Quarantined

On Saturday, I noticed something was weird. I was out of breath, tired, and generally needing to sit down every twenty minutes or so. It was a huge inconvenience since I was trying to make food at the time. I had been feeling a cold coming on for the last few days–but it seemed odd that a cold of all things would make me feel like I’d just given doubles at the Red Cross blood drive. So I did the most sensible thing anyone in my age category would do. I phoned my parents to see if they had any insights.

Also it’d been about a week since I had talked to them last.

After explaining what was happening, they recommended I go see a doctor. We’ve got insurance (thank God, I have to say), so I went ahead and found a clinic and got checked out.

After about two hours, a blood test and a throat swab, the doctor came in with a face mask on.

“You can probably tell by the mask you’ve got something,” she said rather casually. I immediately liked this doctor. I replied that, yeah, it seemed so. So what was it? “Lucas, I’ve seen a lot of patients over the years, and you are one of three people I’ve ever seen to have both mono and strep throat.”

Ah, so my “cold” was a bit more than that.

“I’m gonna write you a prescription for an antibiotic, and you’ll also need to throw out your toothbrush, get some ibuprofen and keep yourself isolated for the week.”

The whole week? What if I get a mask and gloves and stuff? I have classes and church to go to.

“Nope, you gotta stay in isolation. No interaction with others.”

So now, one day into my quarantine, I’m already going stir-crazy. Not so much because I can’t go anywhere or see anyone, but something a bit deeper than that. Aside from that tiredness I had on Saturday, I have acquired no new symptoms. Mono is either the world’s most deadly (to some) virus ever, or it’s the world’s most inconvenient one. I’m heavily leaning to the latter. After all, I have to skip all my classes this week (including one where I have a test), and I had to let my pastor know at the last minute I couldn’t come to church this morning. And I don’t even feel sick.

I am extremely frustrated by it. When you’re little, laying out of school because you’re “sick” is a great thing. Or, you might be sick and you get to stay home from school and watch TV or read books or whatever, but even so you have no problem with it. Well, now apparently I have a big problem. I’m not sick, so far as my mind can tell. A doctor told me I’m sick, and I need to stay away from people so it doesn’t spread. If she hadn’t told me that, or if I had never seen the doctor to begin with, the most I would’ve done is told people I have a cold. And I don’t even feel like I have that.

So this week will be a test of patience. A discipline, if you will, to follow what I’m told even when I don’t believe it. By week’s end I’ll probably come up with some theological connection, but for now I’m just a bit frustrated with my not-sick sickness.

 

Mind-Blowing Bread and Wine

I helped with communion at my field church today, speaking the words “the blood of Christ, shed for you” as a parishioner dipped their bread in the wine. Communion is a very meaningful part of the service, exemplifying the sacrifice, wholly and completely, that God made for us. That complete self-giving that would keep giving, even to the cross and beyond. To me, it really doesn’t matter whether you believe in the Real Presence or not—every time you take communion it should be a moving experience.

This is the very Body of Christ, which was given for you.

This is the very Blood of Christ, which was shed for you.

Those are some really powerful words. Those are some even more powerful deeds. So it is with little wonder that parishioners approach communion with a great deal of reverence and solemnity. I quietly pray before and after I take the elements—I’ve just started getting in the habit of making the sign of the cross. Why not? If God has done something so amazingly powerful, shouldn’t we be in awe at His grace and presence, willingly sacrificing Himself for our sake?

And then something changed my outlook on that entirely today.

It was about halfway through communion and I was standing to the left of the pastor with my chalice, awaiting those parishioners who preferred to dip their bread (intinction, we call it) rather than sipping from the common chalice. I make a habit of looking directly into the eyes of each person as they take the wine while saying the words, “the blood of Christ, shed for you.” Just to remind them, you know.

So about halfway through communion, I look at the line (it diverges to the left or the right—we have a pretty sizeable church so there’s a choice which way to go) and see two little boys, maybe no older than six. And as they go up to the pastor, each in turn holds out his cupped hands to receive the bread, and the pastor places a piece of bread in his hands, saying “This is the body of Christ, given for you.” She always says it with a smile, I noticed. Only this time, the smile was returned.

Not just a smile. These two little boys, some would consider too young for communion, were positively beaming.

It looked like they’d just opened up a present on Christmas and got exactly what they wanted.

They both passed right by the chalice-bearers. No need for wine for little boys, and I agree. But you should have seen them go by.

