The Underground Railroad

Wunderkind

In the girls' group I help facilitate on Monday nights, we're discussing what our identity in Christ means. For some, it means learning the meaning of our names; for others, it's flexing skills and putting in practice lifestyles of being part of a royal priesthood; still for others, it's taking a huge step of actually trusting this Invisible God - something adults have a hard enough time with, let alone teenage girls.

All of me will "grow old", but a part of me will never "grow up". As I write stories and poems, I still see myself as a young girl, perhaps sixteen or so, looking deeply for the first time into God, Jesus, His world, and His love. It is wounding... much of His Truth and reality I cannot bear. It is healing... it reveals places I never would have thought were hurt. It is fantastic... in the ordinary everday, in the common life of community, in the boredom and chaos, the ups and downs, there is breathless imagination that only God can stretch into infinity. 

What does this have to do with slavery? I mean, this is a blog about human trafficking isn't it? Well, slavery is an identity -- to be a slave shapes how you see yourself and often, it is a morbid and dying sight. However, even past slavery - to those of us who have never been trafficked - there are fears and oppressors over God's creative identity for us (including ourselves). Some days, even the most faithful of abolitionists need a reminder.

So call me childish (I'd prefer "child-like", if must call me something), but Alanis Morisette's Wunderkind is a Song from the Underground that declares so much of who we are... of who I am. "...destined to serve... destined to roam..." It is a declaration of paradoxes, enigmas, and yet full childlike discovery. Written for the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, I gravitated instantly to the song. You see, I saw myself very much like Lucy Pevencie growing up -- in wonder, in hiding, in exploration, in daring, in danger, but full of mysterious faith and childlike belief. I still do.

I very much believe that "I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment". 

Will this help end slavery?

Yes.

The mystery of Christ is to be embraced. Once embraced, there's no telling where we will end up. It will be dangerous. BUT... it will be good. Very good.

Cheesy post, perhaps. But today, knowing the very real dangers we're all facing in this struggle for freedom, I needed a childlike perspective speaking truth in ways we adults all too soon forget.

Enjoy.

"Wunderkind" ~ Alanis Morisette

Oh perilous place
Walk backwards toward you
Blink disbelieving eyes chilled to the bone
Most visibly brave
No apprehended gloom
First to take this foot to virgin snow

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind ohwowoh
I lift the envelope pushed far enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne
destined to serve
destined to roam

Oh ominous place
Spellbound and un-childproofed
My least favorite chill to bear alone

Compatriots in place
They’d cringe if I told you
Our best back pocket secret: our bond full blown

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind ohwowoh
I am a pioneer naïve enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne
destined to seek
destined to know

Most beautiful place
Reborn and blown off roof
My view: about face whether, great will be done

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind ohwowoh
I am a groundbreaker naïve enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind ohwowoh
I am the Joan of Arc and smart enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne

Destined to reign, destined to roam
Destined to reign, destined to roam
Ohahahoohah
Ohahahoohah
Destined to reign, destined to roam
Destined to reign, destined to roam

 

I Love Lac La Biche

There. I admit it. I love this messy, crazy, colorful, wonderful, conflicted, peaceful, redneck, hippie collision of nowheresvilles, Alberta. Happy?

Yes.

I am.

If anyone knows me well, they know I am prone to long rambles along the highways around LLB. Not exactly the safest route, I've been told, but still... no better view of the town at sunset, in starlight or moonlight, or during the afternoon sun as me on the open highway. Anyone who knows me well will also know that I will do almost whatever it takes to get the best view of... anywhere... anything. To really, truly experience a place -- a sense of being -- you have to go straight to the edge of all things... a look down... look across... look out... look in...

After convincing myself that God really wanted me in "The Inner-City of Somewhere Else", I was relieved to be ditching this place. I was done with.... (insert list here of all things I perceived to be wrong, broken, frustrating, and blocked). But then God happened.

He happens at the most inconvenient of times, I must say.

"Why are you announcing community, intentionally love where you are moving to if you have not learned to truly love the community you are in?"

BAM.

Checkmate.

Running away to the proverbial mission under the guise that I wanted to good (which I did), was only a thin veneer for dodging messy community in all its glory (which I was). In the past couple days, I've taken extremely long rambles about the trucking bypass and began to realize something: I really do love this place. I really have been given a heart for this place. What a shock! In all this beauty, scenic nature, cultural diversity, religious affiliations, here I am. In all the conflicts, family wars, gang junk, racial tension, drug & alcohol abuse, legalism, here I am.

