Theological Reflections for a New Year

I am in seminary, so you know I have to talk about God every once in awhile.

Today I had my internship orientation (part one), and as I was sitting there in the Great Hall, I couldn't help remember this time last year, and my first-year student orientation.  Last year's orientation intimidated the heck out of me; I was still reeling from the unexpected grad-school swap that moved me across the country, and still sunburnt from a trip to Mexico that ended two days prior.  Walking into that orientation was harder than walking into the first day of kindergarten; why, I'll never quite be sure, but it was one of the most intimidating moments of my life.

When I walked into the same hall in the same building for my internship orientation today, even though I'm halfway through my degree program, I had some of those same feelings of intimidation and concern - despite the fact that it's a new year, it started out remarkably similar to the last one - in the same building, in the same hall, at the same round tables, staring up at the same podium.

Lately I've been reflecting a lot on last year, and today I feel that my reflections came full circle and I finally began to understand what I could not last year.  My first academic year at seminary was the single most difficult year of my life...and I really didn't see that coming.  I was plucked out of my comfort zone by a full scholarship to move to Texas instead of continuing to live in Kentucky, I was caught off guard by classes that were much more difficult than I expected, I was always lonely despite making several new friends, and with my Christian support group 900 miles away, my faith began to fail me.  This is a stumbling block that all Christians meet at some point, and even though I'd heard that it often happens in seminary, I never thought it would happen to me.

Because, you see, I was following God's plan.  Or at least, I had been, back in Kentucky.  That was where I knew the plan, and I was certain of the steps that I needed to take to follow that plan.

The thing is, living my post-graduate life in Kentucky wasn't actually the plan...but I didn't know it.  So when God had other plans, I freaked out.  Actually, I didn't just freak out; I stuck my feet to the floor like a stubborn toddler and wouldn't budge from what I thought was the plan.  Instead of putting my energy into the new plan, I focused on the plan that was lost, and I entered into what I would later acknowledge as a dark night of the soul, when I was required to write a paper on this spiritual phenomenon.

Dark nights of the soul are periods of spiritual darkness, when a person feels separated from God to the point that they reach their lowest emotional point and a pervading sense of desolation affects everything.  But, the thing about dark nights of the soul is that they are transformative - according to Saint John of the Cross, they are periods that lead to a stronger and more mature union with God through struggling.  It's a good place for that Biblical metaphor about "wrestling with God" to come in.  I would say that my dark night started around October of last year, and continued through May of this year.  Dedicated blog readers will recognize that I started this blog as a self-improvement venture about halfway through that time.

This blog has kind of gotten away from its original purpose, which was to keep myself accountable to those flighty New Years' Resolutions that people often make, and to force myself to make proactive changes in my life to improve my quality of living and lessen my unhappiness.  This was a stark change to my previous strategy of sitting around and moping about being unhappy because of ___ and blaming God for that unhappiness.  And so I started writing - I started writing about exercising, about eating healthier, about studying more, about working harder, about strengthening friendships.  I got back to living my life, instead of waiting for my life to fix itself.

What I didn't realize then, but which I understand more fully now, is that in taking control of my life in this way, I was allowing God to heal and transform me.  I may have been "controlling" my life, but it was God who was fixing it.

I now understand how my dark night of the soul transformed my relationship with God last year.  I used to think that doing God's will or following God's plan was a matter of figuring out the entire plan, and then chasing after it with full force.  Naturally, when my perception of "the plan" was uprooted, my faith system crumbled.  Distressed and confused, I subconsciously jumped to the opposite extreme, which was to do nothing and expect God to just "fix" it - the only problem was that I didn't really believe that God would do it, nor was I bothering to maintain a relationship with God since I felt that God was the one who had messed up, not me.

