What exactly have I LENT away?

Lent... is an interesting time of year. Too many people treat it as a mini New Years Resolution... we forget that during this time we are supposed to exercise our willingness to be constantly preparing ourselves for the second coming of Christ our savior.

A big issue is that Lent then becomes too much of a temporary fix for our little addictions and vices. People think that during this time cold turkey is the only way to go. But in actuality it is better for us to actively be willing and wanting for the change not just the surrender.
What do I mean by that?
I mean, we need to not only give up something but want to give it up and be receptive to the change. We need to fight the urge to hate and despise not being able to do what we've given up.

I personally have been struggling with this and yet I've decided that only on Mondays will I be fully exercising my surrendered distraction. I am dreading the coming of Monday... Monday is on my mind every day...
But why only Monday?
Well, as the saying goes: "Everything in moderation!"
 I am giving up something that is in essence a good thing... a very good thing. But I have found, lately, that it has been increasingly harder to resist it and hold back. So I realized that even though it is a good thing, I need to work on finding the moderation, the balancing point and center of gravity in this situation. So by giving it up on Mondays I am hoping to learn how to extend this moderation into my daily living eventually so that after Lent I will have a new found ability and self-control in this area to make every day a little better and more reflective of God's will and presence in me.

Expectations

Expectations… They often times are misleading… no, actually... they are always misleading. We cannot presume the mind of God, nor can we calculate and/or predict the future accurately. What has inspired this spiel of mine is the email notification I received earlier today from Calvin’s Housing Department.

During interim, something had suddenly, in less than a week, rekindled the desire and passion within me to consider applying for an RA position. During freshman year, I had entertained the idea of being an RA junior year. This thought left me as I slipped into the minutia and passively repetitive life style of the regular college student. This year I began exploring the endeavor of living more intentionally, being less fake and dropping my guard and facade a bit. To perhaps pursue relationships with more people, and build deeper and better relationships with them than I would have in the past. This began to stir up grand ideas of working hard on relationships and investing myself in others in the context of a Brotherhood of a dormitory floor and in a lesser extent the dormitory as a whole.

Perhaps these ideas were a bit too fantastic to turn out… and so they fell through.

The email notification that I received is the following generic copy/paste response:

“Dear _________, 

After a thorough review of your application, peer reference, faculty/staff reference, cumulative GPA, and RA reference, we are unable to pursue your candidacy further.  We appreciate the thought and time you invested in the application process thus far.  We had over 150 applications this year, so are not able to offer interviews to all applicants.  If you have questions, please contact your Resident Director. 

We realize the disappointment that this email may bring. However, we encourage you to use your gifts, motivation, and abilities in other areas of service at Calvin—this campus needs your involvement to remain a vibrant community.  If you are living in the halls next year, the CLC application process has begun!  Please check out http://www.calvin.edu/housing/staff-and-student-leaders/ 

I wish you the best this semester, 

“__________” 

Associate Dean of Residence Life” 

Disappointment is an understatement. Bitterness, confusion, frustration and even a little bit of anger are things that this email brought. Here are my thoughts…

1.      The overt, blind, industrialized encouragement of those in leadership positions. I spoke to my RD and many current RAs that I know, including some that I knew personally before their RA-dom. This coupled with the rejection email have caused bitterness to well up within me. It says to me that even though I am apparently not one of the top 30th percentile of the expected applicant populace, those in leadership positions figured it’d be best to encourage me as much as they could, but also perhaps figured it wouldn't be good to realistically call me out on areas that they perceived as perhaps unsuitable qualities for the RA position; for instance, I am not very organized but despite knowing this about me, those in leadership positions encouraged me without being “real” with me. It’s reminiscent of the mindless non-critical encouragement that America, in last few decades, has fed immensely: the “You can do anything you put your mind to, heart in, etc!” type of encouragement.

2.     The encouragement and faith of my close friends gave me hope to fight my naturally negative and pessimistic outlook and perspective. I had truly begun to believe that I would easily make the first cut. I began to expect a fighting chance at the position; a chance to prove myself capable, willing, and ready to take on the responsibility and work past my flaws and personal lacking. I don’t blame my friends. I am thankful for their faith in me and also their surprisingly high level understanding of who I am that I had not expected. What invokes bitterness and frustration (maybe even anger) here is the fact that Housing had decided they “are unable to further pursue [my] candidacy further”. Perhaps it’s just the wording that hurts me the most. Finding themselves “unable to further pursue [my] candidacy” for RA is inherently a false statement. Since when did they pursue my candidacy? My friends did that more than they have. My friends read over my application answers and helped me figure out how to best represent myself truthfully and clearly. What did the housing department do other than put on two RA info sessions? Put the “ad” in student news? The furthest extent of their pursuing my candidacy was the encouragement of my RD… and you already know how I feel about that.

3.      The last but probably most important factor was my expectations. I had let myself begin to assume the mind and will of God.

This isn’t me saying we can’t presume we can understand the general will and character of God… But it is clear in the Bible that we cannot ourselves predict God’s specific and detailed will, we can only receive that. I did not keep this in mind and began to build up myself, my plans, and my expectations upon the presumption that God was calling me to be an RA. I’m not entirely sure why God has prevented me from further pursuing the RA position but I know that it is for a reason. The disappointing fact is that I can’t know just yet what that reason is; I can only wait to find it out ex post facto. I haven’t quite yet accepted this situation yet, I am not at peace about it yet; but I can say that my mind is at least taking steps forward (and past this all) that my emotions cannot yet take.

I’ll write a follow up blog about this upon the advent of any new revelations, happenings, or developments.

