Ancipation and Hope: A Year In Review

We've been singing this song in youth group lately. It's called Oceans by Hillsong United. And whenever the bridge comes, I can't help but wonder if the people around me are as scared of what they are singing as I am.
The lyrics go like this:

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders.
Let me walk upon the waters,
Wherever You would call me.
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior.

After a year like 2013, I don't know if I want to go deeper than my feet can wander and where my faith will be made stronger because what if that involves another affair? What if my life as I know it comes crashing down again? What if it is something within my own family? I can't do it. I've told God, if something happens to my parents' marriage I will not be able to handle it.

And I know this is crazy because God has shown Himself so incredibly faithful these past 12 months. From people on the camino to people at home and church to Amy's commitment to Christ and her marriage, I have seen God's incredible redeeming power. But the past 12 months have been incredibly painful.
I thought I would be completely healed after the camino. I mean the camino is a metaphor for life, Santiago is heaven - we are healed in heaven. My blisters were healed by the time I arrived to Santiago, why wasn't I?

But Santiago isn't heaven. It was just a glimpse of what is to come. And returning to the wounds of this world may be necessary, but that doesn't mean healing isn't coming. Pastor Dee talked about Haggai in a sermon last month and a couple of his points hit home. He said that we have to "acknowledge what has been so we can look forward to what is to come" and "The hope has not been met, but that doesn't mean the prayers should cease or the work stop." I cannot ignore what has happened, but I have to move on and cling to the hope in what is to come. And just because I don't feel completely healed, that doesn't mean I should stop praying or stop working to bring the Kingdom of God to earth.

My wounds have scabbed over, but I am still afraid of the scab getting torn off too soon and beginning to bleed again.
So as we celebrate the coming and anticipation of the return of Christ tomorrow, my prayer is one that Paul prays for the people of Ephesus in Ephesians 1:17-18

"...that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you"

Camino Tales: Reaching Santiago

Originally written on July 11, 2013 at 2am.

The last night before Santiago was one of anticipation. We stopped in at town called Arco that night with about 20km left to Santiago. We planned to wake up at 3:30am and out by 4am to make sure we got to Santiago by 9am. It was Sunday the next day, and mass was at noon. So despite the heat, it being light outside still, and everyone out and about, I tried to go to sleep at 7pm. It didn't work. I estimated I got about two hours of sleep by the time my alarm went off at 3:30. Walking in the dark we walked through Arco and into a Eucalyptus forest. I had the thought of how beautiful it all was conflicting with how stupidly tired I was as I laid my head back on my backpack and tried to sleep walk. I could sense Adilene's urgency as she walked and kept looking behind as if telling me to hurry up. If you know me well at all, you know how much I am not someone who deals well with lack of sleep. I could have punched her in the face every time I felt her looking at me.

But there was about half an hour of awakeness from 4:20 to 4:40 in which I couldn't help but sing to myself as I looked at the stars a worship song that goes "Tonight the starts speak of your infinite love, and it serves to remind me that what I have means nothing at all compared to your glory, oh Lord." And as I look back, I think that is what the Camino has taught me - that what I have means nothing at all because God's infinite love doesn't care. The best part is about me singing this song is that usually the song is a grieving song for me because the chorus reads, "How long until your voice speaks clearly? How long till your arms envelope me? I cry: be my strength when I am weak. Oh Lord, have mercy on me please." But those lyrics didn't fit any more (except for maybe the "have mercy on me" for my angry thoughts every time I saw Adilene look back at me). During the entire Camino, I felt God's arms enveloping me- through all of the crosses we walked by each day, through meeting new friends and laughing about our pain and others' pain or just life, through our French parents, through Jael and Adilene at times, through my actual parents thousands of miles away. I was never alone on the Camino. I was never crying "be my strength," because God was already providing it before I even could think it.

By the time the sun rose fully we were only 4.7km away from Santiago and a small cafe was open. We stopped for 20 minutes and I was able to get a tiny cafe con leche and change my socks. I finally felt awake (meaning I finally walked fast enough to keep Adilene from annoying me). As we saw the first signs of the Cathedral, we past am older Yorkshire couple we had met a couple weeks earlier. We said hello, the husband made s joke we didn't quite catch, and we hurried on by. As we entered the square in front of the cathedral, I felt as if I were dreaming. Thirty three days of wandering around Spain, and now it's over. And then we turned and saw our French mom and dad hugging each other and crying. They had started from Le Puy, France - walking so much farther than us. We waited a little before walking about to her, not wanting to interrupt their moment. But as soon as she saw us, she embraced us calling us her girls/ daughters in French. We took a few pictures with them, and I was able to tell her that my feet were completely healed. After we saw them in Leon, almost two weeks before that, I thought we would never see them again. She had told us then that she would see us beautiful and healed in Santiago. I think we were more sweaty than beautiful, but I was definitely healed.

