One year out, and five bullet points of pithy advice for new grads

Crazy to think that a year ago, I walked across the stage, received my degree and entered the so-called “real world.” For those of you making the transition this spring, I thought I would share some of these scattered lessons I learned while trying to figure things out for myself. They are not comprehensive, they are not profound, but I wish I knew them straight from the get-go. Maybe you will find them useful yourself. Or maybe not, I wouldn’t be offended.

1. Know that your major doesn’t define you.

A college degree is a useful thing, yes, but it cannot be used to predict the future.

I was a double major with two rather big-sounding subjects: “Global Studies” and “Conflict Transformation, concentration in Religion Studies.” These were some of the funnest degrees I could imagine getting — in fact, I made up the second one out of my electives — but it was not until after I graduated that I realized how hard it was going to be to live up to them.

This is perhaps more obvious with global studies than it is conflict transformation. While my friends were taking Fulbright scholarships and Peace Corps posts, I moved to a nice little neighborhood a few miles away from campus. While I was doing what deep down felt right, I kept nagging myself for not living as “globally” as a global studies major should, and that people would somehow look at me as a sort of failure for staying stateside.

It was a petty worry. Almost instantly after graduation, people went from asking “so, what are you studying?” to “so, what do you do?” People don’t really care that much about majors in the real world. So while my global studies degree gave me some important overseas experiences and knowledge, there is no reason to force my present into the trajectory of the past and leave the country when I do not have a reason to.

(A couple years down the road, however…)

2. Volunteer. Create. For free.

It is tempting to think of the “grace period” — the automatic six month deferment on student loan repayments — as a break between school and the real world. While we all need the occasional break (maybe a couple weeks long at best), the grace period can better be thought of as a six month experiment. There will probably never be another time in your life where your monthly expenses will ever be so low.

For my grace period, I did a summer internship in the Pacific Northwest, which was followed by taking a part-time job in the fall in Chicago. Neither of these were lucrative, but they paid for rent and food. While the summer internship was a good learning experience, working only part-time for the fall freed me up my nine-to-five energies to volunteer with different groups and write lengthy rambles that later became blog posts like this one.

It was not until grace period was over that I started looking for another part-time job. Eventually, I was approached with a job offer from one of the organizations I had been volunteering with, and enthusiastically accepted. While a good volunteer record is not a sure-fire way to obtain employment,  it is about as effective as sending out resumes and, at the end of the day, much more personally fulfilling.

But volunteering is not the only “luxury” of the grace period. You also have an opportunity to express yourself through some sort of creative outlet (and I sincerely believe everyone has at least one creative outlet), not just dabbling here and there but with some sort of actual depth. If you have ever been wanting to try something (painting, blogging, music, etc.) go for it now. It might be quite a while till you get a second chance.

3. Pay attention to your net worth (as least as much as your monthly expenses)

When the inevitable comes and student loans are due, suck it up and pay them. Yes, the amount of debt you may be saddled with is probably obscene and likely unjust. But, the way the system is set up, you are not doing yourself any favors by reducing the minimum payment. (Counter-frictions that wish to stop the machine, skip what follows and best of luck in your endeavors in bubble-popping bankruptcy.)

Why?

My monthly budget consists of three major expense categories: rent, food, and student loans. Early on, I assumed that if I could get my pay check to cover these and some miscellaneous expenses, I would be on the right track. Which is perhaps true, but it is not the big picture.

The big picture is not my monthly budget (income versus expenses), but rather my net worth (assets versus liabilities). Granted, my net worth is currently in the negative five digits. It is a rather intimidating number to look at, but it is helpful for making my student loan payments for this one specific reason: while student loan payments are a monthly expense, they have neutral impact on my net worth. The only negative impact my loans have on my net worth are the accrued interest, which is significantly less than the monthly payment, but significantly greater than any yield I could get from putting my money into a low-risk savings account.

In other words: while I have felt spread thin trying to make my paycheck cover my expenses, which comes out to $0 or slightly below, I have nonetheless seen my net worth slowly increase. It hasn’t been dramatic, but it has been in the right direction. Which has given me the mental relief of knowing I must be doing something right, and having an optimistic sense of brighter financial future ahead as interest payments begin to decrease and loan payments altogether start to cease.

To track my net worth, I use Mint.com’s Net Worth graph under “Trends.” Simple, effective, and with a good visual. That said, a number of net worth tracking tools exist online, and you could probably create a decent personal spreadsheet if you so desired.

4. Give audiobooks a spin.

I did more than just read a lot of books in college. I underlined them, wrote in the margins, sticky flagged and sometimes even regurgitated onto spreadsheets. Every page number was a potential footnote in a future term paper or senior thesis (of which I had three total, each about 25 pages long and 100 footnotes strong).

