Identity

For those of you who may not be aware, I have an online dating profile.  I'm not sure if I've made this fact explicitly clear on this blog before, but sufficient to say that I found I wasn't meeting many new people in my grinding routine of school-work-study, and figured that opening up new lines of communication wouldn't be a bad idea.  But all of this is irrelevant, except for the fact that it provides the context for my real purpose, which is to talk about identity.

I assume that all those reading this are aware that I'm a Christian, unless you just happened to stumble upon this blog via StumbleUpon or some other such web browsing tool.  Otherwise, all that talk about being in seminary and working at a church should have clued you in by now.  It follows, therefore, that in looking for a romantic interest, I look for Christians.  If you think this is closed-minded, that's a different conversation, but having a strong faith definitely tops my list of important qualities of a prospective Mr. Right.

So the other day, I receive a message from this guy.  Let's call him Roger.  The dating site that I use has a graduated communication thing going on, which allows you to get to know people informally and with minimal commitment via multiple choice questions and the like.  It's kind of cheesy, but it is super non-intimidating, and so I generally make it a rule to respond to the first questions that anyone sends me in order to give all would-be suitors a fair chance.  Glancing through Roger's profile, it looked somewhat promising...an unusually high number of references to Jesus, but hey, maybe he's just super open about his faith.  Not a bad thing.

So Roger and I progress through the first couple of steps of communication, and things are looking good.  But  almost immediately I start to realize that I really don't know that much about Roger besides the fact that Jesus is important to him.  And while that's cool, I'm going to need a bit more to go off of if we're going to determine romantic possibilities.  So I send Roger some questions to try and find out some more about him.  These questions include the following:

Besides your faith, what's something you're really passionate about?


What's an interest that you'd really like your partner to share with you?


Describe your ideal partner.


Again, forgive the cheese, but online dating lends itself towards cheesy-ness, and two of those questions were suggested by the site and fit my purposes well enough that I didn't bother to de-cheese-ify them.

Anyway, I was hoping that by sending such broad questions I might discover if Roger and I had anything in common besides our mutual affinity for Christianity.  Lots of directions to go from these questions, right?  Here are the responses I got back, paraphrased for content:

Besides your faith, what's something you're really passionate about?
"I can't really answer that question because my faith affects every area of my life...I'm passionate about everything because everything is for the glory of God."

What's an interest you'd like your partner to share with you?
"My faith in Jesus."

Describe your ideal partner.
"She would be a follower of Jesus, and be willing to submit to the will of God."

*headdesk*

Needless to say, I closed off communication with Roger after that day.  Because besides the fact that his answers were all incredibly vague, exceedingly stereotypical, and in the case of the first question, theologically unsound (are you sure "everything" is for the glory of God?  Even things like evil and racism and bigotry and hatred?  Sure you're passionate about "everything"?), the fact of the matter is that I don't want to date a Jesus drone.

As I was driving to work the next day, I was thinking about Roger's answers and how utterly ridiculous they were in the context of getting to know someone new.  Not that the sentiment behind them was bad...I mean, I'd also like to find someone who shares my faith in Christ, but I'd also like to find someone with whom I could share a love of travel, or of acting silly, or of music, or of something other than just Christianity.  I've met all sorts of people who are Christians and, believe it or not, I haven't automatically gotten along with all of them.  In fact, some of them have literally driven me crazy.  Just like people who aren't Christians come in all personality types, Christians also come in all personality types.  Your faith may define you, it may be the base of your identity, but it doesn't mean that that's all there is to it.  You're still an individual.

I feel like that's the beauty of the Christian faith.  God didn't create an army of Jesus drones - mindless cyborgs who wander about espousing random quotes of scripture to each other day and night.  No; God created individuals.  A whole bunch of unique, one-of-a-kind, never-seen-anything-like-it individuals.  And even better, God offered salvation to all those individuals in full celebration of their individuality - including their individual talents and their individual sins alike.  God doesn't require everyone to dress a certain way or look a certain way or act a certain way in order to follow Him.  Christianity is a come-as-you-are religion that, when taken on, should foster individuality and celebrate the uniqueness that God gives to every person.  Having a faith that defines you means that you define yourself by God's standards, which provide a constant state of renewal and freedom in Christ.  It does not mean that your individual self-hood is suppressed by your faith; it means that your uniqueness is elevated and celebrated and that you contribute to the world in a way that only you can, as God has planned for your specifically.

While the intent behind losing oneself in God is good (wasn't it some great saint who said "I must decrease, and God must increase"?), I don't think that Christians should be afraid of showing their individuality.  Nor do I think that name-dropping Jesus in every other sentence is the best way to make clear to a new acquaintance that your faith is important to you.  A true faith in God, a transforming faith, will shine through your actions and conversations in a way that is revelatory of God without being overbearing or disingenuous.  This kind of faith does affect all areas of one's life, but in a way that allows one's interests and goals and talents and weaknesses to shine for God in the way that is unique to every person.  If, as a Christian, you believe that God has a plan for your life (as we Christians love to say), then let God have a plan for YOUR life.  Let God have a plan for YOU.  Take that individuality that God gave you and celebrate it, cherish it...and use it to glorify God in a way that only you can do.

