The importance of frustration

"Educational theory tells us people really only learn out of frustration- the frustration that they don't know but need to, the frustration that life isn't working but there could be a better way. Frustration is not a bad thing- it's a necessary thing."
- Doug Pagitt

In case you hadn't grasped the connection yet, the picture above is of Pagitt himself. I've been reading Preaching Re-Imagined, a great great book that's scratching me where I itch right now. Introduction aside, my girlfriend Bethany and I have talked about Pagitt's subject often recently (really over the course of our entire friendship that moved into a dating relationship); reality is often frustrating! And we often interpret that frustration as a negative thing. But what if that frustration is neither positive nor negative, but instead teaches us that reality is mysterious and complex, and so we can't nail it down right away? So we wrestle with ideas and people and remain committed to growth and find that somehow, in the midst of the frustration, some degree of clarity arises that wouldn'tve if we hadn't let the frustration motivate us.

Some issues that were before complex will become clear, some issues that we assumed were clear before will become complex, and some of reality remains downright mysterious. I like that. I like that that reality demands I be in relationship with others. I love that Bethany and I have the kind of relationship to be able to wrestle with these things and trust one another along the way. I hope to continue to grow in my relationships with others to have that same kind of mutuality, trust, and room to wrestle, vent, and grow. A good goal, I think.

So what do you think? Frustration negative? positive? both? why?

Ravings of a tired young man...is there more? is this all? melodramatic, I'm sure.

Just finished Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky a couple hours ago. Whew!


And Wow! Dark, foreboding, intense, plodding yet purposeful, truthful, authentic, filled with stark reason yet surprising in emotion at the end.

Afterwards, I slept for twenty minutes, but my mind didn't. It stewed and raged with the possibilities and the realities of Dostoevsky's thought. He writes in 1865, yet world leaders live into the thought of Raskolnikov today; making the world simplistic, cut-and-dried, black-and-white, good-and-evil, drawing those who don't want to think for themselves onto their coattails, stirring them to passionate action. that. is. sometimes. deadly. and. disgustingly. wrong. And yet they feel no remorse. And do not come to the brilliant realization of Raskolnikov, nor subject themselves to the great virtue of humility; their pride blinds them, destroys them, and shatters the world by extension through them.

We see this, and yet we are too lazy to emerge from the cycle. We claim certain emotions/reason/ethics/actions as "practical" and "necessary," yet our emotions/reason/ethics/actions only perpetuate the brokenness, only maintain the darkness of a world of "necessity" without considering whether our actions driven by "necessity" are truly necessary at all. They're often not.

Who will break the cycle? Can we break the cycle? Is God above and beyond Christianity and Judaism and Islam and Buddhism? Is the call of God transcendent? Built into every human being?

Do any systems of thought, any great persons offer a glimpse, a snapshot of the transcendent? And when they do, are we afraid? Are we too prideful to admit their honesty and their truthfulness? Do we indulge our cowardice of the truth while we hold our weapons that give us "comfort" and "safety" yet fill us with suspicion, questioning, and mistrust? Can those weapons both be physical and emotional; things we employ to give us distance from others for the sake of our own selfishness? Can we live free of this suspicion, questioning, and mistrust (short-term questioning that arises aside, can we be free over the long-term?)?

Is there nothing transcendent, with life being but a series of breathings, blinkings, eating, sleeping, copulating, and work under the thumb of a world already set, full of "laws" and "facts" already pre-determined for us by the confident assertions of those who have gone before us, those who have had "greater insight" into the machinations of our universe than us; insights that demand we knuckle under and passively follow?

Is life one damn "ought" after another, reality that which existed before us and will exist afterwards? One in which we do not matter; our lives either having no meaning, or a meaning and an effect that fades 5, 10, 50, 100 years later when our name falls from the lips and thoughts of those who remember us?

Can that suggested transcendence suggested of before enliven our human emotions/reason/ethics/thoughts/actions with something beyond us, something that ripples out into eternity whether we live five minutes or a century? Can our active role in living into that transcendent reality create deeper and more forceful ripples than passively or dispassionately living? Can my ripples( if healing) neutralize the ripples ( if destructive) of others perpetuating the cycle? Somehow provide a glimpse of the transcendent in the midst of reality that is often drudgery and brokenness? Am I capable of the opposite action, the destructive kind, the ripples of fragmentation, enslavement, and mistrust?

What if the transcendent breaks through in a shocking, miraculous, intensely physical way now...not because of my ability or giftedness but because of the transcendent working through my willingness, my fidelity, my passion? Is that what happened with Jesus? Can the transcendent be deeply transcendent, deeply "other," yet also deeply personal and relational? Can it (or He, or She) seek me, aggressively pursue me, love me in my brokenness? Is it possible?

All these, and more, flash through my head as I must settle down to the drudgery of finishing my semester. I compartmentalize my emotions, my thoughts, and place them in the recesses of my mind for the sake of necessity. They cannot/should not disturb what "needs to be done" right now.

