Leshem Shamayim: “For the sake of heaven.”

God, God what did I do—did you abandon me or did I abandon you?
I see this Jesus, Son of God, I’m sure and convinced, but after we crucified, did he leave?
How can we claim that His Spirit is here, among us, in us, when our lives still crucify?
God, do we grieve you; have you finally had enough of our filth?
These lives of hypocrisy; we’re riddled with guilt but we continue to sin, we lack any fruit.
Is there presence in our lives? Have we squelched You out?
“I live faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself for me…”
but how can I live with them and love You?

I am concerned with the poor, the hurting, the heart of Jesus in need for change.
Am I simple, that I should hold such desires and ideals, and wish that Your people would simply love and obey. Is it so much to ask?
I have lost sight of my own love for You looking for hope among the people—I don’t even know Jesus. How can I know You if my community does not reflect You?
I am just as bad, I confess, I don’t live You always, but I want to.
As for desire, they are devoid of any: set in their ways, content to judge, abandoned to self rather than of self.

I just don’t know if I can see You at all anymore… Your image has been discarded and trampled in the dust. And so all I thought was You is gone… and we have already forgotten you, just like they did with Isaiah’s servant. Jesus, You’d think that after all the writers went through to show the people how You had suffered: the Roman beatings tearing off Your skin—
And we fat Americans sit around a comfy sanctuary with a donut in hand, complaining about life… the extent of our spirituality is stressing our brains to momentarily care for the welfare of others.

Jesus, I am not like that, maybe I am, but that is not the me screaming out to You inside. I cannot call myself after Your name if that is how I will become. I was desperate once to catch another glimpse of You, another pattern, another way which to live: they don’t live You, and so profane Your name. I cannot identify with the sweet, passive Jesus who allows such horrid blasphemy to go untouched and unpunished. Jesus, be real to us.

I think I know the real You, I can’t be sure anymore… Jesus this Sitra Achra side of You, the real, the compassionate, the violent… the You that will be borne in the image of Mother Theresa who goes out and loves for real: who lives and dies with the people. Where is the self-sacrifice for another, they disgust one another by mere theological difference of opinion. Jesus, if I am going to keep loving You, I need You to restore my hope that there really is a way to live after You, to love like You do, to channel Your grace to those who really want it, who need it. Jesus, I need You to give me  a new religion, a new heart to love… never mind the religion, its dead, all of it.

So Jesus, I want to risk again to call you Lord, but Jesus, I am scared; I think I have fallen asleep inside: wake me up from the shadow of death, this dark nightmare in my soul, to be awake as You cut away the layers of thick disgust and calloused hatred which have built up against the constant rubbing of their hypocrisy. I realize, Jesus, that if I am disgusted with them, I am really disgusted with You, You for letting them profane Your name. But I need to be patient and wait…. Jesus, I need You to restore my hope… help me to trust You again, that someday soon You will reclaim the glory of Your name. That You will make Yourself known in real life.

Maybe, Jesus, You have been waiting for me, to use me and reclaim Your name in me. Maybe I too have refused it by response in sin to theirs. I can only think of one cure and I don’t know what it will look like—I need your love to be exposed in my again. You have to do that. Let Your compassion overwhelm me from the inside out, and let my beat in sync with Yours.
You in me, me in You… as One forever.
I love you, Jesus.

I, Hannah, have been journeying with Jesus lately through the corridors of memory, reflecting on what He is doing as compared to what He has done. Yet every new venture I begin with Him, each contemplation of who I was and who I am becoming because of His grace seems to be more of an endless labyrinth than a straight and narrow path. Each turn I take, thinking I journey closer to the escape from a maze takes me deeper into a heart of the labyrinth which terrifies me to death: I don’t know what’s in the center and I have no idea how I will ever get out.

Some things worked their way into my mind this morning on one of those 4.30 am runs. I stepped out of my apartment door and thought ‘O this is a mistake.’ There were sheets of ice everywhere, and I am sure it was colder than the 6 degrees F the online thermometer told me, especially because of the wind. Heading out to the main road I’ve been running my 5 miles on almost every day, I prayed something desperate because I didn’t want it to just be another experience in weariness that brought me back to the reality of life perceptions with Jesus. I know there is more to life than how I feel and sense in this body, and I guess it excites me when I get a small taste of the true sweetness of Jesus. I had a lot my mind could think about, which it hadn’t the night previous because I fell asleep so early, so as my feet hit the pavement off-campus of Davis College, I was asking Jesus to help me work through those thoughts like He has previous runs.

The first thing that came to mind as I began a careful attempt at a rather treacherous run was “I just don’t need to slip today.” Slipping… I play word association games in my head all the time, and it triggered a thought from a conversation my friend Matt and I had last night about life before and during our times here at Davis. I wonder if at times it takes us getting worn out, physically, spiritually, whatever it takes to drive us over that edge of self-sufficiency to realize just how much we are in need of God. That was sort of the subject of my conversation with Matt last night, how our communities or lack there of affect our obedience to God. I realized just how much I had isolated myself in my growing up years, which explained to me a lot about how I could be semi-attached, semi-personal, but still slip through so much.

For some reason, in my mind, thinking about just how much the communal presence and influence is truly necessary for most in living godly lives, the image of a frozen, petrified heart came to mind. I thought back to my younger years, even last year, and how much of a shock it was for me to enter into a community and find myself a participating member; needed, wanted, expected. A shock like when you come back from a run in 6 degrees and immediately wash some dirt off your hands in steaming hot water– ouch!  But I think the shock factor of community (I did hate that sort of life at first, I was a loner, a productive and motivated one, and saw people as a burden to my agenda more often than not) stirred me in ways I didn’t even know I needed to be stirred.