There were some things I did college to keep my sanity. I tried, for example, to take one class each term that was not reading-and-writing based. During marathon study sessions in the library, I would treat myself to study breaks that surprisingly involved taking a ride on the elevator (no joke).

After school, however, I discovered that my old study habits got in the way of my natural enjoyment of books. I would analyze cover-to-cover, letter-by-letter, preparing for senior theses that didn’t exist. Or I would skim for information instead of reading for the fun of it.

Part of my remediation has been the practice of listening to audiobooks. I would not have experimented naturally, being a visual learner and a mediocre listener, but a hour-long traffic-jammed commute to my summer internship convinced me to give it to a try. It was during this time I began to revalue the “performance” of reading over the mastery of material. I have kept the habit up, listening to various audiobooks as I take the train or clean around the house.

As far as a platform, Audible.com has worked nicely for me. If you are looking for an audiobook to start with, I highly recommend Dr. Meg Jay’s The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter – and How to Make the Most of Them Now (and no, it isn’t a pithy self-help book, but an actually well-reflected mediation of young adultdom from the perspective of clinical psychologist) (and Dr. Jay narrates the book herself, which I think is pretty neat).

5. Develop friendship rituals.

Not every college experience comes with great campus communities. Mine did, therefore graduation marked a major transition in my social life as well.

At college, most friendships could almost be sustained by a simple walk across campus on a sunny day. Physical proximity combined with dorm life, synced class schedules, club meetings, campus lectures, this-or-that cause fundraisers, and late night study sessions meant that there is an intensity to the peer groups of the campus community that cannot quite be matched elsewhere.

After graduation, the confederacy of the campus community becomes a diaspora. While I definitely think it is important to branch out of our own generational bubbles, there is incredible value in staying close-knit to people our own age going through the same type of life experiences. For those of us who stick around the city, we at best will find ourselves part of an urban tribe to maintain the momentum of what we created in college.

But it becomes difficult to get the group back together. It takes time to put meaningful get-togethers together, and finding something that works in everyone’s schedule is near impossible.

There is no solution, no return to the way things were in college. But as best as you are able, whether with your urban tribe or just a friendship circle, look for things you can do weekly or monthly to bring everyone together. Maybe it is going out to a favorite restaurant or bar. Maybe it is poker night. Maybe it is a T.V. show. Even a recreational sports league fits under this category.

The advantage of these “friendship rituals” is that not only that they require little prep, but you know they work schedule-wise for everyone involved. It takes trial and error, these rituals really are found as much as they are created.

It is not spontaneous, so it may not sound like fun. But it is fun, and quite frankly getting everyone together for whatever reason is what creates the space for something spontaneous to happen.

Friendships after college, like work or finance or finding yourself, require a lot more intentionality. But far from being a curse, these hurdles simply mean that you and I now have to show that we truly care, care enough to go out of our way to make things happen.

All part of growing up, I suppose.

Friday Addendum: Tune into stories, not tips and tricks

I posted the original five bullet points of pithy advice on Monday. It struck me throughout the week that I had left out perhaps the most important thing I discovered about my first year out, which is to listen to the stories of people.

I mean, listening to stories is something you should be doing that anyways, because people are storied creatures and have an inherent need to have their biographies be known. Listening is love at its simplest. But when you’re trying to make it in the world, listening to stories has some instrumental value as well.

The story of the 43-year-old woman who got the job in the career field you are going into. The 27-year-old man with your same major who is currently applying it in the most unusual of contexts. The 84-year-old man reflecting on what life could have been. Even the 12-year-old girl dreaming about what life could be.

The one thing these stories have in common is that they are not yours.

You might ask someone, “what advice would you give to someone like me?”

Some may tell you to send your resume as many different places as possible. Some may say to send your resume to one place and not give up until they give you a chance, even if that means waiting outside their office for the whole day. Some may say marry young, some may say marry old, some may say marriage is for lovers, some may say marriage is for losers. Some may say save, save, save; others may say work, work, work; others may say live, live, live.

Anyone’s advice is, at best, a reflection of their own experience with success.

So, as our story unfolds, in any which of too many possible ways, we needn’t worry ourselves about living up to some sort of standard of excellence. Regardless of what the magazines say, there are no “five best tips” out there, just a bunch of people like myself with pithy advice of their own. What we have to offer each other is not a road map to success, but honest and true stories. Stories that, when shared, can help the next graduating class better identify, and see that the next generation be equipped, to tackle the challenges and identify the opportunities.

Trail-blazing is tough. We all at one point will have to go off the beaten path. And there are also some trails, some forks in the road, that we may only be able to recognize not by footprints in the ground (or institutionalized open doors) but by knowing that someone else has taken exactly that turn.

