Word Study: ψυχή (Gr. Psuché)

Let’s talk about John 10, verses 14-18. It’s talking about the sheep and the shepherd- an extended metaphor for Jesus and us (believers, and people/humans in general). 

I recently got an interlinear bible; it has the New Testament in English and Greek, with a word-to-word translation line-by-line (hence the interlinear), and for the Old Testament it has Hebrew and English. It’s So. awesome.

Let’s take a look at the English of these verses:

 14 I [Jesus] am the good shepherd; I know my sheep [humans, Israelites] and my sheep know me— 

15just as the Father [-God] knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 

16 I have other sheep [humans, all nations] that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 

18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” [Emphasis and parenthetical comments added by me]

 As it turns out, the word that NIV translates “life” in Koine Greek is actually the word psuché, [or ψυχή, in its neutered form] which we derive our modern word “psyche” from. According to Strong’s concordance(5590), it means one’s soul, seat of affection and will…. One’s individual identity. in other words, Jesus gives his soul for us. His total identity.

Jesus was God who became man. He came down from his seat next to the throne of the Father-God to become fully God, and fully human person on earth in order that we could be saved through his death and sacrifice on the cross. Did he alter his identity in order to do this? No, because ultimate love is part of God is; his identity as a loving God was merely manifested in his coming down to earth.

But he did not die because puny humans killed him. No, his sacrifice of his will and life were a result of his choice. This choice was empowered by the authority given to him by the Father-God. And he returns to sit at the right hand of the father, but he gave it all up to show us his love. His identity is as the one who loves us enough to give up and sacrifice his will so that we can be saved.

This blows me away. I don’t know about you, but saying “oh yeah, Jesus gave his life for me, but nbd [no big deal] because he’s God anyway” doesn’t have as much strength as “Jesus gave his will, soul, and individual identity, and laid it all down in order to save us sheep.” It is one thing to say you will die for someone. It is another thing to say you will give your entire identity, life, and soul for someone. Especially if those someones are similar enough in attitudes and behavior to be compared to sheep (and all the positive and negative associations that come with that). 

 

 

 

Why Rogue One is a Rebel in the World of Hollywood

For this first time since seeing the original three Star Wars movies, I went into seeing Rogue One without any spoilers or knowledge (besides what was in the trailers and the premise that it occurs during the time right before the third episode).

With that being said, there are SPOILERS ahead.

One thing is clear about Rogue One: it is a war movie. I watched it on December 15th, after spending several days reading and watching the horrors that were unfolding in Aleppo. As Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor dove in and out of the desert roadways destroyed and blown up by imperial forces in a city on the moon Jedha, all I could see were the images of Aleppo’s destruction superimposed over them. The scene where Jyn dives through a fire fight to rescue a small girl screaming and crying only reflects in  a small part the terror that orphans in Aleppo have experienced, with bombs going off all around them night and day, before finally being forced to abandon their home.

I almost walked out at that part, as those scenes, the wide pan shots stolen from Syria’s border-country Jordan in Wadi Rum, reminding me of my own time there in Wadi Rum and in the northern part of Jordan, peering over the Golan Heights to Syria, which, in 2014, was actually in better shape than it is now. I looked around, expecting to see other people bawling their eyes out, or eyes drawn in horrified recognition of the parallels this movie was drawing, but I saw nothing.

The reason why Rogue One is such a deviation from what Hollywood typically has to offer is it tells a story that rarely gets told. It tells a story that ends in death, and for the main characters, despair. Their only comfort comes in the knowledge that they had given their all for a chance, a sliver of a chance that their actions would lead to a slip in the Empire’s grip and that their rule would be abolished. Despair is quite a common theme in Hollywood, yes, but the overarching believe in the cause that Jyn and Cassian (and the rest of the cast) lived and died for give their deaths a significance and meaning for the audience, even if it doesn’t for the characters themselves.

They lived their lives in faith, acting upon a belief in their flawed cause, but [just like the matriarchs and patriarchs the author of Hebrews discusses in chapter 11] they died before seeing the fruits of their faith and action.

