Yoga + Pentecost = Namaste

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to join a yoga studio. But I’ve always been a starving student, or a missionary, or whatever. Now that I’m working again, Robert and I decided we have enough wiggle room for me to sign up with the new studio in town, YogaWorks. I was afraid that having a yoga membership wouldn’t be all I had dreamed (why am I always afraid of being disappointed?), but it has turned out to be amazing! I feel strong, my body confidence is way up, and it’s a fantastic stress reliever. After attending for a week there as a guest, Robert decided to sign up, too! So now it’s also a fun and healthy thing for us to do together.

Since September, I’ve been going through a the Ignatian spiritual exercises using a book called Journey with Jesus. Every day I ask myself “examen questions” and one of them is when I sensed Immanuel, God with me, in the previous day. It’s interesting that the most consistent time of sensing God’s presence has been during yoga. I wonder if that is because in a challenging yoga class, I must be totally “in” my body–I can’t disconnect or detach. (I just read a line by Dallas Willard where he states, “our body is a primary resource for the spiritual life.” Huh!) And that integrated activity, where I’m using my mind and my body, somehow becomes an almost spiritual exercise. I find the same to be true when I’m in nature–again, it’s a time when I’m not “checking out” of my body, like when I’m working on a computer or even so consumed in dealing with students at work that I can’t address my body’s needs like thirst–or even needing to use the restroom!

I was thinking about all this the other day, and remembering a piece I wrote last year for my Master’s thesis project, Telling the Treasure: Reflections, Essays, and Anecdotes from a Backslidden Mystic. It’s called “Namaste,” and it’s about the Holy Spirit and a little about yoga, among other things. Since Pentecost Sunday just passed, I thought I’d share the piece here on Eeper.

Namaste

“God in three Persons, blessed Trinity…” or so the old hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” goes. I’d sung those words a thousand times before I started to think about the three persons of the triune God as, well, three persons. There’s God the Father, of course, and God the Son—that would be Jesus—but what of the third? The Holy Spirit, or as some Bible Belt folk might say, the Holy Ghost. It wasn’t until halfway through my year in Norway that I heard someone really emphasize the importance of viewing the Holy Spirit as a person. For me, that changed everything.

Jan, a guest lecturer in our little discipleship school (and the rapping prophet I’ve written about elsewhere), reminded us of what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. He called the Spirit the helper, the friend, the teacher, the comforter, and the one who leads us into all truth. One who plays these roles more logically falls into the category of a person, rather than some ethereal force—although I suppose the Spirit is that, too, if we think of the way she (or he) hovered over the waters before the dawn of time. Jan encouraged us to think of the Holy Spirit as a person, and to address the Spirit as such, praying to him as we might to Jesus, asking to guide us, to comfort us and be a friend to us.

And really, it is Jesus we are addressing—the Spirit is the way that Jesus chose to come and be present with each one of us until the end of time, when we will all live in a new city fresh out of heaven, where God will dwell among us in whatever holy and terrifying and joyful and astounding form that will take.

When I was fourteen, I attended my sister’s high school graduation, and the valedictorian’s speech ended with the saying, “Yesterday is history, and tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift—that’s why it’s called ‘the present.’” Though now I would cringe at the use of such a cliché, I remember thinking at the time that it was clever, even profound. For some reason I remembered it the other day, and I thought about how Peter preaches in the book of Acts that the Holy Spirit is a gift. I’ve found that is partly because it is the Spirit who helps us get on in this daily life of ours, whose presence with me in the present is as much a gift as my husband’s is, when he sits with me and lets me cry or talk or merely sigh many heavy sighs.

In the Old Testament, the presence of God is something awful (or awesome) and indescribable—smoke on Mount Sinai, an unbearable glory in the tabernacle’s Holy of Holies. The presence of God is a desert shrub on fire, burning without being consumed. It is a cloud in the wilderness, swaddling the liberated Hebrews as it leads them onward. It is something to be feared and something to be desired.

