Lonely Planet

I spent my first two years of college at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Getting accepted and having the opportunity to go to Georgetown was my dream. Those two years, though, were very difficult. For many reasons, I did not end up staying at Georgetown.

Washington, D.C., is a peculiar sort of place. It's huge, and yet very, very tiny. There are a great many people packed into a very small space, and most of those people see themselves as wildly different from the other inhabitants of the city. There are three reasons that one lives in D.C.: you were born and raised there, you work for a government (American or foreign), or you work for a non-profit organization. The college students in the city (and there are a lot of them) are there usually because they want to go into politics. In fact, politics shape every aspect of life in the District. I remember walking down the street and being amazed by the people I saw. The Americans - at least the Americans that weren't tourists - did everything with purpose. There were meetings to go to, rallies to attend, people to call, metro trains to catch, opinions to disseminate. There was never, I quickly realized, time for, well, life. Being in D.C. means being of D.C. Being of D.C. usually means interacting with a plethora of people, but never really knowing them or caring to know them. A political constituent is a faceless American whose vote can be won or lost depending upon the way a campaign is run. A neighbor is someone who is probably just as busy as you are and wants to get to know you about as little as you want to get to know him. The cashier at the grocery store is someone working a minimum-wage job, someone who needs, not a friend, but a political representative. This is how D.C. operates.

It is the loneliest place I have ever been.

During my two years in the nation's capitol, I longed for every smile, every handshake that I received. They were few and far between, but they had the power to change my attitude for the rest of the week. I strove to make conversation with anyone that I could. Most people found that to be very strange. I'm not a terribly social person; I love being able to relax by myself and read, play video games, write letters, or what have you. Yet, being in Washington taught me that I need people. Not just my family and friends, but people. My experience in D.C., coupled with my growing conviction that Christ calls me to love every single person with whom I come into contact, has changed the way I look at the other people walking around this lonely planet.

We are lonely. People are lonely. And it's only getting worse. We send a Facebook message when we could send an email. We send an email when we could call. We call when we could take an hour out of our weeks to have lunch with a friend. We take an hour for lunch when we should be pouring all of our time into developing relationships with people. The Christian life is not a solitary one.

I still have trouble with this, of course. Some days, I don't want to look at people, much less love them. But we're not really given that choice, are we? Jesus died for us to live, and we must - must - tell others about His amazing sacrifice.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I love poetry. It moves me in a way that few other art forms do. Today, I came across a Walt Whitman poem called "To You." If you've not read Whitman, you really ought to try. He is certainly the most accessible poet I've ever read, and he knows how to use words in an incredible way. But here's my discovery from today:

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why
    should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?

That's it. It's so simple, but so relevant. I must not isolate myself. I must speak. This is my challenge to myself.

"Because I Do Not Hope to Turn"

I'm not very well-acquainted with the prophets, so I've been reading Jeremiah lately. The going is slow, but that's a good thing: I am constantly re-reading passages. I have been thinking a great deal about repentance and forgiveness lately, probably because of Lent, and I'm starting to better understand what true penitence looks like. Jeremiah is, thus far, all about returning to God. At first glance, it seems that God spoke through Jeremiah in order to make Israel and Judah realize just how angry He was:


"'Therefore I bring charges against you again,' declares the Lord. 'And I will bring charges against your children's children.'" (2:9). 


God's wrath is incredible. So much so that we can never really know it. He is terrifying, and His power is fearful. His anger, too, is righteous; we have no excuse for what we've done. When I was younger, I was frightened of our angry God; that, I think, is why I always shied away from books like Jeremiah. As I've gotten to know God more intimately, though, I've realized something. His anger is not only righteous; it is spurred by concern for our well-being. At the beginning of Jeremiah, God tells how the Israelites have turned from Him and begun to make their own gods out of rocks and wood or have adopted the false gods of other peoples. He is not angry just for the sake of being angry; He is angry because His people are shooting themselves in the feet, if you will. It's as though God's saying, "Please, just let me save you. I love you. You absolutely cannot do this alone. It is killing you":


"They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’
   and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
They have turned their backs to me
   and not their faces;
yet when they are in trouble, they say,
   ‘Come and save us!’
Where then are the gods you made for yourselves?
   Let them come if they can save you
   when you are in trouble!
For you, Judah, have as many gods
   as you have towns." (2:27-28)


As always, God's words are very poignant. The verse that struck me the most, however, was this:


"They have forsaken me,
   the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
   broken cisterns that cannot hold water." (2:13)


God is great with metaphors; He is always trying to make Himself understood to His people (as far as humans are capable of understanding God, that is). I read this verse and realized how many cisterns I have dug and continue to dig. I'm always looking for ways to fill myself, be it with school, hobbies, other people, or what have you. It works for a time, but then the water leaks out and I have to refill with something else. Sometimes, I try to fill it with God. But that's the problem: I'm trying to put God into this little well that I've dug for myself. A little well that fits my way of doing things, runs on my time, and doesn't impede other activities. I take some Living Water, but not too much - I don't want it to get in the way of my secular life.


God doesn't really give us that option, though. He does not offer just enough of Himself to sate our appetites for a time. He offers ALL of Himself. If we want a relationship with Him - a real, meaningful, transformative relationship - we cannot do it on our own terms. We have to abandon the broken cistern and immerse ourselves in the "spring of living water." God doesn't do lukewarm. We can't dip our toes in to test the spring out. It's all or nothing. And He allows us, unholy and sinful as we are, to wash ourselves in His spring. 


T.S. Eliot wrote a wonderful poem called "Ash Wednesday" in which he struggles with the grace of God and his own shallow desires. The complete poem is quite long, but it begins with this stanza:


"Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?"


He presents a very common problem that I have. I sin, and sin, and sin; and then I repent, and repent, and repent. After a while, I tire of it. My own imperfection makes me feel entirely hopeless. In other words, I "do not hope to turn again." Instead, I desire worldly things; those are easier to pursue. It's much more comfortable drinking out of my own little cistern. Yet, even as I feel these things, God calls out to me. He is always waiting for us to turn, even though he knows that we will wander away from Him again. The stream of living water never runs dry; Christ has filled it eternally. All we have to do is drink.