A Letter To A Friend; April 3rd 2007

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

It is finally warming up in Manhattan- and just in time. I’m taking a Sabbatical from homework, and spend time in the tea shop ‘SubtleTea’ on Madison, and at in Central Park. When spring grows leaves, the skyline will be less dominating. It’s strange how the early spring days here are windless. I was lying on the boulders that cover the park and as I was looking into the sky I thought about how far I was actually looking. Ten feet up? A mile? Could I look farther if I tried to? Annie Dillard said “the naked eye can see 2 million light years to the Andromeda galaxy.” It’s like looking into water; when you focus differently, you can see at different levels. If I look at my reflection I completely miss the minnows, if I see only those at the bottom, I don’t see the air that can’t make up its mind to be in the water or air so it travels as a bubble down the stream.

I’ve been wondering recently if my perspectives on my life are too narrow and limiting. I’ve been struggling through life it seems—and the last few weeks have been progressively worse—challenging my passions and my theology. I’ve stopped writing my book. And I’ve been wondering a lot about if everything I’ve believed about suffering and brokenness has been right. This was certainly a time of un-sought trial. Oriah speaks of this: “Sometimes we go out and seek the first that will burn away what is dross in our lives. More often, we awaken suddenly to find ourselves encircled by fire.”

I know that we suffer just as Christ did- Luke asks: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26) Jesus was such an example of sorrow in prayer—He was the “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3) To quote a professor at my school, Peter Kreeft, from his incredible book, Making Sense Out of Suffering, “That God should take alienation away from man by inserting alienation into the heart of God; that he should conquer evil by allowing it its supreme, unthinkable triumph, decide, the introduction of death into the life of God, the God of life, the Immortal One; that he should destroy the power of evil by allowing it to destroy him—this is ‘the foolishness of God [that] is wiser than men, and the weakness of God [that] is stronger than men”’(1 Corinthians 1:24). God reminds me of these concepts through other authors and in prayer. When I think of Christ in the garden sweating blood because he was in so much emotional turmoil, I normally forget that he was praying. Luke 22:44 says “And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.” Many of the times Jesus’ sorrow is recorded is during his frequent times of prayer—this could be because it was natural for him to pray when he was sorrowful but maybe it was because much of prayer for him was mourning before God. Hebrews 5:7 tells us “Jesus offered by both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death...” Jesus allowed his soul to be “deeply grieved to the point of death” (Mark 14:33) Henri Nouwen wrote in his wonderful book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, “There are so few mourners left in the world... I am beginning to see that much of praying is grieving”

If only I had time for quiet and prayer and thinking! I hate constantly having to think other thoughts and write other things (because of homework). Which was why I am taking a break. I came across this thought in The Invitation- it describes just how I’ve been feeling: “Beneath the small daily trials are harder paradoxes, things the mind cannot reconcile but the heart must hold if we are to live fully: profound tiredness and radical hope; shattered beliefs and relentless faith; the seemingly contradictory longings for personal freedom and a deep commitment to others, for solitude and intimacy, for the ability to simply be with the world and the need to change what we know is not right about how we are living.” (Oriah, 5)

I keep holding on to the truth that we are made powerful for the kingdom in the same way a vine bears fruit- by unclogging itself so that the sap from the root flows into it. (John 15:5) Lon Solomon has said in his book Brokenness that “If we are ever going to be of any useful service to God as Christ-followers, all of us must come to grips with this eternal truth (speaking of brokenness). No matter how many people we can impress with out cleverness or attract with our personality or influence by our persuasive words or motivate with our natural abilities—spiritually, the results come to nothing! It’s all the flesh.” He believes that “brokenness and usefulness are directly proportional.” P47

God is prying my fingers off of my self-produced resources. I just keep coming back to the fact that a great foundation needs to be built quietly, and without much progress above ground before great buildings can be built. It is true that “we are impatient with anything that is not immediately understandable and obviously practical” (Buchanan, 58). I just pray for the time to think and reflect so that this period of difficultly counts for something. Only three weeks of school left. Hopefully I will make it with my dreams, and hope, and spirit intact. I am glad I have a whole summer to recharge, and to decide if I can do this all again next year. Pray for me,

-Steph

Mountain Dreamer, Oriah. The Invitation. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999. P102

Nouwen, Henri. “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” Doubleday Dell Publishing. New York, New York. 1994

Buchanan, Mark. Your God is too Safe. Sisters, Oregon, Multnomah Publishers; 2001 P58