The Shack of My Own: Part 1

Sarayu’s Interjection: Opportunity to be Broken

“You see,” interjected Sarayu, “broken humans center their lives around things that seem good to them, but that will neither fill them nor free them.  They are addicted to power, or the illusion of security that power offers.  When a disaster happens, those same people will turn against the false powers they trusted.  In their disappointment, they either become softened toward me or they become bolder in their independence. If you could only see how all of this ends and what we will achieve without the violation of one human will—then you would understand.” (Young 123)

                Why did this resonate so loudly with me? I know the first reason is because it was a struggle for me to admit that I am a “broken human”.   I don’t want to be a broken human. I don’t want to be anything close to broken or broke for that matter.  Secondly, I do want goodness and that should be enough to fill me and free me…but the Author asserts otherwise.  Thirdly, why does power and independence often get the bad rap? Can’t they be synonymous to strength and freedom?   I have begun to process the gravity of Sarayu’s claims.  As the allegorical Holy Spirit, it is fitting that Sarayu would have my heart in an entrenched tussle in order to discover Truth in Love. 

As I search deeply, I know that at the root of brokenness is opportunity.  Though I don’t want to be broken, I can only accept brokenness if I am going to be wrecked to pieces, shattered, completely torn down, and done…with myself.  After the death of my oldest brother 7 years ago, I truly died in spirit.  I was broken.  Since I know what it feels like, I would never wish a bit of brokenness on anyone.  However, complete brokenness means that what was can never be repaired and stitched up to be the exact replica of the original.  Who I was prior to my brother’s death or during the years of a depressive aftermath or as the result of God’s healing were distinct.  Who I was at any of these points is not the same person as I am now. 

Why?  Prior to my brother’s death, I was broken yet enjoying the ignorance of my own brokenness.  During the depressive aftermath, I was experiencing a mix of grief, and unimaginable pain that translated to brokenness.  As the result of God’s healing 3 years after my brother’s death, I was at a hurtful revelatory point of brokenness.  Now, I am the ongoing culmination of Papa’s new creation.  Before I never realized that I was incapable of “fixing” myself nor did I understand that I was entirely unable to heal myself.  If I was half-broke, I would use all of my own energy to do a half-decent job and go back to being the same.  However, because God is ultimately good, He did not just fix me.  He gave me entirely new eyes—ones that see my nieces and nephew with complete gratitude. He gave me new arms which allow for long embraces and melting hearts.  He gave me a new mind—one not stuck in the destruction of negativity and horror, but one that can focus on His Love.  Ultimately, He gave me a new heart, mind, body, and soul—all open to the wonder in life and death, pain and joy, and laughter and tears.  And the newness continues. 

The next question I have asked at the frontend is related: why can’t I solely rely on “goodness” to sustain me?  Why would the Author disagree?  Let’s see what the Author has to say about this…soon.

So Close…

           I attribute my lifelong desire to live out my days of radical, devoted service to the unmerited favor of God upon me.  Simply put: I have responded to the tugging, the aching, the burden that has welled within my soul since I was a child.  There have been desperate times that I have run from this “call,” and there have been many an awful attempt to turn my back and call it quits.  Recklessly, I have distorted morality and have outright abandoned any notion of absolute truth.  However, out of the denying and hiding, the faint ember of faith has compelled me back to take ownership of that very call. 

            What compelled me to politics? My politics were shaped by Jim Wallis’, God’s Politics, and by my missionary experiences in Ethiopia.  I have come to embrace that social issues are moral issues.  As Wallis emphasizes, “There is no spiritual transformation without a personal God, and no power that can really change our lives beyond mere self-improvement” (34).  Therefore, it was God that inspired my vision in the first place, and it was God that I relied on to believe in what seems impossible.  I know that to truly see transformation, it is vital that we prostrate ourselves into the position of absolute keenness to God’s immutable will. 

           This country needs a different kind of politician—one who is not afraid to have the knowledge of and faith in a public God.  This does not mean that the outspoken intellect who can speak a sermon on demand is automatically “God’s candidate.”  It does mean, however, that a person thrust into politics has permission to hold on to God’s love so as to never attempt to separate policy from person.  Further, a person who understands Jesus’ willing availability is a step closer to understanding that God is God and that he/she is not.  A public God is one who cares for all—including the privileged and disadvantaged, poor and the rich,  and the outcasts and the in-crowds.  God, who has already seen the inevitable and worked out the unimaginable, might just have a plan that aims to include rather than exclude, honor instead of devalue, and provide instead of abandon.  

           I cannot scrutinize our politicians without evaluating myself first.  I do not dare to make conclusive remarks of candidates’ capacities based on their rhetoric.  What I will do is pray that each candidate learn to distinguish a push from God from a change in political winds.  As i pray, I will continue to own my moral outrage and dare to speak with humility on behalf of the unheard.  I hope I will be one among many aspiring and seasoned politicians who will operate as the second-in-command and remember that the worlds’ needs supercede any nonsense that comes from the ego. 

 

Is Supernatural Activity Dependent on Belief?

There are natural laws of physics that exist. These laws are not dependent on my belief or unbelief in these laws. If I drop a pen to the ground, it will fall. Admittedly, I find it much easier to believe in gravity since I know and feel the dynamic of gravity every day. People and circumstances validate my experiences and this makes it much easier for me to ascribe to the commonly accepted fact

 Operating on a spiritual plane is much more difficult. Is there truly an existence of the supernatural? Is it dependent on belief? If I have seen the fruit of the divine with my own eyes, could it be possible that my mind was playing a trick on me? Could it be possible that my mind would operate in such a fashion as to invent a startling, convincing hallucination that would defy my own conceptions of reality on earth? If I have seen the manifestation of the supernatural in others, on whose belief was the truth of the manifestation dependent?

