So girls, grab your shampoo and conditioner, and head upstairs to try this baby out. You might even want to take a ½ day and get home early."
“...That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory…”
The above dialogue is an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, which I’ve been reading recently (my roommate Jasmine would say this is “soooooo Christian” of me). In this passage, a Spirit character is instructing the protagonist, who is on a journey through the afterlife, on the fluidity of time once eternity is reached. He is essentially saying that once one comes in contact Heaven, it will overtake all the pain and ugliness that occurred before it---that Heaven is so expansive, powerful, beautiful, and bright that it can point everything else toward it, regardless of the order in which it all happened. Thus, the pain that one experienced prior to tasting this ultimate peace and bliss won’t actually feel like pain anymore, because it all pointed and led to Heaven on some level.
This idea strikes me as utterly beautiful. I love, love, love the idea of light overtaking the darkness with even brighter light. I find hope that our present sorrows, however massive they feel, will someday lack any dark feelings or tones. Sometimes I even feel this way now, when I look at old emails, pictures, or personal musings from times when I felt pain. While I’m not ignoring the hurt they caused or saying that I’m in a state of absolute Heaven right now, seeing how painful things can build and lead to something so much better and beautiful certainly evokes a sense of joy.
You’ve heard me talk about the process and pain of renovations so far. No, I’m not quite calling it all agony. I know that compared to 99.9999% of the problems on God’s Earth, ours is quite small. We are blessed to have each other and an amazing place to live, and I hope that I don’t communicate otherwise. But, the state of living in constant disarray has definitely placed us out of our comfort zones and put us in contact with feelings that contrast Heaven.
Now that the third floor is so close to done, I can relate to how a sense of Heaven can virtually reverse previous pains. Objectively, I think the “9+ people, 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen, 1 sink” phase” is the most grueling stage of 30cent renovations yet. Never before has this house had so many people living in it, sharing so little space and so few resources. Yet it doesn’t feel like it has been the most challenging stage so far, at least not for me. On the surface, it really should be. It’s somewhat silly to invite friends over when your bathroom is made of tarp and particleboard, and when your kitchen sink is also your bathroom sink. I grew up with only one sibling, and waiting for him in the bathroom usually resulted in screaming matches. None of us at 30cent have resorted to that form of communication yet.
We can, and frequently do laugh, at the absurdity of it all. But I don’t think many of us see it as agony. Personally, I think it’s because we’ve been given such a beautiful, concrete visualization of what we are working toward. The nearly complete third floor has given us a glimpse of “heaven.” As a result, we can see the purpose of the frustrations that come as we are transforming the other floors, taking most of the pain and hurt out of the process. We are all excited to have spaces as beautiful as the third floor, and I believe it has helped us more joyfully experience the cramped space in the meantime. Heaven has worked its way backwards.
It’s almost fun in a way now. Many of us even joke (lament, actually) that once we all have our own beautiful and functional bathrooms, kitchens, and common areas, we won’t be together as much. I hope the community, laughter, and solidarity we’re experiencing now will continue and only grow in magnitude. I think it will. I think Heaven will continue to work its way into our present state, and I pray that it transforms not just how we deal with sharing stuff with each other, but how we treat everyone else in our lives. My next post should be a bit more concrete and descriptive on what I think it means for Heaven to work its way into our actions…
The title of this blog post somewhat sounds like something you’d see scrawled across an inspirational poster with two friends of different backgrounds holding hands. My middle school had tons of these types of posters plastered throughout the halls, with catchy sayings about dreaming, striving, and achieving.
I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been away. Also, you’ve heard about the construction, which has stayed relatively stable. Sure, the toilet’s exploded and we’ve finally decided to move the couches out of the kitchen, but other than that, things seem to be following the status quo.
God is keeping me still right now in so many ways. I think it’s because he wants me to really dig deep. So, I’ve been waiting for inspiration on really profound and catchy ideas, expressed with some hip metaphors and quips. No such luck. For some reason I just can’t move past the theme expressed in the title of this blog, which comes from Proverbs 17:17
It’s simple and obvious on the surface, but I think it’s profound when you look at its application on an everyday level. You can say someone is your friend, which is easy to do when you’re having fun and going out and agreeing on everything. But what happens the rest of the time?
