Cupcakes!

I started a new blog page. Check out cutecakescupcakes.blogspot.com to read about my cupcake baking adventures. I only have one post so far but more to come...

There's an App for That

I have a Bible downloaded onto my iPod and I don't see a problem with it. It saves paper, is often easier to use and is much easier to carry. It is also handy in those random moments when you think of a verse but don't have a Bible around like at the store or work. Many churches have iPod apps or podcasts you can subscribe to through iTunes. While this does not necessarily encourage fellowship in the church, I see where it can have its uses. But what happens when this "app-based" mentality that all things should be as easy as a touch and a download really reaches the core of Christianity?

Now I'm not talking about some sort of virtual church where you watch the sermon on your iPod and tweet your reactions (though I'm sure this is happening or will happen soon). I'm speaking of something far less obvious but just as harmful to our faith.

There is a popular Facebook application where you answer questions and each successive question you get right supposedly results in a grain of rice being donated to a hungry child. I'm sure there are many apps in the app store like this where you somehow donate to what is deemed "a good cause." Fundamentally, this is not much different than what many have been doing for years. Just instead of writing or mailing a check, we can link to our paypal accounts with just a touch. This saves us the hassle of having to think about what we are giving to.

That there are families starving while we complain over leftovers.

That people have no shelter while we don't like the shade of the carpet.

That children must grow up alone while we argue with our parents over curfew.

Granted, these aren't easy things to think about. Doing my internship in Santa Barbara this summer, I was confronted each day I was there with the homeless on State Street. My initial reaction was to turn away because I did not want to feel their pain. One day, a guy called me out on this while I was walking quickly by, telling me not to look at him like that. I saw him on the street again the next morning, and this time I stopped, said hello and shook his hand. I saw the face of Jesus in him and felt more intense joy and peace than I had in awhile - just from choosing to identify with pain rather than turning away.

We, as humans, long for relationship. It is what God made us for - an incredible marriage between human and divine. When we choose to look in the face of the weak and the poor and say, "I've been there too," I think we catch a glimpse of eternity. This is why giving to those in need and doing all we can for the least of these is so important in scripture. It is so much more than just helping others or some sort of social obligation - it is working towards eternity.

When we write checks and touch buttons to blindly give money away, we miss out on this. We are robbing ourselves of the community we were made for. I believe this is the reason America is such a depressed nation. We've created an app for what is meant to be one of the most personal and joyful actions we can take part in. Rather than shielding ourselves from the pain of reality, we are blocking out the joy of community - the very purpose of our being. So instead of playing that rice game on your iPhone why not walk down the street and talk to someone in need. You may discover that you are in need as well - in desperate need of relationship and community.

Sensing God

In Kindergarten, we learned the five senses. I remember sitting cross-legged on the big, red circular rug and pointing to the part of the body responsible for each: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands. The five senses they are responsible for are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses are foundational to any human relationship. While there is probably only one type of relationship that uses all five, most use at least three. It makes me wonder why a God who desires so deeply to be close to us should choose (except on rare occasions) to interact with none of these basic senses. He certainly knew about them and how they worked - he made us! So... why? Why make it so hard for us to relate to him on a level we can understand?

This is just a question for now. More will come later - tomorrow, perhaps. For now, it is bedtime.

Life in Death

So I've been doing a lot of thinking today. I've been upset, angry, sad, all over the place really. But I really felt numb. What am I doing with my life? Where is it going? I know this summer isn't my life but getting the right internship is such an important step in figuring that out and I still don't know what I'm doing. So I was worried my life was directionless. This made me wonder what am I alive for? Why am I here?

This was a somewhat depressing question because I know my ultimate purpose is to glorify God (nothing depressing about that) and to one day live forever with him. This, of course, should be exciting, but not on its own. I cannot experience a fulfilling life here if I am only looking towards my future hope. I know it is in death that we truly live, but can't we die without dying and live while we're living?

Somehow, there must be a death involved, I thought. But what kind of death? I don't think I need to actually die...

And that is where I was stuck. I could not figure it out. So I moped some more and became angry again, then tried to forget about it.

A few hours later, it hit me. Why am I feeling so sorry for myself? Why do I take some sort of pride in being weak and helpless? That is what I must die to. My feelings of inferiority, of weakness, of pity. How could I hope to be confident in the Lord when I had no confidence in myself? Confidence is not to be mistaken with pride. It is much closer to trust - trust that you can achieve God's purposes in your life as long as you commit to following him, trust that no matter what happens, God will keep you standing, and trust that what you do in this life can have a profound impact on the next.

