in a petulant sort of self-righteousness– taking longer to reply to Slack messages and opting out of facilitation duties in a kind of silent protest. I’ve been stewing in a fog of shame for the past week and I’m honestly surprised by that. I’m surprised because I like to make much ado about how unlike some people, I’m not defined by my work. 

One of the prayers I’ve said many times in the 3.5 years since I started working at this company is Psalm 17:14: Deliver me from the men of this world, whose portion is in this life, the people so defined by what they can achieve, including in the workplace, that they use others as scaffolding to climb to greater heights. Those who drown out others’ voices in meetings and take credit for others’ work and talk about others behind their backs as a way to build rapport. I’ve prayed for protection against such people because– well, because I don’t identify as one of those people. 

I’ve believed myself instead to be one of those brimming with a longing for a more enduring promise. Those steadfast in their pursuit of God-honoring excellence, and unyielding under the ever-mounting pressures of deadlines and unwieldy coworkers and all-consuming workplace politics. Those who are somehow able to maintain a sense of identity that’s fully grounded in God and are not shaken by the not-so-great things that happen at work. But surely such people wouldn’t care too much about a mere performance rating, or would they?

If I’m being honest, there’s a certain restlessness at the core of the way I’ve been approaching my work. Between working late nights and rehearsing for presentations until my mouth dries out, I’ve been striving for excellence– which can be a God-honoring thing. But often, the all-permeating disappointment felt in the wake of a clunky presentation or unfavorable feedback from a respected mentor shows me that while I’ve been pursuing excellence in my work as a way to please God, I’ve also been doing it as a way to derive meaning. 

I led a workshop recently with a bunch of engineers about a project whose details were so technical and ungraspable to my non-engineer brain that I mostly sputtered through it– and afterwards, wondered if my brain was actually broken. Then I wondered if I could ever walk into the office again and try to hold a normal conversation with the same coworkers who’d seen me fumble so badly, with any kind of dignity. Then I had an actual meltdown that had me questioning how I even got a job that requires me to facilitate workshops. And then I wondered how someone who has any real understanding of the unconditional love of God could be so shaken by something so small and insignificant.

I’ve been behaving like one whose portion is in this life, who has no enduring promise beyond what I can achieve here, much like the people I’ve been praying for protection from. And that has meant being beholden to the things a good career can bring, like the praise I receive for a job well done, the admiration that lingers across the faces of acquaintances when I tell them where I work, being able to hold all the poses in my impossibly difficult Pilates class because I walked in with my company’s sweatshirt on (it’s a thing!). It’s also meant being beholden to the torrent of emotions felt in the aftermath of, and sometimes in dread of things not going well– the anxiety and shame and ever present fear of saying the wrong thing or being found out.

The verse I referenced earlier– Psalm 17:14, when you read a bit further to the next verse, the psalmist says – as for me I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake I shall be satisfied with your likeness. I’ve been praying for that kind of satisfaction, the kind that comes from truly beholding the likeness of God. Partially while on this earth and in this body, and then fully when I finally see Him face to face. I want to be so captured by the anticipation of one day looking like Him, that I can live unencumbered by the weight of toiling for significance from my work. That I’ll be free to work with zeal and fervor, and free to cry when things don’t go according to plan but not so much that I forget who I am altogether. Free to love colleagues in spite of my every natural inclination to sometimes tend to my own desires at their expense. And I know as I write this that I cannot do any of this on my own, so I ask that He would work through me for His good pleasure.

But the Clock is Ticking

I woke up earlier than usual today. And when I did, it was to check my WhatsApp messages to see if an acquaintance I’d met at another acquaintance’s birthday party had finally responded to my message asking if he’d enjoyed a concert he’d attended recently. No, he’d not responded, and frankly I don’t think he ever will. 

On the heels of a courtship that had ended because “I just didn’t feel any attraction” to my suitor, I’d allowed myself to become swept up in a possibility of a real attraction with a man I barely knew. I mean, there was an exchange of glances across the room– like how they do in the movies. And then there was what felt like a fortuitous train ride Uptown on the 2, where we talked about how we like to spend time in the city. He laughed when I told him that in my 14 years of living in the city, I hadn’t known the MET was free until I got a corporate benefit that allowed me to go for free some 3 years ago. There was him asking for my contact info when we got to 72nd, and then the thing about how my name suits me perfectly, which was the last thing I remember him saying before he got off at 96th. After an agonizing and heady weekend where I pretended I wasn’t hoping for him to text me, he did.