So I have been talking about how I want to be like Jesus… that hasn’t changed since I got here. Perhaps I overgeneralize my heart up until the end of last Spring when I knew I needed some form of community to help me keep focused on Jesus, or maybe it’s truly honest. But when I came to this college, I had “bloodless hands” ones that were too cold from being distant in icy weather for too long to benefit from the circulation of the heart. I wanted to serve, but I had no energy or understanding of what it meant to love, truly and practically. Jesus says that greater love hath no man than this but that he lay down or  give up his life for his friends. I am reading Mark lately, and yesterday spent some time thinking about Mark 8:34, where I was told to lose my own life and take up Jesus’ cross.

The cross can’t be something abstract… I have to live out the cross, somehow, every minute of the day, with people and apart from them. The Spirit of God lives in side of me; I am a Temple of the Holy Ghost. What have I to give but my life? I can’t convert the world at all, gradually or otherwise; I cannot make a difference to anyone– yet everything I am and do matters to God, because I need to be allowing Jesus to work through me. I remember a book I read my second semester here at Davis about the Jewish Holocaust, WW II, called “All But My Life”: Jesus, take all of my life, don’t leave any behind in my hands. In my own hands, my life would be devoid of that feeling, that life which is in the blood of my Jesus. This may sound a bit silly, but studying in the library last night, I stretched my arm out on the back of one of our wooden-backed couches: like Jesus, outstretched on the cross, but without the physical wounds.

If I am to bear Jesus’ name to the people of God and the world, when I am crucified, I cannot have bloodless hands, because that would just be the crucifixion of a dead body. I am to be alive in Christ and consider myself dead to sin. I am trying to learn Jesus’ practical compassion in the midst of the emotions which situations may trigger. I want to give up like Jesus, to love like Him as best I can, because that is the only way my life will truly be a pleasing offering to Him.

    One of the subtlest and contrastingly the most obvious counseling issues is that of individual self-esteem. The particular side of self-esteem, which can be extremely detrimental to the entire life of an individual, is bad self-esteem. Self-esteem can be defined as “the evaluation that an individual makes about his or her worth, competence, and significance.” (Collins 426) Self-esteem is an a holistic perspective of an individual on himself/herself, including self-image, the mental picture we hold of our physical selves in the way we appear to others, and self-concept, which includes our perception of our own character, traits, and personality. Self-esteem for an individual tends to swing back and forth between low and high self-esteem; the ideal self-perception is one that balances out at a realistic, healthy perception of self. For the sake of page limit and the expansiveness of this topic, I will specifically deal with Christian misperceptions of self-denial as inferiority, excusing sin as acceptable to Christ.

If one is in counseling for low self-esteem, then, what are the causes of this disruption in self-perception? An unhealthily low self-esteem is known as “inferiority.” In the context of Christian counseling, the counselor can identify many possible causes of inferiority complex: faulty theological beliefs; sin and guilt; parent-child relationships; experiencing defeat or failure; unrealistic expectations; faulty thinking, and community influences and myths. All of these possible causes of low self-esteem evidence themselves both in the mentalities and behaviors of individuals suffering from inferiority complexes. Overall, low self-esteem in an individual can be summarized as a mentality of self-deception (versus the martyr complexes some Christians adopt, excusing inferiority as self-denial, when in fact the two are entirely different issues: one is life Jesus, one giving into the sinful tendencies of the flesh).

The martyr complex of Christians is not unique to Christianity alone, but Christian individuals excuse their sin, which attempts to pacify both the guilt of personal conscience as well as deal with the negative feelings of others imputed to the individual. To illustrate inferiority masked as the Christian martyr complex, I will describe a hypothetical case study, picturing the martyr complex in the subject of a woman, because I tend to think that the nature of women leaves us more easily susceptible to low-self esteem than men. This is because society has historically objectified the personhood and being of women, bombarding us with its version of womanhood, forcing us to manufacture for ourselves a sense of self-worth in religion and ideals. For the sake of this paper, the subject I will be describing a young lady who is very devoutly religious, of a sensitive nature both spiritually and otherwise, and dedicated to mimicking the standard of Christ in her life.

Upon first glance into this young woman’s life, none might see a self-dejecting image cowering beneath the mindset of inferiority, but rather a young lady very dedicated to loving her Lord and Savior and His people with her life. Within the mind of this young woman, however, lurks a fear that somehow she might be falling short of the perfect freedom from sin which she believes should manifest itself in her life because of her love for Christ, and therefore she lives in constant terror of her sensitive conscience. Fear does not exist from internal spiritual reasoning, however, but dogmatic teaching from an institutionalized community calling itself the living body of Christ, the Church. The Church has imparted not only societal pressure, but also unrealistic guilt to this young woman by inferring that because of the female gender, this young lady is by nature is historically responsible in Mother Eve for the pollution of humankind in original sin. Thus the Church has rendered this young woman a victim of circumstance, incompetent of maintaining her own relationship with God because she cannot trust her own conscience and is in need of a male sounding board. From closer scrutiny, one finds this young woman’s life to be riddled with internal and external lies of insufficiency to maintain her relationship with Christ.

