Book of Eli review

I just saw the Denzel movie Book of Eli. It's definitely as violent as promised. As a big fan of the whole post-apocalyptic genre I really looked forward to this movie, especially in light of what I've read about the spiritual content that is so obvious throughout the movie. It's not much of a spoiler to say that the "book" in question is the King James Bible that Eli is traveling west to deliver to some mysterious destination where it will be safe. In the movie, Eli is clearly the good guy. Though he's a good guy who can do some serious bad to those in his way. Like I said, if you're at all squeamish about bloody violence, this movie may not be your cup of tea. On a side note, I appreciated a few neat cultural references to the same post-apocalyptic genre. I won't say here what they are, but look closely to the scenery and you'll get a chuckle or two in the course of the movie.

Gary Oldman is, well, Gary Oldman. And he's about as good an actor to play the evil character as you could ask for. After all, he's so good at being bad. My personal favorite portrayal of his was in the Fifth Element.  In this movie however, he's not nearly so refined and well dressed in haute couture. But he is just as depraved. The interesting dynamic between these two characters is that they both see the bible as being incredibly powerful, but in diametrically opposed ways. Eli is driven by a voice telling him to go west so that the book can be protected, whereas Carnegie (a fantastically ironic name for the villain) sees the "good book" as a means to gain tyrannical power over the populace.

The complexity in the movie is that both the villain and the hero use violence to achieve their ends. Eli, however, does seem to know that his violence is contrary to what the book that he's carrying says. Yet, since this is the bible we're talking about, despots the world over have gladly used the useful passages to justify their own violence, conveniently ignoring the passages that would constrain any action on their part. But the bible does offer up the requisite material for both the pacifist and militarist. I guess it's all in how you read it. The movie is complicated. It seems appropriate, since it's dealing with a complicated book.

Christ and cross centered ethics

Unless our ethics are grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ, they will either fluctuate from one extreme to the other. On the one extreme our ethics will become so divorced from any concrete grounding that they will become completely relativized. Ethics in this scenario becomes entirely culturally conditioned and has no center. On the other hand, if our ethics has a center apart from the person and work of Christ, even if biblically based, then it becomes too concrete and cannot adapt to the vast variety of cultural contexts spanning human history. That kind of ethics ends up becoming a one size fits all model that forces the facts on the ground to be twisted and contorted in order to fit them into that rigid system.

In contrast to these two extremes, Christ and cross centered ethics offers up a grounding of ethics in the life lived by Christ as our model exemplar. Even the previous revelation given to the Israelites through the law of Moses is seen in a new light because of Christ's incarnation. He both fulfills the law, thus satisfying its demands, but also gives an even higher standard than what the law called for as taught by Moses and the rabbis.

But finally, Christ on the cross gives us a full grounding of our ethics in a way that no other system can ever give. The reason for this incomparability is because Christ on the cross isn't a system, it's a person, God the Creator, entering into history through the person, Jesus of Nazareth, in order to redeem an estranged creation. All of history, whether human or otherwise, is impacted by this radical intervention by our Creator God. No part of creation is exempt from this and thus everything has ethical implications, whether our personal ethics, our political ethics, our economic ethics, or our environmental ethics, which includes both our interactions with the animal and the plant world.

As creaturely beings, along with the rest of creation, we have been radically impacted by this intervention by God through Christ Jesus. God began the work of restoration with Christ's resurrection. It will find its consummation with his return when all things will be made new. That day is not yet here, but we have been given a model in Christ's life, death and resurrection. We partake of his kingdom work when we enter into the mystery of his sacrificial life and death, knowing that we live because he died and lived again. The women and men who surrounded him during his ministry, and whose eyes were opened to who he is, were radically transformed by this new reality. They went from hardened disbelief and arrogance to living lives of self sacrificial service to each other and to all around them. This transformation in their lives proved to be more powerful than anything Rome or Jerusalem could ever wield. That is the same transformation that we have available today if we would only see him for who he is and what he has truly affected.

