The Quiet of the University

Since I stepped into the Multi-Faith Centre office a few hours ago I haven’t heard or seen a single person. The quiet of the summer semester is particularly evident on the top floor of a corner building on campus (where the MFC office is).

I’ve written about this in previous posts, but I can’t help returning to it: the summer quiet of a university. It feels very fitting, very in tune with the rhythm of the seasons. Right now the weather is warm, the sky is clear, and most students and faculty are doing all manner of summer activities: leading summer camps, enjoying creation, gardening, working outdoors, or anything else that beckons the human spirit outside its usual walls and into creation where the ceiling is the sky and the walls are oceans. The hard work of thinking and school can be rightly put on the backburner for these months.

And yet, the university remains. Libraries are shelved with books, classrooms stocked with desks, chairs, and blackboards. The task of learning and exploring through the life of the mind still invites us, even though it rightly releases us into the summer joys of a different sort. The fall will soon be here, the hallways filled, library carrels occupied.

I, admittedly, am a lover of school. The quiet waiting of the university intrigues and excites me. When the temperature cools and the rain (hopefully!) returns, the task of learning is always eager to open itself up to the human spirit which returns to books and lectures with new experiences to reflect upon. It’s sort of a natural progression of exploration and reflection; we go “out” to gather experiences, to test our learning in concrete realities, and then return “in” with fresh material of life to reflect upon.

As I enjoy the quiet of these summer semester hallways, though, I am reminded of both my own desire to invest my life in the “inward” movement, but also how these two movements of exploration and reflection bleed into one another and are not so easily isolated from each other. We gather experiences in the process of reflection, and we reflect in the process of having experiences.

So for that I treasure the university, not only for its ability to reflect on experiences but also how it provides its own experiences. The university is not just an “escape” from reality, it is its own reality, with its own rhythm of experience and reflection.

In some ways this mirrors the rhythm of the Christian life; prayer and worship leads to action and service and back again. However, here, too, the boundaries are not so neatly defined. Paul encourages believers to “pray without ceasing,” indicating the fluid nature of departure and return; prayer is an act of service, and service is a form of prayer. We ought not abandon either concrete practice, but realize that the Christian journey is one movement with different emphases at different moments of life. We are on one continuous journey of conversion, a conversion of our desire away from idols and towards the living God made know in Christ. 

Unceded Territory

Today I had the chance to give an interview with Kwantlen’s student newspaper, “The Runner”. The inside front page offers a short description on their name:

“The Runner recognizes that our work, both in and out of the office, takes place on unceded Coast and Strait Salish territories, specifically the shared traditional territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Sto:lo and Tsawwassen First Nations. Our name is inspired by the hun’qumi’num meaning of Kwantlen, which is tireless hunters or tireless runners. Just as Kwantlen is adaptable and changing so is The Runner.”

“Unceded” means that no formal treaty has been signed, no agreement has been reached between the First and Second nations occupying the same land. We ought to remain attentive to this; Christianity was deeply implicated in colonial expansion which sometimes took an aggressive form. This doesn’t mean we should feel unbearable shame and romanticize about North America free from the infiltration of Christian or colonial influence. But we do need to confess our implication in what was and still is a painful journey for First Nation’s people across the continent.

I feel a bit like a “runner” right now myself (though I can’t really claim to be “tireless”). This interview with the student newspaper is another attempt at reaching out (“running” into) to this university community, spreading awareness about the Multi-Faith Centre and my Christian chaplaincy working out of it. These attempts have been rather scattered and seemingly unrelated: coffees and lunches with staff and students, l meetings with Multi-Faith centre staff, some regular conversations with particular students, a bit of low-key programming (a weekly ‘tea-time’ at the Multi-Faith Centre office). Right now I can’t really see a deep connection or continuity between my efforts; they are rather scattered, which makes the ‘running around’ metaphor an appropriate one.

I acknowledge, though, that I am on unceded territory, both in an official sense regarding our First Nation’s communities, but also in a broader sense of trying to set up camp in a somewhat foreign territory. The aggression of some colonialism is not to be recommended on this score. I am tentatively trying to set up a temporary shelter, a spiritual oasis where I can receive and welcome travelers with the hospitality of Jesus. “I am not of this World,” Jesus said (John 8:23). In acknowledging our pilgrim journey through our lives we realize that absolute comfort and homecoming is not for us to establish in the World, in separation from God. Instead, we make our home in Christ himself. By doing so, we are invited to care for people, the land, creation itself in a way that offers a place of rest and sanctuary that is real, but not of the world; it is of God. It points to the end of all creation making its home in God and God in it, resting in the divine nature and freed from “the world”, freed from separation from God.

