Never thought Joyce would make the blog

But he just did. This passage comes from "An Encounter" in Dubliners, and since the last time I left the 90-mile radius around Milwaukee was this past summer, and every moment of my spare time is spent on homework, it hit home. I've been sitting in one place for far too long. The wanderlust is strong with this one.

But when the restraining influence of the school was at a distance I began to hunger again for wild sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me. The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.

One night's homework
[weeping]

MMXVI

HELLO BLOGOSPHERE!!

It's been a while, hasn't it? I blame everything on my English thesis. But now it's done and as, at the moment I am on winter break, I have some time to write other things. Also, I was at a coffee shop listening to a quintet from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra play and I had a mocha shake which usually doesn't affect me, even though I never drink coffee, but this time it did and I am TRIPPING and I think I freaked my friend Savannah out but YOLO. So I probably shouldn't be writing here under the (caffeine) influence, because EVERYTHING SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA, but what the heck, right?

As I was sitting on my bed, contemplating, as one does, it hit me - I have now been blogging for 7 years, which is basically a third of my life. WHAT? That just seems unreal but also totally hilarious. I look back and indulgently chuckle at the self-assuredness of fifteen year old me, but I'm sure that if I am still writing here in another seven years, twenty-nine year old me will be doing the same to all my cutting edge insights now. I remember a quote by Faulkner which goes like, "I never know what I think about something until I read what I' ve written on it." Throughout the past seven years, I've really come to understand that phenomenon. Especially in this past year, when I've begun to really write academically seriously (is that grammatically-correct? I'm a bad English major). Good writing requires the author to put himself in the position of the reader and have a conversation with himself. It forces you to question both your assumptions and ideas, and also the way you communicate them. Sometimes it makes me want to hit my head against the wall, but it is also one of the most rewarding elements of my life. And so I blog on.

I honestly don't know what to think of New Years resolutions anymore - torn between icy cynicism and progressive naïveté optimism - but there are a few ideas I've been toying with for this year. I'm always trying to improve my devotions, so I've decided to pick a book of the Bible each month and read a short commentary along with it in the mornings. Starting off with Hebrews, which I'm become rather fixated on. Again, that's a result of my thesis (boy that paper is instigating all the trouble in my life, I see) - I focussed on the Protestant treatment of metaphors, and along the way, discovered that Hebrews is really all about redemptive history as typology. So much of Calvinist theology puts a heavy emphasis on metaphor: The covenants, the sacraments, even the process of sanctification (the Puritans understood it as a restoration of God's image in us). Hebrews shows how the Christian life now is a picture of what it will be in heaven. Pretty jazzed about this. Maybe it'll turn into another extended writing project, we'll see.

Other goals...read more, travel somewhere I've never been, corral my fellow Reformed Baptist young adults in the area together more often.....festive stuff like that.

Future me is going to hate present me for this, and I'm sure this is the only time this will EVER happen on my blog, but I just discovered I can do emojis on here? What? Like I never even use these in texts because I typically have this exaggerated sense of dignity. 💷🇬🇧🎏(fish on a flagpole???) hahaha! Future reference: ☕️ = 💃

Signing off before I begin to hear colors.

Some holiday wisdom

Just emerging out of the mire of writing to share this gem. I contemplated being less gossipy by blurring out the name, but then there'd be all those fun copyright festivities. This catch-22 of charitable infringement probably should have been a sign to keep my mouth shut altogether, but I guess I need more sanctification.

 

I have so many questions. If "God's provision" is like air, and we're supposed to exhale it, doesn't exhaling mean you're getting rid of air from your lungs? So are we supposed to get rid of "God's provision"? What exactly happens spiritually when you exhale?  Or is it that peace exhales "God's provision"? How does that work? Is it like yoga? What if I'm having a laughing fit and I can't exhale? Am I at the mercy of worry? I need answers. Or at least more objects of sentences.