Everything’s Changed

Well hello there. I’m not sure if I should be all cavalier about dusting off the ol’ blog; act like a five month drought didn’t actually happen. But there, I just said it, and you might as well know I’m humiliated. Okay, not really. It’s a blog, guys. But I do feel a bit of loss, sad that I haven’t posted since October 19 (!).

Anyway. I thought I would get you caught up on a few things. Here’s the big stuff first:

1) I got married on December 10, and the wedding was absolutely perfect. I just have to say, my husband Robert was THE most handsome groom I have ever laid eyes on. We took a gamble on an outdoor winter wedding, and Southern California delivered her most perfect December weather. The ceremony felt sacred and momentous and almost unreal; the reception was full of our signature cocktails (the Bourbon Bear and the Red-Tailed Fox) and dancing the night away. (You can see some photos HERE)

2) I am married. This is a big change, people. BIG! And it’s good. I would not recommend merging your life with another person during your 3 week Christmas break, not to mention the utter craziness of the holidays, chock-full of family gatherings. But the wedding decorations are finally out of the living room, the gifts are (mostly) put away, and as we find our groove as the Thompsons, life is getting sweeter.

3) I am about to enter finals week of the winter quarter, which means in 2 weeks I will begin my last quarter of my master’s program. I really, really wanted to write that in all caps, or with a period after every word, but that is way too bloggy-cliche. Just know, this is a huge deal. This may be the last time I’m ever in school…and I am so ready for it!

Sexy Feminist: How Fuller Made Me One

This little ditty ran in Fuller’s weekly student publication, the Semi, for a series on sexuality (for which very, very few women writers submitted articles).
I was born into the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, a denomination founded in the roaring twenties by a woman who had three husbands and later an E! True Hollywood Story made about her questionable kidnapping and other scandals. So, you may think that I grew up in a church environment that broke gender stereotypes, that set women free to express themselves in ministry, in mind, and in body…but you would be wrong. No, my church youth group was probably much like yours—the boys herded off for a talk about sex (read: porn and masturbation) while the girls huddled together and dreamed about the princes that awaited them at the end of the rainbow road of purity and promise rings. Four years at a Foursquare Bible college was—surprise, surprise—more of the same, with the expected addition of make out sessions in dorm stairwells and far corners of public parks. The sexual tension was thick, and the solution was marriage, of course. But I graduated with two ex-boyfriends and no engagement ring, which was practically unheard of for a school where many women attended only to receive their MRS degree (sorry, had to put that in).

One week after graduation, I found myself dancing in a campground bar outside of Paris with a bunch of Australians to that classic 90s jam, “Let’s Talk About Sex,” followed by a quick game of strip air hockey with a New Zealander named Matty. You’re probably thinking: this is where it gets interesting! Bible college grad explores her repressed sexuality in the backpacking scene of Europe…but you would be wrong. Again. I won that air hockey game, after removing only my earrings and my sandals (Matty may or may not have been down to his underthings). And the exploring I did over the next few years had little to do with men and a lot to do with traveling the world for missions and study and fun, discovering more about other people, other cultures, and God—and growing up a bit in the process.

But these things have a habit of resurfacing, and once I was done traveling and settled back in California, I entered the world of Fuller with its ecumenical diversity and gender-inclusive policy. I was so accustomed to using “he” and “men” for all humankind, including myself, that it took me awhile to realize how empowering it was to include both genders in our speech, our writing, and especially in our reading of the Scriptures. Replacing “he” with “she” in some verses about discipleship or God’s love opened up the world to me—I was no longer on the outside looking in, I was invited to get in the game. I started to ask questions and offer comments in class, I no longer hid my intelligence as I did in Bible college, and I began to understand the way it made me feel to be called a “girl” versus a “woman” (hint: boo versus yes).

