I’m going to a church in South
Minneapolis these days that is really a wonderful place. When I wrote about God cracking me apart, church
was a part of it for sure. I’ve been
thinking about the church these days. And
I’ve been thinking about intellect versus the heart.
But before
even that, I’ve been thinking about Bethel.
What my experience was while I was there, how it prepared me for the world
I’ve been in for the past 5 years, what I railed about when it disappointed me,
the quiet gratitude that I feel when I think of the place. Even while paying off…All. Of. That. Debt.
It was worth it.
I’ve been remembering a certain
feeling of aliveness while I was there.
Is aliveness a word? It is today. I knew a great community of people
there. Being an RA makes you face that
too…you can’t step away from it, even when it’s tough. In that year, I met some of my favorite
people. I am beginning to see that God
brings you to things in your life that feel different because you’re older. But wherever you are, at whatever age,
knowing Jesus makes you alive alive alive in a very broken world. Sometimes it’s awesome. Sometimes it feels really terrible instead. Your heart isn’t exempt from breaking a
little too.
Right now, God is moving my
ship. To a new place, in a new
direction, for new reasons why. I feel
this close to my heartbeat, and I sense it at obscure times. But I still hard to understand. I
think that a lot of it is that I remember again this thing called joy. And that it’s still the thing that always surprises
me and makes me alive. It’s what keeps drawing
me to Jesus.
The
intellect and the heart is a thing I’ve mulled over for years now. How they blend, how they separate in the inner
workings of a person’s life. Teaching brings
this out. Chapter 3 is literally called
‘The Role of the Church in Medieval Europe’.
Chapter 9 is ‘The Teachings of Islam’.
Chapter 32 is ‘The Impact and Spread of the Reformation’. I talk about church history at my job. With
kids who are 12. In a public charter
school. (But finding a church in my 20s
has been - really, really - one of the hardest things.) There is a way to teach with the head and the
heart, which is something I have wrestled with. It is something I have made sure to learn in
the last five years. Let me tell you,
church history at the 7th grade level omits many things that I learned
in other places. But it can be good
there too. And this is the side of life
called intellect.
Sometimes when I want to talk about this with
other people, they get intimidated and say things like,’ You know so much about
history, and I don’t.’ I think, in that
moment, ‘Who cares if people don’t know everything about history?’ If people watched me try to find my way to
most places in Minneapolis, their perception of my supposedly extensive
intellect would clear, I am sure. And
sure, I know names like Huldrich Zwingli and Jan Hus, and I can tell kids about
the Church of England in 1534. Every single day, it’s what I study. And I’ve
been given a mind that happily memorizes…(….everything except street signs). But
there’s more.
I want to talk about these
things more closely. Closer to the thing
called grace, with the head and the heart so plainly together. The story of Jesus, which I find winding its
way through our broken histories all of the time. Which is what helps when your own life is
undone. I really want to talk about
Jesus. And not religion and politics,
and not always the church in 1534.
Instead, what he has done for me.
This new church is, once again, ‘reorienting me to grace’. Which is that a church body is supposed to do
in such a broken world. I think that of course intellect is not
missing from church. And shouldn’t be. But life is not a textbook. Or a snapshot. Or always very easy to understand. When I come to Hiawatha Church in such a careworn
state, I see each time that I am so grateful to be reoriented to Jesus.
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