Metamorphosis Incarnate

***Disclaimer: Very long post. Although it is meant to be read as an organic whole, there are section breaks indicating shifts in modular thought. Yes, these can be read as encapsulated wholes—able to stand on their own—but forget not to consider the forest among these trees.***

Come. Be. Rise up. Everything. Wait. Fall. Broken. Empty. Restore. Restore. Restore.

The world is a weird place. Or, maybe more appropriately put: life is... different than what we expect.

I had previously started this post when the computer I was working on up & decided to go AWOL on me—forcing a complete reformat of the beast. Fitting for what I want to discuss, actually. Providence, perhaps? Providence is what evidently prompted me to create a full backup of my system files last night, so perhaps...

Falling From the Tree

My spiritual journey has been interesting in the past month. It has been interesting in that I did my best to push God out of my life insofar as that I could get the stuff I was doing for him done in time for the deadlines that were set. I ceased reading my Bible; I was forced to abandon Christian community. Prayer seemed to be an alien construct. I was on a spiritual fast, though not the kind that is promoted by the faith that I profess; rather, the kind that elicits waning & wasting away.

When I did occasionally read my Bible—those odd occasions where I wasn't passed out on the bus—I didn't like what I was reading. At all.

...And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter: Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. (2 Cor 8:10-14 NIV)

What in the world is with that?! I mean, really! That can't be Biblical—or can it?

My Baptist roots reared in an Alliance environment shine through, especially in the context of my familial upbringing. Christianity—and life, for that matter—is about doing things and accomplishing things for God. Faith is only evident in the works that outpour from it. So, it necessarily follows, then, that the more you do & the more you sacrifice & the more you surrender your body to the flames, the more successful a Christian you are. Mr. Holy Spirit, in this excerpt from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, did a number on me. And at what perfect timing too. Here I am, busting my hump for the greater glory of the Kingdom, and here God speaks, saying that I'm sinning in doing so! "The gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality." Was my "gift" of self-destruction not acceptable because I was not giving according to what I have, but instead giving more that I actually had to give? Is over-extension & workaholism a sin—even if it is for the Lord? Looks like it.

So there I was on the bus, sitting in conviction. I could hear the voice of the Lord ringing in my noggin', "What, Lucid Elusion? Do you think I actually need you to accomplish my will? Am I that small that what I have planned to be done can only be done with your help? Am I dependent on your efforts? Who do you think created the universe in its entirety? Yeah? And how long did it take? Were you there? How do you think I ever managed before I created you?" *smack* right in the face. But, He did say to me, "Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it." So I did.

I have often stated that 90% of the work done in the church is accomplished by 10% of the people in the church. I think that this is true, but over the past week, I have increasingly questioned the validity of that statement—moreover, I have begun to rethink the cause of the said situation. Yes, 90% of the work is most likely done by 10%—but is it due to the laziness of the Church, or is it due to the overzealousness of the 10%?

It has occurred to me that the positions that I hold in the ministries I am involved with do not really have many (or any) alternative individuals who could fill those positions. This may sound like I am full of myself, which I may be to an extent, but I honestly am unaware of individuals in my sphere who have the combined set of skills that I have. Then I go & look back at where I developed these skills... Very few of them I actually possessed when I began in my working. Why is it, then, that I think that these jobs cannot be done by individuals without the skill set that I possess? I mean, I did them, and I didn't have the skills to do them when I started! Rather, I developed the skills needed through exposure to the need. Granted, I made many huge mistakes, and the quality of my work has improved by leaps and bounds since I was a greenie... But still!

The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that the onus on the bulk of the disparity of "work to workers" in the church directly falls upon those who are doing the work. It is a sin to over-extend one-self, even for the work of the Lord. Are burnout and stress direct, concrete punishments by God on the over-workers because of their sin? How much of the unwillingness of the congregation to get its hands dirty in the work of the kingdom is produced by this mentality that only the qualified individuals are capable to work for the Lord? How much of this 90/10 split is a direct result of us believing that God is dependent on our efforts—instead of us being dependent on his power? I don't know. I won't even pretend to know. It would be interesting to examine, however. Church, experiment! Create empirical data for us to analyse and see what the root of these phenomena is! Workers in the church: remember who gives you strength & remember your beginnings. Let go, and let God.

Rotting

I have just completed the bulk of my responsibilities for this term. "Bulk," however, is quite a relative term. Nonetheless, I now have a chance to breathe: something that, until recently, I was compelled to schedule into my day planner, so that I would be sure to have sufficient time to do so. 6 midterms, 2 papers, 4 scripts, 3 productions, a youth conference and 3 design projects later... I now feel like I have nothing to do. I mean, I only have 26 pages of lines to memorise, 3 more productions to do, another 4 papers and 2 cumulative finals—then the term will be done. (Yay 4 classes!). But honestly, it will be a breeze, these final bits. How can I tell? Well, to be honest, it would have to be by the contemplative depression that spiked last night at 7:00pm. In fitting with psychology's Modern Opponent Process Theory of Emotions, the more you get exposed to any situation that elicits an emotional response, the faster your brain reacts to try to minimise the effect(s) of the original emotional response—with the intent of keeping itself in a homeostatic state. So, if you're hit with highly exciting, fast-paced, intense situations, your brain will respond in such a manner to not make you feel the extremity of the situation(s). Why? It reduces anxiety and the crippling effects of stress, so that you can continue in the situation relatively unaffected. With repeated exposure to these stimuli, the brain is faster to kick in the opponent processes, and these processes get larger with exposure too. The only problem with this system is that the counter-balancing device that the brain seems to use is a very sluggish and slow-to-respond beast, so when the external stimuli that cause the huge shift away from homeostasis are gone, the opponent process that let you keep your head during it all is still quite active. Hence, why I feel depressed right now: Evidently, the stressors that required this depressive state to counter-balance them are gone. It all makes sense now, thanks to the wonders of modern psychology...

