LOGOS Discovering Home, Cultivating Community | Fall 2016
Yale’s Journal of Christian Thought
Dear Reader,
I
n this issue of the Logos, our writers set out to explore the theme of Discovering Home, Cultivating Community. Discovering home, because home is not as simple and stagnant as a place to which we can return after we have been away; Home is a form of livelihood, alive and breathing, which we are always in the process of rediscovering and creating anew. Cultivating community, because community is not merely an artifact which can be found out in the world; Community is the product of intentional action and relational investment. We feel the deep import and urgency of this dialogue pressing from all sides as a campus, nation, and world as we grapple with questions of belonging in an ever-changing social landscape. In the pages that follow, what unfolds is an examination of stories of belonging. From investigating the challenges of fostering deep friendship in a busy and distracted world to reflecting on the meaning of authenticity in community to understanding our place in the suspension between Heaven and Earth, we, the members of the Logos, believe these questions are at the core of the modern era’s search for clarity and meaning. And so we ask: What does it mean to have a home, to be in community? What are the limitations of these ideas of home and community? And given that we are where we are right at this moment, how and to where should we proceed? Discovering Home, Cultivating Community is an endeavor which is, of course, conversational in nature. I hope that the work and reflection contained in this issue may serve as a point of departure for you, the reader, to continue the conversations begun in these pages. Without further ado, I am pleased to present the Fall 2016 issue of the Logos: Discovering Home, Cultivating Community. Sincerely,
Nicholas da Costa Editor-in- Chief
MISSION Named for the Greek term meaning “word,” “reason,” “principle,” and “logic,” The Logos seeks to stimulate discussion of a Christian worldview in a way that is relevant and engaging to the Yale community.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This issue of the Logos has been made possible in part by the generous contributions and continuing support of the Cecil B. Day Foundation and the Christian Union.
INVOLVEMENT Interested in writing an article for The Logos or responding to one of the articles in this issue? Contact Pedro Enamorado, Executive Director, at pedro.enamorado@yale.edu.
DISCLAIMER The Logos is published by Yale College students; neither Yale University nor its affiliates are responsible for the material herein.
EXECUTIVE BOARD Nicholas Dacosta, Editor-in-Chief Pedro Enamorado, Executive Director Annie Jones, Art Editor Keniel Yao, Business Manager Jessica Lee, Communications Manager
CONTENTS
02 04 06 09
11 13
15 17
Out of Eden
Authenticity!
Beauty of Knowingness
Book Review: Spiritual Friendship by Wesley Hill Abandoning Community
All the Wrong Places
Divine Citizenship
Sojourners with Purpose
OUT OF EDEN Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man. Genesis3:23-24 After many blows, and all his shipmates lost, After twenty years had wheeled by, he would come home. The Odyssey, 2.195-196
H
omer’s epic, The Odyssey, recounts the journey of the hero Odysseus as he tries to return home after ten years spent fighting in the Trojan War. His journey is a long
one, beset by the wrath of Poseidon, the god of the sea. Even with help and guidance from the goddess Athena, it would be twenty years before he returned to his home in the isle of Ithaca. ~ Since the fall from grace that set man wandering out of Eden, the project of humanity has been to once again find a home in the world. This is the tale of the hero’s journey, the Odyssean endeavor to return home after years of wandering, experiencing shipwreck after shipwreck, disaster after disaster. Guidance came in the form of scripture and covenant, providing the foundation needed for man to lead a meaningful life and pursuit of discovering home.