As an intelligent woman, I returned to some matters left untouched since my high school and college years. I was single and trying to figure out what to do with this sexuality that was supposed to have been activated at 22 if I had married a few weeks after graduation, like a good Bible college student. Sexuality seems to be a given for men, but is still a closed topic for many Christian women. Gathering the moxie I’d collected in my empowering moments of feminism at Fuller, I opened the door and invited myself into the conversation. What does it mean to be 26 and single? I wondered. What if I never get married? How does a promise ring help me then? I knew by now that my perfect prince probably slipped up somewhere way before he turned 26, and I felt cheated. I brought up these questions among friends and acquaintances and discovered that some weren’t ready for that kind of talk, but also found that I’m not alone. I had a conversation recently with a 35-year-old friend who is single, and she’s wondering lately if she’s wasted the past couple of decades with her sexuality on the shelf. Maybe it’s time to take it down and see what happens?

But it’s not even about measuring purity points with a future spouse, it’s realizing that we are not only spiritual, physical, intelligent, emotional beings—we are also sexual beings. And I did not have a clue what that meant. Some things have helped—especially my exposure to Catholicism and other traditions that were quite foreign to me before arriving at Fuller. It wasn’t until this year that I realized how wide is the chasm between my sexuality and my spirituality. In my classes and reading, I’ve been fascinated by glimpses of an earthy spirituality where the body is as much a meeting place with the divine as the mind or the soul—where the three, in fact, are blurred and joined much more than compartmentalized or cordoned off from each other. Last summer in Italy I was still as single as ever, but I immersed myself in the sensuality that marks the citizens of the hilltop Umbrian town of Orvieto—feeling the buzz of wine or espresso in my veins, rich truffle oil and sweet gelato on my tongue, St. Francis’s brother Sun caressing my shoulders. Somehow, these were steps in my journey.

So here I am—not far from where I started, but I have a rucksack over my shoulder and I threw out the maps I received as a child (I Kissed Dating Goodbye and DC Talk’s “I Don’t Want It”). The cartographers of Christian sexuality—at least the Evangelical ones—led me nowhere, but told me to stay in one place and be a good girl until a nice man came and found me. However, I am not interested in going the way of the mainstream, non-Christian world, either, who tell me that God is too big, too slow, too out-of-touch to bring along on these travels. I can’t explain it, and I can’t even say I’ve yet experienced it, but I know that He is the guide and companion that I want, and that in these uncharted wanderings, He is a safe place to camp.

Acquiring the Taste

Here’s a poem I wrote for a final project last quarter, responding to our course on the Old Testament writings (Chronicles, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and Daniel).

Acquiring a Taste

Reality is like a fine wine, I read.
It will not appeal to children.
The Writings are like fine wine,
And I came with the palate of a child.

But I was ready for a coming-of-age
And willed myself to take small sips,
So one day I might enjoy the taste
Without dilution,
Without deletion.

He doesn’t always speak
He doesn’t always answer
He doesn’t always heal
He doesn’t always reign.

But then

He comes in wisdom
He comes in a whirlwind
He comes in a kiss
He comes in laughter.

Can I one day rejoice not only in the drinking
But in the seasons and rhythms of the winemaking?

The long waiting and hoping,
The toil under the cruel sun,
Humility arriving like
A cool breeze.

These days of discipline I will not despise.

Your feet crush my expectations and entitlement.
In your ceaseless treading I sense a pattern:
Your complicated steps are a dance.

One day at your table I will lift my glass to you
And salute the beauty of your movement.

We will lock eyes
and drink deeply.

Fresh Baked Christmas

I was asked to contribute a little reflection on Christmas joy (no pun intended, but I intentionally exploited the connection) for Fuller’s website. You can check it out in its original form here. Or, if you’re too lazy, I’ve copy-pasted it for your reading pleasure! It’s just a little, syrupy piece. I’ve been seeing Christmas in a new light this season, and I’ll hopefully be writing more about that in the next few weeks…

“Christmas Ingredients”

Lately I’ve been really into baking. My daily life as a seminary student—hunched over a laptop, scribbling notes, thinking until my brain hurts—begs for hands kneading yeasty dough, for fragrant cinnamon awakening the senses, everything eventually punctuated by chocolate chips. I have a finished product in my hands in less time than it takes to write a reading response. Christmas is the perfect time for baking, and instead of studying I find myself daydreaming about the treats I will make for holiday parties and gifts: German burnt sugar almonds? My tried-and-true bourbon banana bread? Peppermint brownies à la the Starbucks pastry case?

