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It’s About Time
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
This semester, Seed members thought about the role of time in their walks of faith, from their place in history as Gen Zers to the granular moments of their daily schedules. What we discovered is that God is all over our calendars.
We live within the given parameters of a seven-day week highlighted by Sabbath rest. We celebrate annual holidays with rituals that are steeped in spiritual meaning. We are creatures who exist in the sacred ebb and flow of time.
But the passage of time, or rather our perception of it, can be far from linear. Time can bend and twist with amazing elasticity, allowing past, present, and future to collide in unforseen ways. In the joy of youth, time flies. But it can also slow to stagnation, making us feel like prisoners condemned to indefinite sentences— ancient ruins overrun with mossy growth.
Living within the confines of time is part of the human condition. But viewing time through the lens of faith is an opportunity to confront our temporal limits and ache for more, for a God who lives outside of time and beckons us to join Him in eternity.
As you read this issue of Seed, we invite you to ponder the relationship between time and faith. May it take you to a place of contemplation and discovery as it did for us.
LIVE A HIGHER LIFE
M. A. D.
Anonymous Contributor
IN GOD’S TIME
Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
THE JEZEBEL SPIRIT
Anonymous Contributor
Daniel Choi 05 07 08 10 12 15 16 18 20
PRAYER: A POTENT ANTIDOTE TO POLARIZATION
Yejin Park
QUIET AND UNDISTURBED Alison Yelsma
TWO PEOPLE: TWO BENCHES
Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
Yvette Shin
VERITAS FORUM FALL 2024
Yvette Shin, Andrew Lai
Prayer: A Potent Antidote to Polarization
Yejin Park
As a PhD student, when I’m not encouraging adults to play together or ghost one another, I’m busy studying how moral contexts can shed light on motivating people to care about others they can’t get along with. Yes, I study polarization—specifically, the role pastors play in either fomenting or reducing partisan animosity. A sociologist at Columbia University and I have collected a set of sermons about how Christians should engage in political conflicts, analyzed thousands of sermon corpuses, run experiments, and cold-emailed more than 5,000 churches to gather pastors’ predictions on their influence over partisan animosity among American Christians.
I’m still currently analyzing results, but based on the responses to our emails, one irrefutable fact is that a mountain of hatred and hurt
exists on both sides. Many pastors have been immensely encouraging, telling us to keep up the great work. Others, less so. For instance, one responded, “I’m not interested in reducing partisan animosity; I’m interested in fueling it. The left must be defeated.”
I’m doing this research because I feel a personal sense of responsibility to provide a more nuanced understanding of what drives polarization. But on a day like today, having received sad news, I feel like none of this really matters. I fall to my knees and weep. I mourn for the loss of a human life, a life that was far too young to leave this world. And what’s perplexing is that I had never met this person. My friend asked me to intercede on his behalf, to pray for a miraculous recovery, for a second chance at life. The tears started rolling when
I learned that he initially struggled to accept the fact that his treatment had failed. He desperately wanted to live. Only later did he accept his fate.
The past few months, I’ve been meditating on the meaning of prayer, and today’s service focused on Jesus’ prayer of submission at Gethsemane. What struck me was the humanity of Jesus; even Jesus didn’t want to die. He asked God three times for the cup to be taken from Him because He wanted to live. After three rounds of prayer, Jesus said, “It is enough; the hour has come” (Mark 14:41 ESV). Jesus accepted His fate. But through accepting God’s will, He ultimately conquered death.
While I’m encouraged by Jesus’ example, I can’t shake off this heaviness. The past week, I couldn’t explain or justify my heartbreak. This was not my loss. My friend helped me diagnose the condition of my heart: prayer-induced empathy. She said, “I also underestimated how prayer makes you so invested in someone’s journey over the past year … I think that’s how God uses prayer—and also why God tells us to pray for people we don’t get along with or don’t ‘like’—it helps us to love them more (and love them as God loves them).”
“Time spent in prayer creates a bond that shrinks the psychological distance between me and whomever I’m praying for. I can no longer dehumanize them in my mind because they’re in my heart.”
Prayer is like Fight Club. I go on my knees with my two fists raised up to heaven, crying to God with my ailments, the irreconcilable tragedies in life, my frustrations. I demand, “God, please show me how you can both be a God of justice and mercy, and allow these atrocities to befall these innocent people.” Through the process, I don’t always come away with an answer. But I’m always more in tune with God’s cadence.