Rogue One is a good reminder to all that doing good when nobody sees it is not a waste; and to Christ-followers, it is an encouraging reminder that no good deed will go unpunished in this life, have an eternal reward for our actions that cannot be seen this side of heaven.

It tells a story of why, even when there is no benefit to us personally, and indeed great harm, we should persist in doing good even when we will not be praised, we will not be sung about or talked about in blogs or TV shows or books. Instead of pursuing the humanistic philosophy that “you should do what feels right,” it pursues a harder line of inquiry: “You should do what is right regardless of how it makes you feel.”

Rogue One was also a reminder that no matter how epic the space battles look, no matter how sweeping the vista or impressive the special effects, people are dying. People who may make a wrong choice on the “right” side of the war, or a right choice on the “wrong” side of the war.

Jyn Erso’s father, Galen, spends years laboring for the Empire simply because he knows that he is at the right place at the right time, and has a slim [but better than anyone else’s] chance of saving lives. But he gives up his life in the process, both the quality of his life and the existence of it. Despite his absence from Jyn’s life, and her consequential resentment of him, he is willing to make that sacrifice and accept the consequences of his choices– choices that to Jyn seem hard and unfeeling, but for Galen are the best way he can show his love for her and his dedication to fighting the corrupt Empire.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story may not say this outright, but this message is woven into the fabric of the story:

Your quiet sacrifice and selfless deeds may never make it on the front cover of Times magazine, but there is a lasting impact to them. Rogue One shows that a life like that is worth living,  and worth dying for.

The stories most worth hearing are the ones never told.

 

Photos are all From Rogue One, copyright Lucasfilm and other what have yous. All rights reserved (to them).

 

 

A Year of Failure: 5 Ways I failed in 2015

When I entered 2015, I knew it would be radically different than 2014. I wouldn’t be graduating with my Bachelors degree. I wouldn’t be spending my summer in Amman, Jordan, soaking up the culture and sun like a thirsty sponge. I wouldn’t be finishing a thesis, or finishing my essay to enter into the Persona.

2014 felt like a year of successes, and of reached goals; I thought that 2015 would look vastly different. It felt only appropriate to expect the opposite from 2015 that I had received from 2014: failures.

Failure is one of the most terrifying words for me. I don’t deal well with it, and I was scared of confronting it, and also excited because I knew I would grow from my further acquaintance with it.

See, I’m the kind of person who won’t do something if I know I’ll fail (with few exceptions). I’m the kind of person who lets fear of failure keep her from trying things, who keeps her fear of the unknown outcome closer to her heart than the fear of the missed opportunity.

I can safely say I failed a lot this year. Failed writing jobs, failed queries, failed friendships, failed relationships, failed attempts at half marathons, failed attempts at writing on a blog every week (ha!) and many, many failed attempts at trying to keep everything together.

In honor of the new year, I’ve decided to write about my favorite failures of the year.

1. I failed to sustain my misguided belief that I have to be perfect.

This one is the failure that I am probably most proud of, and has also been the most difficult failure to deal with. I went through some very dark weeks, fighting this false ideology at its core. I still struggle with perfectionism… a LOT. But, thanks to some special people (you know who you are; or maybe not), I have come to the realization that imperfection is… wonderful. freeing. exhilarating. And to be honest, I cringe a little speaking so highly of imperfection still. But perfection is a stingy, cold, unforgiving, merciless, unfeeling, vituperative master. But the God of Grace is kind, loving, forgiving, and loves even when we are nothing but a fetal ball of tears and mess-ups. Perfectionism still calls my name daily, but now… I’ve started to ignore its beckoning.

2. I failed in my attempts to keep God’s love at bay

Despite my best efforts. Folks, I am freer and more alive in Christ now than I have ever been. Let me tell you, that is super exciting stuff. God will only stay away if you force him to. If you open up your heart a crack– He will slip right in like afternoon sunlight and warm your soul from its gelid status.

3. I failed to become a freelance writer

This one hurts to say, partially because I tried very hard to become this, and partially because I don’t think I tried hard enough (again, because of fear). I did get a lot of writing done, however, but most of it will probably never see the light of day. Baby steps.

