“No one ever told me grief felt so like fear.” So begins CS Lewis’ haunting account of the grief surrounding his wife’s death. Lewis had a knack for describing the human condition and his observation of his own emotional life in the midst of loss is as compelling as it is disturbing. Compelling because it gives words to the often-nameless feeling of grief and disturbing because it speaks to that which we would often rather go unspoken.

Why does grief feel like fear? Perhaps because in many ways grief is, or at least contains fear: fear of death, fear of life on the other side of tragedy, fear of more loss and pain, fear of our shaken beliefs, and fear of this brave new world that stands before us in the face of grief. In the world that existed before our grief faith feels almost like breathing: an act of the subconscious. The Church and its prayers slide into our comfortable and happy lives and become something of a monotony. Lewis captures the feeling accurately:

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels — welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?

The silence is most concerning. I would like to hear something, anything, a word of judgement seems more comforting than the silence. Silence feels like indifference and that will not do. Perhaps that is the greatest fear of all: that all of our suffering, all of our grief, all of our pain, is not the source of some cosmic evil, or the righteous judgement of God, but a cosmic shrug from some unknown corner of the universe that cannot seem to be bothered with the day to day concerns of my life.

Perhaps Lewis, had in mind a poem by De La Marre, “the Listeners,” if he didn’t, he should have.

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:—

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

“Tell them I came, That I kept my word,’ he said.” Grief feels like betrayal.

Betrayal might be the right word for what the disciples felt on Holy Saturday. Betrayal of the future they had planned and the end of a world of love without pain, life without death, and joy without sorrow. Betrayal, how could Jesus just leave them? The question is self-serving, they always are in the midst of grief. The question of John’s disciples seems right: “Are you the one or should we look for another?” Faith in the midst of grief feels like a deeply labored breath—like each one might be your last. Perhaps this is what faith looks like before Easter. Perhaps that’s what faith is in the Holy Saturday we all inhabit between that first Easter and God’s Eastering of all things. If that is so then perhaps the labored gasps of faith might just be enough to carry us through.

Our lives, addressed to you,

have this bitter-sweet taste of

loud-clashing miracles and weak-kneed doubt.

So we come in our bewilderment and wonderment,

deeply trusting, almost afraid to trust much,

passionately insisting, too timid to insist much,

fervently hoping, exhausted for hoping too much…Easter us.

Walter Bruggemann, Easter Us

But on the other side of fear and grief comes Easter. Where the old stone idols of safety and control have been knocked down and replaced with a risen Lord. Then comes Easter where God meets us again anew. Then comes Easter where sorrow turns to joy. Then comes Easter where death is swallowed up in victory. Then comes Easter “where everything sad becomes untrue.” Then comes Easter.

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him… A really good [painting] might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle. Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference whether they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images — sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not.

Perhaps in being shattered we are some how made whole. Is this not the way of the cross? My faith is not lost, it just looks different now, I wait for Easter. I’ve seen enough Fridays. I’m ready for Easter. Easter us, Lord, come quickly.

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April 8, 2020

Suffering with the Hymn Writers by Alex DaCruz

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April 8, 2020

Suffering with the Hymn Writers

I was not prepared for this. A worldwide epidemic has never really crossed my mind as something that I would live in. It seems so distant—so removed from American, western affluence and prosperity. Current cultural stories of “finding myself”, “letting it go”, and “being true to myself” are invalidated when tragedy and suffering strike. Sadly, much of the mainstream, evangelical church in the United States has not set us up well to encounter suffering, especially related to the songs that we sing. As a preface, this writing is not meant to disparage all of contemporary Christian music. There are many of those who have written beautiful and theologically sound contemporary music for the church (see Keith & Kristyn Getty, City Alight, Sandra McCracken, Audrey Assad, The Porter’s Gate, and countless others). What I do believe, however, is many of the mainstream, Christian songs we sing disallow a wider spectrum of human emotion and struggle, in contrast to many of the emotionally diverse, theologically and Biblically rich hymns of old.

My mentor and RUF Campus Minister in college, Kevin Twit, used to say that so many of his students would arrive at college trying to return to a mountaintop experience he/she had at middle school camp. Those words pierced my soul the first time I heard them as I knew that he was describing me. I was that sophomore student, who had recently transferred to Belmont, who had struggled greatly my first year of college and was looking to return to the pique of Christian experience, which for me meant unceasing excitement and positivity. But, that was not how I felt. I was sad, depressed, unmotivated, and searching for answers. I do not and will not remember everything that Kevin preached, taught in a small group, or spoke to me one-on-one, but I will always remember the hymns that we sung.

These hymns are ones that, unlike Ron Weasley as described by Hermione Granger, do not have the emotional range of a teaspoon. I could sing the words of Anne Steele, “Dear refuge of my weary soul, on Thee, when sorrows rise, on Thee when waves of trouble roll, my fainting hope relies.” I could also plead, as we are all doing now, to “Heal Us Emmanuel…Our faith is feeble, we confess, we faintly trust Thy Word; but will you pity us the less? Be that far from you Lord!” This hymn in particular, written by William Cowper as a part of the Olney Hymn collection was meant to be a memorial of the friendship between John Newton and William Cowper. There are many layers of healing here. John Newton fought diligently to combat the slave trade, so there is a sense of societal justice. William Cowper also was incapacitated by mental illness during the collection of the Olney hymns.

