The Christian Race

With police violence protests, #blacklivesmatter protests, and counter protests flying everywhere throughout the U.S. and much of the world, I thought I'd share something I read today that might, hopefully, spur on those of us who claim to follow Christ:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
1 Corinthians 12:12‭-‬26 ESV

Tell me please, church, where it tells us to let our brothers and sisters struggle alone?

Paul is pretty clear here. As a white Christian, when Black Christians, Hispanic Christians, Asian Christians, Arabic Christians, Coptic Christians or other Christians suffer, I suffer. Why? We are one body.

Take a look at your body. When your toe jams into the doorway, it's not just your toe that is affected. When your tiny, seemingly purposeless appendix gets infected, your entire abdomen feels the pain.

We are all equal under Christ. There is no division by race, status, money, or language, but that doesn't mean we are all the same. Just as the body is composed of many parts, the church is a conglomeration of thousands of backgrounds, races, languages, social strata, and perspectives. If we are ever to achieve unity within the church, let alone the country, we need to begin by appreciating and supporting our brethren from different backgrounds. We need to apologise where necessary, lend a hand where needed, break bread together when able, and see each other's humanity and worth at all times.

From Behind the Veil

I swear I'm not dead.

Med school is something else, though, let me tell you. It's super gratifying and definitely my calling, but it's driven me to the point of actually wanting coffee. You know, that liquid burnt toast stuff I can no longer say I loathe and abhor. Yeah. That stuff.

(Courtesy of ScienceCompany.com)

Anyways, yeah. It's the last module. I have 3 weeks, 5 tests, 1 anatomy practical, 1 OMM practical, 1 standardised patient, and 1 shadowing rotation to complete. 

(I also may have become mildly hooked on a medical TV show, something I'm sure happens to every med student at some time or another)

That being said, I am so glad I'm not facing it all alone. Being married while in med school is an amazing blessing. Yes, marriage, like any relationship, takes time and time is a valuable resource typically (over)invested in studying, but marriage also pushes you to plan your time well, to add margin into your schedule, and to prioritise "Us" time. It pushes you to seek balance in your life, pursuit of God, wisdom, and leadership, seeking time to rest and recharge, and encouraging you to invest in your spouse. I know for sure, that if I were facing this alone I would be a stressed out wreck, hyperfocused on grades, and not taking good care of myself. Sure, my grades would temporarily be higher, but I'd be a wreck, burnt out, and prone to fall apart at barely a whisper.

So, major thanks to God for my wife and how she encourages me to seek balance, spurring me on to be a good student, but also a good husband and Christian. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have 155 flashcards to crunch for Monday's Neuro test.

Dirty Bomb

We all know the expression, "Actions have consequences." Heck, chances are our mothers used to scold us with that phrase while doling out punishment for what we'd just done.

What if I told you your actions' consequences don't just affect you?

I mean, we all know the obvious ones, like the effect of giving a gift to your spouse, or hanging a kid from a fence by his underwear. No, I'm talking the small things.

That lie you told, the half-truth, the skeletons in your closet. We keep these hidden for a reason - we don't want to offend anyone or make them think differently of us.

I was challenged by a friend, today, when he said that sin has collateral damage. And I thought about that for a bit. It's true. If I were to come and confess a heavy sin that's been weighing on me to my wife, it'd be off my chest, allowing me to be free and to seek restoration and forgiveness, but it'd be weighing her down now. Now she's trying to manage the weight of that sin, dealing with the consequences.

Now, I'm not advocating hiding or sins - rust allows everything to fester and rot from the inside, but I am advocating something I'm beginning to learn: sensitivity.

At this, of course, anyone who knows me well will start laughing. After all, I have the sensitivity of a rock. That being said, though, I'm learning how important it is and how it can help mitigate the secondary, collateral damage of sin.

It's something I'm learning is important. It takes awareness and wisdom, two things I lack, but it's possible.

So, here's to wisdom and understanding. May God grant me both, that I may be a soothing balm to those I wound.

For Our Sons

I'm only a young man. I haven't seen much in my meagre 23 years. I haven't experienced or done much, either, but this is something that I'm beginning to understand the gravity and magnitude of that I think needs to be better understood by men at large.

