Burn Out

So classes started again on Wednesday.  Wednesday was a rough day for me for reasons that I can't entirely explain.  I'm still a little upset from being at home at Christmas, I'm stressed about my RA application and trying to figure out where I'm going to live if that doesn't work out (which I won't find out about until March), and I think I'm trying to get sick (but only being awake for a total of five hours today has helped that significantly).  And I just generally feel really, really stressed.

The theme of my Practices of Faith class for this semester (which meets on Wednesday for 4 hours...) is "Narratives of Loss and Possibility".  Quite frankly, lately my life has felt more like the loss of possibility than anything else, so when we had to share a story of possibility/loss from our break I kind of had a melt down.  Which is not something I enjoy.  Especially in front of people who are basically strangers.  But I just couldn't stop myself.

Ten minutes later we were having a discussion and someone brought up gun control (really? must you?) so of course we had to have this conversation:
     Person A: It's ridiculous that in states where there are liberal representatives but a conservative
          constituency that the representatives have to vote the way their constituency wants instead of
          voting their conscience.
     Me: But that's their job--to vote the way the constituency wants.  That's what it means to in be a
          representative government. 
     Person B: But I vote for the candidate who knows the most, trusting that they know more than I
          do and can make better decisions than I could.  (Sidebar: How can you tell which politician
          knows the most?  Please, do share.)
     Me: That's not how I vote.  If my representative doesn't actually have to represent me then my
          vote doesn't count.  Why would I even bother voting?
     Person A: So you vote for the candidate that shares your political beliefs.
     Me: Yes.
     Persons A & B: *strange looks Maggie's direction* *cue total disbelief*

So.Many.Problems.With.That.  So, from crying and blubbering to giving a civics lesson to being a circus sideshow in under a quarter of an hour...  I feel like that should earn me some kind of medal.  Or I need to be on one of those 5 Hour Energy commercials--what can YOU do in five hours.

Thursday started with the second half of Reading the World, focusing on modernity.  This week's class title was "Locating Ourselves in the Diversifying Currents of Modernity".  In small groups we were supposed to share with one another our narratives, exploring themes of modernity, and then share reoccurring themes with the class as a whole.  The resulting class discussion was a lot of "options for social mobility", "individual freedoms", "rationality and reason", "geographic relocation from ancestral roots" kinds of things, but the overarching theme was moving from agrarian to urban settings, with agrarian playing the part of lesser/antiquated in contrast to the salvific nature of modernity.

And I sat in the back of the room trying desperately to control myself.  I was actually shaking.  My story is exactly the opposite of that, and I don't feel particularly antiquated.  In fact, I think I do a pretty good job of embodying the above mentioned themes of modernity, as do my rural-dwelling relatives.  I don't like rocking the boat [mostly because I have found that people here aren't interested in having their ideas challenged (if you already know everything would you please go home and let the rest of us get on with learning?) and won't enter into a meaningful, calm discussion; the resulting angry barrage is not worth it to me.], but after listening for a half hour to the virtues of modern urbanity as opposed to the backwardness of rural, agrarian life I just couldn't be quiet.

"I have a problem with the way we're characterizing agrarian life as antiquated.  I was born in LA.  My dad owned a plastering business.  He chose to sell that business and buy a dairy farm in Missouri, where I was raised.  If we're looking for themes of modernity, I suppose that demonstrates his social and geographic, as well as individual, freedom to live life as he chose." At this point one of the professors interrupts me and says, "But you chose to leave."  "Yes, but I plan on going back.  We're calling agrarian culture lesser, but we all eat.  And if you think about it, corporate (modern) agriculture has its own share of huge problems.  I clearly don't have all of the answers, and haven't thought this through to a full conclusion, but I'm not comfortable with the way we're vilifying agricultural society."  I'm sure I wasn't quite that eloquent verbally, but that's what was going on in my head, and it's a reasonable facsimile of the exchange.

So in the discussion that ensued, one professor totally missed what I was saying, one professor had moderately helpful things to say, and the third one was completely with me and was able to more fully flesh out what I was saying.  Yay!  So, come to find out, the desire to return to tradition, appreciation of things prior to modernity and other such things are hallmarks of post-modernism.  Way to be post-modern, Dad.  You know, before the hipsters ruined it.

The point of all of this (I know what you're thinking, "There can't possibly be more--surely that WAS the point.") is that, what with all the dissenting opinion having and talking and stuff, I'm feeling a little burned out.  I kind of feel like I have to bring a little of the real world to the East Coast.  Not that they're clueless or backward or anything, but they really have no concept of what life looks like outside of their LL Bean clothed world.  A couple of months ago I saw a sign at Trader Joe's that said, "You know your from Boston when you think of anything west of Philadelphia as The Midwest," which is funny but sadly true.  And at times I very much feel like Jane Goodall, but I hope to get out before they turn on me.

But I find when I'm burned out I come across something, like this advent sermon, that makes me feel better and less alone:

"I mention all of this because right about now that sounds like good news, beccause I am tired of our story.  I’m tired of rationality and political posturing and over consumption and a world in which the tyrants seem to still be on those thrones. I’m tired of my own self-righteous notion that I am not one of those same tyrants. I’m tired of shootings and culture wars and genetically modified food.  I’m ready for God to show up with God’s impossible story.  I’m ready for some magic.  To be enchanted again.

But this week I started to wonder if I miss noticing God’s reality of the impossible and the unlikely because instead I’m focusing on the important.

Because I think we often miss that God is incarnating the impossible among the unlikely because we are busy with whatever seems important to us instead.  And I wonder if this is the same way people missed it in first century Palestine.  Perhaps they were so busy at their prayers, that no one noticed God walking among them because God was inside the womb of an insignificant peasant girl rushing to the hills to visit her kinswoman and that’s not the kind of thing you pay attention to when you have important things to do.

But this is how God moves through the world – like how Mary is making haste.  She is quickly walking by us still.  Hastily passing us disguised as our children asking us to play and in the street worn man on the corner whose eyes I am trying to avoid and in the woman who just made my coffee and Mary is walking briskly carrying the Christ within her in more impossible and unlikely ways than we can possibly take in.  This is God’s story. And it is all around us. And the impossibility of it all is exactly what continues to enchant this world of ours in things we think are just ordinary.

We see the impossible all the time, you know,  we just think that if we can come up with a suitable and rational explanation: scientifically, psychologically or sociologically then it’s not really something God is doing.  But that is just the hubris of a modern age.

So I dare to say this as this is the only Christmas sermon I get to preach this year:  you brothers and sisters, you are an unlikely people of the impossible.  We see the impossible work of God all around us."

"To be enchanted again."  What a thought.  So.  In a place where there is so much that is important going on, I'm going to do a better job of looking for God.  It makes me a little sad that in seminary (and this one is the only one I can speak about) what is important and what God is doing aren't the same thing, but maybe that's something I can change in some small way.  If not for anyone else, then for me.

On the upside, I've been absorbed into The Collective.  Don't worry, it's not a communist plot.  It's just a group that takes turns cooking dinner.  I made vegetable pot pie for dinner last night which was good.  And I've been having discussions outside of class with people who aren't crazy or unthinking, which is a nice change.  And I got two really nice compliments related to my comment in RtW and two really nice unrelated compliments.  And it's a three day weekend.  And I'm going to a new UMC church tomorrow (which is a good and sad thing because I'm really going to miss mass).  And we're going to the art museum on Monday.  AND MY GLASSES CAME!!  So there are good things too.   If only I look for them in the midst of everything else.

Message received.  Lesson learning in progress.  Abundant grace appreciated.