The next question, which arises, inquires as to how low self-esteem affects the behavior of this young woman. Beginning with the motivating sentiments of self-criticism, shame, and setting of her own realistic standards and goals, the young woman’s own struggle to balance her self-misconceptions was further discouraged by misinterpretation of her beliefs by fellow Christians. Aspiring to mimic the image of Christ, the young lady received accusations of pride, self-conceit and hypocrisy, all of which indeed are made true because the young lady has not allowed herself to freely accept the grace of Christ’s sacrifice. However, the individuals speaking such “counsel” into this young woman’s life evidence the overall impersonal nature and assumptive nature of Christians who, with the best intentions possibly, mistakenly encourage this young woman to an even darker state of self-degradation than she had already fallen too. But what external behavior results from this internal behavioral motivation?

At first, the young lady simply submitted herself to the demands made of her, dressing extremely conservatively and remaining quiet within assemblies, as some Christian organizations require. From the repeated condemnation of others within her community, the young woman developed a self-destructive mentality, fating herself to perpetually having a guilty conscience and being unable to approach God/separated from Him. Yet this faulty theological belief made the young woman miserable, and caused her to search from some sort of hope in life, even if divorced from God. The young lady reached a place where she felt she was separated from God, and her faith in Jesus Christ, believing that His body the Church was the means of His presence on earth, discouraged her from ever being upright in the eyes of God. Thus, since she could not be perfect, the young lady’s low self-esteem drove her into the depths of despair over her lack of ability to maintain her relationship with Jesus Christ.

Pushed to the edge of desperation for some sort of home, someone to take pity on her life, the young woman’s self-destructive mentality took on a martyr-type of masochistic behavior: she believed she must actually suffer and crucify her flesh in order to obtain favor with God. This led to behaviors such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, through which she tried to discipline her body into following after Christ. Falling from her own standard of self-discipline through physical weakness, the young lady turned to more destructive behaviors. Motivated by deeper inferiority coming from failing her own standards of discipline which would render her useless to God’s service, the young woman tried to pay for the deeper and deeper sins she found herself falling into with her own blood. Believing that she had discredited herself from the blood of Christ because of how she had disregarded Christ’s sacrifice through her lifestyle, the young lady hoped to prove herself worthy of the grace of God through her penance.

Guilt plaguing this young lady’s conscience with no perceived hope of repentance, the young woman began cutting herself. This allowed temporary satisfaction for the guilt of her conscience through the release of pent-up emotions channeled through physical pain. Yet, as the saying goes, one’s sin will find one out, for one form requires a more severe form of sin to deaden the memory of a lesser sin. Having refrained from community because of a double load of guilt… the guilt from her “penance” as well as her original inferiority complex, the young woman fell into a severe social depression accompanied by a spiritual weight, which she could not shake. The young lady had abandoned the thought that she might pay Jesus back for His suffering by her own, and collapsed in church one day, sobbing over the covenant she believed she had irrevocably broken with God.

At this point, the young lady was most in need of Christian counseling… not the sort she had previously received, but a tender heart that would not impress further guilt upon her, but gently alert her to the reality of her true self-worth and state of her relationship with God. Fortunately for this young lady, such an individual was present in her life: the slightly older woman behind her in the pew at church had some previous experience with the harsh realities of life, and recognized the signs of self-abuse on the young girl’s very appearance. Sensing heaviness about the girl’s spirit, the older lady prayerfully watched the girl finally collapse in hopelessness, and rushed to her side to offer support. Walking her out of the sanctuary, the woman recalled how helpless she had felt in some points of her life as well and contemplated how to impart the closeness she was sure of with Jesus to this young woman who felt isolated and unlovable by self and even God.

When counseling a Christian individual with this self-martyring type of inferiority complex, Collins suggests seven key principles for imparting hope to the life of one who already knows the source of all hope. First, genuine support and acceptance is necessary without offering too enthusiastic an approval of the counselee’s confessions. One of the most crucial elements of restoring a Christian’s godly self-perspective follows, sharing the biblical teaching that all men are created in the image of God and that as a Christian, one’s faith covenant with God is based in love—not my inconsistent display of love for God, but His constancy. Thirdly, it is necessary for a counselee after being presented with his/her actual state in Christ to develop a realistic self-evaluation antithesising current behavior to right relationship with God. This actualization of Christ-like image within an individual must be reinforced by replacing the negative self-talk, the detrimental thoughts of an individual, with the truth of Christ: yes we are indeed hopeless on our own and incapable of maintaining our covenant with God, thus we must rely wholly on His faithfulness.

Upon choosing the path of faith that God can sustain, we must map out practical ways to improve the counselee’s lifestyle in light of the truth of Christ. For the young lady of this scenario, such methodology would include therapy and accountability for the self-mutilation and possibly a gradual program for establishing and maintaining healthy eating patterns. The final aspect of recovery from a Christian inferiority complex is found within the context of community: bold honesty in the church about one’s state can be risky and painful at first, but for the young lady of our scenario, community was both what she needed and feared in her recovery process. A gentle presentation of the truth in the context of community allows for individuals to gradually be restored to a healthy self-esteem. One cannot expect hope to be acquired over night, but persistent counseling can coax a needy individual back into acceptance of the grace of God for self’s own insufficiencies. Without Christ, we are indeed inferior and worthless, but the grace of God imparts absolute meaning to life.

