the secret gnostics

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."

This quote, attributed (probably falsely) to C. S. Lewis, is the best summary of American Evangelical Dualism I've found.

Yes, we are physical, but that's only temporary.
Yes, we have a physical existence, but that's our "mortal coil" which must eventually be shuffled off in order to find freedom.
Yes, we appear to be physical in nature, but that's the very residue of original sin, the simultaneous evidence and petri dish of depravity.
Yes, we have physical bodies, but we would be holier without them.

If you were raised in an American Evangelical church, these statements probably don't sound that absurd to you. To tell the truth, they still don't sound absurd (or even outrightly false) to me.

But they are false.

If they are true, God declared something good that was not (Gen 1:31).
If they are true, Jesus became sinful on account of being human (John 1:14).
If they are true, the apostles were irresponsible in their priorities (James 2:15-16).
If they are true, it's kind of an insult to refer to the Church as the Body (1 Cor 12:12-27).

And if you were raised in an American Evangelical church, I hope you know immediately that these things are absurd and outrightly false. They cannot be.

We deny, even adamantly reject, these obviously-heretical ideas. But we all the same embrace, even promote as essential truth, teachings that stand on the same logical basis.

We say that the desires of the body must be not only kept under control, but disregarded and discounted.
We say that the position of the body has no influence on the quality of our prayer.
We say that the shape of the body causes sin.
We say that the actions of the body are meaningless except when connected to deep, fervent, and above all pious affections.

I wish I could believe those things. They are nice and comfortable thoughts. They cut out the necessity to look at and understand a part of myself which, despite being the most immediately obvious to everyone around me, is still mysterious to me. They allow me to leave it a mystery because it is inherently bad, sinful, etc, and to engage with it would be to fraternize with the enemy.

Yes, my body is my enemy.

Imagine my shock when I realized that, not only do I have a body, I am embodied. And not only am I embodied, but I will be so for eternity... that is, if I believe that stuff about "the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting."

This is also when I realized that this makes me really uncomfortable. It is engrained in the way I see myself and the world to think that the physical and emotional is lesser, the spiritual and mental is greater.

I am one of the Secret Gnostics. Our heresy is so deeply hidden within ourselves that we ourselves don't see it.

But now I've seen it.

Can I even read all of those parts of the Bible that talk about "the flesh" as referring to anything other than my body, anymore? And what about all of those statements? Those things I've always believed about the desires of the body, the body and prayer, modesty, and the use of physical action? Thats 20+ years of thinking to re-think.

The hardest part is this: my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
And this means that I should not only be grudgingly reconciled to my physical nature, but joyful in it.

I was glad when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the LORD!” (Psalm 122:1)

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple! (Psalm 65:4)

I can no longer be a Gnostic, Secret or otherwise.

hello again.

I ought to be cleaning my room right now. It has not been cleaned in a Lot of Days.
I ought to be cleaning my inbox right now. It has not been cleaned in a Lot of Months.
I ought to be reading something edifying.
I ought to working on my embroidery project.
I ought to be researching for my thesis.

Buuuuutttt I promised Riley that I would do my verybest to write 10,000 words in the month of July, and it is now July 8, and I have written approximately zero (unless we are counting emails, texts, and Facebook messages).

The truth is, I haven't written much of anything in English since I wrote my last Russia blog post a month and a half ago, and I haven't written anything very thoughtful/intelligent/halfway-academic since all of those final papers in December.

This is not to say that the thing I am writing right now is very thoughtful/intelligent, but it is meant to set me on a sort of trajectory. To set out a goal, at least, because I love goals and can't really function without them.

This summer I do not plan to write essays about/inspired by every book I read. My reading is far too scattered (and my reactions too embarrassing) for that to work out now. The focus of this summer is a little different, anyway. I'm at school, working five part-time jobs, surrounded by people I love and within not-too-distant reach of other people I also love, and most of all trying to find a suitable bridesmaid dress. You would be surprised at how much time and emotional energy the latter pursuit demands. But none of those are truly good subjects for blog posts, so I'm looking a little deeper, and also higher: God.

Okay, most likely theology.

There is a difference between writing about God and writing about theology. The first often is theology, as it is "a study of God," but to write about theology would have to be something like theologyology, or "a study of studies of God."

