Palpable Pain

Since moving to the Shenandoah valley, I have become a Shakespeare junkie.  

Shakespeare had never really been my thing, until I found myself living 20 minutes away from the Blackfriars Playhouse, the world's only recreation of Shakespeare's indoor theater. I went to see The Christmas Carol, which they perform every year in December, but my world wasn't rocked until I saw Cyrano de Bergerac in May. Ever since then, I find myself drawn to this theater whenever I have a free night.

The acting is outstanding and I often find myself moved to hysterical laughter or gut wrenching tears, sometimes in the same show. Shakespeare didn't write his plays to be read in classrooms, he wrote them to be performed on stage, and I think it is impossible to approach understanding of his brilliance until you have seen his work incarnate.

This afternoon I attended a performance of Titus Andronicus, which is said to be Shakespeare's bloodiest, most violence work and is very rarely performed. The feeling I sat with throughout the entire show was: pain. Gut-wrenching, want to tear your heart out pain. The pain was palpable on the stage and even in the audience, where all of us were affected by the depth of grief, hatred, and evil that almost every character exuded.

Theater is a powerful medium because unlike film, a theater goer is a participant, a part of the story that is being told. It is very difficult to remain aloof or apart from live performance, especially at the Blackfriars, where the actors intentionally draw the audience in and make us part of the play's world.

So I walk away from the theater today feeling a deep sense of loss and grief in the pit of my stomach. Having witnessed the evil that comes from revenge, which is the basic plot of this play. Having seen the ways that cycles of violence only beget more violence, pain, and destruction. To think that this entire tragedy might have been stopped by the forgiveness, the pardon of Titus at the very beginning. And yet, Titus found it necessary to uphold the practice of retributive justice, let the punishment fit the crime.

I will not come to see this show again, though it was brilliant. I don't think my heart could take it. I come away with my heart broken by the way that a lack of forgiveness can give birth to pain and destruction beyond compare, without end.

May we learn to forgive.

My Call to Ministry

If you would've told me five years ago that I would be pastoring a church, I would have laughed. But much of my life is like that, unexpected in the way that grace often is.

I always have a hard time with this question, because my understanding of call goes back to the very beginning of my Christian story. Or maybe that is just very Methodist, since we believe that all bapized Christians are called to ministry.

I was baptized as an infant at Kingsway United Methodist Church in Springfield, MO. My parents, however, were not really into church, so with a couple of exceptions, I was unchurched as a child. I had my awakening to faith when I went to camp the summer before 6th grade, and when I came home from camp, I immediately got involved in the church.

We moved to Virginia when I was a sophomore in high school, which was traumatic but a blessing. As I started to look at colleges, my main focus was the physical therapy program. I knew that whatever I did as an occupation, it would be ministry because of the way that I did it. I felt compelled to help people learn how to walk again, after accidents and injuries, and I figured that I would work in clinics and lower income settings so that I could be in mission.

As I worked my way through college, however, I was miserable with my path. Cellular biology was the turning point; or, at least, that semester was, the spring of my sophmore year. I had a hard time believing that I would be so miserable if I were really following my call. I took one class that year in the religious studies department: Black Religion with Dr. Mark Wood. I loved it! Essays and not scantrons! Reading and interacting with the texts and my classmates! It was like coming up for air if you are drowning.

I began to really discern whether I was going in the right direction. I was active in leadership at my home church as well as the Baptist Student Union on campus. I loved this one class. And yet, in my other science classes and volunteer work in the hospital, I was miserable. I talked with my campus minister, Bill Berry, who had no doubts about my call to some kind of ministry. And I signed up to go on the study abroad trip with Dr. Wood to Havana, Cuba.

The two weeks in Cuba changed my life. When I got on the plane to come back to Virginia I knew two things: 1. I was going to come back to Cuba, and 2. I was not going to be a physical therapist. It's funny to look back on this, because this was not a "mission trip," not a churchy trip at all. But I felt God's presence so strongly in Havana, and I heard God speaking so clearly through the scripture I was reading.

When I returned to school, I changed my major to religious studies. I felt called to be a missionary, to work with people in Latin America or specifically in Cuba as we struggled to be the people of God in the world. After I graduated, I went to Guatemala to study Spanish, knowing that I needed to be fluent for my call, and then to Wesley Seminary. I felt the need to be ordained, though I did not plan on being a pastor.

My sense of call was further refined in seminary when I went to First United Methodist Church in Hyattsville to serve as a pastoral intern. I had never even considered the possibility of being a pastor. And yet, as I served at this amazing church, I discovered gifts that I never knew I had. It was another awakening experience, another great surprise of grace.

When I worked at the hospital in Washington D.C., I told this story to one of my colleagues and she said: "You are just like St. Francis!" St. Francis of Assisi heard God's call to "build my church" and thought that God meant that literally. So St. Francis found a broken down church and began to rebuild it. He later realized that God meant for him to rebuild the whole of the church, not the physical building. I heard God's call to help people learn how to walk, and so I began a path toward physical therapy. It wasn't until later that I realized God was calling me to help people walk in a much different sense, as disciples.