Pray for Michael Spencer (Internet Monk)

Please keep Michael Spencer, also known as the Internet Monk, in your prayers. He's been diagnosed with cancer and is beginning chemo next week. For those of you who may not know Michael or his writing, he's been a prolific blogger who has been a tremendous blessing to the church, even when he's critiquing the church's failings. In fact, that's when he's been the biggest blessing. This is the biggest challenge Michael has faced and he needs fervent prayer, both for healing, but also for his emotional health. Also, please pray for provision for Michael and Denise, as this sickness has cost him his job at the school and his health insurance runs out next month. Please, if you can, give a gift of whatever size to help them out. Just link onto the chemo link above and you'll see how to contribute. His ministry has enriched my life, and many many others, greatly. Help if you can. He's a brother in need and Christ has called us to bear each others burdens. This is an opportunity to do just that.

What would be the theological impact if we found extraterrestrial life?

I just read a short piece on the BBC's website about how we're more likely than ever to find some sort of alien life forms off of planet earth. As Christians, what would be the impact on our theology? In particular, how would it impact our understanding of our uniqueness as creatures made in the image of God as distinct from the rest of the earthly creation? In popular fiction as well as in various 3rd kind encounters, not to mention abduction accounts, the aliens always look remarkably like us. I believe, by the way, that this is a typical anthropomorphism of our hopes and fears and most likely has no basis in actual reality, but ascribing humanesque qualities to otherworldly creatures. Since westerners largely don't believe in angels anymore, aliens have taken their place. Nonetheless, if there are planets orbiting other stars similar to our own sun that are themselves similar to our own planet earth, and the universe is as vast as we've come to understand, then it makes sense to expect that some form of sentient life forms must have developed on those planets as it has here. And since our planet and star seem to be relatively average in comparison to what we've discovered so far, it seems pretty obvious that it's just as likely that other worlds have evolved just as much as ours if not more so. So with this in mind, if (and I would say when) a new world is discovered that has biological life, what does that do to our understanding of the Biblical text? Are the Judeo-Christian scriptures able to handle this kind of development? I would say that it can. But then again, I'm a Christian. I would say that. Christianity, after all, survived the Copernican revolution. And it seems to be surviving the Darwinian revolution as well, though with some bumps in the journey. Will Christianity adapt to and survive the exo-biological revolution?

The Rise of the Evangelical Evolutionists

It used to be that the terms evangelical and evolutionist were oxymoronic. If you were one, then you obviously couldn't be the other. Evangelicals generally were seen as being the stalwarts of biblical authority, and in light of that authority most evangelicals held to some form of direct (or directed) creation by God of all that currently exists in the world. Some held to the young earth view, which sees the earth and the cosmos as being only thousands of years old, because that's considered by them to be the most plain sense reading of the early chapters of Genesis. Other evangelicals accepted that the earth and the cosmos are much older, as in billions of years older, but nonetheless still held to a form of creationism, which, though divided by their various views in the details, nevertheless all agree in rejecting Darwinian evolution as the explanatory framework to how speciation has come about. Some accept a limited form of evolution, such as micro-evolution, but reject macro-evolution. Some go so far as to accept a limited macro-evolution, but reject that humans are part of that equation, saying instead that humans were specially created by God distinct from all other creatures. And in more recent years, there has been the very popular movement called Intelligent Design or ID for short. They've argued that they accept an ancient earth and cosmos. They also accept limited evolutionary activity, but that certain physiological functions are so complex that Darwinian evolution cannot satisfactorily explain them. Thus these functions are deemed to be "irreducibly complex" as so only an "intelligent designer" can explain their existence.

On the other side of the aisle are the evolutionists.Traditionally they've been seen as holding to scientific materialism. And some certainly do. We need look no further than the New Atheists to see that at work. Though to be fair to many who do hold to scientific materialism, most are not as crass, provocative and dogmatic (dare I say fundamentalistic?) as Dawkins, Hitchens, or Harris. These are the loudest voices, and of course they're going to get the most press, if only because of their offering up the neat dichotomy of faith versus reason. Once again, it offers up the comforting bromide that if you're a person of faith, reason must necessarily be checked at the door, and if you're a person of reason, faith is seen as the foolish superstition that holds poor men and women in its insidious grip for far too long, keeping them in the dark (ages) about origins, sex, and anything else that helps us to actualize our expressive individuality.

