I didn’t originally intend it this way, but I ended up saving this lectio divina journal entry as my very last assignment as a MACP student at MHGS. Originally, I had planned to work on this in the comfort of my room, but one thing led to another (yes, procrastination was partly involved) and my plans had to adapt. And they adapted for the better.
After waking up early to work on other assignments, I took the Light Rail to Downtown where a couple of friends treated me out for lunch as a celebration of the end of my three years in grad school. Donny Trieu, Quang Nguyen, and I feasted on Brazilian rodizio at Ipanema Grill. The waiters whisked to and from our table with swords of glistening cuts of meat skewered on: garlic steak, peppered steak, parmesan pork loin, sausages that tasted like they had beer in them, grilled chicken, etc. We also ate jicama, baby carrots, varieties of mushrooms, and other interesting fresh vegetables from their “Mesa de Frios.” My belly was as full as my heart.
Then I took my time walking past Pike Place Market, breathing in a hodgepodge of scents, from fresh piroshkies to a vast array of flowers to the briny Puget Sound; listening to the eclectic assortment of buskers; and watching all sorts of people, from tourists to the homeless, go about their busyness. The wind and rain lightly blew on my face as if showering me with kisses on my walk. My senses felt as full as my heart.
Finally, I walked into the school building. I chatted with James Chi, who was manning the front desk, for a while before I headed up to the sanctuary to meditate on my lectio divina. I remember that the very first person who greeted me at the front desk when I was officially a student was Ben Oldham; who turned out to be a great friend that I could always expect the best hugs and listening ears from during my first and second year at the school. When I entered the sanctuary, the images of the icons, the benches, the arrangement of bricks with folded prayers wedged in between them, Sonny and Margaret’s picture, the large wooden cross, the little mirror, and all the other pieces of that holy place felt like faithful angels and friends surrounding me. My spirit and heart was filled with comfort.
So, as I read about the two walking along the Emmaus road oblivious to Christ’s presence until they broke break with him, I began to realize Christ’s presence with me all these years…and even on my walk to MHGS today and in the sanctuary. Jesus ate with me, kissed me on my walk, covered me as I meditated, and is blessing me as I write this in the school library. My body, senses, spirit, mind, and heart is full.
In this time of endings and new beginnings it feels like Jesus is sending me out from a secure place and into a storm. During my three years at MHGS, I went through two major losses; my mother passing away from illness and my divorce. And with those losses many other dreams, wishes, and hopes also passed away. Promises to take my mom back to the Woodland Park Rose Garden, and my hopes to see her smile as she basked in the sights and smells of her favorite flowers dissipated. The feeling that I could come home to a wife and dog and sink into their kisses and love, and dreams of one day hearing the patter of tiny bare feet running on the kitchen floor (at least in the way that I had grown accustomed to imagining) were shattered. I felt like I was torn from life as I knew it; but at the same time I found deep hope and peace in ways I could never have anticipated.
I began to face questions about myself that were long buried inside of me, as well as questions that were right in front of my face but I had chosen to ignore. Questions about how broken my family and marriage was. I began to excavate the dusty and untouched parts of my life, and found relics that explained deep sorrow, anger, and resentment; those things I felt so guilty for feeling toward my mother and ex-wife. Why did you abandon me? Why am I relieved that you left me? Did I leave you? Did I ever want to leave you? I think I did at times, but why? How was I hurt and how did I hurt you? Why did hurt happen? Did it have to? Why…why…why… And all of these whys, the excavations, the process of understanding, and the search for peace occurred in a time and place of my life that came to feel deeply secure and richly good.
It was secure and good because I was surrounded by peers, friends, and professors at MHGS who were going through their own existential winnowing. They were as invested into that process as I was. Where else were there a bunch of people who would deconstruct and reconstruct with such care and love for God and our identities? We were a community of people engaged in the holy practices of wrestling with God in academics, psychology, theology, creativity, play – and all in an ardent attempt to live more into what being a bearer of God’s image can be. Never before was I able to ask such frightening questions of my life with such freedom; and never before, did I feel like God and the people around me was receiving my questions with such interest, sorrow and delight.
