Beauty in Change - Justin Gill

Word

Over the last four years since I graduated college, our family has experienced a lot of change. In our plans to move to the Chicagoland area for my graduate school education our willingness to live a nomadic lifestyle has been taxed to the extreme. But learning to cope with the changes of life happened for me in the first year. Looking to save as much money as possible, we lived with two different friends in two different locations for a year. In the last couple of weeks before the move to the western suburbs of Chicago we found out our housing plans had fallen through. We were at a loss. Saving for more than a year, we had only been able to scrape up a few thousand dollars based on a particular budget for those housing plans. Housing plans that were well below market value for the Chicago area. The truth is we weren’t going to make it.

I distinctly remember the feeling I had in that moment. The moment realizing there was a dead end to my plans. There was a sickness in my gut, a nausea I have rarely experienced in my life since it is usually staved off by an over exaggerated sense of self-confidence and long-term optimism. Yet, it all fell away, and I don’t mean just my common personality traits fell away. I felt all of my work slip off the edge of a cliff. A conceptual cliff I dutifully denied the existence of even while never fully able to banish it from my mind’s peripheral vision. The years of study, the years of working multiple jobs and doing ministries, the sacrifice of so much time with my wife and the children we had in college; all of it seemed to empty out of all meaning or purpose.

It was here, at this moment, when doubt made its critical strike. Why should we be uprooting our family from our friends, families, and community? We have no jobs or means to survive so far from the security we have here in our homeland, what business do we really have there? Few people value academic work in the churches anyway so how you helping them by wasting time and money? Why is it okay for you to continue to sacrifice your family for your goals?

I am thankful that my years of training for ministry in college had given me the time to experience events of tragedy alongside godly men as professors and pastors. They each had taught me, by explanation and example, that such moments would come. Such questions must be answered—never ignored. Changes in life create moments of transformation for us, but as Christians we recognize transformation is an act of resurrection and part of the process of resurrection life is the weakness and pain of a cross. Death is always a part of the changes made in our lives in order to reach the fuller life beyond the present. Death, felt and experienced in the turmoil and pain of change, cannot be denied but must be embraced so that through it we might find resurrection.

Even more than my education, I was, and am, grateful for the communal reality of Christian life. I was never alone in this moment. Besides teachers and pastors, my mentor was a voice of clarity to sift through the options before us. Our intentional community, while I had stepped away from actively leading, supported us in our despair but continually reminded me of God’s work in our lives. They led me to contentment by reminding me of who I am among them; a leader, a teacher, a pastor, a friend, a brother.

In all of this change that was occurring, for good or for bad, whether it felt like a torrential hurricane of chaos or the shockingly silent abyss of empty space, I was still there. Surprisingly enough, even to me, I had not lost myself over that cliff. My identity was being held intact, even as I watched all that I had done and all the possibilities of the future I had worked for come to an empty end. In all of this experience with change I felt a deep sense of being with the Holy Spirit. I met him in the people he inhabits; my teachers, pastors, community, and family. Their voices were his voice. Their words were his calling to me. A call to remember God’s goodness, to seek my place caring for the people of God with the gifts he had given to me, and to recognize the work I had already been allowed to enjoy. Work which was preparing my future. The Spirit was using the pain of change to remind me of his promise to lead and care for my family, and the inadequacy of my ability to do that without him.

When I realized this change was not going to overwhelm us, and that I could trust the Spirit was with us, it was like everything changed even if the circumstances were not magically fixed for us. The vortex of chaos could be harnessed and ridden as an adventure. The silent abyss became a place of meditation and prayer. There was beauty in the change. The beauty of life with the Spirit.

Meal

The perfect communal meal for finding beauty in change is a taco buffet. Set out a variety proteins, cheeses, salsas, and random vegetables (and even add citrus fruits if you’re feeling adventurous!). Invite a number of friends and challenge them to try as many combinations as possible. Let the conversations be guided by the eclectic tastes, always asking “Why do you think you enjoy or dislike it?” People will begin to open up about childhood foods, surprising preferences, and wild tails of family recipe combinations!

