I stayed up all night yesterday thinking, an actual all nighter, I think my first after undergrad. This is what I thought about. And the reason why I'm writing this blog entry is not because I love writing on xanga. I don't. It's also not because I expect anything from it or in hopes to offer fresh insights. Many of the things I "learn" seem to be reinforced reminders.  But for some reason I want to write, so I'm writing.

Conversion is an ongoing process. Redemption is a constant need.

Salvation was for me black and white. From child of darkness to child of light. From anguish into joy, brokenness into wholeness, and from doomed to saved, I had safely crossed the chasm separating heaven and hell. I was fifteen and I loved Jesus for saving me from the devil. I loved Jesus because He filled my heart with  feelings of ineffable joy and unrestrained passion. I loved Jesus because He was real. I was high.

At Wheaton I became cynical.  The feelings had run low, the emotions were drained, the passion absent though there were always the temporary recharge moments at retreats, prayer meetings, rich wu praise nights, and the occasional solitary revelations.  I was the cynical Christian romanticist, constantly seeking to recover the lost utopia and the heyday of my relationship with Jesus. So, I left Wheaton cynical and defeated with guilt pushing me to make feeble attempts to return to Jesus because I needed to get things right. I was saved. My quiet times had to be done. I was saved. Jesus was to be my best friend. I was saved. Not going to church: unthinkable; not serving: a sin or a F for holiness . I was saved. There were to be no darkness and no shadows. Even if there were, it was only there as a testimony to the light. I was saved. Saved. And chained.

So I threw off the chains. I threw off my salvation. I threw off God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the Bible, church, quiet time, prayer, values, guilt, everything. But this isn't a numeration on the number of  my sins; it is a sign of the condition of my spirit. This was my one year in Korea. I waited for lightning to fall from the sky or North Korea to attack or my conscience to rip me apart. But there was none. No catastrophe. Nothing that showed me God was up there fuming or that He cared or that I cared. As I lived that one year completely separated from everything that had been taught me, that I  had held to be true in my life, this is what I realized and what scared me. The distance that separates the narrow road and the road to destruction is not so great. It is possible to lead meaningless and misled lives with zest, with laughter, and even with purpose. It's easy. Too easy. Not to say that I returned to the States bouncy and happy. I returned shattered. Dead.

Is it just me?

Or do you sometimes feel that the greatest threat to a Christian are Christian ideals and not worldly vices? We think of worldly vices in terms of darkness, greed, lust, violence, and everything that comes from it we must save: people in poverty, injustice, inequality, crime. Sinful humanity at its worst. Yet, it seems like we are not burdened by the blatant sins of this world. We are burdened by a Saved/Savior identity in that  moment of salvation when we are given a ticket to heaven.  Spiritually we have already stepped into the pearly gates of heaven, and we have been sitting at the feet of Jesus, serenading him with sweet hymns of praise. Yet, in that Saved identity, we are robbed of what is of greatest value. We are robbed of our humanity. We are robbed of the freedom to be utterly disgraceful, completely filthy, and continously redeemed. We become foolish creatures. Sheep disguised as angels. Crooked halos. Makeshift wings.

The darkness and evil within us are abnormal rather than redeemable. We opt for a salvation that tells us to transcend our sinfulness and our frailties through the blood of Christ,  without realizing that He himself did not transcend but only loved and mingled. It seems to me that the church does not lack the saved and the saviors, and is not deficient due to those who do not serve enough, love enough, read the Bible enough, do not know about social justice enough, but lacks because of those who are not comfortable in their own skin as human and unworthy, and therefore unlikely to be comfortable with others who remind us the most of our humanity-the poor, the marginalized, the powerless, the shattered.

By doing so, we rob Jesus Christ of his humanity and of the power of His grace.We are unable to reach the world with the message of grace not because we have lacked in our spirituality, but because we have not affirmed the humanity and consequent redemption free to all.

Is it irony or is it truth that when I reached hell I saw heaven? Would it be blasphemy if I said that I reached a point of freedom not when I got in touch with Jesus and regained my holy mode but when I accepted the devil within me. Indeed, would I be going too far if I said that I feel as if God kicked me into hell to give me a taste of heaven?

These are some of my thoughts and my concerns.