I imagine that in a very dark time of my life, God was holding me safely, cradling and nourishing me at MHGS. I also imagine that taste of security – the experience of care I received as God dressed my wounds – was what the listeners and disciples of Christ experienced as they ate the loaves and bread of Christ and were miraculously healed.
So, when I read about Christ sending his disciples out onto the water after such a wonderful healing experience, only to find themselves stranded on dark stormy waters for hours upon hours without their miraculous master, I can’t help but to imagine they were bewildered and that the sense of security they felt on the shore had slowly ebbed away from them as far as they were away from the shore. In many ways, I’ve already begun to feel my sense of security ebbing away. As I begin this process of leaving my beloved MHGS community, this place of being miraculously healed and fed, I feel like I’m being sent out into the dark stormy waters. Jesus is sending me there and I am afraid.
But I’m keeping my eyes open for the mysterious figure walking toward me on the waves. And when I see him, I will ask “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”
Who Do You Say I Am? A response to Peter’s Confession of Christ and Jesus’ Predicting His Death in Matthew 16:13-28.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
You are the Christ, but does that knowledge come from my head or heart?
Has it been disseminated through a surplus of fliers, camp retreats, youth groups, books, classes, political campaigns, Google searches on theology, etc?
Has the volitional willing of my being been strained through the religious status quo
To the point where I cannot even recognize genuineness when it manifests itself in honest, impulsive, heartfelt conviction?
You said upon the true confession of Peter that heavenly things will be bound and loosed because the Father had shown him things he otherwise wouldn’t have seen.
That outside of relationality with you it is impossible.
How might my vision be blocked?
How might my faith be something other than a byproduct of our intimate contact?
Has it possibly been blocked through a surplus of fliers, camp retreats, youth groups, books, classes, political campaigns, Google searches on theology, etc?
Jesus, save me from my knowledge and bring me to affection!
And this same man who confessed his affections for you,
You called him Satan!
When will my affections for you maintain the status of corruption and selfishness?
A preservation of self unlinked to your desire to be one with many?
When will I be separated from the will to lose myself to the relationality that made Peter the impulsive rock?
The one, that you knew when you asked, “Who do you say I am?” would respond with a confession that did not betray his experience of you.
His confession was his love.
I think that was why you told the disciples not to tell anyone that you were the Christ.
You wanted them to earn that confession through experience.
And to withhold that experience?
That is Satan.
So I must pick up the cross and follow you;
In the ever connected way.
Attached to affection that is ever learning,
Ever stumbling,
Ever beckoned,
Ever experiencing,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…
It’s about 3:40pm and I just woke up from my “night’s sleep.” I feel really wound up. All sorts of thoughts and feelings flooded me as my eyelids struggled to open, and stayed with me as I attempted to make today’s lectio divina the start of my day. My focus felt like a swarm of wasps buzzing around and around; as if their nest was tucked away in the corner of my brain and heart. And of course if I were to impatiently attempt removing the nest away without being extremely careful, I would be covered by swarm of yellow jacket stings. I wondered about how the nest got there in the first place.
Today’s swarm of thoughts and feelings was probably brought to me by the overnight shift I just worked at the psych hospital. It was my first overnight in a very long time, probably about half a year since my last one. I stayed up all night preparing paperwork and pouring over patient’s charts; walking into every room to check on each patient, making sure they were safe; watching manic patients act out their psychosis throughout the night (I kind of wish I had their energy, but not really); and accompanying the nurses in their attempts to keep busy and avoid the sandman’s tempting calls to close our eyes if even for just a moment. And in between all of those tasks, working the night shift gives you a lot of time to ponder...what I want to do after graduation, why my relationships turn out the way they do, where the best clams might be for the next time I attempt to make clam linguini, what my ambivalence in starting a private-practice might be about, etc. Also, I think it’s really interesting how fielding the questions of delusional patients can sometimes free up my mind to wonder about the most imaginative or reflective things. Statements like, “I’m concerned about my safety.” from a psychotically paranoid patient have on occasion led me to wonder about where in my own life I might be somewhat delusionally preoccupied with protection. Yep, eight and a half hours of time for contemplation in an environment poignantly dedicated to people’s disorganization probably carried over into my “morning.”
