Sync and Wholeness in Adult Life

It’s already been a week since I set foot outside FitzRandolph Gate (all graduation pics are here). As are many things in life , the experience was relatively anti-climactic and lackluster, but not insignificant. After all, I am now officially outside the Orange Bubble. Adult life has begun, and whether I like it or not, I am coming for the ride. What do I take with me as I face the thrill and challenge of grownup life?

Lately I have been wrestling with the ideas of synchronization (sync) and wholeness, especially as they relate to the spiritual life. For me, “sync” conjures up rich images of tuning and calibration to the will of God. In our life experiences, even in the numbing grind of the mundane, we have countless opportunities to grow in His grace and love so that we can gradually and powerfully synchronize with what He desires, what He loves, and even what He hates (e.g. injustice and oppression). The Presence of God, namely His Spirit, makes this sync-ing possible in human beings, and I believe it can happen to many people regardless of what faith they profess, if they profess any faith at all. I am not necessarily acceding to universal salvation, but merely highlighting the surprising power of common grace.

The other idea, wholeness, mysteriously weaves in with synchronization, because wholeness implies oneness or singleness of desire and will. As we move out of ourselves and our conscious–and many times unconscious–selfish desires, we encounter the radical otherness of God and neighbor. Following this encounter, we have the choice to respond with radical love and service to God and neighbor. In doing so, we become more like God, whose nature we see most clearly in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Yeshua of Nazareth–God Enfleshed. As our hearts, thoughts, and behavior look more and more like those of Jesus, we verily become holy and whole, with a deep, refreshing peace and a welcomed absence of conflicting desires and selfish motives.

I say all of this because I hope and pray that I can experience increasing sync and deepening wholeness as I grow in my adult relationship with God and neighbor. Let it be done, if it be His will.

From Luxury to Sludge

Moving from gravitas to levity, I want to share an experience I recently had that well demonstrates an understated aspect of God’s nature: His humor. This past Sunday I returned from a ridiculously relaxing vacation in the Dominican Republic. I, along with 13 friends, stayed at an all-inclusive resort that really placed us in the lap of luxury. I’m talking all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink, 24/7. We were there for five days, and we savored every moment of it.

Fast forward to Sunday evening, only a couple of hours after I came home from the airport. I just finished an awesome meal of homemade chicken parmigiana, courtesy of Mom. As my Dad and I are cleaning up, we notice that the water is getting backed up in the kitchen sink. Uh-oh. My Dad is on the case first, and he makes his way into the basement to follow the pipe coming from the kitchen. He calls me down to the basement for help. As soon as I open the basement door, I am blasted with one of the worst smells I have ever encountered in my life. I then see my Dad in a legitimately desperate situation: on a ladder, next to a pipe and covered in what looks like vomit. In reality he had let out water from a drain pipe, but along with the water came chunks of old food-sludge. At that point he still couldn’t find the culpable clog. I changed clothes and joined him in the stinky business. As we guided a snake through the PVC pipe to locate the blockage, more and more sludge poured out. At one point, I laughed to myself; 24 hours earlier I was taking Dominican sun and sipping a piña colada by the beach.

God, you got me this time.

For me, this season of Lent has been, by God’s grace, so “clutch” in my spiritual life. I’m meditating on many things to which I’ve been exposed before, but somehow there is a  daily “re-renewal” (So paradoxical, for how can something keep on being new). I guess I’m better understanding what Lewis meant when he said, “Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done…” Also, some of Bono’s lyrics from Breathe nicely re-phrase this idea:

Every day I die again, and again I’m reborn
Every day I have to find the courage
To walk out into the street
With arms out
Got a love you can’t defeat…

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?

-The Wasteland

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

-from the Four Quartets

One of the first passages I encountered when I came to faith (i.e. only three years ago haha) was Hebrews 11. Time and again I try to process the gravitas of the phrase “conviction of things not seen.” Sadly, I can’t say that this conviction is very strong for me. With the old self ever obstinate about reigning over my heart, I can’t help but try to make the unseen things seen. I want to SEE my future, I want to SEE my career path, I want to SEE everything the Lord has in store for me–NOW. 

My old self wants everything to be *this* way, at *this* time, with *this* or *that* person. 

But then again, I don’t think this would work, since He knows that I might rely on Him less if He provided all these things that I wanted according to my will. Sir Clive Staples speaks wisdom into all of this: “If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.”

I stand corrected.