4. I failed in relationships.

But, at the same time, I’ve succeeded. Because even in failure you learn something. I’ve learned a lot about people. I’ve learned that sometimes people you love dearly will hurt you, and that people I love will be hurt by me. I learned quite a bit about myself,  and how things should and should not be. And that has been invaluable, albeit painful.  I also learned that puppies are always a good bet when you’re low on snuggles.

5. I failed to become completely free of shame and guilt.

This is a hard one to admit. While I’ve made much progress in personal development in 2015, I’m very much a work in progress still [I’m painfully conscious of this right at this moment). I’m starting to discover that whenever I think I can take a day off from everything– including passionately pursuing Christ– that’s when I start sliding back into the old patterns including dark clouds of shame and guilt and reliance on my own performance rather than God’s grace.

If there is one thing that God has been speaking to me in the last few months, it is that his strength is made great in our weaknesses. He has placed people in my path  when I am weakest to guide me along the way, and God has been present in my life, heart, and mind like never before. This is why I share these failures with you today; because I know God will use them better than any post I could write about how 2015 went well for me, or how I succeeded this year.

 

 

 

 

 

A New Year, a New Mind

This wasn’t the first post for 2016 that I was intending to put up; the other one is still in my drafts folder.

I just arrived home after a New Year’s spent visiting with family; on the way home, I finished Francis Chan’s book, Crazy Love.

Coming home, seeing our shriveled Christmas tree, realizing that I must go back to work and wait a whole year before Christmastime again… well, call me a kid but it made me really sad. I had such an amazing Christmas this year; if I were being honest, I’d say it was the best. And the thought of leaving that behind made me a little misty-eyed. I only get to see my whole family (siblings, niece, nephew, uncles, aunts,  cousins, grandma) together once a year (if I’m lucky), and I loved our time together. It is a huge delight to spend time with them and I feel so blessed and privileged to call them Family.

Me being sad about leaving my family time behind… actually makes me super happy. Because not everyone has family that they love to be around, or loves them. Not everybody has family, period. And that makes me very sad. Which is probably why I started bawling as  I thought of my own family.

It is so strange being so happy that something makes you so sad, but that was the state I found myself in.

It’s been a crazy past couple of days– okay, month– okay, semester– Alright. Year. [let’s be honest: I carry the crazy with me all throughout life.] But the last four months I can say have been some of the best and worst months of my life. They’ve been the best because the situations I’ve found myself in and my (lack of) health and various relationships have pushed me to pursue God and become closer to him more than ever before in my life, and the worst because a lot of those situations that brought said closeness with God have been downright hellish.

I’ve had to come to terms with some very unhealthy mental habits of mine, which have brought sickness and anxiety attacks and all sorts of issues to my life. I’ve had to be brutally honest with my family and my friends in ways I’ve never been before… brutally honest about how weak I really am and how much a struggle appearing normal is for me sometimes.

But tonight, I am happy. No, I am joyful. I am joyful like I have rarely experienced in large quantities before this past August. I am joyful because I can feel both my joy and sadness with an alacrity and sharpness that would have been dull and shriveled, even a year ago. There is a cloud that has been over my soul for years, one that has greyed even the most vibrant of colors in my life. This cloud has only begun to shift in the past year, and if the last few months are any indication, the stormy deluge it brings at its passing is fierce but it will only serve to wash away the grime that has encased my soul.

I am so, so grateful that God has finally gotten into my head the beauty of vulnerability. For so long I saw it as a sign of weakness; and it is.

It is in our weaknesses that Christ is strongest, and it is our weaknesses that he uses as an avenue for his glory. His ways are not our ways; his thoughts are not our thoughts.

I’ve experienced unfettered joy in the last two weeks like I haven’t… ever. I’ve been so happy, and enjoying time with my family and relaxation when considering all circumstances I shouldn’t be. I’m amazed at this gift of joy, and love, and family, that seems newly washed and beautiful and satisfying like never before. And my heart aches for those whose Christmas season has been the exact opposite of that.

Even though I am filled with trepidation for returning to work and the myriad uncertainties of the future, I also am so happy, and excited to see God work in ways I’ve never before seen in my life in 2016.