In that sense, as Christians we are runners, “running the race, pressing on towards the goal” as Paul put it. I will keep ‘running’ around on this ‘unceded’ territory, as a stranger in the world, attempting to offer hospitality and rest in Christ, who is not of the world either. I won’t do it perfectly. Sometimes this ‘unceded territory’ will be a place where I regretfully push my own agenda and try to set up a firm foundation on my own. But by being attentive to the pilgrim life of Jesus we can be drawn back into a journey that calls us to hospitality and peace against a world that all too often interprets ‘unceded’ as ‘empty for domination’. In opposition to this, we as Christ’s follows must reverse this interpretation, and instead offer ourselves to God’s service. 

Small Fry

The summer semester on Kwantlen’s Surrey campus has been quiet, but has generally had a bit of a buzz of students and staff making their way through their various tasks. Today for some reason, though, the campus has seemed utterly empty. A student who stopped by said that his class which is usually 15 people had dropped to just 3.

This was my first week of hosting a Multi-Faith Centre Summer tea time that has been advertised around campus. I took time to set up the office with little trays of treats and candy, with mugs and water for tea or lemonade. Such a set up in the quiet Multi-Faith office up in a top corner of a building felt a little small, a little unnoticed. I was hoping for a some student traffic and energy, hoping that some of the advertisements had been noticed and a new student or two might show up. 

That wasn't the case, though. Instead I had the privilege of sharing a simple conversation with a student who I have enjoyed getting to know quite frequently. Instead of being blessed with the new, I was blessed with continuity, a deepening of an already established relationship.

Though I don’t always sense it, I do trust that slow and continuous deepening of relationships always carries within itself the possibility of energy and excitement. In fact, with our limited perspectives we often simply can’t see what sort of “newness” might emerge from attending to the continuities that we inhabit through pattern, routine, and comfort.

There was no fanfare around my little tea-time event. Most of the cookies remained uneaten, the lemonade untouched. No one will write about it in the school newspaper next week. But the chance to sit and talk with a friend in a quiet corner of this campus is evidence enough of God’s sustaining energy. I trust that with faithfulness and attentiveness, God can bring to life a new energy out of very small pieces of old stability.

John 5: 5-13

⁵ Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii^[a] worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” ⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 

¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”¹³ So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

Contemplative Emailing

I never thought or anticipated that this job would involve so much emailing! But email, I suppose, is basically the preferred method of communication these days; whether it’s students on campus, colleagues at the church, or former professors, the primary way I get in touch with them, near or far, is through the tap-tap of a keyboard which magically produces words on a screen and instantly sends them firing through microfibre cables to their intended destination. And as I continue to establish connections with a variety of people on campus, it is an important and useful tool. 

We should be cautious, though, about email and electronic connections. I don’t want to necessarily ultimately condemn or condone simply making use of them; what we need to be attentive to is what kind of mind, body, and spirit they are shaping in us the more we make use of them.

Email is fast. Email is convenient. Email is efficient. Speed, convenience, efficiency – these can be and often are all good things. But they are good things in moderation. They are good things if we don’t let them dictate every part of our life. However, it is fairly easy for them do just that; we might subtly and without noticing it look for fast and efficient meals, fast and efficient conversations, fast and efficient reading, meetings, church services, etc...

But my conviction is that we are not only created for speed. We are created for silence, stillness, and slowness, created to be attentive to things, places, and people that can easily get caught up in the flow of a fast-paced, email-dictated day. God is always present, always available, always wanting deeper communion with us; but fast-paced technological lives can sometimes paradoxically make us fast asleep to God’s creative reality.

So maybe we need to effect a sort of reversal; instead of allowing an efficiency-based thing like email to dictate those parts of our lives that require more time, like food, friendship, and reading, maybe we can also let those slower activities affect the way we do our fast-paced activities. Instead of making dinner into an email event (quick, convenient, microwavable) we can make email in a dinner event (slow, careful, over-baked for a few hours).

Of course, I don’t mean to deprive us of the convenience and efficiency of email. This is an attitude change, not a literal change. Spending hours on a simple email might not (though it certainly may) be feasible or possible. But maybe it is possible that a slow, contemplative dimension can work its way into the seemingly most un-contemplative activity, like writing a short email and sending it off through the internet at the speed of light. If we take conscious-time to slow down, maybe for a few minutes at the beginning and end of the day, then that attentiveness to God’s presence in those few minutes can open us up to God’s presence in those emailing-type activities that can threaten to dominate our outlook on life. 

