Endings

I was sitting across the street, eating a bagel, as I watched two men remove the neon sign from the front of the building. I watched as several people approached the restaurant, prepared to enter, but stopped and stared at the sight of workmen removing all the identifying markers from the storefront. The Denny's restaurant on Route 1 in Princeton was closing; I was watching the ending of a small chapter of Princeton history.

It is not that we were particular fans of this restaurant or their food, but it was the one place that was open 24 hours a day, long before coffeehouses and newly renovated campus centers became the norm at colleges. As undergraduates, we looked forward to making a "Denny's run," which involved finding a person who had a car, gathering as many people as could possibly fit into that car, and heading off to eat mozzarella sticks or pancakes at 2am. The engineers among us loved this place for their bottomless cup of coffee which fed caffeine addictions and fueled all-night study habits. Those of us in the humanities just loved to eat and welcomed any excuse to escape from campus. The fluorescent lights, even at 2am, were a welcome beacon to students who were over-achievers by trade, but who were also exhausted by the strain of the high level of performance demanded from us. This restaurant, with its mediocre food, welcomed the teeming masses from campus with its cheap eats, large booths, and hands-off policy.

I had witnessed an ending with the closing of Denny's and it reminded me that I was in the process of witnessing many endings. As a teacher, students that I cared for deeply were leaving my institution and although they often keep in touch, their departures mark the ending of a special student-teacher bond that I cherish. My daughter completed another year of school and although she is still young, I can clearly see the ending of these precious elementary school days. Two young men I knew, a former schoolmate and a former colleague, passed away in the prime of their lives...endings for which I had not been prepared. In my own life, doors were closing, bringing endings to some long-standing dreams and hopes.

But endings often bring beginnings, new and wonderful beginnings. The ending of chemotherapy for one of my dearest friends marks her emergence into a new type of physical and psychological strength. The ending of the old school year marks the beginning of a new group of arriving students and new opportunities for me to mentor and dish up my brand of radical pedagogy. The endings of jobs or school or relationships can mark the very moment in which one closes the door to the past and leaps, blindly, into the unknown future. It is scary and exhilarating and crazy. But this is life: a cycle that comes to an end, but allows us to begin anew and fresh. Even those endings in which we have to say good-bye permanently, or those endings in which we must leave little pieces of ourselves behind, still pave the way to new beginnings.

Route 1 in Princeton, New Jersey will never be the same for me. Thinking about those late night food runs are some of my most cherished college memories. But I'm waiting to see what they build in that space and hoping that this ending will open the door for me to create some new memories. As T.S. Eliot so eloquently states: "In my end is my beginning."

Anger

I've been struggling to write about anger, afraid that an admission of this strong emotion brands me as an "angry" person. I am a "glass is half full" optimist, someone who regularly doodles rainbows and happy faces in the margins of my journal. I know all the words to "Favorite Things" and I regularly dance around the house a la Julie Andrews. My life is full of "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes" and "snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes."

But for the past few weeks, a small undercurrent of anger has been brewing and simmering inside of me. What began as a small flame has been fueled by incidents large and small. I am angry at the lack of common human decency shown to others; witnessing an irate driver barely miss hitting an elderly woman who was slowly crossing the street nearly brought me to tears. When I am at work, I am angry at the racism and sexism that festers in the academy. When I am at my house of worship, I am angry at the indifference to suffering and blatant homophobia that festers in the church. And when I am in the privacy of my home, I am angry that other people are not angry enough.

Yes, I want this anger to fuel my passion to love others more, to more fervently work towards justice. The anger that Christ expressed led not to sin, but to healing and mercy. But first, I am working on accepting my anger as a legitimate and necessary feeling. In working so hard, personally and professionally, to refute the stereotype of the "angry Black woman," I left myself no place to experience the rawness of this emotion. And so now, in written words and in spiritual language, I am working with my anger and working through my anger. I know, without a doubt, that a place of healing and mercy is at the end of this process. But for right now, I am allowing myself to feel what I feel.