We talked, and then we stopped. The last thing I sent him was a link to an exhibit at the MET I’d missed.

There’s something childishly embarrassing about being ignored, and then there’s something deeply chastising about repeating the same mistakes and getting the same unfulfilling outcomes. I have 2 weeks until I turn 30. I started this blog when I was 23, and I remember one of the first stories I wrote being very similar to this one. I talked about deferred hope and disappointment and walked away with a very clear lesson that I told myself I would never repeat. So I ask myself, why do I find myself in the same position some 7 years later?

As I get older, I realize that the battles that were once internally fought are now also being waged without. Guarding my heart is no longer just about protecting my own thoughts, it’s also about being careful to keep other people’s expectations and fears from becoming my own.  All the guardrails that I carefully constructed in order to protect myself from heartache have, over time, crumbled under the burdens of age, and fear, and the endless inquiries of well intentioned elders. I’m experiencing what it feels like to be given permission by society to “let my guard down”. I’m having conversations about “positioning yourself strategically to be seen” and “putting yourself out there” with people I never thought I’d have that conversation with. But all this “putting myself out there” has left me in a vulnerable state and rendered me susceptible to pain that I thought I was too wise to experience again at the age of 30.

Being older doesn’t necessarily mean that things will hurt less, that’s something I’ve been reminding myself. Being older, and hopefully wiser,  just means that Satan gets craftier and wilier and uses the things and people you least expect, to lead you astray. 

I’m trying to be more intentional about what I let into my heart, what advice I take, and whose concerns I entertain. What does that look like? It looks like when my pastor corners me after church and tells me “We’ve been praying for you”, pity shrouding his features as if my singleness is a disease, or when I’m tempted to linger too long on a thought about how my name will sound rearranged with someone else’s last name when all they did was give an unconvincing compliment, I’ll deal with it with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and not submerge myself head first before figuring out if they’re the right person for me. 

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I wrote this one Saturday morning about five months ago and never got around to publishing it. In the months since, I’ve found myself facing the same problem with different people—each time convinced that this was finally the right person for me, only to realize I was wrong. I’ve gotten really good at picking apart what some of these young men say, finding all the holes, and sometimes even reveling in the satisfaction of having caught them in a lie.

After one young man told me that Adam’s first wife’s name was Lilith, I promptly wrapped up the phone call, cackled like a lunatic in the kitchen by myself, and thanked God for making it easy on me. At 30, this is the cross I bear, and it’s heavy. I pray daily for the grace to submit my desires to Him and take on His yoke instead.

When the “Suffer Well” theology becomes a cover-up for lack of faith

It’s Sunday evening and my roommates and I have decided to huddle together in the living room to pray. At this point our prayers are still peppered with things that you might say are not too urgent — we’re still asking for clarity about our next steps, romantic prospects, Covid-19 — all these prayed for with the same fervor and acquiesced to with much head-bobbing and “amens”. Yes, the new virus is ravaging families around the world, but it’s not too close yet. There are some 300 cases in Massachusetts and maybe a thousand in New York but the idea that it might affect one of our loved ones is still somewhat distant. We’re reading Psalm 91, and at the sound of “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you”, I feel a familiar clench inside my stomach. I have a doubt that this means what we want it to mean. I doubt it means that Christians are not going to die from the virus, or that the families of some who’ve lost their lives didn’t pray fervently for their healing. 

It’s no secret that Christians suffer. We suffer because we live in a fallen world and this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I believe this wholeheartedly and yet, I find that during this difficult difficult difficult time, I’m becoming increasingly disappointed with the fact that the message that many of my “spiritual crushes” are preaching is just this and nothing else. From all angles people are being exhorted to suffer well, to not be surprised when they get sick or lose loved ones, to rest in the knowledge that God is at work in this. This is good, encouraging even, but I’m not altogether satisfied with it because I also want to hear them talking about healing. Crazy miraculous healing, the kind that happen in Acts and Matthew and John and in the whole Bible.

