“Remember that you are dust…

Tags

ash wednesday, lent

…and into dust you shall return.”

For those of you who keep up with this sort of thing, last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the church calendar season of Lent. Until last year, I had never been to an Ash Wednesday service, and I slipped in the door at 12:01pm so everyone but the few latecomers would be sitting down already and I could sit in the back and observe. Attending a religious service when you do not know exactly what to do is slightly nerve-wracking. You sit in the back and watch to see what happens, and you participate haltingly, unsteadily.

So this year I had one Ash Wednesday service under my belt, and sat more in the middle of the room with some of my co-workers. I like this service because it is a stripped down and simplified service, solemn and quiet. The whole point is to remind us of this startling fact: we are mortal. American pop-culture objects to being reminded of this fact; we are taught that we should savor youth as the best time of our lives, and we should try to stay young forever, to hold on to the illusion of immortality. But Ash Wednesday is a reminder that we cannot escape death. Sooner or later, everyone dies.

How morbid. And yet, it has been strangely good to be reminded of my mortality. Perhaps it is the perspective gained from such meditation. Thinking about serious things suddenly makes some of my interests seem frivolous, and it makes me want to do things that matter, instead of just coasting along through life. A reality check is always good; it’s so easy to live in a world of smoke and mirrors and believe what I see is real.

Tis the Season

Tags

summertime, vows, weddings

I’ve been to five weddings this summer. I feel like that’s a lot. I suppose I’m at that age; I’ve graduated from college, and early 20′s are when many people get married. It just seems strange to think we’ve come to that point in time….

Five fathers have kissed their daughters’ cheeks and given the bride away, ten people have said “I will” to the minister’s questions, and twenty mothers have wiped away tears as their children start a new life with someone they love.

A marriage ceremony is a pretty serious thing; two people stand up in front of a church full of people and promise to be faithful and committed for life. A wedding is also a big party. Two people have made a happy/ momentous decision and the people they love come to support them and be happy for them. It’s a party and solemn vows and a family reunion and an excuse to dance. [Though I now have lost all faith in dancing with guys at weddings. Don't even get me started there. But this is all beside the point.]

I don’t really know where I’m going with all this. It’s just still a little funny to see my friends being the ones taking the vows, perhaps because I remember them before they met the person they’re now married to, and perhaps because when you’re small it seems that to be “grown up” entails having a particular certainty about life, a certainty I do not possess. Grown-ups seemed to have all the answers, and I don’t seem to have those answers. It’s also, to be honest, a little lonely to see so many dear friends getting married while I stand on the sidelines. Most of my dearest friends from college have gotten engaged in the past year and a half. That is a strange thing.

I suppose I will adjust to it in time. And indeed, I am very happy for all of them, and wouldn’t have it any other way. But when someone gets married, it is a big deal, something not to be taken lightly, and I still marvel at the way God arranges things. It is all very beautiful and complicated, and I’m glad He holds all the threads — I wouldn’t know what the finished picture is supposed to look like.

Dots on the Page

Tags

communion, Job, quotes, random

In this entry, I shall make use of the function that allows me to create cool bullet points. Observe:

• I’ll be finished with my job soon!
  This is the first day of my last week at my current job. I am so grateful for this! Do not underestimate the small miseries of a job that does not line up with your skills and/ or interests.
• Motivational troubles:
  When you know you will be leaving a job in 2 weeks, it is incredibly difficult to be motivated to show up in the morning, and very hard to focus on doing your work well (especially if you are bored most of the day anyway).
• Taking communion is sometimes a little nerve-wracking.
  Who knew the sacrament could be so stressful? [more on this later....]
• I have the quotes of the day gadget on igoogle, and here is one from today: “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” -Oscar Wilde
• Aaaaand the bullet points don’t show up, apparently. Bummer. At least the formatting part worked, right? [EDIT: Sometimes the bullet points show up, but sometimes they don't--it is mysterious.]

Home Sweet Home

Tags

family, Fellows program, host family

I pulled into the driveway of a home in Charlottesville, and took a deep breath before walking up to the porch and ringing the doorbell. The door opened and I saw the family for the first time and realized how nervous I was. What if they didn’t like me? What if they were strange people? What if…?

I had never met these people, and they had never met me, but they volunteered to let me live in their home for the next 9 months. I appreciated their generosity at allowing a stranger to come be a part of their family life. Yes, they had read my 12 page application (which included some pretty detailed stories about me), but they still didn’t really know who I was. The first few days were awkward as we started to get to know one another, but we soon all became more at ease and I began to fit into their family a little better.

From discussions about philosophy and daily life at the dinner table on family nights to watching lots of movies to celebrating birthdays with a special orange pastry for breakfast (a tradition I was happy to partake of), life with my host family gave me glimpse into another world. Most people only experience two families, the one they grow up in and the one they form when they grow up and start their own. I have gotten a chance for a third family, one that is not related to me biologically, but which gives me a chance to see how a different group of people live together. This family is similar to my own yet is also very different, and this gives me a great perspective.

My host family just does some things differently. I thought that everyone did things a certain way, but that is not the case. They have a different policy for doing the dishes. They have different eating habits. They have a cat. I realized that not every family has to look identical to work well. Once you see from the inside how another family works, it makes you think and evaluate the way you live and the choices you make about basic things like laundry and cleaning the bathroom, how to handle conflict, and even the activities the family does together.

What a valuable experience! It is one I will treasure and hopefully it will continue to shape the way I think about family and living with others for the rest of my life.

Corporate Prayer

Tags

church life, prayer

Last Wednesday I attended a church’s prayer service, something new in the life of that particular church. The service opened with a hymn and a responsive reading of a Psalm. The first category of prayer was praise and thanksgiving, followed by another responsive Psalm reading and a time of intercession/ supplication. The service ended with the Lord’s Prayer, Gloria Patri, and a Benediction.

Prayer is something that I think many Christians, especially Presbyterians and the like, struggle with. I think maybe prayer is like an onion. This is a terribly crude example, but prayer is one of those things that is deceptively simple. It is simple enough that a child can pray, but the more you pray, the older you get, the deeper you find the experience. I think there are layers of prayer, and many times we settle for only getting through the first few layers.

I found it interesting that the prayer service was just that, a service. Is it better to have a fairly highly structured time of prayer than not? Perhaps when a church is just beginning to pray together it’s important to have some structure.

Also, is it a good idea to have 35 people all praying in one large group? Corporate prayer is a funny thing. When you leave time for people to pray openly, what kind of prayer etiquette do you observe?
  –How do you know when someone has finished their prayer? When they pause?
  –What if two people start praying at exactly the same moment? Usually in this case one person gets slightly embarrassed and drops out, waiting until the person before them has finished.
  –What about the people who are nervous about interrupting others and can’t get a word in edgewise because the prayers start coming so fast that it almost becomes necessary to interrupt?

Let me pause to say that while all this sounds critical, I do deeply appreciate the efforts of the church to come together for prayer. I think it is a vitally important part of church life; prayer opens doors, we’re supposed to do it, and it’s a great way to know what’s on people’s hearts.

Sometimes I just wonder if there are ways to pray corporately that could avoid some of the awkwardness, or maybe I need to work on being bolder in prayer. Perhaps we could meet somewhere in the middle (ex. breaking up into smaller groups). In the end, I think the heart attitude is probably the key to rich times of prayer, and corporate prayer can be a powerful thing.