life questions, in multiple languages

haha. Today is a good day.

I just got back from coffee with a college professor, talking about life and books and thinking about graduation and research papers and all that. Basically I asked her “what happens if my paper that I owe you is heretical?” to which she responded, “Well, one person’s heresy is another’s truth.” She seemed much more excited that I’m reading and studying rather than what my personal outcome happens to be. Thus, our short conversation makes three for three educated Christians I’ve talked to who don’t take traditional/conservative Christianity as serious as I thought. I was reminded of a time when she was with me in Mexico and collected our Spanish journals and thoughts that I had out of the States and my mother tongue. Forgive the grammar and complete lack of proper punctuation, but this is what I just found deep in my closet.

February 11, 2008.

Me siento por la mesa mas cerca de la calle, y trato de agradecer todo lo que tengo agui. En Chicago hay frio, nieve, y un monton de problemas sobre mi futuro y lo que voy a hacer con mi vida real, si voy a tener una vida, una esposa, un trabajo, que vale la pena a mis amigos, a mis padres, a mi profesores, o los demas. Estoy alegre de estar aqui, con tiempo libre para pensar y evaluar lo que es mas importante en mi vida, pero me falta las respuestas correctas y a vecez pienso que nunca las voy a tener.

la vida simple.

No estoy seguro si sea posible en este pinche mundo moderno, con sus expactativas tan altas, cuando todo el enfasis se pone en el dinero, la carrera corecta, la esposa hermosa, la diploma perfecta, o el 401(k) tan grande para jubilarse y pasa el resto de su vida bebiendo margaritas en algun playa Mexicana hasta la muerte… ?Hay otra manera de vida? ?Hay otra pista?

El meido de la vida real es tan grande. El temor que no voy a “make it” me hace temblar. Todo el mundo tenen sus propios ideas como sobrevivir, como estar feliz, como manejar a algun lado mas comodo, que puedo decir yo?

Hay esperanza. Hay paz…por algun lado

Todo lo que puedo hacer yo….es buscarlo.

“?Y la esperanza? Habra algo mas hermoso que la esperanza?” ~Jose Ruben Romero. La Vida Inutil de Pito Perez

I sit at the table closest to the street, trying to appreciate everything I have here. In Chicago there is cold, snow and a ton of problems about my future and what I’m going to do with my “real life”: if I will have a life, wife or job that is seems worthwhile to my friends, parents, teachers and the rest. I’m happy to be here with free time to think and evaluate what is most important in life, but I’m missing the answers and sometimes think I’ll never find them.

The simple life.

I’m not sure if it’s possible in this ******* modern world, with its high expectations when all the emphasis is put into money, the right career, beautiful wife, perfect diploma and the 401(k) big enough to retire and spend the rest of your days drinking margaritas in some Mexican village till death. Is there another way of life? Is there another path?

The fear of real life is so luminous. The scariness of “not making it” makes me shake. Everybody has their own ideas on how to survive, how to be happy, or get to some more comfortable corner, what can I say?

There is hope. There is peace…somewhere.

All I can do…is look for it.

“And hope? Would there be anything more beautiful than hope? ~Jose Ruben Romero.

February 28th, 2008

La Iglesia de la Virgin de Guadalupe.

Este parte del viaje me dejo cansado y confudido, fisicamente, mentalmente, y spiritualmente. He visitado iglesias catolicas en EEUU, Bolivia, Italia y Mexico, pero nunca he sentido o intendi la profundidad de la dedicaion de la gente o la importancia de su fe.

Aunque ahora tengo relaciones con ningun tipo de iglesa ni religion, yo se que cuando yo estaba nino, adoraba el mismo Jesus que ellos, pero la manera en como le se hacen ellos es tan diferente.

?Que es mas importante? ?Buscar la senda correcta toda la vida, o simplamente eligir una y dedicarse con todo lo que tienes?

Siempre voy a tener las memorieas de unia chica joven hoy, andado por las rodillas, llorando, suplicando a su Dios por so ayuda y su gracia. Como pudeierca decir yo que ella esta equivocada, o algun Moslem, Judo un un Hindo tambien?

