Hunger and passion go hand in hand

As I've alluded to in my little tagboard snippets, a lot has happened this quarter. And given that it's currently 12:43 in the morning, I don't know if I'll manage to get through all of it in time. I'll try.

First off, big ups to d phatphish (Derek & Janice, for the non-blogging world) on their engagement. Hope I'm in town when the big wedding celebration rolls around!

The quarter began rather peculiarly. Being on staff, I had to arrive a few days early to do some planning work, and I was somewhat puzzled when, on the Sunday before school was to begin, one of the people down the hall came by my room to ask me if I wanted to take part in a fast. Peculiar indeed, for a "yes" came out of my mouth so quickly and naturally that I wondered whether I was in my right mind--with but a single second of contemplation, I'd committed myself to three days of no food, no drink, and fellowship in a group of people that included the one person in the dorm with whom I was most awkward around. (Yes, for those of you wondering about the vague reference to relationships a few posts earlier, this was the very person whom I'd asked out to dinner. As is what I presume typical, I was feeling somewhat unsure of how to interact with her in the aftermath of that). And though there were two good friends within that eventual group of five, for some reason, the very person chosen to rope me in was the one person that, in my mind, would make it difficult for me to join.

And yet the answer that came out of my mouth was still a very instinctive 'yes'.

So for the next three days, we substituted prayer gatherings for our meals. We shared with each other the causes that we were praying for; spoke of the hungers in our stomachs...but more the surprising absence thereof. We laughed, we praised, we worshipped. And on the third day we broke bread, ending our fast with communion, emerging from that room a union that continues to meet to pray every week.

Prayer #1: That God would take away the anxieties and insecurities within me. [check]
Prayer #2: That God would truly place me in unions where I'd be able to witness and share devotion, and where a common vision for change could be built. [check]

The day we broke our fast was the day our fellowship group would meet for the first time of the quarter. I already knew that sweeping changes were imminent--over the break, word had come by suggesting that staff had overhauled the planning team, in a manner that relieved me and my peers of our student leadership duties. An odd change, no doubt, that they later explained was due to the fundamental restructuring of the weekly meeting's purpose rather than any shortcomings on the part of our team ("An amazing job with the few resources that were available to you," they said). The group would now meet in a new location, at a new time. When we finally arrived, I was quite surprised to find what I knew quite well as SNA's coffeehouse night. Tables lit by candlelight. A more relaxed atmosphere where people would be able to bring their friends. Friendly banter filling the airwaves. Somehow this fellowship that had for so long been a simple event that people came to and departed from without any thorough sense of belonging now had the potential to be an environment where relationships could perhaps be cultivated.

Most interesting. A peculiar change, executed in a manner that would make any people-centric management guru shake his head...but an intriguing change nonetheless. There's still a ways to go before it becomes a self-constructing and reinforcing entity on the scale of The Vine, but this is perhaps a good start.

Of course, this is the point in our story where we get to start talking about adversity. As a result of the reshuffling, I now no longer have any leadership role in the fellowship, and correspondingly, not much support for the endeavors I've committed myself to building over the next year and a half. I'm kind of surprised that I haven't received any feedback at all on the plans that I drafted, and a bit disappointed as well, given that I spent an entire winter break preparing myself for bringing forth those visions. But more on that later.

I started having worship nights in my room, offering it as a place where people from different fellowships could gather to pray for and with one another, and build each other up in their respective causes. Correspondingly, with the flood of work that my now-grad-level classes have dealt me, I'm kind of amazed that I've managed to safely defend that slot of time every week...even moreso when considering the number of times when the sanctity of those four night hours have been threatened by pressing project deadlines for the four different teams that I'm working in for class. Yet somehow those few hours are being preserved, and I've been afforded the precious minutes needed to prepare for them, as well.

Prayer #3: That the causes I have committed myself to will have a firm place in my schedule, where they can be built into something greater [check]

Now all that effort I invest becomes somewhat disheartening when instead of the gradual growth I'd hoped for, I am dealt a hand where I never have more than two or three people any given week. The classic fears arise: Am I simply not doing enough? Am I pushing a vision that nobody cares about? Am I just too on-the-fringe for anybody to follow? Or am I simply not the person to make this happen?

I continue to wrestle with these things every week. But I am also continually amazed by the blessings that come upon those who do arrive for the one or two hours in which my room is offered as a sanctuary. And the many people who ask about how each night went. And the people who note to me how much they would have liked to come had their schedules offered them mercy.

These are difficult times...times in which the weekly prayer group of the fellowship itself, positioned right at lunchtime when people should be most free, seldom gathers more than four people.

And yet in the midst of that, there's still much brewing. Last week saw the revival of the White Plaza campers--the group of oddballs who hold up signs offering prayer to those that walk by. The same people who last year found time to offer themselves for any question a passer-by might have of a Christian, be it flippant, informational or theological. The same people, if I might editorialize, who have the passion and coherence to truly start something phenomenal. I count myself among their ranks, and their revival sets the stage for much to occur beyond my tiny little 60-watt bulb-lit room.

Prayer #4: That I would find people to help me build the visions on my heart [half-check, completion pending]

Yesterday I got an email from an InterVarsity Grad student leader, who is eerily seeking support for an All-Campus Praise event very similar to what I had in mind when I started cordoning off those few hours to make my room into a gathering-worthy venue. In conjunction with the buzz that's circulating around the oddballs, I do think there's enough energy to help lift that interfellowship cause off the ground, and perhaps enough for the group to articulate a vision of its own, that can become something much grander than what would be possible within the confines of our own fellowship.

Prayer #5: That the three things I seek to build by the time of my graduation will truly come to fruition [???]

These are exciting times, no doubt with their share of disappointments, but also with the dramatic twists and turns that might take these dreams of mine much further beyond what I'd imagined. Now is the time to be available for the many missions that building those causes will entail. Time to improvise in the face of uncertainty; time to laugh about beauties in the subtleties.

Prayer #6: That God will use me. Seeing how there is no possibility of failure, I ask simply for the ability to do much more than what I can now see; for the harvest to be far more abundant than what my deeds 'allow'.

Thank you, all who have prayed for these things that are now coming true in endearing fashion! May our hopes and dreams be guided but never limited by what our eyes can presently see.