I’m also eagerly anticipating other ingredients essential to the holiday. In my family, that means a Christmas Eve outing to Chinatown for slippery shrimp, opening gifts early in the morning before pecan sticky rolls at Grandma’s house, English crackers and paper crowns at dinner, and singing “Joy to the World” in our uniquely off-key way. There’s always extra laughter and a dash more grace than we usually have for each other.

In my personal experience, Christmas also means seeing my name—“Joy”—on signs and mantles and mugs, and more people making comments about it. “Are you feeling joyful this Christmas, Joy?” they might ask. Or, if I’m looking too sad or serious: “Aren’t you supposed to be ‘Joy to the world?’” These comments have always irked me and sprinkled a bitter flavor in otherwise sweet times. Of course, as a human being I will feel and express many emotions—I can’t be joyful all the time. Yet that doesn’t assuage the guilt I feel when someone points out my less-than-bubbly attitude.

But recently I read some words by C. S. Lewis, saying that God does not merely pity us but delights in us, so that each of us is “a real ingredient in the divine happiness.” Emmanuel—God with us—whose coming brought joy to the whole world, allows me to sweeten his happiness like no one else can. And that knowledge makes this holiday richer than anything I could whip up.

Shalom Summer

Night out in Jerusalem

I’ve been thinking about Israel a ton lately. Fuller’s offering two courses there this summer, one looking at ancient history of the Bible, with an archaeological focus, and one a “peacemaking” trip, which is still kind of weird to me. I guess participants will be exposed to both Jewish and Palestinian sides of the story, but I do hope they aren’t so naive to think they’ll make bring some kind of solution to an old, deep, complex problem in their 11 days there. I’d obviously opt for the first trip, as I think my Jewish Israeli ethnicity might complicate things a bit.

Anyway. Israel is calling to me, which isn’t surprising because when I left there over 3 years ago, I knew that it wasn’t over for me. A love for that land became part of the blood in my veins. My wish to go back has been dormant for some time, as I traveled/worked/ministered/studied in Australia, Mexico, Norway, Germany, and Italy…oh, and also tried to find my bearings as I began my graduate studies. There’s a little whisper wooing me back, softly saying “Shalom, Joy…come visit again, stay longer this time, go deeper this time, your arms can open wider now…” So it’s decision time….and it all comes down to money, of course.

Otherwise, why wouldn’t I hop on a plane to celebrate my birthday on Masada?? (Yes, according to the itinerary, that’s where we’ll be on July 3…)

Fuller Feminist?

I used to think I was a feminist. Back in high school, when I was full of opinions (kay, maybe still am) and the world was black and white and I just knew how things were. But now I know I wasn’t a feminist back then–I was a man-hater. Okay, fellas, before you stop reading, please understand that I was a man-hater…I’m not anymore. It was a distinct yet debilitating part of my identity, and when I finally decided I didn’t want to go around wounded and limping anymore, Jesus healed me and set me free. Four years later, I still can’t get over the wonder of how he rescued me from a life of bitterness and hatred.

So now, when someone calls me a feminist, I wince and recall the times I thought that men were the root of all evil. But this quarter I’ve been mulling over feminist issues a lot, I think, for two reasons. One is a short explanation in my Old Testament course syllabus about why we use gender inclusive language at Fuller. Dr. John Goldingay explains:

The Fuller student body and faculty agreed some years ago that we would all use “gender-inclusive” language.  That means we don’t say “man” when we mean “humanity,” or say “men” when we mean “people.”… The background is that the church has long behaved as if women were not really fully people, and we need to make clear in our thinking and way of speaking that women are just as much part of the image of God as men are. So I expect you to write that way in your homework and papers.