Previously, I've clumsily typed my way around the red-herring modesty debate (I'm not going to link it, but it's somewhere here on this site), thinking that was a good approach to take, to chip in my two cents that men need to be proactive and work to prevent what many merely tell women to react to, that is, lust. Equally clumsily, I've spoken with friends who are feminists, trying to ascertain their positions (didn't quite get it, but hey, I was trying, right? [wrong attitude]).

I finally got around to looking at the #YesAllWomen making its rounds. It took me a while, because I'd dismissed it as "just another feminist outrage," but what caught my eye was that men I know whom I have never seen post anything feminist were sharing it, posting it. So, I gave it a look. To me, it was nothing flooring, but it piqued my interest. I did a bit of searching for articles about the movement, read a few of the latest twitter feed posts and realized something crucial - I don't understand.

I don't understand why my sister had to wait until she was older and still take a dog with her to go running, whereas I could've gone on my own whenever.
I don't understand the pressures of the media on women to look beautiful; after all, men's health puts the same standard on us men, right?
I don't understand why women don't feel comfortable walking to the shop after dark for a few quick necessities.
I don't understand why women have to say they have a boyfriend/fiance/spouse for their "no" to be heard.
Just to name a few.

Let me flip this scenario on its head:
Men, you are now the physically weaker sex. Society has relegated your role (traditionally) to cooking, cleaning, and minding the home. Some concessions have been made, however, and you can find work, though you might not be paid equally and you might be discriminated against. In fact, you might be hit on, harassed, or sexually assaulted by someone of the opposite sex who, being stronger than you physically and in the unwritten perception of society, is able to take their way with you, leave you, and still, no-one will fully believe you, stating that you were "asking for it" because of how you were dressed, had led the person on, hadn't said "no," etc.. You face pressure from part of society to change the way you act and dress because you're "making them lust." Conversely, you face pressure from the media and the market to fit an ideal of beauty because, let's face it, regardless of how smart or strong you are, everybody's only truly going to regard you based on how pretty you are; the applicable attributes only begin applying secondarily.

Swap shoes for a moment. Can you truly say "I don't understand" any longer? How about if I told you that the originator of #YesAllWomen is being bullied and pressured by the internet community, or that #YesAllWomenJokes has been made and is making its rounds. Can you not see the discrimination riding on the unwritten undercurrents of Western society?

I send my appreciation to the authors of #AllMenCan and #EachEveryWoman as they seek to keep this discussion on the table.

I'm only a young man. I haven't seen much in my meagre 23 years. I haven't experienced or done much either, but as I grow and (hopefully) become a father, I will teach my sons this message. Will you teach yours?

Yes = No?

**Let me preface this with some context: I attend a university with a moderately strict code of conduct/hair & dress code. I am a member of student leadership (although not an RA) at said school.**

Some things irritate me. Some things puzzle me. Some things do both.


As prefaced, my school has a hair/dress code attached to its code of conduct. At my school, I see students, every day, in direct contravention to the codes (more the former than the latter - violators of the latter know better than to be seen). This irritates me. This angers me and yet, I feel nothing but pity for these fellow students.

"Why?"

Because I cannot trust them.

"Hold on, what?"

I cannot trust them. Let me explain. When prospective students enter my school and accept its offered acceptance, they are required to read and sign that they have read and will follow the codes (hair/dress and conduct). Additionally, the students are reminded of these codes in every syllabus of every class they will take.

"Okay, how does breaking hair code mean they are untrustworthy?"

When they signed acceptance of the codes, they gave their word that they would follow and abide by the codes. Their word was and is their bond.

Bond. That's an interesting concept. have you ever given someone your credit card, ID, watch, etc as collateral that you would honor your word and perform a specific task? As a waiter, I've held many people's driver's licenses as they went to go draw money from the bank to pay for the meal.

When someone's word is their bond, it means that they nave nothing riding on their promise that they will lose except their name/word/honor. The esteem to which one holds one's name/word/honor says a lot about a person. I for one, hold my honor, my word as a valuable commodity; after all, if I do not have my word, what have I that may be trusted?

