Last spring I wrote this dream down in one of my journals but since moving out here I think I lost that journal. Damn. I’ve been meaning to type it out so I guess sooner would be better than later. It’s funny because I had just wrapped up a series of reflections based on my work at the drop-in for street kids and the shelter for men in Toronto. I was in the middle of wrapping up my TA job developing a course called “Youth and Homelessness”. That Toronto chapter of my life was in the midst of ending when I had this dream.
I was riding the train to go and visit my brother who was in the hospital recovering from surgery. I took the Subway to Union Station and then hopped on the GO Train to Oakville. Somehow I ended up sitting next to a couple of younger girls who turned out to be street-involved. I chatted with them, especially one girl, who’s name, I found out, was Krista. She was 19 and had been street-involved since she was 12. It’s sort of embarrassing and I wouldn’t mention this if I didn’t think it was significant but, in the dream, there was a flirtatious element to our conversation.
Anyway, I got to my destination, spent the day visiting my brother and his wife and ended up back at Union Station waiting for the Subway home. Looking around the crowd on the platform I noticed Krista in the act of propositioning a young man. It turns out that the young man was a tourist and was traveling with his mother! The mother absolutely freaked out and started yelling at Krista, calling her a slut, a whore, basically every demeaning name she could think of came flying out of her mouth. Well, Krista is embarrassed and upset and starts yelling back at the mom, things like, “You don’t know me, you don’t know what I’ve been through! You can’t judge me!” The mom just keeps screaming though and I end up getting furious, because, fuck, she doesn’t know what Krista’s been through. I know enough to know that I can’t imagine what it would be like. I walk over and end up intervening, pulling Krista aside and riding the train back to Finch Station with her. On the way we end up talking about all sorts of things, God and suffering, life and love and our various experiences. When we arrive in the Station the whole place is empty, closed for the night, but it turns out Krista had swung a deal to make a little extra money cleaning the floors. I volunteer to help her and end up working down at the track level while she goes to work on the level of the buses. Time goes by, I finish my job and decide to go home. I head up the stairs and run into three construction workers heading down to the tracks. They look completely shocked, freeze-up and stare at me with open mouths. At first I thought they were just surprised to find me there but they just keep staring and I start wondering, “okay, what the hell is going on here?” Finally, one of them approaches me sort of timidly and half whispers, half stutters, “ummmm… y-y-your glowing.” For a minute I get a glimpse of myself from outside of myself and I realize there is a white light shining off of my face and letters of fire written above my head.
At that point I start waking up. I enter into that state where you’re partly awake but still in the middle of your dream. I start to wonder if there is something significant going on. My first reaction is to think that the light represents my Christian identity – called to be a light to the world. So I decide I’ve got to find Krista and share this light with her. But after searching through the station I’m unable to find her and decide that there’s a different interpretation.
That’s when I think of two things simultaneously. The first is Moses coming down from the mountain after meeting with God. After being in the presence of the Divine there is a light that shines from Moses’ face. The second is realizing that “Krista” doesn’t have to be spelled with a “K”. If spelled “Christa” it is actually a feminine form of the word “Christ”. Then everything falls into place. It is in our encounters with the oppressed that we meet with Christ, it is in the suffering that we discover the presence of the Divine, and it is by journeying in relationship with these people that we then become lights to the world. That also explains the whole flirtatious element that seemed so out of character – at the same time as this dream I was just beginning to pursue the idea of knowing God as Lover.
The funny thing is what tipped me off to this interpretation. There is an abandoned house in the neighborhood where I was living and I sometimes went there to journal or just think. It was good to get some time away from everything, I enjoyed the solitude that comes in the midst of the noises made by a house in the state of slow decay. The night before I had gone to that house and found a book on the kitchen counter (that actually wasn’t there the last time I visited). It’s funny because it was a book that I already owned – a series of reflections by the priest who started Covenant House called, “Sometimes God has a Kid’s Face”.
Crosses imposed by the Church
Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver, standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner at the Catholic church.
The servers wore crosses to shield from the sufferance plaguing the others.
Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables,
Charity reeks of cheap wine and pity.
– Death Cab for Cutie
It's a true critique.
Somewhere along the way the cross has become a symbol of what separates Christians from others. It's become a symbol of who's in and who's out. Everywhere I go I can have a little comfort in the cross I wear, “Thank God I'm not like one of these damned souls.”