“Where is my faith? Even deep down…there is nothing but emptiness and darkness…If there be a God – please forgive me” ~Mother Teresa.

This part of the trip has left me tired and confused, physically, mentally and spiritually. I have visited Catholic churches before in America, Bolivia, Italy and Mexico, but I’ve never felt or or quite understood the profoundness of dedication from these people or the extreme importance of their faith. Although currently I don’t have any relationship with a church or religion, I know that as a child I worshiped this same Jesus as they, but the manner in which I did so was vastly different. What is most important? To search for the correct path all your life, or to simply chose one and dedicate yourself with all that you have?

I will forever have my memories of today, a young girl crawling on her knees, crying, worshiping God, asking for help and grace. How in the world could I tell her that she is wrong? Or for that matter, how could i do that to a Muslim, Jew or Hindu?

It’s not surprising to me the amount of questions that I had. And that is not to say that I have answers, because I do not. But the more I reflect on life pre- (fill in the blank… educated, enlightened, intentional, secular, heretical…), the more I begin to see what it looks like for someone who realized that what they are standing on is not solid ground.

In other news, I finished another book this week.

In an attempt to give Christians a fair chance to defend themselves, I went to the library and perused their corner. I picked up Borg out of sheer randomness, or what seemed like sheer randomness at the time. I had never heard of him, but assumed he would be presenting me with a clear and concise re-stating of what I was raised to believe and how I could continue to do so.

Whoops.

I grabbed the wrong book.

Borg is apart of what he calls an “emerging paradigm” of Christianity. For Borg, the Bible is not a divine product at all, but rather the response of two ancient communites to God. He says “As a human product, the Bible is not ‘absoute truth’ or ‘God’s revealed truth,’ but relative and culutrally conditioned…so also the Bible tells us how our spiritual ancestors saw things – not how God sees things” (p45).

On grace and salvation Borg writes, “Taking the God of love and justice and the God of grace seriously has immediate implications for the Christian message. It becomes: God loves us already and has from our very beginning. The Christian life is not about believing or doing what we need to believe or do so that we can be saved. Rather, it’s about seeing what is already true – that God loves us already – and then beginning to live in this relationship. It is about becoming conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God” (p77).

I think most Christians that I know would agree with that, although I’ve heard so many inclusive and exclusive opinions on what it is to be a Christian, my head hurts just a bit. Where I think Borg streams away from traditional thinking, is on Jesus.

“In the judgement of the majority of mainline scholars, atonement theology does not go back to Jesus himself. We do not think that Jesus thought that the purpose of his life, his vocation, was his death. His purpose was what he was doing as a healer, wisdom teacher, social prophet, and movement initiator. His death was the consequence of what he was doing, but not his purpose. To use recent analogies, the deaths of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were the consequence of what they were doing, but not their purpose. And like them, Jesus courageously kept doing what he was doing even though he knew it could have fatal consequences. So we do not think Jesus saw his purpose as dying for the ins of the world. Rather, this interpretation, like the others in the New Testament, is post-Easter and thus retrospective. Looking back on the execution of Jesus, the early movement sough to see a providential purpose in this horrendous event” (p92).

On religiouls pluralism, he carefully walks the line of being emboldened enough to challenge but not harsh enough to lose readers.

“But taking religious pluralism seriously calls Christan exclusivism radially into question and, in my judgment, negates it. It is impossible for many of us to believe that only Christians can be in saving relationship to God. Knowing about other religions  and especially knowing people of those religions have made it impossible. Moreover, there is a “commonsense” reason for rejecting Christian exclusivism. When we think about the claim that Christianity is the only way of salvation, it’s a pretty strange notion. Does it make more sense that “the More” whom we speak of as a creator of the whole universe has chosen to be known in only one religious tradition, which just fortunately happens to be our own?” (p220)

In all, it was not quite what I was looking for, but a fresh read, nonetheless.Perhaps next I’ll dive into some Strobel or McDowell, authors who seem ready to defend more of the tenets that Christians hold true.

For more on Mr. Borg, check this out.

For a quick glance at the Emergent church and the ensuing conflict within Christianity , check this out (featuring a cameo by North Park’s own Scot McKnight)

Happy Holidays.

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