The turn of modernity brought with it the declaration of the death of God and man’s place in the world became destabilized, setting humanity on a quest to discover something which might return enchantment to the world. And once again mankind found itself lost, thrust into the world with nowhere to go and nowhere to call home. In the effort to find a replacement for God, we find ourselves searching for any grounding on which to begin the process of rebuilding the home that was lost in the garden so long ago. ~ Even after overcoming loss of ship and crew, encounters with sorceresses and kings, and a quest into the underworld, Odysseus’ story doesn’t end when he finally makes it back to Ithaca. As an appeasement to Poseidon, whose wrath kept him at sea for so long, Odysseus must perform one final task: He must take one of the oars from his ship and carry it inland until it is mistaken for a winnowing fan used to harvest grain. There, he is to plant the oar in the ground and offer a sacrifice to the gods before returning home for good. Herein lies the lesson of discovering home: before we can journey to where home is, we must first identify where home isn’t. And where home isn’t is where what is familiar is perceived as foreign, where a fact of life is greeted as alien, where the sea oar is mistaken for a winnowing fan. In German, there’s a word for this uneasy feeling, the feeling of unhomeliness and unfamiliarity: Unheimlichkeit. For the German philosopher Heidegger, this feeling of angst characteristic of the human condition is the manifestation of the displacement of man in the order of things, the alienation of man resultant from man’s departure from the home which gives his existence meaning. Home, then, cannot properly be understood to be a place so much as an idea. Home is where you understand and are understood, where you know and are known. Home is where longing to be anywhere at all ceases, where estrangement gives way to belonging. It’s what keeps you coming back after you’ve been gone for so long; it’s what keeps you tethered in a world so often awash in a crisis of meaning. ~
Modern man’s species name is Homo Sapiens Sapiens — the Latin homo meaning “man” and sapiens deriving from the root sapere meaning “to know” or “to have knowledge of.” Literally: man is a creature who knows and knows that it knows. This is the self-consciousness that allows the subject to conceive of itself as object. From the examination of the self emerges the concept of the other, and the possibility of relating beyond the limits of the individual. What makes home home is the acknowledgment of the self in the other, and the other in the self; it is the common understanding that surpasses differences and allows for the common pursuit
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COMMUNITY IS THE ONLY SPACE WHERE THERE CAN BE LOVE. IT IS THE
MEANS BY WHICH WE ONCE AGAIN BEGIN TO CREATE, FOR OURSELVES AND FOR EACH OTHER, A HOME IN THE WORLD. of human flourishing. And in this sense, one cannot be alone and be at home in the world. And while not every community is a home, every home must be a community. Community is the only space in which self and other meet and interact. The truest form of this interaction— in which the self does not see the other as an other but as another self, not an object but another subject—is love. Community is the only space where there can be love. It is the means by which we once again begin to create, for ourselves and for each other, a home in the world. ~ Since the fall from grace that set man wandering out of Eden, the project of humanity has been to once again find a home in the world. Hand in hand, we begin the process of discovering home, cultivating community.
Nicholas da Costa is a junior majoring in Philosophy and Religious Studies.
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03
AUTHENTICITY!
T
his was a phrase ever present in my first ever class at Yale, an English class titled Finding One’s Real Self. We ceaselessly explored how authenticity is defined in various works of literature--everywhere from Walden to The Declaration of Independence. Amidst hair-tugging writing prompts and mind-boggling discussions, the common theme that emerged in relation to authenticity was independence. For Thoreau, authenticity was found by separating himself from society and retreating to Walden Pond. This made sense, because authenticity is normally equated with
being unique and not trying to copy other people. And nothing is more unique than isolating yourself in a cabin and living off of the land. But I still couldn’t help but scratch my head at this conclusion. Of course it made sense to be authentic through independence, but what does this mean for a community of Christians who base their identity on dependence? And if we can call ourselves authentic believers, what do the actions of an authentic individual look like? We find this issue played out in Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees. In Luke 15: 1-7, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees for associating with “tax collectors and sinners.” He then tells this parable:
What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. This parable exemplifies how people are seen in the eyes of God. He cares not about the community as a whole, but each member in relation to the community. He is the father figure who drops down to one knee and looks us each in the eye, one by one. In this parable he is seen chasing the one sheep who strayed from the flock, even “lay[ing] it on his shoulders and rejoicing” when it is found. Then he calls his neighbors to rejoice with him! All over one sheep. Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard writes that, “the all-knowing One, who in spite of anyone is able to observe it all, does not desire the crowd. He desires the individual; He will deal only with the
“
GOD CARES NOT ABOUT THE
COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE, BUT EACH MEMBER IN RELATION TO THE COMMUNITY.
individual.”1 This excerpt attests that, although we are not alone in our dependence on God, we are still seen by him as individuals, and our actions are not lost among the rest of his followers. Kierkegaard has plenty to say about individual authenticity and how it relates to our actions. He took it upon himself to draw this contrast between the universally accepted definition of individual authenticity, as in liberating oneself from any external influence, and the idea present in Matthew 10:39 which states, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” In his book Purity of the Heart is to Will One Thing, he asserts that “Pursuing the Good,” as in dedicating one’s life to God with a “pure heart” that is void of any
selfish desires, is how one finds authenticity. Now, to rid our hearts of selfish desires, we must take reign of our actions and motives. Kierkegaard defines this thought-to-action process as “willing the good.” He argues that “the person who wills one thing that is not the good, he does not truly will one thing. It is a delusion, an illusion, a deception, a self-deception that he wills only one thing. For in his outermost being he is, he is bound to be, double-minded.”2 Here, Kierkegaard is encouraging Christians to have a linear mentality about their actions toward God as opposed to being “double-minded.” If we have a selfish motive for pursuing God, then we are not being authentic followers of him. Kierkegaard states that actions incentivized by reward or fear of punishment do not exemplify an authentic pursuit of Christ. The only way to act authentically is to completely focus every fiber of our being on God and act with our own benefit erased from the equation. But how exactly are we supposed to do that? Considering we are a community of Christians wholly dependent on God and are in constant pursuit of acting like him, we should look at the example He has set for authentic action. We worship a God who came down in human form to give his life for a people who didn’t care about him. We hold no benefit to God. He stood to gain nothing by redeeming us from our own sins. But He did. He threw Himself into harm’s way for others. He did not act out of fear or self benefit. Let that sink in. The groundwork of our faith is built on selflessness. For a Christian Community hungering to follow His example, we must deny our selfish ambitions and dedicate ourselves to serving others. This is the road to authenticity. To serve others, however, there must be others to serve--hence, our community of Christians. So don’t ever feel as if your actions are being lost in the crowd, because our authenticity is cultivated when we serve it. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1846. Purity of the Heart is to Will One Thing., 226 2 Ibid., 25 1
Christian Olivier is a freshman majoring in Mathematics.