Honesty

I've been posting things about the lack of community here on campus, about how I need to be doing more for God, and about my tears, but I've been sidestepping the real issue. It's not about the people who hurt me or my outward expression of faith, this is about me - at my core. It is intensely personal and finally honest. I am not the same girl who came here the beginning of last year, hopeful for the opportunities college would give and excited about new friends and experiences. I am often negative and cynical. I'm disillusioned. The curtain has been pulled back and I don't like what I see.

But this school is only part of the problem. Another curtain must be pulled and that is the one that lies over my soul. And when I pull that one back, I like what I see even less. No one likes to point the finger at herself, but that is what I must do. I search my soul for something but I mainly find death and decay where there was once such a vibrant, living garden of hope and passion. I find judgment where there was once encouragement, bitterness where there was compassion. I could blame it on the school or on 'Christians' who have hurt me, but the responsibility and the blame really lies with me. I am the only one who can control my response, and I have not been responding as Christ would.

So how do I get that beautiful garden back? Well, I'm not exactly sure, but I think it starts with letting go of the bitterness. That may take awhile, but it starts now. Paul talks about having joy in all situations. I think this has led to a complacency among Christians. Having joy in all situations does not mean we cannot try to make things better or get out of a bad situation. Since mandatory chapels are destroying my relationship with God and making me bitter towards Christianity, I might not be able to go to chapel for awhile. I'm not doing this as a protest to authority, but because God is my ultimate authority.

Recent events have forced me to question whether it is more important for me to graduate college or follow God wholeheartedly. I have decided to go with the second. I always assumed it was God's will for me to finish school but why do I get to decide what God's will for me is? I think my best option now is to continue to pursue him more and his plans will follow. If I am committed completely to him, I will be in his will. So I don't really know where that leaves me. Right now, I am planning on coming back next year, but I guess I have to be prepared not to. That is slightly terrifying, but I think I'm okay with that.

No Communion

We had our biannual "communion chapel" yesterday. I'd meant to bring my own tortillas but didn't realize we were having communion since it was supposed to be on the snow day. There was no way I was eating one of those stupid styrofoam crackers. We are supposed to take Jesus' body gladly, with rejoicing and those wafer things are only depressing in so many ways.

But the styrofoam they try to feed us isn't the most disturbing part, it is the type of action which is encouraged - personal reflection. Now, I have nothing against personal reflection. It is an integral part of our growth with God. Additionally, I believe it is Biblically sound to make sure you are in a right relationship with God before taking communion. But it is not Biblical to have personal reflection during communion. Communion in the Bible is always a group event. Why would they need a group if it was meant to be individual? At the Last Supper, did Jesus pass the bread and the cup and tell the disciples to sit in silence and reflect personally for five minutes? Somehow, it doesn't seem likely. So why do we do it?

In hermeneutics, we are learning to do word studies. This makes me wonder why no one has bothered to study the word communion. The word may not actually appear in the Bible, but it is still a word we should examine to see through its etymology what the early church thought communion was. According to the dictionary application on my computer, communion is "the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings." It comes from the roots from which we get our words "common" and "union." Is any of this sounding individual?

So yes, the styrofoam did upset me, but this was much worse. We aren't enjoying the full benefits of communion as it is meant to be shared. By focusing on Christ's death and what he did for us, it seems we have lost sight of the resurrection and what we can do for him. Instead of joyously sharing communion, we are reflectively taking it. It just isn't right.

Now I hoped that maybe this emphasis on the individual over community only extended as far as communion chapel, but today I was reminded how ill-founded that hope was.

I don't want to get into the details of that but it really made me think about what a community is. If we, on this campus, are to be a community, we must confront each other with our problems in love rather than tattling or talking behind each others backs, we must not be quick to judge but encourage and help each other with humility, we must love. I definitely do not embody all these principles all the time (only Jesus could) but I like to think I at least try. After reading the community covenant at one of the early chapels last year, I thought this school would try as well. From what I've seen, it hasn't. And I've been left with a one-sided covenant. What good is that?

So it would seem I'm no longer obligated to hold up my end of the bargain. But I'm still going to try to be a member of that community we claim to strive for. Not because the school says I should, I'm not following a broken contract, but because God does. I can only hope he will be able to use me and my example might encourage others to do the same.