Time spent in prayer creates a bond that shrinks the psychological distance between me and whomever I’m praying for. I can no longer dehumanize them in my mind because they’re in my heart. I enter prayer ready to fight, but I leave with a planted seed in my heart, a sprinkler in my left hand and a trowel in my right. Prayer may just be the most powerful antidote to polarization.
LIVE A HIGHER LIFE
Daniel Choi
Live a higher life, Don’t fill it with anxiety and strife.
Anxiety is having a naked soul, Making us vulnerable which will eventually take its toll.
Give your anxiety away, And pray first thing in the morning everyday.
Now clothe your soul with spirit, So you don’t have to fear it.
And seek the Father, As it’s not a bother.
We just need to do this something small, As He will do it all.
Photo by Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
Quiet and Undisturbed
Alison Yelsma
I hear the braillers. The clicks and slides have a way of jolting me To the present time. And place. Kalamazoo. I hear the train pass through. Without a watch I know I have at least an Hour. I hear my shallow breaths. They start to deepen and slow. I feel the sunlight on my body. It’s welcomed since it’s in the thirties. Fahrenheit.
I feel the couch supporting me in my most Cherished study room. Fourth floor alcove.
I feel sore and tender in my abs. Evidence of a workout overdone. I taste the residue of my lip balm. Blue tansy and shea butter. I taste the aftermath of lunch. Lingering red onion.
I take in the academic carpet. Earth tones without controversy. I see my phone aglow across the room. It’s ablaze with notifications. My attention is away. I smell my perfume. The one with notes of Magnolia and blue musk. I sit and leave my pen to roam. In the quiet and disturbed. I hear the sirens whirl. It’s three autumns turned.
I hear my deep breaths. 708 Broadway, in three more steps.
And I write. And I breathe.
With my mustard seed of hope.
Mutually Assured Destruction M. A. D.
Anonymous Contributor
The extortive narrative that can sometimes exist within Christianity ignites a destructive dichotomy, not only to the parties who partook in the extortion but also to its witnesses as well. Such exacerbation bleeds onto others, soiling the already sparse virtue. To witness Christianity reduced to a bargainitive leverage elicits uncertainty from my stance regarding it.
Following my brother’s spiritual fallout, my father began to forcibly press Christianity into him. The confrontational demands, acted both in explicit and implicit action, have torn the delicate veil of family repute. I have observed: religious debates where the inevitable fall of civil discourse led to destructive arguments, verbal assault where both parties curse at each other and go as far as to shout death threats, physical contact ranging from disrespectful slapping to intense full-bodied altercations where I am burdened with the responsibility of separating them.
The aggressive imposition, which riles up the non-appealable tensions between the two direct parties, provokes sympathetic resistance from me, the witness. I have been made woefully aware of my father’s shortcomings.
How backwards! Christianity has not only retracted but also has been diminished. A husk of its teaching. A pale imitation of the law of love. This display is far from the Christianity I have known. How much further will pride, under the guise of “love,” taint the family with its poisonous vices? He lacks awareness, the capability to understand that he is incapable. A misguided belief where he has disillusioned himself, believing he can thaw the hardened heart, where only God is capable of performing such miracles.
The love of the father has been made foreign; from this, how could I ever come to know the love of the Heavenly Father?
Since this writing, the intense spiritual discord between these two warring factions has shifted to an observative, albeit tentative, peace in coexistence. Faith serves no longer as a confrontational instrument but rather exists as a subtle, nascent, mutual tolerance. As witness, my uncertainty remains—not an uncertainty about faith per se but about its veracious expression in those who claim to possess it, myself included.
Two People: Two Benches
Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
A breeze passed by and touched my skin
Too cold, too sharp, too new
New and foreign: distant and closed
Closed my eyes as leaves struck my face, yet not hard enough to make me stand
An open book sits by me
My shoes can’t touch the ground, as I won’t let them
Swinging them, periodically marking the seconds pendulum counting my lingering
My eyes still closed as the breeze announces: Instinctive scent, eyes roundly open: craving for the source
Feet dangling, counting desire. On alert, on demand, at their mercy.
