Making Peace with Proximate Justice... Revisited

Nearly two years ago I posted about a speech that Steve Garber gave at Geneva called Making Peace with Proximate Justice.  (Long title, I know, but kind of catchy at the same time.)

It was a good lecture.

And like so many of Garber's words, it's been percolating in my mind since then.  (Sidenote:  this does not apply to the speech that he gave at my graduation, which I remember practically nothing of.  Now that's what I call ironic!)  He asked a lot of good questions about culture and justice and our roles during that evening speech; here are two that struck me as core to think about.

Can you know the world and still love the world?

Does Christianity provide the answer to the complexity of these problems?

I believe that Christianity is, in fact, the only way that an answer is provided to these complex problems.  I believe that you can know the world and love it -- when that love is grounded in knowing and loving God first.

But I still find myself wrestling with the concept of making peace with proximate justice.  I don't want a proximately good world, I want a perfect world.  I want to be working in the perfect role in bringing a perfect world.

My roommate and I were talking today about problems with the prison system in America, dreaming of potential alternatives.  At the end of the conversation, I'm thinking, what good is my dreaming about these things if I'm not willing to give up other dreams to pursue solutions to these problems that I can see?

But I also think, Why am I not back in China teaching?

And, Shouldn't I stick around close to home?  What are my responsibilities as a daughter, a sister?

And, What about grad school?

And, How do I faithfully use and grow the gifts that God has given me?

And then I think -- 哎呀，我不知道，怎么办？ Oh, I don't know, what should I do?

It was easy to listen to Garber talk about making peace with proximate justice.  More difficult to figure out what that looks like in my own life.  How can I be content with something that isn't totally right?  What does that really mean -- to be content in God and fully trust Him, yet to remain conscious of how broken the world is and to strive towards something better?

(Stained glass is beautiful even when it's marred...)

So, I don't really have any new thoughts about how to really do this.  I expect that how it plays out in everyone's life is going to look different, that the guidelines in Micah 6:8 are about as specific as it can get.  Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.  

I'm guessing that hammering out what that looks like in my own life is part of growing up.

Lately

I've been working the opening shift at Panera most weekdays.  It's a great shift... except it starts so early!  This week was much less hectic than the one before, and I am thankful.

I've been listening to Jon Foreman's Limbs and Branches (throwback to a year ago), Vienna Teng's new album Aims (which you can listen to by following this link), and various other random stuff.  As always.

I've been reading: a lot.  Here are various things I'd recommend... the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson in the fantasy category (although I was kind of disappointed by the ending), Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin in the sci-fi category, David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell in the thinking about life category, and 24/6 by Matthew Sleeth in the you-should-definitely-read-this category.

Actually yes... you should read 24/6.

The end.

(Of this post, anyway.)

My sister is going to Rome!! (A post for Abbie)

Three days.

This time it's not me with the ticket for a flight to another continent; it's my younger sister.  I'm so excited for her and proud of her that I don't even have words to explain it.

She is both one of my closest friends and one of my most unlikely.  As far as I can remember, our friendship officially began one evening in my parents' bedroom when we were sprawled out across the enormity of their bed, probably not being especially helpful with putting clean laundry away, or waiting for family devos to start, or something like that.  We were pretty young.  Young enough to want a best friend and to decide that, obviously, a sister was the best choice for the best friend since you had to live with them after all.

We decided to be best friends.

Which, pretty undoubtedly, is one of the best decisions of my life.

When I think about it, sometimes I'm not sure that I could have picked a much more dissimilar best friend.

She's a dancer.  I didn't quite flunk my taiji class, but at times I would have been glad to if it meant I could escape.

She has the sense of fashion.  I'd wear a t-shirt, hoodie and jeans just about every day if I could get away with it.

When the subject of Pride and Prejudice comes up, we joke that she's Jane and I'm Lizzie.  

She's the life of the party.  Me?  I'm trying to read a book or have a conversation about philosophy.

She loathed our writing courses, even though she has a far more proficient touch with comedy than I do.

But that none of that hindered our friendship.  We begged our parents to let us share a bed when we were little so that we could stay up late whispering to each other.  We got up early to play endless rounds of rat-a-tat-cat with each other.  We made each other laugh to the point of tears, all the time and generally over the dumbest things (like a get well card for a man from our church that we messed up three times in a row.)  We filled quote books.

I went off to college, but only after she had prepped me by peppering me with endless What would you do, dear, IF... scenarios so that I would be properly equipped to deal with whatever odd circumstance came my way.  

And then, before I knew it, she was off to college herself.  During her first semester, I was on the other side of the world, studying in China.  When I came back, I found that she had established herself.  She had her own friend groups.  And I was glad.  

If I was on campus on the weekends, we usually met up and ate lunch together on Saturdays.  I'd let myself into her dorm room to say hi on random occasions.  We'd wave at each other as we walked to classes in the morning.  We had a few strategic sisterly intervention sessions when there was drama that she didn't want to deal with on her own.

She had also become friends with some of my friends, and that was where a bit of a surprise lay.

