why christianity is my song

I’ve known about Jesus practically my whole life. I became interested in learning more about him in high school. I considered myself in a relationship with him shortly after I started to show interest, but in retrospect, I don’t think it was until college that I started to take this relationship more seriously. It always seemed like wishful thinking. Like I had an imaginary friend. I was afraid to question the relationship for fear that my bubble would pop. Through my experiences and relationships at Seattle Pacific University, this relationship started to feel more and more real, though not without some significant struggle and questioning. The superficial, sugar-coated relationship I started out with about 6 years ago has matured; being more genuine than it has ever been, still as sweet (though in different ways), and a pain in the ass at times.

My time in Togo has been another significant contributor to the evolution of my faith. I have had the opportunity to engage in very interesting conversations with people I really admire, I have read books that have challenged and supported my views, and I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on all of this. So this is why Christianity is my song: because, by the grace of God, my heart has been opened enough to experience the divine beauty a relationship with Jesus Christ has to offer. In spite of any resistance on my part, in spite of the brokenness of the world, God has been gracious enough to make his or her love available to the most ordinary and most undeserving. And the good news is that God is not confined to religion. Religion is meant to be a sacrament, a means for experiencing the sacred. It is not the sacred itself.

The books I’ve gotten to read have all been incredible, but there are quotes from two that I would like to share. The first is a book titled Loving Jesus.

“The presence of our risen Lord Jesus Christ is not realized in any one individual, but definitely in the fellowship or interaction that takes place between individuals…

It is very important for Christians to be able to think rationally, intellectually, and scientifically about the world in which they live, but it is also very important that such thought processes not destroy their powers of imagination…

The Bible teaches that faith is a gift of God, and so I am not sure that there is anything that we can do to acquire more of it. If God has given you only a little bit of faith then you will be a person of little faith for the rest of your life. Thank God for the faith that you have—and learn how to use it in ways that will draw you closer to God…”

And from The Heart of Christianity…

“Being Christian is not about meeting requirements for a future reward in an afterlife, and not very much about believing. Rather, the Christian life is about a relationship with God that transforms life in the present…

Salvation is about life with God, life in the presence of God, now and forever.

(by Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish Diplomat and Christian mystic)
Give us pure hears that we may see you;
Humble hearts, that we may hear you;
Hearths of love, that we may serve you;
Hearts of faith, that we may abide in you.

(On Turning Ten by Billy Collins)
The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chickenpox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my back and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say goodbye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

(Thomas Merton, 20th century monk)
Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows himself everywhere, in everything—in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without him. It’s impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it.

(“This is my Song”—20th century hymn)
This is my Song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating.
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
But other lands have sunlight too and clover
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.”