| it's may... ...five weeks... ...what?! (technically, it's six weeks if you count finals week, but i don't have any, so we're not counting it.
and i have an integrative paper that i need to start/work on/finish before noon tomorrow,
so, of course, i'm on xanga now.  ) i first went to a service at crossroads sometime in the last year and a half, when i was still church-hopping. i was fresh out of compton, still disentangling myself from the intimate community there, shaking off the strands of what remained of the thirteen years that i spent growing up in that very specific church environment. i went with some people from navigators, and something sank in the pit of my stomach as soon as we battled through the traffic in the parking lot; it didn't get any better once i actually stepped foot into the massive building. throughout the whole service, the "sixtyfive minute interaction with God", i felt as if i were simply in the audience of a show, with the rock and the graphics. it just seemed too cool to be something revolved around God-- church snob, much? so i wrote it off as being too big and too impersonal and too milky as opposed to meat; i couldn't understand how it wasn't a show if it was put on four times a weekend. i know, vain assumption, born of insecurity, discomfort, and a very palpable sense of guilt, as if i was somehow betraying compton by experiencing different churches. i went back occasionally, mostly based on how convenient it was and who was driving where on a particular sunday. i still felt uncomfortable each time i went, but i think a part of that had to do with the people that i went with; not bad people at all, but i had no history with them, and it felt awkward and somehow against basic social niceties to just associate with them on sundays for three hours. i had been spoiled by the compton environment of groupness and feeling known. eventually, i aligned myself with a different group of people who went to a different church, northstar. here, it was different; it was definitely smaller, which you'd think would cultivate some sort of friendship or brother/sisterhood, but while i was convicted on a regular basis from the sermon, i again felt that discomfort around the people. it was like compton, but contemporary and caucasian. and still, i felt like the odd one out. of all the people that i went with and sat with, i only felt connected to one of them, and whenever that person wasn't present, it was like crossroads all over again, surrounded by a bunch of people i know on a surface level, all of whom have history with each other, and are inherently tighter-knit. i guess i felt like i was a crumb that fell on an erstwhile spotless piece of clothing, as if i was about to be brushed off at any moment because i was on the fringes. i stopped going to northstar; i stopped going to church, actually, all of winter quarter this year. for ten weeks, i slept in, did my homework, hung out with friends who don't have cause to attend church, and while it was certainly an enjoyable and alternative use of my sunday morning, by the end of the quarter, i knew that something in me had shifted, and was starving. i needed to go to church, not out of obligation or duty, but because each week, i was fed and nourished in a way that was different and necessary, something i couldn't get myself just out of spending individual, quality time with God. i was still feeling timid about churches, though, so on palm sunday, i decided to go to mass at a catholic church, and then i found myself wondering how megachurches celebrate easter, and i found myself back at crossroads. having spent so long without experiencing church, though, had changed me. also, going alone had something to do with it; there's something to be said about being able to go to church with people, but there was also something quite calming about being able to go by myself, and not have my time dictated by others. and all of that was just to introduce the fact that crossroads has been good for me. i still don't understand how you can have four services in a weekend, three of them being successive for four hours, but perhaps that's where the power of God comes in-- it isn't by the pastor's own power, much less the (amazing) worship band, lighting/set-up crew, etc. if anything, i see now that they couldn't do any of this once, much less multiple times, without the strength and constant supplication from God. i had forgotten that these people on stage before me are just as i am-- broken, relying on God, weary. i don't know why it took me this long to realize this, but i'm glad that God's timing supersedes mine. two things from today's service, which was on the holy spirit, as portrayed throughout the bible as water: the fruit of the spirit (love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control) can only bloom when we are watered and moist with God's word and holy spirit. when brian said this (or something to that effect) i could literally feel things clicking together and understanding falling into place. when we aren't loving, joyful, self-controlled, it's because we don't have the holy spirit in us. there's something blocking it, something we're holding onto and won't let go, weighing us down and taking up space in our heart. which leads to the second point... grieving the holy spirit ( ephesians 4:30) is a lot like flatulence. (talk about sentences i never thought i'd write, much less hear from a pastor.) when it happens, it's never so much the noise as it is the odor that makes people want to get as far away as possible to the nearest source of clean air-- and it's the same for the holy spirit. when there's bitterness, anger, slander, malice in our hearts, they produce such a toxic and noxious odor that the holy spirit is driven out. it evacuates, not because it wants to leave us, but because it cannot stand being in the same room as all of that garbage. the context surrounding ephesians 4:30 explains that we need to rid ourselves of negativity, the grudges we're holding, the guilty thoughts we're having, the blame we're harboring, or else the holy spirit will not be able to dwell within us to its full capacity, and then the fruit will never bloom and ripen to its potential.
i can honestly say that i walked out of there feeling like someone had just opened the curtains and i was seeing the dazzling rays of sunshine for the first time. life and relevance and understanding was breathed into these verses and passages for me, and i realized that this is partly what church is for: teaching. (a duh statement, i know, but i had a lot of resistance to get over before i actually understood that.) community is also a huge part of it, and while i'm not sure if i'll ever find one as close as what i had at compton, i've also learned not to begrudge a church for (the lack of) it. it's one of the difficulties of being a college student-- we're defined by our transience. where we find community may not be the same place where we go to church on saturday evenings/sunday mornings; the closest thing to the former, for me, has been navigators, whereas the latter has changed course over the past couple of years and seems to have settled at crossroads. those of us who are lucky can find both functions served at the same place with the same group of people; i spent thirteen years in the compton church community-- how could i have expected to replicate that sort of known-ness in only a handful of quarters for four years? such a silly anticipation, even for a silly girl. changing course, this weekend was a lot of fun. (= i went to an asl concert on friday night, in which all the songs were interpreted and performed in american sign language by the students, and for celine dion's because you loved me, the five female performers each brought their mothers up on stage, handed them a rose, and performed the song personally for them. it was definitely a tear-rousing performance.  saturday was spent on the road and in dublin for a surprise party for one of my former residents. it was a success and he was completely surprised, which was fun. his parents treated the bunch of us at the new montgomery inn, then us college students walked around polaris and ended the festivities at steak and shake playing a game that they had bought at the mall. on the drive back to campus, we had a really nice, lightly psychological conversation on past selves, regrets, how we've changed since high school, etc. the whole night was a demonstration on the fact that people have different and hidden sides of themselves; while a part of me is adjusting to newfound personalities and quirks of those ridiculous engineering guys, i'm also kind of gratified that they finally feel comfortable enough around me to loosen up and show themselves as they are without all the pretense. hmm, good times. although, i was awoken around 7am by stomach pains-- i guess ribs and a giant milkshake really don't mix all that well together.  it was forecasted to rain all this weekend and this entire week,
but so far, it's been temperate and sunny and breezy instead.
i hope it stays that way.  now, onto that paper.
 ps. the bittersweets are coming to the tristate area the night before i graduate!!! if you'd like to come along to the concert, and listen to musical wonderfulness, you're more than welcome to partake in the experience with me! (= unless something drastic happens, i am set on getting to this show, since they never come to the area, and especially because it's FREE! |
+ 
, but not as severe.)