Next Door Evangelism

So I received words of triumph today! I was working in my room when I heard a gal tell me hello from the hallway. 

She told me thank you. We had a deep theological conversation a week and a half ago and that conversation encouraged her to go back to church last Sunday. 

I never intended to make her a church goer, or returner. I have no proof she'll keep going. However, by just trying to be her friend and talking about something I'm passionate about, I did something splendid. 

Sending her back to church wasn't splendid, mind you, but seeing her excited about a rendezvous with her Creator was. 

This experience was just a reminder to me about what evangelism really is. Evangelism, or message or light, isn't about going up to strangers and asking if they have a personal relationship with Christ, and then proceeding to tell them they can find it if they go to such and such church. 

No, rather it is doing the work of the gospel. It is loving people, wasting time on them and with them. I did not intend to go "win one for Christ" but I did set out to know her and to become her friend. And... I shared my story and my thoughts and my feelings and I didn't boil my thoughts down but displayed my personal matters in all of their glory, open for her and the world to see.

Next door evangelism is a beautiful thing, and I'm glad to have been a part of this case. 

Dead Man's Cell Phone

I went to the theater last Saturday night.  My friend, Casey, and I watched Eureka College students in Dead Man’s Cell Phone, which was a bizarre and black comedy.  The play was weird, even by my standards.

In the course of the story, a woman, Jean, finds a dead man and elects to keep the man’s cell phone.  Eventually, through the twists and turns of the plot, she is killed and meets up in an odd purgatory like place with the dead man, Gordon.  He has been alone in this place for the course of the play, because in this version of the afterlife, the person a character loved most was reunited with that character for eternity.  The whole thing does not make much sense until Gordon explains it like so, “most mothers love their children the most, the children their fathers, and the fathers always love the family dog the most.”  One can easily see how this version of the afterlife can be complex and/or interesting.

So Jean and Gordon begin to speak and it comes out that Gordon did not love anybody except his self, and that Jean, who obsessed about the dead man whose cell phone she collected, loved Gordon more than any other person in the world.  So, in Jean’s death, she was united with Gordon, breaking what would have been his eternal solitude.  Jean then explains that Gordon’s mother loved him so much that she committed the rest of her life to mourning her son.  Gordon, feeling loved, disappears to wait until his mother dies and to wait for that time when she will arrive to him.

Jean is then left alone.  She can hear the sounds of all the conversations of the living (it may only be cell phone conversations- the idea is that, like words on paper, the air retains words) but she is alone. 

In that moment, I looked at the woman left loveless and alone for eternity, and I distinctly thought, “That is Hell in the truest sense.”  The idea of a loveless solitude for all eternity is possibly the worst Hell imaginable, much worse than any sort of physical torture. 

Jean discovered that she loved Dwight (Gordon’s brother) the most, and was reunited with him after coming back to life.  At least in this play, and maybe in life, there is still hope for those wandering souls who still haven’t figured it all out yet.  Maybe… hopefully…

Speaking for the Dead

Most people know what I am about to say quite well:

I’m weird.

There are many ways that I am considered “weird,” “abnormal,” “odd,” or a “strange one,” but perhaps where my eccentricities stand out the most is how I view funerals.  I love good funerals.

If a funeral is done properly, then it is the mightiest vessel to process grief.  You know a good funeral by how you feel at the end.  If the intent was to make you “feel better,” well, the funeral probably missed the mark.  However, if it is done to be an expression of the deceased’s life, then a funeral hurts like a very cold knife, but it breaks the last walls of grief down.  You begin to remember all of the memories and the times you shared together and you weep for the times that won’t come back in this life, and your breath is ragged with love for that person and your vocal cords make unintelligible sounds, sounds that want to say, “I love you” in a language that can only be heard by the dead.

Then… the healing can begin.  The pieces are on the floor, and the time to make the shards of glass into a new object has begun.  An invitation exists.

However, what I see in eulogies is that officiators focus on the next destination, and not the people left behind.  There is comfort in knowing that a loved one is in heaven, and that should surely be stated.  However, there are more places to draw on, and these places can make much more sense to us in our times of grief.  We can comprehend that a loved one is in paradise, but we are here in a hellish earth without them.  How do we comfort the living more?  I firmly believe it is in the remembrance, in the acceptance and slow healing of wounds.  We cannot quickly glaze over them with the Band-Aid of faith in God, but along with our faith and our hope, we must remember our loved ones, and remember all of their life.