Thesis-writing

Routine research turned into spiritual edification today. Powerful words by Lewis Bayley:

"...no man knoweth God, but he that loveth him; and how can a man choose but love him, being the sovereign good, if he know him, seeing the nature of God is to enamour with the love of his goodness? and whosoever loveth anything more than God, is not worthy of God; and such is every one who settles the love and rest of his heart upon anything besides God. If, therefore, thou dost believe that God is almighty, why dost thou fear devils and enemies, and not confidently trust in God, and crave his help in all thy troubles and dangers?—if thou believest that God is infinite, how darest thou provoke him to anger?—if thou believest that God is simple, with what heart canst thou dissemble and play the hypocrite?—if thou believest that God is the sovereign good, why is not thy heart more settled upon him than on all worldly good?—if thou dost indeed believe that God is a just Judge, how darest thou live so securely in sin without repentance?—if thou dost truly believe that God is most wise, why dost not thou refer the events of crosses and disgraces to him who knoweth how to turn all things to the best unto them that love him? (Rom. viii. 28)—if thou art persuaded that God is true, why dost thou doubt of his promises?—and if thou believest that God is beauty and perfection itself, why dost not thou make him alone the chief end of all thine affections and desires? for if thou lovest beauty, he is most fair; if thou desirest riches, he is most wealthy; if thou seekest wisdom, he is most wise. Whatsoever excellency thou hast seen in any creature, it is nothing but a sparkle of that which is in infinite perfection in God: and when in heaven we shall have an immediate communion with God, we shall have them all perfectly in him communicated to us. Briefly, in all goodness, he is all in all. Love that one good God, and thou shalt love him in whom all the good of goodness consisteth. He that would therefore attain to the saving-knowledge of God, must learn to know him by love: for God is love, and the knowledge of the love of God passeth all knowledge (Eph. iii. 19; 1 John iv.) For all knowledge besides to know how to love God, and to serve him only, is nothing, upon Solomon’s credit, but vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit (Eccles. i. 17.)

Kindle therefore, O Lord, the love of thyself in my soul especially, seeing it was thy good pleasure that, being reconciled by the blood of Christ (Rom. v. 9, 10; John xvii. 3, 22; 1 Cor. xv. 8), I should be brought, by the knowledge of thy grace, to the communion of thy glory, wherein only consists my sovereign good and happiness for ever."

 (The Practice of Piety, pp. 26-27)

I love the way he applies the attributes of God to our daily lives. If theology isn't eminently practical, I don't know what is.

Was blind, but now I see

I found this passage inspiring tonight:

So a second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.” He then answered, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” So they said to him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?” He answered them, “I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?” They reviled him and said, “You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from.” The man answered and said to them, “Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” So they put him out. 

Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.” And he said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Him. And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

(John 9:24-41)

Love how you see God working in the ex-blind man even before he truly believes or understands who Christ is. Furthermore, he's willing to defend Him even when he will have to suffer deep social consequences for doing so. Also interesting in his rebuttal of the Pharisees, you see reason and faith working closely together. And finally, I love his exchange with Christ: there is so much kindness in the latter, and trust in the former. I want that unhesitating belief.

It's been a year?

Little did I think writing this would instigate all of these:

After darkness, light
The gritty side of spirituality
The problem of evil and other cheery things
Semester in review
Do you love me more than these?
Taking Heaven by storm
Time traveling
Confessional doxology
He restores my soul
On being away from home
Further conclusions on sanctification
Coming to an end
Milwaukee
On Psalm 63

So much learning packed into 365 days...they have witnessed some of the most dramatic work of God in my life. Thankful both for what God has taught me and also that I was able to blog my way through these meditations. What a year it's been.

Stole this from FB

On being young, restless, and reformed

A few years ago I came across this passage, and even though it's kind of an aside, God used it to minister to my soul. It's become one of my favorite passages in the Bible.

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp. And it came about, whenever Moses went out to the tent, that all the people would arise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent, and gaze after Moses until he entered the tent. Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent; and the Lord would speak with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

Exodus 33:7-11

The older I get (and I'm not even old enough for that to sound like a serious sentence opener), the more I understand why older Christians get so jazzed when they see or talk about young people faithfully attending church. I think I always assumed that any self-respecting church member would be there when the doors were open. Oh yeah, I even wrote about it. Why turn something I had been raised to do since infancy into something nigh heroic?

