New Plan

So, as I learned on internship, to blog is to do.  Writing it down helps hold me accountable - in part because it means I have friends reading this who hold me accountable.

And I've decided that the next thing I want to do is take up running.  I've avoided it for so long because, really?  Who wants to do that?  But I want to build more activity in my life, and I want to live abundantly, and so I'm doing things that scare me, that challenge me, that I have believed for too long I can't do.

After my amputation in the 6th grade, my parents told me that it didn't matter, I could do anything I wanted.  And mostly I did.  I still played outside and ran around with my friends and played softball and biked (that one was hard) and hiked Civil War battlefields.  My freshman year of high school I played first base for the freshman team, but really should have been playing JV.

Then we moved.

At my new school, softball tryouts were rough.  We had an awesome team, like Olympic-trial-quality, practically.  My inability (or, more accurately, never having learned how) to "slide" meant I was never in a million years going to make the team.  Then I thought I'd play rec league - and ended up with a coach who hated being stuck with the lame kid and made me play catcher - which I a) hated, and b) really struggled with because of lack of ankle mobility.  But he was convinced that having me behind the plate was where I could do the least damage, and so there I stayed.  I stuck out the season, but quit playing after that.

Since then, I've slowly and surely downgraded my physical activity.  Sure, I did a 5K on internship, and that was awesome.  And this spring I spent lots of time playing catch with friends or against the Bockman wall.  But on the whole, I'm not much of an exerciser.  I've let my disability judge-y coaches determine what I could do.

But no longer.  I'm going to run.  I want to run.  I'm falling back into my isolated-self, Netflix-and-ice-cream bad habits from internship, and I definitely don't want to go there again.  That was a scary, depressing time, and I'd rather not have it back, especially for an indeterminate amount of time.  So I'm starting slow.  I'm doing Cool Running's Couch to 5K, and slowly building up my fitness level.  I don't so much care about time or distance.  This is about me, and doing something that for too long I've believed I couldn't do.

The other attitude adjustment that is helping me, and taking the pressure off so that I can have fun with movement and activity, is adopting a practice called Health At Every Size.  I'm going to have a lot more to say about this, but right now there's this: My whole life, I've been told that I'm fat and that I need to be dedicating all my efforts to weight loss.  I believed that lie for so long, but then I stumbled upon the fantastic Ragen Chastain.  She was the first person in my life to ever challenge that meme.  The first person to point out that if my cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood glucose all indicate health, then it really shouldn't matter what I weigh.  The first one to say, "right now, your eyes are reading this webpage, your fingers are scrolling the mouse, your heart is beating, your lungs are breathing, etc..., so why do you hate your body so much?"  This summer, I spent two whole days reading her entire blog straight through, and it was like a light switch for me.  It truly has taken all the pressure off to live up to anyone's expectations but my own, and God's.  And God says, "I want to you live abundantly".

Which is a great segue into my final point on taking up running - what's been holding me back from movement has been other people telling me that I can't do it, and the belief that if it doesn't impact the scale, then it was worthless.  But as I wrote last spring about my Holy Spirit class, God has been doing some awesome work to free me from the lies, to remind me that no one can harm me, that God, and not anybody else, says who I am and what I'm worth.  This running thing is part of that, I think.  And it feels so, so good to be free.

So here we go - Couch-to-5K in 2 months.

God is good, indeed. 

"I believe in God...

...but I don't go to church.  I just, I absolutely believe in God, I just don't think you have to go to church to believe in God."

...said the grieving son as we met at the funeral home.  His mother had just passed away in a town several hours from mine, but the family was returning to bury her remains next to those of her late husband.  I had never met the family before that day.

The husband assured that they were Lutheran (apparently getting married in a Lutheran church building qualifies one to be Lutheran these days) and that he and his wife had gotten baptized "after the wedding".  Deceased mom apparently never felt the need to have her children baptized, despite telling them stories about how her mother had read her Bible stories at bedtime.

So, "we believe in God, we're just not really church-going people, you know?  I don't think you have to go to church to believe in God."

I nodded non-judgmentally and pressed the conversation further, "Tell me more about your mom," I said, as I suppressed my eye-rolling.

After a few more minutes with the family, I returned home to work on a memorial service/homily for this woman and her family who "believe in God, but don't need to go to church."  And the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I became.  "If you don't need the church," I thought, "then why do you need me, a representative of the church?  Why don't you just do your own funeral?"

And then I remembered a seminary professor who once told me that the purpose of the church is to teach us how to die.  At the time, I didn't really understand her point, but I think I'm beginning to get it.

Anybody can (I didn't say should, just can) baptize.  No stained-glass windows?  Well, a lot of modern churches these days are terribly ugly anyway - get married in a botanical garden if "beautiful setting" is that important to you.  But death?  That's different.  Even people - families - who don't want a funeral "in church", want a pastor to do the funeral home service or graveside committal.  And I suppose that's something in our spirits that cries out for hope, for promises, for someone to tell them, in the face of "the end", that this isn't really the end. I suppose it's something crying out to hear that, although they've forgotten God, God hasn't forgotten them.  And fortunately, we have a God that does that.