Doubt

Mark 9:24 contains a revelation that has forever impacted my faith: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"

I have had profound seasons of doubt in my spiritual walk. I have doubts about the uncritical theology learned during my childhood; but I also have doubts about the spiritless theology learned during my adulthood. I have doubts about the relevance of scriptural authority; but I also have doubts about the pervasive secularism of the contemporary church. I look at genocide and holocaust and famine and I doubt God's benevolence. I see war and death and torture and I doubt humanity's moral superiority. I picked an academic area of study - the relationship between slavery and religion - that created even more doubts in my mind about God's omnipotence.

When I would speak of my doubts to those in my church family, I would be chastised with clichés; the weight of these doubts was my fault. I did not love God enough; I did not read scripture enough; I did not have enough faith. There was no room in the church for a doubting Thomas, so I learned, as a child, to keep silent about my doubts. And even as my faith and my love of God and my scripture-reading increased, my doubts never vanished.

But it was the ninth chapter of Mark that freed me from this self-imposed silence. I now understand that doubt is actually a powerful component of faith. Doubt can lead us on a spiritual journey, to ask the questions that others fear to voice. Doubt motivates us to push past the clichés and seek genuine answers to our most pressing questions. Doubt requires us to be thinking, seeking, proactive agents of our spiritual lives.

When I cry out to God to "help my unbelief," I am acknowledging my lack of certainty. In that space of doubt and unbelief, I am honest about my lack of answers, my need for help, and my inability to figure it all out by myself. Where there is doubt, there is an opportunity for growth. Where there is doubt, there is opportunity for divine revelation.

I will continue to struggle with my doubts, even as my faith continues to grow. But I will no longer be silent about those places of unbelief in my life because God powerfully meets me where I am, doubts and all. I will continue to pray: "God, I believe with my whole heart, but in those places of doubt and unbelief, reveal yourself to me, again and again."

Failures

Several months ago, I attended a dynamic workshop for career women, facilitated by a female psychologist. All the workshop participants had to do an exercise in which we checked off a list of things that we had failed at doing. The "failures" among this group of highly successful women were numerous: failed classes and failed relationships; failed bar exams and failed businesses; failed comprehensive exams and failed dissertation defenses. And yet, an outsider considering this group of women gathered would have considered each one a "success" story, all currently excelling in their careers as lawyers, doctors, professors, wives, mothers, and various other roles.

That exercise has stayed with me for months, as I reflected on the facilitator's powerful words: "successful women are those who have not allowed their failures to define them." She continued in her assessment by reminding us that successful people fall down, as everyone does, but they get back up again and again. And while this was a secular workshop, I left humming the words to gospel singer Donnie McClurken's song: "we fall down/but we get up/for a saint is just a sinner who fell down/and got up."

As encouraged as I was by this workshop, I know myself to be a person who is haunted by her failures and who does not let go of them easily. I have failed at many things; important things. And sometimes people I love have failed me; important people. And while I have "gotten up" after all these moments, I struggle with not judging myself solely by these failures.

But a real moment of healing took place in my life when I stopped feeling afraid to fail. Each failure has been a learning experience, a building block in my life. Each failure has led to a new discovery about myself and about others. I've learned about real friendship, real loyalty, and real trust only because of failed friendships and failed loyalty and failed trust. And even in those dark moments, when my very faith has failed, God has always and abundantly brought me to a greater level of spiritual intimacy. So I'm learning not to fear the failures, which are simply inevitable. I am learning, each day, to focus not only on the number of times I've fallen down, but to celebrate those occasions in which I've gotten up, again and again.

Easter

I join with billions of Christians across the globe in a profound celebration of the Risen Christ. It is in this miracle that I find my hope, my confidence, and my very life. My whole being worships with an utter certainty in remembrance of the cross, the grave, and the empty tomb. On Good Friday, I sat with death. On Silent Saturday, I mourned the sacrifice. Today, Easter Sunday, I rejoice in resurrection.