Little hands, cupping the bread, making sure it didn’t fall out or anything bad happen to it. Eyes fixed on the body of Christ in their hands, still beaming. And they brought that perfect present that they carried with such joy all the way back to their pews, where they happily ate it with smiles on their faces.

No reverence. No somber solemnity. No crossing. No silent, reflective prayer.

Joy.

Unbound, unmitigated, utterly enveloping joy.

Now, I’m not naïve enough to think that their joy stemmed directly from the fact that this was the body of Christ, the flesh of God-become-Man mysteriously present in the bread. They were probably only aware of Jesus insofar as “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

But it turned my view of communion upside down.

Yes, there should be the realization that the Eucharist should be viewed with respect, with the proper holiness due to God’s presence, with reverence and with solemnity perhaps. We should be mindful of the fact that what God has done is worth our reverence and prayerful reflection. But then, don’t we call it celebrating the Eucharist?

Why can’t we just marvel at it?

God, the Great I AM, Maker of the Universe, Alpha and Omega, the Almighty and Holy One, The Everlasting Instant, came to Earth, became one of us to teach, to comfort, and to die for us, for humanity, for me.

Wow.

It’s like getting exactly what you wanted on Christmas morning.

We should all come away from communion positively beaming with elation, just like those two little boys. Because God is not just the omnipotent Creator and God of the Universe—He is absolute, complete, and mind-blowing love.

 

On Being a Cleaver

Today was the CPE interview day. Basically, we are expected to go to a hospital or similar site for several weeks over the summer in order to gain some experience in hospital chaplaincy and what it requires. After all, as a future pastor it’s pretty likely that I will end up in a hospital a time or two for my parishioners. So, as a courtesy to not make us drive to all the different CPE sites we plan on applying to, the seminary brings a bunch of them to us, who then write up their thoughts and send them to the places we apply to later on.

Well, the day started off rather fine. This past week was fall break, so I have been at home the entire time. It’s just a two hour drive from home to the seminary, so I left at about 10:00 this morning to get back to the seminary in time for my 1:00pm interview. I drove, rather nicely enjoying NPR and thinking on the way up about random stuff, and get to the apartment where Josh is.

“You know you missed your interview, right?” he asks me.

“No, my interview’s at one.”

Apparently my interview time was changed, and I was unaware of it. They sent the email in the middle of the break week, and I never saw it. So that’s one thing that caused some stress today. Upon getting to the church where the interviews were being held, I immediately spoke with the professor who organizes everything and got another time, which was easy enough. Crisis averted. My interview will be at two.

So I go to this interview, and one thing the interviewer said—the thing that stuck out the most to me—was that I lived in the “Cleaver household.” As in, Leave it to Beaver Cleaver household. All shiny and wonderful, nothing to complain about, never a serious problem that can’t be solved in an episode. And so we discussed it. He pointed out that I had no experience with anything bad or uncomfortable—I didn’t know what the ugly parts of the world would look like. Which is entirely true.

“Y’see,” I said to him after this little discussion, “this is what absolutely terrifies me about CPE.”

It’s that knowledge that, no matter what, I have no basis for comparison to talk to people in some kind of horrible valley of their life. I’ve got my wonderful theology and personal world-view, but what good is that going to do for a thirty-year-old who’s dying of cancer? What good is “the world and all its ills are just part of a larger and more beautiful tapestry” to a mother who is grieving the death of her infant? What good will all my nice, rosy images of how good God is be to a person who is in a really bad place?

I’ve lived a very insulated, happy kind of life. I haven’t dealt with any trauma on any serious level, either the death of a loved one, a serious injury, some kind of life-altering event—not even economic hardship. I have absolutely no bearing when it comes to people who have real problems. Real difficulties. Real questions. I’m absolutely horrified of the prospect of someone, somewhere along the line, looking at me and asking “why would God let this happen?” Because I have no answer for it besides “it’s somewhere in the plan.”

I told my interviewer that God would be with me on this just as He’s been with me on the rest of it, “but,” I asked him, “do you think I’m gonna survive this?”

He just laughed and nodded.

He didn’t say it, but I’m guessing he was thinking that I wasn’t the first Cleaver to come to the ministry.

 

Patience Amid Misunderstandings

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:8-9)

We cannot delve into the idea of what God’s plan might be for our lives. Nor can we assume that, while we cannot see His purposes, He is not at work in them. Just as Isaiah proclaimed, God does not work on the same principles or thought patterns that we work on. The pattern of the plan is like a great tapestry that, in our short, narrow lives we cannot see the full picture of. It’s not a pretty sight, looking at the threads that compose our lives. Sometimes they have to have knots or changes in color and composition; sometimes certain threads have to be cut and new ones added in order for the tapestry to work. But we cannot see that, since we are too small.