Camino Tales: The Kindness of Strangers and The Perils of Sweaty Feet

Originally written on June 22nd 2013, day 18 of walking.

I left my last post with the hope that I would regain feeling in my toes. This hope has been greatly undermined by the blisters forming and bursting on my feet, and producing many tears. The "hilly" hike of day 11 resulted in a chance meeting of a French couple to whom I will always be grateful for. After the first 15km of that day, we decided to stop at some picnic tables at the top of the first big hill. I took my shoes and socks off to dry out my feet. There was a French couple at a picnic table nearby, and the woman asked me in French if I had bad feet (two words which were similar enough to two Spanish words that were in my limited Spanish vocabulary). When I replied in the affirmative, she came right over to our table to take a look. The gasps of concern were humorous and really quite touching. With Adilene translating, she asked for my needle and thread and used her own gauze, tape, and betadine to clean up my feet. Blister after blister, with gasps and swears coming from her husband standing behind her, she cleaned my feet, unfazed. The blister underneath my big toenail even squirted out onto her at one point. "She wants to know if you have any more," Adilene kept telling me. Two days later we saw her again in Burgos and she immediately asked to see my feet. Unfortunately for me, some blisters were infected. Marielle, whose name we asked later that day, said that if it were her daughter, she would tell her to go to the hospital to get cleaned up and advice.

The hospital incident was unfortunate to put it lightly, but the kindness of Marielle is something I will never forget. She gave us her information and invited us to visit her in France. And with a big hug we said goodbye. The nurse advised I take one to three rest days - so we stayed one extra day in Burgos.
It's interesting how we can be dealing with something so painful and Christ shows up to comfort us through the love of other human beings. It's easy to miss his presence when we are in such pain. On the way into Burgos, before the hospital, after our first meeting with Marielle, we decided to leave at 5:30 am. We knew Burgos was supposed to be a cool city so we wanted to get there before noon. The first 5km consisted of an extremely rocky terrain - big white rocks sticking out of the ground with no relief in sight. As we climbed a hill of these rocks I kept thinking "Why is it so rocky? This is so painful; God, why is this path so rocky?" At the top of the hill Adilene and Jael stood waiting for me. Seeing my face, Adilene asked if I was ok - I burst into sobs and cried in Adilene's arms for about thirty seconds, barely able to get out that it was the rocky path and my blisters that were causing the tears.
At the top of that hill there was a big cross, and I vaguely thought about the fact that it was not comforting at all as I cried in Adilene's arms. And as I whimpered down the hill and for the next 5km, I barely noticed the beauty of the sun rising and the reflecting lights of Burgos in the distance. C.S. Lewis wrote, "It's hard to see clearly when your eyes are blurred with tears" in his book A Grief Observed. I resented that comment when I first read it. I felt like he was sying that I needed to stop crying or that if I could see the situation clearly, I wouldn't be crying. I still think that it is alright to cry, but I've come to realize that it is the reflection and acknowledgment of Christ's presence that begins to bring healing. If we are only focusing on our pain, we cannot do that. Sometimes there is a huge cross right behind you, representing all the pain and suffering Christ endured, and you're too busy crying about the wounds you've gotten along the way to acknowledge it. But then Marielle shows up again and points you in the right direction, which might be the hospital - sometimes we need a little more direct kind of healing.

