Bing

In case you've missed the millions of commercials and ads inundating us about the new search engine Bing, it is a search engine that supposedly sorts through the crap websites for you, only returning results relevant to your search. They claim that it will enable you to find the website you are looking for without having to sort through ads or majorly irrelevant sites. To our make-everything-easier society this should be and is a very marketable product.

I, however, am completely unsettled by the idea of Bing. I find it bothersome that someone would suppose to know what I'm looking for. I find it irksome that I am not given all of the options and allowed to choose for myself. I find that this tool censors ideas based on the fact that they believe I don't want to be exposed to them. Shouldn't I make the decision about what I want to be exposed to? Shouldn't I be able to sift through the sites myself and click on those that fit my desired purpose? I feel like Bing flies in the face of my rights to free thought, my intelligence, and my goals in teaching students.

One of the key skills I try to teach students is how to look at several sources and determine which source is most helpful and relevant to what they are trying to prove. This involves looking at a list of titles or a list of websites, clicking on and reading the excerpts and then weighing the validity of the article and the relevance of the article to make an educated decision about the value of the piece. Bing tells my students that they no longer need this skill. It advocates for laziness, for not having to think for yourself. Students already believe that they can type a topic into Google, click on a few sites and have the information they need; Bing adds another layer to this. It will be easy for them to believe that because they've used Bing the source must be relevant to their topic. I sometimes feel like technology strips kids of essential skills in the belief that it is making life easier. But since when is easier always better?

One example of easier isn't better in my classroom is when I teach MLA. I get so frustrated when my students resist learning MLA citation. It is an important process to understand, and an important college-level skill. It is also an academic hoop that they need to learn to jump through, just as they will jump through hoops in any higher education or job. In their resistance to learn the process, because it's hard or cumbersome, they use a website called EasyBib. This site allows you to plug in the information and it will chug out the citation. I have a deep loathing for this site because it reflects the laziness of my students and their unwillingness to try, and it also incorrectly cites. I try to be an MLA master for this reason. I tell them up front that I can find EasyBib citations quickly and they will be penalized. My students don't believe me, use EasyBib and find lower grades as a result. This is an example of how the process is more important than the product. I want them to understand the MLA process, just as much as I want them to understand the process of discerning valid and relevant sources.

So once again I express my frustrations with technology. I am sure that the creators of Bing are well-meaning, I'm sure that they feel that our lives will be revolutionized because we will no longer be inundated with ads and filthy websites. But I'm okay with a little sifting, a thorough scan, as long as it means that my choices are not being censored and I can continue to strengthen my skills and those of my students.

The Journey

As I was pondering this idea on the way home, I was convinced, convinced, that I had written this post before. It seems like such a recurrent theme that I was sure that I'd pontificated on the idea previously, but apparently I was mistaken. Or at least I couldn't find the evidence that I'd blogged about it, so if you're having a very French, déjà vu -ish sort of thing happening, you are not alone.

Life is a journey. A metaphor we are all very familiar with, but one I don't happen to like. Yes it is quite accurate, and yes we are constantly walking through life's new adventures, but I don't like traveling the road. Journeys are about destinations to me. When I travel I have the get-there-as-soon-as-possible sentiment. Quick pit stops, eat food on the go, but let's not stop and look at anything on the way. We're going where we're going, let's get there!

Traveling is inconvenient. You can't account for how much time will be spent where, you can't control the circumstances along the way, you might have to wait in traffic or make a U-turn, you may get lost. Not to mention the physical discomfort that journeys bring, anxiously waiting for the next rest stop fearing your bladder may explode before then, a numb rear end that takes at least 20 minutes of walking to regain feeling, and legs that feel as if they've forgotten how to function.

But get me to a destination and I can settle in, find all of the good bathrooms, follow the maps, use my game plan, eat at the restaurants I've picked out ahead of time...be in control.