Yet, as I close my Lenten reflections and embrace Easter, I pause to think about all those things that are dead or dormant within me. What dreams have I allowed to die, because they seem impossible? What hopes lie dormant, because achieving them seems improbable? What are the dead things, or the dying things, in all our lives that need to be resurrected or resuscitated?

While the Lenten journey ends, let a new spring season begin...one in which we dare to do the impossible and achieve the improbable. Let us embrace a theology of abundance, instead of religion of scarcity. Because is not this the very message of the cross? Salvation and freedom, in abundance; sacrificial and unconditional love, in abundance; death defeated and eternal life, in abundance.

My prayer is for all those hopes and dreams that have died an early death, or for all those hopes and dreams that have been killed with harsh words and lack of support...let them arise anew in you. Risen, indeed.

The Holy Ordinary (5th Sunday of Lent)

I have spent the past few weeks trying to create a space to hear from God, praying for an extraordinary move of the Spirit in my life. Instead, I have been besieged and overwhelmed with the most ordinary of tasks: dinner to prepare for my family; homework to check; papers to grade; and bills to pay. And these ordinary tasks must be done after the most lowly of tasks: cleaning the bathrooms; taking out the trash; mopping the kitchen floor; and filing this year's tax return.

Lately, I have been so inundated with work and chores and errands, that I haven't had time to think big thoughts and dream big dreams. How would I ever have my "road to Damascus" experience when my mornings were spent writing recommendation letters; my afternoons were devoted to checking long-division problems; and my evenings were spent preparing to do the same thing all over again the next day? I pleaded with God for a supernatural expression of God's presence. God told me to find the holy in the ordinary.

Now, when I do laundry, I take the time to hold a tiny sweatshirt to my face; smelling the fragrance of the fabric softener and reflecting on the little one who loves to wear her favorite sweatshirt every week. As I mop the kitchen floor, I smile at the thought that if I dropped a cookie, my floors would be literally clean enough to eat off. As I take the car to get an oil change, I take delight in how few miles I've driven and how I'm reducing my carbon footprint. To pay bills reflects the fact that there is money in the bank; to write recommendation letters ensures that future generations will continue important scholarly work; to pray with a student means that I am consistent in my witness. These are the ordinary tasks of my life. And they are all holy.

This Lenten journey has helped me to reflect on the fact that the sacred is not always found in the church building and the holy is not always experienced in worship. By purposefully setting my heart and mind to recognize God's presence in ordinary things, I am feeling and experiencing God's presence in powerful ways. What an amazing God, who is "here with us" in the ordinary and in the lowly.

Lenten Journey - Day 23 (Touch)

I wanted to give her a hug, but instead I squeezed her hand and we each went our separate ways. I wanted to embrace her and share that portion of God's love that we experience through these small acts of touch and connection. But I did not heed that small voice inside of me telling me to reach out and defy social conventions.

I grew up in a loud, noisy church where the love of God was expressed in concrete ways, where healthy and healing touch was as much a part of the worship as music and preaching. Babies were passed from lap to lap, likely to fall asleep in the warm comfort of anyone's arms. Children were caught up in bear hugs, enveloped in the smells of bath oil and peppermint candy. Kisses were placed on the elders' cheeks, on skin that was still smooth and unlined despite old age.

But those days seem long gone. Steeped in the reality of abusive, uncomfortable, and violent physical contact, we have created sterile places where no touching is preferable. We err on the side of caution, but in doing so, I fear that we lose the fundamentals of real human connection. The "laying on of hands" did not simply commission the early church; it equipped those men and women with a powerful reminder of a real, tangible, and loving community that supported their bold work.

As I continue this Lenten journey, I am confronting those places where I have conformed, those times when prompted by the Spirit, I have refused to act out of fear for how I will be perceived. It is an act of risk to offer a hug, when a handshake is the convention. But real love requires that risk. I commit myself to the power of transformative love, where healing and comfort can be known in the form of a godly embrace.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—God's good, pleasing and perfect will.