The choice of joy when tragedy happens

By sheer coincidence, I seem to have a habit of migrating toward places that are infamous for gun violence. I went to college in Kent, Ohio and live about an hour away from Chardon. I now live in Littleton, home of the Columbine shootings. And now, most recently, I learned that Newtown is just a short drive from where I spent the first six years of my life.

Like trying to peel your eyes away from a train wreck, I couldn't stop watching the coverage of the shooting, particularly the interview with Robbie Parker, father of six-year-old Emilie Parker, who was killed on Friday. I bawled watching it several times in a row, because while I'm not in any way envious of the suffering this man and his family are enduring, I am envious of his faith. Just a day after his daughter's death, he spoke at his church and said that he wasn't angry, and he even extended grace toward the family of the shooter. It seems clear that he refuses to wallow in pain, but is choosing to trust God with it instead.

I've read several blogs over the last couple days, attempting to answer the big "Why does God allow these things to happen?" question. Some answers are more satisfactory than others, but there's no way to fully answer that for sure (and this is coming from a seminary student!). But I will say this much: I know that God is good because of the way this man, a flawed, ordinary man, responded in the wake of every parent's worst nightmare. His response is not a typical human response. Because let's face it, bitterness is easy. It's expected. And certainly, it's understandable after a tragedy like this. But bitterness doesn't come from God, and if we are truly following him, I don't think he'll leave us to wallow in it forever.

If nothing else, this proves to me that the holy spirit is more powerful than we can know. You may say otherwise, and instead just call the man crazy or especially brave, but I don't think "brave" or even "exceedingly compassionate" are good descriptors. They just aren't big enough. I call myself a Christian and I believe in forgiveness, but if I was a parent of a murdered child, and the killer was still alive, I'd want nothing more than to hunt him down and kill him myself.

I don't see it much in the winter time because it's usually covered by a sock, but events like this make me remember why I got my "Choose Joy" tattoo. My circumstances at the time of getting it were completely different, but the point was to have a permanent reminder of the fact that true joy is something this world can't touch. It is not dependent on circumstances, it is not the same as "happiness," because joy is not an emotion. It's a deeply-rooted assurance that who we are and what we're made for does not change even if we're hurting, even if our possessions are taken away, even if our loved ones turn on us or are called to heaven sooner than we'd like. Joy, like love, endures all things. No kind of tragedy can touch it.

I love the interview with Robbie Parker, heartbreaking as it is, because it shows that the source of his hope is in something bigger than himself. We can put our hope in temporal things, and in other people, but the tragedy in Connecticut is a reminder that nothing, not even people, are permanent. We need to come to terms with the fact that nothing on this earth is fully guaranteed, nothing in life is guaranteed except God and his sovereignty.

There's much more I'd like to say about the nature of forgiveness, and my own muddled opinion on gun control, but that may be another blog. The latter subject has certainly been beaten to death several times over the last few days, so I may just leave that one to experts who are far more articulate than I.

What I really want to emphasize is this: faith is not something that you have when everything is going well in your life. When tragedies like this happen, faith is the rock that reminds you this pain is not wasted. Faith is what you have left when everything else we trust shows its lack of permanence.

"So you go to cemetery...I mean seminary!"

There's a reason why the word "seminary" is often confused with "cemetery." Some people say this as an accidental slip-up, while others are intentionally "punny." As one professor said, "Seminary life can have two effects: you end up contained in a Christian bubble and completely unprepared for the real world, or you can be challenged to a point where you severely doubt your faith." As my first semester of grad school comes to a close, I think that I'm somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.

I have learned something about myself: I am often guilty of camouflaging my beliefs depending on my environment. I'm tempted to "water down" my faith when I'm with my non-Christian friends in Kent, while simultaneously trying to "pump it up" when I'm surrounded by Christians at Denver Seminary.

This may be shocking to some, but I've discovered that I fall under the category of "liberal" in Christian Bubble Land. Realizing this has made me love and hate my non-Christian upbringing. On the one hand, I am grateful to have been raised in an environment where I was encouraged to think for myself. Consequently, I have a better understanding of the objections non-Christians have with Christianity, and that greatly influences the way I go about sharing it. But on the other hand, sometimes I wonder if I'd fit in better if I did grow up in Church World. I get irritated when some Christians constantly harp about "the lost," because I know from experience that God uses people of varying beliefs without them ever knowing it. I have issues with evangelicals who center their ministry on agenda over genuine relationships and a desire to learn from others. I think we miss out on opportunities to love if all we care about are conversion rates.

I've listened to students and professors who grew up in the Bible Belt, and for lack of a better way to say it, sometimes they made me uncomfortable. I despise "Christian-ese" and the few times I've caught myself using it ("God spoke to my heart," "accepted Jesus into my heart"...lots of "heart" euphemisms in Church language!), I cringed with fear that I was becoming "like them." All my judgments of how I used to perceive Christians came back: stiff-necked, arrogant, allergic to anything secular. I want to be devout without being a stereotype. I don't want to lose whatever it is that makes me approachable to people of different backgrounds and viewpoints.

