Context

I know that it's been forever since I posted, and I do apologize. You can thank a trip to the States and some great time with family and friends for a lack of interneting. (Yes I did just make that word up, and yes, I do think that it should be an actual word.) The same people who use internet slang in conversation (yes, I admit I'm guilty) could start working in "to internet." I personally think it's a great idea.

ANYWAY, I was explaining to a friend the other day that I actually think about blog posts all the time. As I've had plenty of airplane rides, airport waits, and good conversations with friends lately, I've had an abundance of ideas. I'll start with this...

I've been thinking about context a lot lately. Not literary context, as in where the plot is set, or even the context of a conversation, but the contexts that we live in. After going to college a few states away from home, studying abroad, and now living in Mexico, I've come to realize how much context matters in our lives (and somehow I feel that I've only scratched the surface of the matter). Particularly, I've been thinking about how we grow (or simply change) in a new context without even realizing it. Then, when we return to the "mother" context (i.e. where you grew up or even returning to the culture of your family) we actually see the growth.

In scientific terms (I know, I'm stepping out on a limb here since I haven't had a science class in quite some time, but I think it does help to explain what I'm talking about), the context of our lives can be thought of in terms of controlled groups and experimental groups. In my case, the controlled group would be my home-town culture. That is, my family, my friends, my church, and general Spartanburg, South Carolina culture. Although it does change, the change is much slower than the rate that I change at as I experience another culture. The experimental group of my "life experiment" would be moving to another location (although, as far as I'm concerned it could be a change as small as changing from one group of friends to another). The outcome of the experiment (a.k.a. the data that we note) is then the change in personality, emotion, will, etc. that develops in the individual because of a change in outer circumstances to said experimental group. Only because the controlled group remains constant (or at least virtually constant) can the end result be monitored.

Now, seeing as I am no scientist, it is very possible that there are errors in my whole "life experiment," (especially in terminology) but the point is that we are constantly changing, especially as we move to another culture or life situation, and the changes are best observed when we are plopped back into our mother culture.

To make this more personal (after all, that is what this blog is for, to express personal thoughts), I often feel like I am not growing spiritually, emotionally, and in maturity until I return home and see the contrast of my new growth with my former home-town immaturity. Not only do I not that I have matured in these areas but my friends and family, the livelihood of my former context, express their observations as well. Having put this in a positive light, we must also consider that returning to an old context can also reveal negative changes. For instance, for someone who has always been very patient with people, returning home to stay in a parent's household may reveal that the individual is now not so patient as he once was.

Another interesting facet of context is how we behave differently in different contexts. Although hopefully not to a large degree, we are on some level constantly defined by reactions to other people. For instance, someone who has been known for being at least mildly confident, who moves away for her first job may find that she is suddenly terribly intimidated by her boss or co-workers and it not the same confident person in her new context.

This has been made real to me with the issue of calling this past semester. After coming out of college being very convinced I was called to ministry, having the backing of many friends and family in that conviction, I suddenly found myself here in Mexico with many insecurities about my calling. Fear and intimidation began to rule my thoughts on my calling. Only after returning to the States (for RUF training and Christmas) and having a very encouraging talk with a pastor-friend who knows me very well, did I realize how much destruction to my perception of my calling that fear and intimidation had caused. My gifts have not changed. My experience has not changed. But my context did, and that (the combination of people and culture) was enough to shake up my ideas of who I was.

We cannot escape context. In the story that we have been written into, it is our setting and the characters that we come in contact with. My thoughts on context have not been exhausted, and I know that this issue will be a continual source of discouragement and encouragement. Thank God that I am shaped but not ultimately defined by my context and that His providence actually utilizes the "where" and "with who" of our lives.

If you don't know who this man is, you need to...

Francis Shaeffer is well-known for his philosophical and theological thought, his teachings on connecting faith and culture, and the establishment of L'Abri Fellowship, a welcoming retreat-type set-up where people can come to seek honest answers about faith and Christianity. This article is a great introduction to the strides of Shaeffer to spread a thinking, weeping Christianity.

New Poems

I recently watched the movie Frida about the life of Mexican painter/feminist/politician Frida Kahlo. I can't stop thinking about the tragedy involved in this woman's dealings with life, love and art. These poems are the outcome of those thoughts. I hope you enjoy.

It was just a fuck. I've given more affection in a handshake.
–Diego Rivera

To Diego (on sorrow)

¡La cogiste!
My God, Diego,
anyone but my sister!
¡La cogiste!

I am a vessel, used and tragically tied to my loss.
Married to inconsistency.
Shackled to sorrow.
Subdued by abortion.
And there is nothing you can do now to make it all seem right.

So I will hack the blackness,
And shape feminine growth,
Into emasculated pride.
A statement of what was and what is.

It's like the accident all over again,
A steel rod is shoved through my back,
And takes my virginity.
Oh, how I wanted it to be yours!

I am a wounded deer. A running, wounded deer.
The arrows are all women that have no faces,
Only perfume that rubs off in the act of crashing.
I thought you would stop with them. With loyalty!

I am the sister of a whore.
You were you,
And she was she.
But now you are an adulterous one.

I am the sister of a goddess.
Whose very heart rushes blood through my veins.
And spurts stains on my white dress.
I could not live but for her. I could not die but for her.

I am a stark Roman column!
Who has found hope in the bodies of other men (and women)!
Who has weathered the rains of tragedy, and pain, and loss,
And refuses to shed a single hope to the disappointment of nature!

You are not I,
And I am not You,
Yet when I find me, I
Am hopelessly entangled in us.

La cogiste.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Frida Kahlo
(as played by Selma Hayek)

This corpse is still breathing.

Tragedy, pure tragedy, does not strike often.
And if it does, it runs like a demon cast out by the Lord himself,
to find the next innocent victim.
I, however, have a history of such demons.
They nest in my bones,
caress my very column with the arousing fingers of death.

This corpse is still healing.

Diego says my scar is immaculate.
It runs from the small of my back,
around the hip and into my garden.
I told the doctors that the pipe stole my virginity.
It’s not true though. I was fucking boys in my closet a year before the accident.

This corpse is still lusting.

There’s really no beauty like that of the female body.
To have breasts--big, weighty breasts--is to have honey,
That all the gods want and need.
Even the goddesses want to drink from my supply.

This corpse is still needing.

Diego is my sustenance
in a dying world--my dying world.
To be with him is to sup--
to dine with God in art and passion and sex.

This corpse is still leaving.

I painted myself in a mirror today.
I looked proud like the Romans.
My eyebrows grown together like the wings of a sparrow.
One day they’ll carry me away, away from this tragedy.

This corpse is still breathing.