Strangers and Adventures

As a young college student I was lost in a sea of the unknown. I started off on metaphorical journey; my primary quest was to find myself. Yes, this journey was vague, post-modern, poetic, and cliche but I had started it nonetheless and I was determined to succeed. It took many years to find myself, and when I did I was shocked by who I found.

Weird right?! Surely once I turned the last corner of the maze; when I finally found the right light switch and saw myself standing there I would have full and complete understanding of who he was! Surely there would be some sort of overwhelming spiritual sense of comfort and familiarity...RIGHT?

Wrong.

This idea that tranquility at the point of self-discovery is novel, but unrealistic. It is a fanciful thought and such a transcendent experience is an illusion of the mind.

I thought that when I found myself I would recognize myself immediately. Instead I met a stranger. But of course I was a stranger! Why should anyone expect to recognize someone they have never met before?!

When one spends his entire life looking in a broken mirror, or through a muddied reflection, how can he possible know the dimensions of his face or the true distance between his mouth and his ears? In such a discovery there will always be a sense of wonder, as well as unfamiliarity.

Frankly, I'm glad that my expectations were unfounded. Now I have the opportunity to begin discovering who I am and figuring out my limits and pushing the boundaries of my abilities.

Thus ends the journey of self-discovery, and begins the adventure of self-application.


Grace and Peace,

Stephen

Healing in Darkness

When you think of healing you probably think of relief, light, happiness, peace, etc. These are the places that we often associate as being closest to God and the areas in which He most speaks to us. It is easy to come to the conclusion that God, being Light, speaks to us in the periods of light that we walk through. 

"The Light shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness has not overcome it..."   -John 1

This is the push within a lot of categories of Christianity. It is a push to reach a spiritual high; to focus, worship, and pray hard enough and long enough to enter into a place of God's "presence" that they might hear Him speaking to them and guiding them.

I have often heard it preached that you are either moving closer to God or you are backsliding; there is no middle ground or stagnation. One must seek God or they will move into darkness and experience the consequences thereof. Often, this understanding of the spiritual life of a Christian and his/her relationship to God is hard to reconcile with reality. What happens when the Christian that follows faithfully the teaching of His pastor/priest, prays continuously, attends services weekly, and reads scripture consistently, but faces times of darkness, despair, apathy, and physical/financial/emotional destruction?

The answer is often "It's just the devil!" and then they quote scripture and state that these "trials and tribulations" are proof that one is living right and the Devil is just mad. So the one enduring hardship and struggle goes on with his little "word of encouragement" and tries to endure. Labeling it all as spiritual warfare, he prays that God will come quickly from whatever distant star He watches from to come to his aid and deliver him from the impending darkness. All the while, not realizing that God is right there with him, leading him deeper into the darkness and into suffering because He knows that though His child prays for relief, it is more beneficial that he suffers.

Too often we fail to see God in the midst of our darkest moments. We beg and plead, we may even demand, healing and most of the time we expect that healing to be instant. We pray for closeness to God and expect butterflies in our stomachs or the feeling that a major weight has been lifted. Though God does do this from time to time, it is not the rule. Instead, He leads us to place of suffering that may, or may not, include the demonic. The hard truth is that sometimes, Satan just isn't involved.

"He has caused me to dwell in darkness as those who are long dead..." -Lamentations 8

What is most true is that God loves us. We as humans, however, often hold falsehoods and misunderstandings as to what love is and how God should display that love. Love is the sacrifice of oneself for another, but love is also discipline for one's wrong doing. Love is a parent forcing their child to pick up an instrument and bear the pain of practicing, or pushing them to practice soccer so that they will not be humiliated on the field or refusing to let them give up just because something is hard. If a parent would cause their child to endure hardship and struggle to become a better individual, how much more with God do this out of His infinite and perfect love.