I know that my flesh likes to feign Holiness at times to justify my earthly/fleshly inclinations — apathy disguised as a love for the “higher things”, unfounded disdain for people explained away as a “discernment issue”, fear mistaken for humility. So I’m rightly afraid that this might be another one of those instances where my flesh is reacting and I’m just not seeing clearly. Maybe I just want to believe in the God who heals and not the one who subjected his perfect son to a shameful death on the cross, good though he is.

In college, my friends and I prayed for a man who asked us for money at the corner of the road. We surrounded him and laid hands on him and I said to him at the end “The Spirit that rose Jesus Christ from the grave now lives in you.” I guess I expected his eyes to light up and maybe invisible shivers did travel down his spine, but he didn’t look moved by this. Four years have passed and I’m realizing that this thought is not just difficult for new believers to wrap their minds around, it’s difficult for everyone. It’s never easy to suffer well, but it might be harder for some of us to believe that God is still working miracles through his children today.

I’m reading Acts right now and Peter is healing people — he prayed and asked Tabitha to come back to life and she did, he’s asked a couple of people to get up and walk and they have. Peter was an Apostle, yes, he dipped his morsel of bread in the same wine Jesus did, he’s a witness of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus — but the power that worked in him is the same power that lives in all of us who believe. So at the risk of sounding like a “Charismaniac”, why are we not praying crazy prayers and believing God to work wonders through the church at this time? 

I posed this question a week earlier when I was writing this. In the span of a week, I’ve realized that I am in fact surrounded by people who are praying crazy prayers. People who are praying a lot more than I am, and in asking myself why I’m not praying as hard as they are, I’m realizing that I’m scared. I’m scared that I don’t have the stamina to pray the kind of prayers that I imagine actually heals people — passionate and frantic and wordy prayers, throat parching, tear-filled, hungry prayers. I’ve believed a lie that I think many people are believing at a time when we’re supposed to be praying harder than ever, and it’s sad.

I’ve prayed many sloppy prayers in my lifetime, all of which God has endured. Terribly repetitive and boring ones. And I’ve seen Him answer my sloppy prayers in delightful and marvelous ways. So I guess my exhortation to you as you’re reading this — maybe still in the fog of this pandemic, or maybe in the next couple of days or years when it’s all declared over, is to pray. Pray in whatever language you can, pray zealous and unzealous prayers, pray, pray, pray and ask for the Holy Spirit to help you. Ask him to heal those who are sick and to allow you to mourn fully with those who are mourning. Ask him to help your unbelief. 

For When You Lose Your Train of Thought

The other day, I sat across from my supervisor, who’d arranged for us to have a full day excursion in her hometown. A quaint little thing with ghostly brick buildings and dank alleys and too many craft beer bars. We sat there talking about many things I don’t recall in any particular detail now, and I ate buttered toast and nodded aggressively, eager to show how interested I was in the conversation. One minute I was nodding up a storm and the next, I was ready to call an ambulance because I felt like my head was spinning. I remember feeling woozy, leaning my head in my palm for support and then reluctantly swallowing an Advil pill an hour later when I realized it wasn’t going to get better on its own.

The rest of the day went by in a haze, moving along in the kind of slow, feet-dragging way that uneventful but frightening days usually do. Uneventful, because as dramatic as that morning had been, I still trotted half the small town and giggled with a young coworker about how its best days were behind it. I took stock of my surroundings at the same pace, the corners of the streets smelled like urine— like most street corners, the beer my coworker offered me tasted as pungent as it usually does, my skin stung gently from being under the sun for so long— again, not unusual. What was unusual and frightening is how unlike myself I felt while doing all this, like my head was filled with cotton and hay and unfinished sentences that would never see completion. I felt like I was cutting through a thick cloud of fog.

It was an unnecessarily dramatic day but it also got me thinking; what if my life was an unending, super drawn-out brain fart? Like, what if I forgot things all the time and couldn’t finish my sentences and make logical arguments again? The things I take pride in— being able to remember random details, stringing together sentences that make me feel giddy, coming up with witty clapbacks— what if I couldn’t do those things anymore?