 These are the thoughts that I have at 1:22pm during my break from class.

Idolizing Love: Impossible!

            Idolatry. Idolatry is what happens when anything or anyone is revered to the point that it takes the place of Jesus Christ, my Lord God. That is the premise. The question that I must grapple with before I move on with 2008 is an important one: can Love become an idol? I say no.

God is Love and God exists for the sole purpose of being I am. Therefore, the best possible thing I could do is to revere God. If I give God everything within my very being, then I am giving Him what He gave me first.

If God is the most OMNI (-present, -potent, -scient, etc.) pinnacle of good and there exists nothing or no one more magnificent, then God exists also to revere Himself and to continue to amplify Himself. If I continue to focus on an unabashed Love, then Love can never become an idol; enlarging Love can never be done in excess since Love in itself is limitless.

Jesus Christ is God and God is Love. For a practical application, as I am in Love more, I am more and more in alignment with God. The tricky aspect to all this is that as I am in Love, I see the face of God; this Love is within us. It is not that Love is culprit for idolatry at the point of recognition of Love in others.

However, when we assign Love to Other, than we are already diverting our attention away from I am. Love is not the idol if we remain in the heart of God. When Love becomes, Love is no longer I am. Love is then warped to (little “l”) love, the verb, object, and adjective. This derivative–our own formulaic conception–becomes that which is no longer Love who remains. The derivative is what can become an idol–but again, true Love cannot.

Like all perversions, we are to blame for distorting what is pure. We are to blame for our own attributions. As for me, I have to remember this so that my intentions are always to expand Love, cherish the overflow of Love, and never believe that I am supposed to be a selfish consumer of the diluted, little love.

Power-tripping Oppressors Overcome by the Weakness of the Oppressed

In the opening chapter of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he explains the manner in which oppressors interact with the oppressed in society. Freire expounds on how oppressors manifest power and also how the oppressed grapple with their own sense of power. Freire describes this dynamic in the context of his explicit intention to eradicate the imprisoned minds of the illiterate by advocating a paradigm shift; he believed that an individual could realize his/her “social reality” and then participate in his/her own critical advancement within that society. He states:

“This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong enough to free both. Any attempt to ‘soften’ the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity,” the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this “generosity,” which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source.” (26).

Though Freire’s work as a whole is from that of a radical social perspective, there are timeless truths contained within his work that can be beneficial in understanding oppression in terms of spiritual depletion. In the aforementioned statement, there are incredible parallels that can be drawn when thinking of oppressors as the demonic and the oppressed as fragile, fallen, humans.

            The struggle of power between oppressors and the oppressed is a constant battle in a Christian’s life. A Christian must contend on a daily basis because of the tensions that have been wrought upon him/her since the Fall. However, the very tension that pulls will only give way to destruction or sin when we lose the desire to stand firm, or when we resign altogether. Freire states that the mission of the oppressed is to free themselves and the oppressors. Instead of giving way to sin, one must participate in liberation by letting go of tension. This is different from resigning. Resignation infers a spiritual and mental defeat: believing that sin/death has won. Letting go, on the other hand, indicates a conscious maturity: refusing to buy into the mentality that the tension has any power in the first place.

            In turn, as Freire states, the oppressors are deemed powerless, while the oppressed find power in weakness. Again, there is a remarkable congruence between this dynamic that Freire describes with the dynamic of spiritual warfare. Since Satan is a creation of the Creator, and because his only power comes from himself, neither Satan nor his tactics could ever free himself from his own demise. Satan and all contained within the demonic realm could never attain the power to liberate. Satan also has no greater authority than that which God allows. Likewise, also as creations, humans by themselves, cannot free themselves totally from sin or from the wretched pain that comes with sin. By him/herself, an individual only has human nature, which is prone to the tension of oppression.

Freire further asserts that the oppressors mask a lessening of power through a type of “false generosity”. When the oppressor wants to appear fair or to the benefit of the oppressed, power is supposedly “softened”. However, the truth of the matter is that oppression continues and manifests in a disrupted social order. This false generosity can be likened to the tactics of Satan. The enemy is never a life-giver. Much like Freire’s claim that social disruption “is nourished by death, despair, and poverty,” the enemy’s purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). When an individual falls prey to the enemy’s tactics, defeat soon arrives. Again, Satan is not a creator; therefore, he can only whisper the same old lies, lure one into typical destructive behaviors, and seduce a person with an insatiable appetite for that which could never satisfy. Thus, when the enemy is threatened by the hope and will of the oppressed, he launches deceptive, subtle, and certainly cunning tactics, which are in fact a supposedly charitable sense of security.

Gratefully, I have come to a place of revelation. There is one way to truly attain liberation from sin: the strategy is to be weak. We are to delight in the finished story: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” The Holy Spirit dwells within each saved Christian, thereby lending him/herself to be weak to the point of death, and yet not responsible for being the Savior. Thus, it is the power of grace that becomes sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). The daily grace that God gives me is shocking. As R.P.C Hanson put it, “Grace means the free, unmerited, unexpected love of God, and all the benefits, delights, and comforts, which flow from it.” Though entirely undeserving, I prostrate myself to receive, and it is my prayer that all may also have a riveting, radical, and convincing encounter with His grace.