Phrases like “all of life is worship” and “be constant in prayer” are ringing through my mind as I come off of reading Mark 8. A weird passage to read in thought of intercessory prayer, about giving up self, bearing cross and following after Jesus. Oh Jesus, wow. Every time I think of Him I am just lost in wonder. I was listening to some music this evening, just nice Christian words… and tried to hear Jesus in them. “Why did they have to nail his hand and feet, his love would have held him there… Jesus had come into the world to steal every heart away” really caught my thoughts. Now I am listing to a song asking Jesus to lead me to the cross where He died, and where I am to die. Somehow, I am caught by the picture of this Jesus, called effeminate by some, whose compassion radiates so vibrantly that I just cannot refuse the beauty of Him.’If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ (Mark 8.34)

Right after Jesus rebukes Peter, He says this bit about losing our lives and taking on His with this cross. Jesus, what are you talking about? Will Your people really crucify me for just loving them and talking about the truth? I don’t know if I have experienced enough of life to say anything that I do, believe anything so fully as I do… people tell me I do too much, that I am an overachiever; my response lately has been “For you it would be, if you think so, but for me, it is my reasonable service.” I don’t know if I bear a cross sometimes. I live this life by faith, I guess. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, if I will wake up with enough time to run, if I will slip on the ice and fall in front of a car if I do run, if I will die in my sleep, if I will have surprise encounters tomorrow; I just don’t know so much. I don’t know if I bear a cross– sometimes it doesn’t feel like I do.

I know I want to follow Jesus, though, so whatever it means for me to bear a cross, I want to. Right now, I am trying to learn how to be compassionate, to be like Jesus. To care about others’ cares and give them the words they need to hear and whatever that love they need, in its truly loving form as Jesus would love. But I know its not me who is capable of giving anything to anyone. It’s the Spirit of Jesus working in side of me through all this outside stuff, making  me more like my Jesus… and therefore, I am not really doing anything. The Spirit has made me a channel of His grace, a vessel as I like to think of it, Jesus with skin on. So He’s reorienting my genetic makeup to handle Him passing though me.

So how does this work when I talk about things like yesterday as exhaustion? I really do love life, I don’t care if its hard, really. But hard? How hard has my life really been. I grieve in lack of comprehension at how any people can be so hateful. I used to be, but I find myself unable to stay mad for very long at all. When people fight, if they just won’t stop to discuss, I cry. But I must live and suffer with Your people Jesus… Even You only reasoned to a point, and I can’t change anyone. I have to lose my savior complex and let You be Savior. I know I just need to let You work in me… I know in my head I that I can’t save anyone… teach me in my life. I guess You have to keep me crying, breaking my heart. Jesus, why cry? I can do nothing more. I just love You, I love them, why can’t they be like You?

Help me love like You Jesus. I have nothing to offer in exchange for my life, just take it away. Mark 8:38,”For if anyone in this sinful and adulterous generation is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Jesus, help me not live ashamed. Help me care with a lifestyle of intercessory prayer for a people who no longer knows You, even those who call You as their own. Help me just pour out and wear out my heart every day, Jesus, get filled with You, and empty again every day. Let love be my intercession for those I need to love.

I, Hannah, have been living in a daydream world of idealistic aspirations ever since I can remember; I did it for survival, one of those defense mechanisms of adopting an alternate reality, which of course was easier than facing the actuality of a situation. But now, I don’t want to live in faery tales. I will always relate to faery tales and understand things differently because if the life I experienced through the life perspective of an alternate reality. Accepting the theology that heaven isn’t here wasn’t hard for me; not embracing this life too tightly wasn’t hard; accepting that I cannot know all wasn’t hard, because how I focused myself as a young girl to deal with life taught me that God was distant, but close enough in my heart for me to know Him. I made God a faery world, all so pretty, and realized I was caught in reality… and so somehow, I embodied that thin space between the two worlds. I am speaking in terms of perception… I cannot sensibly feel God for sure, though of course I try to.

I don’t understand much of how life operates at times… I am very simple in comprehending perceptions, though I sense quite a lot of them. Maybe I am overly perceptive of things, and don’t know how to interpret them, so I am simple… I don’t have a lot of life experience… I am 19 years old. So maybe the maturing I need to better understand perceptions is just the fact of life experience and seeing how my theology works out… and allow my theology to change as I see God differently in the circumstances of life. I have found myself, lately, almost incapable of mindlessness, even when exhausted. “mindless” engagement (or maybe lack of engagement) for me is equated with falling asleep.

Till the moment I fell asleep last night, I remember listening to lectures. Then my mind cut out… maybe it was a little more gradual, I don’t know. I ran last night, and my body was in exhilaration when I began running, but I felt the mental state wear off. The entire run, I was chewing over the words and ideas from Matisyahu’s “King Without A Crown.”I want the King, the Messiah back now. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and it has always been… God has always been King. I want Him King on earth now: I still live in fields of paper flowers and candy clouds of lullabies… and purple skies… the daydream work has always been like a picturesque candy land. That isn’t the real world. Real life empties me every day, even my mind, to where I just fall asleep.

At 3am, I woke up, and lay there, I can’t even remember how sweet Jesus felt to me then, or how to describe that, but if you have ever been in love, really in love, and feeling that… I don’t think I’ve ever been in love like this. It’s deeper… I know that I don’t have to maintain my part of him to love me. I am just coming to understand through relationship with people how relationship with God works. 2 ways? I never knew I affected anyone else in our interactions and relationships. Maybe that sounds proud, but I always approached in timidity, I never trusted that anyone I dared to love could care back for me, what is there to care for, be interested in? But I find people love me, and I don’t understand it. And they tell me I affect them. Wow, Jesus, I am terrified. Let me be like You, always, so even in my attempt at loving with all I am, I give You to them, or let You pass through me to them. I am just a vessel, I cannot save anyone nor even desire too or that love is perverted.

