On Suffering

My mind has been cloudy with many a theological thought these days.  Namely, thoughts on soteriology, suffering, and redemption.  I can't seem to stop thinking about it.  Situations in the lives of my friends, and my own life, keep lending to the questions.  I do love how whenever I'm this passionate about some theological topic or another, new people and ideas seem to pop up wherever I go, and I find myself stumbling into the conversation when I least expect it.  Poor professors, especially, open this particular Pandora's Box without really meaning to, and are disrupted from their lectures by my taking to my proverbial soap box.  I can almost hear them thinking, "No, really, I was just talking about the church in the 13th century...not your struggle with victimization and the divine."

But then I think--are they ever truly separated from each other?  If I'm going to learn about history, pastoral care, even Hebrew, don't I also have to cope with my all of my theological struggles alongside?  I don't think we can treat theology like the plates they give you at picnics--pre-divided so that the food can be easily managed and organized.  Faith, theology, it is all much messier than that.

All that being said, I have nothing but questions at this point.  They are all questions that come from places of deep grief in me, but also places of deep hope for healing.  I am not scared of the questions--I'm actually happy to be this engaged in my faith.  I haven't felt this way in a long time.  Yet it is not without a little trepidation that I ask them at all.

So, onto the questions: how do we talk about the death and the suffering of Christ as redemptive without encouraging, on some level, patterns of violence?  Can we talk about hope in suffering while also telling people that they are allowed to leave harmful situations?  Can the portrayal of suffering as strengthening/hopeful/etc. ever be empowering to the victimized?  Is suffering different than victimization?  What do we think the Bible has to say about this all?  Thoughts/more questions/dissertations are welcome :-)

The thing with feathers?

"In the dark we climb this slope/Because the bravest thing of all is always hope."

-Brave Saint Saturn, "Binary"

It's difficult to talk about hope sometimes.  I can wax theological about it, certainly, and have had powerful encounters with this thing we call hope in many phases of my life.  I claim a hope known through my faith as that which sustained me during some of my greatest struggles.  I proudly proclaim 1 Cor. 13:13 as a beautiful testament to the religious experience I claim.  

But it's difficult to talk about hope sometimes.  Now, as I watch some of those most beloved to me struggle with the fragility, and loss, of life, I am positively speechless about hope.  Language of hope feels too uncomfortable, too painful, like forcing myself into shoes that are two sizes too small.  Hope is not confidence.  Hope is not equivalent to happiness.  Hope, I think, must necessarily exist with devastation.  I don't think we talk about that enough.  So my prayer is that my dear friends might know hope that is big enough to carry their grief without dismissing it.  And that God would draw them close so that they do not have to bear the burden of bravery alone.    

V-Week

I am prouder than ever to be a student at PSR right now.  I find myself profoundly moved by what I witnessed at my seminary's student-run production of the Vagina Monologues.  What a beautiful thing it was to see female seminarians and clergy participate in this production--women I am lucky enough to call my colleagues.  

I remember when I saw the Vagina Monologues at St. Olaf.   I'm sure it was a good production, but what I mostly recall is that it felt daring simply because it used the word "vagina" a lot.  And I acknowledge my complicity in that perception--I have grown a lot since I first saw the production at St. Olaf.  Tonight, because of the incredible artistic direction and passion of the actresses, I saw that the point of this whole show goes far, far deeper than its vocabulary.  In the end, its not about anatomy--it is about acknowledging and healing a history of violence, in all of its many forms.

One of my fellow seminarians whom I deeply, deeply respect and admire said something interesting to me last year.  It was our last day of our Field Ed discussion group and, as seminarians are wont to do, we were ritualizing our final session by sharing the ways we'd been blessed by our peers throughout the semester.  When my friend came to me, she said that it had been a blessing to watch me wrestle with gender-related issues at my Field Ed site and grow through my struggles.  I remember being terribly confused when she said it--in my perception, none of my internship related issues had anything to do with my gender identity.  I thought she was exaggerating one explicitly gender-related issue that occurred at my site. Yet as the dust of last year has settled, I'm beginning to see what she saw in me all year long.  While not true for all of my internship-related concerns, I'm slowly recognizing that many situations reflected my deeply ingrained notions of what I thought my culture/society expected of me as a woman.

The Monologues gave me hope.  It was sobering to hear all the violence named, even in drama But it was downright prophetic to see my friends and colleagues present this work in the name of justice, sisterhood, and healing.  

Manic Monday

So I predict I'm going to be grumpy on Mondays.  I'm currently sitting in my Worship class at 9:40pm, feeling exhausted because I've been in class since 8am.  The first two, Hebrew and History, were at least interesting--but my senior seminar was all kinds of depressing, and now my poor worship professor doesn't stand a chance against my fatigue-induced cynicism.  What can I say?  Snarky thoughts keep me awake.   

That being said, I feel very lucky today.  I'm feeling a connectedness to God that I haven't experienced in a long while.  I feel like I'm understanding grace in a new way.  I feel like I'm understanding my relationship with God in a way that is much more complex and intricate than its been in the past, and I am grateful.  

Too bad I can't stay awake in the class where I'm learning how to be a pastor... :-)

Something I don't like

Sometimes the nature of humanity really gets me down.  Not to get too Barthian on y'all (though I unabashedly love that guy sometimes), but sometimes I get frustrated with human brokenness.  I suppose this is a good way to start Lent, and perhaps one of the intended effects of the Ash Wednesday service I attended tonight (which, of course, was beautiful framed by the reality of hope).  That being said, I find it upsetting that we, as people, tend to be both the break-ers and the broken.  This, of course, radiates out of my own personal reflection, seeing the areas where I have been broken and where I have caused brokenness.  I am even more humbled tonight by how brightly my life shines with grace.

And now, for something completely different.  I'm currently reading a book on boundaries.  More to come on this, but it's been powerful, important work.  School has started again, and luckily I'm still in the "excited to be back in classes" stage; we'll see how long it lasts :-)  Overall, I feel blessed and happy-- I know brokenness, but I also know grace.