April, May, June, July, August...

Sonnet XIX
Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vows, and in devotion.
As humorous is my contrition
As my profane love, and as soon forgot:
As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today
In prayers and flattering speeches I court God:
Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.
So my devout fits come and go away
Like a fantastic ague; save that here
Those are my best days, when I shake with feare.
                           ~Donne

for jffinc :)

Tuesday 20 May 2008
Schmidt’s cool room; 2:30 pm

 my last normal Tuesday… only one Tuesday after this!  Two weeks from now I will be back in the States!  Agghhh!

so much to write… so very much.  so interesting that my stint at “real life” has lead me straight back to the academic world.  the world of abstractions… of philosophy…  so funny.  of all things, the “mission field”—what one would expect to clear my head and help me get a grasp of the “things that really matter,” a good dose of practicality to knock all of those pie in the sky ideas out of my head—has lead me back to philosophy.  …. not that I was ever too far away from it… but my head did hurt from philosophizing for a couple of months in 2007 so that I almost thought I was about ready to give it up.  in 2008 also my head hurt also… but by then I had realized that I could never give up philosophizing—even if I tried.…

had a stimulating conversation with Van Brock on Sunday.  challenged my communication skills for sure.  and helped to clarify some the departures of what I believe from the the typical teaching of fundamentalists.  and helped me to reevaluate those departures.  have been bursting to write out some things ever since.

on human depravity and human capacity for good...

Van sort of got me on this one… but it was more a problem of bad communication on my part than anything else.  also problematic that we didn’t use much specific Scripture in the discussion… and also problematic that I instinctively took the defensive position.  if I had been offensive, I think we would have seen that his claims have no clear scriptural support.  I’ve not believed the idea that unbelievers are incapable of good since that conversation with March Moyle about a year and a half ago.  my reasons—though clear to me, were not clear enough for me to articulate to a contender.  my reasons were 1) all humans are created in God’s image; 2) all humans have His law written on our hearts; 3) all humans have access to nature which manifests God’s glory; 4) Jesus says that no one has greater love than the one who lays down his life for his friend—plenty of unbelievers have done that; 5) my observation of unbelievers tells me that they are capable of love, of service, of self-sacrifice, of kindness and of many other virtues—it  does not make sense to not call these obviously good qualities anything except good;  6) unbelievers have created some of the most true and beautiful works of art in existence, and they have accomplished all sorts of helpful feats (I’m thinking discoveries in medicine, in science, etc.) that are also good.  those were my reasons when I talked with Van… I suppose they are rather convincing after all.  heh.  definitely didn’t come out in a nice list like that on Sunday.  also, when I talked with Chris about it yesterday, he pointed out (as he has before, but I had forgotten) that Jesus says that earthly fathers “being evil” know how to give good gifts to their children.  this would seem to indicate that evil people are capable of good.  also, Chris said that, to his knowledge, the Bible never actually teaches that unbelievers are incapable of good.  the doctrine of human depravity (in his understanding) means that each part of man’s being has been corrupted with evil—but not that each individual is as evil as he could be.  (of course this is exactly what Marsh Moyle pointed out to me last year.)  the Bible says that man’s heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.  the Bible also says that man’s best righteousness is as filthy rags.  these seem to be the most well-known passages on depravity, and neither one of them says that unbelievers are incapable of good.  in fact, both passages talk about all men—not specifically unbelievers or believers.  they say that all men are evil and that every attempt man makes to do something good only produces metaphorical “filthy rags.” 

well, the above convinces me if it convinces no one else.  I’ve realized though, that the above does not address our actual point of disagreement, though.  our actual point of disagreement, I believe, has more to do with a definition of the concept of “Good.”  I definitely dropped the ball on this one because when Van asked me to define it, I said that I couldn’t.  which… was partially true.  if I had actually tried, I would have been able to come up with something.  Van and Vanessa defined “good”—in the context of whether unbelievers can accomplish it or not—as something of eternal significance (or value; something that will last through eternity).  I should have taken issue with this definition right from the outset.  not only do I not believe it to be a fair definition of good, I believe that the idea of eternal significance has little to no relevance to the conversation!  because it seems to me, that the question of eternal value is one that we do not have the ability to answer…. except… now I must take issue with myself.

the question of rewards in heaven actually is relevant.  because the Bible talks about it quite a lot.  especially because Jesus talks about it… my middle schoolers’ memory work for today was from Luke 12 where Jesus says “sell what you have and give to the poor … lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven”  gah.  I don’t get that at all.  not at all.  at this point my life, I’m ok with not getting it.  if it’s important I will eventually.

so… with that concession, I move on… back to defining good.  I still don’t have a definition… perhaps we can define good by it’s opposite.  what would happen then?  is it fair to say that everything that is not good is evil?  and conversely that everything that isn’t evil is good?  does all of reality, in fact, fall into one of those two categories?  my initial response is yes.   a resounding yes, in fact.  well… where to from here?  there are lots of places to go, in fact…

ok.  I suppose now would be a good time to note the Source of Good.  God is the Source of all good things—this we know for sure.   any good that man accomplishes—believing or unbelieving—originates with God.  man cannot accomplish good apart from God.  there are many more places to go now… because good and evil are often so intertwined in our broken world that it’s hard to tell one from the other.  I’m running out of steam, though.  for now, I will only say that I think Lewis is exactly right when he says that Evil—in it’s truest form—has nothing beautiful, pleasurable, intelligent to offer.  nothing at all—nothing Good to offer at all.  I think it a mistake to attribute whatever beauty or truth Evil sometimes seems to offer to Evil.  I think that Lewis has to be right when he says that Evil can offer nothing attractive that it has not stolen from Good.  in Screwtape Lewis says that Evil cannot create; it can only pervert.  whatever beauty Evil offers is only the last remains of the Good that it twisted.