To make things all the more interesting, it just occurred to me this past weekend that I am a master at self-sabotage. The one thing that I desire most from people is this relatively natural phenomenon / attribute common to all healthy relationships: intimacy. This past weekend alone, I experienced two rather blatant—yet non-verbal—desires for intimacy presented to me from two separate individuals. Now, the natural response for an individual desiring such interaction would be to respond positively towards such offers. Me? Yup. Clammed up in terror. Turns out—on closer self-examination—that I keep pretty much everyone I know at arms' length so as to remain positively protected & non-vulnerable. Yet, in return, I demand from them a level of intimacy that I myself am reluctant—no, "unable"—to reciprocate.

All of my relationships with other seem to be able to fall into two categories. There are—for labelling's sake—the "waders" & the "plungers". My wader relationships are characteristically very surface, pleasant & uneventful associations. I know very little about how these people work & much less about what matters to them. Typically, I see them erratically and never know what goes on in their lives. Plungers, on the other hand, are the exact opposite. With these individuals, I typically know them very well—their struggles, their dreams, their desires, their beings. I typically know where they are and what they are most likely doing. Within my plunger relationships, discussion is rarely—if ever—centred around the run-of-the-mill. I do not have any relationships that exist in between these two extremes. For every 20 waders I know, there may be as many as 1 plunger in my life. None of my wader relationships has ever developed into plunger relationships. I can't seem to do it. To be honest, I don't think that I even know how to cultivate a relationship to the "plunger" stage at all: it's either there at get-go or not.

I do not think I was ever modelled the appropriate interactive pattern to develop healthy relationships—only extremes. You need only to examine my family to see how blatantly obvious this is. None of us talks to each other. Ever. At all. Well, that's not totally true, but the content of my family's discourse is not that which I would like to publish at this point in time.

So what do I do? Honestly, what do I do? Practice community in this fractured, highly disparate form? Pick up this developmental process from others? Ha! I push them away before they even get the chance! That, and I have only seen a discussion occur that progressed past the surface but not so much into the realm of unabashed intimacy. The content, however, was mostly gossip. If the only way to develop a relationship with someone is to talk about others behind their backs, then I don't really think I would want to bother. No. There has to be some other, more wholesome & less sinful method of doing this. Any suggestions?

So, back to the core of this central rot. What am I doing? Where am I going in life? My spiritual self is starving and is unhealthy. I have noticed my decreased inhibition in sinning—in every aspect of my life. It sucks. Hardcore, it sucks. But, what do I do?

Earlier on today, I received an e-mail from a colleague of mine who expressed joy and wonder at the faithfulness of God. I reacted with cynicism, and grating deprecation. "Oh look, someone's acting all spiritual & holy. Makes me sick!"

This reminds me of an event earlier on in the month where another of my colleagues was discussing his spiritual life and how wonderful it was at the time. Myself and another colleague, both of us being extremely busy, expressed woe at not being able to have a spiritual life as empowered as that due to our busy schedules. The guy responded, "You don't have to stay where you are. There's always time to pray and read your Bible. God will help you through your work and studies if you place Him first!" My busy colleague and I both reacted with a "Whatever. You don't understand our situations at all. There isn't time!" Later that evening, when several of us were praying, the Holy Spirit convicted me and made it very apparent that spiritual colleague was in fact correct—which caused me to confess my sin, with every intention to "repent" and change my pattern of living so as to reflect this shift. Unfortunately, my repentance never materialised into actual action.

Two Sundays ago, I was visiting a church, whose speaker had his sermon on Matthew 6:24-ff. "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." This, I believe. He finished off his sermon, concluding that Christians should get their priorities straight by offering themselves first to the Lord and to his work, which God would honour. In response to this, he ended up praying for a group of people who had invested a large amount of time on several projects that were being executed that very weekend, asking God to bless those individuals for their sacrifices. I was one of those people, though I do not believe that the speaker knew that I was sitting in the congregated mass that morning.

