Seasons of Life - (Creative)

In some sense compartmentalizing your life is not a good thing. I have always looked at my life as a whole and at everything I do as being interconnected. However many people section their lives into different compartments. They learn to leave there work at work and not to take it home with them. They learn to leave the drama of their home life at home and not bring it into work with them. They may even learn to leave the sermon on Sunday at church and not carry it with them into the week. As a Christian I have had a negative view of the term compartmentalization. I don't believe I am to act one way at work, one way at home, another at school, and whole other way in church. I know we all have different "hats" per se or different offices at different times in our life, but no matter where I am, I am still a wife, a sister, a daughter, a mentor, a missionary and a friend. I am a Christian both on the field, at work or at work. It is part of who I am, no matter where I am.

Since we read the Curious case of Benjamin Button in class, I have been pondering the notion of humanity's need to compartmentalize. I'm not talking about the compartmentalizing of the present, but rather the past or the whole gamut of life's experiences. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story he tells of the life of a man who starts his journey at the end and works his way to the beginning. He was born an old man and instead of aging, he became younger and younger until he eventually died as an infant. The seasons and chapters of life are well defined in the telling of this story. The stages of life seem more pronounced because they are contrasted with those around him. We get to see Benjamin start his life with knowledge and maturity. He is not entertained by the usual things a child or a young boy should play with. Benjamin prefers cigars and the Encyclopedia Britannica to rattles and construction paper. In fact, he mostly relates to his grandfather rather than boys his own age. We see him throughout his existence in different stages of his life where he is working hard to earn a living, fighting for his country, chasing after love, and pursuing a higher education. This got me thinking about our need as humans to look back upon our life and see the various stages we've been through. Below is a photo essay of some past seasons of my own life thus far.

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The first Season of my life was spring. It was the years of youth and innocence. When life was care free and simple. My mom home schooled me and taught me the basics. I grew a fond admiration for my older sister and wanted to be just like her. I was baptised by my father and became involved in the church. This season was full of life, laughter, and dreams. I hadn't yet experienced any disappointments that life too often brings, and I dreamt of one day becoming an actress or a nurse in remote African village.

The next season I began to flourish. My mom decided to go back to college to become an elementary teacher and she enrolled me in public school. I can still remember my first day of school in the 6th grade. I was so nervous. This season was exciting and new. It was full of exploration. I wanted to try new things. I tried skateboarding and soccer. I tried painting and music. I tried cheer leading, snowboarding, and even golf. Later I got involved in theater and school leadership. Life was exciting and it was a season of growth and adventure. As I grew my relationship with my sister became strained. She often found herself in trouble and she began to resent the fact that I never got into any trouble of my own. She began to despise me. That rejection killed me, for I still looked up to her and wanted to be just like her. Never the less, I continued to try new things. Some stayed with me, like soccer, while others such as cheer leading was gone as soon as it came. But all these activities could not hold my attention. My excitement began to wane and disillusionment began to set in.

I grew insecure and public school wasn't what I thought it would be. I had a great foundation educationally, but socially I found myself stunted. My peers were disingenuous and I found you had to keep up with the Joneses to remain popular. You could be in one minute and out the next. I was naive and unprepared for junior high and high school. I was thrust into a culture I didn't understand and I longed to be accepted. This was a hard season of life for me. Although I was involved in so many activities, in my mind, I didn't really fit in. I wanted to protect myself from rejection, so I aimed to please. I stayed away from boys lest they hurt me. I found my solace not in another's arms, but in a substance or quite a few. I began to experiment with drugs. My sister's life was crumbling before my eyes as she spiraled down and got further involved in heavy drinking and hardcore drug use. My deep rooted insecurity and lack of a sense of belonging fueled me to take the invitation when one day she invited me to expand my horizons with even harder drugs. One time was all it took. Drugs gave me the escape, the adventure, the comfort I needed. This season was the start of the fall for me.

If you have ever been up north for the fall season, you can't help but be awed by the beauty of the changing leaves. This is how it was for me. I was enamoured with beauty of my new found escape. I became so obsessed with it, that literally that was all I thought about. Where was I going to get my next high from? This season I became even more insecure and I grew depressed. Although I carried a cheerful disposition I hated the way I felt inside. I would get high to feel something different; to feel anything really. But afterwards I'd just feel empty again. I felt dead like winter and I began to hate myself. But just like the winter season, where some months bring a heavy snow and others warm up, I too began to pull out of my depression. My sister had checked herself into a clinic for meth, but that only lasted a day. I saw the effects of the drug on her life and I decided to never use that drug again. I promised I would not become like that. I would only use drugs recreationally. And so I did. I used drugs to try and enhance art and music. I used drugs to bring me into a deeper community of friends, and I used drugs to try and find God. Little did I know that He was about to find me.