But there are those who have advocated for the evolutionary viewpoint who consider themselves to be Christian, or at least theistic. Some have been relatively orthodox in their views, but in many cases, those arguing for the evolutionary viewpoint have come from the mainline denominations and have been considered to be liberal in their theological perspective. To be "liberal" in theological circles, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, is to so reconcile the scriptural narrative to modern science as to rob it of any supernatural content, such as miracles, the direct action of God on the natural world contrary to how natural laws normally work. Once again, in each of these cases, the false dichotomy has been offered up that faith and reason are diametrically opposed to each other. Theological liberals are guilty of giving up too much to the scientific materialists. Too often theological liberals have ceded clear language of miracles to naturalistic explanations when the writer clearly understood the event in supernaturalistic terms.

Part two coming up.

John Polkinghorne on the dangerousness of scientific and religious belief

There is one important difference, however, between scientific belief and religious belief. The latter is much more demanding and more dangerous. I believe passionately in quantum theory, but that belief doesn’t threaten to change my life in any significant way. I cannot believe in God, however, without knowing that I must be obedient to his will for me as it becomes known to me. God is not there just to satisfy my intellectual curiosity; he is there to be honoured and respected and loved as my Creator and Saviour. Beware! Let me utter a theological health warning or, rather, promise: “Reading the Bible can change your life” John Polkinghorne.

I haven't read any of his books yet, but if this is any indication of who he is then I can't wait. The above quote comes courtesy of An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. And since Christians across the world are celebrating the birth of our Savior, who is called the Word/Logos made flesh, we know because He is the font of all knowledge. Praise God and Merry Christmas!

It seems our President is an Augustinian Democrat

This morning's speech by President Obama struck me as being the most Augustinian speech by an American politician that I've seen in my lifetime. It did confirm what I had suspected all along: That he was more moderate than either his most liberal supporters or his most conservative detractors thought. His acknowledgment of our fallen human condition, though not expressed in explicitly Christian terms, nonetheless shows that he understands that the hyper idealism that drives many on the left is not what shapes his understanding. Again, he's not the pacifist that either his most left-ward supporters had hoped or the hard right had feared and, I believe, secretly wished for too. The hard right, just like the hard left, both have an overly idealized vision of the world in which they each have the secret "key" to understand everything. This causes them both to see everything in starkly black and white, Manichean terms and also causes them to see the political "other" as an eternal enemy to be stopped at every turn. Thus, when I read or watch the far right in their interaction with Obama, they want him to be as far left as possible. This theme, or meme, gives energy to their cause. Anything that contradicts this is either ignored or seen as being one more example of his dastardly plan. It's typical conspiratorial thinking that predominates in the extremes of the left and right.
Well, this is turning into a post more about Obama's critics than about him. Suffice it to say I was very impressed by his speech today. It illustrated a nuanced understanding of the human condition that has been largely absent in most political discourse. If this speech reflects even a part of who the President is, than I'm very glad he's the man God has placed in power at this dangerous and troubling time. A realist with idealistic aspirations is not a bad combination.

Final Notification

Getting a "Final Notification" from any one of the "Christian" websites I happen to belong to, tells me nothing, except that they seek to coerce me into accepting their terms.
Getting 'final notification' notices is now so common-place, that I ignore the term all-together. It's emotionally coercive. Some of the sites that use this terminology are considered "Christian." Sadly, that means nothing. Coercive commercial techniques aren't considered anti-Christian by these entities. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. But as a Christian, in my naivete, maybe I should be. I thought being Christian should illustrate something better.

Two Bodies

Wounded, bleeding, flailing
and even my best success
a failing.
Slipping, sliding
inching ever closer
as the shoreline
slips away.
Grasping at straws
as the one who grasps me
breathes into my gasping
breath.
My body broken
dies a little bit
more today.
My body broken
by hands unforced.
My body broken
by me.
And yet your body
breaks and bleeds
every day
for me.
Your body broken
calls out to me
to die
to me.
Your body broken
nourishes
my body
with new life
that my old body
can never see.
The old wounds of your
new body
call to my wounds.
Bloodied, broken, bruised
still seen
still touched
still real.
Renewed, restored, reborn
resurrected.

And once again, my savior looks like this.