Without going into the details, I have gotten rather irate with this idea tonight. I am frustrated, befuddled, with the idea that I must simply trust God’s ways will result for the greater glory. Actually, “I have gotten a little irate” is a bit of a short-selling of the idea. I’m honestly angry.

Yes, dear saints, I am angry at God.

Is it wrong to be angry at the Creator? Should we not occasionally express frustration at His mysteries? “Why God? Why can’t you just answer me? Why does this plan have to go in circles, and it doesn’t look like you’re there?” For us weak and fickle humans, mortals of the deepest measure, miniscule in our understanding—why is it wrong for us worms to become angry at the God who promises and comforts, but whose plan involves suffering, questioning, doubt?

My eyes fail, looking for your promise; I say, “When will you comfort me?” (Ps. 119:82)

Despair at not seeing God’s hand at work seems to be perfectly fine. Praise when we do is totally acceptable. The gamut of emotions shows up again and again in the Bible. Human expression is not hindered when interacting with God—after all, He knows the workings of our hearts even more intimately than we do. So why is it that being angry at God seems so taboo? Hell, Jonah was very clearly angry at God through his entire story(Note:  Read it; it’s a great look at how fleeing from God doesn’t do any good). Jonah is the most anti-God prophet in the Bible—he defies God’s command, and complains every single step of the way going back to do what he’s told.

Then, Jonah’s final words of the book involve him asserting his right to be angry. God’s answer sounds like the patient consoling of a parent, waiting for their child to accept that they know what they’re doing.

For I am God, and not man—the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. (Hos. 11:9b)

God shows time and again that He will turn from His anger. God tempers His anger with His righteousness. He expresses to us that, while feeling anger is one thing, holding onto it is not what God wills. Though Israel, throughout its history, constantly rebelled and turned from God, He would await their return, turning from His anger on a dime. Jonah and other prophets even call Him “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Anger is there, but it is quick to dissipate.

But there’s one thing that God doesn’t have that we do have. That is the will to sin. Because of this taint, we are perpetually children, constantly misunderstanding and constantly rebelling. The misunderstanding child will feel anger at their parent’s “unfair” decision, or become angry because they don’t understand what their parent is doing. It’s just like that. Does the child not have a right to be angry? Well, perhaps not. But their reasoning is no less understandable.

God calls us to be the higher people we can be, turning from our anger, just as He does. That doesn’t mean we can’t be angry. We are, after all, incapable of stopping that emotion from happening. The thing we can’t let happen is let it take us over. We can understand that God has a plan for us, that our frayed and color-changing piece of the tapestry is part of a beautiful picture beyond understanding. But if we suppress that anger, and never let ourselves occasionally shout to God “Why!?” then isn’t that terribly a unhealthy relationship? Shouldn’t God be able to take our anger part and parcel with our praise? Shouldn’t our faith in Him be able to withstand even the hottest burning of anger?

They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, “This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,” or when they committed awful blasphemies. Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. By day the pillar of cloud did not cease to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. (Neh. 9:17-18)

God is steadfast, even when we are not. After all, God didn’t abandon Israel to the wilderness even after they flagrantly ignored the covenant they just made to not worship other gods, or make idols. No, we can get as angry as we want. God never ceases to wait for us after our anger has passed. He will be patient with our frail humanity, awaiting our eventual coming to our senses and understanding that He is there for us. He does not abandon. He does not leave. He does not give up because of our disillusionment or anger at Him. Because He knows we will eventually come back from our anger, realizing His endless love is still there, still surrounding us. Knowing that anger will break down into the real reason behind it, and He will be there offering His comforting grace again.

So for now, I will be angry. For now, I will vent my frustration at God with my childish inability to grasp His place for me. For now I will keep shouting “Why!?”

Because I know, in the end, His loving arms are around me, knowing the hot anger will break down from its foundations and He will be there to catch me from falling with them.

 

Thou

One of the interesting, and occasionally unnerving, things about languages is its amazing ability to change. Generation to generation, words will literally reverse their meanings, adopt completely new ones, reduce their meaningfulness in one area and increase it in another. This, beyond changing how they sound (called historic sound change), is an important area for understanding what people are saying in old records. It’s called semantic change.

