dreaming small.

Maybe it's the sunshine, or maybe I'm just developing a crush on Jamie Smith.  Either way, take 5 minutes and read this Commencement Address.  I promise it's worth it.

Mondays Are For Deep Thoughts, ep. 3

The PCUSA made some big decisions last week, prompting some good discussion between me and several friends over the last few days.  Good discussion with no conclusions, or at least no solutions.  The complexity of human sexuality is a rushing river unto itself.  Run that water into the rushing-river-complexity of Christian ethics and the water begins to swirl and swell. Of course, we must add to this agitated river the massive rocks of poor rhetoric and political polarization threatening to overturn our rafts and inner-tubes, dumping us into unfriendly waters with an all-too-familiar choice: sink or swim. I no longer know what's more dangerous: rocks and rapids upsetting our inner-tubes, or the riverbed dropping out from under us altogether, leaving us free-falling down a waterfall.

It seems no matter how much apologizing, posturing, or rhetorical sensitivity are employed, the wounds of the LGBTQ community smart under any response other than celebration, or at least unqualified acceptance of not just all people, but all people's sexual identities, choices, and orientations.  The wounds, of course, are actual not imagined, and made worse by the fact that often they've been perpetrated by people who have been called to bring love and healing to those that society has marginalized.  This line of reasoning has been employed regularly in the discussions surrounding this issue in many of the mainline denominations.  The Church has been called to bring justice to the widows, orphans, and aliens--the outcasts of society, those living in the margins.

It goes without saying that the Church has often failed to do this.  It should go without saying that the Church must live out her mission proactively, not reacting in fear to a changing cultural landscape.  As this discussion, like so many discussions in our (post)Christian culture, continues to be just so many hand-grenades being chucked back and forth from camp to camp.  Despite our post-modern sensibilities which allow us to embrace complexity at the beginning of our discussions, sooner or later the rough terrain of Christian love and Christian virtue, of justice and mercy, of acceptance and healing, are smoothed out to the point of being unrecognizable. Brokenness only and always lies with the other group, not our own.

Ok, I'll go first.  My name is Steve, and I'm broken.  My ability to love people that are different than me is horribly broken, I've been unhinged from true, flourishing relationships.  My sexuality is broken, I've mangled it and twisted it from the gift it has always been.  My reason is broken, my rhetoric is broken.  Even my repentance is broken--I always try to appear better off than I am.  The fact that widows, orphans, aliens, outcasts need justice implies that things are broken.  Not broken like a shattered window.  The brokenness of this world isn't nearly so simple.  It's not just that society is broken and has failed the marginalized, and it's not just that individuals make stupid, hurtful choices.  It's a deep, complex brokenness, deeper, I think, than any of us are willing to admit.

I think what I want for all people, for myself, my Christian brothers and sisters (gay and straight), and for those who have yet to be enamored with the grace of Jesus, is to be able to admit more of our brokenness.  Jesus is a masterful physician.  He was wounded that he might bring healing to all of our wounds--wounds inflicted on us by others, and wounds self-inflicted.  For too long, too many of us have covered up our wounds, repeating the mantra, 'I'm fine, I'm fine.'  Infection is running deep, and the complexity of our wounds and brokenness is going to make healing hurt like hell, but it isn't any less necessary.  

If I want to be healed, I have to be willing to be healed of things I didn't know were wrong in the first place.

thanks, Andy Hull.

Trying to learn Greek on a bleak Monday won't keep me down today.  This just happened.

mondays are for deep thoughts, ep. 2: questions and questions

Recently I've been trying to wrap my head around gentrification, HUP, and a host of other non-violent social maladies that, if nothing else, confirm that modernity has done little to curb the self-protective, self-centered stance of humanity.  But the more I've read about gentrification specifically, the more elusive any sort of solution seems to get.  But it's beyond the difficulty of solving the problem, I'm now beginning to wonder if our conception of 'a better life' is even correct.

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We all envision some sort of utopia.  Recently my mailbox received a utopia notice from the city of Portland: we're working hard to build a better city.  What would this better city be comprised of? Safe, walkable neighborhoods with access to parks and good food.  All of which, by the way, sounds great to me.  I love living in inner-SE Portland.  My wife and I walk or bike almost everywhere, we’re surrounded by great coffee, food, and beer, and our dogs have so many parks to choose from we can walk in any direction and stumble upon one within five minutes. But is this what everyone wants?  Is it what everyone should want?

It seems as though the line between wanting people to have a good life and wanting people to live exactly like me is getting blurrier and blurrier.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll hold out that eating fresh food is objectively better for you (and more enjoyable to eat) than processed or fast food.  I’ll hold out that being even slightly active is objectively better than going from your couch to your car to your cubicle.  But that means nothing, because I’d also be willing to argue that Coava Coffee is objectively better than, say, Skcubrats, or that Manchester Orchestra is objectively better than the Society of Illiterate Poets (my amazing high school band).  The problem is that not everyone cares equally about these things, and, dare I say it, nor should they.

So which aspects of the good life are worth caring about, worth fighting for? And what level of negative impact should be stomached in this fight? Desiring less crime in your neighborhood is a great thing, but is a fast-paced gentrification that results in pushing the criminal element into a poorer area a real solution? If not, how is a slow, methodical ‘urban renewal’ that does the same exact thing at a slower pace any different?

Add to this the fact that I’ve sworn allegiance to a homeless man who was executed as a suspected criminal and my head's on a merry-go-round.  Despite all my questions and questions, I have to assume that what America tells me is desirable for my life, my neighborhood, and my city is going to be at least a little bit different from what Jesus tells me is desirable for my life, my neighborhood, and my city.