I mean, if God wanted an army of Bible-thumping C3PO's, God would have created one, right?

Renewal.

Today was a day of spiritual revelation and rejuvenation.  It was good.  Nothing I particularly want to talk about on a blog, being somewhat private in nature.  But here are the songs that spurred today's reflection...

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.

Better Day

Today was a better day.  It started off well - I actually READ my Bible this morning (I know, right?).  That's a new one this year.  I decided to start doing my 10-minute daily meditation homework first thing in the morning when I haven't had time to get all stressed or distracted, and that put me in a contemplative God-mood that motivated me to actually have a personal quiet time.  That was good.  To be honest, though, I quickly got bored...I'm out of practice, for one thing, and I was exceptionally tired this morning for some reason.

In a way, the better-ness that was today was kind of intangible in a way.  I just felt more confident than usual, I guess, which made me feel happier than usual.  I actually spoke up and said intelligent things in class today, and I think I've actually been working my way into my professor's good graces.  For one thing, I think they're starting to know who I am.  These big lectures are an abrupt shift from the liberal arts class of 5-10.  It may have taken a semester, but I think I'm actually starting to get used to the change.

All in all, not too much exciting or interesting to report.  It was 6-hours-of-class-Tuesday, so academia dominated my day.  Given how good I felt today, I'm surprised to find I have so little to write about...that's why I called it an intangible happiness before.  I'm thinking it's a direct result of that "let go and let God" mentality I'm trying to adopt.

I won't belabor the point that I don't really have anything to write about today.  Now, Dallas IS supposed to get another "wintry mix" tomorrow...we'll see how that pans out.  Class or no class tomorrow?  Come back tomorrow to find out...

(Suspenseful ending, right?)

Beautiful Things Out of the Dust

My local grocery store sells cacti.

That photo actually has nothing to do with today's blog post except that I noticed it today and thought it was weird.  So go ahead and take a moment to ponder it, and then we'll move on.

OK, so as you might have guessed my day began with grocery shopping (cacti weren't included on the list, so they didn't make it into the cart.  Sorry to disappoint).  Dallas was back to it's usual dry, sunny, less-crowded-than-during-the-super-bowl self today, which was a good change of pace.  The city is slowly getting back into my good graces...hopefully this trend will continue.  The grocery store was generally uncrowded.  Apparently 12:30 on a Monday afternoon isn't peak grocery-shopping time for people.

I don't really remember much else about the afternoon...which, since I done consume intoxicants, must mean that nothing consequential happened.  I do remember there was some bashing in of virtual heads with swords on Wii Sports Resort (not nearly as violent as it sounds).  I think besides that I really just sat around.  Today was back-to-school after last week's weather-related break, and I wasn't necessarily looking forward to it.  Once I got going, though, it felt good to be back on routine.  And I always look fabulous with my black and white plaid trench coat and sparkley sunglasses, so that put me in a good mood on the way to class (an emotion that was ameliorated by singing "Hey Soul Sister" enthusiastically at the top of my lungs as I buzzed down Central Expressway).

Class was good.  This was my once-a-week, 3-hour "Prayer and Spirituality" class (the one with the "circles of trust," for those of you keeping track).  Prior to class I had accomplished a feat of sneaky academic genius via email with the professor.  You see, every student in the class has to pick a classic text on Christian spirituality and give a quick oral book report to the class.  As I was perusing the list this afternoon, dreading the idea of adding an entire extra book to my workload just for a 5 minute report), I suddenly realized that The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence was on the list.  This excited me for three reasons: 1) This book is SHORT, 2) This book is EASY to read, and 3) I'VE READ THIS BOOK AT LEAST THREE OR FOUR TIMES.  And, it happens to be quite good.  I think I may have even squealed a little bit out loud when I saw it listed there.  I jotted a quick email to my professor telling him how much I would appreciate the opportunity to present this book to the class as it is one of my personal favorites, and within 15 minutes had an "OK" allowing me to claim that book (every student has to pick a different book, I'm 90% sure).  Then I did a little happy dance around my apartment because I dodged a stress bullet.

Back to class itself.  Somewhere in the middle of class (specifically, during a lectio divina reading of Matthew 1:10-11), it suddenly occurred to me how God makes beautiful things out of people's difficulties.  THIS was kind of a break through...it's basically God telling me "Chill OUT already!  Trust me, I know what's going on."  And that was good to hear, after yesterday's breakdown.  I've received so much encouragement from so many different people over the past two days, and I really want to say thank you SO much.  I need to hear people tell me "you can do this" now and again, and I really don't know if you can understand how much your constant encouragement means to me.  You all rock.  The new plan of attack, as difficult as I know it is going to be, is to stop stressing, and trust God to carry me through.  "Let go, and let God," as they say.