The following week, I had a midterm and a 30-page paper—both due on the same day, and both which I had previously not even begun preparing for, due to these "spiritual" projects that I was involved in. There was no way that I was going to be able to complete both the paper and the midterm in time, so I asked my paper prof. for an extension. She hummed and hawed, finally deciding that, in order to be fair to the class, I would be able to hand in the paper late but lose 10% off the final grade I would receive for it. Okay, granted, it was better than the "letter mark per day late" stipulation outlined in my syllabus, but it still wasn't the "all these things shall be added unto you" that I was looking for. I got a little cheesed at my God for that when I was offered that solution, to be honest. I mean, some God this is—you slay yourself academically so that his kingdom can be somehow advanced, and all he does in return is decrease your punishment a tiny little fraction?! Where's the amazing, show-stopping "I own the world" power that he has, huh? Some "all mighty" God...

Germination

After a day or so, however, I resigned my sarcastic, "Thanks for your provision, oh Mighty One!" to a more appropriate, "Though you slay me, yet will I trust you," attitude—remembering my place before the creator of the universe & all other things as well. I mean, He ultimately knows what he's going, right? Maybe there was a larger movement at play in the symphony that is my life—or should I say fugue that is my life? God doesn't need to fit my box: He has his reasons for doing what he does, even if I don't understand them at the time. Looking back on some really painful and confusing moments of my experience in this world, there definitely are moments where, at the time, nothing made sense at all, but now things seem to actually have happened for a purpose—not to mean that I can actually fathom the complete, unadulterated plan that God has for my life in any sense. Anyways...

Yesterday, the second day of writing this long entry, I got my midterm results back after Tuesday, the first day of writing this entry, my professor stated that the class average for the exam was a surprising 43/50 with a mode of 37. There were four 50/50s in the class—something that has never happened in his 10 years teaching before. I checked my mark yesterday and although I didn't get a 50, it did bump my average up in the class—a mere 0.5% away from my target mark of A+ for that course.

The paper I got an "extension" on had a momentous paradigm shift on the Thursday that it was due to be originally handed in. The paper, being a play script, was due for a second drafting. My class that day was marked by a guest lecturer, Sharon Pollock, who is a twice-awarded Governor General Medalist for playwrighting—meaning that she's one of the absolute best playwrights alive in Canada today. Something from her lecture made the ideas in my brain just gel, or crystallise or both and an amazing revision was produced—one that I was quite thrilled with. Today, it was time for my script to be workshopped and the surge of adrenaline running through my veins as my words were read by others—something I don't believe has ever happened before, at least not something "substantial" in length—was overpowering. I even laughed at bits in my own script! I was as giddy as a schoolgirl, and the comments that I received from my classmates after the read was finished couldn't have been more precise in what I was looking for. The script, by nature, is an engaging thriller. I won't spoil it for any of you, just in case you read or see it sometime in the future, but there was a perfectly even distribution of responses from those who didn't get it at all to those who totally got it and were blown away. Wonderful. Simply wonderful. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, no? I still don't know my grade on the submission, but something tells me that what I handed in—were I not in need of the "extension"—would have been nowhere near what was actually produced. Hand of God? "And all these things shall be added unto you?" My faith says yes.

Before all of this fallout actually came to pass, I was sitting on the bus reading my Bible on Monday as I was riding to school, reading the first two chapters of Revelation. Again, the Holy Spirit kicked me in the pants, as I read Rev. 2's letter to the assembly in Ephesus.

"To the angel of the assembly in Ephesus write:

"He who holds the seven stars in his right hand, he who walks among the seven golden lampstands says these things:

"I know your works, and your toil and perseverance, and that you can't tolerate evil men, and have tested those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and found them false. You have perseverance and have endured for my name's sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.... He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God." (Rev 2:1-5,7 World English Version)

"I know your works, and your toil... You have perseverance and have endured for my name's sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent." Hit me like a runaway train loaded to the nines with bricks. Bam! Again, the Lord tells me that my busyness is sinful. Again, he says that I have strayed and that I should smarten up. And this, mere days after I read 2 Cor 8:10-14!! So, what should I do? Listening would probably be a good start, I think.

Tuesday night, I resigned from a committee that usually eats up 4-5 hours per week of my time throughout the months from March to November. A first step. Also in line with my previous desire to become un-busy and to focus myself back on Christ and my relationship with him. Nothing has been made so clear. Nothing is more needed in me than to lay down my self—my self importance, my desire to be busy, my desire to do good over and above my desire to be with my Lord. I need to lay myself down again. I need to die to self, to let go of my agenda and my narrow perspective. I need to re-straighten my priorities and my image of God. I need to submit to his will and his omnipotence.

The Conclusion of the Matter...?

Jesus was brilliant. He must have been showing off his omniscience when he likened the Christian’s life to seed in John 12:24. Although he describes the nature of his mission on earth in the verse, he also states that the one seed produces many. The only way for new growth and life to exist is for the first kernel to fall from its original stalk of grain and die, as it lies covered by soil. So is it with me: I must separate myself from my selfish desires and "fleshly" roots. I must die to the desires and understanding of who I am apart from Christ. Only in doing so can my new self—the new creation within me—grow, flourish and produce offspring of its own, for the greater glory of Him who harvests.

Come. Be. Rise up. Everything. Wait. Fall. Broken. Empty. Restore. Restore. Restore.
Drink deep from the waters of the Lord, and in so doing, you will find abundant life in him.

"...but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."