Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Lens of Fear.

Talking about the "lens" through which we view the world is such a cliche, tired concept. While I hope to arouse it from its sleep, I could just as easily force it into a deeper slumber. By the end, you can let me know which route this blog goes.

I had a weird realization when I first moved to South Carolina. As it turns out, I picked up a lot of weird idiosyncrasies during my time in Chicago. While in Chicago, I had a different mode of interacting. Through a series of weird events (some imagined, some real), I learned a lot about myself. I learned how I would react if I ever was threatened, if my house was broken into, if I was followed, if I thought I was about to get caught in gunfire...

Living in the city where these things were possible, my first reaction was to learn "street smarts". Street smarts to some means little more than being cunning and shrewd. To me, street smarts meant learning how to view every situation as a potentially deadly one.

I learned that anytime I walked by a storefront or an abandoned building, to catch a glimpse of the window in oder to see in the reflection if I was being followed. I could easily monitor the activity of the person behind me through brief window reflections. I learned to walk on whichever side of the sidewalk was closer to the street - less chance of being grabbed into an alley or a deep-set doorway of a building. I remember on one particular occasion being grateful for all the broken liquor and beer bottles along the sidewalk. In a pinch, a shard of glass could become a weapon of self-defense.

I learned to walk in a way that conveyed that even if I didn't look like I belonged, I looked like I thought I belonged and that I would be willing to go great lengths to prove it.

While in Chicago, I wrestled with these dynamics. I didn't want to live through a lens of fear. I wanted to live in faith but not without wisdom. I still have a hard time discerning when fear is harmful or when it is wisdom.

...In truth, I think that fear stops shy of wisdom, always. If we don't have wisdom, fear can help guide decisions, while at the same time gripping us and making us its slave. I think wisdom can lead to the same decisions, but always results in greater freedom.

I've been in some weird situations. While in Chicago, I dealt with a lot of fears and I think developed more wisdom as far as navigating very real, tangible possibilities. I didn't realize, though, how much the fear altered me on a foundational level until I moved here.


I realized it when I felt compelled to stare at people in public until they turned away first. I realized it when I was caught off guard when they simply waved in response. I realized it when I didn't wave back because I didn't know what to make of a "wave". Suspicion had become my dominant mode of interaction with strangers. And here I was, transplanted back to the South. You'd have thought I had never experienced Southern hospitality before.

I recognized the underlying fear when I heard a car's brakes screeching and I braced for gunshots in response. Or when I heard voices yelling and expected it to escalate to physical violence or, again, gunshots. When I almost threw myself to the ground because I heard a loud noise and wanted to duck for cover.

Fear is easy to cultivate. Like a fungus, it will appear sometimes in places you don't expect, without your permission. But if you actively provide a moist, shaded environment, it will grow and spread easily. If we cater to our fear, it will become the dominant mode of our interaction with the world. News networks know this and they know the allure of it. They seize it and drive it. Insecurities? Um, yeah. I work in the dermatological field (which puts a grosser spin on the whole "fungus metaphor"), and I know how fear drives people to decisions that are unnecessary, uneconomical, and uncomfortable. Fear is powerful.

I know it when I walk the streets in Chicago. I know it when I walk the streets here. I know it when I think about my future. I know it when I view others with suspicion rather than the hope of trust, with insecurity rather than humility, with judgement rather than acceptance, with tolerance rather than love.

Yeah, fear is powerful. But love conquers all. It's unfortunate that we so often paint fear as love, or say that our fear is for the sake of our love. Or worse yet, that fear is the proof of our love.

Thank God that Jesus didn't love us for fear's sake. Thank God that "perfect love casts out fear". May we be so bold to emulate that kind of love, whatever the cost.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Spontaneous Community.

This might have to be a multi-part blog because this is one of my favorite thinsg in life. It is what I hope to see more of every day, it is what I strive to foster, and it guides the kind of person I aim to be.

Spontaneous community. I'm all for sustained community and I truly believe that development of spontaneous community best happens among those who are a part of established, sustained communities. Spontaneous community is what happens when the foundational understanding we have of community reaches beyond its own bounds and invites others (and ourselves) into a new existence.

