15 July 2014
17 October 2013
All the Ways We Burn
There were so many ways to burn.
You could be a campfire, blazing hot, beaming bright. A city on a hill, glowing in the darkness. A forest fire, consuming everything along the path until it finally gives way to ashes. This little light of mine suddenly didn't seem large enough; after all, it could fit under a bushel (no!), so I doodled 1 Thessalonians 5:19 (Do not put out the Spirit's fire) on the back cover of my notebooks during English class, created an email address that began with sunshinefire.
I was fifteen, timid, awkward, like a baby giraffe caught in a body too tall for its age. I wore a silver cross and Jesus-fish dogtags on a long chain over my gray Army t-shirt. (Army of the Lord, that is.) I dropped code words like "Michael W. Smith" into conversations, a tricky way to let people know that I was, indeed, a Christian. I went to a camp where we were trained to share the gospel using five colors, and my presentations ran overtime: I was always better at stories than equations. I dreamed about silver-eyed surfers like the one Christy Miller had; I passed up free tickets to a 98° concert because their music was "secular"; I made lists of friends that I would pray into salvation during the school year.
But here is the thing I couldn’t tell my prayer team. I never spoke to the friends on the list—not even once—about Jesus.
They knew I loved him, I think, or at least they noticed that I wore his merchandise. This kept my name perpetually absent from keg-party guest lists. But I wasn't interested in parties anyway, preferring to spend my weekends with a good Janette Oke novel or a marriage self-help book. Yep, I kissed dating goodbye somewhere around age ten, and that was the closest I’d been to kissing anything. What I knew of dating was harboring a secret crush on a senior. A crush I repressed and denied to my best friend, because "what's the point of having a crush on someone you aren't going to marry?" (JTT was one exception to this rule, of course. Oh, and Jason Perry of PlusOne. And, okay, Davey Jones, until I learned of our forty-year age gap.) While my classmates were experimenting with alcohol and each other, I was developing a theology of crushing.
My desperate hope was to be on fire for God. I knew what fire looked like: hands in the air and dancing, approaching random people on the sidewalk to talk about God. It was piano playing and praying for the future spouse you deserved because you’d stayed “pure” (but only if you were also content being single) and choosing to go into ministry instead of a plain old secular job. On-fire was fearless. On-fire was outgoing. On-fire was not afraid to talk about the Lord to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
On-fire was not a quiet, ragged-hair sophomore whose hobbies were reading and overthinking. The only time I felt legitimately in love with Jesus was at camp; the rest seemed like a one-sided relationship, me pleading that I'd "get right," stop "falling away," if only he'd stay.
And so I never told my classmates about Jesus because, try as I might, I couldn't conjure flame.
---
Nothing was off-limits anymore. Professors said things like, “I don’t consider Left Behind great literature.” Classmates got upset that God would extinguish entire clans. Maybe there was a reason I cringed at Bible tracts. Maybe words like “witness,” “truth,” “Christian music” had shades of meaning instead of set definitions. And maybe, just maybe, Jesus didn’t hate me for wondering. Maybe he didn’t plan to punish my honesty with cats!
My faith, stored safely in a jar like a firefly, had been brushed off the shelf: shattered into terrifying freedom. It would take years before I could fully grant myself permission to question. My Christian lexicon began to shift from absolutes to indefinites-—not because I found God to be any less, but because the words I’d used to talk about him were becoming too small to fit. I couldn't use “on fire” as the highest term of approval anymore: “He’s awesome—so on fire for God. “I wish I were on fire like she is.” I was—we were—so mistaken.
We’d measured ourselves in fire instead of love.
We didn’t recognize that only love burns strong and deep, sometimes snapping tall against the wind, sometimes nearly invisible except at its blazing blue core. It comes in so many shapes and sizes, few of them bold and big and all-consuming, and we forgot that the strength of a mighty rushing wind is sometimes contained in a whisper.
---
My teen self would be horrified that the adult version no longer cares to burn, burn, burn. But I gravitate toward Light and have been surprised to find it everywhere—especially glinting from the broken edges of myself. I am, I think, finally learning to be content to simply let it shine, let it shine, however pale, let it shine. Strong and steady, like my friend who faithfully does the redundant tasks necessary to keep her son healthy. Glowing, like the fireplace logs of the church people who invite me to supper so I won't have to eat cereal alone. Drawing others with its warmth, like the friends who laugh with me in the kitchen as their children skateboard across the floor.
If I know fire, let it be the kind fueled by love. And if I am consumed by anything, let it be the tender flames of transformation, slowly forging old creation into new.
There are so many ways to burn.
This post is part of Addie Zierman's synchroblog, in honor of her new book
release! Addie is one of those beautiful writers who has walked alongside so
many of us on this bizarre evangelical path, and her words continue to push me
ever towards Love. Click the logo above to read others' stories about their
days “on fire.” And click here to check out Addie's blog and read the book!