It was sobering to me to read that, and although it wasn’t anything new it hit me in a new way, and I have been considering the ways that women have been treated as though they weren’t fully people, and the ways that kind of treatment still happens.

Naturally, then, the topic I’m choosing to research for my 10-page paper in Systematic Theology 2 is feminist Christology, which means the unique way that feminists see Jesus Christ–his person, his mission, etc.

So I’ve been seeing things in this light a little more lately–becoming aware of a few of the assumptions we all live by in our daily lives, and also the way women have responded to them. Last night at dinner with my dad and my sister, Dad was telling us that when friends ask why he doesn’t have grandkids yet, he explains that all three of his daughters are in grad school–they’re not sitting around, he says. I pointed out that it seems as though we need a good excuse–grad school, in this case–to justify neglecting our determined role as babymakers. What if we were sitting around? Then must we have babies to have value?

Things like that.

And then, driving home, that old Destiny’s Child song “Independent Women” came on the radio. You remember it: “The shoes on my feet (I bought ‘em)/the clothes I’m wearing (I bought ‘em)/the rock I’m rockin’ (I bought it)/cause I depend on me.”  This is going to sound weird, maybe, but as I listened to that song I felt overwhelmed with sadness. I thought of all these women who have been oppressed, rejected, abused, abandoned, devalued. I thought of how each one at some point decides that if she doesn’t protect, provide, and care for herself, no one will.

So, in a way, I have my feminist hat on this quarter–but I don’t want that to be as scary as it sounds (especially to you men). It’s not about a battle of the sexes, it’s about…well, I don’t really know. One of my professors keeps saying that we have to determine what the questions are before we start looking for the answers. All I know is that something’s stirring. I’ll keep you posted.

**Bonus question: what kind of assumptions can you find in the image/caption below?

Bumper Cars

Today in class my professor (Barry Taylor, for you Fullerians) showed us a few TED talks about creativity, then sent us out onto the campus with the assignment of composing a ten-line poem about Fuller. Now, Fuller’s campus is so small that you can pretty much sneeze and end up on the other side, so after a year here I felt like it would be tough to see it with new eyes. So I opted creatively interpret the assignment and write about my current, up-to-the-minute experience at Fuller. I hoped that when we shared later in class, I wouldn’t scare off any of the newbies.

Bumper Cars

It’s like bumper cars.

We’re all in this together

But only in that we’re all

driving across

The same impossibly slick floor

As we navigate

new ideas,

old assumptions,

frenetic fears.

We desperately bump into others

for contact,

for recognition,

for an outlet

of pent-up questions or tension.

We grin wildly and

Laugh a little too loudly,

More out of nervous energy

than true joy.

How many tickets did it cost

to get in here?

As jarring as it is,

I’m not quite ready

for this to end

Until I find another game

that makes me feel alive.

Glossolalia: Fantastic Doesn’t Mean Fiction

This is an article of mine that was recently published in Fuller Seminary’s weekly student publication, The Semi.

The other night, I was walking through downtown LA for the monthly Art Walk event, feeling out of place as a tourist in my native land. Heading back to the car after visiting galleries and gourmet food trucks, I overheard a snatch of the conversation of two passersby. Really, all I heard was the word, “glossolalia.”

Glossolalia. The word unrolled like a magic carpet and took flight in my mind. For a few days it bumped into its walls and windows like a bird trapped in a church as I tried to remember where I’d heard the term before. It was like hearing a word in a dream, which you don’t understand but know has deep significance. Finally, I did what any Fuller student brimming with intellectual curiosity and in close proximity to an extensive library would do: I googled it. Just kidding. I used Dictionary.com. Instantly, I knew why glossolalia was so familiar to me.

“Incomprehensible speech in an imaginary language, sometimes occurring in a trance state, an episode of religious ecstasy,” in short, speaking in tongues, is familiar territory to me as a born and bred Pentecostal. While others might cringe at the idea of speaking in tongues, I have comforting memories from the church of my childhood, when the pastor would say during Sunday worship, “Let’s praise the Lord in our spiritual languages.” The percussionist would swipe the wind chimes and the grown-ups around me lifted their voices in strangely sweet, individual songs, a communal glossolalia, a cloud of languages wafting as incense to this God I had known from birth.