For example, “It was a gay party.”

What does that mean? What does it mean now? To whom? What did it mean a hundred years ago? It’s all the same words, but the change is clearly there.

Or another, “Thou art my guide; be thou with me on this journey.”

What does this sentence mean? To whom? What did it mean five hundred years ago?

See, I’m bringing this up particularly because of the first word of that sentence, thou. When we say “thou” nowadays, what are we always talking about? God. No one says it to or about anyone else. No one today is a thou.

As a result, thou has adopted a ponderous, majestic meaning ascribed solely to God. God is powerful, omnipotent, the creator of the universe, the savior of mankind. Thou is a word of royal deference as far as we’re concerned. Except…

I don’t know how many of you have studied foreign languages before, but one trend you’ll notice in basically any language except English is this little difference between two versions of “you.” One is for familiar people, friends, family, maybe pets. The other is for people you don’t know, people who are your superiors, people you want to show respect to. So, which do you think thou would fall under?

You probably knew where this was going from the beginning, but before that, which did you think? Almost anyone I’ve ever talked to has said that thou is the formal and you is the informal. After all, that’s how we use it now. Logically, it would make sense that we wouldn’t make the formal into the informal. Plus, thou is used almost exclusively now for talking to God—surely to goodness that’s enough proof that thou has to be the formal one.

Nope.

Any time you see thou in the older translations of the Bible (or any work, for that matter, that’s a translation), you are reading the informal. You only use thou when talking to friends, relatives, people you are close to or feel very familiar with. Basically, simply by using thou you are signifying a special relationship with that person.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Think about that Psalm. Not the modern translation that uses you, but the King James Version. It is among the most comforting passages in the Bible. God Himself is with us, even though we may be passing through the worst part of our lives. He never abandons us.

But then, it takes a semantic step further. The writer is using the word thou. Thou art with me. Not you, but thou. Thou, my dearest friend, my confidant, my guide, my rock, the One in whom I can place my full being and be safe, thou art with me. Now doesn’t that make this verse (and all other times God is called thou) so much more meaningful? You’re talking to God, yes, but you’re not talking to a god who is far off, royal and regal and unreachable. Not a god who deigns to sully His splendidness to condescend to listen to you. No, God is here as a friend, a dear friend, someone who is close to you, who is absolutely and inimically near you.

All in the word thou.

One more thing about semantic change is its tragic parts. For reasons too unrelated to state here, thou fell out of use as the informal in English, replaced with you. There is no independent form of that pronoun that signifies any closeness anymore. We have no thou to speak into existence the closeness that two people might share, or that we share with God.

But if we understand this difference, the closeness that thou entails, the love and friendship it assumes, perhaps that can change. God’s own pronoun, thou, cannot be duplicated for people because no person can match His closeness to us. By being so linked to God, thou can encompass so much more of the semantic sphere than just the informal, the close and the loving. It can encompass all the attributes of God. And that, I think, is something I could trade meanings for.

 

Monastics

In our history class, we have been discussing the early monastic traditions of the Church. I have to hand it to them, people who take up the mantle of monastics were some very dedicated individuals. The two varieties, anchoritic and coenobitic, displayed to ways for a Christian to show his or her devotion to Christ. Anchoritic traditions involved going out into the wilderness (or wherever) and being absolutely alone with God for, well, ever. Contact with other human beings, as far as I can tell, was something an anchoritic monastic would prefer just not to do. Coenobitic traditions stressed community. You went to a monastery/convent and you would live with other monastics in a strictly ordered Christian environment. Then you would live in said monastery for basically ever.

I’m not going to disparage the inherent piety and well-meaning intentions of the monastics of the Church. It’s honorable and quite a feat to go and be a monk/nun, giving up all worldly pursuits in exchange for a life devoted to God. Away from people.

Except, there’s a few things.

Perhaps the ascetic lifestyle, while maybe it appears good and noble to do, is sorta kinda not so great. A lot of it seems rooted in Gnostic ideas that the material world is evil, the body is bad and must therefore be “mortified” in order to purify the soul. I have to disagree with that approach. The body is part of the world, and God did call the world “good.” So maybe whipping yourself with iron chains and denying yourself sleep except on a stool or chaining yourself to a rock or eating your food by literally putting ash on it before eating might be a bit too far. I’m pretty sure God doesn’t want us to torture ourselves for His sake. But that’s just me.