Genocide and Forgiveness

Tonight I watched the finale of a film about the Holocaust, from the perspective of a survivor who decided to "forgive" the Nazis who experimented on her and her twin sister during the war. Questions were raised about whether she even had that right to forgive those beyond her own experience of persecution. The film gave us a very complicated woman, Eva, who decided for her own sake, to forgive those who had tortured her and her twin sister on behalf of the Nazis. She decided to forgive not only those who had done these crimes against her and her sister, but also decided to forgive the entire German people and the Nazis among them for what they did. Then, later in the film, she, Eva, visited Israel, and more importantly, the Palestinian territory, to try to work her "forgiveness" into their fabric. The experience, however, for her, was unnerving to say the least. She found herself being the person who represented "power" (as an Israeli) being confronted by those who knew no power of any sort. They confronted her with the many crimes that were committed by Israelis against Palestinians on a daily basis, including outright murder. She saw, if I may say so myself, and I don't know I have this right, the discomforting sight of being on the other side the victimization table. I think she was not able to see herself as belonging to a people who could ever do such a thing. She had "forgiven" those who had victimized her from a perspective of innocence. And certainly, as a child, she was indeed innocent. In that sense she could forgive those who had violated her and her sister from a vantage point of actual innocence. In other words, they had no power to resist the violence against them. In this she was correct. Yet, when she ventured to scenarios which reflected a picture which had Jews, Israelis, being in positions of actual power, she did not have the emotional or intellectual framework available to her to allow that her own people could be guilty in the way (though not by any means in the way Nazis had been numerically) other oppressors had been before. And yes, including the Nazis. That's the most disturbing part of this. Could a people, a people victimized so horribly, become a people capable of the same horror?
This is where forgiveness takes into account, and must take into account, that every human being has within himself and herself the ability to forgive and yet also has the ability to be the perpetrator of the greatest crimes known to humanity. This brings to mind that we must always be attentive to what stirs within us as much as what drives those we would be against.

Sun coming out from hiding

Twitter Evangelism

Tonight I discovered that Twitter is a powerful means to interact with people, whether far away geographically, or ideologically. I interacted with someone who "follows" me on Twitter about both politics and religion. It was fascinating. He's someone who is "conservative" politically, and who I thought was similarly conservative, i.e. orthodox, in his Christian convictions. Yet at the end, after finding out he believed in some pretty wild conspiracies regarding certain birth certificates, I also came to find that he questioned the basics of the reliability of the Christian text.

This exchange was enlightening to say the least.

It showed me that many among "Christian" conservatives are driven as much by a mindset that is governed by a conspiratorial way of seeing the world that not only questions our current President's origins, but also questions the foundational origins of the historic Christian faith. This, quite honestly, surprised me. It betrayed a radical skepticism that I hadn't assumed for the person I was interacting with about these issues. In my initial interactions, I saw the typical Christian conservative expressions. And in this I assumed that he had a basic trust in the reliability of the text governing Christian life. It was only as we engaged, back and forth, about political issues, that he mentioned the "birther" issue. That was my first clue. Then, within minutes, he asked about 'sources' and 'codices' regarding the basis of scripture. My first inclination is to think that he's been overly influenced by Dan Brown nonsense. But I don't want to prejudge. He may simply be examining the textual variants that do actually exist. But the fact that he brought it up so quickly after offering up the 'birther' argument does make me wonder if he's operating from a framework that is inherently conspiratorial and unrealistically dualistic. Other topics came up that, I think, point also to an either/or mindset, such as a strong focus on illegal immigration issues. In any case, it's been a good conversation so far. He's been receptive to what I've had to say so far. I hope it can be fruitful and help us both come to a better sense of what is true. In any case, it's been really interesting.