Although I don’t have an “ear for languages,” I’ve always been captivated by them, and I love words: I love hearing other languages, I pretty much kill at word games, and I’m a sucker for a boy who can tell me I’m beautiful in a tongue other than English. I’ve long believed that the best superpower would be the ability to master any language in 3 seconds flat. I keep a running list of words I love and hate, and sometimes I find myself saying certain words out loud (sushi, penguin, waffle) just because I like the way it feels to say them.

By the same token, I was fascinated by stories of people speaking in tongues, which aren’t uncommon when you’re nurtured in the faith in Pentecostal churches, summer camps, and Bible college. As a junior in college I read The Beauty of Spiritual Language by Jack Hayford, and took his advice by practicing my spiritual language, usually on the short trek from the library to the dorms.

Eventually, speaking in tongues and exercising other spiritual gifts felt like an organic part of my life. I worked with the charismatic organization Youth With a Mission (YWAM) for a couple of years in a few different countries, serving in a community that nurtured such spiritual practices. During times of intercession and ministry, I found myself praying in tongues almost as much as I prayed in English, and experiencing its power as a means of spiritual breakthrough in others and in myself.

Needless to say, coming to Fuller was a bit of a shock to my spiritual system. For the first time, I was interacting on a regular basis with Christians who were uncomfortable with the idea of tongues, and in some conversations I even detected a hint of embarrassment over the topic of the Holy Spirit. I found myself stepping outside of my spiritual life to examine it, realizing that it’s not as “normal” as I had come to think. A girl speaking in a language she doesn’t understand, communicating with a higher power in a deep and transformative way—it’s not what most would call ordinary.

But none of it is normal, is it? Christianity, I mean. The songs full of strange imagery, a sacred book as the final standard, the ritual with bread and wine as flesh and blood.  It’s the stuff of myth. And why not? What is the Christian story, if not, as C.S. Lewis says of the Incarnation, myth become fact? Pentecost’s tongues of fire and the reversal of Babel’s sin in one morning’s whirlwind of words may not seem so crazy when we look over our shoulder at Easter, only a few short weeks ago. Then, we all declared our belief in a God who wrapped himself in skin and dwelt among us, who rose from the dead and who one day will illuminate a new and perfect city so that the sun is redundant. What are these truths but fantastic, mystical, supernatural? Why not speak in tongues of angels to a God whose eyes are blazing fire?

In his recent inaugural professorial lecture, Clayton Schmit told a story of how, while receiving prayer from a Pentecostal bishop, he became nervous when he realized his “brain was situated between this Pentecostal’s powerful palms.” Schmit joked that he prayed against the prayers of this man, who was entreating the Lord for a new release of the Holy Spirit in Schmit’s life and ministry. He recalled his defense prayer to an amused audience: “Oh God, if it has to be tongues, at least let it be German.” I laughed, too, but I also thought of how we are so afraid to fully enter into this life we’re offered. Before his conversion, C.S. Lewis had a deep, aching love for mythology yet was pulled in the opposite direction by a grim rationalism. I wonder if the beauty of some facets of the Christian story move us as well, but the same grim rationalism prevents us from accepting them as truth. Instead of becoming characters in a great and epic story, we merely stare at the page, disbelieving and desperately longing.

This is what the season of Pentecost is for me—it is realizing that proclaiming the Resurrection as a historical fact is only a doorway into a different—and dare I say mystical—life. Pentecost means taking Jesus at his word, as the disciples did when he gave them one last promise on his way home: “You will receive power when my Holy Spirit comes upon you…” Easter is getting on the boat; Pentecost is asking to be shown the ropes, wanting to know every inch of this ship, learning to harness nature’s power in the sail and run before a wild wind. It’s hanging over the side and letting your hair get wet and salty with the sea.

