The Love of God
I'm not really sure where to begin in telling about how crazy this week has been. Crazy amazing that is. Or rather, crazy eye-opening. I'm going to talk about something on here that I really never talk about, but I feel like it's been so important this week, and, like I said, my eyes have been opened this week to some crazy awesome things. So here goes. It's rather long.
I grew up in a typical American, moral, but essentially secular, household. Both parents, if asked on a survey, would have listed their religion as "Christian" but I never set foot inside a church until my cousin's wedding when I was nine, and I never attended a church service until I was sixteen. I never even knew what the basic tenants of Christianity were until I was almost thirteen years old and a girl at my new school sat down next to me and asked what I knew about Jesus. I basically told her, well, I'm kind of a Christian but have never been to church. She explained the concept of Jesus to me and for some reason it resonated with me. It made sense. And I had NEVER heard it before ever. Literally, the whole "Jesus was God who came to earth and died to save us from our sins."- this was the first time I had ever heard of it. Up until that moment I'd thought Easter was a celebration of bunny rabbits.
So Christina prayed a prayer with me and from that moment on I considered myself a "Christian." She gave me a Bible, and though I don't think I can say I was a particularly spiritual person at first (I was only thirteen for crying out loud), it did get me interested in investigating faith further. By the time I was sixteen, I had made and fulfilled a New Year's Resolution to read the Bible in a year, I had started watching Joyce Meyer on TV, attending a weekly Christian group at school, and even started occasionally going to church on Sundays with a friend.
But sometime between the age of sixteen and I don't know say, the age of twenty, my faith sank, and has been sunk ever since. I never completely gave up on God but there were times when I was just like "God...seriously? This is how it is? WHY?" But I dove into Christian groups and conferences, which I do think opened my eyes and helped me a lot, and were a way to explore my faith, and to meet friends who were pondering the same questions, and had the same basic beliefs....but I always felt like something was missing.
I have always been struck by the crazy notion that in actuality, some of the "best" people I know are not Christians, and some of the "worst" people I know are. But I've decided in recent months, that I don't think this speaks so much of a lacking in Christianity, but a lacking in people who claim to follow it. As a book I'm now reading points out- so many Christians place such emphasis on "the origin of the species", while ignoring the extinction of the species. So many focus on banning homosexual marriage, and do not care about the poor in third world countries. So many focus on the saving of souls at the exclusion of the saving of bodies- people do not care about faith and religion when they don't have an income, or don't have medical care, or fresh drinking water. So many "Christians" today are the fullfillment of a stereotype: right-wing, Bible-thumping, arrogant, overconfident, judgmental, legalistic, and downright unkind, and really are not living out the Christian faith as it was meant to be lived. As I believe Gandhi said (I'm paraphrasing here) "I like this Christ, but your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Everytime in the past two years that I've tried to read my Bible or learn more about God or my faith, I have had all of the above come crashing down on me to the point where I've been practically embarrassed to tell people I'm a Christian or that I'm headed to a Bible study, because there are so many negative connotations to it. It's also the main reason I've sort of glossed over my faith on this LJ up to this point.
Well, when the teaching fiasco happened last October, I spent much of November and December going "Well now what?" and though I thought of many options like translating and interpreting, and plenty of others, my mind kept going back to the idea of helping Hispanic immigrants get set up in the US. Or of doing work for a nonprofit organization. But I was like, but seriously, how does one even get INTO that? What would you CALL that? And then I found that the program at a nearby university for a Spanish M.A. includes an internship with one of several organizations that does exactly that- works with Hispanic immigrants here in the US. And I thought WOW now that's awesome. That is what I want to do. Because that was always my reason for not wanting to just do generic "translating" of legal or business documents. For one can you say BORING, and for another, the idea of working for a large corporation just sickens me. I just can't do it.
Well my last Intervarsity conference was this past February and when I saw that they were offering a track on Social Justice, I of course HAD to do it. It was absolutely fascinating, and the leader of the group, Bob (who is amazing by the way) showed us how throughout the Bible one of God (and Jesus') greatest concerns is that we care for the poor and fight the injustices of this world. That only confirmed in me more a belief that nonprofits are the right career field for me.
And see I've been reading some books this week that have absolutely blown my mind. One was a book called "Everything Must Change" about Christianity and Social Justice. It was the one I referenced earlier when talking about the extinction of the species, etc. It also has mindblowing statistics like the fact that 10% of the annual US military budget could provide for the basic needs of the entire world's poor. I don't even know what to do with a fact like that but it's been in my head for four days now ever since I read it in that book.
The other book I read was called "My Descent into Death" and it was about a man who had a near-death experience. Before death he was an atheist, and after God gave him a second chance and he had a chance to ask questions of Jesus and the angels about life, death, religion, God, the past, the future, and just about anything else you can imagine, he managed to survive and to tell his story. I know you hear about near-death experiences sometimes and you're like oh, they were just making it up or hallucinating because they were dying, or whatever. But for some reason, I believe this guy. I feel like someone couldn't, wouldn't, make all this up. Plus he's been told by many many doctors that in his condition, similar to an appendix bursting, he should not have lived longer than 5 hours without medical attention, and he lived something like 12 before the doctors finally got around to operating. Anyway, the point is, I believe him, and according to him what the angels told him was "It's all about love." That is what we're here for, to love God and love others. And remember how I asked my question earlier about Christians not always being so great? This man asked the angels "Which is the best religion?" and they said "The one that brings you closest to God." They also told him the most abhorrent thing someone can do is to do terrible things in the name of God. But in the end, it's all about love.
And I was like WOW. This is the Christianity I knew must exist but that so many have watered down into rules and regulations and church picnics. This past week I've just felt this overwhelming sense of peace and love after reading those two books.
My embarassment at what the Christian faith has become in the US is still strong- so strong that I'm tempted to just post this as private. But I feel like that would be doing an injustice to all I have learned this week. This is what's going on in my life and you are all, as one of you once told me, "humble readers." I shouldn't censor my life for you. God loves us all.
Also, just an NB- Please don't think that I think I've got it all figured out. I don't claim to know hardly anything about anything, I just feel like I've taken a baby step and wanted to share it, because if I don't share it with people 1) I think my brain might explode and 2) I'll be able to convince myself within a week that I overexaggerated the whole thing, which I have not. If anyone's interested in more info, Everything Must Change is by Brian McLaren and My Descent into Death is by Howard Storm. .
Edit: I don't know why the cut's showing up three times....? I'm too lazy to try to figure out how to fix it but apparently only the first one leads to the top of the cut, so you should click that one.