You could be a campfire, blazing hot, beaming bright. A city on a hill, glowing in the darkness. A forest fire, consuming everything along the path until it finally gives way to ashes. This little light of mine suddenly didn't seem large enough; after all, it could fit under a bushel (no!), so I doodled 1 Thessalonians 5:19 (Do not put out the Spirit's fire) on the back cover of my notebooks during English class, created an email address that began with sunshinefire.
I was fifteen, timid, awkward, like a baby giraffe caught in a body too tall for its age. I wore a silver cross and Jesus-fish dogtags on a long chain over my gray Army t-shirt. (Army of the Lord, that is.) I dropped code words like "Michael W. Smith" into conversations, a tricky way to let people know that I was, indeed, a Christian. I went to a camp where we were trained to share the gospel using five colors, and my presentations ran overtime: I was always better at stories than equations. I dreamed about silver-eyed surfers like the one Christy Miller had; I passed up free tickets to a 98° concert because their music was "secular"; I made lists of friends that I would pray into salvation during the school year.
But here is the thing I couldn’t tell my prayer team. I never spoke to the friends on the list—not even once—about Jesus.
They knew I loved him, I think, or at least they noticed that I wore his merchandise. This kept my name perpetually absent from keg-party guest lists. But I wasn't interested in parties anyway, preferring to spend my weekends with a good Janette Oke novel or a marriage self-help book. Yep, I kissed dating goodbye somewhere around age ten, and that was the closest I’d been to kissing anything. What I knew of dating was harboring a secret crush on a senior. A crush I repressed and denied to my best friend, because "what's the point of having a crush on someone you aren't going to marry?" (JTT was one exception to this rule, of course. Oh, and Jason Perry of PlusOne. And, okay, Davey Jones, until I learned of our forty-year age gap.) While my classmates were experimenting with alcohol and each other, I was developing a theology of crushing.
My desperate hope was to be on fire for God. I knew what fire looked like: hands in the air and dancing, approaching random people on the sidewalk to talk about God. It was piano playing and praying for the future spouse you deserved because you’d stayed “pure” (but only if you were also content being single) and choosing to go into ministry instead of a plain old secular job. On-fire was fearless. On-fire was outgoing. On-fire was not afraid to talk about the Lord to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
On-fire was not a quiet, ragged-hair sophomore whose hobbies were reading and overthinking. The only time I felt legitimately in love with Jesus was at camp; the rest seemed like a one-sided relationship, me pleading that I'd "get right," stop "falling away," if only he'd stay.
And so I never told my classmates about Jesus because, try as I might, I couldn't conjure flame.
---
Prodded
by shame, I eventually tried harder to bring Jesus into things. Mostly, I had
conversations like this:
"So…did you know Kiss Me is a Christian song?”
"I don’t care.”
"Okay.”
Obviously I didn't possess the verbal wizardry required to naturally turn conversations toward the spiritual. I figured that maybe not watching Seinfeld or not laughing at inappropriate jokes could serve as an alternative kind of witness. (I also would’ve “witnessed” by refraining from the word "wizardry,” as it might cause others to stumble straight into Hogwarts.) While I distributed Jars of Clay/Jennifer Knapp mix tapes, I hoped my friends would notice I was different because of Jesus. And I was different. I drew boundaries wide around anything that might pollute me: swear words in library books, or Britney Spears. In one of life’s great ironies, I attempted to become wild with fire by shoving myself tighter and tighter into a place no contamination could reach--not realizing that even the smallest flames, once contained, burn out.
At the beginning of my first Christian college semester, I took an Evangelism and Discipleship class, wherein I had to write a paper about a “witnessing experience.” Four weeks in, car-less in a new city and a new state, I was responsible to witness my way through a 2-page paper?! My blood froze. I still believed in God, but the only thing I’d felt toward him in years was guilt. How could I share what I hadn't figured out? Clearly this meant I was ashamed of God, which clearly meant he was ashamed of me, which clearly meant that, though I wasn’t exactly bad, I was surely not good enough. So I tried to do better. I asked, a million times a day, for forgiveness. I wished for sparks that would signal God’s approval. Piled my heart with rules and restrictions like kindling, a sacrifice just waiting for the divine match-strike. Yet the pilot light wouldn't ignite. I was going to die alone, fireless and godless, and probably in a cat-infested house.
That year, I learned that flames look different when viewed up close.
There was the Bible professor who, in one moment, slashed a student’s opinion to threads; in another, stepped tenderly around a critique of his colleague. There were post-AWANA kids sick of memorizing verses; there were fresh-to-the-faith Christians who’d never read through the New Testament. There were girls who served meals to the homeless, headed missions committees, still got pulled aside by RAs to have “the modesty talk.” There was a subtle reverence toward guitar players and ministry majors—even if they were jerks. When I paid attention, I noticed embers churning inside the rebels and the burn-outs. I noticed zeal that blew away when it had no audience, leaving nothing more than smoke.