I pray he:

Clarifies my vision for how I can best serve him and bring glory to his name.

Keeps my mind in the present and my heart near his, so I can walk in his Grace daily and share it daily.

Shows me more of his beauty, both through his creation and his heart.

Gives me more of his courage, to do and say and be who he is and who he wants me to be.

Shows me how to love more fully, live more deeply, and walk more closely with him.

Shows me how to fail more gracefully, say no more often (and more tactfully), and how to manage my resources (both time, health, and money) more in alignment with his laws.

 

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Galloping Along the Fence

Some nights are not for speaking of…

Some nights are beyond speech.

And yet I am motivated to put some words around them– not as a faithful rendering of the actual events, but to conjure up the evanescence of memory later on… memory made more clear by the recording of words.

My to-do list is screaming at me, but I am learning… or rather, trying to learn that I must tune it out to do what really matters. Sometimes. Other times, I really ought to tend to it more.

Lately I have been subconsciously dealing with a lot of “sufficiency” issues. I say subconsciously, not because I haven’t had these issues smack me in the batooky before, but because I didn’t recognize them in their insidious form this time. I merely recognized their manifestation as a deep, pervasive dread and fear of going to work.

I’m not afraid of hard work. I actually tend to enjoy it, once the initial hump of torpor is passed over. But the stresses, challenges, and sheer enormity of what awaited me at work after fall break made me tremble. I was so terrified that I couldn’t look through my fear to actually analyze what was making me so afraid.

So professional, right?

I managed to muscle my way through my first day back, thinking a mixture of “this isn’t so bad” and “this is so bad!” and, more prominently, “what am I missing and doing wrong?”

Thank(God)fully, I decided to stop by and talk with a much older (and wiser, and more experienced) teacher. I shared the more professional version of what I had been experiencing, and she told me something that I had apparently forgotten:

It’s okay to say no.

It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to not be superwoman. And please, stop being so hard on yourself.

The only person being that hard on you is yourself.

It was a wet slap to a numb face.

I had unknowingly, almost arrogantly, allowed my perfectionism to creep up, and had placed before myself ever-mounting goals and ideals that I, in my wilted, rookie, imperfect state have no chance of attaining. And so, naturally, I despaired. And so, naturally, I grew afraid of facing the fierce giant armed with a nuclear missile and a cute puppy (both of which are disarming, but in completely different ways).

Sometimes (okay, a lot of times) I forget that perfectionism is not a good thing. It is the stubborn malfeasance that gives you the audacity to think that you, of all people, know exactly what’s best— in every circumstance, and even more than God.

Yeeah.

Oops.

After work today, I decided to take a walk around my neighborhood. (My sedentary life lately has been, well, too sedentary.)

There’s a dirt road I walk down that has several families that own horses. At the end of the road is a small ranch with stables, and along the road there is a large corral which is usually empty. But tonight it wasn’t.

My heartbeat quickened when I felt the staccato thump-thump-thumpthump of hooves before I could see into the pen– I knew that a horse was cantering around the corral. I walked down the road, to where there were no bushes obscuring my view, and sure enough– a beautiful thoroughbred-quarter-horse mix was gamboling up and down the corral, having a wonderful time. A woman in a pink shirt walked towards the horse, and I thought she was trying to get close enough to the horse to bring her in.  Then she started  backing away while whistling, clapping, and talking to the horse– and the horse listened.

I watched in awe as the mare started galloping (okay, somewhere between a gallop and a canter) along the edge of the fence– dangerously close, especially when rounding the corners and turning around. It was amazing to see how the horse responded to her master’s cues– claps, “good, good!” and “easy on the turns.”  Then there was the horse itself– pounding the dust into the air, breathing in quick snorts  (longer ones as the exercise continued), gleaming in the fading light, proud of her strength and glorying in the activity and her prowess.

I was amazed at all the horse was able to do under the tutelage of her owner– and yet, as I watched, I realized that what she did was not too much of a stretch from her natural proclivities and propensities. Yes, the mare was diving and turning with far more finesse than she would in the wild; there were just inches between her and the fence.  But she was still diving and turning like a horse ought, not growing hands and changing the tire on a car.

