Monday, May 6, 2013

seeing Jesus in every one.



Jesus breathes and moves in us. In all of us. I don't think I ever truly understood this truth before until this past weekend in Chicago. It all started as I read Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz on the plane ride south. It was unlike any book on God I'd ever read before. And I've read a lot of them. First of all, he started talking about how he would eat chocolates and smoke cigs while reading the Bible with his college friends. "I always thought the Bible was more of a salad thing, but it isn't. It's a chocolate thing" (p. 47) I've gotta try that some time. Anyway, that's just one example of how Don really took the time to extract the religion out of Christianity, only leaving room for the things that actually matter. Like Jesus.  

The part that hit me the hardest was when Don started quoting Mother Theresa. TIME magazine once asked her how she ever found the strength to love so many people. She said she loved people because they are Jesus to her, each one of them is Jesus. I started to think about what this really means. I was sitting next to this sorta crazy homeless guy while taking the subway to Jonson's house (i stayed at his place for the weekend). I say he was crazy cause he would comment on what everyone was wearing by singing it loud into their face, and he sat right across from me on the train and wouldn't stop singing until he fell asleep. At first I was kind of scared of him. But then when he fell asleep he seemed pretty harmless and I started to think about how this man was made in the image of Jesus. And how his dirty, calloused hands look a lot like how Jesus's hands probably looked as a carpenter. And I started to feel love for that homeless man as if I got a chance to sit next to Jesus in Chicago, and I just couldn't look at him the same after that. 

I spent the weekend staying with two old college friends in Chicago, Urey and Jonson. I didn't know Jonson very well until this trip and it had been a while since I'd spent quality time with Urey, but I was so lucky to have stayed with the two of them. They really showed me around the best of Chicago (shopping on Michigan ave, Shedd Aquarium, rooftop bars, authentic dim sum & chinese food, Spanish tapas, and the big Chicago bean!) They even put together Jonson's grill this weekend so we could make burgers and sweet potato fries from scratch! Even though Urey and Jonson probably wouldn't identify themselves as Christians, I learned so much about the way God loves me through both of them this weekend. Both of them have always supported me with my Uganda trips for the past 2 years, and their relationship (they have been together for 3 years strong) reminds me of the direction I want to be headed some day. I see the way they take care of each other so deeply and the way one of them always has to step down and be humble if the other feels like getting angry. They do a lot better job caring for each other and others than a lot of Christians I know. The thing that really touched me was that they offered to drive me to the airport at 5 in the morning even though I could've taken the subway to catch my insanely early flight myself. I honestly don't know if I would have done that. Even though they don't go to church or read the Bible or whatever, they know how to love better than I do as a church-going Christian sometimes. What does church and Bibles and religion all mean anyway if it doesn't change the way we care for each other from the inside out? I saw so much of Jesus in Urey and Jonson this weekend. God knew what He we doing when he brought them together. I saw the way He held them together in their love and I realized I have a lot to learn from the way God moves in them and uses their lives to speak. 

I did a lot of awesome things this weekend, but none of them were quite as amazing as being able to see Pastor Daniel and my Isaiah unnie (they pretty much raised me spiritually from ages 12 to 17). I don't know if I would love Jesus the way I do, without them. I hadn't seen either of them in about five years, and they have 2 daughters now (and one on the way!). I got to meet their oldest daughter, Jubilee. Let me tell you how absolutely crazy it was to see Isaiah unnie's pretty eyes and Pastor Daniel's face all perfectly squished together onto Jubilee's cute little head haha. It was crazy to see the two of them as Jubilee's PARENTS, because I first met them when they were my age (22!) and now they're all grown and parent-like, yet still somehow the same. They offered to drive me home and during the 25 minute drive, they started to tell me stories about their church, and then stories about Jesus...and soon enough they were preaching me my own personal sermon together and I was trying so hard to soak in every word and not forget a single one. They told me that throughout their years of building Journey Church in Chicago, they have discovered a hidden truth about the way Jesus truly loves us. In church, we always hear about this thing called Grace. Grace is everything good that God gives us, even when we don't deserve it. But then we go backwards trying to obey God the best we can - go to church every Sunday, read your Bible, serve the poor, forgive always...70 times 7. And we always fall short. And we kick ourselves in the head because we'll never be quite as good at this as Jesus was to us. But what if we didn't have to do any of these things in order to be saved? What if the pre-requisite to knowing God's love fully isn't our righteousness, but our brokenness? In the garden of Eden, Satan told Adam and Eve to eat the fruit so they could become like God. What if this was the greatest lie Satan ever told? What if we were already like God to begin with? And this is Biblical truth, that we were made in the image of our Perfect Father. All of us. This truth has just been mired in the dust and clay of religion for too long. 