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THE BEAUTY OF KNOWINGNESS
I
n the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, both of which our eyes can behold. This is our temporal home, the sensible realm of matter and void. God also created the heavens of heavens, which our other eyes can behold. This is God’s own kingdom, the eternal home of those who love Him. Because of the transgression of the first man, God deprived the sensible realm of his direct presence. In the present condition of the world, we may only see God obscurely, as through dark glass. As a result, our domain has become removed from its
end in God and has become restless in absence of its ultimate fulfillment. Because all things atrophy in restlessness, things once good and consonant have been arranged into jarring mechanisms of evil. Creation, originally clothed in the splendor of God has become subject to death, decay, and the schemes of humanity. As a result, all that we perceive with our five senses is vulnerable to tragedy. We inhabit the sensible realm in this condition. The kingdom of God, on the other hand, has not strayed from the good through which God formed it. This realm does not consist of physicality, perhaps with the exception of the ascended Christ, but physicality aspires to this realm. We can look upon God’s own countenance in this realm, and a gladdening light shines forth from his face. In fact, this light shines with such blinding brightness that
little more can be said about the kingdom proper. How, then, do we know of the kingdom’s existence? Can our eyes apprehend anything outside of the bounds of the physical? No, it is not possible for our bodily eyes to do so. However, it is certainly possible for our spiritual eyes to catch glimpses of the heavens of heavens even while on earth. Our worldly and heavenly lines of sight are at times coextensive. Whenever we set our fleshly eyes over the sensible world, our spiritual eyes can apprehend fields and fields of celestial goodness in the eternal realm. Although sin is in the material world, material things are nonetheless good because the hand of God is upon them. For this reason, we can see His kingdom set over all of the sensible realm even though these two domains are utterly separate. Because a wall of dark glass stands between us and the kingdom, though, a light must be set before the glass before we can see that which lies beyond it. The light is understanding, and God bestows this understanding upon us through grace. Many, for a lack of understanding, however, cannot see heaven when they gaze upon earth. When we are illumined with this comprehension, the heavens can be discerned from the temporal cosmos through the beauty of knowingness. When images of temporal things are imprinted on our minds through our natural vision, perfect and eternal realities are evoked in spiritual faculties. These realities are superlative, conceptual archetypes of material things, and they exist in heaven and not on earth. Concrete, particular things certainly evoke an uncanny sense of joy and profundity of spirit in our hearts when we understand them by these pristine and primordial universal realities, which are free from the degenerative forces of the world. After all, the whole material cosmos will pass away. We derive much deeper joy from trees when we look upon them as trees, and clouds when we look upon them as clouds, than when we regard them as accidental clusters of matter. When we apprehend trees and clouds as mere matter, we regard them as cold masses of atoms and empty spaces and despise them. When we actually interpret them as trees and clouds, however, we acknowledge the forms that rule over matter. These forms extend from the purity and eternity of heaven, and mold dust into images of heavenly things.
Physical light, then, is an image of this knowingness- our knowingness of the eternal realities. Light allows us to apprehend external, material things in clear and distinct ways so that we may comprehend them internally through heavenly perfection. Let this assure us, then- we can see the goodness of our eternal abode simply by looking at our temporal home. We can never, however, account for the entirety of beauty through knowingness. There is certainly beauty in the dark, moonlit silhouettes of a forest and in blackness within a dark window, which obscures all knowable forms within. Fog, which by nature muddles the distinctness of the objects it envelops, is evidently beautiful when it is set over the world. Clearly, the beauty of these things does not flow to us through knowledge of formal perfection. Rather, beauty comes forth through enigma in these cases. We experience enigma when we apprehend something existent but fail to comprehend it due to the hiddenness
“
WHEN WE ARE ABSORBED
INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD, WE WILL NOT FIND THE BEAUTY OF
UNKNOWINGNESS THERE. INSTEAD, WE WILL PARTAKE IN THE BEAUTY OF KNOWINGNESS IN ITS FULL PERFECTION WHEN SEE THE FACE OF
GOD, AND THIS BEAUTY IN ITS FULL-
NESS WILL EXCEED ANY BEAUTY THAT WE MAY EXPERIENCE ON EARTH.