Then I went to college. So naive. So precious.

All of the sudden I was the one tempted to shave off Wednesday nights, or give mom looks when we were staying too long, or sleep in during Sunday school after being up till 3 the night before. All of the sudden I was rethinking my doctrinal commitments because of the spell of new and previously foreign relationships I was experiencing. All of the sudden I was the person I had been judging this entire time.

And then, after God sent me a wake up call and snapped me out of that funk, I got the chance to truly live on my own for the first time. I had my first experience of "adulting" at church. All of the new friends I made were there because they wanted to be there. There were no parents or rules or precedents. Instead, there were lots of deadlines and homework and social expectations. But you know what? Most of these twenty-somethings made it to church every Sunday. And most of them made it to the midweek student Bible study. And a respectable amount of them were involved in various ministries in the congregation. We're talking PhD students in one of the most prestigious, and therefore demanding, universities in the world. And they never missed church.

Heck, that's understating it. They were devoted to church.

That's when I learned how beautiful that kind of thing is. When I saw these faithful (young) people at church, I was seeing Joshua standing by the tent of meeting. They understood how crucially important meeting together was for successfully taking on the pressures and temptations of the upcoming week. They understood that communing with God together was the best way to spend time with their friends.

We need more young people like that.

A year ago, I would have ended this post with Ecclesiastes 12:1: "Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth...." After reading the subsequent paragraph, though, I've realized how relevant the whole passage is to this situation. When my week isn't anchored in corporate worship, things get funky. When my heart isn't truly in it, my faith weakens and everything gets a little existential.

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”; before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain; in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and mighty men stoop, the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through windows grow dim; and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird, and all the daughters of song will sing softly. Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags himself along, and the caperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street. Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!”

On Psalm 63

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;

My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,

In a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,

To see Your power and Your glory.

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,

My lips will praise You.

So I will bless You as long as I live;

I will lift up my hands in Your name.

My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,

And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.

When I remember You on my bed,

I meditate on You in the night watches,

For You have been my help,

And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.

My soul clings to You;

Your right hand upholds me. 

(verses 1-8) 

Since this summer, I've been occasionally filling in to help teach Sunday School for the 6-7 year-old crowd at church. Right now, the class is going through a simplified version of Pilgrim's Progress. Initially, I looked at this experience as an opportunity to be servant-oriented and selfless and Reformed and aren't-I-a-nice-Christian-girl-helping-with-Sunday-School. However, I seem to have forgotten the reason we still read the book 350 years after it was written. Each time I've watched the kids take in the lesson from a particular passage, I get wrapped into it and God convicts me of how I am dealing with these very issues in my own life at the moment. I'm learning with the kiddos.

Yesterday, we went over Christian and Hopeful's escape from Vanity Fair and eventual stay in the Plain of Ease. It reminded me of my own experiences in the past year of my life, having gone through a particularly difficult autumn and my subsequent respite this spring. My life in these past twelve months has echoed this journey out of despair to joy. But, being a good Reformed Baptist and having read the story before, I know what the kids will be learning next week. I'm feeling the temptation that the pilgrims will presently encounter, to take the blessings of God for granted.

In contrast with 2014, where the difficult times chased one another by the heels, 2015 has been crammed full with blessings: My time in Europe was followed here by new friendships, provision and direction for the future, sweeter fellowship at church. I don't want to turn gifts which ought to point me back to God into things which distract me from Him. I'm beginning to understand just another facet of how responsibility accompanies blessing. When you feel like you're on top of this world, it takes discipline to pursue the things of the next one.

May my mouth continually offer "praises with joyful lips."

May my soul cling to God.

May I never forget His faithfulness to me.

On majoring in English

One of the occupational hazards of pursuing a liberal arts degree is mastering the PR work necessary to defend such an un-lucrative life choice. Fortunately, I thought ahead and decided to get two useless majors. That way, they can be buddies and entertain each other while I find an acceptable job. Or wait, isn't that what grad school is for?

