Over the past few weeks Luke and I have been living on lots of cheap foods. Many of these cheap foods are "Chicken Flavored". Don't ask me how you get chicken flavoring (according to Luke it has something to do with squeezing a chicken...), but obviously it's cheaper (and easier) than real chicken and thus it ends up in our kitchen cabinets waiting to be eaten. As I sat eating my Chicken flavored Ramen Noodles the other day I was musing over how chicken flavoring is clearly not as good as real chicken. Even though it (may) taste like chicken it is not chicken, it does not have the nutritional value of real chicken, and therefore you cannot live off of chicken flavoring.
I kind of feel like this is the way I am living; a kind of chicken flavored life. I'm made for community--for real community. I've known this for a long time, and I truly found it during my senior year of college among good friends and long conversations laying in the grass or sitting in the Union. I miss discipleship and good friendships that seem to come naturally. I miss real community...not chicken flavored community. And yet the worst part about it is that I can't seem to motivate myself towards finding this community. Instead I read Acts and think about what it means and refuse to act out the way I think it should be acted out here. Instead of engaging those around me I sit and wish that they would engage me. We talked about Barnabas today during church, and I realized that I really do enjoy encouraging people and discipling--I miss it, I long for it and I want to do it. And yet at this moment I find myself unable to be vulnerable with anyone, including my husband. What is going on? I'm made for community--I long for community--and yet I just want to curl up into a little ball most of the time, refusing to engage others or to be engaged by others. Yes, my friends, I am living a chicken flavored life.
On top of it all the thoughts that go through my head are not about the present, but rather about the future. I think about where Luke and I will be in a year or five and think about how we will engage the people around us THEN...not now. It's like having five bucks in your pocket and you can buy chicken flavored cup'o'noodles or a piece of juicy fried chicken (neither of which are really healthy, but go with the idea)...instead of just buying the friend chicken you get the cup'o'noodles, and while you heat the water and wait the three minutes for the cup'o'noodles to be ready you wish that you would have gotten the fried chicken...
No, my friends, community does not come easily. It is hard and it takes a lot of effort. And it makes me tired just thinking about how we are going to engage the people around us, serve the poor of the city, all the while looking ahead to the future and balancing this crazy thing called following Jesus...learning what it means to take care of ourselves, trust God to do it for us and selling all we have to give to the poor. What do these things mean?
In the same vein, Luke and I have been reading The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne together and it is really, really challenging us. What does all of it mean? One of the more challenging quotes/ideas that we read recently is this: [Yes, Jesus said that the poor will always be with us, but this makes me ask] "Where are the poor? Are the poor among us?" The answer is usually a clear negatory. As we study the Scriptures we see how many texts we have misread, contextualized, and exegeted to hear what we want to. Like this one about the poor being among us, which Jesus says in the home of a leper and after a poor woman anoints his feet with perfume. The poor were all around him... (emphasis added and first part paraphrased).
Again, I ask, what does this mean for us today? It's so hard, so challenging...this man named Jesus and the things He asks us to do...
But even though it's hard, and we have many tough conversations, and sometimes I just want to give up I know that the fried chicken life is so much better than the chicken flavored life...so can you pass the chicken please? Some how there's a community to build, and I can't think of a better way to do it than around dinner...
...I'll let you know how it goes...
2 comments:
A blog post of a comment coming your way!
I completely understand what you're saying as far as "tomorrow" vs "today." I say the same thing all the time except "Well, it'd be so much easier to really live out X if I had a buddy to do it with... a few really close friends here or a husband or..."
And in some cases I do think that's true and legit. For example, I've always heard not to move into the neighborhood alone. I think it's good to wait for community and support to take certain big steps... but...
As far as finding community, it is so easy to feel isolated and frustrated and not know how to move forward. I have definitely been in the same place over the last few months. Things are gradually getting better (nothing special I did--just time), so I hope they improve for you, too.
For me it was really just an all-of-a-sudden thing. I had a few weeks (right before and after Kate & Liz visited) that I cried off/on all the time, it seemed, upset about lack of friends, lack of a car, living further from campus (therefore more isolated), and feeling awkward and confused as a 22-yr-old and single person on a campus that is generally young but still pretty diverse. And then boom, maybe three weeks ago, I started to actually have conversations with people... and then things just started feeling different.
I think you've been there not quite as long as I've been here? Hopefully you're about 6 wks behind me then... it's not like everything fixes itself overnight, but one day you feel a small amount of connect with another human being and that is at least "enough" for that moment. And then your whole trajectory changes (with some bumps in the road, still, to be sure...).
Anyway, I really hope you start to feel more connected at church and various places. Moving (and adulthood!) are hard things.
mmmm. my love, this is a great post. i would love to chat with you about "The Irresistible Revolution." it has changed me so much, but only in so many ways. i feel like i need to process it more and let the change really seep into my daily life like something fierce.
and i like that you at least long for real chicken. that's the first stop to really getting it. let's bite the bullet and carve out that community. gosh - it's not easy!
i miss living 50 yards from you and having chicken every day!
love you!
"chuck"
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