Tag: alisha l. gordon

Sitting in the Margins: A Year in Review

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This week kicks off a brand new year for the students at the Candler School of Theology and I really can’t believe that this time last year, I was a first year student, bright eyed, bushy tailed (read: haired!) and eager to start on a new journey.

I remember posting this status on the first day of orientation:

August 22 Facebook Post

Then, I didn’t know how all of my experiences had lead me there, but I knew that the pull from God to go that direction was the right thing to do. It didn’t always make sense, but I was sure that I was on the right track.

Throughout the course of the year, my ideology about God and people would change drastically. The embedded theologies that have been with me for decades began to shift as I read and searched the history and context of familiar texts finding new meaning in them.

Ideas I had about “certain people” and varying “ideas” were dropping, shifting, molding, and taking new shape.

Some folks told me I was “losing my Jesus.”

I just laughed. If the only knew that what was happening behind the Tweets, Facebook posts, public worship, and every day life was drawing me closer to Him.

In the last year, I’ve been broken, depressed, lonely, fearful, afraid. I’ve been displaced and, for a moment, I was living out of my car. Months later, that same car was repossessed. Relationships were  broken and my pride and ego was crushed to pieces. For a very serious moment, I considered dropping out of school and thought that I had made a horrible mistake trying to pursue God in such a “grandiose” way.

How could a path so certain be filled with so much brokenness and figurative (and literal) death?

The answer was right in front of me: God was desperate for me to experience something much more than a change in theology or continual exercises in critical thinking. He wanted me to experience what it truly meant to be a part of the marginalized.

I am a marginalized person; I am a Black woman and a single mother who uses public assistance to keep things afloat. My position in the margins have always been there. My marginalized seat as a Black single mother who is on public assistance is well worn, but the experiences in the last year have introduced me to what it is like for families to scramble to find emergency housing and what the working poor face as they have limited transportation and must rely on the kindness of others and public transit to travel around the city for work and school.

As I found residence in a new section of “The Margins”, parts of my elitist, privileged views were revealed. They were ugly. I became one of those whom I once turned my nose up at, who I had no patience or compassion for. My degrees didn’t matter, neither did all the blessings that I was afforded over the years. God leveled the playing field. He made me see things the way He sees things.

Once God restored me with a place to call my own and a little cash car I was able to buy with a whole bunch of favor (and unexpected funds), I realized that everything I had experienced, as brief as it had been, was enough for me to have a newfound compassion and understanding of what the heart of God is. It taught me that this life we have, these things we possess are nothing — they have no weight — and they are never to become a place of comfort for us.

God kept me when I wanted to quit — when nothing was making sense but I was still required to keep moving forward.

During the most desperate of times, God ensured that my pride (that I held soooo tightly) wouldn’t hinder me from being able to receive from people He brought to me to help me.

All of the furniture I own, every dish, bed, and pot, was given to me — for free. (Remember this? Yeah, good seeds come back.)

A number of other things have happened that have blown my mind — all kinds of opportunities — that have made the last year’s pain just a distant memory. Weeping may endure for a night… (y’all know the rest!)

There are so many things I could name that has changed in the last year, but the thing that I can say that has changed the most is this:

I treat people differently.

I try not to use my “Christian privilege” to make people feel inadequate or less than. I try not to take scripture out of context to appease my own fears and insecurities about my misunderstandings of others.

What I’ve learned in the first year was simply how to treat people better: the estranged, the outsider, even myself.

I could attribute a shift in theology for that. I really could. But, as we know, there’s no greater teacher than experience, right?

As I begin year two in this journey, I am desperately seeking vocation. I am trying to understand what God wants me to do with my life’s experiences — and show me how to shape them into purpose.

I know things won’t be easy this year and year two will present its own set of problems. But I am thankful for where I am in this moment.

I’m also very thankful to the friends, family, classmates, professors, staff members, and even strangers who kept me moving forward when my feet felt stuck in the cement.

Thank you.

Here’s to year two, y’all!

Keep an eye on this blog for conversations about what I’m learning this year — and tell a friend!

On the Chase,

Alisha L.

