WasabiJane | The blog and portfolio of Lisa Eldred » religion

My Life in Symbolism: The Roses (Part 1)

Lisa — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:54:10 +0000

One of the side effects of having a lit degree is that I see symbolism in everything. Much of my jewelry has taken on a symbolic nature. Or there’s the fact that I literally did not see a rainbow for four years until just after starting my new job. I could rattle off a ton of examples; instead, the best way to explain it is that a friend of mine once described me as the most superstitious person she knows, “but not in a bad way.” It’s one of those side effects of believing in a divine creator who takes supreme interest in the minutiae.

The story of my last few weeks can be illustrated through my roses. I have a few rose bushes growing right next to my apartment door. Note that I had nothing to do with their existence; in fact, as they weren’t in bloom when I looked at the apartment, I didn’t even realize they existed. Over the last month, they’ve become one of my favorite things about this apartment. At least part of that is because of what I’ve learned from them. Since there’s a surprisingly long list, I plan to write several entries.

Today’s story is tied up with my fridge. I started my lease a week before I was due to move in. The first day of the lease, I did three things. The first was to unpack a very small number of items I had brought with me. The second was to start the inspection process (during which I discovered a major leak in the downstairs bathroom sink). The third was to buy groceries, since I was coming from renting a basement and had very few refrigerated or frozen supplies. With these things done, I left and didn’t return again until Thursday.

My friend Ellen came with me that time. “Ooh, you have roses!” she said. I still hadn’t noticed, though they were probably starting to bud at this point. I gave her a quick tour and, in the process of this, opened the fridge door to reveal that the fridge (which, I could tell, was brand new) had stopped running, ruining everything that was in there. A call to maintenance had me pressing the reset button on the outlet. Fridge running, I left.

I stopped by on Friday again, mostly to drop off sandwich materials for the move the next day. I then discovered that the fridge was no longer working and I couldn’t reset the outlet.

There was a rumble of thunder as I called maintenance. (His solution, for the record, was to run an extension cord to the living room.)

Saturday was the move, followed by the discovery that the pilot light on my gas had burned out, meaning no hot water. Monday I lost water pressure in the kitchen sink. The fridge saga lasted until the following Thursday, when they finally brought me a new fridge. A month and a half later, this one still works, but there are a ton of other minor maintenance issues that I’m just avoiding for the time being.

What does this have to do with my roses?

On Saturday, as I escorted my parents out of the apartment, I happened to look at my rose bushes and discovered a little toad, hiding from the heat among the thorns. I think I sat and watched him do absolutely nothing for a good five minutes. It may have been just a brief pause for him; I haven’t seen him since.

But object lesson 1 is this: There is shelter, even among the thorns.

Why I love being single

Lisa — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:30:24 +0000

Over the past few weeks I’ve really been contemplating singleness – my role as a single woman, and the inherent problems and blessings of marriage. Specifically, 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 keeps coming to mind – that married people are concerned with the things of this world. Lately I’ve come to realize how true that is. Not that I am by default an example of a person concerned only with the things of the Lord, of course; but there are a ton of odd things that married people have to consider that don’t even cross my mind.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to generate a list of some of the things I appreciate about being single right now. This is not to say I never want to get married. If I ever do, I sincerely hope I can look back at this list and say why I’m glad these things are no longer true. But to any of you out there who’s single and struggling with that fact (including my future self, most likely), if this list helps you cope at all, then my perpetual bachelorhood will not have been a waste.