The thing is the cross should have incredibly different results. The cross is not a badge we wear to remind of us our privilege; the cross is something that will end up wearing us if we are truly following Jesus. It should serve to only further unite us with those around us. Ultimately, it's about empathy, about a love so deep, an identification with others that is so strong, that it is willing to suffer forsakenness and death.
Somewhere along the way Christians have confused pity for compassion. And us/them mentality is one of the strongest things contributing to this problem. Pity is a barrier to relationship, pity is deprecating. Compassion is essentially relational and reveals itself as such.
The thing that I'm coming to realize is that this will always be so. The church will always consist of a mixed group, those who call themselves the people of God, and those who truly are.
You see, I always thought the cross that I carried was the result of empathizing with the suffering, of journeying in love relationships with the forsaken.
At best that's only half the picture.
An equally heavy, or even heavier, part of that burden is imposed by journeying with a people who claim to belong to God yet have totally rejected everything to do with God. The significance of the role of the Jewish leaders in Jesus' death is not found in their ethnicity but in the fact that they are the representatives of God's people. Ultimately, the cross is imposed because the people of God reject the Messiah. I carry this cross not simply because I journey in love relationships with the broken but because the church has placed it upon my shoulders. The only reason why Jesus' ministry did not result in a year of Jubilee and in a universal release of captives, cancellation of debts, restoration of right relationships, etc., is because the people of God rejected him. The only reason why Jesus' ministry was marked by suffering and humiliation, instead of power and glory, was because the people of God forced him to go that route. The amazing thing is that the way of suffering is, in fact, the way of glory, the way of power is found in humiliation, resurrection life is the end result of crucifixion – that's what Paul's getting at in his hymn in Philippians 2.
And, the thing is, I don't think it can be any other way. It's the same route we will travel if we are desiring to be like Christ. Our lives should be marked by victory in all things. We should be releasing all captives, giving sight to the blind, providing a feast for the hungry and joy to those in mourning. Yet, we can only do this paradoxically by entering into the forsakenness of the abandoned, the hunger of the starving and the sorrow of the mourners because the people of God, as a body, have turned their back on their vocation. Our road to glory must also be one that leads to crucifixion.
Laughing
The splash of bells on glass – I look up in time to see the steam rising from your shoulders as you step in from the driving rain.
I comment on how free you look when your make-up is running in lines down your face and laughter is curling at the corners of your mouth.
~
Why, in crowds, are we always trying to hide the life that is bursting forth from inside of us?
Sometimes I find myself singing aloud when riding a bus full of strangers. Sometimes I laugh when I see the frozen expressions on the faces of those I walk by… of course, that only causes them to freeze up all the more. No, I’m not laughing at you, I think you’re beautiful, honestly, I do. Come alive, come alive!
Why should our hearts not dance?
In laughter or in grief.
Why should our hearts not be revealed?
Why are we so eager to maintain some semblance of apathetic anonymity? I guess when we’re anonymous we can delude ourselves into believing that others have bought into the image we present, we can fool ourselves into thinking we have convinced others that we are everything we pretend to be but know we are not.
How much of our lives do we waste crafting a world of illusion around ourselves?
~
This tobacco tastes like cherries and I realize I haven’t heard a word you said. You start again but, just as quickly, I am lost. Not that it matters, it is enough for both of us that we are here together.
On Anger
I was talking with one of my brothers last night and he said to me,
“You know, it seems to me that in your writing a lot of anger comes through. It seems that in your writing I see a lot more of your 'righteous rage' than of your love and grieving… But when I talk with you, when I see you, I never see any anger, only the other side, the love and the broken-heartedness.”
Now there was nothing negative in what he said, he was raising it more as a question or a neutral observation, and even said that maybe it was just in response to the recent entry on Psalm 137. But it's gotten me to thinking…
I think that love and grief and anger are often deeply intertwined.
The thing is this is a journal. Journals tend to reveal internal struggles that never surface. When faced with injustices, especially when one sees one's loved ones abused or worse, rage is a feeling that naturally flows out of love. However, rage is not the feeling that conquers because, ultimately, love means being able to love both the oppressor and the oppressed, even it if that means standing in opposition to the oppressor. You do so not because you hate them but because you recognize that they too have been dehumanized by the acts of violence they have performed. Love desires to break cycles of violence, of sin, and of death, not further exacerbate them. Therefore, although there are times when I write angry words, I believe a grieving love wins out every time because I have never resorted to violent praxis. Nor have I lost hope. It is this oft neglected hope that enables us to continue in love.