The thought rushed on me as she rounded the pen once more, thundering towards me: I am quite a bit like this horse.

God gave us natural proclivities and propensities, and natural aversions to other things, and while he may very well stretch us and grow us– tell us to gallop very close to the fence– he is not going to tell us to jump the fence and start a mariachi band. I think I have very much been trying to be something I am not– I have been leaping over fences, and expecting myself to suddenly possess the knowledge and know-how to take an engine apart and re-build it for street racing. Which doesn’t seem that realistic to me (even if I wasn’t a proverbial horse in this scenario).

And back to my original dilemma– Work. Teaching. Learning how to teach.

I can’t expect myself to become a world-famous mariachi musician when I’m barely learning how to round the corners. So instead of feeling like a failure because I can’t jump the fence and join a band with really swirly dresses, I’m going to listen better to the One who is telling me to take the corners a little easier, and to make those turns a little sharper. And who knows– He may eventually teach me how to stomp in time with mariachi music.

Coffee and Christ. And philosophy. And writing. Must needs I say more?

A Grad School Here, a Grad School There….

I am in the process of doing research on graduate schools that I’d like to go to. (Internally, I am concurrently screaming in terror and squealing with glee).

I have also realized that doing this makes me unconsciously use too many large words unnecessarily; I guess you’d say I have sesquipedalian tendencies. Please take note: the below blog is coming from someone who has nary a graduate degree to her name, nay, nary a graduate school application under her name, so… Please, read this from someone who has no experience in the matter, but needs to discuss the matter anyhow.

For a long time, I was very set against higher education; not because I hated the idea of learning and research (I loved that idea), but rather that I hated the thought of surrounding myself with pompous people who were too full of themselves. Thankfully, my thesis advisor (no, dangit spell-check! I prefer my ‘o’ in advisor, not ‘e’)  in my undergrad was awesomely awesome, down to earth, brilliant, and entirely personable, so I realized that it is possible to be human and be involved in higher education and academia. Phew!

Anyhow, doing research on grad schools is a momentous and daunting task. If one reads any books about applying to grad schools, one gets the idea that it’s necessary to do such an enormous amount of research on each and every potential Department’s faculty and their research, comprehensively reading and skimming all relevant articles and related papers, that it would hardly seem necessary to go ahead and get a degree; you’ve already done the equivalent amount of reading and research.

That, of course, is mostly hyperbole. Mostly.

But really, it’s not a good idea to pick a graduate school on the same qualifications as your undergrad school: cost, location, and Scene-quotient. It’s a good idea to have people in mind within a body of faculty who could potentially be advisors (dangit spell-check, stop that, I know you think it’s wrong, but I don’t care about AP style guidelines right now!) to your dissertation. Because really, if you can’t find someone you’d want to work with for 4+ years, then you’re probably not looking in the right place.

But sometimes… Sometimes, you don’t know exactly what you’d want to research, in the first place! And that is the problem. I am definitely set on Linguistics, the half of my undergrad for which I did a thesis, but beyond that… Well. Let’s just say I want an interdisciplinary program.

My background is primarily theoretical syntax, with a good punch of computational modeling. I enjoyed that. I really would like to do something aligned with the practical or computational application of theoretical areas of linguistics, but the idea of stringently adhering to a syntax-focused program makes me cringe. I love syntax, don’t get me wrong. But the mainstream representations of syntax, while being very computationally motivated, I believe are woefully inadequate to represent real-life linguistic phenomena. My undergrad, if anything, taught me that.

I am however, interested in incorporating multi-interfaced approaches to syntax. That interests me greatly. And that, along with my desire to actually make money after school, whether it be in the business sector or academia, makes me want to focus greatly on computational linguistics, because I think that is where  the largest amount of flexibility and applicability is found.

And ha! Here I am, talking like I get to choose my grad school, as opposed to them choosing me. I am trusting that God will lead me to the right people, and right program… But still. It is nerve-wracking to consider that a year from now I might begin to receive a long list of resounding (and curt) “No’s” from the schools I want to go to. But hey. Here’s to hoping, and praying, and researching, and doing what you love to do.