“Hey, this person has been through something similar to what I’m about to go through. In their situation, they did such and such and, well, we know how that turned out. So, then, I suppose I could try something like that as well.”

Listen to stories. Many, many, many stories.

A vision for neighborhood youth ministry

Confession: because of a lot of exciting projects I am in the middle of, I had decided to take April off from the blogging game.

Confession #2: I’m going to fail at that un-resolution. In addition to the knee-jerk response I wrote after the Boston Marathon bombings, I wrote a newsletter piece for Ravenswood Covenant, the church that I work at, that I think those of you who like what I write here might appreciate.

Confession #3: I am really, really excited for May. Stay tuned.

Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

Mark 4:30-32

The imagery of a mustard seed parable has been helpful for me when it comes to understanding the sort of kingdom work that has been taking place among Ravenswood Student Ministries, work that has taken place not just over the past year but also before I came on as program coordinator.

I came to Ravenswood with my youth ministry background being almost entirely in camping ministry. Camp is a unique environment for spiritual formation – kids are there for a week or more, all distractions from the outside world are cut off, and a large and focused staff work to create a big experience. From this big experience comes the big stories of conviction, conversion and commitment.

Things are different at the corner of Damen and Ainslie. At best, youth come for a couple hours a week, but sometimes we see them only once or so a month. The outside world makes itself known, as we spend Thursday nights talking about the week’s highs and lows. Instead of an army of college students who have taken what often is a convenient summer job, we have a crew of 5^th Quarter tutors and Thursday night leaders who all have to make certain sacrifices to be there consistently.

But because our presence is felt year-round, because our conversations are rooted in day-to-day issues, and because our love is so sacrificial, we have been effective in a way that (at the very least) complements the camp experience. If from camp comes big stories, then I believe here at Ravenswood Covenant that God has entrusted us with the small stories.

Small stories like the one night the kids actually listened to me talk about finding their identity in Christ. Or the 5th Quarter student who is learning to express himself musically for the first time. Or the Thursday night regular who is turning in her application to be a part of North Side Youth Collision’s discipleship program. Or the fifth grader who can’t wait till next year to join Ravenswood Student Ministries.

Some of the small stories are so small, they go unnoticed by myself and the student ministries team. But that’s because there is mustard seed logic at work here: we have faith in a kingdom that grows and becomes like the largest of all the garden plants. We do not know when these small stories will come to fruition: maybe it will be at camp, or maybe it will be when one of these students is in their mid-twenties and has hit rock bottom and all they can remember is that one happy time when a church cared unconditionally for them.

Perhaps then too, they will become part of a project so big that the birds can perch in its shade.

In Boston’s aftermath

As a runner who studied the sociology of terrorism as part of his undergrad, I think I need to say something in light of recent, appalling events. It won’t be much. Words cannot reverse what has happened, but maybe they can point towards a possible direction, a different place set forward in the horizon.

Running, we know, is an intimately personal act. It is an act of mustering the motivation to lift your body from a state of rest. It is breaking your body down in order to make it stronger, it is choosing to be strong when your body has broken down.

In addition, running is an incredibly political act. (Not in the sense of elections and legislation, but in the sense that politics is the art of the public.) Save for treadmills and indoor tracks, running always takes place “out there” and relates the surrounding place to the runner.

Runners are vulnerable. Sometimes we are with a group, but often our sense of commitment means we go it alone. In the city we watch out for cars and in the country we watch out for cougars. The nature of the sport means we tend to be under-dressed and a little fatigued. Many times we have done an “out-an-back” long run where have turned around and realized that we are miles away from home, often with no cash, no identification, no phone. The only security runners have are our legs — and the fact that we trust society to let us freely go about on our little exercise ritual.

Runners are disruptive. Runners may be vulnerable, but runners have a certain power. Runners redefine what sidewalks and gravel roads and city parks and out-of-the-way trails are good for. Our routes are like arteries on a map, infusing meaning into the landscape around us. Running is a performance, a play of biological code and cultural script. Running is an act of presence, of being multiple places almost at once, witnessing the world around us at many miles per hour. On our favorite, out-of-the-way runs, we might stumble across a high school couple making out (sorry) or a slightly more offensive offense (like that one time I busted a drug deal at seven-minute-mile pace).

Runners are achievers. There are a special few endorphin junkies who are runners just for the feel of it, but for the most part runners lace up their shoes with some goal or challenge in mind. Many runners can point to a personal record or a particular day that they are proud of. Even if the runner falls short of an arbitrary goal, they have succeeded in going out and trying. Olympians and first-timers alike can inspire the human spirit – if passersby take a moment to step back and notice.