So much of this Christian life is in the mind, we believe with our minds, we control cosmic powers with the battles we fight in our minds, we’re commanded to love God with all of our minds. So the thought of this mind failing me, of the possibility of one day being unable to grasp the truth as I’ve come to know it, sours my stomach.

One of my favorite movies is Still Alice, it’s about a Columbia linguistics professor getting diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's and her life basically falling apart after that. I enjoy watching the movie because I think she’s a badass and she’s the kind of woman I want to be when I’m 50. She runs every morning, “thrives on work,” eats froyos in the most guiltless way, and even though her children don’t really get along they still listen to In Dulci Jubilo at Christmas gatherings and eat fancy desserts. At the end of the movie, though, she can’t even recognize her daughter and in one scene, after scrambling to find where the restroom is in her own home, she urinates on herself. Her family contemplates ending her life and I wonder, is life not worth more than our minds?  

It’s easy to feel invincible when you’re in full control of your faculties. You almost start to believe that the world begins and ends with what you can perceive— in the people sitting across from you, the conversations you’re having, the books you’re reading. But how flimsy would this life be if that was true and the truth begun only when we were able to fully grasp it, when we were able to connect the dots?

My roommate who’s not a Christian told me that if he actually bought into any of this “Jesus stuff” and prayed, his only prayer would be “let your will be done” and I looked at him and said “well that wouldn’t be wrong,” because it wouldn’t be. No one I know or listen to from afar really understands how prayer works alongside God’s sovereignty (If things that are going to happen are going to happen anyway, why do we need to pray?) but they still pray anyway. That’s the case with a lot of other things, not just prayer. Even though our minds fail us sometimes when we try to balance seemingly contradicting realities, we still submit because we know that there’s a reality that exists outside of what we can understand.

The other day I read about Jesus resurrecting the little girl from death. Talitha cumi, and tears welled-up in my eyes because I realized as if for the first time that unlike what I’m prone to believing, he’s the resurrection and life, not a beating heart and a well-functioning mind. I realized as if for the first time that his deity transcends my ability to reason and find answers to hard questions. Jesus, who’s the essence of all creation and thought, who speaks into being the things that aren’t, that Jesus is the same one who holds the world together by the word of his power. The world will go on if I misspell a word and lose my train of thought.

Grappling with Truth in a Post-Truth Era

I often find myself getting mentally defensive when someone presents certain lines of thinking to me, especially lines of thinking that have to do with politics, explanations for suffering, identity, right vs. wrong, etc. Perhaps it is the person’s visible presumption of my position that rubs me the wrong way. Or perhaps since I am used to being a minority in many different ways I find myself in a state of perpetual resistance. Or maybe simply this tendency is from a desire to always be right and subsequently be the one who sees what others cannot see.

I do know that I don’t want to fit inside the box that people are constructing for me. Because if I do, then directly and indirectly I am hurting myself. If I step in that box, then I begin a gamble on my deepest beliefs – a gamble that has too far-reaching of implications for me. If I step in that box, then I am denouncing someone else – someone else that may represent a core part of me. The plethora of identities that reside in me fight to be represented and defended.

It is from this mindset that I had the following thoughts. I don’t know if this type of mindset would discount the ensuing perspective, but, nevertheless, I think it represents a thought worth some consideration.  

Over two months ago, a thought hit me— if we are living in a post-truth generation (basically where one’s experience is reality and people are expected to take one’s experience at face value), wouldn’t we then expect this acceptance of reality from all angles? Fake news, alternative facts and so forth have been able to thrive under this type of phenomena of post-truth acceptance. I mean, based on how one phrases and interprets an occurrence, could those event retellings that we call fake news also be true? What truly is truth? What is reality?

However, the interesting thing is that we (we as in society, or at least in western/American society) want the individuals sharing these types of alternative facts to be held accountable. We seek out someone to denounce it, someone to give us objective norms. Yet, at the same time we turn around and pursue our own personal post-truth acceptance and then pressure others to accept our experiences as truth.

I found this double-standard to be fascinating.

It became apparent to me that there is still a desire within people for an objective right versus wrong; we want there to be an objective truth of what is good and bad. The catch is that this desire arises mainly when it is convenient for us; when the truth is advantageous, that is when we seek its presence and that is when we demand societal obedience to it.

