I love…

• productive evenings
• rain
• unfinished dreams
• chips and guacamole
• faith that never makes sense, grace that never will
• genuine friendship
• the differences that bring us together
• washing machines
• only one more week
• the light at the end of tunnels (or is it an oncoming train??)
• sleep

Today in class someone mentioned a poem that I’d forgotten about, but once was an old favorite of mine. A simple but true picture of life, failure, and our search for freedom. Just wanted to share with the Internets.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters – Portia Nelson

I. I walk down the street.
There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost…..I am helpless;
it isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

II. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place;
but it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in….it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V. I walk down a different street.

“I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”
Matthew 24:34

This passage (regarding the end of the world and the coming of the Son of Man) seems to imply that these events should have occurred during the first century AD when Christ’s audience was still alive. However, two thousand years later, we’re still waiting for an event the earliest Christians expected within their lifetimes. There are a number of explanations for this seeming-contradiction that I’ve heard offered over the years, including:

• The word “generation” refers to the entire race of the Jews (or even more broadly, to the race of man)
• Christ was not speaking about the first-century Jews, but of an unspecified future generation that would see the events both begin and come to fulfillment within their lifetime
• Christ was referring to the Apostle John, who saw the end times in his visions as related in Revelation
• These events began happening in the first century, but have not yet reached their fulfillment
• We see a partial fulfillment take place in the first century, which shadows the fullness of a future event (much like the serpent was lifted up by Moses to save the Israelites just as Christ was lifted up to save us all)
• The Second Coming already occurred with Christ’s spiritual return in 70 AD

Every explanation I’ve heard has seemed somehow dissatisfying, though I’m admittedly not a scholar or theologian, and have no education regarding the Greek New Testament or eschatology.  But apparently C.S. Lewis (whose writings have influenced me more profoundly than any others but the Bible itself) felt much the same. I was taken aback by his unequivocal honesty in his essay The World’s Last Night (available in entirety here):

“Say what you like,” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”

It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. That they stood thus in the mouth of Jesus himself, and were not merely placed thus by the reporter, we surely need not doubt. Unless the reporter were perfectly honest he would never have recorded the confession of ignorance at all; he could have had no motive for doing so except a desire to tell the whole truth. And unless later copyists were equally honest they would never have preserved the (apparently) mistaken prediction about “this generation” after the passage of time had shown the (apparent) mistake. This passage (Mark 13:30-32) and the cry “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) together make up the strongest proof that the New Testament is historically reliable. The evangelists have the first great characteristic of honest witnesses: they mention facts which are, at first sight, damaging to their main contention.

The facts, then, are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so. To believe in the Incarnation, to believe that he is God, makes it hard to understand how he could be ignorant; but also makes it certain that, if he said he could be ignorant, then ignorant he could really be. For a God who can be ignorant is less baffling than a God who falsely professes ignorance. The answer of theologians is that the God-Man was omniscient as God, and ignorant as Man. This, no doubt, is true, though it cannot be imagined. Nor indeed can the unconsciousness of Christ in sleep be imagined, nor the twilight of reason in his infancy; still less his merely organic life in his mother’s womb… It would be difficult, and, to me, repellent, to suppose that Jesus never asked a genuine question, that is, a question to which he did not know the answer. That would make of his humanity something so unlike ours as scarcely to deserve the name. I find it easier to believe that when be said “Who touched me?” (Luke 7:45) he really wanted to know.

I don’t know what to do with that. Any time I’ve initially been perplexed by (or even completely disagreeing with) something Lewis said, I’ve found myself days, months, or years later independently arriving at a strikingly similar conclusion. So when I encounter an assertion that seems particularly hard to swallow, I’ve learned to give it special contemplation…perhaps he’s foolishly wrong, but more frequently I find him surprisingly right.

So tonight I’m contemplating.

I enjoyed this intriguing poem, written a century ago, contemplating the prospects of extraterrestrial life and the significance of God’s revelation through Christ.

Christ In The Universe
Alice Meynell (lived 1847-1922)

With this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

But not a star of all
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.

Of His earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

Nor, in our little day,
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way
Or His bestowals there be manifest.

But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The myriad forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

Excerpt from my journal, August 14, nearing the end of my travels. Sitting alone in the woods, waiting, thinking:

Thunderstorm rolling in, sunset framed by storm clouds and lightning. The breeze hurries. Birds sing their evening prayers. An uneasy silence, a restless peace. What does “Peace, be still” really mean? Perhaps we only find it in the thunder. It feels like death and life among these browngreen leaves.