Auschwitz and memory

Every life lost
is a life extinguished
before its time

Systemized extermination
is inhumanity
depersonalized

We must
Must
remember

And yet
we must remember
well

So that
IT
never happens again

God
help us
all

Honest Doubts

Sharing doubts when doubts confront from within or without are ways of honestly acknowledging what's actually going on inside. Even though sharing a doubt or two or more is scary and sometimes scandalous, it ultimately takes much less energy than maintaining uncertain certainties built on sands shifting beneath our intellectual and emotional feet. When we refuse to acknowledge any uncertainty, but instead stand steadfast against any questioning inquiries, internal or external, we mount up with wings of Dodo's, flapping furiously against the forces of nature itself. Nature, like the God who created it, has rules that govern how things work. When something or someone goes against those rules, eventually they pay the price. Either they pay it quickly and relatively painlessly, or they keep trying to prove themselves right and everything and everyone else wrong, and the price keep rising. Eventually, the impulse to control reality on our terms causes the flightless Dodo to try to fly off a cliff to "prove" it can. While it is often said that nature abhors a vacuum, nature also abhors fools who refuse to learn they're fools. The one who acknowledges a doubt or two or three knows enough to hold back from the cliff's edge. Paying attention to the reality surrounding us and the reality inhering within us gives us an opportunity to consider that maybe, just maybe, I might be wrong. This is wisdom.

Columbus Day, Tish B'av and Native Americans

Today is Columbus Day. If you're a European American, it's customary to wish someone a happy Columbus Day. It's a holiday I celebrated gladly every year as a child back in New York City. I've lived in Italian neighborhoods just as much as I've lived in Irish neighborhoods (not to mention Latino and black neighborhoods). Both holidays (Columbus and St. Patrick's) are extremely popular on Staten Island, no matter your background. But regarding Columbus Day we always celebrated it as the day America was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus. We'd recite the names of his three ships, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria; Memorize the nice little poetic device of "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" and hear about how he, and all those after him, brought European civilization to North America. Columbus Day was always a fun holiday. After all, I had the day off from school! What more could you ask for?

In August, there's a little known Jewish holy day called Tish B'av. Even most Jews hardly know about it. It's a holy day you never say have a happy one about. It commemorates the day the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, first by the Babylonians and then centuries later by the Romans. According to tradition, these events both happened on the same day, the ninth of Av, which is what Tish B'av means. So this day holds a special and very somber meaning for Jews, since it commemorates a day of disaster for their people not just once, but many times, culminating of course in the modern holocaust.

Meanwhile, back to Columbus Day. How about the opinion of those who already lived in the land he "discovered"? This day, which is so celebrated by millions of Americans as a day of great discovery, is seen as the darkest day in Native American history. It's a day that marks the beginning of their end as a people connected to their land. It's a day that marks the beginning of a genocide that still has not been fully, or even partially, in most American's eyes, recognized or admitted. What of the enslavement of American Indians by Columbus himself? What of the consequent eradication of large swaths of peoples from the Alleganies all the way to the west coast?

Columbus Day is celebrated as a day of discovery.
Tish B'av is remembered as a day of mourning.
Native Americans also see this day as a day of mourning.
This day is their Tish B'av.

Let us walk in their steps and mourn with them. But better yet, let us walk with them towards a better future. We must be honest about what has happened. To lie about it is to perpetuate the crimes of the past. But we must move forward.

Learning as mitzvah

To learn is to do God's work after him. Since us humans are made in his image, we have at our bestowal a vast resource if we would but take advantage of it. Most of us most of the time live our lives barely beyond crawling out of the mud. Not that there's anything wrong with mud. It's what we're made out of and God called it (us) good. We must never forget our origins and how deeply we're embedded to the land that gave us birth. Mud is where we've come from, but it's not all of who we are. And it certainly isn't where we are called to stay. We also are these creatures that have this breath of life breathed into us from above. Not just nephesh, all living creatures have that. We all breathe and have our being with them. But we, these human creatures, seem to have had a breath of heaven breathed into us, this breath called ruach. Somehow this living breath gives us eyes in a way that even other creatures, our brothers and sisters of the soil, don't have. We have a sense of divinity that may exist in other creatures, but isn't expressible by words, or maybe I mean concepts. We look out beyond ourselves and wonder about what and why, where and when, and ultimately Who. All of the other creatures, animate and inanimate, have this ingrained sense of the divine within their being. But we wonder about it. We struggle with it. We look around and see, and wonder at what we're not seeing. Thus we learn. We seek out what isn't yet seen. We struggle to learn what isn't yet known. And in doing so, we see more of what God has created. We read of God as he has shown himself to us, whether by words breathed out on scrolls, or in words found as we breathe in air given to us from our brothers and fellow creatures, the trees that surround and feed us every day. As creatures who stand between heaven and earth, filled with spirit and soil, we straddle two worlds as we struggle through this world. Our knowledge is our blessing and our curse. God help us to learn from every teacher you have given us. Help us to learn what the world, in all its entirety, is. Help us to see what is and be at peace with that reality. To learn is to grow in the knowledge of God and his world.