Jesus, help me understand your compassion for me life. I, Hannah, am nothing… You are all that is of worth in me, Your particular image and its demonstration in my love for others. Help me embody Your compassion, to love as You love, so purely. Jesus, I love you.

A review of Chptr. 16 from Piper and Grudem’s “A Biblical Response to Evangelical Feminism”: Biological Basis for Gender Behavior.

Gregg Johnson brings out some interesting points about the bases for behavioral difference between men and women: biological factors. Since the natures of men and women have been historically debated, Johnson suggests that to truly understand the biological factors for the different typical behavioral patterns of men and women, “we should actively eliminate all cultural elements that continue to foster traditional attitudes that the sexes might be differently gifted,” (280) since culture tends to largely define the gender roles of behavior. However, studies in gender stereotypes identified drastically different characteristics between men and women. Men had higher levels of these traits: “aggressiveness, dominance, self-confidence, and activity level” while women had higher levels “ verbal ability, compliance, nurturance, and empathy scales” (281). So how does anatomy and physiology play into these gender behavior characteristics? A further question I would wonder from there would be what are the anatomical and physiological factors which differ in a man or woman without the stereotypical gender behavioral traits?
Johnson suggests that the gender behaviors patterned according to anatomy are “characteristic not only to humans, but also many of the higher social animals.” (281) However, Johnson cautions humans on understanding gender behaviors solely from the data obtained studying more highly sociable animals. While there are universal gender behavior trends that correlate between humans and animals, Johnson points out that there is no such possible correlation between animal and human nervous systems. Secondly, Johnson acknowledges cautions that all information is a generalization rather than completely universalized data. Johnson offers seven data points, which offer evidence on physiological gender differences dictating some gender behaviors.
Ethological observations (those based on group social behavior of humans and animals) deduce that males, being more assertive and aggressive tend to be more socially dominant than the women. Since women tend to be more nurturing, they serve as primary care givers submissive to the dominant territories erected by the men. In non-nervous system physiology, ethological observations allow males to be more aggressive because they convert more energy to muscle and power faster and in greater quantities than women, who tend to store the energy in fact, allowing them resilience to nurture their young. Women have more sensory nerve endings in their skin, not allowing them to withstand physical extremes as well as males. Johnson makes an interesting observation that “sex differences present in all the organ systems across various mammalian species go far beyond the superficial anatomical characteristics necessary for reproduction,” (284) explaining the physiology as dictated by hormonal differences.
Not only hormones dictate the gender differences based on biology, but Johnson points out how the peripheral nervous system differs between genders: women have peripheral senses allowing them to better read emotions (allowing for nurturing) while men tend to have better hand-eye coordination. While Johnson seems to understand these characteristics as coming from a natural order, I am not so sure as to whether biology dictates personality and nature. Perhaps I must concede this fact… can someone go against his or her biology? How much affect do hormones really have upon me, my body and my behavior? Not only do peripheral senses tend to vary per gender, but also the functions of the limbic systems, which is the “seat of drives and emotions” (285). Again, Johnson ties the correlation between amounts of testosterone and estrogen to dictate the intensity of certain behaviors (such as aggression or maternal instincts) in males and females.
One of the most fascinating anatomical differences between men and women is that of the corpus callosum, “the bridge of nerve fibers connecting the two cerebral hemispheres” (287). The physiology of the brains seem to indicate that “the female central nervous system may have more interconnections and more networking fibers” (289) than the male brain. Supposedly, this makes women more “capable of receiving and meaningfully processing more sensory nerve per input” (289) than men. So why is it that men are given the stereotypical roles as the intellectuals, if they “tend to have thought-processing more regionally isolated and discreet, with fewer interconnecting nerve interactions” (289)? Society has done itself a disservice by historically repressing women’s thought lives; imagine how difficult it would be for a bright woman to cope with being restrained from the learning she craved?
Another interesting point Johnson notes is that of sex differences between men and women at birth. Women who were given different steroids at the births of their children seemed to give birth to children with different tendencies. However, Johnson does point out that “hormones are a more reliable predictor of gender-related behavior characteristics than cultural persuasion.” (291) When dealing with stress, Johnson claims “men respond initially in the same way as females” (292), sedated be hormones, but in the long term do not deal with stress as well. It is well summarizing the biological differences between men and women to say that anatomy dictates different needs and gifts. The evidence presented by Johnson would seem to indicate basic physiological differences between men and women, from which was can derive God-given differences for a purpose.

When I came here to Davis College, you would never have heard the words “I love you” cross my lips to anyone I cared for, because I thought they always had to imply something romantic, that they were something to be ashamed of, etc. Wow, not anymore. I am not the same girl who came to Davis College, quiet, afraid, exhaustively hard-working without any sort of goal, not hating people, but finding them more a deterrence to my faith than a help. I don’t see things that way anymore. I didn’t know what it really meant to be loved. My comprehension of love was obligation… you’ve done this for me, so I need to repay you. I did that with my family, my friends, and even Jesus. I could not accept a gift. While I may struggle still, I will not fight the words I love you. I have reached understanding through experience of variations of what people mean when they say “I love you” that regardless of how much they hurt me, what they expect back as my love to them or what they hope to extract/manipulate out of my feelings by telling  me that… how to really love people. Now not fully, of course I’d never say that.

I used to think Jesus and I, divorced from circumstances (how foolish I was to associate people with circumstances) yet remaining in them, would be Ok with love. What a separationist heart I had! I think Jesus led me through everything I experienced since coming to this college to teach me what love is. I had already signed my heart away to Him in our covenant of faith, yet I had so limited His love to “being nice;” it was not real, genuine, etc. God is love, right? Real love fits every situation in life.

