the kingdom and NT Wright

this post is dedicated to my cousin scott, who told me to read a book that has changed my life. i am so grateful.

i came home from latin america with a lot of stories, frustrations, questions, some doubts, and maybe most significantly, a lot of fear. i was angry with systems of injustice in the world, but what was more upsetting about it was the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and a trembling heart of how to engage and what to do in response.

but i knew deep down in my heart that i couldn't live in this way - couldn't live swallowed by fear and hopelessness, couldn't live so far away from joy and love that brings out the best in me - that brings out the best in all of us and allows me to engage and grow and learn and be at peace with that journey.

in conversation with my cousin scott, i bought NT Wright's book Suprised by Hope. i think i mention this book in almost every serious conversation i have with someone about my semester in latin america. i talk about some of my struggles and then i talk about this book and how it affected my perspective and encouraged me to live more fully, more abundantly, and how that was possible through a life committed to Christ.


"The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it" (252-3) 

 

“Of course, in our incomplete world God’s gentle offer and demand press upon us as fearful things, almost threatening. But God’s offer and demand are neither fearful nor threatening. God in his gentle love longs to set us free from the prison we have stumbled into—the loveless prison where we refuse both the offer and the demand of forgiveness. We are like a frightened bird before him, shrinking away lest this demand crush us completely. But when we eventually yield--when he corners us and finally takes us in his hand—we find to our astonishment that he is infinitely gentle and that his only aim is to release us from our prison, to set us free to be the people he made us to be. But when we fly out into the sunshine, how can we not then offer the same gentle gift of freedom, of forgiveness, to those around us? That is the truth of the resurrection, turned into prayer, turned into forgiveness and remission of debts, turned into love. It is constantly surprising, constantly full of hope, constantly coming to us from God’s future to shape us into the people through whom God can carry out his work in the world” (289)

i am invited to belong to a kingdom
i am invited to be free to be the person He has made me to be
i am invited to let God shape me into someone who can carry out his work in the world

it's an invitation. it's God saying "hey alyssa, do you want to be apart of something wonderful, something really hard and challenging, but something that is the most fulfilling and most satisfying way you can spend your life?" and if i do accept the invitation, if i really let Him direct and guide my path, freedom, hope, and love will flow from my heart just as he has given those very things to me. unfortunately i'll accept the invitation with muddy hands, with a fearful and reluctant heart, with a broken mind, but i'm grateful he accepts those hands, that he loves my heart and mind and is committed to using them - no matter how distant they are from perfect.

the invitation to obedience, to kingdom work is not something i should fear or run away from because it's a bunch of rules or list of obligations or burdens. rather, the invitation is to be apart of something i am created for - something of significance and beauty that my heart longs to be a part of.

in the book of deuteronomy, moses says his people:
 Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20) 

maybe what moses was getting at here was that to live abundantly meant to be close to God, and the best way was being close to his commandments in order to live a life pleasing to him. i believe that choosing life and obeying God isn't just an individual relationship with him (while that is still so important), but it's being a part of community, of learning to love and serve people, of studying and running and singing and laughing and eating with friends - because God is present there and i want to get to know him through his people, through the people and places that he loves. i'm suprised to find him there - to find him as i study political science, to find him in the conversations with my apartment-mates, to find him in the breath of fresh new england air as my feet run across crunchy fall leaves.

i have become more convinced of kingdom work, of the great commission to be apart of hope and love on earth now - recognizing its eternal invitation, but responding to that invitation in the ways in which i live my life now. i wish a response to this invitation took away all sadness and brokenness, that it would erase genocide and disease, death and loneliness. i have to wait for that, but i get to be a part of kingdom work while i'm waiting. i am invited to hope, to learn, to laugh, to think, and to draw closer to a God who designed me with a purpose. i hope to respond to this invitation, to participate in this kingdom joyfully, lovingly, and hopefully.

thanks be to God.

because winter is approaching

35°F

Wenham, MA

it's officially back.

the cold new england weather i have been avoiding for the past 10 months.

there are things i love about winter. i love pink rosy cheeks, especially on adorable little kids who are covered head to toe in jackets, scarves, and mittens. there is a remarkable beauty to the way trees can become completely white, and there's something magical about watching snowflakes stick to your dark eyelashes and just sitting still, listening, to the snowfall around you. i love after a snowfall when the sun shines so brightly and everything looks so clean, and white, and lovely..and even though you're cold, you forget that you can't feel your nose or your lips because you're captivated by how beautiful it is.