But.

It proves that "I believe in God, but I don't need the church" is a complete lie.  Even if the person saying it isn't aware that it's a lie.  Because as a representative of the church, I can offer up prayers about God's merciful arms.  I can strip any semblance of theological sophistication from a homily.  I can pray the Lord's Prayer on my own, and coach the proper response to intercessory prayers.  I can read very basic, very simple, very common Scripture passages - but in the end, I don't know if this family has any idea at all what I'm talking about.

Because the prayers, the liturgy, the language, the Scriptures, the rites, the rituals all "belong", in a sense, to the Church.  Even if the ancient wording is "translated" out of "King James English" and into something more vernacular, it still presumes a familiarity with the faith, with the promises of Christ, with the images of Scripture.

And so, leaving the Holy Spirit out of it for just a moment (we'll get right back to that), it's hard to know what to say.  Because the Church created the rituals - selected the Scriptures, wrote the prayers - for individuals who belong to the Church, who hold to the hope of eternal life promised by Jesus Christ. And it isn't so much that God isn't - or can't be - merciful to those outside the faith.  And none of us knows for sure the state of anyone's heart at the moment of death.  But to do a service, and preach the essentials of the faith - for a group of people thoroughly uninterested in it every other day of their lives - is a nigh-unto-impossible task.

(And yes, who knows but that the pastor in this situation might be there for such a time as this - perhaps the Holy Spirit will indeed use this time of loss and despair to bring a grieving family to himself.  And we should always hold out such hope, trusting that God works as he sees fit, and in his mysterious timing.  We have a big, big God.  But that's not really my point.)

My point is that, for anyone who says, "I believe in God, but I don't need to go to church," the answer is, "Well, actually, yes, yes you do."  Because the Church teaches us how to die.  She teaches us how to die ourselves, and she teaches us how to handle the death of a loved one.  We have prayers and Scriptures and rituals and rites for just this occasion.  But if you don't ever participate in the life of the Church, they will be meaningless (although not powerless) in the face of The Last Enemy.

"Christ loved the Church, giving himself up for her."

But if you and your loved ones have consciously declared that you don't need the Church, then how is the Church to explain her Lover and his promises in your hour of need?

**And yet we proclaim them all the more - we know not what seed will be planted, and while we give no illusion for false hope, we continually announce the good news of Jesus Christ for all who have ears to hear.

But you need the Church.

"Vocational Discernment"

So, if you know me at all, you know that I've done a lot of work on so-called "vocational discernment" in the last couple of years.  Very few of you know the extent of it - the nights of tears shed and fears faced, days of believing the white devil and trusting my own reason over God's grace, listening to the lies in my head and rejecting the truth that anyone else told me.  Praying and worshiping and reading and writing and very seriously trying to wrap my head around "what God wants me to do" vs. (?) "what I want to do" vs. (?) "what the world wants me to do".  I worked so hard at "giving it all to God" and discerning Truth and almost literally "taking up my cross and following him".  And I think I would say that it's been good for me, on the whole, even if it hasn't always been particularly healthy. 

Nevertheless...

By the time I came back from internship - and even probably half-way through first semester - my prayers were just begging God for clarity.  I was really messed-up inside and not even really seeing through the glass dimly, more like staring at a ceramic coffee mug.  On the other hand, I was almost afraid to pray for that clarity, because of what I thought He was going to say.  (See?  I told you I was screwed up...still am, a little bit...)

And so I came back for my senior year prepared to apply for PhD programs - I honestly thought that's what God wanted me to do.  Ok, that's a lie.  If I had had the ability to be honest with myself at the time, I probably would have noticed that the PhD thing felt forced.  I mean, sure, I'd love to teach at the undergrad level - it was so important to my own faith formation, and I'd like to do that for other kids.  And maybe that's in my future at some point.  But in my most honest moments, I can recognize that it was this: I'm the smart one, that's what I have going for me, and I'm a good person who always works as hard as possible - I must get this doctoral degree to prove that I'm not a slacker and living up to who I'm supposed to be.  Yeah.  Screwed. Up.  

Lois Malcolm's Holy Spirit class was fantastic for this - the Holy Spirit - through her teaching - has done such a good job of freeing me from this identity that has been imposed on me - it's the narrative that has always been told to me about me, and I haven't known how to step out of it, or away from it, or...just not make it my primary identity.  So I'm working on that.  And it's getting better.  Slowly.

And then I preached in chapel a couple weeks ago.  As I mentioned, it felt so, so good.  It was fun and joyful, I felt alive.  I felt like, "there is something to be said here, and apparently I'm the one who's going to say it, so, here we go".  I had a lot of good feedback from students and faculty afterwards, and it felt really good - although it's so not about me, it was totally a God thing.  I know that a couple people watched it online, and that was nice - to feel like people were interested enough to watch. 