of its substance. This hiddenness, though is not thorough enough to leave us ignorant of the very being of such an object; we are still very much aware of its presence. We call this kind of presence the beauty of unknowingness. We should not be surprised that beauty is manifest in this way; enigma shrouds the essence of God from all living beings, yet beauty in itself flows forth from God. Physical darkness is an image of this beauty of unknowingness because it veils us from the countenance of existing things. In a similar
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way, evil and deterioration rearrange things such that the primordial good in them is hard to perceive. Nevertheless, we can still apprehend the existence of the good in spite of this opaqueness. In this way, all existing things are clothed in beauty. All things are either known or unknown, just as all things are either revealed by light or covered in darkness. Nothing exists outside of these categories. All existents are either known in being objects of our knowledge, or unknown in being hidden from our knowledge. That which does not exist cannot be hidden. The beauty of knowingness and unknowingness also teaches us of the oneness of existence, and thus the oneness of God. All things exist by God’s essence, and all things would cease to be if they were to no longer subsist in Him. One God created and maintains all being outside of Himself, and all things accordingly exist by one existence. While this one existence is divided into many modes, we never-
“
THE TWO MODES--KNOWING-
NESS AND UNKNOWINGNESS--ARE EQUIVOCAL OF THE CHARACTER OF HEAVEN, AND THUS LEAD OUR HEARTS TO OUR ETERNAL HOME THERE, EVEN AS WE RESIDE IN OUR TEMPORARY ABODE ON EARTH.
theless always mean the same thing when we say that something exists. It would be absurd to argue that there are two existences. Likewise, beauty is expressed through different modes such as perfection and enigma, but a singular beauty shines forth through all of them. There is no beauty but one, since beauty is simply experience of the good, and all good extends from the one Ultimate Good. Furthermore, the the two modes-knowingness and unknowingness--are equivocal of the character of heaven, and thus lead our hearts to our eternal home there, even as we reside in our temporary abode on Earth. The light of knowingness is not unlike the knowable components of heaven: goodness and perfection. The unknowingness is analogous to the unknowable: God himself surrounded by His light of mystery.
When we are absorbed into the kingdom of God, we will not find the beauty of unknowingness there. Instead, we will partake in the beauty of knowingness in its full perfection when see the face of God, and this beauty in its fullness will exceed any beauty that we may experience on Earth. No beauty will be lost when the beauty of unknowingness disappears, since unknowingness only exists as privation of knowingness. Beauty only flows through unknowingness because of its inability to fully obscure the good. After the End of Days, the fullness will be set over physicality; timeless ideas will be one with tangible things and the eternal home will be one with the temporal home. The temporal will be rendered eternal. The darkness of unknowingness will pass away, because God himself will illuminate all things in complete knowingness. Let us, then, neither hate nor love our present condition in the temporal home. Unmitigated disdain will render us blind to the spiritual beauty we can discern even while in this temporary abode, while inordinate love will bind us to this decaying and crumbling edifice. Let us, then, look forward to the day in which the light of God will become our dwelling place. He Li is a senior majoring in History.
BOOK REVIEW: SPIRITUAL FRIENDSHIP BY WESLEY HILL
WHY WE FEAR INTIMATE SAME-SEX FRIENDSHIP Scripture-reading Christians have a complicated relationship with the ideal of intimate friendship. -Wesley Hill
C
lose friendship can be scary. Our dear est friends can be closer to us than our sib lings, yet sometimes we might still feel the need to distinguish our words or hugs from something that might approximate romantic love. These fears are often exacerbated in same sex friendships. Especially for Christians attracted to the same sex, there may be added concern over the possibility of falling in love and the inability to pursue something beyond friendship. This is why having the perspective of a self-identifying gay Christian, Wesley Hill, offers great insight to Christians trying to find love and friendship in community. Wesley Hill’s book calls Christians to rediscover intimate friendship as a covenantal bond and to
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put aside our fears in deepening those friendships. His decision to be celibate according to his understanding of the bible’s teachings on sexuality has led him to think long and hard about loneliness. The most effective parts of his book are when he writes about his own life and how his celibacy makes his need for friendship acute. In making his case, Wesley presents a historical narrative of how Christians moved away from an emphasis on friendship and brotherly love to emphasize marriage and romantic love. He does well in presenting excerpts from the diaries of married men and women who write more passionately of their friends than they do of their spouses, to show how highly regarded friendship was. Some of these descriptions today might insinuate homosexual interest. Wesley also discusses the historical example of regular people, but he moves on to well-known biblical examples of friendship to highlight their covenantal bonds, such as with Jonathan and David and Ruth and Naomi. He also draws on Jesus’ relationship with John and Lazarus to show that choosing a few friends to love especially well is biblical, in addition to our call to love our neighbors generally.
