Drinking to Remember

Feel free to imagine the following dialogue with some super bro-ey voices. (not that I have anything against bros, haha)

“Yo, what’s up.”

“Not much, bro, *snort.”

“Where’d you end up last night? I didn’t see you after 2.”

“Heh, *snort. Have no idea man.”

“*snort. Niiiiice man. All in all a pretty good night then, huh?”

“*snort. Yeah. Back to real life now.”

Now, I’ll admit, perhaps my bro-speak isn’t quite up to snuff. Word choice, syntax, etc. might be a bit off. Now, obviously, not every conversation between two “bros” is like this. Nor are bros the only types of people who have this type of conversation. Heck, even I will occasionally play the part of the first character (altho, obviously, not in bro-speak language). And I’ll even admit, my partaking in such conversation is not solely out of a desire to fit in or make small talk. While there is a part of me that is instantly repulsed and shocked at the idea that it is fun to drink to the point of being blacking out/extremely drunk (I mean, what’s the point of “having fun” if you’re not even consciously there to enjoy it?), there is another part of me that does think there is something fun and worthwhile to just completely letting go. And it makes those around you happy, too, right? And those around you have fun memories of you? So … before I get completely kicked off of being a writer on this blog, I will say with much conviction that I believe that drinking to the point of drunkenness and/or beyond is a sin. There are several Bible verses which speak to this:

Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:21)

Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags. (Proverbs 23:20-21)

This being said, what is the purpose of drinking? And just what exactly are you (Ed) trying to do in this blog post? That is a great question! I have no idea. Hmmmm, what to say. Perhaps the way to go is just to list out some very quick hits (some interesting, some pretty standard) on the thoughts that are currently running through my head when it comes to alcohol. Hopefully at least some of them will be in line with the Bible, haha. Feel free to comment/question/challenge. This is most definitely a work in progress, and I might try to spend some more time writing on one or a few of these.

Getting drunk is a sin.

I’ve already gone over this, but perhaps some implications to this. If we are to view getting drunk as a sin, is it then okay to laugh at stories of people getting hammered/wasted and the stupid things they do afterwards? And what about pushing drinks on to friends? I feel like I do these two things almost by instinct/reflex nowadays, but maybe I shouldn’t be.

Drinking alcohol (in isolation) is not a sin.

Yes, a lot of things in isolation are not sins, haha. Take money as the classic example. But back on topic, I have met people who believe or have believed that drinking alcohol is a sin. The Bible definitely has good things to say about drinking.

“And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 8:15)

And think about the wedding scene where Jesus miraculously turns the water into wine in John Chapter 2.

“Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” (John 2:10)

So what about the previous statement? Many things are not a sin in isolation.

There are most certainly ways that drinking, even in moderation, can be a sin. One of them is highlighted by this verse:

“It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.” (Romans 14:21)

When our drinking becomes a stumbling block/temptation for those around us (to get drunk, to drink underage, or other things), that is certainly a time when we are in the wrong. For me, there’s another potential sin that’s been coming up lately. One of the main reasons I drink is to loosen up. I definitely think of myself as a more fun person when I drink, and I find myself much more capable of connecting with outgoing people. This thought process, though, leads down a very dangerous path. I find that sometimes I wonder if it’d be better if I perpetually had a little bit of alcohol in my system to make myself more fun. This of course, goes down the path of idolizing what alcohol does for me and a particular type of person I want to be.

Getting drunk (in a good way)

One of the things I’ve been thinking about (maybe a bit too much) is the idea of being drunk on the Holy Spirit. Now, this line of thought definitely has the potential to go awry but why not try writing on this a little and seeing where it goes. One way of viewing someone who is drunk is that the person is in his/her most free and uninhibited. If a person were drunk on the Holy Spirit, would that mean that a person is so influenced by the Holy Spirit such that even in his/her most uninhibited state, he/she did the right things. Another view on this subject is to think about the buzz you normally get from having drinks in moderation. How amazing would it be to get that buzz/joy from just enjoying the Spirit’s presence in your life. (After all, isn’t that one of the reasons why another word for alcohol is spirits?) Now lastly, and I mention this lastly rather than starting it as a caveat because this is probably most important part of this section. Nowhere, does the Bible actually state anything about being drunk on the Holy Spirit. The verse that often people are actually thinking of is:

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. (Ephesians 5:18).

There’s actually a contrast here that’s being set up between being drunk compared to what it’s like to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Additionally, there are many verses which stress the importance of being sober:

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:13)

So yea, as much as I enjoy thinking about the idea of being drunk on the Holy Spirit (perhaps that’s the Myers-Briggs F in me coming out) it’s a line of thought to approach very cautiously. I definitely want to spend some more time thinking and writing on this.