Also, I have to disagree with the idea of “setting oneself apart” for a life of devotion to God. Jesus did go by himself during his ministry to pray and be in communion with the Father, but he didn’t remove himself. Even the prophets, Elijah, John the Baptist and others, only kept away from the world insofar as to keep themselves from becoming part of the world and its vices. They always went back to preach, teach, and heal. Similarly, I think monastics, while their intentions are great, missed the mark of what they ought to have been doing. God wants us to be in the world, preaching the good news. Jesus didn’t so much mention “go into the wilderness and live an ascetic life.” But again, that’s my interpretation.

However, I can see a lot of good for a monastic tradition in an entirely different way.

The monastic way of life could be a kind of boot camp for Christians. Y’know, much like how the regular boot camp is a crash course that turns civilians into soldiers, so too could a monastic “boot camp for Christians” mold ordinary Christians into “athletes for Christ.” Not a Christian school, but more a monastery/convent that is temporary. It would be a different mentality from a school. Much like how seminary is for people who desire to be leaders in the church, maybe a kind of temporary monastery would be for people who want to be stronger in their faith.

Another way the monastic tradition could be used is in a thing one of my fellow seminarians suggested. A voluntary association of people who all “join a monastic society,” but one without walls or buildings. Instead, it’s a group of people who pray all at the same time, no matter where they are, follow a certain set of rules, and so on. Basically, it would be a monastery/convent without requiring its members to remove themselves utterly from the world. In my opinion that takes the best of monastic traditions without the removal aspect that I rather must disagree with.

But then, perhaps it all boils down to the same thing. In grace, we have been saved. All we can do is react to that grace with gratitude as best we know how. And if that means going out into the wilderness to deprive yourself of sleep so you can better commune with God, so be it. God loves you anyway.

 

Satur-Thursday…

Today I had no classes, because the one class I would’ve had was cancelled due to a lecture series. So, I took the time to work on my CPE application (thank God it’s done!) and my annotated bibliography.

Also, I read whole lot from the second book in the Dark Tower series. It’s eating my time in the same way that a caterpillar eats a leaf–without even noticing.

In fact, reading this book absorbed my attention so much that I not only missed choir practice (again…) but I also missed 7:30 contemplative prayer, which I promised myself last week I would attend regularly. For the first I fear the retribution of Dr. Hawkins, and for the latter I am saddened because I loved it last week. A simple lesson seems to emerge from this: reading can be just as distracting as television. Only, reading is probably cheaper, since you don’t need a television, or a cable subscription, or internet (for Hulu amazingness). But that’s beside the point. I learned a valuable lesson, to keep an eye on the clock both when reading and when watching television. Maybe set an alarm.

However, the important thing is I did get a lot done today. I visited my adviser Dr. Everett who helped me figure out some classes I would like to take next semester. We also got to chat, which was pleasant since it’s not something I normally do with professors for some reason. I got mail, and for anyone who is not being swamped by bills knows, getting mail is like an ego boost. Even when it’s a package that you’ve ordered. The fact that my mail cell was not cold and empty was an elation. Moreover, I got all of my assignments for the week done.

I’ve been thinking about some subjects to post about, mostly in the realm of Christian thinking. One in particular is about atonement theology. I have not fully formed what my current view on it is, and maybe if I post it I’ll be accused of heresy (you never know, really) but I think it would be a good way of getting it down on paper… or, whatever the internet version of that phrase would be. Up on the web? On the screen? Anyway I will be making a post on that in the next couple weeks, hopefully. And, after a few years and hopefully a class that teaches atonement theology, I’ll post another time about it and we can compare how it changed! Or just me. I can compare it. It’ll be fun.

Mentioning the package I got in the mail, it included three books that I got off Amazon.com. The first was The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 2nd edition, by Craig L. Blomberg. It talks about what it says on the tin. I am very much looking forward to reading it. The next one has an equally enigmatic title, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, by F.F. Bruce. Best to tackle those while I’m in seminary rather than when parishioners come up to me and ask about them! And the last book is Eaters of the Dead by MICHAEL CRICHTON. If you’ve ever seen The Thirteenth Warrior with Antonio Banderas, it was basically the book adapted to the screen. I’m picking up some leisure reading, as the Dark Tower series shows, and that’s one book I’d like to read.

(A quick note about writing his name MICHAEL CRICHTON: in every book he’s written, his name is larger than the title, and gets progressively more over-the-top huge relative to the title, exemplified in MICHAEL CRICHTON’s Next. Thus, it’s a joke among my friends to never write his name except in all caps, and never say his name except in a loud shout)

This post is, I know, eclectic, but that’s been my day.