But on Monday I got a package from a friend who had clearly watched the online broadcast - but who didn't tell me she had done so.  She wrote me a lovely card, and then she made me art that draws out the main themes of my sermon, cites a myriad of excellent Scripture passages, and has my name and date on the back.  I opened it in the presence of several friends, and in the midst of a lot of stress, so I didn't have time to really absorb it.  But when I went back to it that night, it brought me to tears.  I really put my heart into that sermon, and I hope that God was able to speak through it.  It felt so right, and so me.  And this beautiful art says, "That was authentically you, Katie.  This gift for you is for you.  The person who you are." 

Thank you for seeing that, Mary.  Thank you for seeing me. 

Things About Today

Today was a superly-productive day, and I'm closing it by just feeling generally really good about things.  So, here's a list of what happened today - actually, in the last couple days, I guess...

• Finished and turned in a kick-ass paper on the Holy Spirit.  Well, at least the intro and conclusion were kick-ass.  The middle part might not be so much.  Also, the whole thing was 6400 words.  It's been a long time since I wrote something that long.
• Finished and turned in a final project for my Ministry with the Mentally Ill and Their Families class. 
• Showered. (Trust me: Today, that counts as an accomplishment.)
• Got several emails I'd been meaning to send, sent.
• Organized a whole stack of mail and bills.
• Bought a freaking adorable Creighton t-shirt.
• Bought textbooks for the class I'm picking up the 2nd half of this semester.
• Got something for myself off my Amazon Wishlist, since I was there anyway.  (The Guys and Dolls DVD.  Love, love, love that movie.  What girl wouldn't run off to Cuba with Marlon Brando?)
• Got rejected from St. Louis U.  Well, that's the Jesuits for you, I guess.  Actually, it's ok.  It really wasn't my first choice.  Probably 2nd from the bottom, actually.
• Got a letter from my Compassion daughter.  She's so adorable - I just love little kids!  
• Realized that my insurance was being more reasonable than I first thought about my surgery.  
• Drank a lot of tea. 
• Started my annual ritual application of Jergens Natural Glow (which they have now added SPF to!).
• Created a to-do list for the rest of the week.  
• Had a couple really good conversations with friends.  
• Skipped German class.  (I really had to get those papers done!)
• Cleaned my room
• Made hard-boiled eggs for breakfast
• Remembered how much I like "reading for fun".  

So...that.  Yes.  Yay.

HO-ly Hannah!

Wow....

Well thanks to all the friends who have sent me love and hugs in emails, phone calls, text messages, and in person the last few days.  Apparently my last post made me sound like I'm about to jump off a cliff.  I'm really not.

Looking back over the last few things I've written about my own personal life, I realize that they all seem really dark and depressing.  And yes, I've been on a giant emotional roller coaster for much of this year, and especially this semester.  But things are actually good, too.

It's so "CPE" to say that I've been doing a lot of "hard emotional work", but the truth is, I have.  This semester I'm taking a class on the Holy Spirit, which I think is going to qualify as the best class I have taken in seminary.  Over and above Genesis to Revelation, and Gospel and Epistles of John.  And they were awesome.

But one of the primary themes of this Holy Spirit class is just how freeing the Holy Spirit is.  For better or worse, I'm one of the good girls, and I can recite "live not by the letter but by the Spirit" and "for freedom Christ has set you free" and "you have been saved by grace through faith, and this is not your own doing" backwards and forwards blah blah blah.  But apparently I forgot that it applies to me.  I am realizing just how much I have let "the flesh" - the things of this world - determine who I am and what I want and what I need and what I "should" be doing, rather than living in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

So I think part of my darkness and depression probably stems from remorse over that, and processing how to fix it now that I know it's a problem.  It's sort of like doing a deep-clean on a closet, or something: it might actually get worse before it gets better, even though you're on the right track.  And honestly, even as I write this, and try to live into that freedom that I have in Christ to be who I am, I can almost feel the spiritual warfare going on inside my brain.  The collision of the old age and new age, duking it out for my concentration and allegiance.  But no more!

The ruler of this world can take a hike!

(But I might need my friends to remind of this from time to time...)  

Random, Middle 'o' the Night Thoughts

I came across this tonight, from Thomas Merton in Thoughts in Solitude:

"MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

It reminds me a lot of the Holden Prayer for Good Courage:

"Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out in good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen." 

In other news, God works in mysterious ways (as though I didn't already know that).  I was listening to a sermon from my home church tonight, and realizing that what Pastor Mike was talking about was something I really needed to focus on - reclaiming the joy in my faith.  There was a time in my life when my faith was almost entirely about joy, and there are times when it's more intellectual (and I find that the joy actually comes when I get to be really intellectually engaged, but that's a different story...), but more recently it's been that "God is really messing with me, and that's a good thing, but a really hard thing, and it's not always the most joyful time, even though I can recognize that it's going to be good at the end" kind of faith.