December 20th, 2004...

I really enjoy reading old journal entries; doing so helps me remember where I was, what I was thinking, what I was struggling with at various times in my life. And very often, I find that my Past Self has much to say to my Present Self, insights that I've neglected to remember as time has passed. This isn't to say that my Past Self hasn't been terribly and utterly misinformed, which can make encounters with my past journal entries somewhat painful or embarrassing. But, all in all, I find the practice of reflection and remembering worthwhile.

This is part of an entry I posted in my old Live Journal blog many moons ago - December 20th, 2004. To give context, I was a junior at Gordon, back at school after a semester in Uganda, and the US/Iraq war had been raging for about a year and a half. Spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually, this was a particularly tumultuous time in my life....

"i'm sick and tired of christians, on another note. or at least christians conformed to the pattern of this world (pro-war, pro-consumerism, pro-republican). i'm pretty much done with identifying myself as an evangelical. for a while, i thought such a statement would land me in hell. and then i realized that was exactly my problem with the evangelical church. sigh...we are so finite....we are merely specks on the shore. how can we even fathom the wholeness of truth, let alone claim to hae exclusive access to it? i know that Jesus is the clue to all of history, all of eternity...but i know so little about him. i could tell you more about paul than jesus, the incarnate God. so many things he says shake me up...and yet i do nothing. we sit in church and here the word read in such a ritualized way (not that im not in love with the liturgy) and yet we remain like lumps of puddings in the pews. the word is supposed to chew us up and spit us out into new beings. every time Jesus speaks about money and violence and hate...i should feel utter conviction. but i dont. i legitimize, reprioritize, deny, ignore, turn away. i feel perfectly fine about buying 'christian' tshirts made by cambodian children chained to their sewing machines. i feel perfectly fine about buying christian cds from corporate monsters. i enjoy riding in my SUV the guzzles gas and raises the prizes on oil so that we are more dependent on other nations and thus feel the need to make up lies, invade, and capitalize all in the name of "freedom" and "liberty" that was never under threat in this nation in the first place. obviously, i'm being facetious. i dont wear 'christian' tshirts (cite derek webb) and i dont listen to 'christian' music and i definitely dont own an suv. but, i identify myself with a white, suburban, protestant, heterosexual subculture that does and i am by no means exempt. we are individuals, yes, but little do we in america like to realize that God holds us up to a communal judgment; that, as the Church, we are responsible for what members of the Body do, and that includes consumption and choosing violence over resolute peace. yikes. this is some heavy stuff. and this has been my entire semester. when they showed Fahrenheit 9-11 at school, steve and i just bawled. and when W won the election, my roommate couldnt stop crying. honestly, i would have cried no matter who won....because with the state of this nation and the state of this world, we should all be on our knees mourning. 60 people died to day in Iraq in a car bombing. i dont care whether they were americans or iraqis...it's time we stop measuring the "success" of war based on how few of 'our boys' have been killed. God calls us to mourn the death of any human life, whether in the womb or in a terrorist attack or whether on the enemy front. man...thats so hard. but, life is so complex....so much more than we want to make it out to be. i guess it means we can never be comfortable with easy answers!!"