Song

Black Smoke Rising by Greta Van Fleet

Time

Part of the experience of being finite beings is time is change for us. We have a beginning, and we will have an end. In the midst of the changes we experience prayer is not only a time of celebration or petition but is a time of active reflection. Reflection on the Spirit moving through the changes of time that shape our daily lives. I encourage you to take thirty minutes a day this week to use prayer as a time to reflect on the changes throughout your life and find the Spirit’s presence redeeming even the toughest and most painful events.

Prayer

Know this! Every person is either empty or full. For if the person does not have the Holy Spirit, then they have no knowledge of the Creator. If they have not received the Life, who is Jesus Christ, then the person does not know the Father, who is in heaven. If the person does not live according the reasoning of the heavenly teaching, then they are not of a sound and purified mind, nor do they act virtuously. Such a person is empty. If, on the other hand, the person receives God—who says to us, “I will live with them, and walk in them, and I will be their God,”—such a person is not empty, but truly full. (May we reflect on how we are filled by the Spirit!) –Irenaeus

Beauty in Change - Spencer Schluter

Word:

The world didn’t suddenly become so chaotic, unstable, and unpredictable. If it seems that way you were just unaware of what was going on before. The past wasn’t any better, we have just had time to weave what sounds like a coherent narrative from it. The idea of order and normality is a comforting illusion, but it is only an illusion. The reason prayer, mindfulness, meditation, and other contemplative practices bring peace of mind is that they allow you to be in the moment and handle each novel stimulus as it arises. If you seek homeostasis, which is always transient, and are upset by change you will always be upset because change is inevitably constant. Finding peace in the whirlwind of arising chaos is the escape from suffering that the teachers of such spiritual practices speak of.

We have a word for things when they cease changing, growing, renewing, that word is death. The moment you stop developing is the moment you start to die. We spend so much time and energy trying to check off boxes on a checklist that society has told us will lead to happiness, as if checking them off will allow us to reach some plateau of existence where everything is taken care of and our cares will melt away. There is always another box to check, and if there weren’t we would feel a sense of overwhelming despair and lack of purpose, not fulfillment.

I learned these lessons, then forgot them, then remembered what I had known as a young man and have gone through a very lengthy and painful metamorphosis as I try to incorporate them into my everyday life. I spent many years trying to check off boxes on the road to homeostasis, college, career, home ownership, accumulating the material possessions I aspired to own, having a child. Once I had checked all those boxes I realized I was no more satisfied than I had been at the outset. My life stretched out in front of me already preordained, I knew what I would do each week, what I would eat, how I would spend my weekends. I was 100 pounds overweight and gaining, I was overwhelmed by stress, had I continued along that path I have no doubt I would be dead by now.

 The most frustrating thing about making the decision to change this path was that I had attained a sense of contentment about who I was as a person and my purpose at a young age and I lost it. At some point on my path I decided to start pursuing the list of things society and family told me were necessary even though I knew better. I ignored the inner voice that had guided me towards being the man I knew I was capable of being in favor of chasing homeostasis, normality, and stability when I knew full well and very consciously that to do so was to embrace death, both of the soul and literally.

So now I accept change. I embrace it. Change is life. Life is chaotic, messy, unpredictable, it sprouts through the cracks in the sidewalk and overgrows walls. It finds a way, it evolves, it blooms eternally. It is by embracing change, learning to love it instead of fearing it that we grow spiritually into the beings as God intended. We will enter the Kingdom of God when we accept that God doesn’t want us to fritter away the gift of life he gave us chasing cars, riding lawn mowers, empty relationships, and a bland, predictable, grey, soulless existence. He wants us to revel in the spectacular beauty in every moment of our lives and reflect that beauty in what we put out into the world.

Music:

KRS-One. "4th Quarter - Free Throws." I Got Next. 1997


Meal:

As I passed through the crisis that ended my previous life and began my new one I faced poverty and starvation. For the period of about four months I lived on approximately 300 calories a day, while walking sometimes 20 miles a day. Over those months, I lost over sixty pounds and towards the end I became weaker and weaker. This experience has entirely changed my relationship with food. A half-eaten pizza slice left behind on a restaurant’s patio table became a welcome meal, expiration dates on food from the food bank lost all meaning. Before I was always a foodie, now it’s very hard for me now to turn my nose up at food that isn’t gourmet or expensive. It’s also very hard for me to see food the way it so frequently is by individuals. restaurants and grocery stores. Every time I see perfectly good food thrown away all I can think is that I know for a fact I could find someone who would gladly eat it within ten minutes no matter where I am in the country. So, rather than describe a recipe or dining experience, I would ask the reader to consider this sentiment the next time they’re about to throw some food away or see it being thrown away.


