Journal Entry 6
February 21, 2008
I need a vacation. Good thing we are only a week away from spring break. Of course spring break is not just a time of rest, but hopefully a chance to catch up on some things that I have fallen behind in. One thing I will not catch up on is my TV watching. In Formation in Personhood we are discussing spiritual disciplines. In correlation with lent we discussed what it means to fast. As Wendy Miller described to us, part of fasting is to find something that we feel we cannot do without and instead of partaking in that thing we look to God to complete us as we truly need. Traditionally we think of fasting as going without food. We feel that our bodies need food, and to an extent they do, but we also can withhold from food for a while and look to God to satisfy our hunger with his goodness and presence. In my life watching TV can seem like a necessity. If I have a little time between things I will turn it on, or if I am working at something else I will turn it on in the background. In addition, if I am bored or frustrated TV becomes my outlet. So I decided to give up watching TV and use the times that I would want to watch to instead pray or read. It has been two weeks now and I really don’t miss it that much. It is freeing to have more time to study or work on other things that need completing. Instead of trying to finish something quickly so that I won’t miss the show I want to watch, I am free to continue working and not feel pressured. There are moments that I really just don’t feel like doing anything constructive. Those are the moments that it is difficult to go without. I guess those are the moments that it feels most like a fast.
I have also been challenged lately by the class The Church in Mission. We have been talking about contexts and searching the scripture for how to speak to our contexts. As an RD at EMU I feel like I am in the mission field. There are students who come from all sorts of backgrounds and several of them are not Christians, or at least not portraying Christ. How do I relate to the context that they are in? Surely at a Christian campus we are often reminded of God. So how do I make it real to those who have not yet found Christ? Sometimes it is difficult to even want to try to figure it out. It is not easy. And when my mind is swimming with Greek participles, the Church in Corinth, Calvin’s notion of calling and God’s mission in the world, there doesn’t seem to be much more room to think. I feel like Paul in the book of Romans, “What a mess I am, who can save me from this confusion? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (My loose paraphrase.)
--Adam Houser