I am taking the analogy a bit far, but I feel quite the same way about life. I often feel like I'm living from destination to destination. From weekend to weekend, from exciting event to exciting event, from dating to engagement, engagement to wedding, wedding to graduation, graduation to law school...I am not so much a fan of living in the moment, which sounds horrible. Of course I like my moments and I try my best to savor them, but a little piece of my brain is always jumping to the next thing.

Once I was explaining to a friend how I hated being engaged. She asked me why? "You only get to be a fiancée for such a short amount of time!" I had not really ever thought of that before, I just thought about how much I was looking forward to being Herb's wife. I got so caught up in what was to come that I failed to live in what was. Plus there is such a feeling of achievement to having arrived, having accomplished what I set out to do.

But the thing is, I often struggle to stop and savor the accomplishment; instead I look at what did or did not work and begin setting new goals as to how to do it better next time. I begin plotting my new destination without appreciating the one I'm currently visiting.

One of the realizations I keep having is that I am not going to arrive, at least not in this lifetime. My life will truly be a series of journeys and I'm just going to have to live with that. And I think I'm going to need to do more than just live with it, I'm going to need to cherish the journey more. The process is what matters, as does the product. They are both equally important, but if I don't take the time to acknowledge the process I'll be missing out on an important piece of the product. Because process and product can't be separated I need to learn to appreciate them both. (Very déjà vu -ish here specifically!)

So I'm going to really try to enjoy the journey, enjoy where I am in life, and stop living for what will be. Because the surrounding scenery can be beautiful if I take the time to stop and look around.

AFTERWARD: There's a reason it felt so familiar...similar post, same title, 14 months ago, with ironically similar sentiments to my life now. When such themes are so prevalent it makes me wonder if I'm even growing and changing. When I'm singing the same tune so many months later has my melody evolved at all? Not sure, but read, compare and tell me what you think:
The Journey

My hands

I know this may sound bizarre, but I've always loved my hands. I like the shape and size, I like what they enable me to do. And I'm not the only person to recognize their value. Herb always tells me that he loves how soft my hands are, and many others have remarked similarly. Truly it is amazing that they are so soft because my hands are rarely at rest and are often immersed in hot, soapy water. So it is telling to me that my hands are losing their silky quality.

I noticed last week that my hands are more scaly, more wrinkly, not as smooth. And I think they have become the physical manifestation of my anxious spirit. I'm trying not to wash my hands unless there is good cause (going to the bathroom, food preparation), but I still think I'm overdoing it. I've never been an obsessive hand-washer, in fact I've mocked Herb many a time for that quality, but it's a current bi-product of my anxiety. As a result, the hands that I so cherished are beginning to crack.

I think my hands are symbolic of the goodness, the joy in my life that my anxiety is costing me. Satan is trying to use anxiety to steal the things that bring me the greatest joy and are the greatest blessing to others. Is it a coincidence that my areas of anxiety are the things that I use most to bless others, cooking, teaching, the works of my hands? I don't think so. I think Satan's trying to hinder my effectiveness, trying to stop me from blessing others, trying to hinder God's handiwork. He's trying to crack my spirit, my effectiveness, just as hand-washing has cracked my hands.

But if I've seen anything in this past year, I've seen God's ability to heal. Just like lotion will fill in the cracks in my hands, God will fill in the brokenness of my spirit. He will restore to me those things that bring me the greatest joy; I will continue to be His handiwork. His hands will heal mine.

Higher stakes and broken pedestals

Yesterday was a big day for me, a big day of realizations. These realizations are difficult for me to write about because they could easily be a source of shame. But they are part of my journey, a journey I've chosen to not be ashamed of, so they find their way here to this entry.

One of my favorite topics to teach on is the loss of innocence, those key moments in life where we come to new understanding or new maturity usually through a source of pain. A common moment of lost innocence is that experience when we find that someone we've placed so high on a pedestal takes action that breaks their statuesque state. Their pedestal breaks and they come tumbling down from the lofty image we once held of them. Often this is a parental figure or a mentor or a teacher, but I am having a unique broken pedestal experience. I have tumbled from my own pedestal, on which I felt so strongly secure.