Currently, I am reading a good bit of theology. Some Tim Keller here. Some John Calvin there. Some Catechism of the Catholic Church on the side. And everywhere I look I am confronted with and fascinated by the way people understand God, and the way that understanding changes them.

And that, dear readers (if you are existent anymore), is my plan for the next few weeks. I will probably not get to 10,000 words, which is okay, but I might get a handful of useful ones out, and that will be good at least for my thinking if not for anybody else's.


Topics on the Dock:

• The flesh. Because I seem to have it.
• Modesty. That is, the virtue.
• Prayer. Especially the extemporaneous kind.
• (whatever comes next in The Institutes)

5 things to do when snowed in at a hotel

You would think this is an uncommon occurrence.

No, this is the second time in 13 months that I have experienced being stuck inside one of these sprawling buildings without pantries, any rooms to call my own, and most of the "stuff" that normally inhabits my life.

Last time we were moving from Maryland to Ohio, and we knew we'd be in a hotel for a week, but we didn't know there would be a blizzard.

This time it's just my dad and me. We've been trying to get home from my uncle's wedding in Iowa for almost 48 hours now... 48 hours that have taken us through 3 hotels and 275 miles. And almost all of those miles were in the first 4 hours. We've been here a bit west of Chicago since noon yesterday, all of the roads in Indiana are closed, it's well below zero (Fahrenheit!) outside, and we're getting a bit antsy.

So, here: Things To Do When You're Snowed In At A Hotel.

1. Eat frozen custard. We did this. Twice. It's so good. It's warm enough inside that it's acceptable, while cold enough outside that it feels like an adventure.
2. Watch Sherlock. I introduced my dad to the show. We've watched two episodes so far; I think we'll watch the third one tonight.
3. Embroider. Good thing I brought my craft bag with me. My bed is a mess of thread and needles... hopefully I won't get poked during the night.
4. Do laps. When one has been sitting for 24 hours, it might be time to walk. When there's a windchill of -40, it might be time to stay inside. Thus: laps. Hallway, stairs, hallway, stairs, repeat.
5. ...while reading. Ever wanted to perfect your simultaneous-walking-and-reading skills? Now is the time. (And if you, like me, perfected this skill as an elementary school student walking home from the bus stop, it's just good fun.)

If you have any other ideas, please tell me. To the best of my ability, I will do all of them.

vagabond

Well.

It is true that the intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. And my body is no longer forced to stay home, or at least it won't be, a month from now.

Because I'm going to Russia! wow. finally. how? good question.

But I'm keeping another blog dedicated solely to Russia-things, so that I can share it with family/professors/academia more freely.

So. Please check that out if you want to know what I'm thinking about/doing/etc as regards Russia! I'll probably continue to post un-Russia-related things here.

До свидания!

in which Katie is absurdly easy to shop for

For Christmas this year, I told my family I really only wanted two things: interesting books (because I always want those) and socks (because I've worn holes in all of mine).

Let me tell you something... when you ask for socks for Christmas, you are setting yourself up for buckets full of joy. I ended up with 7 pairs of socks, and I'm thrilled. Wow. I love socks.

But that's not the great part. Here, enjoy a picture of my two favorite finds from this Christmas:

Yes, that is a biography of C. S. Lewis (endorsed by Eric Metaxes, Tim Keller, N. T. Wright, and Michael Ward... so basically guaranteed to be great). Yes, those are socks that look like sheep wearing purple hairbows. Yes, so far I like them both equally.

AND WAIT THIS IS THE ACTUAL BEST PART. I have those lovely, fuzzy, perfect sheep-socks in duplicate. Because not only did my sister get me a pair, but so did my Nana.*

Am I really that easy? I guess so. But seriously, I have sheep socks (and a Lewis biography).

Merry Christmas, friends. And may we all always be thrilled to receive socks for Christmas.

*I traded one pair with my sister for some equally soft snowman socks. Because it was only fair. So I'm down to only one pair of sheep socks.

Advent & fullness

Hey friends.

3 months later, I am back. I'm "home" now, which means less busyness and more posts.

This is a reflection I gave at ISI Christmas a few weeks ago. You may notice I stole a few sentences from another post earlier this year, but this is a different context, and I can do whatever I want with my own intellectual property, right? :)

***

Recently I’ve been struggling a bit with something. It’s this ineffable desire, a longing, a yearning… and a lot of times on the way out it phrases itself as “I want to be perfect.” It says, “I want to be loved, and I want to be worthy of love.” Like Eve in the Garden, it sighs, “I want to be like God.”