I don’t have to worry about anybody’s allergies or general preferences. Cooking-wise, as someone who loves almost all kinds of food, I’m only limited by what’s already in my fridge. So if I feel like making tofu one week or buying 2 lbs. of Swiss chard for a Greek-style pie, nobody else will complain. Similarly, when I eventually get a dog (assuming I’m still single then) I can get the breed I want. I don’t have to worry if my husband is allergic…or doesn’t even like dogs.
I can work late. Most of my coworkers have to leave work by a certain time to make sure they’re home to help out with the kids (or to simply spend time with their spouses), but if I’m in the middle of something I can stay as late as I need.
I can stay up as late as I want with no concerns. Some friends and I regularly get together every other Friday for gaming; if we’re running past midnight one week, one of the guys will get a call from his wife (who chose not to participate), making sure he’s not dead in a ditch somewhere and is on his way home soon. While the concern is enviable, so is the position of being able to stay out as late as I want.
I’m not interrupted at home. I’d regularly interrupt Mom while she was in the middle of her daily devotions as a kid; as an adult maintaining my own devotional life, I’m very grateful that I don’t have to deal with that. My only interruptions are from e-mails and phone calls.
I don’t have to hide anything. This is one of those weird things I just don’t think about. Two coworkers today were talking about hiding their browser history for positive reasons – for example, buying gifts for their wives. One of them actually makes sure to time Amazon purchases just after paying the last credit card bill so his wife won’t see and question the expense until the end of the month (when, hopefully, he’s already given her the gift). That never even crossed my radar as something married people would have to consider.
I get to grow in faith in a unique way. Marriage implies having someone to specifically turn to when things go wrong. We singles can turn to our friends, yes, but in a lot of ways we’re reliant first on God to put the correct people for any given situation in our path (say, to take care of my car). It’s like the team building exercise of falling backward and trusting your partner to catch you; my only partner is invisible. A friend of mine who spent some time in Albania once told me that over there miracles of healing are a lot more common because they have less money and it’s literally a choice between prayer and a doctor they can’t afford. Singleness is a very little bit like that.

So what are some things you like about where you’re at right now?

Provision

Lisa — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 03:48:02 +0000

It was the second verse that caught my attention.

You have given me more than
I could ever have wanted and
I want to give You my heart and my soul…

I’ve sung this song dozens of times over the last decade or so. In all honesty, I’ve never been a huge fan. Repetitive, very little theological depth – but then, I was raised on a steady diet of hymns and Rich Mullins and Degarmo and Key. So I don’t actually know why it made me choke up a little today. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling blessed, surrounded by friends, working at a job I love. And every apartment hurdle has been overcome slowly but surely.

This joy lasted until I walked out to my car and discovered it wouldn’t start.

My immediate thought was that it was the battery, since it had died once a few months before. Mercifully, two friends (Alan and Tina) walked out of the church only a few moments after I did, and with their help and the assistance of one of the facilities managers at church, we spent the next 45 minutes determining that, actually, the battery was fine and it was probably the starter.

“Do you have a remote starter?” asked Alan. Well, yes, though I never use it; I had actually taken it off my keychain several months ago.

I called a tow truck and had them take me to Sears Auto, which is mercifully open on Sundays. “It’s probably the starter,” they said. All signs pointed to being able to drive home.

After about half an hour, they came back. “Do you have a remote starter?”

It turns out that something in the remote starter had gone bad and burned something or other out. And because of how the remote starter was wired in, they didn’t feel comfortable doing the maintenance themselves.

Well, then.

If you ever want to hit me where it hurts, take away my car. You’d think I’d be used to it by now; this car is car #3, the first car having died a sudden, painful death, and the second having died an extended, possibly more painful death. I got to be on a first-name basis with my mechanics back in suburban Detroit. This car, remarkably, had largely escaped major problems; it’s needed maintenance, of course (including one memorable repair that spent all but six pennies of my federal tax return), but I don’t think it’s ever left me functionally stranded before.

It hurts. It hurts to have to rely on friends, however willing they may be. It hurts to not have the flexibility to go where I want to go whenever I want to go. Being without Internet was frustrating, but I could still go to work or Panera to go online. But with the exception of Panera, pretty much anywhere else I’d like to go is outside of walking range, and my job is out in the boonies, far beyond the range that I could reasonably ask anyone to drive me.

You have given me more than
I could ever have wanted and
I want to give You my heart and my soul…

I cleaned my car while I waited for the tow truck to arrive. Basically, this involved throwing random bits of rubbish into bags to throw in the trash later. On the floor under the steering wheel I found a single penny.

The story of the pennies is a long one. In brief, it involves me working through some of my debt issues and prayerfully trusting God with my finances. Within a week of making some very important decisions (including the decision to start tithing again) I took my car to the repair shop. I had been planning on using my income tax return for these repairs; though the repairs wound up being much larger than I was expecting, the refund covered it almost exactly. With six cents to spare, in fact. These six pennies got returned to God in that I sent one each to various people who were either involved (directly or indirectly) or needed the encouragement. I think I had planned on keeping one myself – taping it to the steering wheel or something.