I'm Such a Lie

I just tried writing something else then deleted the whole thing. I didn't like it. I tried to think of something to write about and ended up just writing something that sounded good. But I don't want to write just to sound good. I want my writing to be meaningful, even if it's just to me. It should be a reflection of who I am and a form of worship to God. I believe, no matter how good it sounds, writing without feeling cannot be worship. It does not bring God feel good. He doesn't want us to write to "sound good." He wants us to do things for and in his name. This means we are less concerned by how our actions look in the world's eyes and more focused on how they honor God. For me, this means I write from the heart.

So here it is: my heart. My heart isn't perfect. I cannot just sit down and write beautiful words when I want to. I cannot make them sound good on my own. Without God they are meaningless and empty. Sometimes I wonder if writing these words is worship at all or if it is just a way for me to vent. I'm reminded of the song Estrella by BraveSaintSaturn: "I write clever words on paper. Sometimes I think I don't believe at all. I've never felt so fake, so false, I'm such a lie. I couldn't even look him in the eyes."

In a lot of ways this describes my life. I write and wonder what it does. What do I do? What have I done? I like to think I've suffered for Christ but I've really always lived quite comfortably. The closest thing to suffering in my life is going to a place without In n Out or Jamba Juice. When compared to the lives of so many others, I am a lie. My faith seems empty and untested. What am I doing with it? Anything?

I said this post was going to be a reflection of my heart, so I have to leave this question unanswered. Maybe a few years down the road, I will see what God was using me for now, maybe I never will, or maybe I'm not allowing myself to be used. If it is the last of these, I have some things to work out, but answering this question is going to take a lot more time and space than just one blog post. So I will have to leave you hanging. But I encourage to ask the same question constantly: What is my faith accomplishing and what has it accomplished? You may be surprised by the answer even if it takes awhile to hear.

For every tear you've made me cry...

How do you count tears? Can sadness and pain be quantified? I was thinking today about the expression that forms the title of this post and I couldn't figure it out. The expression isn't to be taken literally, of course. No one is going to sit and count the exact number of teardrops coming from her eyes. But even figuratively, it doesn't seem to make much sense.

There are a few reasons for this. To begin with, number of tears is rarely an accurate reflection of depth of emotion. I think when the pain and sadness are deepest, our heart cries more than our eyes. It's like a defense mechanism. We are able to hide the pain so no one will ask and bring it up again. We can shed almost no tears for enormous amounts of pain. The reverse of this is also evident. There have been many times when I've cried an absurd amount over some tiny thing. This has more to do with where I am emotionally before that point than with what actually happened. Occasionally, of course, our tears do get it right and accurately display the correct amount of emotion. But I think these times are considerably less than we might think. This, however, is only one reason why the expression doesn't make sense.

The second and, I believe, more important reason is that we tend to cry the most because of the same people who make us smile the most. I know plenty of people have done or said some reasonably hurtful things to me. But most of them I just shrug off. I don't really know the person; their opinion doesn't matter to me. But if someone I love and care about deeply says something even slightly upsetting, the floodgates open. This isn't because they are trying to hurt me or because what they did was particularly hurtful. I am just more emotionally invested in these people. What they say and do has greater wait than anyone else. There must be a reason I love them so much, and it definitely isn't because they make me cry. They also make me happier than anyone else could; they love me more and show me that love constantly. Consequently, they have the greatest potential to hurt me. This is why it isn't fair for someone to say, "If you got a penny for every tear you've made me cry, you'd be rich." The tears you've cried over someone in no way means they have been especially terrible to you. Instead, you should say, "For every tear you've made me cry, you have made me smile a thousand times more."

Distracted and Wasteful

So it has been awhile since I've written... which is really too bad, because I love writing. I'm trying to think of a good reason why my last blog post was November 8, and I can't come up with one. Yeah I've been busy, but how long does this really take? And no matter how long it takes to write a post or what else I could be doing during that time, it always seems to be worth it. I never feel worse after getting my thoughts down. Actually, I always seem to feel better.

Thinking about this made me wonder what other things I do this to. What else do I push aside because I apparently don't have the time? Not things like cleaning my room which I don't really care about anyway, but things I genuinely want to do. I love reading but I haven't done that nearly enough. I don't call my friends from home or talk to them as much as I should or would like. I haven't knit for enjoyment in quite some time. None of these are things I have to do and sometimes I need to put unnecessary things aside in order to make sure I get the important ones accomplished. But I do not need to push them aside so I can check my email 5 times in an hour hoping an email will pop up so I can have something to do for five minutes. I think I would be so much happier if I spent that extra time doing the things I liked rather than the meaningless things. Why I waste so much time on is still a mystery to me.