This is difficult for me because I am not perfect, and the end of the semester makes that abundantly clear. Everything is stressful, no one is sleeping enough, I can’t produce the kind of quality work I think I ought to, and there is a large number of things I need to do to prepare myself to live in Russia for 6 months that I just can’t seem to do on time. My desire, my longing, my yearning gets desperate this time of year, and I’m sitting in the middle of it right now, and there’s not much I can do to satisfy myself.

But if there’s anything Advent is good for (hint: there is a lot of things Advent is good for), it’s remembering that longing is a part of life, and that our yearnings often are, unbeknownst to us, ones placed there by God to lead us to Him. And so I sing with full conviction, O come, O come, Emmanuel. Come.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Christmas is, at its core, about the Incarnation of God. When God came. When we celebrate “Jesus’ birthday,” we are celebrating the day that the Word became flesh, the day that God became Man, the day that the infinite became finite… and not just finite, but really, really small, and probably a little red-faced and crinkly too. It’s a mind-boggling image.

But maybe even more baffling is what the passage from John says here about the Incarnation. When the Word became flesh, we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth. And from His fullness we have all received.

Friends. We saw God’s glory. And God’s glory is full to the brim with grace and with truth. And then we received that fullness. When God became human, he shared with us out of the immeasurable abundance of grace and truth that are inherent to God.

What exactly does it mean, though? What does it look like for us to receive of the fullness of God?
Let’s look at Mary. She was the first, the original, the prototype of what John is telling us about. For months before anyone else knew she was even pregnant, Mary knew Jesus Incarnate.

And this is why Mary is admirable, why so many people love and revere her, probably why the University I attend is named after her: not because she worked extra hard to be extra holy, not because she followed all the rules, not even because she behaved admirably under the stress of being pregnant without being married. No, it’s because of what she had inside of her: Love. As in, the Person, in-the-flesh Love who also happened to be God. Jesus.

Mary carried the fullness of God within her. All of Who God is lived inside of her.

And friends, we’ve been offered that same thing. Can you grasp that? Do you understand what that means? It means that, in much the same way as God lived inside Mary, He is willing to live inside of us. He is Love, and He offers Love to become Incarnate in us as it did in Mary.

This is the call we have been given. Make Love physically present on earth. It is just as radical for us as it was for Mary. It’s bizarre. To love is to pour yourself out for the sake of another. To receive God’s fullness means to become empty. This is… impossible, it seems. Very difficult at the least.

But the angel Gabriel said to Mary, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Jesus says to us, “I will send the Holy Spirit to you.” All things are possible with God—even making God physically present on earth.

We have been offered this gift. But how will we respond? “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

We see that God has offered us His fullness. And in doing so, He has answered my longing. I might not be perfect, but He is perfect. I might not always think I am worthy of love, but in pouring love out of myself I become full of love. And instead of asking with Eve to be like God, I can ask with Mary to be with God and full of Him.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to this living hope.

O come, O come, Emmanuel.

day of happiness

So I haven't posted in almost a month. Oops.

But today is basically The Perfect Day, so I figure I must post.

Today is the first day of Fall, which is my favorite. It is also Hobbit Day, which is also my favorite. It is also International Curly Hair Day, which is also my favorite. How lovely is that?

...it also happens to be my 20th birthday, which is all kinds of weird. I've been alive for a score. I am in my third decade of life. I'm a twenty-something, ouch.

So how about a fun game of Never Have I Ever In Twenty Years? Okay. Never have I ever:

• Watched Star Wars
• Eaten and enjoyed pickles
• Grown my hair past my waist
• Had a whole conversation with someone in a language besides English
• Done anything actually physically risky
• ...or even run a mile
• Drunk more than half a sip of anything alcoholic
• Driven somewhere out of town by myself
• Traveled abroad without 'grown ups'
• Read War and Peace
• Slept under the stars
• Played a convincing chord on a guitar
• Been to Boston (in the fall or otherwise)

These are all things that I mean to change sometime in the next decade of my life. We'll see. A couple are a stretch, but I think I can probably manage most of them. Most doubtful? Pickles. Definitely the pickles.

God has blessed me a lot, like massively, these twenty years. I'm happy with them. Now I figure it's time for me to be, like, an actual adult. We'll see how that goes.