"Then, there was a still, small whisper. And God was in it." - 1 Kings

God speaks most in the silent places of our lives. In our darkest and most hideous places in life, He speaks to us the clearest. He does the most healing when we are forced to expose our wounds and weaknesses. We are often drawn back into the deepest and darkest parts of our souls so that out of our toiling, that Christ might shine through all the brighter. God is answering the prayers for closeness and holiness, and it is our duty to learn to recognize God's hand in the darkness, allow others to help us in our weakness, and then to help others in theirs.

The greatest metaphor for this that I've ever heard comes from C.S. Lewis' "The Horse and His Boy". In the latter part of the book, the young boy finds himself walking down around and is suddenly overcome by a thick fog. He is unable to see anything! All is silent and He doesn't know where to go or what to do, so he just keeps walking slowly, hoping to reach his destination in time. Before long he hears breathing and senses the presence of "another" next to him. He is afraid because he cannot see what walks beside him, but he knows it's there. The unknown being leads him wordlessly through the fog into clarity. Only then does the boy realize that he had been walking beside a massive lion! The lion was, of course, Aslan. Aslan then began speaking the boy and revealing His working in the boy's life, though he was oblivious to it all.

May we learn to see God when we lie in our dungeons or when we walk in the middle of the desert. May we learn to trust the unseen One in the fog that leads us with nothing more than the whisper of His breathing.

Grace and Peace,

Stephen

"From Breaking Chains to Breaking Bread": A Brief Summary

Over the last 5 years I have been an incredible spiritual journey that have deeply affected me emotionally, mentally, and theologically. It began, as such things usually do, quite unexpectedly-like an echo of an echo that knocked on the door of my heart. It was the slight itch at the back of mind. It was the deafening silence that screamed out in a whisper a single word: change. The growing uneasiness that told me "something is wrong" began in the final months of high school, but soon intensified in college.

For the majority of my life, I participated in churches of Pentecostal/charismatic tradition. In high school I became a leader in the youth ministry that I regularly attended and led small groups, taught at retreats, and prayed for other students at altar calls. I actually did this through the entirety of my college years, driving back and forth between Chattanooga and Dayton twice (sometimes trice) a week for 4 years.

I was a tongue talker and I was a "chain breaker"; I always had a bottle of anoitin' oil on hand and I was ready to go to war against "the principalities and powers of darkness." I have been present at two exorcisms, and I have prayed for dozens of people-yelling and screaming "freedom" at them as if my very action of speaking would cause the Spirit to charge into them and chase away all darkness and fix all that was broken instantly right then and there.

I've calmed down quite a bit since my graduation. I have begun participating in a local Anglican church and have found myself quite at home in the theological circles of the traditional and sacramental. This came out my experiences with reformed and traditional Christians that I met at my school, travels to Italy and Jordan where Orthodoxy and Catholicism are both very present in there prospective countries. Through my independent study, personal interactions, and in being forced to engage with various theological paradigms and beliefs due to friends who were also searching, I soon found myself in love with/drawn to this form of Church governmental structure and worship style.

In the end, I found that I could not be Catholic because of my lack of ability to justify belief in the Papal Authority. I loved participating in the Episcopal Church, but I found their theology far too liberal (and the presiding Bishop is a certifiable heretic). In the end, I have found myself in the Anglican circle and plan to be here for the rest of my foreseeable future.

Despite my change in church traditions and my way of viewing the purpose of the church, I still have a great love for those within my previous tradition and I see a lot of beauty among them and their worship. I realize that I now disagree with a lot of the philosophies and methods that they hold to, but I do not think that these differences should prevent us from being unity and from working towards the same goal: showing Christ to the World.

I still have my bottle of anoitin' oil that I carry with me everywhere I go. I still pray in tongues form time to time when I am alone in prayer, and my current tradition leads me to believe even more strongly that words that are spoken have an influence on the world around me. But now I come to church to meet Christ in my participating in Eucharist and in the deep and meaningful worship structure of liturgical worship. I am confident that Christ has led me to this and I am grateful for all that Christ has done in me through this tradition.

And so I leave you with these words: "Life is short and there is but little time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us. So be quick to love, and make haste to be kind. In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

Peace be with you,

Stephen