In Matthew 5, Jesus talks about taking oaths. He advises that we not swear upon the earth, the sky or on God himself as we are de facto making these our bond, but rather, we should let our yes mean yes and our no, no. Basically, we should be holding our word as bond. We should not need to be making promises or oaths to reassure others that what we say we will do, we will do.

So, to you few students walking around out of code, you men with too-long hair, t-shirts with no jacket/sweater, earrings, and you women who wear overly revealing tops or too-short skirts, I apologize. I do not mean to judge. I do not mean to belittle, but I must inform you that I cannot trust you. Do you hold your word, your name to such little esteem that you do not even hold yourself to something as easy to follow as a hair/dress code?

That is what I see. If you do not value your own word, how can I trust it?

Iron Brotherhood

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

- Proverbs 27:17

Today, I was reminded of one of the reasons why we humans live in community and why we Christians put so much emphasis on fellowship.

Let me just start this off by saying that I am thankful for my leadership team that I have this year. There are a number of really great guys on the hall, getting to know whom has been an immense pleasure.

Of these, there's one particular person that I've clicked with. [I'll leave him anonymous for anonymity's sake, sorry] Now, we both have the same U.S. History Survey class and we were meeting up to study for an upcoming test <cough... erm... tomorrow>. Afterwards, we started chatting and just rambling through a ton of different topics, ranging from evolution (the bias in textbooks, logical fallacies committed [straw man, oversimplification], general holes in the autonomy of the theory that, to me as a Christian biology student*, scream "God works here!"), to the state of the church, to the efficacy of short term missions, to toxic charities/missions trips, Convocation, how God has worked in the past and recently, etc.

Needless to say, we rambled and it was a good rambling. It brought to mind the verse written above and I thought about it anew. Too often Christians use this and limit this to the context of accountability, but, in all honesty, it's about living in community and engaging in meaningful conversation with people. When you're doing this, you're guaranteed to come across different views, or a facet of your thoughts or ideas you had never before considered. In these ways, we temper each other and, well, sharpen each other. we hone our edges, wearing away the rough edges into a clean, sharp razor.


*I would love to engage in reasonable, intelligent discussion about evolution/science from a Christian lens vs. an evolutionist lens

Status Change

There comes a time in a young man's life when a certain member of the opposite gender catches his eye...

Okay, enough with the dry, dusty Life Orientation lesson... Basically, I'm now in a dating relationship and we're taking it seriously.

It's become so common recently for people to date/marry then break up shortly afterwards. I mean, it was only a few months ago that Kim and whatshisname married and a few days later divorced. I look at all of this and wonder sometimes, "Why?" Why do so many people fall in love and call it quits as though they were changing clothes?

I look and see it stemming from a problem of perception. The perception, or more accurately, misperception, is that a relationship ultimately exists to satisfy "me".

Right now, at that statement, many would decry this saying, "You misjudge me!" or, "You judge too harshly"

Yes, I judge harshly. A relationship should be and is a serious matter. Let me give my justification:

1. A relationship is about more than the "feeling". That feeling of love, attraction, affection that you have/had, it will fade, hopefully to give way to something greater, with work. Isn't this such a selfish motive, pursuing a relationship for how it makes you feel? Yet, many people fall into the feeling trap, breaking up because they don't feel the same way anymore.
2. A relationship is mutual. Many times people going into a relationship expecting to be served, but not prepared to serve. That is commensalism (one benefits, the other is neither benefited nor harmed) at best, but usually it tends to become parasitic (one benefits, the other is harmed). Again, this is selfishness.
3. A relationship requires manipulation. No, not the maneuvering, scheming, destructive manipulation, but manipulation as in work, effort, and problem solving. Relationships take work, yet so often people expect to not have to do work and be able to sit back with everything given to them. Again, selfishness.

Okay, so that's my rant about relationships. Now, for those of you expecting me to do a flipside and talk about what relationships are, go and re-read the three M's. Yeah, that's right, I just killed two birds with one (okay, three) stone.

So, my challenge to both the reader and myself: Build a good relationship with my girlfriend (or you with your significant other) by being committed beyond the feelings, giving equal to what I'm receiving, and working to strengthen the relationship.