Okay so there is a good reason that I am writing about inter-faith marriage today, I swear. And by inter-faith I intend a broad understanding of the term, including not only faith traditions which are quite dissimilar, but also those which include members of a tradition and individuals with an agnostic or atheist faith background. So basically I intend any relationship which could potential be seen, especially from within the relationship, as inter-faith (interestingly, you could probably find people of different denominations of Christianity or even different traditions of Muslim or Jewish origin that would fall under this category).

ANyways, now that I have sort of defined where I am starting from, let me explain why I am thinking about this in the first place. It all started with my Histories, THeologies, and Practicies of Christianity class. Well, actually it started with the Bible, but I am going to use HTP because they required us to read Paul's Letters to the Romans and the CHurch at Corinth as our first reading assignment. So in 1 Cor. 7 we read Paul's views concerning marriage, which essentially state that marriage istelf isn't natural, and that in reality the best state of affairs is for us to remain unmarried if we are not: "to the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am" because this practice of "self-control" is preferable and more conducive to the life of a good Christian than the married life-- however, Paul does conceded that many of us do not possess such self-control and that "it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (1 Cor. 7:8,9). So basically the point I am getting is this-- celibacy is preferable because then all of your attentions are fixed on GOd. However, if celebacy leaves you obsessing over sex, then get married because you will ultimately focus more time on God then because your obsession will be removed as an obstacle to faith.

Paul continues on by addressing the inevitable reality of inter-faith marriage:
"if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy... Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband for all you know, you might save your wife. However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches" (1 Cor. 7: 12-14, 16).

Paul seems totally okay with inter-faith marriage. In fact, I get the impression that he almost welcomes in in the sense that there is an opportunity in inter-faith for daily, direct ministry in the form of the constant presence as an example of Christ to an unbeliever. He exhorts the inter-faith couple to stay together in order that they might both save one another. I like this image, for while the emphasis seems primarily on evangelism, it is evangelism in the form of example. IN addition, I like the fact that Paul is interested in keeping families together, that he sees our role as Christians as relational and personal. Our dealings with others should not be restricted to only other Christians, but rather we should involve our lives with others that do not share our views, and not only that, but we should witness to others by showing love and respect for one another, not only as friends but at the deepest level as life partners.

So I like Paul's view. My problem today has been that I have been reading a different book for a different class: Intro to Ministry Studies. THe book is titled "Sisters of the Spirit" and is a compilation of three autobiographies of Black Women in the 19th Century. The second autobiography is by Zilpha Elaw, who speaks of her marriage to a 'backsliding Christian' (in other words-- he had once been of the SAME tradition of herself but had stopped going to church.) with horror. She also goes to great lengths to describe the inferior state of woman to man, which she finds to be fully supported by the bible-

"The laws of Scripture invest parents with the trust and control of their daughter, until the time, be it early or late in life, when the father surrenders her in marriage to the care and government of a husband...then....she becomes the endowment and is subject to the authority of her husband...the fancied independence and self-control in which (young single women) indulge has no foundation either in nature or Scripture, and is prolific with the worst results both to religion and society. That woman is dependant on, and subject to man, is the dictate of nature; that man is not created for the woman, but the woman for the man, is that of Scripture (I cor 11:9). These principles lie at the foundation of the family and social systems; and there violation is a very immoral and guilty act" (62-63)

Zilpha then goes on to describe the wretched state of her marriage and blames the failure of it upon their religious differences.  In fact, she describes with sadness how her husband had promised to her to return to the church but then "he resolved to use every means to induce me to renounce my religion, and abolish my attendance at the meeting house" (63).  Her husband apparently tried to make her go ballroom dancing and she broke into tearful convulsions at the sinful nature of this act.

Regardless of her views on dancing, I am struck by the apparently polarized viewpoints expressed by Paul and Zilpha.  Both of these individuals see themselves as full of the holy spirit, moved by God to express his and her love of the Holy Trinity by whatever means necessary.  Paul seems motivated by love to keep people together; Zilpha sees interfaith marriage as anything but love--in fact, her marriage to her husband seems like a stumbling block, that his very nature as a "backsliding christian" makes it impossible for her to be happy.