Biblical Global Justice

This semester at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary one of the classes I'm taking is Biblical Global Justice with the Rev. Dean Borgman. As soon as I saw the syllabus I knew I wanted to take the class. Our first textbook is "Rise Up, O Judge: A Study of Justice in the Biblical World" by Enrique Nardoni. It's by far the most scholarly of the books he's requiring for the class. But it's well worth the reading, if only for the fact that it makes abundantly clear that the Biblical model of justice predated the Biblical text. I know that this can seem scary to many Christians, especially evangelicals, since it seems to put into doubt the uniqueness of the Biblical witness. I used to struggle with that same tension. Many years ago I used to say that the pagan writers borrowed their ideas from the Hebrew writers and that that explained the similarities between the Biblical text and the surrounding cultures. I didn't know then that these writings predated the Biblical witness by hundreds of years in some cases. So as I came to realize that the Biblical writers were the ones doing the "borrowing" I had to decide how I was going to deal with that. I couldn't go back to my previously held position. The archeological evidence is far too strong to put the Hebrew text in the front of the line chronologically. I still believe very strongly that the Biblical text is unique in comparison to other texts, in that it reveals like no other texts of that time (or since) the singular Creator God Yahweh over and against the other gods of the surrounding nations. Is there a great deal of similarity between the temples, the covenant language, the creation stories, the flood narratives, and the Biblical narratives? Absolutely. As an evangelical, I believe that God has spoken in a peculiar way through the Hebrew prophets so that his Person and attributes are revealed in a way that gives us an accurate picture of Who God Is. Is it exhaustive? Not in the least. But is it sufficient for a right knowledge of the Creator God of the universe. Yes. It is also sufficient for a saving knowledge of that Creator God to those up to the time of the first advent of Christ. Once again, as an evangelical Christian, I believe in the unique salvific centrality of Christ's Person and Work.

The reason for all of the prolegomena here is that it is sometimes the case that those who would affirm what I've just affirmed regarding the composition of the Biblical text also negate or at least relativize the centrality of the Biblical witness and by extension the centrality of Yahweh in the OT and Christ in the NT as regards salvation.

In tonight's class, in particular, we dealt largely with the issues of economics and what the Bible says about economic issues. The readings so far have leaned liberal in their analysis. But remember, this is Gordon Conwell Seminary, which is not, and never has been known as, a liberal seminary. It's a very theologically "conservative" i.e. orthodox school within the evangelical Christian tradition. But because this class is dealing specifically with the issues of global justice, and it's trying to address them from a Biblical perspective, some of the passages (and analyses) are going to sound downright liberal, whereas other passages are going to come off sounding very conservative. If your theology offends political partisans of both stripes, you're probably somewhere that's good. It's not guaranteed of course. The standard isn't who you offend. It's who God offends. If you find yourself offending the same types of people He offends in the OT and NT, then you're doing well.

Do you sound like you might be a crypto communist because you like early Acts too much, and Mary's Magnificat gives you the warm fuzzies? But at the same time you're thought to be dangerously narrow-minded because you actually believe Jesus when He says that there is no way to get to the Father except through Him, and that in the same Acts you agree that there is no other name under heaven by which women/men may be saved? If you believe that all of these passages are equally inspired, then you just might be a Christian who is equipped to speak to the idolatries of both the left and the right. You may also be a Christian who can speak to the idolatry of consumeristic consumption that has ravaged the spiritual life of American evangelicalism. But in order to be able to speak to that particular idolatry, you (I) must first own up to our part in partaking of that deadly delicacy, turn from it, and then reach out to those caught up in the same mesmerizing meme which tells us we are what we own. And that we can never own enough. Our diagnosis must be savagely precise so that we can administer the anointing oil of the good news of Christ and His Kingdom. Nothing else will do. Nothing more, because nothing more is needed. Nothing less, because nothing less will suffice. Christ and his Kingdom gives us the motivation to move mountains in our world all the while knowing that moving a mountain and not knowing Christ means you've just rearranged the chairs on the Titanic. As Christians, we're called to heal, mend, tend, and minister to the whole person, body and soul. Nothing less and nothing more. Because nothing less will suffice and nothing more is needed.