word gift might come across as trivializing the difficulties they experience because of their homosexuality. For Wesley, his sexuality and consequent celibacy are gifts because they enable him to devote himself to serving the Church. While the bible clearly presents celibacy and service as gifts, it says little about whether the conditions that make these callings explicit (i.e. being unable to marry) are themselves gifts.
Wesley goes on to examine monastic and celibate Christian men’s writings to support his case, but this is where his critique of friendship struggles to find a practical solution for contemporary Christians who will not embrace monasticism. To be sure, he succeeds at offering a picture of functioning, covenantal friendship bonds in Christian community throughout history. Many men in monastic communities in the Christian East, for instance, would exchange vows of brotherhood called adelphōpoiēsis where they committed to caring for each other spiritually (35). In addition, Wesley gives examples of times when friends and pastors made a commitment to care for him (still short of a covenantal bond) that gave him comfort. Nonetheless, Wesley’s honesty and vulnerability in examples from his own life and those he cites still leave the reader wondering how to work out friendships in a busy world, where people are wary of expending energy on deepening friendships.
Hill, Wesley. Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian. Brazos Press, 2015. Print.
A final critique I would add is that Wesley presents his condition as a gay Christian as a kind of gift to love and serve the church uniquely. I only find that problematic because evangelical gay Christians perceive their same-sex attraction as a cross to bear rather than a gift. Indeed, the
Overall, I highly recommend Christians read Spiritual Friendship by Wesley Hill. This well-written and beautiful book challenges Christians to learn better ways to think about loving and being loved in Christian fellowship, and, in particular, offers insight into loving friends who are attracted to the same-sex. It is a challenge to let your guard down and be vulnerable in friendship, and an encouragement to seek God even more through friendship. Finding and building community requires much more intentionality, prayer, and energy than most Christians understand, but this book should help readers find ways to enter into that wonderful fellowship in the Body of Christ.
Pedro Enamorado is a senior majoring in History.
D
ABANDONING COMMUNITY
espite being widely considered a dodgy academic practice, analyzing omissions – asking why something or someone does not appear where we might expect within a text, artistic work, or historical setting – can be a powerful tool. Generally, this practice is most useful when the analyst can assume that the work in question was thoughtfully considered and crafted, which implies that any omissions we might notice were deliberate. For the moment, assume with me that the Bible is one such work that has
been painstakingly crafted and edited by people working on God’s behalf over many years. The gospels are incredibly sparse when it comes to details describing the communities of Jesus’ disciples. In almost every case, the economic, social, and political roles occupied by those twelve men before encountering Jesus are mentioned as mere identifiers, much like a person’s height or eye color. When we do encounter fuller depictions, the disciples’ pre-existing social circles are mostly leverage points by which Jesus, in His “perfectly indifferent love,”1 renders the story of salvation in a relatable way. A classic example occurs in Matthew 4:19, when Jesus calls out to a group of fishermen saying “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”2
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There are several important factors we might consider before drawing any conclusions about the reason for such little description of the disciples’ work and communities. Most importantly, the gospels were written as persuasive, universally-applicable accounts of the life of Jesus. Thus, drawing out descriptions of people’s work or relationships would obfuscate the purpose of the inclusion of details about the disciples’ work and the fundamental aim of each gospel, which is to tell the story of Jesus and His life. However, I would argue that there is a more powerful truth underlying this omission: discipleship rearranges the priorities of the heart and, at its core, involves abandoning communities.
