Farmers & Hunters | Reflections by Horizons Fellow Callie Gaskins '20
The evening of our September Horizons Fellows gathering, one of my "fellow Fellows" shared a bit of advice that her mother had given her when she was growing up. "Some people," she said, "are farmers. They cultivate the ground where they are. Others are hunters, always chasing their prey to new places." We dwelt on this idea as a group for a while, easily relating it to this time in our lives—our fourth and final year at the University—in which imminent transition is never far from our minds. Some of us—the hunters—felt pulled forward to the "next thing," and the next, and the next, ambitious and hungry for the future. Others—the farmers—felt deeply rooted in the present, and hoped to avoid thinking about this "next thing" for fear that it would diminish the beauty of the now.
I immediately identified myself as a farmer. I'm a self-diagnosed homebody whose idea of fun is to clean the house so that I can revel in the joy of a sparkling kitchen as I wait for the tea kettle to brew. I've never been one to look too hard for new experiences, and when they do show up at my doorstep, I spend more time than necessary evaluating them and making sure that they won't disrupt my routine too much. Recently, I've found myself gritting my teeth when my peers exclaim with excitement that they're off to the career fair or a job interview. Just a minute, I want to tell them, this moment isn't over yet! Slow down!
Like so many others, I am all too inclined to think that my way is the right way, and this remains true in the farmer-hunter breakdown. As the hunters in my life have rejoiced in their steps towards the future, I haven't wholeheartedly celebrated these joys with them. There's a small part of me that believes that they're wrong. I begrudge them their excitement because I'm content with the way things are now, even though I know that change is inevitable.
As I've continued to ruminate on our evening together over the last few weeks —and this part of the conversation, in particular—I've realized that the farmer-hunter dichotomy isn't as clear cut as it initially seemed. Although I do long to remain wholly invested in this place and in its people, I feel my heart tugging me towards other places and other people. As much as I love devoting my time to the extracurriculars that I have been involved in for the past few years, I'm beginning to realize that I'm ready for new and different ways of spending my time. I still see beauty in my day-to-day, of course, but I've noticed myself longing for a new routine.
I'm no hunter, and I don't think I'll ever be one, but I'm beginning to learn that it's okay—even good!—to venture forth with anticipation, that doing so doesn't have to mean giving up on the present moment. So, I'll continue to till and plant seeds in the soil where I am, but eventually the crops will need to be rotated, and when they do, I'll be ready.
The call to Lament | Reflections by Fellow Robert Cross '19
Last year the church that I attend in Charlottesville, Trinity Presbyterian, had a sermon series on the book of Lamentations. At first I was curious and a bit skeptical — isn’t “lament” just a biblical word for being sad? Will studying this Old Testament book be fruitful? Of course, I was wrong. Lament is integral to healing and is present throughout the Bible. After a semester of orienting our worship toward lamentation, I began to see the beauty and difficulty of lamenting.
One of my favorite parts of this process was a song I was introduced to, “How Long?” by Bifrost Arts. It's on an album of lamentation which cries out for wholeness in a broken world.
How long? Will you turn your face away?
This is the first line of “How Long?” and it honestly and unapologetically calls out to God, mirroring the Psalms of lament. God wants our honest and open hearts.
Over the past year, I've encountered brokenness, sadness, and injustice in the world and have felt hopeless in its face. I’ve learned that lamentation requires that we name the hurt and cry to God for help. For me, this often means listening to others and learning from people around me, so I can join in their struggles for justice.
I took a class this past semester about the history of race and real estate in the United States, and it exposed me to a part of our nation's past I haven't encountered before, one of racism and quiet, insidious exclusion. My after-class conversations with another Fellow, Lindsay, lamented the remnants of past injustice and the reality of our broken world. We ended each conversation with more questions than answers, but in this small way we began to lament.
This wasn't easy, but we continually tried to understand our place in this pain and in its healing.
Amen, Jesus, come!
“How Long?” ends with the repeated refrain, “Amen, Jesus, come!” When we sing it at Trinity, we start quietly and end with powerful drums and bright tambourines. It gives me chills every time we sing it, because this movement reflects how we must lament. We may begin in fear and sadness, but we end with hope and faith.
As I approach the pain and brokenness in this world, it’s easy to become hopeless. The relationships we’re in, the families we love, and the systems we’re a part of are all broken and we see this -- and feel this -- deeply. After some conversations with Lindsay after class, I could only say, “Amen, Jesus, come!”
I don't know how to approach all the pain in our world. There’s too much of it for one person to bear (like Ms. May in The Secret Life of Bees), but it’s our job to enter into our own and otherss’ suffering as we cry for Jesus’ will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. So, while I begin this lifetime of joyful and hopeful lamenting, I can work to return His creation to wholeness with the hope that Jesus will one day wipe every tear from our eye. He is making all things new. In Him alone is our hope.
Mystery & Doubt. Reflections by Horizons Fellow Ben Noble '18
“No one gets a 100 on the quiz. No one.”
I sank back into a chair in my advisor’s office on a Thursday afternoon during my Third Year. “No one gets a 100 on the quiz.” My advisor’s words echoed in my mind and hit like a truck. Still, I knew that they were true. He and I had been discussing religion, death, the afterlife—light conversation for a late-August day.
Over the past year, I had been trying to make sense of a faith that no longer felt feasible to me. The months leading up to that conversation with my advisor had been characterized by struggle and skepticism. I had quit going to church. I had stopped praying. I had put Henri Nouwen on the bookshelf and picked up Christopher Hitchens instead.