Today we can sing this hymn as we grieve and lament over the death of loved ones and strangers all around the world, and the millions of people who are unemployed and cannot support their families. We can sing “Heal Us, Emmanuel”, and like the Psalmist in Psalm 13, cry out “How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” Those are scary words to sing and pray, but I love how this Psalm ends with the Psalmist writing, “but I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.” Lament and grief are not incompatible with faith and joy. We see that both through the narrative and contents of Scripture and through so many of these wonderful hymns. Therefore, lament and weep this week, this Holy Week, while rising with the greatest news in history on Sunday Morning that Good Friday was not the end. Rise and proclaim the beautiful gospel truth that Christ is risen; He is risen indeed!

Here is a great playlist to listen

RUF UNF

January 19, 2017

Why college students should study theology

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January 19, 2017

by Daniel Davalos

When you hear the word, "theology," what image comes to mind? Do you think of a bunch of old white dudes stroking their long white beards as they compete to come up with the most obscure concepts possible? Do you think of stuffy college professors who are overeager to flaunt their intellect? Or maybe you think of that guy down the street who brews his own beer and who wouldn't be caught dead reading anything whose author is still alive.

For many, the word "theology" is as uninviting as a blogger telling people how to live their lives; perhaps the concept itself seems inaccessible, maybe even useless. Why get caught in the seemingly labyrinthine constructs of theological frameworks that oftentimes leave you scratching your head, wondering if maybe theologians should spend less time describing God and more time experiencing him?

What if I told you that theology can actually be vibrant--that studying the attributes of God can help you see different aspects of your Creator--that studying theology can be beneficial to your walk with the Lord? What if I told you that, even just by interacting with God and forming conclusions about him, you've already developed theological constructs without even knowing it? What if I told you that, second only to actually reading Scripture, studying theology during your college years can be one of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself as a young Christian?

Below are three of what I consider to be the main reasons why college students should study theology.

1. Theology gives you a framework within which to get to know God.

My own experience with theology is one of wonder and excitement, and not of a deadening of faith or a reduction of God to neat concepts and ideas. If you think about it, getting to know God is inherently a daunting task--he is, after all, the infinite Creator and Sustainer of all things. Furthermore, the Word of God, the Bible, gives all we need to know about God and his relationship to us. But if we are fervently seeking to know the Lord, then perhaps we ought to look at how Scripture speaks about God and his relationship to his people. Reading a book that was written over the course of thousands of years by various different people will gives us multiple, true perspectives of who God is, but studying theology helps us put all those perspectives together so that we may start to grasp a more full, more vibrant understanding of God and faith. The caveat here is that theology is not Scripture, but good theology is rooted and affirmed by Scripture, and the best theology is nothing but a synthesis of what Scripture says.

2. Studying theology allows you to interact with a vibrant, historical Church.

There are many reasons why we go to church on Sundays, but one of them is the opportunity to interact with and worship alongside believers of all ages and walks of life. The Scriptures afford the Christian three avenues of growth: the Holy Spirit, the Bible itself, and the church. Think about it--when you're facing problems or issues it is not uncommon to talk with other believers, perhaps even to seek counsel from a pastor or elder. Studying theology is like doing that, except you're interacting with the Church Universal that spans over centuries. By reading the thoughts and understandings of Christians who have come before you, you are being a good steward of the wisdom and resources that have been inculcated in the Christian community for over two thousand years. Are you struggling with sexual sin? Augustine has some good words for you. Do you ever wonder about God's revelation of himself in nature? Consider reading some Calvin. What should a Christian do in the face of institutional evil? Certainly Bonhoeffer might be able to direct your thoughts.

3. Studying theology helps direct your understanding of culture.

There is nothing new under the sun. Especially on a college campus, where alternative ideas abound and threaten to shake your faith, studying theology can give you a framework for how Christians in the past have accepted or rejected ideas from culture. Many of the modern challenges facing orthodox belief are not so new, and it helps to see how the Church has historically addressed such things as gnosticism, arianism, and more. Furthermore, theology can also shape how you view the world around you--should the Church embrace certain cultural tendencies? If so, which ones? How do we maintain the integrity of the orthodox Christian faith while adapting to changing times? How do we contextualize our hope in Christ to our college campuses, our communities, and our world? How do we approach missions, evangelism, service, and the way we worship? The way you answer these questions is directly influenced by your theology--that is, your understanding of who God is and how he relates to his people.

The three reasons stated above are not an exhaustive list, but they are a launching point. I hope that you will be inspired to study theology, to sharpen your mind, and to fervently test what you learn against Scripture. What you learn about God may surprise you. If you want to find a well of resources, check out our recommended literature.