On Conan and Cave Dwelling

This is a piece I wrote that’s featured this week in The Semi, Fuller’s student publication. To be honest, I wasn’t necessarily mulling over the idea of cynicism in seminary, but the Semi editor asked for submissions about the topic, and after watching Conan and reading the Donald Miller blog post I reference, I churned this out:

On Conan and Cave Dwelling: Guarding Against the Puffing Up Properties of Knowledge

Most seminaries don’t offer degree programs in cynicism, yet many seminarians graduate as experts in the field. Disillusioned, disenchanted, jaded. It doesn’t have to happen, but it does. We see students become consumers of concepts and ideas, of churches and ministries and missional strategies. They’ve seen it all and have learned to slash everything to ribbons with their world-class critical thinking skills.

Most students don’t come to seminary wanting to be hardened—they come with questions. They come from all over the world, from individual cocoons spun of the various factors and circumstances of their lives: spiritual tradition, family culture, ethnicity, education; everyone arrives in their own bubble of truth, like those crazy one-man submarines that seem so cool in theory but never really caught on.

These students have been living in caves with their own people, swapping the same old stories and the same old answers and the same old truths, and they started thinking their might be more to it than what they’ve been taught. Fuller students are  explorers and mavericks, cowboys and astronauts. Ready to go out West, where no man has gone before. Climbing out of the caves of their own upbringing, they emerge into the glaring brightness of Truth—or at least, truth according to Augustine, Barth, Moltmann, Goldingay and Murphy.

At first it feels like a privilege to be on this windswept plain, one arm up to shield our eyes from the (did I mention it was cruel?) sun. The fact is, Conan O’Brien got it right last month on his final episode of The Tonight Show, when he delivered a brotherly lecture to his fans about cynicism: “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get.” The terrifying reality of their big seminary dreams surround students as they take more courses, read more books, and realize there’s so many paths to take but no matter which one is chosen, there will be others proving in articles and dissertations that it was the wrong path.

I was reading a blog post by Blue Like Jazz author Donald Miller today about how the apostle Paul wrote that knowledge puffs up. Miller says that this is “the thing that ruins many a seminary student” and observes that knowledge is “incredibly powerful and dangerous.” I think he’s onto something, there. However, Miller wrote about knowledge used as a weapon, while I started thinking about it as armor. When I first arrived at Fuller, I felt like my beliefs, so precious to me and housed in my experiences, were lined up like milk bottles on a wall and unceremoniously shot down one by one: “You’re wrong! You’re wrong! You’re wrong!” When that happens, one has two options: send up a white flag of surrender and say, “Okay then, tell me what to believe.” Or one can acquire more knowledge, and clothe herself with it like armor, puffing up her previously puny beliefs and stances so they won’t get shot down again.

Those caves we came from, full of “unenlightened” people we say we pity, slowly begin to bring back fond memories—maybe we even miss their closeness and warmth, although we’re too proud to admit it. Unfortunately, our puffy knowledge-armor keeps us from being able to go back in the way we came.

Donald Miller said in that same post that if a person is emotionally healthy when seeking and acquiring knowledge, the knowledge will produce fruit.  For Miller, humility is key: “We realize that we did not invent truth, we simply stumbled upon it like food on a long journey. Knowledge will then produce the fruits of the spirit.” What if we shed the puffy armor of knowledge that isolates us from those who have yet to receive or understand? Instead we might let our newfound knowledge fill our arms with the fruits of the spirit—love, patience, kindness, and all the rest—and go back to where we came from to share what we’ve learned so we can nurture those we love, those who nurtured us when we didn’t know any better.

And if you don’t want to listen to me, or even Donald Miller’s advice, heed the wisdom of everybody’s favorite red-haired late show host, uttered in a rare moment of seriousness.  “Please don’t be cynical,” Conan said, looking imploringly into the camera. “I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favorite quality.” Let’s listen to Conan. Let’s gather those truths we’ve held close to our hearts and keep them close; and allow love to build us up as we continue to stumble on new truths, letting them sustain us like grapes warmed in the sun.