"We got to know your sister," the mom of one of my friends told me, "and she is so much like you."

I stared at her, stunned.  "Huh?"

"The two of you have the same mannerisms, use the same phrases..."  She went on listing examples.  I didn't believe her then, but I kept hearing it.  Eventually it sunk in that maybe they weren't kidding.  Which was not surprising, I guess, but I was amused.

Now she's a junior.  And in three days, she's leaving for a semester in Rome.

I'm already missing her.

So, Abbie...

For making me laugh more than anyone else ever has...

(Toasty?  TOASTY??)

For your incredibly loving spirit...

For the way you took care of my son ;) while I was gone, even writing him a rap song...

For stepping into the role of being the oldest sister with extreme grace and never making me feel displaced when I left...

For bringing joy into so many people's lives with your love for fun and for them...

For how you are always willing to be there for your friends...

For all the ways you have supported me in basically everything I've done, whether it was telling me that I was a good older sister or never questioning my decision to go to China (twice)...

For all the ways I have seen you mature and seek to be the love of God to your friends in tough times...

For your awesome baking...

For the way you look photogenic in pretty much everything, making it nearly impossible to choose a few photos...

For a bazillion other reasons that I really don't have time to list...

I love you and I am SO, SO, SO thankful for you!

<3
Hannah

PS:  When you get back, we need to take more pictures together!

(I couldn't resist this last one... because you make me smile, dear!)

Home from Indy

Why am I doing this? I wondered as I listened to my boots hitting the sidewalk.  I was cold and moderately lost, it was dark outside, and I was in Cleveland.  Maybe I should just call and say that I'm not coming after all.  So then I would have wasted $74 on bus tickets, but on the other hand, then I could spend the night in my nice warm bed instead of catching a few hours of sleep on a bus.

I backtracked and found the road that led to the Greyhound station.

I don't like traveling.

The sheer irony of that thought was almost enough to snap me out of my funk.  After all, I've traveled all over China.  I've taken buses, planes, trains, and some less-than-entirely-standard forms of transportation.  I've lived out of my backpack in Thailand.  I've had mostly good experiences and I get bored when I'm stuck in a place too long.  Yet being alone in an American city at night is enough to make me question myself.

Aha, Greyhound...

As I walked down the sidewalk towards the station, wiggling my toes to try to get some feeling back into them, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.

"Hello?"

It was my friend Rachy, the main reason that I was going to Indy.  She's on her way to Japan for a year.  We met under seemingly random circumstances in QinHuangDao, China, when I was teaching and she was a student.  On her way from Texas to Japan, she was stopping to visit another friend, and we had figured I might as well come too.  Confused yet?  Don't worry, there's no quiz.

She was calling to let me know that her bus was going to be late getting into Indy.  I sympathized, but there was really nothing that I could do about it, so after chatting for a few minutes, I went in and waited for my first bus to show up.

Greyhound bus stations, by the way, are -- in my experience -- equal parts creepy and intriguing.  Creepy because, well, they have terrible lighting and everyone is kind of cranky, and that's at the less creepy stations.  Intriguing because there are Amish people and a couple arguing in Mandarin and a guy who's confused and mostly speaks Russian.  And I find myself wondering about all of them.

My bus was on time, more or less.  I slept.  I hung out in another station and transferred buses and slept more.  I talked to my seat mate, who was on his way to nursing school in Wyoming.  Rachy and I texted each other a lot.  (At three in the morning, it seemed like a good idea.  At least we were both semi-awake!)

Eventually I got to Indy.

There was a lot of snow.

There were a lot of people in the bus station.

Does Tim know when I'm coming? I wasn't sure.  I thought I had mentioned it to him, but I couldn't remember if he was even in the state; probably something I should have checked on earlier.  I didn't see him immediately but my phone buzzed a few minutes later while I was washing my hands.  And you are...

I went back into the main area and poked him.  "Wo zai zheli!"  I'm here!

The next 40 hours were filled with meeting people, hanging out with people I had met last time I was in Indy, eating, playing games (ever heard of Tribond?  it was fun!), practicing shifting gears, a reunion with Rachy, getting to know another former CSP-er who's going with ELIC, watching a snowman be built (sort of), staying up late talking about...everything, driving through Indiana, watching The Soong Sisters, swapping stories of China.  There was sign language, Spanish, and of course Chinese.

All too soon, it was time to get on my bus and come back to Cleveland.  Tears, hugs, goodbyes.  Things that make my heart feel stretched and worn.  I don't think that goodbyes really get easier for me with the passing of time.

But you know what?  It's worth it.

It's worth it because two days is a lot of time to make memories.

It's worth it because this was the time that I had a chance to actually see these friends.  I don't always.

It's worth it for the new friends.  For the laughter.  For the stories.  For the chances to relax and fellowship and to create new memories.

It's worth it because, hard as goodbyes are, they are a cleaner and healthier kind of hard than the regrets that come with not showing that I care.

It's worth it because God has been good and richly blessed me with brothers and sisters all over the world