- JerBear

p.s. The following are the three questions on the RA application and my submitted responses; feel free to read them if you wish:

What personal traits do you possess which will be helpful to the RA Position?I am a rather sociable person and consider myself to be gregarious when need be. Organization is not one of my stronger suits, but I take leadership roles and responsibilities very seriously. I try my best at my endeavors once I commit myself to them. I love to have fun but I also know how necessary rules and policies are, and even though I may not always agree with every detail I recognize their authority.  I am against breaking and disrespecting them. Another personal trait I see in myself is a desire to involve myself in the lives of my friends and to help or assist them in any way I can. However, I do know it is necessary to respect boundaries and to actively seek the appropriate levels of involvement in different relationships. 

Explain how your Christian faith would be demonstrated in your position if you were an RA:I know that the faith leadership role is that of the Barnabas of the floor but I personally believe the RA of a floor should demonstrate brotherly/sisterly love as a fellow Christian by being involved in the spiritual lives of the other students that live on his/her floor. I would want to be as involved with the floor's Barnabas as much as possible and would try my best to be a spiritual role model and companion to my floor brothers. It seems like a lofty goal, but in my mind it is a goal both necessary and well worth having. A floor should pursue both fellowship and brotherhood (or sisterhood); these should shape the nature and character of the floor, particularly on a spiritual level. 

Explain what you believe is an ideal residence hall environment and how an RA helps to bring this about:I believe the ideal residence hall environment is one in which the residents feel comfortable with each other and feel included and involved with the floor. It is important for a floor to feel a unity akin to brotherhood or sisterhood, so that they can build positive relationships with and among themselves in order to lift each other up both emotionally and spiritually. It is crucial for a floor to have this kind of supportive atmosphere and structure because as young adults, we need not only older and more mature mentors but also peers to lean on for support as we learn how to function as independent adults. The RA of the floor has the responsibility of furthering this type of environment by not only being an active role model, leader, and initiator of such an environment but also by being an active member and participator. A RA can do so by being involved with the other floor and dorm CLC members, events that are planned, and also merely being involved in residents' lives. In order for RA's to do this they must also make themselves very available to their residents in many different areas: emotionally, physically (presence and time), and spiritually.
 

There is much value in Liturgy... but...

Lately I've caught my mind wandering to the existence and practice of liturgies and traditions in the Church. Partly I think because I've been realizing how little I really know about the liturgical calendar and when all the Christian traditional celebrations are. Growing up I had never been part of a church that put a heavy emphasis on following the liturgical calendar strictly... all I really knew of was Christmas, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter (and Thanksgiving of course).

There is something interesting I've found... Even though the liturgies are set to dates on the Calendar, the liturgical seasons do not quite line up with the Seasons of nature. Honestly, think about advent and Christmas, the coming of new life and a new year; yes it lines up loosely with what is established as the new year date... but if you really just pause to think about it, it is far from lined up with the rebirth of life in nature with the coming of spring.

This thought process got me wondering about what God is telling me in this time of winter being gone but spring being yet to come, this sort of lull, and as well as what winter should mean to us on a deeper level. I mean, what does the season of winter do anyway? It's cold, it kills plant life, it kills many animals; it is all together rather harsh and unlikable. A dear friend of mine complains about the winter weather all the time. And on a certain level I agree with her. However, being thick-skinned and able to endure the cold, I think by sheer exposure and curiosity I have developed a deep fondness for the season. I used to chalk it up to my somewhat masochistic tendencies, or my missing the snow since I had spent the last 10 winters before the last in Florida where snow can only be seen on the coldest night of winter and from the upper levels of city skyscrapers. But looking back, even then I enjoyed every bit of winter I could get. Walking outside in the 30-40 degree weather in Florida's coldest winter nights, or even laying out under my tree star gazing in the same weather.

So then what is it about winter that I love so much? What drives me to go outside for a 20 minute walk in the cold night air when I can't seem to think straight, understand my feelings, or even gather my thoughts? I think, today, I've begun to realize what it is.

Winter reminds me of my utter dependency on, need, and desire for God.

It came upon me while walking around campus this afternoon. I was looking up at the trees and the beautiful silhouetting that they were transformed into by the sun peering barely out and over the edge of a cluster of thick but somewhat translucent clouds. Right then and there I realized I really love the way the trees look during the winter. Why? They're dead and barren, right? There's no green but only brown... and yet I love them? I came to the realization that I loved them for their symbolic meaning.

But what exactly do I mean by their symbolic meaning? I'm going go off on a slight but notably important tangent. Just now I saw a couple and their toddler getting ready to go outside into the chill of winter, so of course the parents need to put the child's outer wear on him. What I saw next was exactly what my soul was searching for to put into words the way which the dead winter trees reminded me of my dependency on God.

The trees are bare in the winter (given the exception of evergreens of course). There was one overpowering image and thought in my head as I looked up at the bare tree branches stretched out toward the beautiful blue and grey sky with the sun just out of reach. Instead of branches I saw hands, I saw thousands and millions of hands reaching up toward the heavens, reaching in hope and waiting for the coming of spring, during which new life will spring forth to clothe them anew with fresh, beautiful, green leaves.

Just like the father putting the toddler's sweater on, with the child reaching his arms up clumsily but humbly in anticipation of being clothed, so too does the sun shine down on the trees, melting away snow while the trees reach up toward the sun, their life giver, and await the clothing of leaves. This is exactly as we are to be before the the Lord in how we present ourselves. Often times we assume we are big kids and ready to clothe ourselves and perhaps we get the clothes on but perhaps we also don't realize the shirt is backwards or the buttons are out of order.

          “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
           “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

 The winter trees and chill remind me of how much I need God. So much of our lives, beyond just clothing and shelter, are in God's hands. So come before Him like a toddler, lifting hands up high like winter tree branches, and be willing to wait in humility for his grace and providence.

- JerBear