The Distance Is What You Make It

I've been traveling around Europe since May 10th and have settled in Büsingen, Germany until I meet up with a group from San Diego First Church of the Nazarene to go to a monastery in Taize, France on Sunday.
I wasn't planning to blog my whole trip, but I did want to write about a certain large piece of it. Starting on June 5th, along with two other friends, I started El Camino de Santiago. We started from St. Jean Pied de Port, France and walked 790km to Santiago, Spain. I thought with all that reflection time I would write a lot in my journal and come up with multiple blog posts to write when I finished. It turns out after walking 20 to 30km, you don't always feel like writing down what you thought about or experienced - sometimes because it was almost exactly the same as the day before, sometimes because you were too tired, and sometimes because you would rather go hang out with new friends. After walking the first week, I decided I would write something to post every ten days. I wrote two things meant to be posted; the trip took us 33 days. Nevertheless, here is the first one, and after I post the second one I'll still write more about the walk - it just won't be as in the moment.
A Ten Day Reflection. Friday June 14th, 2013 3:57 pm
After walking for ten days straight I've realized that my nonspecific expectation that the walk was going to be hard has been specified. The first day is said to be the most difficult because we hiked the Pyrenees mountains. And after we finished the first day I agreed, thinking "yeah, that's the hardest thing I've ever done." But it was also new and beautiful and exciting. The second, third and fourth day were painful. The fifth day was looking up, and by the sixth and seventh day I thought we were getting the hang of this thing. Though don't get my wrong, as of right now my blister count is around nine. Honestly, it's impressive how tore up my feet are. Day 8 brought misery. Thirty kilometers - the longest we have had to walk so far - and thirty degrees Celsius - the hottest it has been so far. By 12:30 we had 10km left, making good time, going into the hottest part of the day. And then we took a wrong turn with some Irish girls. To get a sense of how hot it was at this time: a small blister between my toes on my right foot soon became not so small and burst as I was walking. This was a first time experience. We ended up being lost for about two hours - walking at least an extra 6-8km. By the time we got to Najera (the town we were stopping in) it was 6pm. It was this day that my big toes lost most feeling and have yet to regain it.
During the painful, hot or just miserable days I find myself asking "Why am I doing this?" "Why am I getting up every day and walking at least 13 miles?" I tend to forget that I agreed to this in the fall, and blame it on the event(s) that occurred this last January in my home town and church. "You made me do this," I curse my former you pastor. "It's because of you that I need to walk 500 miles and figure out my life." But it's not - really, it's pretty perfect the timing of this trip. Like I said, I agreed to this last fall, before my world and faith were shaken.
Obviously this walk is a metaphor for life's journey. Getting lost in the heat the eighth day felt a lot like getting lost this last semester. I vividly remember a day in late January/early February, after a phone call from a friend from home, keeping me updated on what new information was coming out about the event. I walked into my empty apartment, set my Brothers Karamozov on the kitchen counter and cried. As I cried, I imagined myself slamming the book on the floor in anger. I didn't. I never actually throw things when I'm upset. But it was a similar feeling that came to me as we realized how far we had to back track to get on the right pat to Najera that day. Tears welled up in my eyes and as I heard Adilene tell me it was ok to cry, I saw myself breaking my stick against the hot ground in anger and frustration. But we made it to Najera - thirsty, sunburned, blistered, and sore. But we made it. I don't know if I've made it out of the lost feeling of the last semester yet, but I think I will.
More than the difficulty and pain of walking, it's been the kindness of the people you meet along the way that effects you. In our frustration on Day 2 of not being able to find room in a hostel, we were able to get a phone number of a hostel in the town before. The young woman who ran it drove the 5km to pick us up so we didn't have to walk back. She also happened to be a physical therapist and was able to tell me that my right lower back/hip hurt so badly because I had been unconsciously walking weird to take pressure off my knee after having surgery last August. She gave me a stretch to do multiple times a day and it has helped enormously. Whether it's been a group of people to talk with, eat with, laugh with, share your pain with, or feel encouraged with - all are found along the way. Days 9 and 10 have been shorter days, but day 11 is coming with a 27 km "hilly" hike. With any luck I'll regain some feeling in my big toes, but probably not.

THE GREAT ICONOCLAST

I am the Great Iconoclast.
Beware of what you hold dear.
I am the Great Iconoclast.
You have every reason to fear
- me.

What you thought was true,
What you thought was right,
Oh how I'll make you wish
You didn't hold such thing so tight
- ly.

When you least expect it
Truths so embedded you've never questioned
People you held so high-
never thought were destined
- to be

The Great Iconoclast.
Beware wife.
I am the Great Iconoclast.
I'll ruin your life.

The Definition of HOPE

The word hope in the English language has become kind of like the word love: it has the capacity to mean so much more than the way we use it.

Example: I hope the caf has bacon today.
Translation: I really want the caf to have bacon today. I wish the caf would have bacon today. Fingers crossed!

Now, that example is a very real desire of mine every time I eat breakfast in the caf. But as I've been pondering the word hope, I've come to realize that we've been misusing it.

Ron Benefiel, my Life of Holiness (Christian general ed class) professor, speaks of Christian hope as being focused on the end result - the return of Christ. We are not wishing for things to get better in our lives when we say that we have hope. We are focusing on the end result. We are focusing on the belief that one day, whether it be in our lifetime or not, Christ will reign on earth and restore this horrible place to a place of His kingdom.

I claim that one of my favorite verses is Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and believing in what we cannot see." Taking in the Christian's definition of hope then, this verse is not saying faith is being sure of what we wish for. It is saying faith is being sure of Christ's return and the Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth to restore all things.

And here is where Ivan Karamazov comes in. Currently, I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov in my continental lit class. In the novel Ivan asks his brother Alyosha how he can accept a God that allows the torture and abuse of children. The bad outweighs the good for Ivan, and so he tells God that he respectfully returns his ticket. He believes in God and recognizes that God gives humanity life, but Ivan cannot accept God because of the horrors of humanity.

So I have this hope. The Kingdom of God is at hand. But, as Ivan asks, what about the children? What about the horrors of humanity? What are we to do until then? How can I be so sure that the good outweighs the bad in the end?

Now, I know all the "right" answers to these questions. So please, don't try to answer them for me. I'm just still in the process of accepting those answers. I haven't yet given up my ticket.