God, Justice, and Our Collective Will

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As the country waited to hear the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, there were a host of emotions present as we waited to learn Zimmerman’s fate. Many were hopeful that justice would come quickly for 17 year old Trayvon Martin; we ended the night only to have our hopes dashed with a not guilty verdict.

I took some time to look at the response of many people while we waited for the verdict and even afterward. People around the country had a similar request:

While I could spend many words expressing the feelings of despair and hopelessness people had surrounding these developments, there was a common theme that abounded throughout the night: the need for God’s “will to be done”. As hundreds of people tweeted and posted about wanting God’s will to be done with bated breath, hoping the verdict would offer solace to both the Martin family and supporters across the country, the collective disappointment was met with even more social commentary about how we will continue to wait for God’s will to be done and, as Psalm 94:1 suggests, allow God’s vengeance to do the work that the judicial system could not do.

I am not arguing any facts or failures about this case. The aforementioned introduction shines light on my personal views of the case, series of events, and desired outcome.

I am, however, raising theological questions about God, justice, and our collective will.

I mean, how do we find/know God’s will anyway?

We could use algorithms and formulas to figure out God’s will…
Powerful scripture + past experiences / prophetic word from a televangelist = God’s will?
OR
A bible story + prayer x a seed of faith($) = God’s will?

Here are the hard, theological questions I have about praying for God’s will in the midst of waiting for and reacting to Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict:

Since the verdict was not in Trayvon’s favor, does this mean that God was not listening to the supplication of those who wanted a guilty verdict? Was God’s will to allow the Martin family to not see justice and face the devastating pain of having their son’s killer go free? Does God, in fact, will for George Zimmerman to be a free man? Does this mean that Zimmerman’s life was more valuable than Trayvon’s?

Can we definitively say that our prayers for God’s will to be done come with the presumption that God’s will is like our own? And when these things do not work in our favor, does it now mean that God is in opposition to us?

More importantly, whose will is really at work in the earth?

Is it God’s or man’s?

God gave mankind the ability to choose. Many people call this “free will”. We are able to make our own decisions, one way or the other, with or without an understanding of God’s will for any given situation. I imagine that even when we are fully aware of what we think is God’s will for our lives, we still have the ability to choose otherwise.

Zimmerman made a choice on a cold, rainy February night in 2012. Some may argue that his actions were a part of “God’s will.” Others would scoff at the idea. Nevertheless, it was his ablity to exercise his free will that took Trayvon’s life.

So what does this mean for God, justice, and our collective will?

I’m reminded of Marvin Gaye’s song, “I Want You” where he croons over a carefully orchestrated melodic tune with electric and bass guitars, bongos, and string instruments:

I want you / the right way / I want you / but I want you to want me, too.

During my time in seminary, I’ve learned that God can be quite narcissistic, conceited, and totally consumed with Himself. We see countless scriptures throughout the Old Testament where God’s desire for a monolithic worship experience with His people was of prime importance and this incessant need to be chosen by His people is how much of the biblical text plays itself out.

God wants us to want Him the way that He wants us. He wants us to choose Him, intentionally.

But I’m convinced that God knew that we would not always choose Him on purpose. This free will gets in the way of seeing how amazingly wonderful it is to love God, to choose to be in relationship with Him. Our sinful nature pushes against the very idea.

Because God knew we wouldn’t choose Him on our own, He sent Jesus to show us how serious He was about us choosing Him. I’m being a bit presumptuous, but I think God knew that we would not choose Him on our own — our fleshly nature innately rejects God and our minds would only follow suit in a proverbial rebellion against The Creator.

God sending Jesus was the ultimate example of divine leadership: a leader should not expect their followers to do anything they are not willing to do themselves.

So God gives the ultimate sacrifice (His son) to prove that though He was asking us to make a choice to choose him (something that we could not do through our mind/flesh),  He first had to show us what it truly meant to not only sacrifice but to choose intentionally.  Choosing had to be a HEART matter, it could not be  an act of the flesh. God gave his son Jesus as a HEART sacrifice.