And if we do that, then we are truly following Jesus, who not only embodied God everywhere but saw God everywhere; “Consider the lilies of the field…”

Housekeeping

Our projects and goals often unfold and develop at a different pace and in different ways than we expected or hoped for. And even if we have a sense that a plan might take some difficulty and slow work, when the difficult and slowness arrives we can’t help but feel a little discouraged.

My week has had moments of a combination between these two sources of slight discouragement. This summer, I knew heading into it, was going to be a time of slowly developing connections and relationships within the Kwantlen community, getting my feet wet on campus and envisioning what concrete projects I could undertake as a chaplain when the Fall semester rolls around. That has only been partially what has happened – in fact, there have been a number of fast paced and high energy days on campus, where meetings with different university departments, connecting with students, and my own reflection about the shape of this chaplaincy make for a full and interesting schedule. Last week, too, was a busy one, planning for, implementing, and following up on a Multi-Faith Information evening, inviting other communities to participate in our Multi-Faith Centre on campus.

This week, though, has moved along much more slowly. The campus has seemed quiet. I’m yearning for an increasing amount of intentional relationships focused around Christian faith and spirituality, but many of my connections with students are one-off, brief conversations. Also, because the Multi-Faith Centre is so new, there is currently a slight lack of cohesive vision and direction for the Centre and its various chaplains, and this is something of a hindrance for implementing or even envisioning some concrete projects I want to undertake as a Christian chaplain.

So while there are lots of good and positive things moving along in my work, there are also opportunities for discouragement and confusion. And it is not necessarily a bad thing to be disappointed. We all have dreams and visions for our careers, families, relationships, and our very lives; sometimes things work out with ease but that is definitely not always the case – we’re also all faced with challenges that can seem to stall or derail what we hoped for.

But while it is not a bad thing in itself to be discouraged, there are different ways forward. 

Discouragement can be an end in itself, swallowing us more thoroughly into its power. While we can’t avoid discouragement entirely, we can choose what we let it do to us. Do we invite it in and allow it to set up camp in our home? Or can we instead invite discouragement in as a sort of housekeeper, as the Islamic poet Rumi suggested (see the poem below)? It comes into our souls, not to stay forever, but to empty us out, to clean us of plans and projects that lie broken on the floor, and then leave an empty, clean, and fresh space where God himself can come in, inhabit us, and work with us again to look forward in hope to new possibilities.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

The Joy of Multi-Faith

What an exciting week for the Kwantlen Multi-Faith Centre! Last Monday evening we hosted an open house and information evening on campus. We are hoping to expand our Multi-Faith Centre to include chaplains of many different traditions and beliefs, and Monday evening was a chance to extend an invitation to a wide and beautiful array of diversity. Buddhist, Muslim, Baha’i, Humanist, and Christian were all represented. The discussion was rich, fruitful, and reflected a desire of different traditions to celebrate both unity-in-diversity and diversity-in-unity.

It’s given me another opportunity to reflect on Multi-Faith explorations from a Christian perspective, this time with the energy of a specific Multi-Faith experience in my mind. I particularly enjoyed a conversation I had with a Muslim Imam (the Muslim equivalent of a pastor), as we asked each other questions about our different religious traditions. I learned about the theological and moral significance of the Islamic month Ramadan, a time of fasting for the sake of closer communion with God, a deeper investment in Muslim faith, and the invitation to share in the experience of the poor and the hungry. It is a rich and beautiful practice that has stretched through centuries of Islam. The Imam was deeply committed to it, describing the tradition of Ramadan with an inspiring combination of humility and confidence.

Across different religious traditions there are certainly differing systems of belief. On one level, Christians and Muslims simply hold different things to be true. However, it is very important to remember that religious traditions are not merely a set of beliefs. They are always encompassed by different practices that form a community. Again, Christians and Muslims have different practices; Christians celebrate the Lord’s Supper and Baptism, Muslims practice rigorous fasting during the season of Ramadan. Some practices, though, are the same: both of these traditions affirm, for example, that caring for the poor is an essential part of the life of faith.

Remembering that religious traditions are far more than just a set of beliefs is already a way past the sort of dilemma that suggests that if you don’t agree on the truth of certain beliefs (such as “Jesus Christ is God’s Word Incarnate”) then the only conversation that can be had is one arguing out who is “right” and who is “wrong”. The things that Christians claim are “true” are only “true” in the context of the practices of Christian community: taking the Lord’s supper, baptizing, reading the scriptures, caring for the poor, etc… Religious truth is not the same thing as scientific truth.