How do I feel about this?  I see both sides.  On the one hand, I think that it is impossible to suppose that you are going to be able to find, let alone fall in love with and marry, someone who thinks exactly like you do about God.  The fact of the matter is that faith is so personal that I don't think it is possible to, and I am certain that if I could find a man who believed exactly like I wouuld, I might not like him very much.  I don't think that is the nature of the game.  however, I can see the problems that arise in interfaith marriage, especially when two faiths that oppose one another come together in marriage.  It requires a lot of mutual respect and cooperation, and that sort of thing can't be easy.  I have a hard time with this issue, mostly because I have let my personal faith become such a defining point of who I am-- I mean, I want to be a chaplain in the military, or a parish minister, or a Presbyterian academic.  All of these things are so interwtwined with my faith on a practical level that it is difficult to seperate my Presbyterian-ness from my image of the ideal relationship and/or marriage.  But as my father was quick (and wise) to point out to me,./... "God didn't make you Presbyeterian.  He made you Christian.  He made you Human.  NOT presbyterian.  You made yourself presbyterian."  And it is true.  I really do believe that all of these faith traditions are really just different ways to access something that, at the core of things, really is quite similar.  It is hard to keep that in mind when you are knee-deep in Biblical translations and ordination paperwork and faith memoirs, but it is important.  It's one reason that I came to HDS in the first place-- because learning to make inter-faith relationships work is crucial work for us as Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, Wiccans, etc.  If we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us., then that means that we can find a way to make inter-faith work, not only in friendships and community relationships, but in marriages and families.  


So, if you are still reading this( and I doubt it, because this has been long-winded), what do you think?  Am I totally off-base here regarding inter-faith marriage?  What are your views on the subject?  I would love to get more feedback on it.  OH, and if you ARE reading still..... thanks for listening.

How many dreams about death am I destined for, I wonder?

I dreamt that I was shot to death last night, or actually this morning.... in terms of details, I did something that pissed someone off, and as a result I was killed for it. I was shot more times that I can tell you with a semi-automatic gun, or perhaps one of those ouzzie guns, something with rapid-fire. I was shot in a corridor by a trained killer, and in my dream, I felt only as though my life were slowing down. My eyes fluttered shut and I felt as though I were going into darkness. And what I was thinking as I lay there was of heaven and God. Peaceful in that respect, but I woke up quickly also for fear that i was really dying...

Interesting dream.

The man who gave the word was middle-eastern, sitting in a limo. I had been at the store in which i was shot with my mother and a little girl and my sister, looking at roses and trinkets. I had just found some trinkets that had hebrew on them. ONe of them had been a funny lord of the rings trinket. Dont know why.

Anyways that was strange, and mostly it was strange that death was so peaceful despite its violence.

I dreamt that my father was killed last night.

In my dream, it was as though actors had been cast to play the parts of my family members, with the exception of myself and my mother. The story-line was fairly simple, tragic even: My brother was hiding in the attic of a house (our house) with a bebe gun, and his friend who lived next door was also hiding in his own house with a bebe gun. They were playing a game, sort of like reconnaisance or some macho form of hide and go seek. The goal was to find and "destroy" the other player with the bebe gun.

The scene opens with the nose of a rifle illuminated, arising out of shadows. The shadows recede and we see my brother, flat on his belly amongst boxes of forgotten memories, clothes, furniture and other artifacts that one might expect to find in a lonely old attic. He points his "rifle" (which we can see is a bebe gun) and fires it out of the attic window, which is ajar slightly.

Cut to the house across the street. A young boy, not much over 14 or so, hides in his own home. The heavy, black muzzle of HIS gun (which is most definitely NOT a bebe gun), quivers in his hand. Excited by the sound of the bebes that have been so violently discharged from across the street, he points and shoots- 1, 2, 3.

Sitting alone in a room, one story below the action transpiring in the attic, my father slumps in his chair. Darkness pours out of him, filling the space below his chair as he sinks lower, sighs, and breathes his last.

My brother, of course, and many others in the home, are unaware of what has just happened. We see my mother, in the other room, preparing something, and myself, the omniscient eye, looking on in horror as she goes about her daily work, as my brother continues playing, as the boy across the street throws down the rifle and runs laughing out into the street, taunting my brother and oblivious of the horror that he has created in that room.

My mother walks into the kitchen, and seeing my father, leans down and begins to clean the dark shadow from the pine floor below him. She washes the floor ever so matter of factly, almost mechanically. When she is finished, she removes my father and continues as though nothing has happened at all.

I run into the room and scream at her, "where is dad!" and she looks at me as though I have gone mad, as though there is nothing wrong, nothing at all that would explain my outburst. I run into the kitchen and stare down at the stain on the once unblemished pine floor-- a pool-like stain, suspiciously lighter than the stain on the rest of the floor (perhaps from the Comet Bleach that my mother favors in cleaning large stains) and it is at this point that I fall apart completely. I sink to the floor, sobbing and out of control. As I lay there in that stain, I feel as though I am completely helpless, for there is nothing that can bring my father back to me again.