Conclusions

Hmmm, there really isn’t a conclusion to this post, haha. I’ve really only started drinking regularly post-college and am still trying to figure this out. Some other thoughts I want to write about, but just haven’t spend enough time thinking about include: 1. There is a limited window of time to grow in faith when it comes your own approach to drinking 2. Drinking (both in excess and underage) is something that many Christian communities don’t address well, or at least I’ll say I’m not good at addressing them when it comes up with friends. 3. Drinking during communion is our way of remembering Jesus’ new covenant for us, shed by his blood

Medicine and Seeing

Lord, give me eyes to see…

I’ve been praying this prayer a lot recently, in the first few weeks of medical school. Sight is a gift. To see our lives, the lives of others, and the events of our world in the lens of truth and love – that spirit is something we cannot conjure up on our own. The God of truth and love must gift it to us.

Each morning, I wrestle for this sight, as Jacob had wrestled God for His blessing. Jacob had spent his entire life crafting his own blessing. There is the time when he steals his brother’s birthright with a well-timed meal. And the time he tricks his blind father into blessing him instead of Esau with a clever scheme. He amasses a vast amount of wealth as Laban’s shepherd, taking the strong of the flock for himself, and leaving his uncle the weak ones. Jacob then runs away with Laban’s two daughters and his massive herd to begin his own life – to look for his own paradise. That is the picture of Jacob before his encounter with God: he is always running.

He is still on the run when suddenly he is forced to account for his life. Esau, his long-estranged brother, is said to be approaching from the far side of the wilderness, likely to kill him. Jacob ‘runs’ one more time, trying to appease his brother with a series of gifts, and ultimately, dividing his camp into two so that if one is attacked, he is left with the other. As he sends his camps off, he is left by himself (Gen 32:24) – his first time in true solitude. Desperate, cornered, on the verge of calamity, and finally alone, he does what perhaps God had been trying to get him to do all along. He simply asks. “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

“I will not let you go unless you bless me!” That is a holy prayer.

Lord, give me eyes to see…

‘Education’ is a misnomer for what happens in the four years of medical school. Becoming a doctor is about more than just the accumulation of medical knowledge. Medical school is assimilation – the inculcation of a set of values which is no less cultural because it’s scientific. Medical school is a foreign country, complete with its own language, and therefore, its own way of seeing.

Before anatomy class began, our professor told us his philosophy for teaching anatomy, which was to help us ‘see what doctors see.’ He told us that as we open our donors’ bodies and delve beneath their skin into their viscera, we will look, but not see, because we do not yet have the framework to make sense of what is in front of us. What is this intricate mesh of meat, fat, and bone? I do not know, and so the world of the body is still fresh. It is still sacred.

But when will that eternal light dim?

There’s a passage in Annie Dillard’s ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek’ that I often reread. Apparently, when physicians first discovered how to perform safe cataracts operations, patients who had been blind all their lives were suddenly able to see. Having never associated words and meaning to visual stimuli, they saw the world differently than the already-sighted. They didn’t see chairs, tables, books, food, shadow, form, or size – they saw patches of light and dark, blobs of color, brushes of unencumbered, freeform marks.

“A twenty-two-old girl was dazzled by the world’s brightness and kept her eyes shut for two weeks. When at the end of that time she opened her eyes again, she did not recognize the objects, but, ‘the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her, the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features; she repeatedly exclaimed: ‘Oh God! How beautiful!’”

It will be a tragic day when I stop exclaiming ‘Oh God! How beautiful!’ When, instead of the intricate mesh, I only speak of mediastinum, costal cartilage, inferior vena cava, ad infinitum…the babble (Babel?) of those of who know, but do not see.

Not long after that anatomy class, Dr. Lisa Sanders, who had started the New York Times column that inspired House, M.D., led a session for first year students on the topic of observation. ‘Writing is observing,’ she said, ‘and you must practice writing in order to keep observing.’ She then showed us a picture of a scene in the wards, in which a medical student was leaning over a patient to observe something on her shoulder. Dr. Sanders asked our class, “What do you see? What do you notice about the patient and the student?” Our class spent 5 minutes sharing our observations. We talked about how the patient looked afraid and how the student’s posture seemed to belie a certain eagerness. We noticed emotions and facial expressions, and imagined movements from the stillness of the photograph. At the end of the exercise, Dr. Sander turned to our class and warned, “What you see now, you will no longer be able to see 10 years later. You, still being laymen, notice things I no longer care to notice as a doctor. Medicine is a bridge you cross; there is no turning back, even when you wish so much to be back on the other side.”