When I was 16, I went to this huge hardcore Christian-ish music festival called Cornerstone. Spontaneous community happened there constantly. As you walked by each taped off camping square, people started speaking with you, sharing food with you, inviting you to sit on their "thinking couch" (which maybe looked a little grimy, but maybe that's where the best thoughts happen, so why not?). One of the days we were there, a couple of the teens in our group started clapping in different beats to the same rhythm. We walked along the dirt path, each of us clapping a different beat.

It wasn't long before total strangers got up and walked with us, adding more beats to the mix. The size of the group grew as we continued walking.  It was beautiful. It united us as perfect strangers - but as though we were more than just strangers. Anyone could join in and become a part of what we were doing. There was no rejection, no exclusion. There was not a single person who felt underutilized. Not a single person was striving to be the star. We were all a part of something bigger than ourselves; we all shared in the creation of something beautiful: A sound, a resonating rhythm that lived through us in that moment.

One time I was playing guitar out by myself at my favorite spot in my hometown, a little old gazebo out by a dock. I was strumming loudly and singing. A man on a bike came up to me. He had a name (which I know but will not disclose here) and he was without a home. He told me a bit about his story and asked if he could borrow my guitar. I handed it over and he played some Led Zeppelin for a while. Even taught me how to play a few chords.

At Whataburger at about 2:00 AM one late night, a group of friends and I sat at a table and played Scattergories. Some folks at the next table over asked what we were doing. We showed them the game and asked them to join us. They turned down our invite. But we surely would have liked it if they had joined.

Spontaneous community absolutely depends on one's ability to look beyond oneself. Not just that, but to look beyond those that you advertently care for. Seeing strangers. Seeing them truly and inviting them into something different than either you or him/her had been experiencing before. Spontaneous community depends not on our ability to invite people into our world, but on our willingness to forge a new world with another.

That connection cannot be made if we don't have eyes to see the Other. And the connection will always be shallow and disappointing if the Other is never given the ability to co-create, the ability to be more than "other". I hope that as I continue to get older, that my worldview and my willingness to step out of my world and comfort zone to create something new with another, doesn't diminish. I hope that I fight the inclination to do my own thing when I have the opportunity to join in something more whole that is bigger than me.

I hope others will be willing to take the risk, and that I would risk looking like a fool in hopes that such communities could exist even if only for a brief encounter, bringing hope and life that supercedes the moment, changing us all for the better.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Silencing my Ideal Self.

I have a little problem. It's called "I want to be perfect so as to never let anyone down". If I'm by myself doing my own thing, or just hanging out with people for fun, I have no problem. But I've learned recently that if the relationship shifts to where there is a task involved, or where expectations come into play, or anything of that nature, I become frantic, obsessing about how to be perfect. If I am at any point less than what the Other hopes for or expects of me, I feel so small.

So as a background to the outflow of this blog, here's what you need to know. I have a friend from church that I have been a part of the worship team with and who I now work with (kinda *for*) at a full-time job.

The other day at work, I came into his office, frantic about something work-related, frustrated and embarrassed/disappointed that I didn't know the answer and irritated that I had to ask (and that he would know I didn't already know whatever it was I was asking about). I must have had a deer-in-the-headlights look, because before I can get the question out, he stops me and says, "On a scale of 1-10, how scary am I?"

I chuckled and said, "Uhh, I don't know, like a 1 or something." He looks at me, conveying that the answer I gave did not coincide with my reaction when I walked up to him. He asks if I'm intimidated by him. I stammered, "No, yes, well... I'm intimidated by everyone, I don't know." And I moved on to ask my question. I kinda brushed aside his question because I didn't know what to do with it or what to do with the inconsistency of what I believed versus my own reaction.

But it reeled in my mind for the next few days. On a scale of 1-10, he is about a 1. Not scary, very affirming, slow to anger, quick to laugh. At most, maybe a 2. But I realized I don't feel that way at work. When the relationship shifts, when there are expectations, when there is a framework for me possibly (and at times almost certainly) being a disappointment, he's at about an 8. It has nothing to do with his person or his character. He's consistent. But my perception changes as a factor of that shift of situation.

It hit me that God could easily pose the same question, and man, my answer would be just as confusing. As a Being, as one I pray to and sing to, as one who watches over me and protects me, God is at about a 1. When I realize he has these ideas of where I will be, where I could be, he's at a 10.