 

CPE Application Madness

So here I am, working on my application for Clinical Pastoral Education (heretofore “CPE” for conciseness’ sake), and I discover two things:

1. Writing about yourself is not nearly as easy as you would think it is, and

2. When you’re applying for something, you can’t help but think you’re doing it wrong.

CPE is a wonderful program that allows future pastors to go work in hospitals or nursing homes or what-have-you so they can gain experience with pastoral care. I’m really bad at talking to people I don’t know, so it should be a good experience. But, seriously, why do I have to tell my entire life story—but not the whole thing because it’s supposed to be an application and they don’t have the time to read that novel—in order to get placed somewhere to do this? Shouldn’t “I am planning on becoming a pastor and I need particular attention paid to X to help round me out” be enough? It would certainly save some serious time.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist, too. So when I look at this application and it says:

“A reasonably full account of your life. Include, for example, significant and important persons and events, especially as they have impacted, or continue to impact, your personal growth and development. Describe your family of origin, current family relationships, and important supportive social relationships.”

Okay, that’s easy enough to talk about. But, wait, what do they want me to talk about first? Is there some kind of particular thing in the “for example…” category they really need to know to put me in a particular location? I know there’s stuff that seems important to me, but maybe it’s not really that important in the long run to help them get to know who I am. But then, if it’s important to me, it says something about who I am. But I don’t need to write that much! It’s too much for a simple application!

And that’s just the first question.

Did I mention this application is due Friday?

I had this same problem with my candidacy essay where I was supposed to write about my “Faith Journey.” Well, at least that was pretty clear on what they wanted. “Tell us about how your faith developed.” It was nice and straightforward, and it still took weeks for me to figure out how to word just what was going on with me, faith-wise. And that’s the second question in this application. So, wait, am I supposed to not talk about my faith development in the first question? Would I be rehashing the point if I did? But if I leave out my faith development in the first question, doesn’t that imply that it’s not a “significant and important event?” I’m gonna be a pastor, man! It’s important!

Chillax, Lucas. We can be pretty sure the application is just an outline, and they’ll ask the questions they want clarified in the interview.

But it has to be perfect!

Y’know what, not really.

And so on. I might make it to the end of the week with this application filled out and my sanity intact, but I can make no guarantees.

 

Consistency

Not gonna lie, I am feeling really guilty about how long it’s been since I made any comment about what’s going on. Has it been busy? Yes. Have I had time to set aside to write and give everyone an update? … yes…

That seems to be one of the things that I need to work on in all parts of my life: consistency. For instance, I have always prayed, yes, before meals and when I need guidance or a reminder that God is in control, but one thing that I was exposed to in the past few weeks has been setting aside time specifically, every day, not for anything in particular, but just to set time aside for God and me. Just a quiet time of communion to thank God for His blessings, His unfailing loyalty, and letting Him have a chance to just let me sit with Him awhile. I never really developed that regular prayer time until I went to a meeting that talked about Martin Luther and how he would pray every time he woke up and every time he went to sleep. It was a habit that was so far in my past that it felt alien, unnatural.

But somehow it seems becoming a pastor requires I get that kind of habit in place.

The consistency required to actually set time aside to be with God, not for thanking Him for the meal and requesting a blessing; not for asking for strength in a particularly trying time, but taking a short while out of every day to say, “God, this is Your time, just You and me.” I want to introduce that into my life, and since I have started on halting steps to bring that into a habit I have discovered my life feeling less weighted. I want to make that into a consistent, regular habit. It’s healthy for the spirit, I figure. And giving time to God certainly wouldn’t cause problems.

This same problem with consistency is where I find myself neglecting my posts here. You take the time out of your day to see if I’ve made any update, so it should be a habit of mine to have something ready so your time is not wasted. I got on today after my roommate announced his plan to start a similar blog, mostly to put his ideas into some kind of writing, but I decided I hadn’t looked around here in a long while. In the comments section I found someone new–someone had commented about how my posts were helping them discern their own call. It seems a disservice, suddenly, to neglect this. You, all of you, bestow upon me the honor of wanting to read what is going on; to know where I am and what I’m feeling. In return I should happily and obligingly offer you these same things.

Much like my attempt to set aside a consistent time to pray, I will set aside a consistent time to write down my thoughts and conclusions. So I am committed to bring this into one of my habits, to make it consistent, and for whatever it’s worth, to avoid making it always as apologetic as it is right now!