The reason I bring this up, in light of yesterday’s events in Boston, is because even if the blasts occurred among bystanders, many of whom were not runners per se, these particular victims were there to celebrate a runner they knew and in some way part of the running spirit.

And terrorism, the sort of act witnessed yesterday, is not just homicidal mania. The heinous crime of terrorism is also a political act. As the cliche goes, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Certainly that doesn’t make it right, as terrorism is neither morally sound nor tactically effective (non-violent protest is always more effective, ethical and sincere). But it helps us understand the event and shape our response.

Almost every marathoner represents hundreds if not thousands of hours of training. A marathon itself is the sum total of this hard work and sweat, in addition to the volunteer and staff commitment that make the event possible. To witness the finish line of a marathon is to see the focal point of millions of hours of hard work.

Never mind that the Boston Marathon is an amateur event as opposed to mere recreational race. Although it is not the Olympics, individuals still have to qualify for the Boston. It is difficult to just “sign up” for the race, one has to truly be committed to the sport. Hence, amateur,  rooted in the word amore, the word for “to love.”

Never mind that the Boston Marathon is a integral part of the Patriot Day celebrations, something I admittedly don’t understand but Bostonians certainly cherish.

We do not know who the culprit behind yesterday’s horrible act is. But we do know this:

With the string of moments it took for them to assemble an explosive device, they attempted to steal away the significance of millions of hours. They attempted to replace love with hate. They attempted to pervert the public spirit.

Let us make sure that, whoever it is, that they fail. Let us reject categorically the twisted worldview that made a senseless act make sense to this particular group or individual.

Let us mourn the dead, care for the injured, lament what could have been.

But let us not sacrifice one inch of meaning to the false gods of fear. Let us continue to celebrate the human spirit, seeing that in a runner (like any athlete, or any person striving towards a positive goal of any sort) we can be better than base, deranged and pathetic. We may not be perfect, but we are not soulless.

So for those of who run, or cheer those who do, let us keep lacing up our shoes. Let us carry the weight of tragedy, let us look over our shoulders to be on guard for obvious threats, and then let us go, and go strong.

Vulnerable, disruptive, achieving: let us keep running.

Even before the explosions, the American Red Cross was at the Boston Marathon, supporting the running spirit by providing volunteers and working at aid stations. They were quick to respond and continue to put their muscle into this tragedy.  I consider myself more of a rational giver than an emotional giver, so as odd as it is for me to impulsively add a handful of dollars to an organization with a $3.5 billion budget, for whatever reason I threw out all calculations and did it anyway. I cite my frugal donation not to boast, but rather to challenge you to consider doing it too. 

Big Oil and Matthew 5:43-48

Scene from the Y.E.C.A. prayer rally outside the presidential debate at Hofstra University, October 2012

As a young evangelical who is working to overcome the climate crisis as part of my Christian discipleship and witness, I am consistently mulling over the ways that faith and activism collide.

I also subscribe to the Flashcards published by the Sightline Institute, “quick reference tools for effective [values-based] communications strategies.” One card, How Brilliant is 350.org’s Go Fossil Free Campaign?, has really gotten my wheels turning.

Not even the whole card, actually. Just the first bullet point: Name the villains.

There are lots of reasons to name villains. Most memorable stories have one—and climate change, a threat that is largely abstract and faceless, needs one!

Plus, when we don’t name a villain, we leave the story open to interpretation. In fact, everybody who uses oil—and that’s everybody—can wind up feeling villainzed. As fossil fuel consumers, we may feel guilty, trapped, or defensive.

Fair enough. I want to combat climate change. I don’t want the story about climate change to be indefinitely open to interpretation. I definitely don’t want everybody to end up feeling villainized. These desires are rooted not in an activist spirit, but in a reflective faith that is seeking God’s will for the world.

But because I am not just an activist but also a follower of Christ, this flashcard conjures up thoughts of this common memory verse, a corollary of loving one’s neighbor as oneself:

 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The tension is obvious. Name the villains. Love your enemies.

Finger-pointing jeering and deep-hearted caring. Two things that just do not seem to go together.

I want to suggest, however, that they do. If we dare see this piece of activist wisdom in the light of biblical revelation, I think we can get one step closer to understanding the gospel. Like the wise man who built his house upon the rock, instead of the fool who built his house upon the sand, it is important for Christian activists to get the foundation right before building up the movement.

Who is the enemy?

It is important that we identify, as specifically and responsibly as we can, who the “enemy” is.

The divide typically goes thus: climate activists on one side, climate skeptics on the other. It is a common cable news narrative, but a false dichotomy.

Think about how inherently hypocritical it is for a climate activist like me to villianize a climate skeptic! If I genuinely believe that climate change science points us to a grim outlook for the future, then should I not welcome anyone who brings even a shred of genuine information to me that the climate crisis is not quite as bad as I fear? Like the skeptics, I thirst for good news (indefinite lowercase), although I might be more courageous in taking in the bad news than they are.