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CHRIST CALLS US TO RADICAL TRANSFORMATION AND ABANDON. IN THIS DEMAND THERE IS A PRESUMPTION THAT OUR COMMUNAL STRUCTURES BUILT APART FROM
HIM ARE
INCOMPLETE AND DISPOSABLE.
est longings within us for something other than ourselves. But this is really, really hard. If I’m being honest, I couldn’t abandon my family for Christ. If Jesus showed up on campus with an opportunity to follow Him, I’d respectfully ask for two weeks to consider. Fortunately for us, after Jesus ascended into heaven He instructed us to assemble as a church to await his return. While the urgency to follow Him remains, it does not necessarily take the same form of familial abandonment visible in the disciples’ lives. However, our aim should be to develop a longing for God that reassigns our communities to vital, supporting roles in our autobiography rather than plot-drivers. Paradoxically, our communities become stronger as we each individually prioritize personal faith over the worldly concerns of a group. In doing so, we share in greater wisdom and clearer discernment, allowing us to be united in the pursuit of something above, beyond, and greater than our individual relations to each other. 1 2
Consider the sudden commitment to discipleship. Jesus extends an impatient invitation to each of His eventual followers: no time to call home or put in two weeks’ notice. There is not even time to say goodbye to loved ones or to consider the weight of Jesus’ offer in the privacy of one’s own mind and time. Why is His offer so insensitive and demanding? Christ calls us to radical transformation and abandon. In this demand there is the presumption that our communal structures built apart from him are incomplete and disposable. Of course, we were designed to live in community and deeply rely upon one another for social, biological, cultural, and religious purposes. But after the disciples meet Jesus, there is no mention of their friends or free time. All of their life, including their interactions with others, takes place against the backdrop of Jesus and His ministry. Ultimately, we are made for community with God. That is the only thing that fulfills the deep-
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain Matthew 4:19, NIV
Ethan Young is a junior majoring in History.
ALL THE WRONG PLACES
W
hen I was sixteen years old, I lived next to a log-cabin church topped with golden onion domes and a belfry on the edge of a forest. Inside, the church smelled like incense and at sunrise the stained glass windows in the altar would shoot beams of gold and blue and red light across the wooden floor. To get to church I had to go out my door and through a little wooden gate, then walk past the cemetery with long rows of white crosses standing like sentinels, guarding the big double doors of the tiny building.. They would creak open heavily and I would breathe in the smell of incense and bees-
wax and make my way through the nave to the right-hand side where the choir sang, because that was where I stood. In Orthodox churches we stand. I would crack open a flaky yellowing volume published on a printing-press brought over from Russia after the revolution and begin to read: He that dwells in the help of the Most High shall abide in the shelter of the God of Heaven...under His wings shalt thou have hope... For eighteen years I went to church twice a week: Vespers on Saturday nights and Liturgy Sunday morning. The whole liturgy is sung and I could sing it from memory. I still can. I went to youth conferences and choir festivals, and even when the inevitable doubts about God set in I didn’t care, because the experience was so total and so fulfill-
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ing that I needed no heaven to justify what I was doing on earth. Not that I never missed church, not that everything about it made me happy, but it just existed in a stable, existing sort of way that nothing else in my life did or ever has, short of family. The sort of way you think maybe God exists. That was out west, in a small village near Portland, Oregon, called Mulino. When I moved to Yale my family moved too – first to Texas and then to Puerto Rico. I’ve been back, just once. Everything is much as I left it. Here at Yale I looked for another church. A Russian Orthodox one, specifically. There’s one in New Haven but they do the service in English, which is unfamiliar to me, so I looked further, to Stratford. There I found two, the result of an argument in the 50s that left a united community split into separate buildings - an absolutely ridiculous arrangement that left each church half full for decades,
“
AND I CAN’T TELL IF WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR IS GOD, OR IF WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR IS PEOPLE, OR IF IT’S THE BUILDING, OR THE SMELL OF THE INCENSE, OR SEEING DEER OUTSIDE IN THE EARLY MORNINGS
– I JUST DON’T KNOW, AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FIND OUT.
and now leaves each half empty. Three years later, I’ve gone to both of them multiple times. I’ve gone to the tall, whitewashed Cathedral in New York City and to a church in Milford with a cozy choir loft; I’ve gone to the the round-shaped austere Greek Orthodox church in New Haven and to the 30-minute service that an Orthodox priest serves in the little room with fluffy armchairs and plush carpet under Batell Chapel once a week. Nowhere have I felt at home. The Cathedral in New York doesn’t have the tall stained glass windows of the one back home. The church in Milford doesn’t sing the service exactly the same way. The Greek church in New Haven doesn’t have any food afterwards.. And in the years I’ve
been here I’ve still found no way to choose between the two churches in Stratford, so I just alternate between one and the other, looking for something - anything - to finally anchor me. But I know I’m searching in all the wrong places. And I can’t tell if what I’m looking for is God, or if what I’m looking for is people, or if it’s the building, or the smell of the incense, or seeing deer outside in the early mornings – I just don’t know, and I don’t know how to find out. My community back home had everything I needed, but it turns out I didn’t know what it was, and I can’t replicate it. For some reason, I used to have in my head the idea that as long as it was the same religion, I would feel at home in any church, that mine was a global community, the way the Jews sometimes describe their diaspora. But that didn’t turn out to be the case. One of my friends tells me that I just need to dive in and start again from scratch. I don’t really know what that would look like. She says I won’t feel at home for the first bit but that’s okay. I feel like it’s been three years of not feeling at home and I’m not getting anywhere. In the meantime, when I’m too lazy or too late or too bitter or too pressed for time to catch a ride down to Stratford, I walk to Saint Thomas Moore on Sundays at 10 a.m. and sit alone in the whitewashed sunlit room, surrounded by all the people, and think, “What am I doing here?” Stephan Sveshnikov is a junior majoring in History.