When I shared this train of thought with my friend, she poignantly put it this way: “People still have a longing for truth because we have the law of God written on our hearts. So no matter how far from truth we get and how much our hearts harden to the truth, our consciences somehow still bears witness to the truth.”

I guess the world and the way we live our lives are full of double standards, so perhaps the perspective I have shared is not necessarily a special point. I guess since I have been feeling like the times we live in are times of life or death that I noticed this particular pattern. I guess it is because I have been feeling that I must feel a certain way or see a certain way in order to validate my humanity that I presented these thoughts. Either way, beyond my own uncertainties and anxieties, I believe the desire for truth and for others to know it and be held accountable demonstrate our true nature and identities. Even though we may lie and fool ourselves, the truth cannot be hidden. It must make itself known.

Unproductive Saturdays Remind Us

This Saturday morning is like any other. The alarm is silent but I wake up at 9, that’s unusually early for a Saturday. I run the list of things I should do in my head, clean the bathroom, wash my hair, maybe cook for the week – but not before I read my bible. I’m in the middle of pouring cold water on a bowl of garri when I remember that I’m supposed to be fasting. I lift the spoon I’m holding to my mouth anyway because it makes no difference now – that fast was supposed to have been from Tuesday to Saturday.

I finally make it back to my bed and splay the bible open on my lap. I’m reading through Titus this week, actually I’ve been reading Titus since last week and I’ve been on chapter 1 for just as long. It looks like I won’t be going any further today because my confusion has lunged me headlong into a 30 minute long monologue about Paul’s political incorrectness. How could he possibly make the generalization that all the Cretans are liars and lazy gluttons? How’s that okay? So that ends the bible reading for today. I make it over to Instagram to make an unimaginative birthday post for a friend. The biggest chunk of my day is spent hoping between Instagram and Facebook, stalking people I’ll probably never meet in real life. I look at the time and it’s 2:30 pm. I feel guilty and wonder how differently my day would’ve been had I spent time in prayer, trying to understand what Paul is actually saying.

Most of my days are like this. A list of shoulds that never materialize into actual dos. Roiling in guilt and then deciding that every bad thing that happens to me is because I didn’t do what I was supposed to have done. I stub my toe or feel a pimple raising its head and it’s because I didn’t spend enough time reading my bible. My ‘quiet time’ has become a barometer for deciding whether or not God is pleased with me, for gauging whether or not he’ll answer my prayers. So on days when I don’t get a full hour in the word, when my prayers sit in my mouth like chalk, unconvincing and bland to my own ears, I can imagine God sitting up on his throne looking at me with a sneer on his face, shaking his head as he looks through the list of misfortunes that are going to befall me because I didn’t pray hard enough to earn his protection from them.

I’ve made quite a stir about hating the “prosperity gospel.” I’ll march up and down and try to speak “sense” into people who think they’ll live long healthy and prosperous lives because of their faith, because they pray long prayers and speak in tongues. To them I say “Come on! Look at Jesus, look at Paul.” But I’m slowly realizing that a part of me still buys into the idea that I can bargain with God – that in exchange for cowries of good behavior, I’ll get to carry home bucketfuls of the kind of Christian life I want to live. The kind of life that’s not boring, that brims over with mountain top experiences and makes you immune to pain and the beckonings of earthly desire.

Dull days still stretch on endlessly though, and life trails in the kind of zigzag way that can’t be mapped neatly onto moralizing blog posts. Not everything makes sense, and even though I’m trying really hard to get to the place where I don’t desire things (because we all know the trick is to be so satisfied in him so that you don’t want them anymore– and then he’ll give them to you), I still have longings, petty and ever-evolving, weighty and at times all-consuming.

In a life at once full and unfulfilled, I’m learning that good behavior doesn’t warrant good reward. And I’ve heard a lot of pastors try really hard to drive home that point. But too many times I’ve heard well meaning teachers say, in an attempt to smother the legalistic tendencies that some of us have, that our righteous deeds don’t matter. That they mean nothing because we’re totally justified. And I disagree. I disagree because even though we’re saved through his mercy and not through any righteousness of our own (Titus 3:5) we’re called to live and walk in a manner worthy of our holy calling (Ephesians 4:1, Colossians 1:10), not because we can ever be deserving of our salvation but because we know him who’s called us. So while it goes without saying that keeping sacraments and checking off boxes doesn’t make us deserving of our salvation, there’s a place for striving to live a life that’s pleasing to God.