Some have said that, despite this being my 7th year here (has a rather biblical tone, does it not?), I will never be from here. I wasn't born and raised here, thus I will never be able to call this home. Others even more transient than I have been in life marvel that I have stayed as long as I have. Well, in response to both perspectives, I go to John 1... read it just this morning:

 ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

Call me crazy (don't worry, a lot of people have, me being one of them), but I am not of this world as the world knows itself to be. I am flesh, created in the image of God, but more than that I am not of this world. So that I am not of good ol' LLB is quite true... yet the roots I put down here are deeper than physical birth. My identity, my birth, my personhood is of another kingdom, a deeper one -- a richer one that is eternal.

I was thinking all of this as Collective Soul sang out into my iPod: "So I walk up on high and I step to the edge to see the world I love. And I laugh at myself as the tears roll down, 'cause it's the world I love.

It's the world I love."

Thinking deeply as I spied the Mosque across from the bypass, as I chatted with some leisurely paced mule deer in a field, as I watched my own shadow grow longer in the afternoon winter sun, as every 18-wheeler passed me, as I passed churches, forests, barns, trailer courts, gas stations, suburbs... everywhere...

Some days I want to pull out my hair over the petty squabbles... other days there is deep sorrow for the injustices we have inflicted upon one another... other days I am awed at the beauty of the cultures who have found their way here, in whatever manner... and still on other days, I sometimes think I would pay a million bucks just for someone to take me to the Sir Francis Winspear Centre for Music in Edmonton so I could get a breath of wondrous classical music because I just can't take another second of another twangy country voice anymore.

(Smiles)

So here I am... Coming Home.

Here's Collective Soul's "The World I Know" - http://youtu.be/n7TLTjqUyog

Relational & Revolutionary, Not Reactionary

It happens to the best of us: our turf gets a little bit encroached upon (the turf we know everything about), and we head into battle mode faster than the US into Iraq. If we do not prove ourselves correct, and the other person incorrect, we have not done our jobs.

Why?

I ask because I see this flaw in my personal design. It gets in the way of my relationships - both current, and ones I wish to make; it takes over common sense; but what's worse, it flies in the face of the self-control Christ is slowly growing in me. Others get hurt, even if I've been the one initially hurt, and God is certainly not glorified.

What's the deal?

Part of it is personality: I have a tendency to see things in black/white terms, right/wrong, up/down, yes/no, or us/them terms. Is there a place for right and wrong, up and down? I believe so. But as I grow more deeply in my walk with Christ, I do not believe a reactionary black/white action is reflective of His character or transformative work in myself or the community around me. 

Ouch. 

But I MUST be right! The world is not in my control if I'm NOT right! It's so embarrassing to be WRONG!

Erin... chill.

Yes, it is certainly a humbling experience to be pointed out as incorrect, or wrong. In fact, it can be humiliating. Yet I believe these are experiences God uses to shape us, and to help us see things from His perspective, as well as the perspective of the other person or group. On the flip side, if we know we're correct, it can be a source of dangerous pride watching the other person squirm in their incorrect state of mind. When we finally prove our correct-ness, we triumph!

Have we?

Are we any closer to knowing the person we just ripped apart?

The fleeting desire to be right suddenly goes down the drain along with the light of life in the eyes of the other person. Double ouch. Our doctrine may have prevailed over the other person's doctrine, but we just injured another's spirit in the process.

Part of the issue, I believe, has been/is the teaching of many conservative church groups (whatever denomination or level of fundamentalism you ascribe yourself to). We are trained -- literally hard-wired -- to make our arguments, especially in the areas of theology, religion, evangelism, and morality. Make no mistake: there is room for healthy debate! That's not what I'm talking about here. Apologetics have been reduced, like much of the Gospel, to trouncing the opposition, because heaven forbid the opposition get more souls than we do. 

Much of this dogma comes from the passage in 1 Peter 3. Verse 15b-17 says: "Always be ready to give an answer when someone asks you about your hope. ¹⁶Give a kind and respectful answer and keep your conscience clear. This way you will make people ashamed for saying bad things about your good conduct as a follower of Christ. ¹⁷You are better off to obey God and suffer for doing right than to suffer for doing wrong." (CEV)

I don't know about you, but I was taught in many-a-Sunday School, sermon, VBS, or Bible Study that this explicity meant having a hardcore, "proven" evangelical answer based on the best of theologians who know their Hebrew and Greek. There was lip service given to giving kind & respectful answers, but more focus on how our answers would bring shame to those sinners. We kindly point out how everyone else is wrong. After all, pointing out sin and the grace of the cross is the best form of love a believer can offer, is it not?