There is a sub-variety of climate skeptic worth mentioning: those who believe human-induced climate change is real and a threat, but consider it insignificant in comparison to other issues. If I genuinely believe that climate change is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, and am actively working to bring it into the public consciousness, then it would be hypocritical of me to not pause occasionally and listen to them, hear their beliefs and understand their concerns.

Why only occasionally?

Because, in addition to humankind’s own sad sense of complacency, a true enemy has blown climate skepticism way out of reasonable proportion, using their deep pockets and wide network.

Bill McKibben and the Go Fossil Free campaign get it right: in the story of global warming, the true enemy is the fossil fuel industry.  The plethora of corporations that extract, produce and transport oil, gas and coal, and have a vested interest in making sure our society remain addicted to the habit of consuming their product. Even though, because of carbon dioxide emissions, this product comes with a nasty side effect called global warming.

How then, does a Christian climate activist love the fossil fuel industry?

My enemy has a soul

Although the corporations that make up the fossil fuel industry can be considered “legal people” – having many of the same rights and responsibilities of living, breathing human beings – it is absurd to think of something composed of pipelines and refineries as being an actual person.

That said, good people are a part of this nasty project. Oil-rig operators to CEOs to shareholders. They probably have a heart. Some of them are just trying to make ends meet. Many of them are fellow Christians who we could, have, or will take communion with. More than we may expect, a number of them admit that the reality of climate change requires drastic action.

Yet, even if the good people did not exist, Jesus still calls us to “love our enemies.” At the core of corporations are people, and in the rush to overcome climate change, we need to remember that the Kingdom project is not one of dehumanization but rather rehumanization.

Empire criticism

Empire criticism is an interpretive lens applied to the New Testament. According to my roommate’s notes from seminary, this is a

“…variation of ‘new’ perspective. Jesus being Lord means Caesar is not. Church thus becomes subversive and anti-empire. Subversion is primary motivator.”

I’d go into more detail, but the book I would want to read on this subject hasn’t come out yet. So, in the meantime, I am going to agree with Scot McKnight (professor of said seminary course and co-editor of said book) in saying that “to see large-scale imperial subversiveness throughout the New Testament…overcooks the texts.” But I also acknowledge the fruitful possibility this lens has for cultivating effective political theologies.

At a superficial level, the obvious candidate for 21st century Caesar would be the American President or any other head of state. While there is some truth to this, centuries of democratization and the legacy of Christendom have fuddled any clear-cut comparisons. Subjects of the Roman Empire could not vote for Caesar, we can vote for our elected officials. While Christian praxis is not the law of the land, I would easily take even Richard Nixon versus Nero Caesar.

If the title of 21st century Caesar is up for grabs, I would like to nominate a member of the fossil fuel industry: ExxonMobil.

ExxonMobil is, at over $400 billion in market value, the world’s biggest company. Whether through the price at the pump or through an invisible slice of our investment portfolio, many of us are somehow tied to the rising or falling fortune of ExxonMobil. Like how Caesar placed statues of his likeness all throughout the empire, ExxonMobil feels obliged to present a favorable public image of themselves through marketing campaigns.  But, also like the Roman Emperor, ExxonMobil is not accountable to the common people. Instead, the oil giant listens primarily to its shareholders — the vast majority being a number of mutual funds and institutional owners who, by their very nature, care only about the bottom line.

 

And, of course, ExxonMobil Caesar is not alone, with many other Brutuses gunning for the title: BP, Chevron, Shell, Total S.A., and ConocoPhillips. Never mind those that don’t have roadside gas stations but are still take part in the process of getting carbon into the atmosphere: Halliburton, Koch Industries, and TransCanada.

For some, the key link between the Roman and American empires are that they are both militaristic. But consider the fact that many of the United States post-Cold War military campaigns have taken place in oil-rich nations. In some sense, even the American military has been co-opted by the fossil fuel industry.

If, as a Christian climate change activist, I am trying to figure out how to love the fossil fuel industry, it seems the best place to look is how Jesus loved Caesar.

Will you be my enemy?

Thought experiment: at what points in the Gospels does Jesus kneel on the ground? Fall on the ground? In the presence of friends, or in the presence of the enemies? In the turning the other cheek and walking an additional mile stuff, is Jesus still standing?

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

- Matthew 5:43-48

There’s the stuff in the Sermon on the Mount that I get. The greed and money stuff, the lust and women stuff. Even the trumpets and almsgiving stuff, which is remarkable because after all these years I am not really sure what almsgiving actually is or why anyone would blow a trumpet in the process. But I still get it, in the sense I find it all rather convicting.