And that is why I pray for sight, with Jacob’s desperation. The battle for eternity happens in minutiae, and our souls soar or fall in trivialities we are prone to overlook amidst the comfortable humdrum of our lives. I pray before anatomy class that the God of healing may help me to know wholeness – that the ease with which the blade slits the skin does not dull me to the beauty of embodiment. I pray to see the weight of glory in people I pass by everyday. They are not merely ‘a nurse,’ or ‘a student,’ or ‘the person who takes care of your paperwork’; they are eternal, divine beings – imago dei – whom, as C.S. Lewis says, I’d be tempted to worship if I saw their true glory.

I pray, finally, that the Gospel would remain news. Too many times I let the Gospel become familiar, which also means that it becomes comfortable. It is not. I have to encounter the person of Christ daily and come to terms with its truth, and the demands and costs that truth makes on my life. There is no easy way out. He is calling for me (“Remember your first love!), and it means my death. The scales must daily be taken off from my eyes.

And with this I plunge into this medical world. I will learn its language, but I refuse to let that language define what is real and what is true, for I am afraid to be in a world I can box, devoid of mystery and beauty, where everything I see I can shatter in a thousand classifiable, knowable shards, and piece them back together to fit my convenience. So I worship, pray, and wrestle.

Lord, give me eyes to see…

Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:17)

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The passage on ‘Seeing’ from Dillard’s ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ which I quote from, and which I highly recommend, can be found here: http://dcrit.sva.edu/wp-content/uploads/1974/01/Seeing.pdf

1 John, ISIS and the Gospel versus Terror

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love each other. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother… We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
– 1 John 3:11-12, 14-15.

Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you so angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.’

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field.’ And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
– Genesis 4:6-8

I have been afraid lately. I think often about the deaths of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, many more journalists and millions of children, women, fathers, brothers, best friends, uncles and neighbors in Syria, Gaza, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and more. I can’t shake the feeling that death is crouching around the corner, at the doorstep of all the journalists, of all the civilians, of too many people who have become dear to me and thousands more that I’ve yet to meet. Everyone I know is scarred. Some are still bleeding. Hate and fear are in the air, and things are getting worse.

How do Christians respond to terrorism? My church answers falter. “Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.” OK, but really? What if I were Iraqi or Syrian or Gazan? What if the Islamic State crucified my father? What if an Israeli bomb blew my family into pieces? What if everyone I loved was hit with chemical weapons? I meet person after person for whom this is reality. I wonder what I can say to them. I write down their stories. I cry. I want to vomit. I turn to God.

A few weeks ago I was reporting in Lebanon. I walked through Palestinian and Syrian refugee camps where people are treated like dogs, drinking tea with the most dignified and brave families I have met, fearing they would not survive the next month. I heard stories of those they have lost in the last few years, months and days. I filled notebooks with sorrow. Then I came home. I prayed angrily because I felt so tiny. The world is Dark and I can’t do anything about it. I have no power. I can write. What else? Why am I so small? Why can’t I save my friends? What do I have to give them?

A thought came into mind: You have the Gospel, habibti. 

Me: WHAT GOOD IS THAT?

Dear friends, help me figure this out.

What is the Gospel? What good is it? What does it mean to share Jesus Christ with my friends when His message does not promise any change in their physical circumstances? Here is Jesus, but you’ll still be a refugee. Your country continues to burn. Your daughter is still sick. You have no money for her treatment. She may die. Your father has already died. You may be killed tomorrow.
Here is Jesus.
What does He promise?
Who is He?
What does He do?

I’m reading the Bible a lot these days. The more I read, the more radical it looks. It says: God made the world and loved His children, but they turned against Him. They would not believe He loved them and they wanted to take control. When that happened, everything went awry. The children started to hate, fear, and kill. They hurt each other. They hurt themselves. God hurt to see this. He asked His kids to listen, to turn back, but they wouldn’t.

So God came to earth. Jesus was God-turned-man, living to set an example and to save us from ourselves. He died. He gave up life even though He was innocent, and this paid for all mankind to find eternal life, which means life together with God, which means complete change, which means living in love rather than hate or fear.

Love, rather than hate or fear.
Love: self-sacrifice, thinking of others before ourselves, giving up breath and life for the good of people who want us to die.
Love: refusing to hate. Not fearing anyone or anything except for God. Crying out for justice, but leaving it in His hands.
Love: living our brief and uncertain lives in total humility, surrender and desire to bless those who hate us.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
– 1 John 3:16-18

Those tropes about love are so warm-fuzzy-familiar. I’ve seen them cross-stitched onto comfy Christian pillows, stenciled on greeting cards and thrown around in a thousand Sunday sermons.