But I’ve learned about different types of love here too. I’ve learned that my kind of love for people, that couldn’t care less what skin color, gender, religion, etc. you are… I can love you, and I am trying to learn how upon first meeting a person, I can see them and individualize all the cloakings that compose them. I have begun learning what it means to be personal, and to be amongst people, be affected by them. I am all together too able to divorce myself from circumstances… so I am learning how to keep myself under them. I am dreadful when it comes to maintaining the attention span necessary to grow under conflict. Jesus, I need you to help me. I know where those thin place are between this world and the faery world of my overactive imagination… please help me keep in reality. It’s funny that I should be asking you that.

I think the struggle for me Jesus is that I know too well how to get free mentally from a circumstance and escape the pain of guilt and other things by distancing myself in fields of paper flowers… to the lullabies where faeries rock me to sleep, where I am not one of those helpless people so easily taken over. But in my dreams I am stronger than I really am. Jesus, help me not to lose touch with the here and now all throughout my life as I go about seeking for Your Face. My imagination can picture You Jesus, but you tell me You are to remain a mystery which I can only feel out in faith, for I am not strong enough to steel my will into the bulwark of Your mountain. Jesus, I am asking You to keep me in a place of trust and learn the reality of here and then… to go farther and be ready as I am close to You to flow with Your unexpected. I really love You so much. Help me love more.

I have begun reading the fascinating work of N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, recently-published work as of 2006. Here are some thoughts and reflections triggered by the first chapter “Evil is Still a Four Letter Word”:

Wright says on Pg. 18 of Evil and the Justice of God that he does not speculate on evil, but rather finds himself “standing in the noble tradition of continuing my theological education in public” with all the shame, humiliation, growth, ridicule, and encouragement that implies; how gutsy.

On evil, “if we are to see more clearly what is going on, we need to factor certain things into our understanding which are normally screened out.” (19)

Because we still praise in the face of nastiness in life, we have a problem of understanding good’s existence in the midst of such a world versus evil (which seems to ordinary). Wright suggests “we who have heard of so many further disasters, both natural and man-made, can only perhaps continue to sing it (songs of praise) because we have a hard-won natural theology in the teeth of the negative counterevidence or because we have not stopped to think.” (20). Anyone who has struggled to win or stopped to think realizes the need for violence within the character.

Wright deems it an unfortunate, popular misconception to buy into Hegel’s philosophy of the doctrine of progress that: “everything was moving toward a better, fuller, more perfect end; and if there had to be suffering on the way, if there had to be problems as the dialectic unwound, so be it;” (21). Such is society’s belief, and I fear the Church’s too, in natural, automatic progress… that evolution is resulting in the better, not worsening of life.

Maybe I in my romantic idealist am part of the movement, which envisions “a study march toward freedom and justice, conceived often in terms of slow, but sure triumph of Western-style liberal democracy and soft versions of socialism” (22). That is not what I can place my hope in the world becoming. I want to redefine my idealism; I know I really need to… I do not understand a lot of the hate… the most recent fight between my friends left me feeling helpless after appeals to both of them to cease fighting and just talk. I have been seduced into pacifism… I am no longer an activist; I am merely striving for ideals with no hope of achieving them. To vocalize that position is one thing, to activate it, another. Can I hope for belief in someone without any potential of my hopes ever being actualized? I need hope in my life, in spite of circumstances. I have made those ideals… Jesus, how do I make it you? I cannot manufacture my own hope or achieve my own salvation, nor that of anyone else. I need more reality. Yet when I hit reality, I retreated into dreams, which formed so thick a fog around me, that the mists are still clearing away, and their confusion.

From Dostoyevsky, I retrieved the idea Wright plays with “in which he considers the possibility that the world might advance toward perfection at cost of torturing a single innocent child to death, and he concludes that the price is already too high.” (23) Are we already committing the three deadly sins of Leviticus 18, which will pollute out land? How do these sins look in our context of the people of God today… how are we adding to the problem of evil?

In describing the problem of evil as facing us today, Wright says “we ignore evil when it doesn’t hit us in the face… we are surprised by evil when it does… (and) we react in immature and dangerous ways as a result” (24) of being unprepared for evil. O Church, what are we doing? We are laying down our very shield of faith by disbelieving that God is just in His mercy… and we rely so much on the sympathy of His mercy that we have lost touch of the reality that God’s mercy includes pain and suffering because of who we are to retain right relationship with Him.

Its fascinating that Wright defines the realm beyond good and evil as “where might is right” (24), though this is not the sort of absolute I think of transcending human assignment of values. Wright acknowledges that good and bad are not so clear-cut as we try to define them, but that there is balance, which exists to “avoid too much dualism, too much polarization between good and evil.” (24) This causes me to turn my thoughts back to the question of the Sitra Achta, where people allow for the stuff we call “evil” within Yhwh. Such thin ice… or is this attempting to walk in water?

How can I say that “’choice’ is an absolute good for everyone”? (24) Wright notices that the very controls which affirm what is good and what is evil are not called “evil;” the very boundaries by which we maintain happiness are no longer acceptable, being blamed as stifling mechanisms to trigger evil in humans. I know I was born in desperate need of God, in depravity, because after the cross, I can look back and see Romans 7 in that self that needed the guidance of God. Makes me wonder how I can remember God more and more; must just be that time in the book, honest conversation and reflection before the throne of my Holy God which will allow me to forget more and more the old (will it ever go away? The evil stain on my memory?) as I try and remember Yhwh more and more.