DIVINE CITIZENSHIP
T
he concept of a hometown is familiar to most individuals. Being asked where you are from at the beginning of a seminar or extracurricular activity introduction is so common as to go unnoticed. Names of villages, cities, states, and countries roll off the tongue as easily as names. Some hometowns garner stronger reactions than others. Perceptions of political leanings, socioeconomic status, or family upbringing - whole narratives can be constructed around a person before they share anything more. Sometimes these perceptions can be accurate, important, and defining features of a person’s experiences. Other times, though, identifying
with a hometown can be a vastly misleading measure by which someone introduces themselves. Each time someone asks me what my hometown is, I hesitate before providing an answer that is likely different than the last answer I gave when asked the same question. My upbringing included many homes, none of which I identify with strongly enough to call a ‘home’-town. I could list the place that I was born, the place I currently live, where I went to high school, where I’ve lived the longest or any other of the ten towns I have been a resident of. None of them would provide the full picture, and stating my country of origin as a compromise feels just as false. Often, I mumble over the question and hope to swiftly move on. Yet, at the beginning of each
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semester, I am confronted and forced to answer this question I dread. I don’t have a home, I often find myself thinking. God calls us, however, to have a different conception of home, one which all of us as Christians have access to. Jesus said, “if you were of the world, the world would love you, but [...] you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world.”1 We have been set apart for a purpose, and part of living as a set apart and distinct people means acknowledging that our home is not here. We must recognize, as Paul writes to the Ephesians, that we are now “citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”2
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SOMETIMES I IMAGINE MY
FATHER CALLING ME UP AND TELLING ME THAT OUR FAMILY IS MOVING BACK TO MY FAVORITE OF THE TEN
HOMES WE’VE LIVED IN. I IMAGINE THAT IT’S NOT MY FATHER CALLING, BUT GOD. AND, UNLIKE THE SITUA-
TION WITH MY FATHER, THERE WILL NOT OPTION TO HESITATE.
When we accept that our citizenship is heavenly and divine and not tied to our Earthly experience, we are forced to reconcile a shift in responsibility. Our identity as God’s people is even more solidified and should be reflected in a change in behavior. It is easy to fear Jesus’ call in Luke 18, which asks of us to be willing to leave “house or wife or brothers or parents of children, for the sake of the kingdom of God.” Too often, we let our Christian lives become comfortable because we do not take seriously either this call or the truth that our citizenship is stored in heaven and is not tied to a physical place on Earth. For just as hometowns can reveal instantly facets of our identity, we must consider also what our chosen hometown says of us. Have we stored up our treasures on Earth, or are they stored in heaven?3 Does the way that we engage with the world reflect our divine citizenship
status? And, maybe most importantly, are we ready for the day when God will call us home? Sometimes I imagine my father calling me up and telling me that our family is moving back to my favorite of the ten homes we have lived in. I imagine being elated at the prospect at returning to this place I held so dear. I imagine being ready to pick up all my belongings and just move there without looking back. Yet, I know I would hesitate. I would not hesitate to allow my parents to move back there, but if they asked me to sacrifice the rest of my Yale career, sacrifice the roots I have laid down for after graduation and just pick up where I left off when I was 12 years old, I would not have the same elation. I imagine again that it’s not my father calling, but God. It’s a scenario laid out many times in scripture: the day when Jesus comes again. And, unlike the situation with my father, there will not option to hesitate. The Parable of the Ten Virgins, as told in Matthew, ends with Jesus saying “Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” The Day of Judgment will come, and the Lord will not wait for us to pack up our homes and mourn the loss of the Earth, or the treasures we stored up in it. On that day, we will experience the new heavens and the new Earth as our purest hometown, reunited with the Father and experiencing the full realm of His glory. That is the place where we belong, and so the next time someone asks you where you are from, consider this: What is your citizenship? Where do you want to call home? John 15:19 Ephesians 2:19 3 Matthew 6:19-21 1
2
Stephanie Addenbrooke is a senior majoring in Political Science.
world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Considering this verse by itself, some might interpret it as a warning to be wary of the world as some hateful entity that only loves its own. But in this verse, Jesus only speaks of how the world will react to us, not how we should react to the world. Even knowing the world will treat us differently because of our faith, we still must consider how the concept of being “not of the world” should affect how we go about our daily lives.