I first thought of this when I went home earlier this month, and had the blessing of spending time with old friends who I hadn’t seen in a while. (I hope you know who you are.) I think of how I wasn’t a good friend to them so many times in the past. I remember how I let stress, my own ambitions, high school temperaments, distance, and so many other insignificant things get in the way of truly meaningful relationships. But I’ve seen God’s grace in the way that these amazing people haven’t held this against me and have loved me at all times. It was overwhelming to realize that in so many ways, these relationships haven’t changed in years, despite the weak person that I have been.
In realizing the ways that I have messed things in the past, I am determined to be a friend who loves at all times. This means loving the people I live with. And I think this is going to be incredibly challenging. (No offense to you guys. You are all amazing.) But we have intentionally put ourselves in challenging circumstances. As you can probably tell from my introductory post, we all have very different backgrounds, opinions, passions, and everyday routines. We’re cramming all of those things into one roof on a sliver of a city block. And that roof is currently under physical disarray and probably will be for several more months. Brace yourselves.
To top that off, I can be a selfish, impatient, and anti-social person at times. I try to hide it, but sometimes I don’t want to be around people. Not when I’ve had a long day. Not when they’ve had a long day. Not when the dishes are dirty and we can’t find anything and I don’t have time to run or work out like I used to. Not when I’ve offended someone and he or she has offended me. Like I said, I let stupid insignificant things mount into massive frustration.
REUNION is in the middle of a series about love, especially in the context of married relationships. I’m single, so I’m looking at how I can apply the messages at this point of my life. The series focuses on how love is fueled by action, and not feeling. A key takeaway: when you don’t feel love for someone anymore, you should fix it by loving him or her more. Hard to swallow, right? It’s a simple prescription that requires very intentional and direct action, which can be very tough.
I anticipate there will be times that I won’t feel lovey-dovey about my housing situation. And I think those are the times when I will have to love and serve the others the most. There are times when I will want to sit on the couch and watch Bravo TV (my addiction) and not talk to anyone and not help anyone with what they need. But that’s the time I should pick up a paint roller and join the others in transforming our sunny Californian roommate’s room into a bright yellow-and-orange dwelling that’s sure to cut through the grey New England winters.
Yes, this was a lesson I learned last night, and I am thankful for it. Following said painting adventure, I realized how blessed I am to be around this people. And how community is better than solitude, even when solitude is what you crave. And how tea makes everything better.
No, none of this will be easy. I will certainly have to ask for God’s grace and strength in all of this. I will have to look to Jesus as a model, because no one has ever served or loved like He has. I’m hopeful that in seeking His strength to love and serve and give, I will become closer to Him in the process.
Yes, my story is overtly a reference to the uproariously funny speech in The Hangover.
In his chapter about handling personal heartbreak, Don says this:
"He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.”
The "He" mentioned Victor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychologist who fought to prevent prisoner suicide while in a Nazi concentration camp, by telling them that their pain and suffering wasn’t everything, wasn’t the endpoint. Frankl said there was a much greater story at work: one of redemption, which pain lent meaning to. Don recalled invoking this idea while processing his own pain. He said it made him realize that his own suffering was part of something bigger and more beautiful, despite how massive an individual’s heartache can feel at times.
I didn't want to completely jack Don's terminology for my blog post title, so I tweaked the language that aims to express what it means to be a piece of a much bigger pie. But the theme is ultimately the same, and something I want to relate to the 30cent house.
Realizing that your story isn't THE story is humbling. On the surface, it might seem insulting, and it might make you feel unimportant. But I think it also brings this huge sense of peace and greater purpose. Thinking about this idea made me realize that when things have gone astray in my life, that it isn’t everything. My story is part of something greater at work, where a Father sent His perfect son to die for the things the other kids had done, all to show how them how much He loves them and how far He is willing to go to right the wrongs. So, my pain, my heartache and my missed dreams somehow all form a piece of this bigger, magnificent, even unimaginable story.