It’s doubtful that the penny I found today was one of THE pennies, insomuch as they were ever tangible objects, but still.

God hasn’t let me down yet.

You have given me more than
I could ever have wanted and
I want to give You my heart and my soul…

Review: Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye?

Lisa — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 15:12:01 +0000

There was, it turned out, at least one advantage to being without Internet. On Thursday I had to leave work early, as my Internet provider was finally going to send a technician out between 4:00 and 8:00 P.M. In my mailbox when I got home was a package from Amazon; I tore into it eagerly and spent the next two hours buried in one of my new books.

The book in question is Carolyn McCulley’s Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? Noel had mentioned it in church this weekend – had actually asked single people to go out and read it and let him know if it was worth recommending.

The short answer is that it absolutely is. I expect this book to be a treasured resource for me in the years to come, and one that I pass along to all my single female friends.

There are three main reasons that I love this book. The first one is that it actually, heaven forbid, looks to more than just the book of Ruth or 1 Corinthians 7 to explore Biblical singleness. I mean, any book that actually seriously references the book of Leviticus gets major bonus points from me.

The second is that McCulley goes for breadth, not depth, in offering strategies for living as a Proverbs 31 woman. Things like whether or not to buy a house (if you’re financially stable and able, her answer is to go for it). Or ways to strategically develop relationships with the families in your life, and to be an influencer among kids outside of, say, Sunday School. She touches on so many things that it’s easy to find several specific tips that I can actually apply to my own life.

The last point requires an explanation of me as a single person. I am a self-described perpetual bachelor, having adopted this term for myself as early as 2002. I’m 28 and have had one boyfriend. One. And I really shouldn’t have been with him in the first place, since there were glaringly obvious religious differences. We dated for a month, then I got a grip on myself and called it off while we could still remain friends. (There is, of course, a much longer story behind this.) But other than that one weird little blip in 2003, I’ve never been in a relationship. And, to be quite honest, the only times I’m unhappy with being single are those times I have an active crush on someone. If I never get married, I think I’d be content. But the problem is that I keep meeting Nice Boys, thus disrupting my contentment. I’ve prayed during my last four crushes that the guy in question would be the last, and that whether nothing happened or we got married, I’d never have to go through another crush again.

I needn’t state how that turned out.

So that’s one of the ways this book was refreshingly honest and strangely encouraging: McCulley actually talks about the fact that the desire for a husband never really goes away. The last chapter starts with a conversation with a 50-year-old woman named Lisa (go figure) who mentions that she still wishes she could be cuddled up on the couch watching football with her husband.

Like I said, bizarrely encouraging. Those who talk about the gift of singleness as if it were something handed out like the gift of serving or the gift of speaking in tongues probably don’t get it. They’re probably married and quite possibly assume that single people are single because something’s wrong with them or they’re between relationships or have some sort of supernaturally-given lack of desire for a spouse. The latter may be true in a handful of extremely rare cases, but there *is* no magic switch that says, Okay, you’re now a card-carrying member of the Society of Perpetual Bachelors, and as such you’ll never fall in love again.

It’s a simple, stupid realization, but honestly, I needed that jolt. Because of course life doesn’t work that way, but I keep waiting for that moment to arrive – the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. But the reality is, even if I never get married, and if I die an old maid at 90 in a nursing home, I’ll probably still have a crush on the nice 87-year-old down the hall who still has most of his teeth.

Weird, right? That this would be encouraging? But it actually is. Like, I’m not doing singleness wrong if I *do* like a guy. That doesn’t give me liberty to obsess, of course, but when in the course of time I inevitably do, it’s because I’m a single human female who may one day yet get married, and not one who absolutely never will. It’s because both singleness and marriage are temporary states, both of which could end at functionally any moment for any number of reasons.