Not.

Yet we are shamed into believing that be unable to give Biblically accurate answers is a sign of weakness in our lives, and the potential damnation of the person across from us rests on our shoulders. After all, that person could die by being hit by a bus right after talking to us.

Talk about pressure.

So with this constant hyper-vigilance, is it any wonder that many of us recovering fundys are discovering that our training was more combative, rather than relational? When we are in a perpetual state of "SHOW THEM WE'RE RIGHT", conversations suddenly become one-way; or they turn into fruitless debates; or they simply show our worst sides for the world to see. Even if we believe we are being kind, the perception is that we're really being quite condescending and self-righteous.

If believers are going to engage the world in ways Christ would (and did), we need to be willing to be transformed from our sword-words aimed at decimating the person before us. Here are a few things I, and a few friends, are commited to learning for the rest of our lives as we seek to know the person with us, rather than prove our correct-ness to them. Trust me, we're all learning at a snail's pace. But perhaps these things need to be learned slowly...:

1) Ask open-ended questions (I noticed you spoke of ---. Could you tell me what you meant by that?... or That was something I wasn't aware of. Could you tell me a bit more about that?... etc.) This will not only show the other person that we deeply care about them, but we will find ourselves opening up to the other person too. Reciprocity is key.

2) Listen. Deeply. And NOT with the intent of prepping our ammo for when it's our turn to talk. This means laying ourselves down entirely, truly desiring to hear the other person out because God loves them perfectly, as we are called to. Listening with ulterior motives, or as a means to share our version of the gospel will be sniffed out quickly, and exposed as the false pretense it is.

3) If comments are in written form, re-read them. Then re-read them again. Ask more open-ended questions. Do our own background research about concepts we might not agree with, but have to admit we don't quite understand or know much about. Again, the research is with the motivation of knowing the person, and not building up ammo to shoot them down.

4) Be wrong. We will be. When we are, admit it. When we are not and accused falsely, accept the accusation with genuine grace, and find other ways to continue the relationship.

5) Decide consciously that there is no massive need to prove ourselves correct, and the other person incorrect. Examine closely our desperate need to be right. Question: "We might be right here, but is there a bigger picture?"... there is ALWAYS more to the story above and below the surface.

6) Exhale. No really... take a breath. Popping out pre-written messages of memorized Scripture, or interpretive conclusions based on those Scriptures does little to build up the other person. Furthermore, it does little to build our own relationships with God. Breathe a little, and allow oxygen to permeate our thoughts, the Spirit to guide our thinking more deeply. Our conversations will be more passionate, more understanding, more reciprocal, and more Christ-like.

7) Examine what we believe and why. Many of the doctrines I was taught from childhood Bible camp through to Bible college are ones I am taking into severe question right now. Are they ALL WRONG? No. I don't believe so, but without deep reflection with God and the willingness to confess "I was wrong", I am preaching an empty and condemning gospel. Remember: there is ALWAYS more to the story.

8) Relational and revolutionary seek the long term, whereas reactionary seeks only the short term. God's kingdom is certainly focused on the here and now, as well as the eternal. They are not mutually exclusive! Seeing only how we can prove ourselves correct moment to moment, especially proof-texting or regurgitating poor theology creates a myopic vision within us. It even makes us sick.

9) Choose deliberately to see each person, and each community as a person/group God created, loves and has already moved in. We are not the be all, end all of God. We don't have that power. When we see people differently, our need to prove ourselves right all of the time dimishes. 

10) It's okay to say: "I don't know."

Christians aren't called to be debaters full of rhetoric. We are called to be ambassadors -- and ambassadors not only know as much as they can about who they represent (Christ), but also the people they are representing to (outsiders, nomads, prodigals, exiles). So this means laying down our intrinsic kneejerk responses, and choosing a calmer, humbler path. Yes, it is as difficult as it sounds and more.

However, in a world that increasingly despises Christians not because of Christ (hey! they LOVE him!), but because of US, we need to take serious stock of how we relate to one another, and to the world. Seeing the long term kingdom efforts, though, it is well worth the difficult journey.