After reading the tree-in-the-forest excerpt, I thought of what it means for my position in the house. In many ways, the house is the forest, and I am the tree. Everything that happens with me as an individual should point up to the mission we are trying to accomplish as a house. This means not everything will go my way. This is also means that when I experience joy, it will overflow into my greater community, or forest.
But ultimately, our house is also a tree in a story about a forest, a small part of a much greater whole. Our story isn't the endpoint, it isn't the answer, and it isn't a kingdom unto itself. 30cent is a part of something so much bigger. We are trying to be an entity that furthers God’s will and kingdom, and in the end points to the Creator. So really, it is one tree in the forest that is God’s creation.
I remember the first time I got a real, concrete (no pun intended) understanding of why we’re doing this construction. It was a couple of weeks ago and I went upstairs to clean some lead paint dust on the third floor. The last I had seen the space before that, most of the wall studs were still up, and the apartment basically looked like a more bare, messier version of what we had originally moved into in early June.
But my glimpse two weeks ago painted an entirely different picture. The third floor was no longer the narrow space that defines many Boston triple-deckers. It was a new creation. Granted, the floors were still covered in sawdust, the apartment was sliced in two by plastic sealing, and the walls were exposed, but beyond all that, it was a completely different floor. The kitchen, living room, and tiny bedroom in the back had all been fused into one giant great room. It was an open, gorgeous space.
True, it’s just a shell of the finished product. But even that shell got me giddy for how the entire house is going to look when it’s all done. Way better than it looked when it started, that’s for sure.
Before I caught a glimpse of what’s to come, the construction process to me was the sum of its parts: sealed-off rooms, plastic, duct tape, sweat, frustration. I think we have all asked ourselves several times a day throughout this renovation process: “why are we doing this?” But once I saw the layout they were shooting toward, I had my answer. Not every floor will follow the exact same blueprint, but getting a glimpse of the new design gave me a visual reminder of the more beautiful home that we are working toward. And it brought sense to the madness that is the renovation process.
So it got me thinking about how this relates to my faith and life as a Christian. And here’s spiritual lesson #3:
3) Show People the Purpose
The construction process has no intrinsic value. I don’t think most people rip out walls, rework the electricity, replace leaky pipes, and sand floors simply because they think the act of doing it is fun all on its own. (And if you do, you’re crazy. Just kidding; you can come over and help any time!). People put in the hard work in order to get something better as a result. Construction is a means to a very beautiful end. But before seeing even a shred of this end result, the construction at times seemed senseless.
I think much is the same when it comes to calling ourselves Christians. It isn’t something I do for the sake of itself. Following Jesus isn’t about the title, or the religion, or being a member of a cool social group. Following Jesus is about falling in love with the one who has saved me, learning to look at myself in the way that He sees me and has created me, and using all of those things to bring His kingdom to Earth. But people will not know that unless, as Christians, we give them a taste of who God is.
So I must ask myself, how can my lifestyle give people a glimpse of what’s to come? How can I show people that Christianity isn’t simply a sum of doing certain things while abstaining from others? To an outsider, many aspects of a Christian's life may seem like things to be done simply for the sake of themselves. I pray that somehow God can peek through my actions to reflect how much bigger and more beautiful He is than a blend of busyness, doing, and earning. Instead of people viewing my life as a Christian as a self-serving pattern, I pray that they can see elements like justice, forgiveness, selflessness, hope, sacrifice, and mercy. And I’m not very good at these things on my own, so it’s going to need to be God who works through me.
As far as this house goes, I’m challenged to look at how we can show people that everything we do there isn’t self-serving and simply for the sake of itself. I want this home to be more than a sum of the laughter, TV shows, meals, prayer, and conversations that occur there. Don’t get me wrong: we do plenty of eating, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company, and I absolutely love it. But I want all of these things to give people a glimpse of what’s to come: God’s kingdom. I want this home to reflect what it means to bear one another’s burdens, to push each other, to correct each other, and to ultimate look at each other’s needs as greater than our own individual needs.