Wright in talking about how we try and deny the harsh reality of life’s evil through existence testifies that we try and deny and drown out such realities as terrorism and death. He says that “death is banished from our from our societies… (and even from) our societal imagination, as the relentless quest for sexual pleasure—and sex, of course, is a way of laughing in the face of death…” (26). Wright puzzles me in how he ties two things in which society is so wrapped up in… death and sex? The terrible fear of death compelling the insatiable animal appetite? I cannot relate, I only understand as much as I see in others. Oh Church, why do we run from death when it has no victory over us? We are called to embrace the cross of our death… like our loving Jesus… and realize how much more alive we are for not being subject to its strong. Why do we still not have enough faith to face death well?

Slowly waning I think is maybe that last remaining evil which might fully pollute our land… the very worst, child sacrifice. What would compel us to give up our own children to such revolting perversions, even worse than death? “Child abuse is stomach-churningly disgusting,” Wright acknowledges, but this “one remaining taboo” is more a means of “lashing out at something you simply know is wrong… but it is hardly the way to build a stable moral society.” (27) Sadly, I think that relentless attack on the sanctity of childhood will result in the Church in America having to deal with government-approved child sacrifice because of our apathy. We have brought exile upon ourselves… we need to repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand… and yet we remain unmoved.

Wright suggests that we are indeed moved by evil, but moved in a state of immaturity to anger versus thoughtful, spirit-led reaction: “just as you cannot eliminate evil by act of Congress of by a philosophical argument, so you cannot do so with High Explosives.” (28) My reactions to evil demonstrate my immaturity in dealing with evil: Wright says I either “project evil out on to others, generating a culture of blame” or “we can project blame onto ourselves and imagine we are to blame for it all” (29). I think I do the latter over the former. Yet both are wrong understandings of evil in the world.

While I am currently interested with Wright’s question of how we grow out of our forced reactions/dealings with evil, but he prefers to move on to postmodernism in his perspective of the dilution of evil in this culture. I think his real beef with postmodern culture is the realization it brings of “increased demands for truth and increased difficulty in discerning it” (31). I am a product of my culture, a skeptic, but probably not wholly if I am honest, because I want answers and do not want to question endlessly… for there are always more things to explore; I must settle on an answer I can live with and let it grow and expand the more I experience. I can always get closer to God.

Wright almost makes “postmodernism” synonymous with “the problem of evil” which I just can’t do… it’s a way of approach; it defies logic, as does all belief. So it makes my faith harder, but I have so much more reason to believe because of the questions it forces me to pursue, in the face of evil. Wright’s beef with postmodernism is that is “remorselessly goes deeper than simply suggesting that all human claims are flawed; it deconstructs humans themselves.” (31) But to me, that just shows me how solid God’s unpredictableness is for me… as a song says “and I have come to you in search of faith, ‘cause I can’t see beyond this place; for you are God and I am man, and I leave it in Your hands.” Postmodernism increases the need for faith, I think.

Wright chooses to disagree, claiming the point of view that Postmodernism disables faith and leaves no hope for redemption. I cannot trust in myself, I think postmodernism really shows me that. He chooses to summarize the three aspects of realization in order to make any headway in understanding evil through three points: (1) confessing “that we may not have gotten democracy right” , (2) recognizing that evil has a “depth-dimension, a supra-personal element within it” and (3) acknowledging that good and evil run through all of us. Wright concludes with the supremacy of God over evil, as in over the chaos of the good-created sea: “Evil may still be a four-letter word. But so, thank God, is love.”(41)

WHEW! That was one intense chapter.

“Biology with God”? Are you kidding me, let’s not be so primitive in talking about my romance with Jesus. It truly is spiritual, in a way that encompasses all of my life into a Song of Solomon-like narrative; maybe that’s the only language that can truly capture my heart with Jesus. I am still convinced marriage is a sacrament, for the betterment of my soul, be it tangible or only spiritual.

Have we entered into only a partial marriage with God, where we refuse Him and ourselves the joy of fully knowing and fully being known? If I could think of other language to use, believe me, I would, but I think that intimately romantic language is about the best I’ve got for now. Paul talks about marriage imitating/picturing Christ and His Church, of which we are all members. Yikes, dare I say that to me, there is nothing sensual about this romance with Jesus? Not in any physical sense (again); I am perfectly OK with marriage just being the closest human sacrament to be so fully known and to know.

But for me, I am more than content, I am thriving with His Spirit breathed into me… now its mine… the lamp of Yhwh in me. It courses through my veins, livening my blood. My spirit is refreshed and inspired by the touch of Him. I can adore because though I don’t fully know Him, I trust in spite of how I present to others; I am fully known, and yet, its dynamic, always more conscious of being progressively more fully known. There is always room for more, for I am always changing, more and different of me for Jesus to explore even as I explore Him… even if we are always together. I wrote down a question in prayer tonight: Jesus, if our relationship goes both ways, how do I affect You?

I am a hopeless romantic, in love with Jesus, shamelessly now… (or well, there is still some stuff to be cleared out, but mostly shameless!)… and if the only way to convey to others in the fullest sense how they are known wholly by Jesus and how He longs for them to know Him, I will read carefully in my analogies and depicting imagery. But I think I am a bride of Christ.

I think this is real, this should be desired, this is where He’s at. How can one resist His beauty? How can I say “NO” or withhold anything from Him? Others have hurt me, people I might be anxious to pull away from, but Jesus tells me I will know His love in part through His people… and my gentle Jesus leads me amongst the throngs and romances me there; I realize He’s gentle because I feel the strength in the hand that compels me, irresistibly, forward … so I must love His people… even the ones He created who are image bearers outside of His covenant. How do we limit this Jesus, how?