And then there is this bit. The “love your enemies” paradox that we are somehow supposed to live out. It doesn’t do anything for me.

The problem is not one of difficulty. Rather, the problem is that I don’t seem to have any enemies.

I seem to be able to manage my scuffles pretty well. There were a few candidates along the way that could almost qualify as an “enemy”: when I was in the 1st grade, one of my soccer teammates would persistently throw me into the bushes during practice. In the 7th grade, some 9th grader stole the heart of the girl I was crushing on…

That’s pretty much where the list ends. Really.

I mean, there were people in high school and college who made decisions that upset me (to say nothing of my short stint so far in the real world). But those people were not attacking me personally, and sometimes even were actively although misguidedly looking out for my best interests.

It has always felt like having enemies is a dirty thing.

Does that make sense? Does anyone else feel that way? Like, instead of fretting over how you acted towards someone who is genuinely an enemy (which is what Jesus is talking about), you are stuck on the fact that you have an enemy in the first place (which Jesus implies is a normal part of the human experience)?

(It certainly was a part of his human experience.)

I was a conflict transformation major in college, and part of the Intro to Conflict Transformation course was taking the “Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory” – a short personality test of sorts that would give a sense of just how exactly I tend to respond to conflict in my life.

In most situations, I came out a “Harmonizer.” Looking at that answer key, where my conflict style type was represented by panda bear clip art, was like looking at a mirror. Low focus on own agenda and high focus on relationship. “You win and I lose.” Benefits: Creates pleasant atmosphere. Costs: Stunted growth of personal gifts. Also, denies others the benefit of healthy confrontation. Possible acceptance of patterns or behaviors that ought to be changed.

Hmm.

To be clear, I have no sense of guilt about being a Harmonizer. I am who I am.

But over the past couple years since taking this test, I have begun to understand the “love your enemies” paradox with a more self-aware perspective. And, like the parts about greed and lust and trumpets, that part of the Sermon on the Mount has begun to convict me like it should.

For years, this was my amateur exegesis: if hypothetical disciple had an enemy, then the solution to the enemy problem was to love the enemy until hypothetical disciple eventually began to like them, and the enemy liked hypothetical disciple back, and then everyone would be reconciled and happy.

Which I suppose could happen — hypothetically. (“Fake it till you make it.”) But there was a problem with this interpretation. Here, love was the means, not the end. The problem was not that there was not enough love, but that there was one too many enemies.

According to this interpretation: since loving one’s enemies was supposed to turn enemies into friends, and I did not have any enemies, I had mastered the “love your enemies” command before I even heard it. An A+ on my Sermon on the Mount progress report.

As I have come to realize, for a Harmonizer like myself, there is a quiet-yet-radical call in the “love your enemy” paradox. Where many people might struggle with the love part, I am one of those struggling with the enemy part.

I am struggling to admit that there are people out there who might want to attack me personally. That there are people out there who are competing against me for the same scarce resources. That there are people whose vision of human (or non-human) well-being and flourishing is fundamentally incompatible with my own. That there are people who cheat, steal from, abuse, discriminate or otherwise hate upon those people that I care about.

That there are people who I consider an enemy.

It has been easier to hurt than to work, to pretend that the conflict does not really exist. Therefore my tendency has been, for the sake of giving my enemies a place to stand, to let myself be trampled on instead of finding the common ground.

Maybe I need to read the texts more closely, but, as far as I know, not once did Jesus lay down on the ground for his enemies. He would turn his cheek for enemies, but he would not let his knees touch the ground unless it was to wash the feet of the disciples.

This is not a call to go around with an “ENEMY” rubber stamp and labeling it on the foreheads of everyone who has done me wrong. Rather, it is finding that middle way between retaliation and retreat, the path to reconciliation. And knowing that even if I find the middle way, I might journey in vain.

To a Harmonizer like myself, the crucified Jesus says, “Hey, listen. It’s quite alright to have enemies. Look at me. Even I did, and I was the Son of God. And if you are going to stick up for what you believe is right, if you are truly going to put yourself out there, then there are going to be people you will piss off. You cannot control that. You do not get to decide your enemies…”

“…but you do get to decide whether or not you love them.”

This blog post is the second installment of a three part series where I’m reflecting on Matthew 5:43-48 from different parts of my life. The first post, “Thou shalt love thy frenemy“, written from the perspective of youth ministry, was published on NorthSideYouthCollision.com. This one comes from a more personal angle; next week will be from the perspective of being a climate change activist.

Passion for the rest of us: a Moderate Manifesto

Somewhere along the way, in a polarized political system, “being passionate” and “having extreme views” have become more and more synonymous. Passionate moderatism sounds nearly as oxymoronic as compassionate conservatism did some years back as a Bush-era slogan. But conservatives can be compassionate, and I want to contend that moderates can be passionate.