---
As for the paper—it became a retrospective. The whole concept was based in reality—conversations with a close high school friend—but I tweaked the timeframe to make it appear as though these conversations had occurred within the past week, not over past, oh, three years or so. For the first time in my academic life, I got full credit for doing something I hadn’t done—and it didn’t bother me at all. Okay, the lying part, I did feel bad about that—but questioning an indisputable process like evangelism, a definite right answer? The world started to crack wide open.
"So…did you know Kiss Me is a Christian song?”
"I don’t care.”
"Okay.”
Obviously I didn't possess the verbal wizardry required to naturally turn conversations toward the spiritual. I figured that maybe not watching Seinfeld or not laughing at inappropriate jokes could serve as an alternative kind of witness. (I also would’ve “witnessed” by refraining from the word "wizardry,” as it might cause others to stumble straight into Hogwarts.) While I distributed Jars of Clay/Jennifer Knapp mix tapes, I hoped my friends would notice I was different because of Jesus. And I was different. I drew boundaries wide around anything that might pollute me: swear words in library books, or Britney Spears. In one of life’s great ironies, I attempted to become wild with fire by shoving myself tighter and tighter into a place no contamination could reach--not realizing that even the smallest flames, once contained, burn out.
At the beginning of my first Christian college semester, I took an Evangelism and Discipleship class, wherein I had to write a paper about a “witnessing experience.” Four weeks in, car-less in a new city and a new state, I was responsible to witness my way through a 2-page paper?! My blood froze. I still believed in God, but the only thing I’d felt toward him in years was guilt. How could I share what I hadn't figured out? Clearly this meant I was ashamed of God, which clearly meant he was ashamed of me, which clearly meant that, though I wasn’t exactly bad, I was surely not good enough. So I tried to do better. I asked, a million times a day, for forgiveness. I wished for sparks that would signal God’s approval. Piled my heart with rules and restrictions like kindling, a sacrifice just waiting for the divine match-strike. Yet the pilot light wouldn't ignite. I was going to die alone, fireless and godless, and probably in a cat-infested house.
That year, I learned that flames look different when viewed up close.
There was the Bible professor who, in one moment, slashed a student’s opinion to threads; in another, stepped tenderly around a critique of his colleague. There were post-AWANA kids sick of memorizing verses; there were fresh-to-the-faith Christians who’d never read through the New Testament. There were girls who served meals to the homeless, headed missions committees, still got pulled aside by RAs to have “the modesty talk.” There was a subtle reverence toward guitar players and ministry majors—even if they were jerks. When I paid attention, I noticed embers churning inside the rebels and the burn-outs. I noticed zeal that blew away when it had no audience, leaving nothing more than smoke.
---
As for the paper—it became a retrospective. The whole concept was based in reality—conversations with a close high school friend—but I tweaked the timeframe to make it appear as though these conversations had occurred within the past week, not over past, oh, three years or so. For the first time in my academic life, I got full credit for doing something I hadn’t done—and it didn’t bother me at all. Okay, the lying part, I did feel bad about that—but questioning an indisputable process like evangelism, a definite right answer? The world started to crack wide open.
Nothing was off-limits anymore. Professors said things like, “I don’t consider Left Behind great literature.” Classmates got upset that God would extinguish entire clans. Maybe there was a reason I cringed at Bible tracts. Maybe words like “witness,” “truth,” “Christian music” had shades of meaning instead of set definitions. And maybe, just maybe, Jesus didn’t hate me for wondering. Maybe he didn’t plan to punish my honesty with cats!
My faith, stored safely in a jar like a firefly, had been brushed off the shelf: shattered into terrifying freedom. It would take years before I could fully grant myself permission to question. My Christian lexicon began to shift from absolutes to indefinites-—not because I found God to be any less, but because the words I’d used to talk about him were becoming too small to fit. I couldn't use “on fire” as the highest term of approval anymore: “He’s awesome—so on fire for God. “I wish I were on fire like she is.” I was—we were—so mistaken.
We’d measured ourselves in fire instead of love.
We didn’t recognize that only love burns strong and deep, sometimes snapping tall against the wind, sometimes nearly invisible except at its blazing blue core. It comes in so many shapes and sizes, few of them bold and big and all-consuming, and we forgot that the strength of a mighty rushing wind is sometimes contained in a whisper.
My teen self would be horrified that the adult version no longer cares to burn, burn, burn. But I gravitate toward Light and have been surprised to find it everywhere—especially glinting from the broken edges of myself. I am, I think, finally learning to be content to simply let it shine, let it shine, however pale, let it shine. Strong and steady, like my friend who faithfully does the redundant tasks necessary to keep her son healthy. Glowing, like the fireplace logs of the church people who invite me to supper so I won't have to eat cereal alone. Drawing others with its warmth, like the friends who laugh with me in the kitchen as their children skateboard across the floor.
If I know fire, let it be the kind fueled by love. And if I am consumed by anything, let it be the tender flames of transformation, slowly forging old creation into new.
There are so many ways to burn.
15 October 2013
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