Then the new year came around, and I was fed up with my life, and I started to make some changes.  I thought about what I wanted my life to look like, I made some goals, and I started working towards them.  Somehow, in the midst of all of this, my faith began to rejuvenate itself.  The more I threw myself into my new life, the more I unknowingly allowed God's new plan to take effect in my life.  But in order for God's plan to take root, I had to do something.  I had to take responsibility not only for my faith, but for all areas of my life. I had to be willing to put in the work so that God's plan could take place.

This is what I realized recently, and what I was contemplating today at orientation: the ways in which God's plan is misconstrued and misunderstood.  I now believe that God's plan isn't about knowing the plan and then following the map, nor is it about expecting God to do everything for you while you sit around and wait.  I believe that God desires us to live our lives, and trust that He will be with us every step of the way, whether we know it or not.  Living a Christian life isn't about letting God take responsibility for everything...it's about taking responsibility for our own lives, and letting God work through them.

It took nearly a year for me to go through my dark night, and while it was an exceedingly difficult period in my life, I am now very grateful for it.  I feel that, for the first time in my life, I understand what it means to live God's will in a practical, realistic way.  Before, I never felt confident that I was "doing it right" because I either couldn't figure out the plan, or the plan wasn't working out the way I thought it was supposed to and I wondered why God wasn't holding up his end of the deal.

I'm done with that now.  I'm ready to live my life, and see what God does with it...one step at a time.

Glimmers of Light

Lately, in intangible ways, I've started noticing fleeting moments of loving my life.

Basically since I moved here in August, I've been in a dark night of the soul - "a phase in a person's spiritual life, marked by a sense of loneliness and desolation" (thank you, Wikipedia).  Seriously though, even though I may have just quoted a Wikipedia article (it's late, cut me some slack), I actually know quite a bit about dark nights of the soul...besides being personally in one for nine months, I also just read a 320 page book about dark nights of the soul, and subsequently wrote a 10 page paper on said book.  Dark nights of the soul go deeper than just depression, to the very core of a person's being.  They tend to appear around major life changes...like graduating from college and losing an identity nearly inextricably tied to one's life at that college, and moving 10 hours away from family and living alone for the first time and changing graduate school plans at the last minute.  Any of this sound familiar?

But, I'm starting to think that I may be emerging from the dark night again...over the past couple of days (basically, ever since my car got literally picked up out of that ditch by a bunch of people who are my slight acquaintances at best), I've kind of been able to step out of myself and look at my life objectively, from the outside, without the lens of darkness and underlying loneliness tainting my view of my world.  And, when I look at my life from outside, I realize that there ARE aspects of it that I legitimately love.

It's little moments that have been giving me these fleeting glimmers of light lately...

...laughing harder than I've laughed in months with friends over tacos tonight

...doing homework on campus on a blanket under the evening sky, with the chapel looming overhead

...watching a video I took of the Anberlin concert I saw last fall

...finding new things to do in Dallas

...singing worship songs in my spiritual formation class this morning

....watering the community garden

...eating ice cream cookie sandwiches on patio seating

...getting the opportunity to try my hand at Zen meditation as a suburban-raised American white girl

...shopping for new clothes with a friend and laughing ourselves silly over a fish t-shirt

...saying hello to multiple people in succession on campus, and feeling known by people

...exercising in a state-of-the-art fitness center while chatting with a friend who's on the next exercise bike over

...feeling the young-people vibe in my neighborhood, and somehow feeling connected to the entire world of young-adulthood

...connecting with the women in my Bible study, and knowing that I'm being prayed for...and sensing those prayers working (particularly in the area of lowering school stress)

...liking the way I look, and feeling in control of my weight and general appearance

...forming multiple ideas of possibilities for post-graduation, and feeling like I'll have several choices to pursue that I could enjoy and be good at doing

They're all little things, and I know there's others that haven't made the list.  I can't really describe how these moments make me feel except to say that they stand out against the loneliness and desolation as glimmers of light...hopeful moments that make me think that I can be happy and confident again, and even as much as I used to be.