This is difficult to admit, to own up to the idea that I had such a lofty image of myself, to admit that I believed I was invincible. It is partially difficult to admit because I lecture students all of the time about the feeling of invincibility, warning them that they can't survive anything and that they must make different choices. But my invincibility was of a different sort: I naively believed that I could protect myself from the pain and consequences of life. I believed that I was strong enough to hold those hurts and stings of sin at bay. But I, of course, was wrong.

I have discovered in this journey that I am the queen of self-protection. I proactively admit sin and mistakes in attempts to protect myself from consequences, hoping that if I own them first there will be greater mercy. I do not take risks that I feel may cause me pain because I am concerned about my precious self. I do not take emotional risks often, I do not put myself into situations where I might be too vulnerable for fear of being taken advantage of. And the thing is, it worked for a while, or at least I perceived it to be working. In a sense I guarded myself from fearful, difficult and painful experiences, to an extent. I, at least, felt like I protected myself from consequences that I couldn't handle.

The problem is that now the stakes are higher. Before I could seemingly protect myself from painful consequences because I was dealing with smaller issues. If I lied, it was only about a failure to complete a homework assignment. If I didn't pay a bill on time, it barely made a dent in my meager credit score. But now these seemingly same sins have ramifications that echo on a much larger scale. If I don't pay my bill on time they could take our house. If I make a mistake a work, I could lose my job. If I don't cook food properly, people could get sick. All of the sudden (not really...I've been an adult for a long time) stakes are higher and I lack the ability to contain the consequences.

Herein lies the problem, I, the great self-protector, can no longer protect anymore. I have to deal with the fact that I am broken. I have to live with the consequences of my sin. I can't shelter or hide from mistakes. I now have to rely on God to be my protector, rely on Him to help me through (not always save me) from the consequences of my sin. I can't do it any more, my position on the pedestal has been compromised.

There's also an even bigger problem. Because I have been striving to do all of these things for myself, when I have to begin to look to God to fulfill these roles, I don't recognize them in Him. It is not that He can't meet all of these needs, because He absolutely can and more, but rather that because I have not asked them of Him before they are new to me. I am being asked to say "God I can't protect myself from the pain of sin, please be Merciful." He is merciful, but I haven't given Him the chance to exercise that quality in my life before. Thus I am being retrained to trust in a wholly different experience of the same Holy God. It is no wonder then that this is hard; it is like beginning a new exercise routine, I'm training and feeling muscles that I didn't even know were there before. They are going to get stronger, but it is going to take time.

Although I'm broken as a result of my fall from the pedestal, there is a greater peace within me. There is a freedom in not desperately attempting to protect myself, there is a calm in knowing that I am broken and that's the reality of being human. But there is a struggle as well. I have to fight the urge self-protect, to try and control consequences. Instead I have to live through them, experience them, and allow God to use them. I have to trust that God will fill in the empty roles I've left, which means I have to resist taking those roles back. I have to thwart the desire for control and concede that I don't really have any. Even though these battles will be challenging, at least I can rest in knowing that I am not alone high up on my pedestal trying desperately to ward off my enemies and the stinging arrows of sin. Instead I have fallen into the arms of a loving Father whose arms are so much stronger and more comforting than my own. And while the stakes are higher, the rewards and blessings are that much greater.

Self Actualization

Recently in Bible study we've been watching a video series called "The Truth Project". This series is designed to challenge the Christian world view and hold it against the Biblical view of the world. The idea of the series is to allow us to question how much of the world we've allowed into our faith and to realign our beliefs with what is really true. If the series sounds confusing and difficult then I've accurately portrayed it.

I've been catching up on the series and today I watched the video entitled "Who is man?" This particular class called into question more of what I have accepted than any other thus far. It's interesting because I absolutely believe the tenets that he communicates as true about man: 1) Man is dual nature (sinful and Spirit-filled) 2) Man is fallen 3) Man needs to be redeemed. Check, check, check. All truths that I accept to be true. But then he discussed the world's view of man, partially through the lens of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs.