A story

My high school US History teacher, the beloved-and-moustached rabble-rouser that he was, repeatedly told our class: “Be conservative. Be liberal. Be whatever, but whatever the case don’t be a boring ol’ moderate.” When former President Bill Clinton came to visit Mac High in order to rally support for Hillary’s presidential candidacy, I remember a number of my politically-minded friends saying how stupid it was to not join either party. “Why would anyone sacrifice their primary vote?”

When I went to register to vote, however, I could not bring myself to join any party. Perhaps I was torn between my conservative evangelical subculture and my liberal Pacific Northwest context. Perhaps it did not help that I was reading Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People for 12th Grade English Literature. The third parties were even more extreme and even less effective, and I could not register as an Independent because Oregon actually has an Independent Party and so I was, and still am, designated as “Not affiliated with any political party.”

(Interesting tangent: my first jobs out of high school would be helping non-profits use a particular piece of content-publishing software that Independent Party chair Sal Peralta had implemented but could no longer maintain because he was now the Independent Party chair. It just so happened that I had to use that same software for my journalism class.)

I did not feel like I was transcending the fray. Instead, I simply could not find a political ideology, much less a party, that matched my sense of society-level right-and-wrong. When that new-fangled-Myspace-called-Facebook would later ask me for my Political Views, I typed in “Moderate,” and, upon further tongue-in-cheek reflection on my own indecisiveness, added “…sort of.”

The state of things

It was not that I did not care. It was just that I did not know. My undergrad electives and eventually my major were, in many ways, about figuring out these strange and confusing things for myself. Surprisingly to myself, instead of falling towards either side, I found myself going more firmly to the center. If I was indecisively moderate in 2008, I was decisively moderate in 2012.

Sadly, I also came to realize, moderates are castigated by the Republican party. They do exist, but none of them are in power: Bob Inglis, Colin Powell, Jon Huntsman, Olympia Snowe, and back in the day Mark Hatfield. In 2012, Moderate Mitt was forced into playing a losing charade of being Right-wing Romney. The Democrats don’t have this problem: they welcome moderates, and their current standard-bearer is actually rather moderate himself. I do hope the GOP opens up towards moderates before the next election cycle, not because I am a party loyalist, but because I like having more than one choice at the ballot.

For that to happen, of course, moderates need to start causing a bit more of a ruckus.

Standing up is hard enough. You do not wish to offend anyone. Furthermore, as a moderate, it can often feel like standing up takes place on a tightrope. But if that’s where the common ground is, let’s be fine with that, because if we fall off we’ll end up in the safety net of common sense.

A Moderate Manifesto

There is some substance, I think, to being a moderate that is greater than simply adding up the numbers and finding the average between two sides. For the past many years, I have being trying to work out what being moderate means for me. I publish these ideas, like almost anything else I publish, not because I know I am right but because if I keep these to myself I will never have to face the possibility of being wrong.

With that said:

1. Government exists because of the reality of public life.

   I don’t buy the liberal vision that we can govern our way into utopia, but neither do I feel comfortable with the conservative claim that government is a necessary evil. My starting point, as far as legitimate government, is this: just as individuals have worries and aspirations, groups also have worries and aspirations. Politics is one (but not the only) way we can address the worries and aspirations as a society-sized group.

2. Opposed to big government or small government, government in the right amount.

   Government cannot solve all problems, nor would we want it to. But there are some things it does really well. And (take healthcare for example) there are some things it does only slightly better or slightly worse than the private sector, and while we can have a decent conversation about these things we need not go crazy as if it were a life-or-death situation.

3. Cultural compatibility of government.

   Because the legitimacy of government is based in the reality of public life, the government system should be culturally compatible with the society it represents (i.e. there may be greater distribution of wealth in Sweden than the United States, but the Swedes also value the concept of lagom). In other words: there is no god-given, time-proof, platonic ideal or rationally supreme form of government.

4. Let ideas be held in tension.

   If we do cultural compatibility in a multicultural society, there are going to be problems. 49%, or even 4.9%, of the population can have a legitimate concern worth listening to. The ideal character of any place, instead of being domination by some, should be participation by all. As much as it possible, a moderate seeks to achieve this.

5. Delegate and trust.

   We trust doctors with our bodies (despite the reality of malpractice), we should be able to trust politicians with our societies (despite the reality of corruption). That said, being an expert in one area does not make one an expert in all. If the scientists say global warming is happening, or economists say a debt ceiling is a bad idea, or a minority group says some oppressive force is asserting itself upon their people, politicians should shut up and listen.

