Blessing and a Curse, Jesus Looks Like Jason, and Things I Never Wanted to Become

I have been asked to teach AP Art History next year. It will be a fun class, full of interesting, good students (many of whom I know from this year), but it will be a TON of work. I get to attend a week long training free of charge in June, but these dates conflict with the summer missions trip the youth group is taking. The class for next year is shaping up to be larger than the minimum 15 students required, so it is good the class will make; but more students mean more essays to grade. This large class size is due in great part to my personal recruiting of students, and due in part to one girl enlisting several of her friends to be in the same class with her. This is the blessing and the curse of popularity and social arrangements.

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I met with my friend Jason this Thursday morning, as is now becoming our weekly pattern. We talk about Jesus, about being godly men, fathers, husbands, our goals and plans and how to achieve them. He's a writer, I'm a painter. He teaches high school English at Keller, I teach high school art at Central. We are very similar in many ways, and I really appreciate his friendship. I also appreciate his challenges to live a pure, God-honoring life. And so when I find myself struggling during the week with issues we have discussed previously, it is not the Aryan, long-flowing beard and hair pseduo-Jesus I see encouraging me to overcome. It is Jason. One evening, I literally imagined his head shaking and finger wagging, and I thought, "Jason wouldn't like this."
This may seem blasphemous, but I see it as the fulfillment of God's divine purpose. To say that God is great does not even put me in the right area; he is beyond great. Any word, any conception, any name or significance I attach to God is too small, too pale, too weak. To fight this, God contextualized himself as Jesus, walked among us, carried our load, promised to be with us...and then left. That is not a slam, it's just the truth. He is with us, but in the sense that he has given us "Another Helper" (paraclete, the Holy Spirit). So while it was all well and good for Peter and John and Thaddeus, it didn't have the same effect for me. I still haven't seen God. But, back to God's divine purpose, I can see the Jesus in another person (as Bonhoeffer speaks about). The picture I have of Jesus is shrouded in the Jasons, the Nates, the Jeffs, the Asps, and all the other believers in my life. It's beautiful really. The unseen displayed through the seen. I just never thought Jesus would look like Jason.

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I think most people say they never want to grow up to be their parents. I don't think I ever could have wished for more. And so it thrills me a great deal to find that in many ways I am growing up to be just like my dad. Still, there are things I never wanted to become.
1) A sellout
2) A fat old man
2) A teacher who does art on the side
3) An American Christian
Now a sellout in my mind is one who abandons self to chase meaninglessness. I never wanted to become rich, to have this amazing career, to be powerful. Reading Proverbs lately has reminded me that wealth pales in comparison to wisdom. And so with some thankfulness I can still say I've chosen to stay true to my passions of simplicity, beauty, creativity, and being influential (very different from powerful). Likewise, I still play basketball, volleyball, bike to work, and have footraces with students, so I am not lazy and obese as I approach 30 (although my right Achilles tendon has been hurting so I've been somewhat inactive this week).
But 3 and 4 are knocking on my door. With Art History becoming a reality, I have serious concerns that I will be overwhelmed with grading, planning and work in general so that I'm left with little studio time. You can't be a painter if you don't paint. And when I joined the teaching profession it was (in part) with the intention of having a good schedule conducive to art production (summers off is perhaps the greatest blessing in the world). See, that's what jobs are supposed to do: support your life, allow your life. They should not BE your life. But now work is encroaching more and more on what I want to do. And I feel I am a short step away from joining the ranks of those art teachers who abandon doing art to just talk about it. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that, but to me it's just sad. Like the guy who mailed PostSecret the card stating, "Income from teaching creative writing: $38, 201. Income from creative writing: $0." I just don't want to be that guy.
And even worse, I find myself struggling to abandon myself to God. I've spent YEARS wandering through desserts, trudging in wastelands, and--let's be honest--throwing myself into pits of muck, so that now I forget the thrill that used to come with being with God. I've tasted brief moments of it in recent days. But by and large I've become complacent, selfish, and comfortable. I have purged from the mind the broken, the hurting, the lost; the slave girl lying on the brothel floor, praying for deliverance; the missionary dying for the gospel, and his family boldly and fearlessly continuing the work when he's gone; the dying house where those who suffer are comforted; the ghetto where the complexities of oppression leave generations bound to poverty, ignorance, and self-destruction; the addict on the streets, needing a meal, a hug, and a new life. And when these things are thrust back into my face, they overwhelm me, reducing me to tears. "How could I have let myself become like this?! How could I care only about myself when there is a world in need?!"

"The girl in the alley kneels from exhaustion,
she's guarded by some skinny guy who limps from some infection,
behind a veil of bleached, thin hair her eyes tell a story
like a photo of Berlin, December 1944,
She's looking for a handout she's been high for several weeks now
She's too far gone for whoring and the money just ran out.

And her heart still beats inside, and the blood runs in her veins,
a remnant of life remains, and her heart still beats inside.

The thought it comes to my mind to somehow intervene,
but it could bring me trouble and what could I do anyway?
It's hard to be effective when it happens so often
To see a life unraveling through drawn Venetian blinds
I'm sickened by compassion, I frightened by my limitations
anesthetic apathy come take the pain away.

And my heart still beats inside, and the blood runs through my veins,
a remnant of life remains, and my heart still beats inside.

Oh God we need you here! We're sinking fast and we don't care
The evidence is all around me, on both sides of my door
Our hearts beat..."

Jesus, don't let me become this thing.