The hierarchy of needs is a much discussed and believed principle in education. The idea behind the hierarchy is that in order to educate man's mind, one must first tend to his more basic needs (food, rest, shelter). I still don't disagree with this idea, but what the teacher did call into question is the final rung of the hierarchy: self-actualization. The philosophy is that to achieve the highest stage in life one will fulfill and act on all of their wants, needs and desires. When we studied this in college, this made sense, the idea that we've gotten far enough to not let anything hold us back from what we want to be doing. And I even "Christian-ized" it: when we got to the highest stage in life we could follow what God wants us to do without questioning. Sounds good and I managed to combine my two worlds.

What I didn't know, that I learned from this series, is that Maslow was a humanist, a group who believes man is inherently good and that evil does not come from him. So when he is referring to self-actualization, the humanist's interpretation would say that it's man's ultimate state of being to serve his own needs and to do whatever he wants to make him happy. This idea of self-actualization is seemingly the foundation of American perspective. We work hard to get what we want to make us happy; we will cheat, steal and slander to get the job we want to make us happy; we will bulldoze over the feelings of others to make ourselves feel more self-important and make us happy. But truly this idea flies in the face of what God tells us about ourselves.

Our purpose is not to make ourselves happy, but it is instead to glorify God in word, action and deed. If we live our lives according to God's will, we won't be living for ourselves at all but rather we'll be living to serve others and God. It is SO not about us because if we did what we want all of the time, if we were self-actualized, then sin would run rampant and so much evil would pervade the world. Don't we see the fruits of that already? We are plagued with poverty and hunger because those who have want more. We lose new life to abortion because women don't want to have a child. It is not about our wants, our desires, because not only are those selfish, they are a reflection of our fallen selves, not our redeemed selves.

Our fallen selves, our flesh, are in opposition to our redeemed selves, our spirit. This conflict is depicted in Galatians 5, and this passage speaks directly against self-actualization.
"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please." (v. 16-17)
The first thing I notice is that the word desire is not coupled with Spirit, only with flesh, indicating that our wants are drawn from our fallen selves. Secondly these two forces are opposed to each other so that we may not do the things that we please. God provided us with our redeemed spirit so that we might not be self-actualized. Self-actualization is easy, it's natural to us, whereas being redeemed is hard work, we must go against our fallen instincts and desires.

We already knew that we live in a society opposed to Truth. It is apparent in how people speak about Christians and God. But it is easy to forget to be mindful of the subtle ways our society opposes truth. It is not necessarily in the blatant confrontations that we could be in danger, but rather in the subversive, quiet messages delivered to us as truth, that it is easy to be taken in.

I am not at all saying I wish I had not sat in the classroom, that I wish I had abstained from the experience of learning about Maslow and his hierarchy, or that I even disagree with all aspects of it, but rather I am saying that I need to be aware and vigilant. I need to hold learned truths against the Truth. I need to know the Truth so that I can do that. I need to be Truth-actualized so that I can act on the tenets of Truth rather than the desires of self.

Simple yet profound

Lately I've been remembering how God speaks to us in paradox. So I shouldn't be surprised that lately He's showing me things that on the surface might be simple, but in truth can have a very profound effect on my life. In some ways I feel as if I'm learning the elementary ideas of faith. When my students get stuck I encourage them to go back to basics, to remember what their purpose is and what steps they need to achieve to get to that purpose. Maybe God is just asking me to do the same thing. I feel as if I'm speaking vaguely so let me be more concrete:

I sinned today: gossip, hurtful comments--sin that could hurt and effect others. It was a mistake, one I repented of, but sin nonetheless. I spent the next hour agonizing over the consequences of my sin. Who would it effect? How would it effect me? How could it change my life? I was praying over these questions in the car when it occurred to me that Jesus died not only to forgive my sins, but also to forgive the consequences of my sins. That was grace. He also can choose to alleviate the consequences of my sin or not based on what He desires for me to learn. That is His mercy.