When I got back to my apartment after class, I wasn't really very hungry.  So, naturally, I made the world's most enormous meat loaf for dinner.  Actually, I made the world's most enormous meatloaf to cover the next six dinners, so that I'll have something substantial to eat before the class marathon tomorrow evening without having to cook anything.  In reality, it's probably not the world's most enormous meatloaf, but it is the first meat loaf I have ever created (yay comfort food!) and considering I'm the only person who will be eating it, it's pretty big.  Happily, it's from the "Cooking Light" cookbook I acquired from my family's kitchen over winter break, so it's healthier than the average meatloaf, and it is SO GOOD.  Seriously.  SO good.

Sorry to abruptly change from the inspirational God stuff to rambling about meat loaf.  But, I wanted to mention both, and I tend to do these posts in chronological order.  So how's about you go get yourself some meatloaf (or veggie loaf, if you're vegetarian), and ponder how God might be preparing something beautiful  out of your difficult circumstances.  And keep pondering the cactus in the grocery store while you're at it...that was weird.

Snow! And Monthly Goal Check-Up

So even though I still don't think all those people were justified in buying out all the chicken...Dallas did get hit with somewhat treacherous conditions today.  After freezing rain throughout the night, I woke up to the following sights:

(That's Ice.)

I treated my snow day in the proper way:  laying about in panda pajamas all day, watching movies, and drinking hot chocolate.  As a rule of thumb, I don't use snow days to try and get ahead on schoolwork; I'll do whatever necessary amount of work I would usually do, but treat the rest of the day as a vacation day from God.  If the weather forces me to relax, who am I to disagree? :)

In other news, it's February 1st: we are officially a twelfth of the way through 2011.  Can you believe it?  It seems like the month went by really fast.  Anyway, I've decided to take the first of every month to do a goal-check up, and see how I'm doing in accomplishing things.

As perhaps you recall (but I don't expect you to), I chose 5 big goals to focus on for January: Rejuvenate my Relationship with God, Make CCFOF Work a Priority, Create a Budget, Exercise 2x Per Week, and Read for Fun.  Well, I'm happy to report that I've made good progress on all of these things!

First: Rejuvenate Relationship with God.  This one still needs work, unfortunately (though, to an extent, it will always need work...).  Happily, I've made steps towards getting involved in a church: most importantly I've found one to attend, and second most importantly, I've gotten involved with a women's small group that meets every week.  So I'm not only GOING to church (something that I was barely doing at all last semester), but have started to make connections with people there.  Good stuff.  For this month: I need to make personal quiet times a priority...choose a specific time to read the Bible every day, and then DO it.  One of my professors has us meditating for 10 minutes every day (you get odd homework in seminary), so hopefully I can build quiet times around that.

Second: Make CCFOF Work a Priority.  This has been QUITE well achieved; my paycheck was at its maximum level this pay period, meaning that I actually worked every day (or went back and made up hours I missed).  I've started working first thing in the morning, after breakfast.  This keeps me from falling into that laziness and procrastination that comes with working from home.  For this month: Plan out weekly tasks in advance, for better productivity.  Our annual prayer campaign is coming up and that means lots of translating, and lots of organizing lots of small groups across the country and around the world.  Yeah.  Productivity in work is important right now.

www.ccfof.org.  Check it, yo.

Third: Create a Budget.  Well, budget is created.  In a few days I'm going to take my bank statement and see how well I lived up to it.  For this month: Keep track of expenses.  I created the budget mid-January, so last month I didn't really get to LIVE by the budget, I just made it up.  My first expense of the month: the soundtrack to "500 Days of Summer."  Write it down.

Fourth: Exercise 2 Times Per Week.  HECK YES!  I've actually been exercising for half an hour a day, 5-6 days per week.  I've also lost about 5 pounds since the beginning of January, and lowered my BMI a bit.  Woot!  For this month: Keep doing things like that...

Fifth: Read for Fun.  This goal is still in progress.  I was doing really well with it over winter break, but back in the world of academia, it's kind of fallen to the wayside.  I'm still reading "The Man in the Iron Mask," and quite enjoying it when I actually read it.  It's quite long, so I'll be enjoying it for quite some time :)

So I'm making good progress!  Looking back at that intense planner (which I haven't been using day to day, but where I've been listing mini-tasks to accomplish monthly goals), I've marked "Yes" on more goals than "No" in terms of their completion (I actually just realized that that's not what that column is for, but it's my planner so whatever).  And, I think there's something to be said for keeping my New Year's Resolutions up for an entire month :)

Hopefully tomorrow I'll devise the plan of attack for February.