Branches before open blue sky

Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary

It's day two here at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. I'm still settling into the routine of life out here. It's been eight years since I last was in an academic environment. Classes start on Friday morning. Yesterday, today and tomorrow is orientation for all of the new students. I drove out on Monday morning and drove through the day until about 1am. I stopped in Lee, Mass. for the night and took off again at 6am for the last leg of the trip. I got into Boston around 8:30am and drove right into rush hour traffic. It was stop and go for about half an hour. But once I hit 95 north it cleared out considerably. As I got closer to GCTS I kinda knew where I should exit and I kinda knew what the main roads were that led into South Hamilton. Well, needless to say I drove for almost 2 hours around the northern suburbs of Boston looking for GCTS. Eventually, I found a cop in Beverly, a neighboring town, and asked him for directions (he was the third person I had asked BTW!). Once he realized that I was hopelessly lost, he told me he would lead to the seminary himself. A few minutes later, after he got done having a vehicle towed, he pulled beside me and led me to the front gate of Gordon Conwell! What a blessing! I wish I had gotten his name, but in any case I am very grateful for the services of this gentleman from the Beverly Police Department. He made what was turning into a very stressful day into one that I now look back on with gratitude.

The days leading up to my trip out here were just as dramatic. I only applied three weeks ago. And I also only received confirmation that I was accepted last Wednesday! My last day at work was last Friday, so either way I had to move on to something new. I drove out here with only the acceptance confirmed, nothing else. No housing had been secured. No financial aid had been secured (that's still being worked on!). But I came out with my car packed to the rafters trusting that God was behind all of this. I was excited, anxious, sad, happy, nervous; just about every emotion ran through me in the past week. In fact, on Saturday I really struggled with anxiety right off the bat and had a hard time getting packed. Thankfully, good and faithful friends helped me that day get through and I was able to get most of my belongings packed away in storage.

Then Sunday came. I went to church. It was great as usual, but it was also emotional to see my friends there, knowing that I wouldn't be seeing them again for several months at least. Then after church Jeff and Melissa had a dinner for me with a bunch of other friends, many of them from my Hope College days. That was even more emotional. Finally, Sunday night came and I became so anxious that I thought I might not even go. Every potential drawback came roaring into my mind of why I shouldn't do this. Everything that could go wrong stared me in the face. I was terrified of what might happen. I was also very sad at the prospect of leaving Holland after 12 years. I had built up many very important friendships over the years, not the least of which was Jeff and Melissa and their little boy Tsepo. That was the hardest part by far. Even writing this causes tears to well up in my eyes.

But once again, Jeff spent time with me late Sunday night and we talked, I cried, he listened, and he asked the right questions. A little later a friend (Jon) who is staying at the house came in and we also talked for nearly an hour until I calmed down. I finished up packing what I could into my car that night, got what sleep I could, and got up Monday to leave.

I woke up later than expected simply because I was both physically and emotionally exhausted. So I didn't actually leave until 9:30am. But because of the rest and the conversations I had had the night before I awoke in a much better frame of mind. I packed what was left that could fit in my car and I said goodbye to Jeff, Melissa and Tsepo and drove off. I found out the next day when we spoke on the phone that that moment was the hardest one for them. We've shared our lives for over two and a half years and had become family. I will always be grateful for what they have been for me both as friends, but also as my sister and brother in Christ.

The trip ended up being much better overall than I had expected. The car ran perfect the whole way. The trip itself, by the end, was just over a thousand miles (part of that of course was due to my getting completely lost right at the end). Anyway, here it is, day two, and my housing is provided for; which was my biggest worry. And my financial aid is slowly coming together. I still need to find work. But I trust that that too will fall into place. So far I've had no reason to doubt that God will provide for me. After all, he's been doing just that throughout my whole life. This particular adventure is just one more example.