Anger is often the first gut-reaction that love produces, hatred and violence do not have to be a part of it. They only become so when we give in to the negative side of anger. As Paul says, “be angry but do not sin”. I find my rage always gives way to tears. If that is not more fully expressed in my journals it is because it is hard to write of grief without sounding melodramatic. I like to think it does, however, fully express itself in my living.
Home
I have two friends who, last week on their wedding day, said to me,
“You will always have a home with us.”
Pause.
“We mean that.”
That's all.
There was no need to say more.
I think that it's only those who have been homeless that are able to understand what lies behind such a statement. I never knew what home was until I was without one. Like they say, you never know what you've got until it's gone. Home, one's place of belonging, is not found in physical places but in love relationships.
My friends knew what they were saying. It is rare to find friends who understand love in such ways. I think that I have never been offered a greater gift of love. Indeed, this is the gift of love God has offered to us. To find such love in another friendship is truly marvelous.
Revelation 17
“Apart from the fact that they prostitute their daughters, the Lydian way of life is not unlike our own.”
– Herodotus
Dearest Lydia,
Once again I find myself writing to you.
We have become intrinsically connected. Perhaps there was once an 'us' and 'them', a 'you' and an 'I', but in this mad storm of passion all things have blurred together. I have gone into you, and you into me and we have become one flesh.
And what is this talk of prostituting daughters, Lydia? Slanderous, slanderous! Those who tell me I am blinded by my love… fools! It is my love that allows me to truly see. Let me cast out the one who speaks such words. Let me speak of your beauty, let me speak of the longing the fills me when I am apart from you. I pray that I will never be parted from you again.
“let's grow old
and die together
let's do it now”
– Ani Di Franco
By the Rivers of Babylon
By the rivers of Babylon,
Where we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
“Sing is one of the songs of Zion.”
How can we sing the LORD’s song
In a foreign land?
-Psalm 137.1-4
I’m taking a course in Washington that focuses on journeying with people who are oppressed and feel abandoned by society, the church and God.
As part of our program we visited a camp for migrant farm workers where we saw the living conditions and heard the stories of some of the leaders in the community. All the workers were Mexican, and all were illegal immigrants. One man told of his family being kidnapped and held ransom by the smugglers. Another man talked of the farms in California that charge more for rent than they are able to make during a month’s work. A third man told us how his nephew had just been killed in a car accident. He asked for money so that they could fly the body back to Mexico. It’s actually cheaper for them to send their dead back across the border than it is to have a burial in the USA.
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.
-Psalm 137.5-6
I understand what the Prof was trying to do – make the stories real, give suffering a human face, perhaps awaken dormant consciences. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were going about everything the wrong way. It felt more like a peep show than anything else. A quick glance, a hurried intimacy, and then they’re off to the fields and we’re driving back to the classroom.
I’m always left wondering: how do you walk the line between promoting awareness and contributing to the problem? There must be a way in which such things can be spoken of, can be communicated, that does not contribute to the problem. Such things cannot be unspeakable for that only furthers the isolation and alienation experienced by those who have suffered.
I think that being entertained by the suffering of others is a epidemic problem in our culture. Although the emotions such sights arouse in us are not always termed pleasurable it seems that we take pleasure in having such emotions aroused. It is doubly epidemic in our churches where we not only treasure those feelings but then treasure the feelings of sympathy that follow close behind. “Look, I’m crying… I’m such a loving person, such a good Christian.” We think we are loving or compassionate because of our feelings, never realizing that we are apathetic or hateful if such feelings do not result in action.
I can empathize with the grief that causes the Psalmist to conclude:
O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.
– Psalm 137.7-9
Sometimes it is hard not to resort to violence.
On Calling(s)
When I was young, around thirteen years old, I remember I started doing a lot of thinking about vocation and what to do with my life.
In the midst of all that I had a dream.
In the dream I was walking beside a river and Jesus was walking on the other side. I remember asking him, “What should I do with my life?” and he stopped and rested his hand on the tree beside him (funny how I remember his smallest movements yet can’t recall anything about the way he looked). A picture formed before me of a gathering of all sorts of wild animals all clustered together: giraffes, hippos, rhinos, lions, zebras. Then I woke up.
At the time I thought that was a “call” to go into missions in Africa. So I ended up attending a Bible college, and now, as I continue my education, I am doing a Master’s in Christian Studies.