SOJOURNERS WITH A PURPOSE
“I
n the world but not of the world” is a phrase many Christians use to convey the idea of living in this world but not letting it dictate our desires and actions. The phrase has been tossed around for a long time, but we sometimes neglect to consider or analyze its true meaning or its concrete implications for daily life. I have always understood the phrase to mean “present and engaged, yet different,” but as I grew up in the Church I found, to my dismay, that some of my fellow believers’ interpretations are closer to “trapped, but distant.” Looking at some of the passages that provide the scriptural basis for the original phrase, the importance of recognizing complete scriptural context stands out to me. In John 15:19, Jesus says to His disciples: If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the
I think it is a matter of perspective. A mentor of mine once told me about a constant feeling of being “homesick for heaven.” The expression struck me; never before had my feelings been put into such concrete, relatable words before. Whenever I focused on what society said I should value, such as academics, I felt empty. Whenever I tried to fit into community, some imperfection always turned up in me or in others and left me discontented. I recognized and appreciated God’s creation and the blessings all around me, so I couldn’t understand what more I was seeking. But when my mentor framed the feeling as homesickness, it all clicked. I had been looking towards goals of this lifetime, not the incomparable riches of eternity. Suddenly, I wasn’t hopeless; I knew the reason why I was unable to find anything that I could call home with complete certainty. 1 Peter 2:11 calls Christians “sojourners and exiles,” groups who, by definition, feel out of place in their surroundings. But why should we worry about what we personally have to gain or lose while we’re here on earth when we are heirs to a heavenly kingdom? Though we sometimes fail to grasp the weight of the concept, most people seem to agree on what it means to be “not of the world.” But tension appears when we consider what we are supposed to do while we are in the world. Some think we are supposed to remain aloof until we can return to our true home. I wholeheartedly disagree. Even when He acknowledges that the world will distrust us because it is not our home, Jesus reminds the disciples – and us – that He has chosen each of his followers. He didn’t choose us for the sake of being hated, so He must have had some other purpose. In John 17:14-18, Jesus’s prayer for his followers helps us complete our understanding:
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They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. … As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
tion to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion.
In addition to explaining that we, like Him, have a heavenly home, Jesus explains that he has sent us into the world just as the Father sent him into the world. Such a comparison is no small matter. Jesus was sent to redeem the entire world – what then might he have sent us out to do?
We are sojourners in the world, but Jesus nevertheless calls us as followers and disciples to engage with God’s creation, which He loves and has not abandoned despite its hatred and sin. Yes, the world harbors constant and abundant temptation. Yes, we are called to regard flesh as temporary. But Jesus says He has sent us into the world, not simply told us to endure it while holding it at arm’s length. He calls us to make an impact on our earthly home, while first and foremost following God and straining toward our ultimate, heavenly home.
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WHENEVER I FOCUSED ON WHAT SOCIETY SAID I SHOULD VALUE, SUCH AS ACADEMICS, I FELT EMPTY. WHENEVER I TRIED TO FIT
INTO COMMUNITY, SOME IMPERFECTION ALWAYS TURNED UP FOR ME OR IN OTHERS AND LEFT ME DISCONTENTED. In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis discusses the problem of dissatisfaction with earthly existence, taking it as further proof that we were “made for another world.” But, like Jesus, Lewis does not leave it at that. Instead, he charges us to “make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.” Lewis articulates that for Christians, time spent in this earthly home is about preparing ourselves for eternity with God and encouraging others to seek his kingdom. We are sojourners who are not meant to be satisfied by this world, so homesickness is a natural feeling, but we can take comfort in the fact that our exile is not permanent – that someday we will go home, and in the meantime our existence is not purposeless. N.T. Wright, too, recognizes just this sentiment, that knowing where we come from can and should impact where we find ourselves. In The Challenge of Jesus, he writes: Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christshaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemp-
Jesus led a life full of examples of radical forgiveness, love that reaches out to the sinners and the outcasts just as we reach out and encourage those who are running the same race as us. Being “not of the world” means we should have the mind of Christ rather than allowing our thoughts to be guided by the world. Being “in the world” means that we should be fully present wherever God places us, being Christ’s hands and feet, building his kingdom and glorifying the one who created and inhabits our eternal home. Grace Niewijk is a junior majoring in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry.
THE NICENE CREED WE believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. WE believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end. WE believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.
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WE believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. WE confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.
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