Anyway, flesh and blood business is complicated, and sometimes it can be glamorous to recline languidly in the ironic ever-wandering, never coming to any conclusion about what God wants kind of way. But I pray that the Holy Spirit will awaken us to the beauty of resting in God, knowing that nothing we do can earn us his grace, while making us a people who’re not passive about living in a way that’s pleasing to him.

Cool Black Girls Don't Fall

My Freshman year in college, I fell in the dining hall. I was trying really hard to balance a strawberry-filled cup in one hand, while holding on to a bowl of soup perched gently on a takeaway tray. I dropped on my butt right in front of the desserts, and after this sweet boy helped me up he couldn’t resist asking what had happened. Why, was there water on the floor? Did someone accidentally push me? Why did I trip on nothing? Anyway, later that day as I recounted the event to one of my friends, she too, couldn’t understand why I fell. She wanted to know why I, a cool black girl with a certified homegirl badge, had fallen in the dining hall.

I would later come to understand that not only are cool black girls above falling in the dining hall, they also can’t fistpump in frat basements— that’s a dance move for those who can’t really dance, they scream “yaaaaas!” in applause of other cool black girls’ achievements, and most importantly, they can’t show fear. And for a good minute it was fun to try and fit this mold, however absurd it seemed. To live in exclamation marks and move to the rhythm of ‘black’ as choreographed by I know not who.

It was all cute until I realized that there are some things that wouldn’t yield to my will as easily as punctuating sentences in unnecessary 'daaaang's. Like when I would stand in front of my peers to give a presentation, mouth quivering and heart hammering; when fear would choke out my voice in the middle of a class discussion, forcing me to sit in silence, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself because cool black girls can’t be weak— they’re supposed to be sheathed in a solid haze of fortitude and ‘unbothered-ness’. They're supposed to be above fear.

You know who else is supposed to be above fear? People who have a real relationship with God. Those who live in light of eternity. Who have the imagery of grandeur and awe seeped into their bones. Those who laugh and cry in the same breath while talking about king Jesus in hushed tones. I’ve always wanted to be like those people, those whose knowledge of God spares them from fear.

Instead...

This past Sunday I caught myself in a circle of acquaintances, having to offer up a prayer that wasn’t exactly a grace for a meal. And I froze, my tongue sat in my mouth like steel, uncompassionate and obstinate, unwilling to sound dumb. And so as I often do when I feel like I’ve fallen short, I entered into a bid with God to prove that I’m worthy. I would fast and pray like I never had before. I would stay up past midnight to call down shekinah glory. Maybe then my flesh would faint and my eyes would open wider and I would see him like he is and I’ll see man as I should. Maybe then I would be above this kind of sanctification, the kind that strips you bare and reveals your uncoolness in front of everyone. But on my way home I laughed at the idea.

I laughed because the solution to every sin problem is learning to see God as he is. But will I ever see him in his fullness on this side of heaven? No.

An undignified struggle/ The Prayer for Boldness

I’m fairly certain that anxiety is the kind of sin that’s meant to be slaughtered, quickly. Not only because it’s sin, but because it makes you look weak— because it often links arms with cowardice. And as ready as we are to admit that we eat too much or have anger outbursts, no one wants to be accused of being a coward.

Yes, even as I write this, my tendency is not to pray for God to deliver me from fear, instead, it’s to pray against getting ostracized for struggling with something that’s not cool to struggle with. I want it to be a normal struggle, an unstigmatized one. Maybe then I would be more comfortable to share it with the Christians who seem to have it together and not worry about it being reduced to “it goes away as you get older”s. But as I pray for him to release me from this seemingly unrelenting grip, I’m realizing that he wants me to pray for a heart that doesn’t treasure comfort over loving others. A heart that’s willing to speak the truth with a trembling voice. A heart that’s willing to distance itself from the love of others’ approval. A heart that’s ready to inconvenience itself because it loves truth more than it loves pride and a fine reputation.