So, when we begin talking about God’s will versus our own, though we have the ability to choose any way we would like, when we consider that LOVE fueled God’s decisions to not only create us but sacrifice for us, we have a new lens to look at how we engage in the process of finding justice for those who have been wronged.

We will never be able to answer the question of what God’s will is — especially when it is juxtaposed against human free will. What we do know however, is the core essence of having any type of will at all, is that every choice is a heart matter — when we live and act in LOVE we don’t have to war with who’s will is at work — LOVE is what drives our decision making and communal interactions.

On the Chase for Justice,

Alisha L.
Here's a Daniel and the lion's den coloring sheet. Enjoy! :D

Catchin’ Feelings: A Man Named Daniel

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I’ve been in a love affair with a guy named Daniel for years. He’s accompanied me to church, bible study, Sunday school, and small groups. He’s been my shoulder to cry on when life’s kitchen had the heat on hell and reminded me that there was always a “fourth man” standing in the “furnace” with me. It was his life’s story that reminded me that even in the mouth of the lion, God will save me, redeem me, and elevate me.

All of his heroic stories shaped who I am. I believed what every preacher has ever said about him and I never questioned whether or not the miraculous things that occurred in the book of Daniel were really legit.

Today, I found out that they were not — they’re fictional.

Yep. Fictional, fake, made up, fabricated, imagined.

I sat in the lobby of Candler this morning with my mouth agape and my heart tormented.

“What do you mean, book of historical commentary on Daniel, that the stories of heroism that I’ve held so dearly is fictional?” I asked myself.

I flipped through my bible’s commentary to find some kind of solace, some explanation that would solve this crisis: how could these stories I’ve held on to for so long be fictional? How could something that mattered so much be historically and literally inaccurate?

I took to Facebook and threatened to jump off a classroom table if I had to really accept the idea that the stories in Daniel chapters 1-6 were fictional (Chapters 7-12 are considered Apocalyptic Literature and requires its own discussion!) My embedded theology had been challenged, and though it wasn’t the first time, it surely hit me like a ton of bricks.

I got a little pushback from friends and associates on Facebook, of course.

“The entire bible is made up!”

“Today, it feels like I just learned Santa isn’t real. Why even teach it?”

Another said, “What is the point of seminary? To teach you that the Bible is farcical?”

I had to figure out what was making this break up with Daniel’s heroic stories so tough and where I would go from here — as a seminarian and as a Christian.

The running joke with many seminarians and their friends/families/church community is that seminary admits a Christian and graduates an atheist. “You lose your Jesus in there!”, they say. We gain insight to the historical and literal contexts, so much so, that in some way, what was once an infallible now becomes… questionable.

What, then, do we do? I came to this conclusion (because losing my Jesus ain’t an option) — whether the stories are factual or not does not matter.

The truth remains: God’s sovereignty, power, and desire to have relationship with us is a consistent, irrevocable force.

When we read scripture, we have to learn to separate the facts from the truth. The fact of the matter is, the stories told in Daniel chapters 1-6 may not have happened. Historians don’t even know who authored the book and, as the stories of Daniel take its course, there are some quirky things happening within those aforementioned chapter (like the text switching from Hebrew to Aramaic then back to Hebrew).

The truth is, however, that God’s power is real, that He will go to great lengths to save His (or Her) people, and that no matter where we are and under what circumstances, we can rest in the fact that God is there to save us. Through Daniel, we learn how to live/act in a world that may expect us to live contrary to what our God tells us to do — be and remain faithful to Yahweh is a key theme of the book.

Someone asked me, “If some of the stories in the bible aren’t factual, then what’s the proof that God can do anything at all?”

That, my friends, is a personal thing — what YOU believe God can do based on what you’ve read and understand is your own personal discernment. Knowing the history behind the story doesn’t change what I believe about God; if anything, it enhances it.

It helps me to see God in a new way; it complicates yet simplifies, narrows yet expands, empties yet fills.

In a lot of ways, I feel like knowing that sometimes the story and even the characters are totally made up moves our loving affections away from these biblical personas and to the one who really matters: God.