Prayer:

By the end of the day, make a change you have been afraid to make and observe that how you feel before and after making it.

Time:


Remember each moment of your time you exchange for money, that in turn you will use to purchase the things that ostensibly will make you happy, you are sacrificing a moment spent with your loved ones or doing something perhaps not profitable that will make the world a better place. The realities of survival at the moment necessitate working to provide for yourself and your family, but carefully consider how much of your life you are devoting to work. Your children will be grown and gone before you know it, your parents will pass away, your friends will grow distant, your dog’s life will pass by in a flash. When you look at your television or your furniture try to imagine how many hours of your life you traded for that object, how it really contributes to the quality of your life, and what you could have done with the same amount of time.

Contact:

http://www.yggstudios.com

scschluter@gmail.com, @ygg_studios on Instagram, @scschluter on Twitter

Beauty in Change - Heather Smith (Wk 2)

WORD

The last year of my life can be defined by one word: CHANGE

April 9, 2017: I lost all of the things I dreamed my life would be in a matter of days. This was the day that we decided to get a divorce. At first, I felt a sense of relief that the pain I had been dealing with was over, but I was unaware of what the next year would have in store for me.

April 12, 2017: I found myself without a home, sleeping in a house with six other people, not sure how long I would be staying. That was the day that I had to begin the gut-wrenching process of surrendering all that I’d imagined my future would hold. I was a mess, emotionally, mentally, and physically. I lived with my generous new friends for three months while I struggled to figure out where my life was supposed to go next. I will forever be grateful for the generosity of these people who had only known me for a few months before letting me crash in their house for an undetermined amount of time. June came and I managed to find a reasonably priced apartment that I could afford with a little bit of help from my parents. This was when the real healing process began. I had to adjust to a new normal and then begin to sort through the brokenness of my failed marriage.

I spent months being angry with God and confused, because this wasn’t how marriage was “supposed to” happen. I stopped going to church and became heavily involved in the night life of my town. I even reached a point where I wasn’t sure that God was real anymore. Alcohol made things feel better for a time, but I always ended up empty and sad after a long night out, usually having made poor decisions that didn’t benefit me or help me to feel whole again. My life had gone from vibrant and alive in Christ, to making foolish decisions in a desperate attempt to feel like I belonged.

It wasn’t until recently that a series of events played out in my life and led me back to Christ and my church family. A friend I hadn’t talked to in months emailed me and asked me to babysit for a church event. I needed money so I went. Not for God, but for financial reasons. Afterwards, I unexpectedly ran into another friend I hadn’t talked to in months. He invited me to service the next Sunday. I went and God met me there. My life started feeling like it had purpose again.

Slowly, my desire to go out and spend my nights up late drinking just to feel something, has dwindled, while my desire for community with other believers is back at a high point. I know that my life is far from perfect, and I will make mistakes in the future, but I can say that it is infinitely better than it was. There have been many changes in my life, but the one thing that remained constant is that God never gave up on me, even when I gave up on Him and myself.

Meal

The year before my divorce I began working out religiously and eating healthy, I lost 40lbs. One of my favorite meals to cook was chicken fajitas with a homemade spice seasoning. After I moved out of my house I didn’t cook for months; and then right around the time I found my apartment, I decided that I was going to cook a meal all on my own. I made chicken fajitas and the 2 hours I spent cooking and running to the store multiple times because I kept forgetting about ingredients that I needed and no longer had in my kitchen cupboard were so healing, and showed me that I was capable of picking up the pieces and doing life, on my own.