I always thought glorifying God meant serving the poor, teaching in Uganda, singing my heart to Him, forgiving the ones that hurt me...I never thought I could glorify God just by breathing and laughing with my friends...just by existing and moving, I bring life to the image of my Heavenly Father who makes me perfect, fearless, wonderful. And he does the same in every living breathing human being, whether they know it or not. This seriously blows my mind. I used to think all the light of the world was found in the churches, in the homes of believers, and the rest of the world was just walking around in darkness, waiting for some greater purpose to fill the empty crevices of their lives. I'm realizing that the beauty of Jesus lives in each of us. In all of us. In atheists, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, gays, lesbians, Democrats, Republicans, alcoholics, potheads, sex traffickers, the sexually trafficked, the homeless, the corporate sharks, the incarcerated, the terrorists. These are really hard concepts for me to grasp (some of them). Loving some people comes more naturally for me than loving others. We are all created by God, whether we know it or not. We all desire to be filled with something - with intimacy, with passion, with success, with identity....I've found that I desire the love of Jesus. I crave the affection of my Creator...and He fills me. 

This realization about Jesus really changes everything for me. Riding the NYC subways today, I was so overwhelmed by all the different manifestations of the Jesus I have fallen so in love with, sitting all around me on the 2-3 train. There were these two guys rapping about success sitting next to me, and I just felt so thankful for the artistic talent God poured into both of them. There was this girl sitting across from me all blinged out in jewelry and clubbing clothes and I felt so much love for her because she was Jesus to me. I saw this middle-aged couple laughing at this cheesy advertisement and I was really thankful God gave them to each other, because they had similar senses of humor. That's really important to have in a relationship. And God gets that too :) This pretty much changes everything I ever thought about the lines between Christians and non-Christians. If every person is made in the image of God, and even our breathing brings glory to Him...is there even such thing as "Christian" music anymore? Doesn't this mean ALL music (religious or not) is a manifestation of God's infinite wonder in each of us? Someone once told me getting a tattoo was a sin because it's putting marks on our bodies which are said to be "temples of God." But what does that make tattoo artists then? That would mean they make a living off the sins of others! Today at church, they showed a video of one of our church members who is a tattoo artist - and he uses tattooing as a ministry to love non-church goers the way God would want them to be loved. I feel like Jesus would be a lot more interested in talking with and loving on people that pay for tattoos (I want one too someday..) than in condemning people for wanting to draw on their bodies. In fact, if Jesus lived in NYC today, I bet he'd have some really cool tattoos too! 

I'm a second grade teacher at heart, and ever since I really claimed my identity as a teacher, I started doing this thing where whenever I talk to somebody that intimidates me or is kind of different from me, I just imagine them as a second-grader. And I imagine that person as my second-grader, and if that person were my student, I'd listen to their every word like it was the most important thing. And I'd want to know all of that person's dreams and fears and everything they are passionate about, and everything in their lives that led up to the moment of our conversation. And I'd wonder how adorable they once were as children, and what grown-ups were there to love them and ask for kisses on the cheek, and what teachers read stories to them and did they ever get nervous before taking a math test and who taught them how to tie their shoes? So I just start to imagine all of those things, and then that person doesn't intimidate me any more because I can see them as a child - before the world swept them up and hardened them, or before someone told them they have to be all macho and hard if they ever wanna make it big in life. This happens a lot to me when I'm working with the homeless in Harlem or the Bronx, or when I'm trying to talk to my professors one-on-one, or when I just wanna get on the elevator and pass out in my bed but something tells me I should stop and talk to my doorman at least until I can make him laugh, and even when I meet some people my age that act really cool and unapproachable I just tell myself to imagine them as my second graders. My perfect, precious second graders. Then all those people start to look and feel a lot like Jesus to me too.