It makes sense then, when I read John 1:35-42, about a couple of Jesus’ first disciples, that I wondered what kind of delusions Jesus was welcoming them to bring to him. They were meeting the Christ for the first time and probably had all sorts of assumptions about him; and with that, I’m sure they had their very own ambitions, fears, questions, and the like that come from their own life stories; some true and reality based and others ridiculously ridiculous. They brought into their discipleship with Jesus, their organized and disorganized sense of self. Yet Jesus welcomed these curious followers, inviting them to process their lives with him. So, as I slowly read aloud Jesus’ words, “What do you want?” and “Come…and you will see…”, I felt like God was welcoming me – all of me, which includes my disorganized, my delusional, and my yellow jacket swarm of a heart and mind to “discipleship.”
As I read the passage at Seward Park, I felt the cold wind over my skin. At first, I wanted to retreat back into my car; but knew I needed to be out in the sun, with the fresh air in my lungs, ducks waddling around me, and a mysterious something else was beckoning me to stay out on the cold park bench. I closed my eyes and told myself to slow down; to calm down. And I did slow down a bit, but there was something else inside me tugging. There was an uneasiness that would not let me go, to slowly and peacefully experience my lectio divina. So I decided to bring it along. I took in a few deep breaths and decided to bring that uneasiness with me to Psalm 139.
When I began reading the passage, I felt a wave of sadness sweep over me. The uneasiness inside, wanted to come out in tears. As I slowly read the passage aloud, hearing the sounds of the words in the environment floating around me, with the sound of the water lapping on the shore, ducks quacking, and the vibrations of the breeze against my ear, I felt like each word was trying to enter my heart through my ears. It was as if the Spirit was mixing the sounds of scripture and environment to make music for my soul.
As I listened to my own voice read the scriptures aloud, I felt a bit weird. I think it’s probably because I’ve always had a hard time listening to and accepting my own voice. To soak in and delight in the message that the Spirit may be bringing to me – through my very own voice – felt so unnerving. Does God really desire for me to hear my own voice and be convinced it has something good to speak when I’ve been so unsure of myself, when I’ve fooled myself so many times? Sure, I can talk about other things to other people. But to talk about things of myself to myself…I guess that takes some faith that Christ really dwells within as much as around.
So, it was in this mixture of my surroundings, my presence, and my uneasiness that the Spirit brought the words in Psalm 139:10, “even there your hand will guide me…” to the surface of my attention. I was reminded of the way God has moved with me in life, guiding me, as my character and identity has been, and is continuing to be, shaped. Reminded that all the times I’ve been broken and healed have been a part of what redemption is. The process of embracing my voice, my flaws, my strength, my creativity…those are all parts of God’s sanctification. I was reminded that the trajectory I move along is filled with heartache, abandonment, harm, and rupture; but at the same time is filled with happiness, relationship, healing, and repair.
I think that was why my uneasiness didn’t want to let me go. It needed to hear those words of the Spirit, to know that it existed because it was a part of God’s story in my life. Actually, I think it needed to know that I knew it existed because it was a part of God's story in my life. Then it said to me, “See! I told you I was there! I was there when you felt abandoned and worthless, but you wouldn’t acknowledge my presence. Well, here I am. Now you can take a good look at me. I am uneasiness. You are uneasy. And now that you’ve seen me, I want to tell you something. I come to tell you about things that aren’t so easy to accept. I bring grief. I’ve also been sent here to tell you that things shouldn’t always be so dismal. I’ve been told to tell you that love also awaits you. I’m your friend. I know sometimes it’s hard for you to get there, so let’s go there together. When we get there, I’ll let you spend time with love. I might even hang around a bit. When it’s the right time, I’ll come back and well talk about more things. We’ll walk on as friends. Oh, and don’t worry too much, God knows you and me very well. We have a good guide for the journey. Those hands will guide you and me to the places we need to be in the right time.” Then, my uneasiness came out in a few tears and smile.