I’m sitting here watching a video made by fellow human beings just a few hours away from me. There’s a man in an orange suit kneeling on the floor next to another man in a hood, who makes his brother speak words he doesn’t mean. He calls on huge world powers to change, crying, “This is unfair, I am a victim, you are bad, I am good, I will punish you now,” and then the hooded man cuts off his brother’s head.

I think about Cain and Abel.
I think about Jesus.
I’m thinking, Christianity means I should lay down my life for this hooded man?
I’m thinking, That does not make sense.

I read the Bible more.

When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, ‘Lord, should we strike with our swords?’ And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

But Jesus answered, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
– Luke 22:29-51

Jesus died for Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve, Isaac and Ishmael, David and Saul, journalists and extremists, Christians and Muslims, Jews and Gentiles, for the sick and the sicker, for all.

Lately I’ve found the Gospel a shocking, lunatic message. If you take Christ at His Word, this is what He says: Lay down your life for your brother. Lay down your life for the one who wants to kill you. Do not fight. Do not run away. Bless, serve and give.

According to Jesus, that’s the way to eternal life.
But I might die, I think.
Yes – lay down your life and be reborn, Christ says.
Me: NO, but like, I might physically die.
Christ: You’ll die anyway. It’s OK.
Me: No! I won’t! Who says I’m dying? Who says Death is real?
Christ: Look around.

Somehow as I pray, I am convinced that God is for us, not against us. The world is on fire, but it’s because we are against ourselves. Surrendering to God means self-sacrifice, not jihad, not struggle, not fighting our enemies the Muslims and Jews and infidel non-believers, but thinking: God is worth more than my life.

Fundamentalists think the same thing, but Christ redirects the results. If God is worth more than my life, then I die. I give my whole life as He did: not as a warrior, but as a sheep. He did not fight. We are not to fight. We are to give our entire lives to our brothers and sisters so that they do not feel alone, so that they have hope, so that we walk steadily into Darkness to take people’s hands and tell them, We have one Father. He loves us. He is good.

I would think this entirely crazy if I had not met Christians here who live it out in steady, fearless humility. I sit with brothers and sisters from Sudan, Syria, Iraq, places falling apart and families that attacked them when they decided to follow Christ. I wonder why they are not running away. Praise God, I’m going back! they say.

I am so easily scared. I fear danger. I fear death. I fear persecution for being American or Christian or a journalist. I fear terror itself.

My brothers and sisters spill over with light and peace. I want to hold them back. I am afraid they will be hurt or killed today, tomorrow or the day after. They laugh and lay a hand on my shoulder. Sister, my family needs hope.
What, the family that wants to kill you?
Sister, my people are trapped. They cannot leave. They need hope, and we have the one and only Hope. We’ve got to go and serve.

My Palestinian brothers tell me that they can and will continue to pray for all their neighbors, Muslims Jews and Christians, radical or not, Zionist or Hamas, even as they are being bombed from one side and targeted by the other. They tell me, this is what it means to follow Jesus: to suffer for your neighbor’s good, and your neighbor includes every person no matter if they hate or love you.

My Coptic friends in Egypt say, someone tried to burn down our church. But we will not take up arms to fight.

My Iraqi sister says, I am going back. ISIS is there, yes, which means people are afraid. Everyone is desperate. Our world is burning. So we need Christ. So I’m going.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.
– 1 John 4:18-19

I think, why am I so hesitant to speak the name of Jesus? On the one hand, I care too much about my reputation. I don’t want to be associated with close-minded Christians and the institutions that have perpetrated so much hate and bigotry throughout the ages. I don’t want to be judged. I am afraid for my public image, my career and my ostensible objectivity.

On the other hand, I am thinking too much of myself and not enough of Christ.

When I really think of Him, He says, Look at me. I look. I blink. I am almost blinded. I am moved. I fall to my knees. I think, this is too bright to be true, too much to hold, too deep and fiery – I am moved out of my mind.

I look.
He says, Every person is your brother.
Love them.
Lay down your life for them.
As I did for you.
I love you so much.
I am for you, not against you.
Your life is in my hands.

I believe.
Against all odds, I believe. I see my brothers and sisters going forward and I pray, Lord, give me the faith to walk alongside them. I see them going forward as sheep to the slaughter. I pray, Lord, give me grace and courage to do the same.

The Gospel offers a call to die, not to take anyone down but to lift them up. To give our lives up in peace and sacrifice and brotherly love. It is not sane. It is utterly unsafe, flying against all my self-righteous inclinations. But that is Christ, and we love Him so, for He first loved us.

When we see and know and taste this, we walk forward with joy. We are walking on a stream of living water that flows from Him in and through us. It grows trees with fruit in all seasons and leaves for the healing of the nations. We are so alive! Even if we may die today or tomorrow. We live in light.

We are not afraid.