It's because I care about being approachable to non-Christians that I refuse to be a part of the Messianic Judaism program at Denver Seminary, or take part in Messianic Jewish events. That has been an on-going battle this semester; people hear snippets of my testimony and immediately jump on the "You should be in the Messianic Jewish concentration!" bandwagon. In my Training and Mentoring class, we'll have to interview three non-Christian chaplains about how their faith affects their work. There are a few Jewish chaplains in the area who refuse to take part in that assignment. One of them said "Sorry, but I can't have a discussion with a student who attends a school with a concentration designed to target Jews for conversion."

I sympathize with that chaplain. There was a time when I wasn't sure what to call myself; clearly, now that I am a believer in Jesus, I can't define my faith as Jewish, but what about my heritage? Where does one draw that line? Eventually, I came to the realization that there isn't anything Jewish about my faith anymore, and to present it as such would be inaccurate and offensive. Make no mistake: the gospel in and of itself is offensive to many, but the way we present it should not be.

I think, with all due respect to those who call themselves Messianic Jews, that that title actually prevents discussion and promotes hostility. I've had many a frustrated discussion with Christians who feel the need to convince me to change the direction of my ministry, because I have "so much to offer" with my "unique" background. I'm not disputing this, but I'm also a little tired of the novelty status that comes with that "unique" background. As one new friend pointed out, there is no differentiation between Jew or Gentile, Greek or non-Greek in Christ. I don't require any special "title," especially when that title carries such stigma, and is also a misnomer. Technically all Jews are messianic; they just don't believe he's come yet. I could go on and on about this...but that topic deserves its own post.

That's only a smattering of things I've learned this semester. More thoughts and reflections to come, once my Hebrew final has been conquered...

Nothing to laugh about: excerpt from Someone You Already Know

It's sad and disappointing when people you once respected make jokes about things that just aren't funny. It's even more unfortunate when they defend such jokes, despite being told about their offensive nature. I wish these incidents didn't bother me so much, but I wouldn't want to be a rape crisis counselor if they didn't. So today, I think it's appropriate to share a similar scenario depicted in Someone You Already Know:

I take my usual seat at lunch by the vending machines and wait for Elisabeth when I hear a male voice behind me say “Man, I really got raped by that Algebra exam today.”

There are a million different reactions I could have to an ignorant statement like this. On one hand, I can ignore it. The kid is an idiot. He doesn’t know. But I can feel the blood pounding in my veins, rushing swiftly in my ears, and what I really want to do is turn and scream at the little fool. 

But to scream…to fight…to make any sound in my defense, that’s something I just don’t know how to do. Something I don’t know how to do well.

How does a word like rape, loaded with stigma and designed to shock, manage to get reduced to such common, blasé terminology to describe something as mundane as an Algebra test? Whether he meant to offend or not, just how stupid can some people be to not realize the full impact of their words?

I don’t have to say anything in my defense. A voice that sounds remarkably like Trevor’s calls out: “Hey! You think rape is something to joke about? You wouldn’t if it happened to you.”

I can’t not turn around now to see the looks on those guys’ faces; I think they feel genuinely remorseful now, seeing me sitting only a table away, but they also look shocked to hear a guy rebuke them in such a way. I can see the confused looks on their faces now: why would a guy speak out against a rape joke? After all, they’re probably thinking, it’s not like guys can be raped. 

If it was me who yelled at them, or some other girl, the sad reality is they’d probably have laughed and said something along the lines of “Lighten up.”

Someone You Already Know: on assumptions and careless words

Another excerpt from the book:

     I have learned a few things from Katherine’s reaction to my story. As a victim herself, I know she meant well by insisting I needed to tell someone what happened. But honestly, I would have preferred she just tell me that she’s there for me. I would have rather she not inserted her own story into mine, as if hers is the only valid one.

     Granted, Katherine did not realize she was doing this. I was blamed once for being “too hot” for a guy to keep his hands to himself -- the last thing I need is to be told I am to blame if the same thing happens to someone else, because I refused to talk about it. I have no control over the choices other people make. 

     Furthermore, what if I’m not ready to talk about it? What if I still need time to make sense of things, and by the time I come to a conclusion and formulate a plan of action, another woman is harmed? What if sharing my experience is enough to trigger a flashback for someone who just wants to repress her humiliation and act like it never happened? Maybe it would be a mistake to bring it up if it means shattering someone’s carefully constructed illusion of normalcy. But would that really be my fault? Will the cycle of blame ever end?