Jesus, I think we’re long overdue for one of these chats again. Oh and look, I’m going to talk to you about some of the same sorts of stuff You hear from me over and over again… walking on thin ice and balancing on the edge of a knife. There’s something, Jesus, about the edge that makes it so dangerous… maybe that’s an ignorance that always seems bound-up at least in me when I get close to something truly dangerous. This boldness coming out in me as I explore You, Jesus, in me, my life, and others… Jesus, I don’t know where the fearlessness I now have is, the love I feel for others… it must be You and all You’ve been doing me. I know that even since this semester began, maybe about a month and a half ago, my perspective has become a focus on You and people, rather than academics.

I still know my job is to be a good student, and I am determined not to let that suffer, but I am no longer the dogmatic academician that I was upon arrival. Maybe that was part of the reason my first semester was so miserable… I cloistered myself away in books and head learning… but from the exposure I had to life before coming to this school, I knew I would explode if I limited my learning to my head. I have been down some dark roads of meaninglessness by limiting my study to the sterile, morbidly dark environment of my mental laboratory. Jesus, I was just beginning to realize what hope was when I came here. I was just beginning to be free of so many burdens, to find joy in life. I find so much inspiration now, living with people, living for real with You… O Jesus, never make me shut myself up by myself for too long, that is a torment my soul is too weak to bear.

I thought, Jesus, that coming here would make me more self-sufficient. I had all the wrong aspirations… and I thought they equated to growing closer with You. O Jesus, forgive me again for how wrong I was. And I was so naive. I didn’t understand life and how it worked at all… O Jesus, I still have no idea with that big picture of yours, and even far less understanding than I thought I did when coming here. But whatever goes on in this life, I have felt more of it… experienced some things I never wanted to know could happen, never dreamed of… and still fight off memories of. All that first year, Jesus, when I was just getting to a place with You that I was so excited about… so enthralled with You, to try and live You and share You… Jesus, I don’t think that I’d ever cried so much or hurt so much as last year.

I know the way I was living my life, now, entirely asked for You to crush my dreams of reality to be close to You. I remember verbalizing those words to You. I remember being so lonely over that summer, not understanding the division among my Christian brothers and sisters that I was working with before Davis, and finally finding You after spending night after night awake, sleepless, because I couldn’t feel You in the core of my being where I knew You had to be, because You promised You were. That year was like my personal purgatory… maybe life is just enough to be a purgatory-like event. But I had a confidence that I was Yours coming to Davis, because I finally believed in that covenant.

I cut myself short too quickly by “falling in love” and not understanding at all what that meant. Jesus, it makes me cry what I did, because I could feel myself cutting off from You. Of course he didn’t feel that, he knows or thinks strongly that he is meant to be married. I cannot feel it right for me. Ok, so that’s still just for now, but Jesus… oh the terrible things I did to You in that relationship. You have seen my heart poured out to You… it was the circumstances of life that really forced me into deeper probing in my writing… I had to write, because my tears choked me up so often, too often… so many sleepless, emotionally exhausted nights… I developed a restlessness, a perpetual exhaustion. I felt the affects of all that in my relationship with You, and it came out in what I did to my body. I thought I’d gone too far for You to still want covenant with me. I couldn’t go back to You… You know all those reasons why… the new things I did that I never thought I was capable of doing which resurrected old dead men… dead men weighing down my soul under guilt again… heavier than last time.

I convinced myself I was not worthy of your covenant, again. I remember how hopeless that was last time, thinking that even the blood of Jesus couldn’t wash me clean enough. Jesus, please stop making me cry, I need to tell You this.  I remember in the spring last year, just a year ago, I thought everything would be so different than the fall. I told myself I would shake myself free of the burdens that haunted me. O Jesus, I tried. I cut the cords… by my own efforts, I became so disciplined physically, I got a 4.0… I did everything right, but I was miserable… and the life was getting worse… and You would not leave me alone in my misery… You cut me deeper, because I still told You I wanted You. You let me run myself out… that finally cleansing was in that summer last year… I was ready to give up.

I was so desperate and broken after one week, Jesus, I wanted to give up. I sobbed myself to sleep over those Junior High girls every night… they broke my heart with how they treated each other… knowing if I kept one girl in the cabin she would turn some others hard, but knowing if she went home she’d be beaten; having to send one girl home… O Jesus… my body was so depleted, my spirit so deep at the gates of Sheol that I remember fighting every minute for energy to just walk to the playground and sit there while the kids played. And when I tried to engage for a while, I was too easily tired. But You were working on me, and I found myself so empty of myself, I knew I needed Your joy to give life and strength to my bones, my very flesh.

So I chose to hope and began risking more… and Jesus, You drew me closer. I loved more, could do more. Jesus, King of Angels, I don’t know how I survived that summer physically, let alone emotionally or spiritually. I kept fearing I’d get hard, but I think it made me softer. The fall, though, completed this work… or maybe its still going on. I was so dashed to pieces and ripped to shreds, between You and other things… I thank You so much for setting me free to choose You… and yet still I battled with the courage to really live free. And so here I am Jesus, this semester, loving the life I live, so  free to love. I am learning how to feel out Your covenant, and it’s exciting. Jesus, draw me deeper into this heart of Yours. I am not who I was, make me like who You are. I love you from the depths of my life.

Hannah