I know it won’t be the last time that I read something in scripture that really challenges what I’ve thought to be true (I’ll write about my disappointment in Job and my tears shed over Genesis in another post) and it is this level of questioning and critical thinking that I hope will help make me into a really awesome minister/writer/pop culture commentator/praise and worship leader/dancing machine.

I’m still working on what to do with these feelings about my man Daniel; like any love affair gone awry it takes a minute to settle into things. I am glad, however, that God walks us through this process of getting over what doesn’t matter and getting to the root of what does.

On the Chase,

Alisha L.

Here's a Daniel and the lion's den coloring sheet. Enjoy! :D

Here’s a Daniel and the lion’s den coloring sheet. Enjoy! 😀

Easter: Get Outta My Seat Day!

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Hey guys.

Every year around this time, we gear up to remember the greatest moment in history: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We take off work, get our hair done (or did, depending on where you’re from), get our best clothes and food prepped for “the big day”.

We send out the inspirational quotes and Christian memes are retweeted at an all time high.

We prepare for this moment like Fat Tuesday: beads, bells, whistles, even a titillating [praise] dance to show the world we’re Christians and we know it! Continue reading →

A Desperate God

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Since entering Seminary, the scope and breadth of how I view and understand God has changed a bit. Well, a lot.

I sat in my room teary eyed and wholly upset at God after learning that He regretted making us in Genesis 6:6: “…and the LORD was sorry that He made humankind on the earth and it grieved Him to His heart.” (NSRV)

I knew He destroyed the earth because we (humankind) couldn’t get our lives right, but daaaaang. Regret? Sorrowful? We grieved You?

Sheesh.

Once I got over feeling some kind of way (honestly, that really hurt my feelings!), I began to see that nearly every encounter God had with man in the Old Testament was fueled by His insatiable desire to have a relationship with us. This anthropomorphic God (one with human-like characteristics, feelings, thoughts, interactions) was desperate to have us as His own, be thankful to Him for creating us, and, in whatever way possible, live our lives as He said we should.

He, like all “parents” do, had a plan for His kids. Our disobedience, however, brought about some of the most discussed, disparaging, and body-of-Christ splitting occurrences in the bible. We see a God who passes judgment on Hebrews and enemies alike for disobedience; God attempts to kill Moses for his disobedience (Exodus 4:18-31) despite God giving him the charge of delivering the Hebrews out of Egypt (clearly, obeying His ordinances was more important than some God-given assignment, eh?) We see God obliterate the Egyptians and their first-born sons for refusing to let His chosen people worship Yahweh as they wanted to — even going so far to intentionally hardening Pharoah’s heart to up the ante and make the punishments for disobedience grow and grow by the day. “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, so that I will gain the glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD. And they did so.” (Exodus 14:4)

Grimy!

In the new dispensation of our faith, grace and mercy rules the coop. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the foundation of everything we believe, and in many ways, we have forgotten the vengeance and judgment of God.

Jesus makes us feel good. His sermons and parables of fish and salt and lights on a hill are so applicable and practical — it’s like a Publix commercial during the holidays: just makes you want to hug somebody, cook some food, and share it (and the gospel) with good people.

But we’ve forgotten the vengeance and judgment of God.

Jesus playing keep away with the children.

We’ve forgotten that He’s serious about us — and serious with those who come against us. He desperately wants us, and after millenniums of trying to get us to do right on our own, He sent Jesus to stand in the gap. When God looks at us, He sees us through the blood stained garments of Jesus. He doesn’t do what He should to us because Jesus keeps playing “keep away” with God!

Lest we have forgotten, God is no punk. He’s not here to play games on Sunday (or Saturday, if that’s your practice). He is cut throat, vengeful, angry, wrathful, and passes judgment at His discretion. Why? Because He’s holy and wants us to be holy as well. He wants to have a well-balanced relationship with us that brings pleasure to both parties. He’s not down for a one-sided venture to eternity; He wants us to walk with Him.

Now wait, does this mean we walk around in all white, sacrificing goats or living like the Old Testament law says? Absolutely not. However, there is something to be said about honoring Him  in the most sacred place of all: our hearts.