Ah, but I jest. I mean, not the job-hunting part....that is all too painfully true. It's the charge that liberal arts degrees are useless that gets me a little unsettled. I could turn this post into a (classical) apology for my degree choices, pulling out all the arguments that I've been hoarding. These have been accumulating each time a misguided (please pray for them) friend makes the mistake of dismissing the liberal arts. I try to maintain an outwardly sanctified demeanor, but a battle wages inside my head: "BEWARE THE DAY I SMITE YOUR GAUCHE COMMENTS WITH MY MAJESTIC BLOG POSTS!!!" Ok, too much Beowulf lately.

Anyways, all of those reasons for my degree are valid and meaningful and good, and I wouldn't have needed to even be doing an English major to produce them. What I'm more interested in talking about right now is the consequence I didn't anticipate.

Of all the providences I have experienced thus far in my life, one of the most spiritually-beneficial has been my training in English Literature. It has completely transformed the way I read the Bible.

It's taught me the art of close-reading. You don't take a single word of a sonnet for granted. Learning this has trained my eye to dissect passages of Scripture that I would have passed over before, all because of one word that stood out from the rest.

It's taught me to view all the parts of a text as an interconnected whole. Oftentimes, authors utilize particular words and metaphors to tie specific passages of their novel/play/poem together. In hunting for these in literature, I've learned to trace these same word-trails throughout Scripture. The principle of reading syntopically has trained me to follow a theme outside of the specific Bible book I encountered it in. Because, usually, it's there in all of the other books as well.

It's taught me how important context, both textual and historical, is to truly understanding a text. The argument and intent of the original author is more important than our personal agendas.

It's awakened me to the artistry of the Bible. In learning to spot foreshadowing in Shakespeare, I've been trained to discover it in the prophets. Understanding typology has awoken me to how intricate a picture Isaac was of Christ.  Reading and relating to the deeply personal work of Herbert or Donne has drawn me to the equally-exquisite poetry of the Psalms. The longing of the metaphysical poets for union with God makes me more conscious of the longing the prophets felt for reconciliation for Israel.

I could go on, but these are some of the most obvious examples. Before I was trained to inquisitively read literature, I had always approached the Bible complacently. I read; I didn't analyze. I think a lot of church kids tend to wear "Bible goggles" when we read Scripture - because we're told that it's the inspired word of God, we take what we are reading for granted. We don't give it much thought, because we're reading it at face value.

My English courses have changed me. What used to be mind-numbing work has become instinctual. This spiritual connection made a lot more sense after my time in Cambridge. Being in a seminary environment, I realized that the tools I was given in my English classes were the same as those taught in divinity studies. Whether it's Greek or Hebrew or English, we're all learning to critically analyze texts.

Liberal Arts = not that useless. Study literature, kids.

Solo-wulf

"It is a great wonder

how Almighty God in His magnificence

favors our race with rank and scope

and the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide.

Sometimes He allows the mind of a man

of distinguished birth to follow its bent,

grants him fulfillment and felicity on earth

and forts to command in his own country.

He permits him to lord it in many lands

until the man in his unthinkingness

forgets that it will ever end for him.

He indulges his desires; illness and old age

mean nothing to him; his mind is untroubled

by envy or malice or the thought of enemies

with their hate-honed swords. The whole world

conforms to his will, he is kept from the worst

until an element of overweening

enters him and takes hold

while the soul's guard, its sentry, drowses,

grown too distracted. A killer stalks him,

an archer who draws a deadly bow.

And then the man is but in the heart,

the arrow flies beneath his defenses,

the devious promptings of the demon start.

His old possessions seem paltry to him now.

He covets and resents; dishonors custom

and bestows no gold; and because of good things

that the Heavenly Powers gave him in the past

he ignores the shape of things to come.

Then finally the end arrives

when the body he was lent collapses and falls

prey to its death; ancestral possessions

and the goods he hoarded are inherited by another

who lets them go with a liberal hand."

Beowulf, lines 1724-1757

 Reminded me of this:

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil.

Ecclesiastes 6:1-2