Tonight was one of those nights when I came home at midnight and my favorite doorman was working the overnight shift. He usually has a super sweet smile and whenever you ask him, "How are you?" he always responds with "I'm hangin' in there. Can't complain!" And then he flashes me the cutest, sweetest smile ever. I always tell him he has the best smile out of all the doormen and then he hides behind his computer and tells me I'm makin' him blush. He's the sweetest. Anyway, tonight he didn't seem like himself and even admitted to me he was feeling pretty down. I was feeling really tired after flying in from Chicago today but I thought I should probably talk with him. He told me about how he's fighting this medical condition that gets him really down and depressed sometimes. He told me about how Mother's Day is coming up and that makes him even sadder because his mom is always beating herself up for the mistakes she's made in the past, not being a good enough mom and stuff like that. His mom always had a lot of boyfriends growing up and my doorman always hated all of them. He always felt like he was competing for the affection of his mom with these no-name jerks and it took him a long time to forgive her for that. He would stick matches between their toes from under the table and light them on fire. He didn't like seeing his mom getting treated like trash by guy after guy, and he just wanted to see how much he could get away with. He said one of those guys pointed a gun at him when he was a little kid, threatened to kill him, and then shot it into the kitchen wall. He told me he wants to take him mom out for a movie and a romantic dinner, just the two of them, for Mother's Day. To show her how men are supposed to treat their women. But the love of a son is so different from the love of a husband, and for some women, the love of a son is never gonna be good enough. And that breaks his heart. 

We talked about what it's like to fight medical conditions that hold you back (i grew up fighting scoliosis too) and how kids with special needs might be different, but it doesn't make them any less beautiful. A child with autism may never learn to speak, but he's never gonna lie, or steal, or cheat, and judge anyone by the way they look. It's just not written in their DNA code. And isn't that a really beautiful thing? We talked about abusive men, and how really those guys aren't men at all! They're cowards, and they do it because they're broken. And that real men are supposed to protect their women and uplift them like treasures. And some women never learn that they are treasured. We talked about Uganda and how having nothing often makes you thankful for everything. And how having everything can make you thankful for nothing. I think both of our moms harbor a lot of guilt about the past, about not being good enough to us while we were growing up. How they could've been so much better if they had known God's love a little better then. We talked about writing letters to our moms for Mother's Day. He told me that would be the perfect gift for his mom because she always cries when he says "I love you" and makes him feel uncomfortable, but this way, she can cry in private and she can read it over and over again and cry as many times as she wants and he'll never have to see it. I told him that whenever I teach kids, I learn infinitely more from them then they'll ever learn from me. He told me that they learn a lot more from me than I think, though. And I shouldn't underestimate myself. I told him he should write a book, and I'd be his number one fan. 

I'm really glad I decided to talk to him tonight, cause I almost missed out on a hell of a story. Tonight at church, Joel Houston told us to get to know the people sitting around us, because by sitting next to them, we're sitting next to stories. And not one of our stories is the same. He said "You're a story, too" (in a cool, Australian accent).

I'm gonna end this (inappropriately) long blog entry with a really thoughtful quote from Blue Like Jazz. I really like this quote because it's about a husband fighting for his marriage that's about to fall apart. And how often, it isn't God that makes our marriages better, but it's our marriages that make us more like God. <3

"God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, we will understand the gravity that drew Him, unto us." 

Goodnight :)

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