The thing about this fact is that it’s so patently obvious that nobody ever addresses it. Even this book only addresses it incidentally. Most seem to ignore it entirely, instead focusing on the whole “don’t be the aggressor in the relationship” thing. These books always feel like they operate under the assumption that (1) women choose when they fall in love and (2) single women are by default desperate enough for marriage to initiate a relationship. Okay, talk about that, but (1) initiating a relationship as a female does not guarantee its failure, and (2) some of us have long since learned that knowledge and can we please move on to something else. So it’s also really nice to have a book that helps you live like a single in spite of your emotions toward any particular man.

So those are my two cents. This book did raise one other interesting question to me, though: are there books written to single men? Every book on singleness that I’ve read has been written to the ladies. Since in the general Christian culture the man is supposed to be the initiator, though, I’d think that in some ways a book on singleness would be highly important to them. Like, a brief bit on what men should look for in wives, but also how to handle rejection and whether or not they should make the concrete decision to never get married.

So: do books for single men exist? And are there any books in particular that have helped you out?

Of Corrupted Cities

Lisa — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:45:00 +0000

I’ve been playing the most recent Prince of Persia game over the last few days. The basic premise is that the unnamed “Prince” (actually a wandering tomb raider) gets lost and stumbles into an abandoned city. As it was built to imprison the god Ahriman (of Zoroastrianism), its decaying state means that the defenses are weakened, and about 5-10 minutes into the game Ahriman is partially released. The rest of the game is spent fighting the corruption spread by Ahriman and his minions and renewing the fertile grounds that act as his prison walls.

I think it was when Elika, the princess of the city, described the population’s decline from several thousand a few hundred years previously to fewer than 200 that it struck me: Prince of Persia is really a rather apt metaphor for the urban decay of Detroit, Flint, and, well, the rest of Michigan. Detroit in particular fits this mold well. The population declines; the merchants stop coming. Corruption–physical, political, metaphorical–inescapably spreads. The way the auto industry is faltering–it’s like the final seal containing Ahriman is cracking.

What, then, can we do about it? If only the metaphor carried through to the healing of the city! In the game, the Prince and Elika, with the help of Elika’s magic provided by the creator god Ohrmazd, kill Ahriman’s lieutenants and heal the fertile grounds. I suppose there are urban renewal programs and churches to “meet” both counts. But is it enough? And how can more be done? What can be done to bring Detroit out of its ruin?

The Necessity of the Law

Lisa — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:31:40 +0000

I’m editing a coworker’s paper, and came across this quote:

“While politics is about power, an ethical framework can be seen as a ‘counterbalance’ to power, or at leat as a way to mitigate some of the potentially negative impacts of power.”

(Source: Cathy Gibson, 2009).

Mostly, I’m throwing this up here for the sake of storing it somewhere, but it really synthesizes some of the vaguely politicky thoughts that have been stewing in the back of my head. Namely, this is why the Right cares about issues like Gay marriage and abortion and the sexual exploits of politicians and whatnot–it represents a decay, perceived or real, in the mitigating force keeping those in power in check. And it’s why presidents like Bush, love him or hate him, could get re-elected: again, real or perceived, as a proclaimed Christian, many who voted for him perceived him as being guided by an internal counterbalance to the power–the human conscience.

It’s the entire purpose of the law: it’s not solely about keeping society in order, but it provides a structure by which leaders can help society maintain this order without losing control or, more frequently, gaining absolute control. Without moral absolutes, what is there to stop those in power from seizing it? Indeed, without moral absolutes, what does it even matter?

Negative space

Lisa — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:16:50 +0000

On a whim, about a month ago I signed up for “Drawing: The Human Figure” through the MSU Alumni Evening College. Tonight was the first session. It went better than I expected (i.e. I didn’t make a complete idiot of myself). In fact, I’ve already picked up a few tips that should be more broadly applicable.

Tip #1: Adding a few lines, illustrating muscles and shadows, works wonders at conveying motion and depth. Tip #2: Sometimes drawing is counterintuitive. Or, at least, I’ve trained myself to draw things in a more cartoony style–so if I’m trying to draw, say, a slender leg, I’m used to cutting down a lot more than is actually accurate. It’s hard to explain, but imagine looking at something through a concave and a convex lens. Intuitively, I want to draw more in the concave style–my brain reads “slender” so I try to taper things almost immediately–when in reality convex is more accurate–that is, you notice a dramatic inward sweep because it has the outward angle first.