What if I never return to these thoughts? What if I always shove them away, trivialize them for the sake of necessity, of "what needs to be done right now"? Will I have wasted my life, salted away my minutes, my days, and years for the sake of what is "necessary" only to find the "necessary" has enslaved me?

How can I balance what "needs to be done" (the practical) with what "deserves to be thought about," what compels me to "consider reality beyond the drudgery of daily reality"(the theoretical)? Will that balance ever be perfect? I think not. Will the pursuit of that balance send me careening either into emotionless duty or deeply emotional existential panic? I think so. Is it worth it to spit on the felt need to occupy one extreme or the other and to choose to struggle? To find myself erring on either side? To have friends honest enough to keep me accountable? Friends who will give me room to explore, to doubt, to laugh, to vent, to read, to feel ecstasy, to feel shattered?

All this, and more, rages in my mind right now. I didn't intend to be melodramatic, and I personally don't care if I came off that way. This was stream of consciousness; bare, raw feelings that spun off in response to this incredible book. I lay it before the world, because I'm finished hiding, finished knuckling under to what it supposedly necessary...or at least I claim I am. Until, five minutes from now, I return to segmenting sections of my life away from others because I am afraid of what they'll think or how they'll react...continuing to leave parts of my life in shadows...crippling myself before others can seek to listen and enter in. My life is mystifying, human existence is mystifying, and because I can sit down and in an hour experience these deep, visceral emotions and thoughts because of words printed on a page, I must consider the possibility of a reality bigger than myself that gave me the complex, creative ability to respond to another's complex, creative ability...the hungering for life beyond the drudgery of the day-to-day, the struggle of progress, the giving-in and slow attrition of laziness, and the commitment to actions of fragmentation, calling twisted temptations "natural" and choosing to regress.

It is in that regress that the only thing that separates me and Cho-Seung Hui is a difference of degree of evil. I am a walking wounded, and my continuance in such a wounded state without the pursuit of healing wounds others by extension as we rub shoulders and they move on to rub shoulders with others, touched by me in ways they (nor I) understand. I do not have the cold metal of the Walther and the Glock in my hands, dispassionately erasing the lives of others with cold efficiency, but I do have the cold reality of self-centeredness, of cynicism, of all the "oughts" that enslave me; and they do kill (maybe physically someday). But for now they kill insidiously and incrementally, in my cold, suspicious looks, in my desire and commitment for my own way, in my self-righteous exaltation of myself over the "disgusting, inhumane, evil" acts of Cho as if I am not capable of the same, in my laughter at the failures of others, in my hatred of those who hate and/or kill those closest to me without considering that they may hate/kill because those most like me hated/killed first. Do I have the right to hold court over them, then, knowing that even if I do not carry out an evil act with my own two hands, I can be just as complicit when I stand idly by and do nothing while evil is carried out? But I have to do what is "necessary," don't I? I have to busy myself with what I "need" to do, love or some other transcendent emotion or action only goes so far before I must put my foot down, must assert my individuality and right to fullness of life over others?

Bleh. I'm done for now. Back to the "necessary." I've already spent too much time in the theoretical, and that is dangerous, both for my academic life and the leaders who depend on my unthinking obedience to their expectations in order to maintain order in society...

I'm sorry, I just can't help it!!!

From the 10 Spot on SI.com.

"Reader submission from Joe in Rochester, N.Y.: 'The plans for the Patriots to play a preseason game in China were scrapped. Ever conscious about population control, the Chinese were worried about allowing Tom Brady into the country.' Well played, Joe."

Five Questions your Pacifist Friends are Tired of Answering

My title is the title of a good article by a fellow named Jonathan Fitzgerald at the Burnside Writer's Collective (BWC). The BWC is a solid site started by Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz) and a few of his friends that deals with social justice, sports, general rants or thoughts, and other things. The reason I like the site is because they identify themselves as "an online magazine presenting an alternative to franchise faith." In other words, they're not afraid of disagreeing with some "Christian" perspectives on issues that are in fact twisted and not reflective of what Jesus cared deeply about.

And so, knowing this reality, Fitzgerald explores an area (pacifism) that is often marginalized in the church (some call it the ultimate and vilest form of immorality), with five subpoints of questions he's often asked as a pacifist:

1) What if your (insert loved one here) was attacked?
2) What about the Old Testament?
3) Didn't Jesus mean to live non-violently in our personal lives, but not corporately
4) What about Romans 13?
5) So, you're suggesting Christians sit back and do nothing?

Now, I don't always toe the same line as Fitzgerald, and I don't mind talking about these questions (I'm, in fact, deeply passionate about talking about them), but as a pacifist I often grow tired of people hauling out these questions as trump cards that trivialize and pass over central issues that drive those of us who believe Jesus called all of his followers to nonviolence.

Here's the link to the article.

p.s. I disagree with the picture I posted above. Just posted it for the sake of kickstarting the discussion.

In honor of the Florida Gators championship...

Even though I was pulling for Ohio State. This video from Joakim Noah dancing to the Florida fight song after the SEC championship is utterly classic. I laughed. Hardcore. Just look at the silly look on his face and the announcers trying to work with him.