The thing is my sense of vocation has shifted.
As I have journeyed with people who are suffering, as I have journeyed with the abandoned and oppressed, my passion for journeying with those who are suffering, for not only working front-line but for addressing systemic issues has increased. So then I started thinking maybe I was called to work with the poor in Africa. But the more I have become aware of the root of problems the more I have become convinced that the source of suffering in the third world is found in the first world. In fact, I have become increasingly convinced that things will start to radically change when comfortable middle-class Christians in North America begin to understand what it really means to follow Jesus. And so, without abandoning a journey of intimate love with those who are suffering, I am increasingly searching for a way in which to transform middle-class Christians.
But every now and again I would wonder about this dream and the call I thought I had. I wondered if I was drifting away from a road God had called me to travel. In the midst of this I read a book by a Christian philosopher attacking the idea of using the Bible as a defense for foundationalism. He argues that it may be possible that God sometimes tells us things that are less than true in order to point us in the right direction – much like parents over-simplify things to their children, in order to guard and guide them. I started wondering if my original interpretation of the dream was simply intended to get me to pursue the education I chose. Perhaps it had another meaning altogether.
And that’s when I remembered Peter’s dream in “Acts”. Peter, too, had a dream full of animals. The purpose of it was to reveal to Peter that the Gospel was not only for the Jews but also for all the people of the earth. A voice says to him, “What God has considered clean, let no man consider unclean.” I think that a parallel is there. Perhaps my dream wasn’t so much a call to missions as it was a call to journey with those that society and the church have considered unclean and cast out. It is a call to go to the rejected with the good news that, behold, God can make all things new.
Trees Walking
I often feel like Jesus' disciples before Pentecost.
It's as if I'm starting to get it but there are a lot of things I'm missing. Like Peter confessing Christ one moment and then completely misunderstanding what that means the next moment. That's why the story of the blind man who was touched twice proceeds Peter's confession. Peter understands Jesus' title but misunderstands the implications. He thinks Messiahship is all about victory, conquering and glory when Jesus is trying to tell him its about victory through suffering, conquering through sacrifice, and glory in humility. The blind man represents the disciples. They have started to see, but at the time, only see people that look like trees walking. It is only after Pentecost that they fully see and understand.
I think I am that blind man. My vision has been partially restored. Whereas before I was blind I now can see. But something is still off, people look like trees, I'm still waiting for the picture to be made clear.
I'm still waiting for Pentecost.
How can I still be waiting for Pentecost?
How can I be a member of the people of God and yet feel that I do not possess the Spirit of the new age?
Darkness and Light
You see, it breaks down like this:
The church looks out on the world and sees a mass of people who are blind. The blind leading the blind to their own destruction. And so, remembering her call to be a light in the darkness, she wades in proclaiming, “I have found the light, I am the light! Follow me!” Some of the blind hear and disbelieve because all they've ever known is darkness and they have no frame of reference for light. But others hear and want there to be something more. And so they follow. But they're blind. It's hard to follow a light you can't see. Relationships breaks down. The blind wander off, the church gets frustrated and jumps from one to the next. “No, just trust me,” she cries in desperation, “I really am the light.”
Before long everything is a mess.
This is the problem, the church is claiming to be a source of light and asking people to follow her… but she's not bringing people out of darkness. She says she's the light, but everybody is still just as blind as they were before they heard her summons.
Instead of trying to lead the blind the church needs to give sight to the blind. Understand the difference? It's monumental.
The problem only gets deeper when we realize that if the church has not broken through the darkness of the world around it, maybe she's not actually a source of light. After all, when light comes into contact with darkness it can't help but illuminate it. That's just the way light works. You can't bring light into darkness and have the darkness remain. Maybe the church is blind as well and only thinks that her darkness is light. Having never seen the real light she mistakes her version of darkness for something it is not. And the blind lead the blind to their own destruction.
Jesus said he was the light of the world and restored sight to the blind. Somewhere along the way the church has lost this. And I, I'm looking for it like a blind man groping for the colour. Only not entirely. More like a person in a deep, deep hole, who every now and again has seen a shaft of sunlight break in. I've seen something. I know the light is there, and as I scale the walls of this pit I see more and more all the time. The grey of the mud and rock giving way to browns and greens and blues and whites. What I don't know is how to help others to see, how to become the light and not just observe it.