Tip #3. Drawing is as much about the negative space as it is about the occupied space. So–you illustrate the space between the torso and the dangling arm, because in some ways that empty triangle of space is more dramatic, more defining, than either arm or torso. It’s a concept that translates rather easily to the graphic design work I do–it’s about the white space giving shape to the page.

Which has always been difficult for me, because my natural instinct has always been to fill every inch of open space. It’s why my bedroom walls have historically been covered with posters or tapestries or art, even if it’s cheesy. I just have that hard a time with the emptiness.

And it’s a concept that translates rather depressingly well to my life in general. Right now, I’m in a bit of a downward slump. I’m done with grad school, and still adapting to the concept of full-time work. All of a sudden, most of my evenings are open. And while there’s always something going on in the background that I should be doing (editing, for example), I still find myself with a glut of undesignated time.

Hence the drawing class. And actually the lifegroup I’ve joined through church. They fill up the “negative space” of my Monday and Tuesday evenings.

And my entire life continues in that negative space. Life’s in a bit of stasis. I’m not in a relationship, I don’t have any long-term committments, and I don’t even have a permanent, salaried position (for whatever “permanent” means in Michigan in this economy). I don’t even have any good, productive hobbies to work at in my free time (see also why I’m taking the drawing class–to see if I’m interested in doing something vaguely art-related as a hobby). I’m feeling a little purposeless at the moment. It’s monotonous. But it’s in that negative space–the time between promise and fulfillment–where God does some of His most important work. See also Moses herding sheep for 40 years in the wilderness before being called to herd Israelites. Or, before him, Abram and Sarah waiting for 25 years and full impotence between when God promised Isaac and when he was actually born.

Because sometimes, the negative space is necessary to give shape to a life.

Pastor Dan

Lisa — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:27:01 +0000

CUMMINGS, DANIEL SCOTT; age 48; died February 5, 2009, of complications from cancer. Dan was born September 16, 1960, in Athens, GA, to Bradley and Patricia Cummings and was the older of two children. Dan was a minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and faithfully served Five Points Community Church as its senior pastor since 1997. He had previously pastored in Hudsonville, MI, for ten years. Dan is survived by his wife, Lonette; a daughter, Sara; and two sons, Benjamin and Bradan; he is further survived by his father, Bradley; brother, Peter; and grandmother, Esther Bouman. Viewing will be held on Sunday, February 8, 2009, at Five Points Community Church, 2 to 5 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. The Funeral Service will be held 11 a.m. Monday at Five Points Community Church, 3411 E. Walton Blvd., Auburn Hills, MI 48326 248-373-1381. Funeral arrangements entrusted to Pixley Funeral Home-Davis Chapel, 3530 Auburn Road in Auburn Hills. Memorials may be made to Five Points Community Church: Dan Cummings Memorial Fund.

Time: February 4, 2009. Noel posts a blog entry asking for our responses on prayer. I post the following:

The church I attended as a kid got a very strongly Calvinist pastor when I was in high school (very long story there). He basically believed that humans don’t have free will at all. One of the things I remember him saying was that he was struggling with understanding the purpose of prayer–that if God already knows our needs (and, for that matter, has ordained what we’re going to ask for), why bother asking for it at all? We’d get it either way.

Of course, on the other extreme are the Charismatics who believe that you’re not saved if you don’t speak in tongues. So there you have it: under- and over-spiritualization from someone who has some minor scars from denominational backlash.

Time: May 1997. A Sunday. I show up at church after a friend’s pool party. I am 15 years old. I show up in the church’s library wearing ratty shorts and a t-shirt, carrying a yellow balloon. I am told that Pastor Norton has just announced his upcoming resignation. July 27 is his last day. I listen to The Newsboys’ “When You Called My Name” on repeat.

Time: September 28, 1997. I write the following in my diary:

We had our first (and possibly last) pastoral candidate speak to us today in church. His name is Rev. Dan Cummings, and he’s pretty interesting. He’s got the cutest little kids! I want to know his opinion on Contemporary Christian Music. And I can’t stop thinking of his old church who will probably become pastorless if we decide to take him. Man, I miss the Nortons so much.