My minister, Vicki, gave the best eulogies I have ever heard.  I remember well the ones she gave during her time at my church, and I remember my mother’s fondly.  Vicki told us about my mother’s salvation, but the comfort I found was in the story and memory of my mother.  The funeral hurt, and it ripped my soul to hear about the woman I loved so much, the woman who should have been sitting next to me, but was not.  However, in that sanctuary, surrounded by family and friends, I could feel my heart begin to wake up.  Now that the pain was comprehended, realized, and understood, it was time to live again. 

I heard of a young man who lost his mother the other day, and the funeral did not mention the story of his mother, only her salvation.  I felt the deepest regret for him- how cruel!  His time to mourn deeply and without regrets was stolen from him!  Who dares take away what was mercifully given to me!  The thing I hate most in this world may be funerals that focus more a person’s salvation than the life they left behind.  The story they lived, all of it, including their salvation, is what the people, and family in particular, need to hear.  A half-baked eulogy is like only telling the story of Jesus on the cross and NOT his ministry, which was arguable just as important, if not more so.

I decided that if I ever wanted to create a ministerial job, it would be to give eulogies at funeral homes.  To be able to tell the stories of God’s people would be my highest honor.  I would try to tell the histories of the people as they walked with God on earth and as they transitioned into walking with God in heaven- both sides of the story.

Perhaps this is why my favorite book is Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.  The book follows a young man, met in the previous novel, named Ender, who goes from place to place researching people who have died and performing their Speaking, not a funeral, but a comprehensive eulogy of their whole life, their highs and their lows, their strengths and their weaknesses, and their triumphs and failures.  A Speaking would be slightly more humanist than I prefer, but it is closer than most eulogies I hear today.

Am I coming down too hard?  Possibly.  There is some comfort in eulogies that only talk about heaven.  However, when it comes to really working to heal a family stricken with grief, the last thing they need is to start forgetting their loved one, or to compartmentalize the time they shared with them.  Instead, the focus should be on remembering, fondly, the times shared, times that can be carried on into tomorrow. 

The Philosopher Kings

I was in Indianapolis this past weekend as an undergraduate Higher Education and Leadership Ministries (HELM) of the Christian Church Fellow. Our theme was Inter-religious Dialogue, which works fantastic with my work with the Eureka College Interfaith Challenge. Leading our weekend is Dr. Kang from Brite Divinity School, and truly a citizen of the world.

The movie was called "The Philosopher Kings" and the film looked at the lives of university and college custodians or janitors- generally, the lowest rung on the ladder concerning higher education staff.

The movie was about their lives as humans. It was about their journey as twenty-first century pilgrims. It was about not only their humanity, but mine, and yours.

As many of you know, I am a sucker for the story. They had τους καλλιστους λόγους, the most beautiful stories. There was  a tale of a man who loved art, a woman whose mother was in a coma due to a botched delivery for eleven years until the ultimate death of the mother. There was the recount of a man who was shot in the back in Vietnam, but he was also the man who opened for the Beach Boys as a musical artist.  Story after story poured out of the documentary, story after story representing so much that is right in our world.

There was a Hispanic janitor who was walking along the road one day and was hit by a car.  He lost his arm in the accident.  He asked if he had the right to sue the driver, and it turns out that he did have the right.  So the man investigated into the details, and it turns out that the driver was a father with no insurance and suing the man would send the family’s principle breadwinner to jail.  Demonstrating the highest form of compassion, he walked away; starving children would not get his arm back.

What struck me on the deepest and truest level was their commitment.  They would not have traded their job for the world.  They were “philosopher-kings,” the people who had such love for knowledge, but passion for the world which they served.  The title comes from an idea from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who believed the world should be ran by “philosopher-kings.”  Maybe the world should be ran by passionate janitors?  I don’t know.  However, I would like to live in a world that is regarded with as much love as they regard their work. 

As I finished the movie, I was left with a few ideas.  Some of these ideas I will visit some other time, but the one I want to visit now is their rank in society.  Often, far too often, we put a class system into place and we put, not only a faulty system, but a system based on all of the wrong ideals.