My call story is long because God has transformed me along the way, refining, polishing, and sometimes scrubbing with microbeads. And I don't feel like it is finished. In many ways, I continue to seek God's call everyday and to discern where and how God wants me to serve in ministry.

I do know one thing for sure, I am here only by the grace of God. I am constantly amazed that God would bring me here, that God would care so much for me as to call me to serve and to provide for me throughout my journey. I echo Paul's sentiments, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and God's grace toward me has not been in vain" (1 Corinthians15:10).

Biblical Personality

One of the last days that we were in Brazil, Mario asked me if I would give him my Bible.

The Bible he was referring to is a pocket-sized NRSV that I have travelled with for probably 10 years. The feature I loved most about this Bible was that it had a zipper, so that the pages didn't get creased or bent in my suitcase or backpack, and it also allowed me to keep all sorts of mementos inside.

Of course, I told Mario I would give him my Bible when we left, so the night before our departure, I cleaned out all of the clippings from this Bible. I had a ticket from last year's mission when we rode up the train to visit the Cristo Redentor statue in Rio de Janeiro. I had my nametag from the event that I attended on the border in Mexico. I had a creased song sheet from back in the day when we led music at Frank Pais camp in Havana. I had a bulletin from my grandfather's funeral. I had a note from a young girl in Cuba. I had a boarding pass from Miami. I had a sheet of star stickers from who knows when. But I left a mark on the Bible, the masking tape nametag from last year's trip to Brazil, afixed on the outside leather.

In my experience, every Bible has a personality. I have a rose colored NIV that is terribly beat up, full of different colored underlining and dates that I read certain passages. I got that Bible when I was in sixth grade, right after I had an awakening experience to faith and committed myself to follow Jesus Christ, and I used it up until I graduated from high school. When I went to college, I got a hardback RSV, and my campus minister commented that this meant I was going to seminary, because that was the version all the seminarians read. I laughed at him; I wasn't going to seminary. When I was in seminary (who is laughing now?) I bought a cheap paperback NRSV, which is what I currently have beside my bed. It is absolutely falling apart; everything after Acts has become unbound and falls out if I'm not careful. (Side note: this is a great way to learn the order of the books in the New Testament!) I have written all over it, questions, dates, connections, themes.

It is sad to me when I think that many people's Bibles don't have a lot of personality because they are not used. You might not be as tough on your Bible as I am, but is there evidence that you have read it, studied it, grappled with it, been challenged by it or changed by it? Of does it still look nice and pretty, up on the shelf collecting dust or safely protected from wear?

When I gave my Bible to Mario he asked me, what is the first passage I should read? Good question. (And may I add, that this is a young man who recently turned 18). After a moment, I said decisively: Isaiah 43.

"But now this says the LORD,

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and through the rivers,

they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through the fire

you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

Talk about personality.

Use it or Lose it

It was a tough week at the gym last week.

Those who know me well know that I am a gym rat. I'm at the gym at least 5 but usually 6 days a week. It's what keeps me sane and gives me stress relief. I'm a big fan of group exercise, because I have found that I push myself much harder when I am surrounded by others. I take zumba, which is a dance workout that is latin based, but my latest love is body combat, a rockin' kickboxing, martial arts class. It is hard core, emphasis on the word hard, and a fantastic workout.

But then I went away for about three weeks, to Brazil on a mission team, to Blackstone for a residency event, and to Richmond for my brother's wedding.

Hence, last week, my first week at the gym in three weeks, was a tough week.

I'm always amazed at how quickly one can lose the edge. I've been building up stamina for months, working hard and pushing myself, and after three weeks away I feel like I'm back at square 2. It was all I could do to keep up for the whole class, and boy have I felt it in my back, arms, and legs!

I think this rings true about the most important things in life: when we step away from them, even for a short time, we rapidly lose the ground that we have spent months building up.

The spiritual life is definitely this way. John Wesley would call this backsliding, when we get lazy or busy and neglect the spiritual disciplines, when we neglect our relationship with God and the way that this relationship intentionally calls us into relationship with others, when we lose our focus on God's will and call for our lives we start sliding back. And unfortunately, we all know that it's easier to slide down the hill than it is to climb back up.

Summer, while it is fun and spontaneous and unstructured, seems to be time rife with backsliding. There are so many other things to do, that worship takes a backseat to going out of town or "enjoying" the day off (a strange and un-Christian understanding of sabbath). We don't offer any Bible studies at the church, instead we take a break. And I would hazard a guess that many of us often take a break from the personal, spiritual disciplines that we practice as well.

But following Jesus Christ is an everyday commitment, with no breaks and no holidays (though there are holy-days). It takes focus and determination. It takes reordering of priorities and quite honestly, the reordering of life. It takes our response: to God's call, God's initiative, God's grace. It takes practice, which is one of the reasons why we work on spiritual disciplines. It necessitates community, to keep us accountable and to surround us with encouragement (again, it's all about group classes!)

May God keep us focused so that we can continue to press on toward the goal!