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

I woke up sobbing on my bed, curled in a ball and at a loss for words. In fact, it has been 3 hours and I can honestly say that I still don't know what to do. I am at a loss, my emotions are tensed up in me, and even thinking about my dream brings me to tears. I am not sure if I should call my father, or my mother, or leave it be. But I can say that this is the second time I have dreamt of his death (the first time he died from a heart attack) and that he is the only family member that has ever died in a dream that I have had.

So it appears that there has come into view a solution to my nagging problem with getting over my past... I have come across a potential "horizon"...  Which has been an amazingly wonderful experience, to be able to put something to bed finally and begin in a new direction-- only problem is this direction doesn't quite seem to have much direction yet (could I be any more vague?  please!) 

Anyways I guess the point of this is to just say that it is wonderfully re-affirming to see a prayer go answered so quickly and definitively, even when it really doesn't look like an answer at the outset.  Plus, it helps that this is a thoroughly optimistic answer (as compared to my fatalistic impulse to harden my heart.).  In fact, this answer has opened up my heart even more. 

Sorry for hte vagueries... I guess I feel like it is easier to keep myself hidden underneath cryptic messages.  Silly really, but if you want more info just give me a holla and I can try to sort it out for ya.

Happy Sunday!  

Sarah  

I never knew that you could subscribe to blogs... just found out today... of course at that same moment I also found out that you can have "readers" who regularly read your blog.... I have four, apparently.  three of whom I expected and was delighted to know were interested in my life.... and one person I have never heard of in my life!  So who is lily?  For a second I thought it might be my mom... she uses the name Lily sometimes, but I might be wrong as well because it says that lily is a virgo... and my mom is def. NOT a virgo....

Okay this rant will only end if I can figure out who lily is... so lily please step forward!  


PS Turns out lily is my mom :)   isn't that cute?

I must be a sadist.  That has to be it.  Who else would willingly torture herself with impossibilities and phantom could-have-beens? It is ridiculous, actually.  My life has become a horribly-cast satire on the perils of being hopelessly romantic. 

Annie said it well-- I apparently over-idealize.  Which makes the breaks harder, because what I am losing is so precious to me... so wonderful and irreplaceable. 

This has got to stop- somebody (God? A friend?) please teach me to harden my heart against my horrible impulsion towards self-torture... Help me get over my past... or at least accept it for what it is-- over.

I had been pretty stressed out this past month... and then this week happened.  All of a sudden Hebrew is starting to make sense, Trader Joe's isn't driving me crazy with excessive amounts of hours, and I get the sense that I am beginning to work myself into some sort of groove, or whatever you want to call it. 

I have basically come to the conclusion that it takes me longer to process a language than it might take some other people--like, I was able to remember words and look at things and sort of understand what was going on, but it has taken a month for me to start getting really comfortable translating stuff. Who knows... is that fast?  Slow?  Maybe someone with more experience with language could elaborate, or add perspective.  In any case, I know that I am by no means the "smarty-pants" of our hebrew class, but I am definetly caught up with the pack now... aced my test whoot!

In other news,.. lets see I FINALLY have time to go to the gym again.  Im pretty sure I gained like 5-10 pounds just this past month from having no time to sit still, move around, do anything pretty much.  But it feels SO good to be getting back into my program at Bally and to get rid of that gross feeling that I get when I don't work out.

Oh and I made some friends... really nice ones. I am looking forward to the Fall!  

Peace,
Sarah

Ah man.  It has been one of "those" weeks.  I guess I am starting to realize that I have a knack for over-extension.... it is sort of funny though, ya know?  I mean, I took on this job, and thought to myself.... 35 hours a week?  Thats nothing!  And then I started my class and thought... 18 hours a week... I can handle this.  A week later, as you can imagine, I am sitting here completely overwhelmed by a class that has taken far more than 18 hours a week to figure out and a job that does provide me with funds but takes away from the reason that I am here.  I feel as though God is sort of kicking me in the butt right now, perhaps trying to remind me why I am here in the first place?  Which is hard... becasue I aam DEATHLY afraid of having no money here.  I can cut  back at work, and I will.  But what about when the regular semester starts?  There is NO WAY that I can keep this job.  ANd ethical speaking, that makes me think that I ought to just quit now, because honestly TJ's was looking for help that would stay on through the year, and if I already know that I can't even though I told them that I could, this is a problem... a moral problem in my mind. 

So thats my story, morning glory.  Perhaps someone has some advice for me... if they did that would be shaaaweet.  But if not I know I can figure it out-- God has my back.

A'ight so today was the last day of school officially... of course I had classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays only so I was *officially* done with classes on Thursday at 1pm, after one class in which we did nothing at all and another in which we watched 10 min of "the wrath of khan" as a demonstration of mill's utilitarianism and were promptly dismissed... I guess what I am getting at is that it didn't feel like a legitimate last day of classes.  I felt cheated in some respects.  As though class *really* ended on Tuesday but no-one thought to tell me, so I was left to expect SOMETHING out of Thursday and was left empty-handed.