Somewhere: far but in sight
An occupied bench by an apple tree
Tricky twitching image, distorted by faith
Faithful in the distance, their feet rocking: What/Whose time do they tell?
My book still by me
Anchored to the bench by the weight of the words, Words knitted by two, Two needles and one thread.
The sentences became too heavy to be carried by the wind, carried by me.
Yarn over, stitch, yarn over.
No one taught me how to bind off. Is one loose stitch all it would take?
Apple tasting beckon.
Immobile to the call, yet
In phase, periodic, in resonance
Place variant, independent of frame of reference: Back, forwards, back, forwards:
Two benches half occupied.
One by the Shajarat, another by the malum
No book by them, but rather a basket.
Full of leaves, full of ways, for whom are they?
In phase, resonant pendulums
Their feet swinging as mine
Amplifying: faster and faster
Tied by time: limb to limb
How does one go against the wind?
Untie every stitch, dissolve my all
How does one remove two people from time?
The reader count was made to be one.
Rocking limbs, ticking away
Their period slows down when the apple is nearby
Back, forwards, back, but forwards scented breeze, urging me to stand up.
Close my eyes again, put the book away.
Two people on a bench
Condemned, tied, imprisoned by time itself
Limb to limb, stitch by stitch, line by line
Empty mind empty time
Holding my breath: immune to the scent
Time can tell, but will it tell?
Tell them, tell you, tell me, tell us.
Until then, when then will come, if it ever will
Rocking limbs uncontrollably on sync
I will keep knitting my book made of yarn
Keep collecting the leaves falling from above.
When the clock and our feet mark the same tempo
My words will be spoken and my eyes will be met
There will be no need for extras to tell
Standing in the middle: away from the trees
We will meet again in our own time.
IN GOD’S TIME
Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
Waiting for His timing, one can let go, Lie on the grass, absorb the sun’s glow. Let your thoughts rise, evaporate, set them free, Linger in stillness, let silence decree.
Trust in the Lord; He will call your name, Lay by your side, whisper softly the same. In His presence, let all your worries fade, Renewed by His grace, a path will be made.
Photo by Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
The Problem of Pain
Yvette Shin
People much smarter and more educated than I have attempted to address the problem of pain. Pain, they claim, is what drives us toward our good and loving Creator—God’s megaphone to the spiritually deaf.
I offer no such scholarly treatise on the concept of pain, nor will I wax poetic on the subject. My purpose here is simply to share my thoughts as one of the billions of people who have experienced a degree of suffering and now must choose how to deal with it.
This past July, my mother suffered a sudden and severe stroke, causing the entire right half of her brain to die. In the days that followed, my family and I helplessly watched her suffer physical pain throughout her body as well as mental anguish from being unable to understand where she was and what had happened to her.
During one overnight stay with her in the hospital, she whispered to me, “I want Jesus to take me now.” All I could offer back was, “Jesus didn’t take you, Mom, so you have to live on.” The words felt cruel. For her to live on meant to suffer in a body that was struggling to regain even the most basic of functions. How could I wish such pain upon someone I loved so dearly?
Pain has been asking the question of “why” since the beginning but faith has provided no satisfying answer. When we see innocent
children starving or a country unjustly devastated by war or a paralyzed woman begging God to take her away, we ask, “What did they do to deserve this?” as if pain were a commodity to be meted out by merit. In our desperation, we clumsily seek purpose in pain.
I considered writing this a few months later, when the wound was less fresh, when I’ve had time to instill meaning into this experience and present a more edifying perspective. After all, time heals all wounds … or does it? Perhaps all time does is provide temporal distance, a comfortable estrangement from the pain to remind us what faith does bring to the table—not meaning or purpose but context.
Faith doesn’t comfort us with platitudes about pain being part of God’s “plan” nor does it imbue meaning to help us make sense of it. Pain is the byproduct of a world subject to sin. The only assurance that faith offers is that in the midst of suffering, we are seen, heard, loved, and held by a Creator who Himself has endured pain.
Today, my Mom is back at home learning how to live with only half of a functioning body. I am hopeful but realistic about her progress, though my faith constantly challenges me to reach for more. Will my Mom ever walk again? Only time will tell. But I know that I have my Mom, she has me, and we both have a God who understands our pain.