A friend mentioned that he was growing tired of so many preachers presenting no balance to the grace message, sending folks on their way with rose-tinted glasses that God is pleased with our mediocrity and that how we feel rules over God’s expectations. Forget yo’ feelings: God wants your heart!

In light of the monstrous storm battering the northeast, many have said that the storm is a “sign of judgment” from God. We need to “get right!”, they say.

I love what Stephen Prothero from CNN’s Religion Blog had to say about this “judgment”:

“As for me, I am less sure about what God wills for our storms (political or otherwise). In my view, any God worth worshiping isn’t going to be so predictable, or so capricious… When it comes to storms like Sandy, I just don’t believe in a God who drowns black babies in Haiti yet refuses to drown out the voices of cranky white men who claim so irreverently to speak in His name.”

God isn’t some faux wizard behind the smoke and mirrors of the “Great and Powerful Oz” using switch levers and buttons controlling this earth… at least I don’t think so. We can’t say one way or the other if the things that occur in the earth that bring destruction and death are “God’s doing.”

What we can say is that He’s still desperately seeking for our hearts to turn back to Him and will go at any lengths to get them back.

Yes, God passes judgment on us. Yes, He allows the enemy to come in and wreak havoc until we get our minds back on track. Sometimes we recover, sometimes we don’t. I am reminded as I go through this Seminary experience, though: It’s dangerous to teach grace without teaching judgment. Have you ever met a kid that was never punished for anything? They’re brats. And the absolute worst.

I’m at the place where I’m seeing and learning that God is really desperate for us. He’s revealed Himself to us in ways that we can’t fathom, given to us in ways we don’t deserve. Building relationship with Him is something He wants. His desperation for us exudes from every crevice of this earth.

Grace and judgment: what a dynamic duo.

On the “don’t-cast-your-judgment-on-me, I’m-working-on-my-relationship-with-you” Chase,

Alisha L.

Microwaves

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Here’s the scene: you put a dish of your favorite food in the microwave and as your tummy rumbles with hunger, you hear it popping and sizzling, taking in all those micro waves. With all the sound effects coming out of that 1,100 watt machine, you just know that when you take your food out of the microwave, it’s going to be ready to eat.

So, you take the dish out, sit it on the counter, stick your fork in it to get a bite — only to realize the center is still frozen.

This always sucks because you have to put the food back into the microwave for it to heat all the way through. The second time around, you stand there with your face inches away from the microwave… waiting. Those 2 minutes seem to take 20, don’t they?

Well, that’s the same thing that happens when we microwave our relationship with God. We put our lives (desires, dreams, wants, demands) in a microwave, press the 2:00 minute button and wait for the “ding!”, pretty confident that what we want we will get in just a matter of a half-hearted push of a button. Our sense of entitlement rears its head when we pull our spiritual dish out, pick up our fork of faith, and press down into a solid cold, frozen center, otherwise known as our heart.

All the right sound effects are there: the popping (hallelujah!) and sizzling (“I love me some Jesus!) but on the inside, our hearts are cold towards Him.

Revelation 3:15-16 tells us that God would much rather us be hot or cold towards Him — it’s the lukewarm (or half-cooked food – hot on the outside, cold on the inside) that He hates.

I know your [record of] works and what you are doing; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot!
So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth! (Revelation 3:15-16 Amplified Version)

Here are two takeaways:

1. We have to learn to bake and roast. Microwaving our relationship with God does nothing but leave a cold, hard center. Baking and roasting allow for the Word to seep in, the juices to marinate, and for our hearts to warm up to the fiery outside we show the world. Nothing worth having in God can be cooked in a microwave.

2. Do a self check: what’s the temperature of your center? Rushing God’s will for your life can cause you to leave the cooking process earlier than you should. There’s nothing worse than having hot outsides (what you present to the world) and your heart lukewarm. It’s essential that we get our heart on fire for God and that our desires line up with His.

The best foods (and spiritual victories) come when we’re willing to bake a bit. Microwaved faith is for amateurs!

On the Chef Boyardee Chase,

Alisha L.