Janitors do not make much; they’ll most likely never be the presidents of the colleges they work at.  If the janitors were lucky, they were able to attend some of the classes they clean up after.  But I dare anybody to tell me that they are lower or even middle class.   Their love for this world, the communities they served, and simply the lives they lived made them citizens of the highest class.  A rank not judged by bank account, skin color, sexuality, religion, family, nationality, or even on traditional human terms.  Rather, they rank the highest on a scale based on the heart, a rank mere mortals can only achieve in our wildest dreams. 

Do all janitors feel such compassion and zeal?  Probably not.  Neither does any other profession. However, if we can learn from this set of janitors (or real estate agents, or teachers, or bankers, or ditch diggers, or…) we will soon realize that we can be higher, we can go farther and we can go better, but… we have to care, and not just care once or frequently or a lot.  Rather we have to obtain a daily system of gratitude and passion to carry us through to the level of a “philosopher-king.”

Billy Elliot!

I'm on the road while writing this blog! I am headed to St.Louis to watch the musical "Billy Elliot" with the Eureka College First Generation Student Program.  Interestingly enough,  it is the same musical I saw on my International Affairs Seminar in New York City. I'm cannot wait to see if St. Louis beats Broadway!

The story of "Billy Elliot" is one of my favorites, so I'm not depressed to see it again, not at all. However, "Billy Elliot" and I do have an interesting relationship. In the musical is a song called "The Letter". Billy's mother is dead and it was the letter she wrote to him for when he grew up. 

Of course I have to bawl every time I hear it. 

I don't mention this for pity (at least I don't think, but, hey, maybe I do) but I mention it because it's always a part of me. 

The last time I saw this back in March in NYC, Jeremy Skaggs pulled me in a bear hug during the worst parts for me. It's not often that I say this, but I hope there are more Jeremys out there (just kidding, Jeremy).  More crying people, figuratively  and literally, need a Jeremy. 

Remember, no matter how long the time has been, when the heart is ripped back open, it still hurts. 

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted"- Matt 5:6

Love openly, forgive thoroughly, and forgive quickly. It's a lesson I am still learning. 

Much love,

Clott


The Letter Lyrics (abridged)

And I will have missed you growing,
And I'll have missed you crying
And I'll have missed you laugh.
Missed your stomping and your shouting,
I'll have missed telling you off,
But please Billy,
Know that I was always there.
I was with you through everything.
And please, Billy,
know that I will always be
Proud to have known you
Proud that you were mine,
Proud in everything.
And you must promise me this, Billy,
In everything you do
Always be yourself, Billy
And you always will be true
Love you forever.
Mum

Just a Moment with Academia

Age is one of the biggest tricks ever played on us.  Today I was thinking about my school, Eureka College and its long history.  I feel “old,” 18 in body, but somewhere around 65 in spirit (just ask any of my church camp family).  However, I realized as I stared out the second floor window in my philosophy class (most of my best blogs come from that class) that there was a time before me and my contemporaries. There was even a time before my philosophy professor.  For that matter, there was a time before Ronald Reagan!  There was a time back in 1899 that a man, about my age, sat in the same classroom I was in and did some of the same things I was doing now.

For a long moment, I felt so insignificant.  That is the way of academia, though.  We are led to believe that we know the world, whether due to our human nature or the sheer amount of knowledge we process.  During some of the moments, we feel like masters of nature and the possessors of the future.  Then we take a step back from the bookcase we were studying so intently, that treasure trove where we clung to every word on every page in the desperate thirst for knowledge; we carefully look down the hallway and see that the hallway leads to infinity and bookcases of knowledge line the rest of the hallway as well. 

The individual bookcases in academia lure us into thinking that we are immortal and omnipotent, if only for a second.  However, suddenly and without grace, academia shocks us back to real life and shows us just how much we really do not know.  The confidence is eroded, but in its own way, the nature of academia coupled with the human spirit provides some of the best motivation to recover from our powerlessness.

Oh, but for that moment we are kings and queens of the best time.  For that moment, we are the masters and we are the possessors.  For those few moments of our lives, we have a handle on control and we have endless life and we, in so many ways and emotions, have the world.  Living on that constant high would be unsafe, but how wonderful it feels, for just a few, fleeting moments.