6. Live up to our potential as a society.

   This might sound a bit backwards to American ears, but as a nation, we shouldn’t strive to be the “best in the world” but the “best that we can be.”  Competition is a good thing, but reckless comparison is destructive. We can focus on our own problems and potential and still celebrate the victories of others (with a healthy dose of good-hearted jealousy, of course).

7. Do not find purpose in a political ideology.

   This is much a spiritual issue as a political one. Too many people, I fear, in the fragmentation of vacuous postmodern society, have traded their religions and other good convictions for the half-assed metanarratives that are contemporary political ideologies. As a moderate, I can tolerate (and perhaps even celebrate) the fact that you may be a Tea Partier or a Marxist or anything along those lines. But please, at the end of the day, be something more than that as well.

“high wire 3” by Graeme Maclean, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

The distance between home and home

[Warning: this is a blog post that doesn't resolve itself. It comes with no tidy ending or wrapped up in a witty conclusion, it is just documenting experience and that's just fine because I'm only a twenty-something, after all.]

There is a petty dissonance down the middle of my mind, about 2000 miles wide, roughly the distance between home and home. And I know I’m not alone in this.

On my 1.5 mile bike commute to work, I see two Subarus. First, a Forester, with an Oregon license plate. Second, an Outback, that while its owner has traded the Doug Fir plate for an Abe Lincoln, the rear window still prominently features a “Heart-in-Oregon” sticker.

I have not met the owners of these Subarus, as much as I want to. I want to ask them if they have also noticed that, from a road-side perspective, our state (2) has beat out the more likely contenders by a function of population and osmosis: New York (0), Texas (0) and California (0). I want to ask them why they too have decided to play the Oregon Trail in reverse.

Nobody truly knows what makes an Oregonian an Oregonian, but like these Subarus I have through little ways resisted assimilation to the city I have found myself in. I still have my Oregon’s Driver’s License. My shipping address, which changes from lease to lease, is different from my billing address, thanks to parents who have stayed put. Even though I walk by Alderman Ameya Pawar’s office on the way to picking up groceries at Jewel Osco, I still am registered to vote in Oregon’s 1st congressional district. I have a sticker on my laptop that proudly proclaims my tribal, er, state identity to the whole coffee shop.

Not that Chicago is a bad place. I really do like Chicago actually, or at least the neighborhoods I have spent time in. I like that just about everything I need is walking distance, I like the fact that there is always something going on, I like having centrally located train stations and airports that make the nation and world readily accessible.

If I had to, I could settle down and live here and be happy.

I could start buying things, like furniture, that do not fit into checked luggage.

So what’s holding me back?

Do I think Oregon just simply scores as the better place? — No. Places are not meant to be quantified.

Do I miss going on runs through forests with elevation changes? — No. Because I’d just as easily miss run-by-witnessing the quirkiness of people made possible by Chicago’s density of population.

Do I just like being different? — Maybe. But even so, that is probably less a weird psychological-ego thing than it is an Oregon cultural artifact.

What I think it comes down to is this: Oregon simply has shaped me in more ways than Chicago has. From the way I think to the way I dress to the way I spend my time and money. If tomorrow I were go and spend a year in New Orleans, or in Tanzania, or on the moon, I would tell people that I am from Oregon. Not Chicago.

I am not complaining about my current situation. I am here by choice, as opposed to the refugees and exiles who are here as a last resort. Nevermind that the “who am I/where am I” question is much easier than the “who are we/where are we” question: a surprising number of my friends have fallen in love not just across state lines but over international borders, and are having to figure out these questions not only in tandem with another but through concrete decisions.

So, as disorientating as it may be, the incongruence between home and home may actually be a normal part of the human experience. A formative part, even.

Maybe there is not supposed to be a right answer. If there is, however, I suspect it is not found by asking “which place should I call home” but rather “did I show up today, or did I run away?” At the very least, we are more likely to know how to answer the latter question.

That all said: my Oregon driver’s license, my state-issued identification card, expires this August. Under ORS 803.355 (and yes, I did look this up), I can only renew if I intend “to remain in the state or, if absent, to return to it.”

Not that the DMV employee is going to ask. Besides, I am confident I could make a legal case for my intention to return to Oregon in the eight-year period I would extend my domicileship, mostly revolving around the fact I see myself going to grad school sometime in the next eight years and that decision is probably going to shut the door on Chicago and there will be a transition period in which Oregon is the only place I could call home.

The more important question is this: am I going to continue resisting assimilation? If growing up in Oregon taught me anything, it taught me the importance of celebrating the places we find ourself in, whether the mountains or the valleys or the coast or the city. I am thankful for this lesson, but how shall I best thank the teacher?

By snubbing the Illinois driver’s license, am I showing up or am I running away?

I have no clue.

I am curious to see what I decide.