My life has turned completely and bewilderingly upside down over the last year. In January, I didn’t have the slightest intention of quitting my job, driving across the US twice, finding a new job, moving, starting fulltime grad school, and tripling the number of social activities I engage in.  Most of the changes (inside and out) have been very positive, but this many major events can put me at high risk for stress-related illness.  This knowledge has been good for me, as I’m learning to be aware of my limits, attentive to my moods, conscious of my health, and careful of my priorities.

In the midst of chaos, I’ve never been happier.

I’ve always ordered textbooks from various online sellers, which saves me anywhere from $100 to $400 each semester. The only downside to this method is that you’re buying a book sight-unseen, and occasionally get something a little different than you expected.

I just bought a textbook, Systems of Psychotherapy: A Transtheoretical Analysis. It’s the right edition (7th), right author (Prochaska & Norcross), and brand new just as advertised, but the seller from China left out one little part of the description. The front and back of the textbook are labeled in big red letters:

“International Edition: Not for Sale in the United States. This edition is intended for use outside of the U.S. only, with content that may be different from the U.S. edition.”

Now, I’m sure I could get my money back. But I have very little desire to ship this book back to China, spend $40 more on the U.S. edition, and wait another week or two for it to arrive.

So I had to wonder…what in the world would be different in the international edition? Is it censored? Uncensored? Do perspectives on psychotherapy vary from country to country? Turning to my buddy Google, I found that these sort of “international” textbooks rarely have any content changes. The difference is that they’re frequently printed on cheaper paper, softcover instead of hardcover, and may use grayscale illustrations instead of full color.

I think I’ll keep the international edition, thank you very much.  I’m happy to do my part to put the evil overpriced textbook racket out of business.

I’m not a fan of debt. I don’t carry a balance on my credit cards. I spent the last several years paying off large portions of my student loans. I bought my car with cash. So, starting school as a full-time grad student, I barely felt justified in taking out the minimum of loans to cover my tuition, and had no plans on accepting more loans for “living expenses”. I would just get a second job and pay for myself, because that’s what responsible adults do, right? They don’t spend money that they don’t have.

Much to my dismay, over the last couple weeks of class, I’ve been realizing that I don’t have time for another job. I’m not over-committed, not quite…yet…maybe…

When I’m stressed, I make lists. So I made a list. I knew I had 5 potential courses of action:

1) get a second job and drop one of my four classes, extending graduation by another semester
2) get a second job and drop most or all of my personal life
3) get a second job and settle for significantly lower grades than I’m capable of achieving
4) stop eating, sell my car, and hitchhike to class each day
5) take out several thousand dollars more in loans for each semester

And suddenly, I realized my priorities were out of order. For the last several years, my goal has (very reasonably) been to get out of debt as fast as possible. But for the next year, that’s not my goal. My goal is to convince UK to give me three little letters to put after my name. Whether my pride and finances like it or not, everything else is secondary to that.

I briefly toyed with the idea of dropping off the face of the earth and ignoring people for the next year. But my personal life matters too much to me. Classes don’t define me, and money certainly doesn’t…my relationships do. My time spent with friends, church, dancing, even sleeping (yay!), everything that makes me *alive* – that’s what keeps me going each day. And I’m unwilling to compromise that, even if it costs me an extra semester or several thousand dollars.

In the end, I realized my expectations for myself were about far more than just an ideological opposition to debt. I like self-sufficiency too much sometimes. My pride flinched a little (or a lot) when I admitted that I couldn’t do it, that no matter how invincible I might pretend to be, it was far beyond my abilities to be a full-time grad student, get straight As, work two part-time jobs, and keep perspective on the things that matter most to me.

And thus, option #5 won. I don’t like to admit it. But I’m maybe not completely invincible. I’m maybe just a little bit overwhelmed. And if I’m a couple thousand dollars poorer, or if I graduate a few months later, it’ll still be ok. I’ll still be ok. After I finish my MSW in 2010 (just a year away!), I can go back to psycho-loan-payoff mode, I can go back to pretending I’ve got life all figured out. In the meantime, I need to take a deep breath and just let life happen. And even more than that, I need to stop blogging, stop procrastinating, and go study for a quiz.