Retrospectively, a lot of my doubt was born out of emotional resentment. At the time, I felt like I had been hurt by Christians. In response, I nurtured animosity towards the Church, and, over time, towards God. However, unresolved bitterness and anger eventually turned into intellectual doubt. I transitioned from being angry with God to questioning whether God was even real.
How could I know, with assurance, that the Bible and all the stuff it said about God and humanity and history and morality were undeniably true? Moreover, was it worth following even if it was true?
Having sat on these thoughts for some time, there was a brief period during the summer before my Third Year when I considered myself an atheist. I thought that giving up on belief would make me feel free—free from resentment, free from ignorance, free from God. However, rather than feeling free, I felt an internal emptiness instead. Life felt grey and dull. I felt alone, too—more alone than I had ever felt.
Fast-forward a few months.
Time passed and I eventually came around to being open to faith again—though not without some low points and a substantial amount of existential anxiety. Still, even though I was open to belief, I couldn’t shake my feelings of uncertainty and I didn’t have a strong sense of confidence about any particular belief. Despite my doubt, I wanted desperately to trust in something again.
I walked into my advisor’s office on that day hoping that he would speak some magical words that would inspire me and give me a sense of hope once more. I walked out feeling neither a greater sense of clarity nor a renewed hope.
So what’s happened since the day that I left that office?
Although I would like to say that a couple weeks passed by and then, out of no where, God arrived on a white horse and I had a profound moment of conversion where my doubt was put to rest and my faith restored, I can’t say with any honesty that that was the case. Nearly a year and a half has elapsed since that meeting with my advisor and I still have yet to experience that “Eureka!” moment where everything is reinstated as it once was.
A lot has changed for me since then. The time in between has brought new hopes, more doubts, fresh experiences, moments of deep sadness, and moments of unparalleled beauty. Still, God has yet to ride in on a white horse and answer every single one of my questions. Maybe He will, some day, but I’m not so sure that it’s a safe bet.
God didn’t show up in the way that I was hoping, but despite this, I have found God in ways that are deeper and richer than I could ever have imagined on that day in August 2016. The ways in which I experience God are nuanced and unique and everywhere. I see God in a poem or song, from time to time. I see God in a Sunday drive through the Blue Ridge. I experience God when I have a really rich, deep conversation with a friend over a cigarette (Sorry Mom!) Most of all, however, I experience the reality of God through others. The moments when I see and experience the way that people truly love and care for each other and for me are the moments when I’m convinced, beyond of shadow of doubt, that God is real and alive and present.
This may sound a bit esoteric. I won’t disagree with that. My times of doubt have created an uncertainty about God in ways that can be frustrating, but the same uncertainty that causes me distress has also made space for me to experience the mystery of God. In many ways, the reality of uncertainty has shown me that my advisor was correct when he said, “No one gets a 100 on a quiz.” At the same time, this uncertainty has made God indefinable and illimitable and has animated life with mystery and excitement in ways that I didn’t think were possible.
In an essay entitled, “Circles,” Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.” I used to desire certainty about life. I wanted to have all the answers. I wanted to understand God and, in a way, I wanted to control God. Now, I think about things differently. I’m more at ease with the fact that I won’t ever know and understand everything. Now, I’m invigorated by the fact that God is far beyond my understanding. Rather than seeking to be the master of knowledge and truth, I tend to think of a life lived well as, like Emerson writes, “an apprenticeship to the truth.”
Each day brings with it the possibility of seeing the world and experiencing God in myriad ways that are new and fresh and exhilarating. Of course, this brings the possibility that yesterday’s way of understanding may require reconsideration and perhaps abandonment. In my experience, the “apprenticeship to truth” often entails a constant expansion and reconsideration of what I considered true one year ago or last week or even yesterday. I’m not going to suggest that this pursuit of truth doesn’t pose the possibility of anxiety and doubt and despair—that’s an inherent risk. Uncertainty is scary and there often isn’t an easy solution to dealing with it. However, despite the uncertainty and fear that the journey towards truth may bring, I am convinced whole-heartedly that the journey is vitally and comprehensively worthwhile. At the end of the day, what I think makes this way of navigating life invaluable is that it creates an opportunity for growth—personal growth, intellectual growth, and spiritual growth.
To me, for the time being, this is far better than getting a 100 on the quiz.
Finding Purpose - Fellow Reflection by Anna Nott
September has come and gone, and the fellows program at Theological Horizons is in full swing. We got the opportunity to get to know the members of our group at both the kick-off dinner as well as at our first monthly Monday night gathering featuring Mike Guthrie. Mike spoke on the well-known parable of the lost son, a story told by Jesus in response to the Pharisees' grumbling, "this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them" (Lk 15:2). I think Jesus' following stories, first of the lost sheep, the lost coin, then the prodigal son and his brother, reveal His consistent pursuit of the lost because of His grace. Whether you are the one following the law, the one squandering your father's wealth in reckless living, or somewhere in between, Jesus is there to remind you, "you are always with me, all that is mine is yours" (Lk 15:31).
After discussing this parable as a group, Mike left us with a challenge. He first shared his purpose statement that he explained serves as a reminder of his mission for God, and then challenged us to think about doing the same. In beginning the process of writing my own mission statement, I have realized the complexity in trying to declare a purpose on life. So many questions exist, the ultimate one being: what does God expect from me? The only answer I can give confidently is I do not know. As the fellows program at Theological Horizons continues this school year, hopefully these tough questions can be explored in a thorough and honest way, as I have a feeling they will.
Anna Nott is a fourth year studying Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. She is in 2014-2015 Horizons Fellow and works part-time in the After School Enrichment Program for St. Anne's Belfield School. She describes herself as observant, creative, blunt at times, thankful, perceptive, proactive and resourceful.