I know it seems simplistic, this idea that God not only covers our sins but also the consequences of our sins, but it's something I had never really thought about before. The truth is that we are going to sin, by our nature we are imperfect. And there are consequences to sin, by sin's nature there are nasty ramifications. So Jesus did not just come to redeem us from our sin, but He also came to redeem us and heal us from the consequences of our sin. Simple yet true.

On my way home from dinner I was thinking about this idea more, and God took this simple idea and made it profound. I was convicted that my whole life, my whole rule-following, commandment-adhering life, has been designed around protecting myself from consequences. I have chosen to obey the guidelines God has set before me, not to honor Him and the sacrifice He made for me, but instead to protect myself. I have been self-seeking in my actions, hiding under the guise of piety. The motives of my heart have not been pure; instead of choosing to follow God by obeying His call on my life, I've chosen to obey God because experience has shown me that that is the more comfortable route, the safe route.

I do believe that God designed us this way, to dislike consequences, so that we will truly flee from sin. But I don't think He wanted us to hide behind rules. I don't think He gave us His word so that we could live a life of comfort, instead I think He intended His word to make us uncomfortable, convicted, life-changed. So perhaps my feeble attempts to feign perfection, or keep the consequences of my sin hidden or at bay, may be halting my uncomfortable, life-altering growth. Self-protection can't work when you are an imperfect human being. No matter how much I try, I'm going to screw up. And no matter how much I will them to disappear, consequences are the inevitable result of screw-ups. Thus instead of seeking God's guidelines, adhering to His commandments for my own sake, perhaps I should be doing it for the sake of His kingdom.

"Not to us, but to Your name be the glory."
Rule-following for the sake of self-protection is prideful, it is for my glory, my appearance and my comfort. Seeking to follow God's commandments so that others may know God and who He is, that is for His glory and it's what I should be all about.

This doesn't mean that we should go out and sin, looking for God to be glorified in the consequences. But what it does means is that when we do sin, we should repent and know that God can redeem even this. Because He's about His glory too, and even when we fall short, He stands tall. He is enough to fill in our gaps, to show Himself strong amidst our weakness. God can redeem the brokenness in us as well as in the others we hurt. He is a God who redeems; that is what the cross was all about.

I'm not exactly sure how this fits into my anxiety journey, maybe it doesn't. But I do know that God needs to be glorified and I need to do it. I need to stop exalting myself, trying to show others how good I can be, and instead I need to show others how good God can be. He will redeem my shortcomings, He will be glorified even in my broken, sin-ridden self. He needs me to be humble so that He might be glorified.

It seems so simple, obey God so that others may see and know Him. But the profound truth comes when we can see that there can be glory in the consequence, when we fail to obey--it just might not be our own.

Not enough

The book Captivating by Stasi Eldredge talks about how women struggle with two major lies about their identity: women feel like they are too much and not enough. While I can definitely point to moments in my life where each of those lies felt true, currently I am viewing life through the not enough lens...

I just read this article on anxiety and it suggests that one of the best ways to overcome anxiety is have self-determination and define things positively. The article suggests that when one is feeling anxious she should define herself as a problem solver and remember specific times of success in solving problems. The problem is: I'm having a hard time remembering any...

This is ridiculous, really, you should ridicule me, because my job is problem solving. I spend each and every class day solving problems, finding solutions, creating new routes around a problem, and yet...I can't see myself as that.

I don't feel like I have enough to fight the anxiety, I don't feel like I can do enough to fix my situation. Part of my anxiety is that I can't do enough to fight germs, or I can't do enough to make my classroom safe, or I can't do enough to protect myself from bad happening. And the truth is...I don't have enough.

I am not enough, but God is. Yet it seems to me that I'm also having a hard time believing God is enough. I know He's enough, but I'm not believing He's enough. In other words, I am feeling like I don't have enough faith. More of the not enoughs...

So tonight my prayer is: "Lord, I believe. Help me in my unbelief. Help me to know that all of You is more than enough for all of me, for every thirst and every need, You satisfy me with Your love, and all I have of You is more than enough..."