Anyway, tomorrow, or Sunday I’ll have a friend ask me to pray over her. And I’ll look at her and wonder why I came to church. We’ll hold hands and I’ll probably totter under anxiety and wait for her to pray first and then decide it was a bad idea to have her pray first because there won’t be anything new to say. But even if there’s nothing new to say, I’ll ask for boldness for her too. Because fear doesn’t always look like chattering teeth. Because boldness doesn’t look like a steady voice and a firm grip and an easy manner.

On This Side of Heaven

Commuting in the subway has a way of  exposing you to the underbelly of the city. On most days, I just want to get out, avoid all the smells that seem to morph into a physical presence and walk in the city like they own a part of it. But try as I do, I can’t seem to avoid it because, you see, I live in a funny part of town. The subway is funny and the neighbors are funny and I can’t seem to muster the sympathy to understand any of the humor.

Anyway, I walk past this man to work every morning. And after work he’s always sitting right at the entrance to the subway station, lines seared across his forehead and jaw clamped tightly into his neck. He begs me for a quarter and I think to myself, “Life can be rough.”

* * *

A couple of weeks ago I walked with a friend in the oldest park in the country. It’s all green and the giggles of children create a wholesome and happy cacophony. It’s Thursday and my hair is acting like it often does on Sunday mornings right after I untwist it. I’m wearing white and my friend breaks into prose about the amphibious duck boat, her hair coiffed into sturdy puffy pigtails. The duck boat is “cool,” I say. A day later I find out that whole families have been splintered apart by the duck boat. One of the survivors, a woman, had lost nine members of her family. “Eeeii Awurade!” I knead my body into my bed and groan. Life can be cruel.

* * *

It’s Monday and my coworker laments how utterly Monday it feels. She’s right. Monday hangs gloomily in the office like a frown. And along it the chill breeze from the air- conditioner dries my nose and makes me thirsty. That Monday also happens to be the warmest day of the week for me. The following day, the icy hands of womanhood wrap themselves around my waist and send painful ripples through my body. I can’t go to work and so I anchor my back on a heating pad and drink hot peppermint tea and beg my body to melt into submission. In the bathroom mirror, I catch a glimpse of tiny burn marks ballooning into ugly black masses along my lower back. I’m startled that my body could rise up and declare war against me like it does. Every month.

* * *

I’m on the phone with my mother and she asks me how I’m doing. “I’m well,” I say. And so with that permission, she tells me about her family. Her mother is well and so is her sister. Her five year-old nephew is a song and her forty-seven year-old brother is a happy task. She funnels them money every month and that’s her way of helping. I get off the phone and realize it’s her way of coping, too. I realize that giving, to her, is a salve for all the open wounds.

I think to myself “Maybe I should give.” I should give to the man at the corner of the street without questioning whether or not he’ll spend the money on food. Give in spite of myself. Lavish the angsty teenagers on the train with smiles and give in to the desire to hold my nose in revolt against the nauseating smells. I should give-in to the desire to mourn. Weep the finiteness and already-overness of this life. Weep the unnaturalness of families ripped apart by death and those yet to be ripped apart by life. Groan and lament the fact that both healthy and weak bodies breakdown. Well-functioning bodies bleed. Here is life on this side of heaven. But I mourn with hope. I mourn with hope because He gave first.

I find that my understanding of goodness is so finite, it fits neatly into a two-by-two inch box. It also forgets too easily. It forgets that for every one duck boat accident, there’s a million automobiles that swim the ocean and earth unscathed. That for every one person who sits outside the subway station begging for money, there’s a million who lift hand to mouth, filling their bellies before the day is over. For every body afflicted with a malady, there’s a million that heal and recover.

I’m young, with only twenty-three years tucked underneath me, and in that time I’ve seen more joy than I’ve seen pain. I’ve seen laughter and tears that spill over from happiness than I’ve seen sorrow. I’ve seen many days I didn’t want to forget and lived in a body that wants to be lived in. I’ve seen God’s grace in difficulty and in ease. There’s also much I can’t understand. Not the pain that assails this earth and the people in it, not the fact that this good God doesn’t fit my image of the round-bellied, white bearded, candy dispensing father who protects his children from all kinds of suffering. But you know what I also don’t understand? I don’t understand why he extends grace to me like he does, without measure. I don’t understand why he’s mindful of me, dusty old me. So when I’m given to question his goodness, I remind myself that none of the good I’ve seen is deserved. Not one.