Jesus came not to do things simply for his own satisfaction, but to show people His Father.
I hope that my housemates and I can give others a look at the greater work that is being done in our lives.
As promised, I’m revisiting the construction topic I introduced to you last week. Things have continued to be a whirlwind in this area. We’ve packed up entire rooms of stuff on to learn that we don’t need to do so. We’ve even had a few injuries along the way. And we’ve certainly grown closer to each other in the process and have developed a new understanding of the term easy-going.
I spent much of last Sunday afternoon ripping stucco off the walls with my housemate/landlord Dan (derivatives trader who eats like a 6-year-old and drives like a maniac). There’s at least one stucco-filled room on each floor of the house. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, picture a bumpy wall produced by gobs of paint and plaster, that’s supposed to add texture and interest, but ultimately adds mess. In some rooms, these bumps are subtle, but on the first floor, i.e. the bachelor pad, they are rather pronounced.
Our task was to file down the uneven stucco so that our plaster guru could come and in and cover it to produce flat, smooth walls (not a super technical description, I know). In most rooms we could simply chip off the protruding stucco bumps. But Dan and I were having a hard time in the hallway of the first floor, where it was stucco on steroids. We started with our chipping technique, but at one point we each produced a hole in the stucco that tore all the way down to the original plaster wall. Below the stucco that we saw on the surface were several more layers of paint and wallpaper, going back what was probably decades’ worth of wall. Once we opened one hole in these layers, we could grab it and pull all the way across, to strip down the entire span of wall to its original surface.
I would be lying if I said we were any less than terrified at what we produced. It was ugly. In some cases that original plaster wall was completely crumbling and punctured. At best, it looked utterly exposed and barren. We were also worried that the contractor would not be able to properly affix the new plaster to the raw material that we had exposed.
On the other hand, ripping things down the root and removing all the wallpaper and paint clutter could have been a very good thing. Removing the decaying wall materials could have provided a clean slate for our plaster expert to work off of, reconstructing a better wall than we originally could have expected. But we had no way of knowing this. We wavered in where we stood on this all afternoon, but ultimately decided to continue what we had started and ripping things down the bare bones. The next morning we held our breaths, until hearing that we had done good and that the raw exposed wall was a great surface to work from.
And yes, there’s a lesson in all this. If I had to sum it up, it would be:
2) Look below the surface. In thinking about the things in my life that don’t look great on the surface, much like the stucco, there’s usually something even worse (the layers of wallpaper and paint) below that is really the problem. So in our lives, rather than simply trying to correct a habit or behavior that shows up to the outside world, I think God wants us to get at the root of what pushes us to do certain things. This can be feelings of unworthiness, past hurt, insecurity with the present, fear of the future, anger, jealousy, hopelessness, and so many other things.
The good news is that He’s the one that does this work, not us. He’s happy to build with our raw, exposed selves, no matter how scary and ugly we think it looks. Forgot trying to build on top of the layers on the surface, just because we are afraid to expose what is beneath. He doesn’t want us to hold onto our baggage, our insecurity, our constant justifications, and our false pretenses. He wants us to give our all to Him, to do a new thing. Here’s a verse that I think explains the refreshing that comes from God when we get rid of the old.
"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:18-19
Also, here's a picture of the house, for those of you who are interested! Photo credit to my housemate/landlord Tara (who lives on the third floor and works in campus ministry with her husband).
Magen (the nurse practitioner student) thought she’d bring a little bit of her Oklahoma roots to 30Cent this last weekend. She and another close friend of the house’s were craving a night of wine and appetizers in the outdoors, but didn’t want to pay the prices that come with those elements at Boston eateries. So we decided to recreate the restaurant patio vibe on our own front porch.