So now I am sitting here in the Program Board office, realizing that everything that I have grown used to this year is almost over.  My job is over (kind of-- we still have our end of the year banquet for the office tonight and I have a study breaks program tomorrow, where we are gonna watch the Draft), my classes are done (with the exception of two take-home finals), and graduation is 2 weeks away.  Fourteen days from now I will be packing boxes full of crap and hurrying out of Trojan Hall.

Situations like this tempt me to become sentimental, to reflect upon the impact I have made here at USC, to question the sort of legacy that I leave behind.  Did I do enough?  Make changes that I would be proud of?  Will people remember me?  These sorts of inquiries into our impact as individual human beings are natural I think, but also quiet troubling to me at times.  I started thinking like this a week ago and ended up in tears thinking that my time at USC had been a failure.  And I will be honest, sometimes I feel like I didn't get enough out of this time.  Sure, I learned a lot and I did a lot of things, but I don't have many close friends that I will take from USC, certainly no Jels or Ne.  I dated one solitary guy from USC, and that wasn't until about 8 months ago, and I guarantee that the moment we graduate I won't hear from him again (maybe thats fatalistic or pessimistic but lets be honest-- we broke up and I am gonna be in Boston and he is gonna be in Japan.  The odds aren't in favor of contact being maintained).  I made friends but they don't seem like the lasting sort.  I guess I envision that they will forget about me either because I am not constantly in front of them at USC or wherever they are, or because I really didn't ever mean that much to those people.  Which is depressing to think about.  Maybe I should have joined a sorority; maybe I should have been more gregarious, or maybe I should have worked harder at maintaining the friendships that I started.

Either way, maybe I just changed too much while I was at USC.  THe person I was when I entered is most definitely not the person that I am today.  Which is not to say that I have figured myself out.  I definitely have questions, more questions that answers at least, and I don't imagine that I will find answers to many of them any time soon.  I imagine that I will be asking those questions and redefining myself jsut as drastically at HDS as I have at USC, and I know that my process of growth and discernment is as little finished today as it was four years ago.  To be completely honest, sometimes I question whether I will EVER find out who I am completely... I feel as though I am going to be always going through a process of change, trial by fire, or at least a sort of redefinition through experience.  God is constantly molding me through my personal and public experiences, the things that I do and those that I fail to do.  Is that a bad thing?  I don't know?  Does it say something about me? Am I a failure becasue I don't have all the answers?  Probably not.  But it defintiely makes it harder for me when people ask me what I plan on doing when I finish school.  Or when I get my Masters.  Or when I commission in the Navy.

My pastor once told me that he never questioned his call by God until the moment that he said "yes, God."  Perhaps that is what is happening to me.  Because before I committed myself to something, it was easy to think I would all figure it out eventually.  Committing myself to seminary has made me think more critically about my path, just as the reality of graduation is causing this intense reflection on my legacy at USC.  I guess it is just all part of the process of building and breaking down and building up again.  It's a testament to the versatility and power of the human spirit, of God's spirit within us to move us to unimaginable feats, to find things within ourselves that we could never have imagined existed.  It's both titillating and fearsome, something to be welcomed with outstretched arms and yet always looking back over our shoulders, judging our actions in hindsight to see if they "measure up" to the world and our own personal standards.

Really what it is is freakin' scary as hell, but it sounds better to say that God intended it and that it is something to love about our lives.

Okay, So i really just wanted to vent for a moment, not sure if ANYONE is going to read this but whatever.

Here's my issue with myspace:  I feel like there is this pressure to be noticed by others-- you want people to be looking at you, interested in what you are doing, you you you.  So, for example, I try to make sure I am present on other people's pages as incentive for them to extend the same courtesy to me.  Maybe that is lame and superficial, but I want people to pay attention to me and I feel like people would only want to pay attention if I show interest in them.  So I go on pages, leave comments, look at pictures, etc etc etc.....

And nothing.

I mean, maybe I am singling myself out as a loser here, but I feel like I don't get that attention back from others.  I mean, sure, there are a few wonderful people out there: my cousin Amberley, Justin, Miran,.... but right there I am starting to draw a blank on anyone else.  And its not like my other friends just dont go on the net.... I see them commenting on other people all the time, which makes me ask myself, "is there something wrong with me?  Am I just another number, one step closer to a gazillion friends?  Do I matter to these people?"  Gawd my self-conscious-o-meter is through the roof. 

Anyways, I just wanted to get that off my chest, cuz honesty has been my policy lately, and I don't particularly enjoy spending this much time on the internet when I feel so ignored..