One of my favorite lyrics from a Lauryn Hill song says, "After winter must come spring." And spring sure sprung. I had developed quite a comfortable life living for the weekend. My friends would DJ in clubs and I would go to raves and dance until the sun came up. I may not have even realized it then, but somewhere inside I was still empty. That is until spring sprung and brought with it new life. The Lord got a hold of me in a powerful way one morning. I still remember the day. It was October 5th, 2000. The day Jesus not only became my Savior, but my Lord. I could literally feel the prayers of father being answered. After being born again, the change was dramatic and quick. I took off running. I left my old life and began a fresh. I graduated high school and started an internship at my local church. My love for God was loud and I began to minister wherever I could. I even remembered my old dream of being a nurse in Africa. This was a season where God taught me and trained me to be his disciple.

There have been many other seasons in my life that have lead up to now. But today I am happy and flourishing. I am married to a wonderful man of God, leading the youth group at my church, and studying here at Southeastern about communications and missions. I have had the opportunity to minister in many places already and have had the privilege to travel outside the country. I have been involved with doctors and nurses in Kenya for seven or so years now. Today is my birthday. And although I am another year older, I am pleased with my life thus far and can't wait for the next chapter.

 I realize that the future will hold seasons of winter, summer, spring, and fall. But I look forward to the them all no matter the weather. I'm just happy that unlike Benjamin Button, I'm headed the right direction.

A Challenge to Love - (Problematizing)

The Bible tells us in Matthew 5:43-48 to love our enemies. It explains that it is not enough to just love those in your life whom love you back, or of whom it comes natural to love. There are people even now who we come in contact with in the daily confinds of our lives, who we find it difficult to connect to. We may not understand them, we may find them constantly on our nerves, or we may just find them challenging to be around. Those people may not be considered our enemies, but they do pose a challenge for us to like them, even love them. Carl Morse touches on that challenge in his poem "How to Watch Your Brother Die."

The poem is about a man who travels to see his gay brother in the hospital in his last days of life. He is assumably dying from aids, although the poem never says this directly. We can see that the man never quite knew how to realte to his brother. When his brother told him he was gay, the man didn't know how to react. It made this relationship a real challenge. So he stuffed his emotions, and ignored the issue. It appears he really didn't talk to his brother much after that. He ignored him too. The man mostly dialogues with the brother's lover, as he tries to understand and learn more about who his brother really was. They exchange words over coffee in the hospital cafeteria. The man tries to relate, but I perceived this attempt as rather uncomfortable and awkward at first. The man tells the lover he is "extremely good-looking" and even apologizes saying, "He doesn't know what it means to love another man."

As you read the poem, the narrator is constantly mentioning the different actions he's taking. It is almost as if he is on auto-pilot and numb to what is really happening. But as the poem continues, we see the narrator begin to show his feelings. He begins to show is anger. He grows loud at border patrol guard who won't allow him to bring in drugs that may save his brother. He sees the hatred in that man's eyes. He's angry at the way he sees his brother is being treated, and he is angry about the unfortanate circumstances in general surrounding his death. He may even be angry that he too didn't treat his brother as he should have, or at least regretful. The last line of the poem states that the man is flying home from his brother's funeral reminiscing about the past and thinking about hugging his children, of which are not a challenge to embrace or to love.

Who in your life poses a challenge for you? Is it a co-worker? A classmate? or even a family member? As a Christian we are called to love our neighbors, even as we love ourselves. The man in this poem couldn't reconcile his feelings that what his brother was doing was wrong with his feelings of brotherly love and affection. So he just ignored the situation. This poem made me cry. Mostly becasue I saw the hate others have toward homosexuals, and the way they just have to get used to it. That look of disgust in someone else's eyes is something they see regularly. I too have a sibling who is gay. I understand the strange challenge as a Christian to, as they say, "love the person, but hate the sin." I understand the uncomfortableness of not knowing what to say in certain situations, and I understand the deep hurt that my sister feels, that no one accepts her. It can make one not want to accept themselves. She would much rather be a drug addict than a lesbian in any given Christian circle, because at least then she would be treated with more dignity.

This poem poses a challenge to us. How are we going to respond to the challenge to love in our own lives? I guarentee there is someone in your life, whom you don't agree with. Life is filled with much judgment and condemnation. We judge people if they are too pretty, or not pretty enough. If they have to much money and are frivolous, or if they don't bother to work and use the system. Some of us have a parent we just can't seem to relate too, or a boss we don't respect. There is someone in your life that is a challenge to love. That makes you uncomfortble and is just easier to ignore. But as a Christian, if we truly want to follow the teaching of Christ we must love not only those in whom it is easy, or those we don't agree with, but also those who truly are our enemy.