Are We Called To Judge?

I pride myself on my unfusiness. But it’s an unsustainable state to be in. Plans go sideways and life gets hectic and complaints happen— more often than they should. And then you’re not unfussy anymore because smiling makes you feel like a fraud. I’ve realized that I’m not the only one who prides myself on being unfussy however. In fact there seems to be a movement of easygoing-ness sweeping through my generation. Our holy language gets reduced to trite sayings and encounters with God that send shivers down our spines are described as “fun”, and meals are as “great” as are mountains, and God.

I feel like this wave of easygoing-ness that’s sweeping through our generation is supposed to be an affront to the judgmentalism we associate with all “religiosity” and regulation. We hate litanies and sacraments and so we’re willing to throw out babies with the dirty bathwater and our message becomes all about the “love of God”.

This topic has been put on my radar because I was recently confronted for not being easygoing enough. What do you know, I’m a harbinger of darkness and doom because I don’t mind making a case for tacos when asked to decide between Indian and Mexican food. I should say “I’m fine with whatever.” Because that’s the will of God for my life— indecisiveness. It’s all silly until we realize that we’ve confused any type of assertiveness for the kind of rigidity that calls to mind the dystopian fundamentalism shown in the Handmaid’s Tale. We’re afraid to make a case for our faith and we pray that people will never question our stand on controversial topics because then we’ll have to actually make a stand.

It’s an irony because in making the decision to flee from a certain kind of perceived dogma, we actually make the judgement that a) anything that appears remotely [fill in the blank] must certainly be dogmatic and b) we make the judgment that that kind of dogmatism is not worthy of our time.

What Does The Bible Say?

We’re called to exercise good judgment everyday (1 Corinthians 2:15). We can’t expose ourselves to everything under the sun in the name of “open-mindedness” because then we put ourselves on the slippery slope to temptation and sin. Not everything is good and we should learn to discern, and not be afraid to follow the right path even when it contradicts popular belief. We’re also called to refrain from judging others(Matthew 7:1-3), and it’s in moments like this that I wish I knew Hebrew so that I could distinguish between the words used in the different instances.

When We're Not Called to Judge

Jon Bloom has written about this topic on Desiringgod.com and in his words:

"We must not judge “the hidden . . . purposes of the heart” of other Christians based on their decisions, actions, perspectives, words, or personality that concern us if those things themselves are not explicitly sinful (1 Corinthians 4:5). We must not assume sin if we suspect sin, given how biased our suspicions can be."

We’re called to not pass judgement based on appearances(John 7:24). We all have a tendency to see more into others’ actions than we should. Someone’s reserved nature might be mistaken for haughtiness and their discomfort around crowds has to mean they don’t like people. People who only eat vegetables must surely think they’re better than those who eat meat, and those who listen to non-mainstream music must think they’ve seen the face of God. That’s not your call to make.

When We’re Called to Judge

When we see a believer walking in sin, we’re called to correct them(1 Corinthians 5:12 & 1 Corinthians 5:3). “But we’re all sinners” you might say, yes we’re all sinners, who should understand the magnitude of our calling to live holy lives(1 Peter 1:15). If we find ourselves in habitual sin and excuse ourselves by saying that we’re not perfect, we fail to understand what Jesus did in dying for us on the cross. It means we’re comfortable with nailing him to the cross everyday and holding him up to contempt (Romans 6:2 & Hebrews 6:4-6).

We're Not to Condemn

We must walk the careful line between judging rightfully and condemning others. We’re to call others out for their sin, so that they may be saved from eternal damnation. As James says in James 5:19-20, a person who’s corrected from wandering from the truth is saved from death and covered from a multitude of sins. We’re not called, however, to make the decision that only God can make on the judgment day in deciding who’ll spend eternity with him and who’ll spend eternity in hell. So let’s be slow to pass judgment but let’s not withhold truth out of fear of offending others. When we do that we show that we fear man more than we fear God.