March

here it is--finally!

Dear Friends,

April is fleeing—the 12th is already here—and I still haven’t sent word of March to all of you!  A few days ago, the realization that I have been in Peru for four months (more than four months now!) came upon me suddenly.  Four months is more than enough time for Tennessee weather to change from hot to cold—more than one full season.  I think it safe to say that, for me, March has been the fullest of the four. 

I spent the first week of March at our SAM field conference in La Joya, a small town in the mountains of southern Peru.  The range of ages congregated in La Joya that week stretched from 3-month-old Joaquin, the son of one of the pastors at the church I attend, to 70-year-old Herta, a spunky missionary who has served in Peru the majority of her life.  Worshiping, playing, growing, communing with the missionaries at conference made those days sweet. 

SAM missionaries are involved in at least six different ministries throughout Peru, and it’s taken me a while to be able to match missionaries with ministries.  Ministry reports were one of my favorite parts of conference because I gained a better understanding and appreciation of what’s happening here in Peru—including my own work of facilitating these ministries as a teacher at SAM Academy. 

Our conference speaker was a youth pastor from Michigan named Brady Nemmers.  Lewis says somewhere that the best teaching often doesn’t offer us new information; it reminds us of what we already know.  Such was Brady’s teaching.  He challenged us to live life to “give yourself away”—an old Christian idea, of course, yet never old-hat because I never master it.  Through Brady, the Lord reminded me of that paradox of human existence—my efforts to preserve my life (e.g., my efforts to control my happiness, to maintain my freedom, to protect my rights, to insure my own fulfillment) always end in death.  Death is actually the way to life—the only way to life.  I realized that (especially now, as I am making plans for the future) I should look for ways to structure my life so that I habitually give myself away. 

Full of these thoughts, I began the next week—spring break.  I had expected to spend the week at the beach pondering conference-truths and considering the future.  However, the week fulfilled few of my expectations, bringing instead a delightful surprise and unexpected challenges.  It was a Good week, yet at the end of it, I returned to school exhausted.

After my first week back to school, I received a much-anticipated visit.  The mission director of Baptist International Outreach (BIO), John Yingling, and a BIO missionary to Peru, Shane Rice, hopped across the mountains to visit me and SAM in Pucallpa for a day.  Bro. John brought smiles and greetings from home.  Thank you to everyone who sent word with Bro. John!  I believe that the Lord is working to accomplish some specific purposes in my heart and that Bro John’s visit was an important part of that work.  Thank you for sending him!

In the last few days of March, the Lord refreshed my courage and allowed my life to regain something of normality.  Bible class has finally settled into a routine that I believe helps my students—as well as me—along in our various journeys.  We’re memorizing Colossians 3, and on Tuesday, we talked about the chapter’s relevance to our daily lives.  Verse 5 says that we should kill the greed in our hearts; how exactly does one do that?  Doing the right thing is relatively easy compared with thinking the right thing; feeling the right thing is harder still.  Yet those heart sins are just as evil as other sins.  In the end, God is the only One who can change our hearts.  The following is an excerpt from one of my 7^th graders’ reflections on the greed discussion (English is this student’s third language—thus her unconventional grammar):

I think about being greedy and I sometimes feel sad.  But then I remember that Christ died on the cross for my greediness, which is a sin. […]  I want to change and don’t be greedy but it is hard without God.  Sometimes I think: every time my brothers and sisters get something new or a bigger present, but then I think about it and see how hard it is to change this thoughts and feelings.  But I’m happy to be a Christian and to know I can talk about that with my great Father, and that he can change me. 

Watching my students make connections between what they know about God’s Word and how it should affect their moment by moment living of life cheers my heart.

Thank you for your emails.  Know that I appreciate every single one—even if I haven’t responded to them individually (yet!).  They are each special and uniquely encouraging.  Thank you for taking the time to write. And thank you—most of all—for your prayers.

Please pray:

-That the Lord will provide teachers for SAM Academy’s next school year (at this point, we only have one full time teacher for next year)
-That the Lord will continue to draw my students to Himself
-That He will continue to draw me to Himself 
-That He will continue to give me wisdom and creativity as I teach
-That He will give me wisdom as I make decisions about the future
-That He will open my eyes to opportunities to give myself away here and now

Praise to the Lord who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely his goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do
If with his love he befriend thee.

                     ~Joachim Neander

 Grace and Peace,

              Emily