Chicken fajitas: https://www.spendwithpennies.com/easy-chicken-fajitas/

Fajita seasoning mix: https://www.thepinningmama.com/fajita-seasoning-mix-paleo-whole30-compliant/

Music

She Used to be Mine – Sara Bareilles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=40&v=53GIADHxVzM)

Prayer

Papa God,

Walk through seasons of change with those who find themselves lost in a sea of difficult circumstances that they never imagined they would have to face. Help them not to lose hope and faith in you as they navigate the choppy waters of change. Draw those who have drifted far from you back into your loving arms.

Amen

Time

Reach out to someone that you know is going through a difficult season of change, or someone who has experienced the joy of a new change in life. Let them know that you are there. Invite them to have coffee with you. Go over to their house and have a movie night. Have conversations with others without an agenda, and see where God leads the conversation. You never know the struggles others might be facing mentally, emotionally, or spiritually in a season of change. Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded at these times that you are not alone, that you are loved, and that you have not been forgotten.

Beauty in Change - Jill Marklin (Wk 1)

WORD

I've never been afraid of big change. Big change is fine. Big change means times and dates and checklists and moving boxes and plane tickets that are purchased in order to complete those big changes. Big changes are tangible, even if not yet defined. 

It's those little changes that get me. The teeny, tiny barely noticeable, the slow as a sloth movement, that isn't clear. It's the morning you wake up in the mirror and realize that you're forty-one, and it's showing; in that line, just above your left eyebrow and bridge of your nose. In the streaks of grey that don’t really make you look old just yet, but definitely mark you as gone from days of youth. It’s the stuff that's been with you all along, but makes you feel like it just snuck up on you.

I got married. I committed to one person with whom to partner in the big and little changes. That, monumental step I could do. The better part of almost a decade in, and the little change, or the change that hasn't happened, is the change that frustrates and scares me. It's not the house that we haven't bought, or the retirement plan that we're behind on that freaks me out. It's that I'm still learning how to communicate my thoughts without being a jerk, and constantly eff it up. It’s that the socks on the floor drive me bonkers.

I had a baby. A baby who is now almost five. And, hot damn, if you want to know the combination of feelings from big and little change, you start planning a fifth birthday party and register your kid for kindergarten and listen to her thoughts about dinosaurs and outer space. If you want to know instantaneous, enormous change, it's all there. The big, dramatic moment that heralded her existence through birth, produced uncountable moments of small conversations on cartoons and trips to Target and first swim classes. All of these are supposed to be little. They’re huge. They’re really, overwhelmingly gigantic and important. Pre-k graduation will come and go, but my kid practicing her letters and numbers will travel with her forever.

I moved back home. It’s weird. Having lived overseas, and cross-country and back home, the hardest changes back home are seeing your parents and family age, after having been gone for over a decade. Initially it was startling, when I’d visit for a few days. Now, I see it in the everyday conversations and the movements and reality.

I turned forty. Seriously? I don’t know what forty is supposed to feel like, but other than my chicken arms, slightly saggy neck, specks of grey hair and new wrinkles, I totally feel like pre-forty me. OMG. OMG. OMG. But ya. Body change is the most obvious, and it totally comes out of nowhere.

I question faith (and I’m okay with that). It kind of snuck up on me, but has been growing for years. This is not a drastic change for me, but it is for others. This is the stuff that makes people from your former circle uncomfortable.  It’s shocking to them. “How did this happen?” “I thought I knew you.” “If you wouldn’t have gone out to the West Coast.” The small moments. The moments where I said, “That doesn’t make sense” in the middle of a sermon or reading a blog or over coffee.

MEAL

When the sweet tooth calls (which is pretty much daily), I answer with a scoop of Cherry Amaretto Chocolate Chip or Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. What’s your favorite dessert? Treat yourself!

MUSIC

This is totally embarrassing (but I’ll own it), Sting has been one of my favorite musicians since I was in middle school. His music has been with me through the big and small. I go back to some of his oldest work to re-center me. What’s a song or band that you’ve loved through it all?

PRAYER

The mystery of peace, clarity and love. May we always be open to change; big and little alike. May we cherish the process of growth, in hopes of growing our capacity of loving ourselves and others better.

TIME

Where are places in your life that you see large and small changes? Have those changes been realized as they were happening? Or after the fact? How did those changes make you feel? Do you prefer big, fast changes to smaller but slower changes?