Starry-Eyed Surprise

(This post originally appeared on my Fuller blog: http://shar.es/b54vE.)

Last night back in my Fuller housing complex, it was a pretty chilly night accompanied with a thick fog that rested over Los Angeles.  I was having trouble going to sleep, so I decided to sit down and look up to the sky and check out the stars. There’s only two problems with this.

1.       It’s LA.

2.       It’s a foggy night in LA.

Okay, so it doesn’t look like I’m going to have this romantic night with myself as I star gaze. But, I decided to look up to the sky anyway. I got distracted and started looking the trees above me. They were pretty to look at, but that presented another problem.

Trees ≠ stars.

Things are going great so far. But I was reminded of a trip I took a few months ago with some friends from my clinical psychology cohort and an MFT student (also a friend!). One night, we stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon and looked at the sky. I’m telling you, it made me think of God at creation like a little girl in pig tails armed with black construction paper, a glue stick, and a gigantic bag of glitter. God in his capricious creativity threw a bunch of glitter in the sky because God thought it was pretty and liked shiny things. I couldn’t agree more, great Creator of the Universe.

I missed those stars last night. But I knew I’d never see those stars unless I kept looking up. I wouldn’t see them if I stared at the trees. But you wanna know what was the most frustrating part? No matter how hard I squinted, no matter how high I jumped, no matter how badly I wanted to break into the roof access of nearby buildings after midnight, none of that would have helped me see those stars.

Some nights we see the stars. Other nights we don’t.

Some nights we look up and see the stars. Other times we can try as hard as we want to and we still won’t.

But I’m still counting for at least a star or two to break through the sheath of the LA sky. And when those stars are ready to shine again, my eyes will be waiting and I’ll greet them with a short smile. Good to see you again, stars. I knew you’d be back.

Ants on a Kitchen Counter

So it's been a while since I've posted anything. There's still a few more classes from Prayer Through the Ages, which I'm hoping to post soon. I got swamped on research papers at the end of the summer quarter at Fuller. Now we've started the fall quarter without much of a breather. I'm hoping to get those recordings up soon.

But in the meantime, I'd like to share a reflection I wrote about an otherwise insipid event in my life regarding an ant and a piece of food. I wrote this for my Systematic Theology I class, and I hope that it can be at least some fun reading for you.

I was cleaning my kitchen yesterday and found that there was an ant surrounding a morsel of food. For one reason or another, I hesitated to kill this ant as I usually would for intruding my cooking space. But instead I watched as this ant attempted to clamp its pincers into the food and drag it away. From my vantage point, this appeared as a feeble endeavor as the morsel was significantly larger than the ant itself but amused by the effort, I continued spectating.

Sure enough, the ant grasped the morsel and dragged the food. At times it would lose its grip, drop the food, and then attempt to drag the morsel once more. I found myself converting from a potential insect killer to an encouraging insect supporter. The cycle of dropping the food and grasping it again continued for some time. Eventually, I had to withdraw from my kitchen and retreat to class. Though I don’t know what happened to the ant and the morsel, I do know I saw neither of them when I returned.

This otherwise normal occurrence in kitchens throughout the world left me with a strange notion: could this be how those in the cosmos view my life? Are there forces that would rather squash my attempts marking them as feeble trials not worth the effort, perhaps irritated by my existence? Are there forces that cheer my cause as they champion my small efforts, perhaps even entertained by them? Surely my life cannot be as grand as I make it out to be.

In my own life, I validate my efforts as important: earning a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, researching with colleagues and scholars, worship leading at a church, even cleaning my apartment. But what if all that I am doing is equitable to a morsel of leftover food on a kitchen counter? Perhaps it would be better if a large hand from the cosmos were to squash my efforts and end the charade that my existence and efforts mean much of anything.

But what if instead there is a compassionate hand hovering over my culture and context on a kitchen counter? What if this hand is watching my every move, encouraging me to pick up the morsel? What if, even though I drop the morsel, the hand doesn’t give up on me and watches me attempt once more? What if my efforts bring pleasure to those powers just by existing and that my utility is not what gives me worth, but my action in existence?

In that moment I shared with the ant, in some sense of the word, I loved that ant. My desire was for its success and to see it take the morsel it desired. Then it dawned upon me—I didn’t create the ant and I still loved it. How much more would the creator of the ant be invested in the ant’s well being and success?

Though I shared this moment with the ant, it was as if God was sharing a moment with me. God watches my efforts. God loves me as I make efforts. God is pleased, and even entertained by my efforts; not in a way that is demeaning but in one that elicits joy. God has great power over my life, but chooses compassion over retaliation. The compassion doesn’t have to make sense—it is a choice informed by love for those of us making our feeble efforts as ants on a kitchen counter.