As a Christian, then, even though I may not share the same beliefs or practices of the Muslim tradition, I am not committed to arguing out the truth or falsity of certain religious statements, because I believe that religious truth is something totally different from scientific truth. When Paul writes “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified,” he is not talking about a mind-independent truth, but about the truth of Jesus that affects him to the core of his being, shaping him into the image of Christ, the suffering-servant King. And that is not something that can be argued for or against using rational argumentation. It is far more existential.

That is why the first reaction of a Christian to a different religious tradition is not one of antagonism, but of hospitality and interest. The practices and beliefs of Islam come from a rich and robust history of Islamic theological reflection and practice. If we can trust that the truth of Christ is deeper and more expansive than a set of beliefs, then we can also trust that God encourages us to learn and celebrate the particularity of other religious traditions. I will likely never practice Ramadan. But the practice of “knowing only Christ and him crucified” means patiently and discerningly emptying myself to receive others with hospitality, compassion, and interest. Affirming and celebrating other traditions with their specificities of belief and practice does not mean saying “all religions are the same, deep down”. It means, rather, trusting that God, as triune, does not only manifest himself as pure unity and sameness, but also as delightful difference, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We are not in a position, as Christians or as human beings in general, to make final, definitive truth statements. What we can do is live as the final and definitive truth, that is, as followers of Christ. But that does not make us the judgers of world religions. Instead, it means that we are constantly judged, judged by the scandal of Christ on the cross.

This is a difficult topic, and I don’t pretend to have gotten to the bottom of it. But for now, I celebrate and am thankful for the presence of God that emerges between Christians and Muslims and between any two people who approach relationship not with fear, antagonism, or control, but with friendship, hospitality, and open-heartedness. Jesus demands nothing less of his followers. 

The Thrill of Christian Faith

This past week of chaplaincy at Kwantlen overflowed with a huge variety of experiences. My Fleetwood CRC chaplaincy committee visited the campus early in the week. Together we explored both the physical and spiritual space of Kwantlen, with its well-designed libraries, classrooms, offices, and cafes, all the while imaging and sharing our sense of the deep spiritual desires and questions that this community of learning is wrestling with. We asked ourselves, how can our Christian chaplaincy make a home and hospitable centre for this piece of God’s creation?

I met some students for the first time who came to the Multi-Faith Centre with a spiritual intensity and questioning mind that led to very fruitful and exciting discussions. I thought long and hard about the importance of the Multi-Faith Centre, about how it can be both inclusive of all perspectives and religious traditions as well as allowing for the distinctiveness of thought and practice that each of those traditions has to offer, whether explicitly religious or secular. I met with Kwantlen representatives to discuss and think about that very issue. I connected with other Christian Reformed campus ministers, sharing stories, ideas, and encouragement. And I even encountered some disagreement this week, a difference of opinion on how the Multi-Faith Centre should function.

Many of these experiences were spiritually intense and charged with an excitable energy. Some of my week was lower key, writing emails and doing online research about Multi-Faith Centres on other university campuses.

But whatever the energy level or emotional impact of these varied experiences, I am increasingly convinced that the Christian life is exciting. Thinking, practicing, and living out the Christian faith is not simply about ordered and proper theological frameworks, church structures, or ethical systems. While all of these things are important, they are only so insofar as they are caught up in the thrill, danger, and excitement of following Jesus.

In his book “Orthodoxy” G.K. Chesterston wrote something that continues to haunt me: “There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.” Orthodoxy he is talking about, the rich, thick tradition of Christian faith. Not the thrill of heresy or being supposedly ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ and rejecting Christian institutions or traditional doctrines, as if Christian tradition were dull, uninspiring, and in need of science or secularism to jolt it out of its slumber. Instead, Christianity carries within itself the seeds of its own destabilization and unsettlement.

It is Jesus who jolts both the church and the world out of its passive slumber. Jesus calls us to the excitement of love, justice, joy, and creativity. And not only that, but the Christian tradition is deeply invested with working out who Jesus is and what it means to follow him. We are caught right in the middle, not of bland doctrines, but of exciting tensions that lie at the heart of the Christian faith: Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, the Kingdom of God is both now and not yet, the Church both receives the love of Christ and gives the love of Christ. And Jesus himself formulated one of the most paradoxical and exciting teachings of all: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

Through this past week I have been struck by how this thrill of Christian life can make its way into both the menial and more inspiring tasks and experiences. Every moment of following Jesus is centered around living in the exciting and fruitful tensions of power in weakness, of giving to receive, of divinity and humanity. As his followers we are at the heart of this orthodoxy. Of course, we often fail to live out of this energy; the tasks of the world drain our energy or we are tempted to close down the thrill for the sake of safety and security. But if we continue to try to follow Jesus and be inhabited by his spirit of life, then the excitement, peril, and joy of Christian faith will always be as close as our very selves.