Hope becomes a fearful thing for me because if someone has hopes for me beyond where I am in the moment, I see only how I am a disappointment. I am fearful of confirming negative beliefs they may have about me. I'm terrified that they have hopes, and I'm terrified they might decide that I can't live up to their hopes.

I was thinking about it, and I realized that I'm not used to people have expectations for me that exceed my own. Who expected me to make straight A's in both high school and college? No one but me.

For a while, I thought that was it. "I must get freaked out when others have expectations that exceed mine." But that didn't make sense either. One lesson that I learned a few years ago is that I have this "ideal Emily" I've made up in my head. I don't compare myself to other people much. But I compare myself to her constantly. And I assume everyone else is doing the same. When I let myself down and am not living up to "ideal Emily", I expect that the disappointment I feel must be what others experience too.

I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, people who have hopes of where I will be aren't comparing me to her as though she were an actual being. Maybe, just maybe, their "ideal Emily" if they had one, looked a lot more like me than my own "ideal Emily" does. Maybe they are looking at my successes and not counting my faults against me. Maybe the places where I am not quite "there yet" are not adding up as reasons to lose faith in me, but are only reasons to have greater hope for me.

I have a tendency to get defensive when others see me fail or fall short. I feel like I need to justify why I did what I did so that they know I'm not just stupid or ignorant. I never assume that people already know I'm capable of better. Or if they do, I think they assume that I don't know I'm capable of better. Either I feel I have to prove that I am capable or I have to prove that I have a self-esteem that can absorb the impact of failure (which turns out only to be true when no one but me is involved).

At church, my preacher (also a friend) has said a few things the past few weeks that struck me, and I didn't realize until that question was posed to me earlier this week, WHY it stood out to me so much. One thing is his interpretation of the story of Job. In his view, when God speaks to Job, he starts speaking, seemingly asking Job, "Who do you think you are?!" But by the end of his lengthy monologue, God flips the question on it's head saying, "Wait... Who do you think I am?" Job assumes God doesn't see or care about him, but God counts down the days till baby goats are born.

Or, "On a scale of 1-10, how scary am I?" Or "Do you really think I don't care for and see you?" This is JOB. The man who was so righteous that God put so much faith into, who finally caved. What a major letdown! But God turns the expected response on its head and shows Job what the real question is, and the real question is based in the nature of the relationship.

Another thing that came up in a sermon today is that we don't have to "trick God into loving us". I never would have worded it that way, but I realized that that's exactly what I do when I become defensive. Or what I try to do. I try to prove or explain why my lack of perfection shouldn't influence his love for me and that it shouldn't really be held against me. Another thing that strikes me is something that comes up in the sermons a lot. When Jesus is dying on the cross, he looks down at those who have just put him there, who are gambling over his underwear, and says to God, "Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." He doesn't only forgive them, but he provides the excuse. It would never occur to me that anyone, God or others would do that for me. I don't want to be one that needs them to.

I am so grateful that I am in situation at work and in the band that pushes me to need to trust that others' love for me or faith in me is not dependent on me not falling short. I don't know how to believe it yet, and I am still so defensive. Even that doesn't impact how my friends have related with me. Even challenging my false perceptions is done in love, in a non-threatening way.

I have just begun practicing guitar with another friend of mine, and it is yet another context where this thought-process I have is challenged. I'm facing it daily now, between work, church, band practice, and guitar practice. My hope and prayer is that I can grow in my understanding of how God loves me through these friends who are challenging my paradigm. And that their relationships with me will help me better to see and relate to God in healthier ways, and that my relationship with God will help me to better see and relate to others in healthier ways. In a community of Christ-followers, I think that's how transformation happens. I am so grateful for all of those who are so patient with me as I learn to walk in this freedom, and I am thankful to God that he has provided me with people that can demonstrate his own love for me in a way that is concrete and present.

Also, quick sidenote - don't know where I could fit this in with the blog, I realized that the perception I have of relationships shift when:
1. People have expectations of/hopes for me.
2. When the relationship is secondary to the task.

I dealt with point 1 in the earlier part of the blog. Point 2 is a little trickier. I don't know how to work that out with humans, but it reminds me that with God, the relationship is the primary foundation which empowers the task. They work together, but the relationship is the springboard. I think ideally it should be with people too. At least for people of God who are united in spirit and purpose. I haven't lived into that reality with God or with people fully, but I aim to walk more into that each day.