     You know, it’s not so much the backlash from people who have never been assaulted that worries me. It’s expected for them to be ignorant about something they have never experienced for themselves. Rather, it’s the potential of backlash from other victims, victims like Katherine, which will be the most damaging to me. I fear being told once again that my experience is not as tragic, not as damaging to be counted as legitimate: that invisible scars don’t matter. I fear that more than anything. I fear never being able to know what is real, what is true, and being dictated the truth from people who weren’t there, who don’t know me or John.

     If nothing else, this much I know is true: I am not to blame for John being the way that he is. I’ve tossed and turned late into the night trying to come up with reasons: was he abused as a child? Did he never learn right from wrong? Is he a sex-addict in denial? A sociopath? An ordinary, ignorant college guy who got his signals crossed?

     We are so deeply entrenched in a culture that puts pleasure on a pedestal, it's no wonder there are people who see coercion as just a means to a self-gratifying end, nothing more.

     As much as I long for answers, the only ones that matter are the ones I can answer. If I am to blame for anything, it’s for having too positive an outlook on people. All my life I’ve tried to believe the best about everyone; the crazies you hear about on the news always seemed too far away to affect my view of people around me. Certainly I wanted to believe the best about a guy who told me he loved me. I wanted to believe that a guy who studied my quirks and silly habits for several months would pick up on the hints that I just wasn’t ready for anything sexual. In many instances, I honestly didn’t think I had to say no; doing so would be admitting there is something happening that shouldn’t be. 

     What girl in love wants to admit that? 

     None that I know.

Someone You Already Know: chapter sneak peak

This is my favorite chapter in the book, a conversation about who society is more unfair to: men or women?

     I decide to take the risk and see what happens. “I’m sort of having a fight with Elisabeth.”

     He raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

     I stare deeply into my cup. It’s easier to be honest without making eye contact. “Yeah. She was involved with this guy for a while, and she broke up with him because she says he didn’t treat her right. I guess I just don’t understand…I mean, if he was as bad as she says, why didn’t she leave him sooner? She’s a smart girl, you know?”

     “Ahh.” I look up and see that he doesn’t look about to run away. He actually seems captivated. “Well, I don’t know anything about the workings of the female psyche. So I won’t hazard a guess for why she didn’t leave him. Not to defend this guy if he really was a jerk, but being the guy in a relationship is a lot harder than women think it is.”

     I feel my defenses tightening, and for a split second I wonder why in the world I thought talking to him was a good idea. But I can’t help it; I’m intrigued by his statement. “Really? Enlighten me, because in my experience, women are the ones who are unfairly judged and labeled when they don’t deserve it.” 

     Wow. I actually sound like I’m defending Elisabeth now. What is going on here?

     Trevor leans forward. “I have an older brother who went out with this girl he met at an animal rights rally. She was a feminist; a real piece of work, in my opinion. No offense. Anyway, she was really defensive about anything Thomas would do for her that was nice: holding doors open, pulling chairs out, helping her with her coat. Stuff I always thought you were supposed to do. But Kelly…man, she really hated when he’d do that. They broke up after two months because she was so radical, and I know my brother is a good guy.” 

     He shook his head. “I think it’s sad and funny the way women expect men to treat them with respect, but never give them a chance to do so because the media conditions them to assume we’re all predators. I’ve held doors open for women and gotten yelled at for it, because you know, they’re more than capable of opening their own doors. That’s actually what happened the night of that party. I saw a girl struggling to get through the door here at Starbucks with an armload of books, and she chastised me for treating her like she was made of china when I offered to help. So that’s why I was such a jerk to you that night. I was really angry.”

     And here I thought that my issues would scare him off. I feel like I should be angry by his assertion that most men are misunderstood. I feel like I should be telling him to spend a day in my shoes, see how the tables are turned.

     Surprisingly, I am calm and curious. “Okay, so maybe men are unfairly judged at times. But as a male, the world isn’t a scary place for you as it is for women. We live in a world where a woman is blamed if she’s attacked while walking alone and wearing a skirt, because ‘she should have known better.’ It’s not the same…”

     “Looks like men and women are both victims of injustice then. All of humanity sucks. Let’s drink to that!”

     I laugh, in spite of myself. “You know, maybe you’re right.”

     His smile morphs into a straight line suddenly. “Regarding Elisabeth…” He stares into his lap, and wrings his hands uncomfortably. “If women are taught to assume the worst about men – because you know, we’re all bad guys – well, the way her boyfriend treated her wouldn’t have shocked her much, would it? She probably thought whatever he did was normal. Think about it.”

     Once again, he leaves me speechless. He stands up before I can think of how to respond. “My break is over,” he informs me. With that, he places a tentative hand on my shoulder that actually felt caring, not threatening. “We’re not all bad guys, Katherine,” he said. “I think most of us are assholes only when prompted to be. Not by default.”

     I’m still speechless as he re-ties his apron and returns behind the counter.