rock 'n roll Lyotard...

...whether you need to know it or not, I have high blood pressure. Thanks to a long line of it in my father’s family, I have medication that I take until the day I die. It is more of a side note than it is a good starting line, but it leads me in this direction. I moved to Pasadena in December and realized only a month ago that I needed to find a new physician. I don’t know how many people have to go about this alone, but for those of you who do, it’s a little bit awkward, albeit frightening. I went to the student health office at Fuller and all that they could give me was a website to guide my search. So here I am in need of someone who has extensive knowledge to monitor my condition and offer healthcare to my dilemma and all I have is a web address. My Physician’s name is Bianca. I sat almost completely naked on an exam bench in a startlingly cold room with nothing but a paper gown to cover me, answering very personal questions about my physical, medical history. Then she proceeded to actually touch me and examine my organs; heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys and God knows what else she was looking/touching for. There I was, naked, cold; someone touching my body asking rather intimate questions about me. The Lab tech then drew blood from my vein, for further inspection of less obvious conditions. I’m gonna cut to the chase here.
It seems to me that Jesus did a lot of question asking. He asked his closest friends, his disciples who they thought He was. I’m sure he asked the Pharisees heaps of questions, too. I guess it leads me to be a person who asked questions as well. What does it mean to follow Christ in the today’s context? How does it look for a contemporary Christian to really grasp the Spirit of Scripture so that human life becomes incarnational? I thought it was all figured out by praying and spending time in a devotional book each day. More than that I thought I found it at a church building filled with sermons and songs. My questions are still waiting for answers here.
Jesus didn’t just ask questions without giving some sort of explanation. All throughout the gospels he told parables to illustrate the Kingdom of God to those who were willing to listen. It was in these stories that he aimed to reveal the nature and love of God to and for mankind. I grew hearing philosophy a lot, so I’m interested in it, but I’m gonna spare the time and space and say that Lyotard is right about stories. I live in a world that is incredulous to metanarratives. So THE big story of Planet Earth and how it came to be is pretty unbelievable! Yeah, sometimes I don’t buy it either! That’s not the point. I live in a world that hurts to know real-life stuff. Stuff that I can share with my neighbor. I need something human; something visceral; something cathartic and life-renewing. This is when the gospel gets pretty rockin’ fun, and a little bit messy. This is my story. This is flesh and blood.
I grew up in a Midwestern family that went to Church every Sunday [I mean EVERY Sunday!]. I didn’t know Jesus when I was a kid. I thought I was invincible. I went to college in the Fall of ’98. It was there that I fell in love for the first time. The feelings for me were not mutual. It was there that I learned to hate for the first time. I had my first breakdown and ran away from home just before my twenty-third birthday. I spent it alone that year. My older sister sent me a blue tea kettle that I still use today. I sometimes sit in the chair that my folks sent to keep me off of the hardwood floors of my first apartment. A few months later, a friend told me a real-life story that broke my heart. I cried myself to sleep that night. I didn’t know Jesus when I was a kid. Despite the pulse and breath, I was dying. And it was through death that I realized I have a real-life story to tell. (sorry for going over the 1000 word count)
It all started when I fell for the first time and got hurt very badly. I was walking, minding my own business when I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk. This imperfection was big enough for me to lose my balance and rhythm completely. I tumbled to the ground and gashed my wrist on a sharp edge of the concrete. It started bleeding immediately. Knowing that this injury could be serious, I ran to my apartment. I cleaned the outside edges of it pretty well and bandaged it alone. It closed over time. I thought it had healed, but I was wrong. By a small opening it started bleeding again. I tried using the same bandages as before but the wound only open more widely and the blood began to seep through onto the cuff of a new shirt. But it did not stop there. The blood dripped from my cuff and made a puddle on the floor that I managed to drag through the apartment by accident. I can still see the faint tracks on the floor. Though I was rather hospitable and warm to most people prior to my injury, I seldom invite anyone over anymore for fear of them discovering all of the blood stains in my apartment and the wound that grew uncontrollably here. The wound has not yet fully healed.
The truth is, my life was filled with brokenness and disappointment. Nevertheless, despite my running, tripping and self-bandaging, something or someone rather, changed my life. Unannounced but not uninvited, Christ came to my door, walked in and found me hunched over in that puddle. I was embarrassed by the condition of my body and my apartment. He looked deeply into the lonely expression on my face and simply began mopping up the filthy mess I had made on the floor. Then he took the shirt from my back and began to scour the cuff that was stained. It’s in the laundry basket in my closet right now. Filthy as it is, I think I’ll keep it there for a while. He put a new shirt on a hanger and placed it in my closet. I suppose it is there for me when I am ready to put it on. Swiftly and gently He put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. Then He did what I could not do on my own. Christ began cleaning the very center of the wound where it seems to throb and hurt relentlessly. In fact, He has remained there even to this day cleaning and stitching, putting pressure and bandaging continually. The wound has not yet fully healed. Parts of it are still infected. I still feel the sharp swift pain sometimes, but Christ did not leave me without medication. My folks have been a means of grace I had never known before. My dad held me when I was in so much pain and could hardly stand to say so. My mom speaks truth to me always about how strong I am and how faithful God is to honor that courage. My brother and sisters have not forgotten me. I have loved companions that don’t disappoint me very easily. I have known friends that do. I have known people who hurt worse than I do. I know that through the trauma of nearly bleeding to death Christ has given the gift of his spirit. He asks me to extend that same grace and comfort to those who hurt like I have.
I have spent the last two years helping mend the broken injuries of the elderly in nursing facility in Kentucky. Being in communion daily with them has shown me a bit of what my life may look like someday and it gives me abundant hope that I am going to live. This injury will not kill the joy Christ longs for me to experience. I guess I’m not a kid anymore. In retrospect, I see that growing up is more than uneasy. It is lonely, messy, painful and fatal. But in the midst of my growing up Christ came to bring friendship, a mop, bandages, medication and new clothes. In all of this, He brought life...
Peter Michael Stevens