Apparently bringing the vino out to the front stoop is big in Oklahoma and a bit tacky, Magen says. I always wanted a porch growing up, so I was excited to set up shop on 30Cent’s, even if it was concrete and located about six feet away from our garbage cans. Magen cooked a fancy pizza with the spoils of our trip to Boston’s Haymarket---where virtually every produce item you can think of us costs $1. We also brought a fruit-and-cheese platter, a few bottles of wine, a bright blue quilt, and some Michael Buble tunes. Magen strung a set of Christmas lights across the metal front that separates our porch from the sidewalk. These impromptu decorations made our house stand out a bit from the rest, visually speaking. After all, it is July.
As the housemates snacked and enjoyed each other’s company, we had the opportunity to chat with the neighborhood dwellers that strode past the 30Cent Bistro (which will definitely become a house tradition). Later in the evening, a man who referred to himself at “The Boss” walked by us with an adorable boy on his shoulders, named Maximilian.
We offered Maximilian a brownie (my contribution to the Bistro menu), and chatted with The Boss. Out of the blue, he looked at the group and commented on how glad he was that we were all there in the neighborhood, and for each other. He encouraged us to keep each other strong. He said he had seen a lot in life, and that he thought we were going in the right direction. (I pray that none of this comes of as self-congratulatory. I wanted to portray this episode as candidly as possible, as we all felt that it was refreshing, unexpected, and completely due to God’s work and not our own).
Things at the house so far have felt relatively unsettled, due to the aforementioned construction, the roommates we are still waiting on to move in (get here already!), and the furnishings we are still scavenging for. In this period of getting the place together, I have often wondered if we have even had the opportunity yet to let God use us in the neighborhood. Sure, we can smile and say hello to the people we pass on the street, but does that really DO anything?
Well, apparently it does. I often overcomplicate what it means to do God’s work in a certain area or to show people that I am someone who follows Jesus. Those comments from The Boss made me realize sometimes it is just as simple as this:
I’m an optimist, but even my rose-colored glasses aren’t big enough to make me think that just a few smiles and warm hellos are enough to bring world peace. But in this case, those things were a start in connecting us with the people were are eager to build relationships with in the neighborhood. I pray that God can work through us in these small ways early on, and take us where He wants to go as our time in the neighborhood progresses. We just have to be open and willing.
Happy Friday everyone!
OK. I lied on several levels on Monday. For one, this post is coming two days after Part 1, instead of the next day. And it looks like this is Part 2 of several installments of the “Tearing Things Up and Crushing It” entry, instead of the second of two parts. Rather than listing all the lessons and symbols I’m observing in the renovations at once, I decided each thought would be more compelling if it stood alone as its own entry. So here is the first spiritual symbol that has stuck out to me in the renovation process:
In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. 2 Timothy 2:20-1
To me, the weak, crumbling, and old aspects of our house mimic the articles used for ignoble purposes in our spirits. Over time, the bad things in our house that went unnoticed would only get worse and ultimately pull down the value and function of the home. In shedding that which is unsightly and even harmful, we are transforming our home into something that is stronger and more beautiful. In much the same way, the ignoble aspects of our lives, personalities, and spirits bring down our entire being when we try to just look past them. Spiritually, these ignoble articles could include an area of our life that we just won’t trust God with, a past hurt, a feeling of inadequacy, a bad habit, and much more. In willingly entering the painful process of removing the elements of our lives that dull and weigh us down, we are taking the steps to be better used by God for His plans.
In this stage of construction, my prayer is that we could not only rip things out of our house, but also our hearts. (Sounds violent, I know). I hope that God further teaches us all how to be people who care more about others than ourselves, people who are focused on the end result rather than the often discouraging present circumstances, and people who desire to be part of something bigger and lasting, rather than follow our own whims. I know that I have a long way to go in these areas, and I am thankful that I have a community of people to grow with on this level. I am excited to see how God transforms us as a group into instruments for noble purposes.
I could be logical and discuss themes #2 and #3 in my next post, but I probably won’t do that. There are some pretty cool experiences we had in the neighborhood this past weekend, and I want to share them with you while they are still fresh. “Tearing Things Up and Crushing It” will be back soon though.