Time: October 19, 1997. Dan Cummings is nearly unanimously voted in as pastor. I am one of the few who voted against him. This decision was likely motivated mostly by the lack of cute sons my age.

Time: November 12, 1998. My parents announce their decision to leave Five Points. They will hand in the letter of resignation in the next few weeks, and our last Sunday there will be the last service of December.

Over the course of the previous year, many changes had come to Five Points. To the outside eye, these changes were good. The church was growing. We moved services from the sanctuary to the gym to accomodate everyone. But at the same time, the church was splitting more than the standard losses that naturally come when a new pastor comes in. Literally half the church left. And not just people who had been coming for Pastor Norton’s preaching and disliked Pastor Cummings’ sermons. These were people who had grown up in the church, who had been plugged into the church, who, like my family, were active in church ministry and leadership roles.

To me, a teenager, the biggest thing I noticed was the change in theology. Pastor Dan was a hardcore Calvinist. He quoted Jonathan Edwards as much as he quoted the Bible. He preached once, as a decade later I commented on Noel’s blog, that he struggled with understanding the need for prayer because of his understanding of the sovereignty of God. Why pray when God knows all our needs and will provide regardless? He also preached that Jesus died to save the elect.

What really got to me, though, was when one of the people running the youth ministry led us through a series on TULIP–the five points of Calvinism. And he told us that this was where Five Points got its name. Which, to be blatently honest, was a lie. Five Points got its name because of the way five particular borders of land met together. I remembered learning that in my church membership class, some five years before that. And this wasn’t some outsider teaching this. The guy leading the youth group at the time was one of us. He had grown up in the church. His parents were pretty deep into the church leadership. And, as may be apparent, they were supporters of Pastor Dan.

There were other things going on, of course. I’m sure I don’t know all of them. But on December 27, we attended Five Points for the last time. I was 16 years old and bitter for leaving what was functionally the only church I had known.

Time: March 14, 1999. I write the following in my diary:

We went to Marimont today. [...] The sermon was okay, but I think [Pastor Elliott] agrees with Pastor Dan’s preachings–Mom and Dad say he quoted from “the church down the street”–both Marimont and Five Points are on Walton–and used a Dan-formula for joy. I heard the “church-down-the-street” line,but didn’t recognize it as a Dan-ism, partly because I didn’t realize they were both on Walton, and partly because I never paid attention to the sermons at Five Points. Oh, and another thing–he mentioned Jonathan Edwards. Not a quote, but he mentioned Jonathan Edwards.

Time: June 1999. We return to Marimont after looking around some more and eventually settle there. I am introduced to Word of Life and eventually go on a missions trip with them. At some point, Mom speculates that God may have used the experience to get a lot of us who were deeply entrenched in Five Points to leave and go be salt and light in other areas of the community. I realize that I am strengthened by being forced to question my theology. What is Calvinism? Or Armenianism? What is the role of baptism, or prayer?

Time: October 15, 2003. I am doing a Bible study with my InterVarsity staff worker at Grand Valley. I write the following in my diary:

I came to the realization that I haven’t forgiven Pastor Dan for what happened to Five Points. Jessica and I have been going through a Bible Study on Martin Luther and yesterday in our one-on-one we talked about predestination. Which, of course, is a sensitive issue–kind of like a scar that never healed. And Jessica brought up the whole forgiveness issue. I honestly thought that I was over it, but I found myself crying.

We decide to go through a study on Jonathan Edwards next.

Time: April 27, 2008. Pastor Dan announces to Five Points that he has incurable cancer. He tells the church that he prays “that we not waste my cancer” as a chance to reflect God’s glory. My parents inform me that Pastor Elliott, pastor at Marimont, is likewise suffering from cancer. He asks for prayers for healing. Pastor Elliott recovers.

Thursday, February 5, 2009. Pastor Dan passes away.

Time: This morning. Get up. Put on Calvinism shirt, rather distinctly by choice. This morning, Noel is preaching on prayer. The band opens with “Be Thou My Vision” and “Come Thou Fount,” two of my favorite hymns, and closes with, among other songs, “Where I’ll Be” (first line: “When I go, don’t cry for me; in my Father’s arms I’ll be”) and “I’ll Fly Away.” I spend most of the worship time in tears.