there's the excitement of waking up at 6:00am to "Gordon College Notification System" saying school has been cancelled for the day because of snow and you put your head back to the pillow for a few more hours and then spend the rest of the day cuddled on your bed or the couch watching TV, drinking hot chocolate, and catching up on work you haven't been able to get done for days.

but then winter has its downsides (but i'm trying to be optimistic with the things i love about it first). what is at first so clean, beautiful, and white, soon turns into gray, brown and ugly, especially come March when you start to destroy snow cubes along the side of the road because you are begging the weather to warm up enough so there is no longer snow anywhere in your sight. sometimes the wind blows so fiercly that it feels like no matter how many layers, how thick your long underwear is, or how many cups of tea/hot drink you can drink, the cold blows straight through. and there's the awkward passing-by people along the road when you try to smile but your mouth just doesn't really move because it's frozen. it's embarrassing - and sort of depressing because you don't see as many smiles through those months.

the past few years i have been learning to embrace winter - the highs and lows, the crazy wind or the beautiful snowfall, the dry and cracked skin, or the coziness inside my dorm or apartment. what i probably appreciate the most is how much more thankful i am for spring -- the first sighting of crocuses, the tulips starting to burst from the ground, the slight increase of the temperature on my weather site ...it brings tears to my eyes (literally).

love from snowtober,

alyssa

worth quoting

[photo taken at Tufts University}

Courage
by Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

{i want the small but significant courage that anne sexton portrays in her poem. i want to be that little child taking the small steps, entering into the battle completely ill-equipped with a simple hat to protect me.

i like this poem because it shows courage in the little places, in the small things that are important and make us into more courageous people}

I would like to beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try and love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
-Rainer Rilke

{My dad sent me this quote while I was in Costa Rica. It now hangs on my wall and has blessed me immensly as I wrestle with questions, and wrestle with wrestling itslef, longing to be okay with the challenges of paradoxes and seeing so much gray instead of black and white. But what I love about this quote is that there is beauty in those questions and paradoxes - and I hope to be a person who seeks that beauty and instead of seeing "gray," is excited to be a part of coloring between the black and white}

Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave--that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing...What have I to leave you but the ruins of old courage, and the lore of old gallantry and hope? Well, as I have said, it is all an ember now, and the good Lord will surely someday breathe it into flame again.
-Marilyn Robinson, Gilead (p 246)

{Precious things have been put in my hands, and I hope to have the courage to make myself useful. And if you've read Gilead you know that the courage Robinson is speaking of is persevering through loneliness and learning to forgive. I want that courage too}

kelsey visits!

we had a great weekend.

and i also learned not to rush. this was what i looked like throughout the weekend many times - trying to walk faster to the car, get to the commuter rail with at least 10 minutes to spare, etc. and kels was always a few steps behind me rolling her eyes and saying "will walking a little faster make THAT much of a difference? no. so slow down"

so i need to continue to learn how to slow down and to enjoy those brief walks between here and there because there's a lot of beauty along those journeys -- a quite literal example when we got lost in boston and happened upon some beautiful ponds (part of an environmental preservation project). i hate getting lost. unfortunately, when you are living in the boston area you WILL get lost: that is inevitable. however, getting lost in this instance led to a beautiful walk, a lovely chat with a sweet (and handsome might i add) man who let us use a restroom nearby, and a new place now visited in boston. good times. i now want to run the half marathon there!

just some of the good times and wonderful things kels and i did together this weekend.
and some of the things i learned as well :)

"re-envisioning home"

The Global Education Office at Gordon is having a photo contest for returning study abroad students. Students were invited to submit a picture and write a brief explanation of how the photo fits with the theme "re-envisioning home." All the photos and writing are on display in the library for the next month or so. This is what I submitted...it's nothing I haven't written about before but I wanted to share it anyway :)

I lived in three different “homes” while I was in Latin America: three different houses I walked to after taking the bus home from Spanish class or after working at the local elementary school cutting plátanos for lunch,  or after a day at the little Nicaraguan church down the road. I entered my home each day with new thoughts, observations, and questions swirling in my mind. One of the greatest joys of being at home in Latin America was sharing a home with Latin Americans who loved and cared for me despite the many boundaries of culture, language, and personality. This picture shows some of my dear friends and playmates whom I lived with in San José de la Montaña, a beautiful town in the mountains. We were neighbors and we shared a home together. But more than that, we shared life together, whether that was playing soccer in the afternoons, picking wildberries on our walk home from school, or enjoying mid-afternoon coffee breaks, cafecito. Yes, they opened their homes to me, but more than that, they opened their hearts as well.