The Jezebel Spirit
Anonymous Contributor
In April, political pundit and self-proclaimed “alpha male” Nick Adams called Taylor Swift a “Jezebel” in response to her album, The Tortured Poets Department. That same month at the Stronger Men’s Conference (an Evangelical men’s gathering featuring mock military demonstrations and feats of strength), pastor Mark Driscoll condemned a performance that he thought was too seductive of having a “Jezebel Spirit.” And throughout her career, “Jezebel” has been used to disparage Vice President Kamala Harris, including by televangelist Lance Wallnau who, in response to her debate with Donald Trump in September, said she represents “an amalgam of the spirit of Jezebel,” and by pastor Ché Ahn who said at a women’s rally in October, “Kamala Harris is a type of Jezebel.”
Throughout the history of Christianity, the label “Jezebel” has been levied on women, particularly to allege that they are sexually promiscuous. As pastor and Old Testament professor Wil Gafney writes, “... her name is synonymous with women who wear makeup, red lipstick, red anything.” But, as Gafney also notes, these “elements … have very little to do with the biblical narrative.” What does the Bible actually say about Jezebel, and what can we learn from her story beyond these insults that have been used to oppress women?
While the biblical Jezebel is clearly a villain, her story in 1 and 2 Kings contains no account of sexual sin. And while the Jezebel of Revelation, where “Jezebel” does not refer to the Old Testament character brought back to life but is used as an insult, is accused of sexual immorality, most scholars believe that John is employing a common prophetic trope of using sexual immorality as a metaphor for idolatry (see Isaiah 57, Ezekiel 23, Hosea 2, among others). However, after rereading these passages, I cannot also say that she is actually some sort of heroine or feminist icon, as some have in an effort to reclaim her. Instead, I am taken aback by how her sins paral-
lel ours, as Christians living in the United States. Jezebel established Baal worship as a state religion and persecuted all who refused to follow it. Jezebel killed Naboth in order to take possession of his vineyard. And the Jezebel of Revelation enabled people to participate in an idolatrous meat market. Each of these reflect back to us our own realities of living in a sinful world:
I embody the Jezebel Spirit when I fail to call out the harm and oppression caused in the name of our de facto national religion, of which I am a complicit member (1 Kings 18-19).
I embody the Jezebel Spirit every time I go home to my apartment built on stolen and unjustly acquired land (1 Kings 21).
I embody the Jezebel Spirit as a participant of an unethical economic system that perpetuates selfishness and idolatry (Revelation 2).
Instead of lobbing the insult of “Jezebel” at those we seek to oppress or other, I invite us to examine our own complicity in the sins of Jezebel. May Christ have mercy and exorcize the Jezebel Spirit found within each of us and in our unjust institutions.
VERITAS FORUM FALL 2024
Yvette Shin
On Tuesday, September 17, The Veritas Forum hosted a timely conversation about phone-based culture titled, “Hey Siri, How Do I Find Myself?” Moderator Wendy Suzuki (NYU) along with Andy Crouch (Praxis) and Jonathan Haidt (NYU) discussed the perils of technology and offered strategies to deal with its consequences.
Photos by Andrew Lai Photography
“Technology is the chasing of a dream that does not do justice to what it is to be human.”
-
Andy Crouch
When asked to define “personhood,”
Andy Crouch offered this: a complex consisting of heart, soul, mind, and strength that is designed for love. Jonathan Haidt explained that our sense of self is determined largely by our relationship with others.
Because technology fails to capture the totality of a person and is incapable of fostering healthy, holistic relationships, smartphones and similar devices create an incomplete or even false narrative of who we truly are.
continued
Phone-free nature
walks are a regular assignment in Haidt’s Human Flourishing class, a chance to interact with the world in 3-D rather than via screens.
Crouch also encourages technology “Sabbaths,” times to sacrifice the “magic” of smartphones and relinquish the implicit control that technology promises.
This sacrifice of the will is reminiscent of Jesus who epitomized selflessness when dying on the cross to save others.
Visit https://www.veritas.org for more about this and other relevant conversation.
Editor in Chief
Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
Editing, Layout, & Design
Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
Rebekah Shin
Yvette Shin
Contributors
Daniel Choi
Andrew Lai
Maria Jose Valbuena Mendoza
Yejin Park
Yvette Shin
Alison Yelsma
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There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens ... Ecclesiastes 3:1 NIV
