FOR REAL NOW . . .

Extrapolating from something I shared with my ladies last night ... as you know, my care group meets every Wednesday evening. We alternate Wednesdays, one week being a chapter from the Bible study we're going through, the next week being an "excursion" night, when we get crazy and go see a movie or wreak havoc on downtown Manhattan or receive concussions from unexpectedly violent games of Tank Wars. N.B.: never play with Ranger Jay; he has a big, hard head. Sounds fun, right? I mean, the group is pretty diverse, given the not-really-diverse nature of my church (though we're trying, we really are!). The members' ages range from 22 to soon-to-be 38. We are four recent recent college graduates, a C.P.A. candidate, three medical students, an attorney, a pastor-slash-wanna-be attorney, a dentist, a scientist, a computer whiz, a banker, a nursing student, and a second-year resident. I've known one of these friends for over twenty years. Others, I feel like I've known for over twenty years.

But for some reason, without fail, every week beginning on Monday afternoon, I start to feel a moderate amount of anxiety about the upcoming Wednesday evening, regardless of whether it's a study week or an excursion week. I start to create excuses: "I'm starting to feel sick," "I'm so busy," "I want to go home and have dinner with my parents," "I'm exhausted and really should rest," "I need alone time and can't bear to spend hours in a room with fifteen other people." When the meeting is at my house, I feel even more unpleasant pressure, for I like to prepare dinner for those in the group who don't have time to eat before our meeting time (or those who do eat but manage to make room for second and third dinners). I am thrown into a minor frenzy of cleaning, cooking, making myself presentable, dusting, vacuuming, making sure I have enough plates, spoons, cups, food. Some weeks, I can actually hear Jesus's voice, admonishing me: "Martha, Martha ..."

This anxiety is unexplained and without reason because also without fail, at the end of every Wednesday, I am left thinking either "I don't want to go home even though I know I have to" or "I don't want them to leave even though it's past midnight." Isn't that strange? I asked my ladies: is it that in the course of the evening, I have been lifted out of my moodiness and funk because of the evidence that I had a good time with my care group? Or is it that God just takes these weekly opportunities -- being the ever-patient and ever-forgiving God He is -- to remind me gently why I need this community and why these people are good for me and why we are good for each other, even with all of our quirks and faults and annoying traits and bizarre senses of humor? Is it that He wants to drive home to me the diversity and the richness of His kingdom, and the importance of being in these people's lives (and allowing them to be in mine) while I have the chance here on earth? For I was made to think the other day: if any of these people were hit by a car and killed, how would I feel? Answer: I would feel wretched, I really would.

Sometimes the Wednesday evening experience is made richer by the magnification and subsequent reduction of my own insecurities. I am a severely bisected self. On the one hand, I often feel (and manage to present myself as) pretty confident, secure in my abilities and talents and the positive aspects of myself and my interactions with those around me. But on the other hand, I am also often wrought with the most bizarre and creative self-doubts, and these never rear their ugly heads as much as in the context of my friendships. For example, if I'm emailing with a friend consistently, and then the communications die off, instead of thinking "oh, we must both be busy and we'll reconnect later," I jump to the conclusion that either I must have offended the friend and s/he no longer wishes to speak with me, or s/he is sick of me for the time being and I need to back off. If I have bared myself to someone, and don't receive the desired response (you might ask what the heck I'm doing sharing things for the purpose of getting a specific response in the first place, how manipulative must I be!), I feel ashamed that I have overstepped some unspoken boundary and might have driven a friend away with my presumptuous trust. These are very bad, very passive-aggressive, very unusual thoughts and behaviors. (Or are they?) I never said I liked these things about me.

And yet, the best part is stumbling into a Wednesday evening shouldering these burdens (placed on me by my own self, naturally) and receiving unlimited grace. Being enveloped in a hug and hearing apologies for how busy she has been, and had she had a free moment, she would've dropped me a line. Being taken aside for a private joke or five, and making arrangements with a disconnected pal to reconnect. Having he who I thought was sick of me linger until the very last moment -- hours past midnight! -- to catch up.

These moments are so refreshing and ever so encouraging, and so precious to me. One of my ladies told me the other day that I should persevere in encouraging my friends to encourage me. What a novel concept, one I had never thought of and never would have thought of myself. Friendships are battles to be won, for I think the fallen human nature wars against intimacy and closeness and trust between us. Of course, we are right to want to feel loved and validated and accepted; that is what we were created to be, and it is in the course of this world that we have drifted away from giving and receiving that from each other. But we -- I -- also have a responsibility to give love and validation and acceptance to others, to my friends, to those for whom I claim affection. I should not approach my Wednesdays with trepidation, anxious about seeing people whom I force to scale my personal wall on a weekly basis. I should, in accordance with C's sage advice, not put up a wall at all. And even if it were erected, there are those -- Bomster, Flacon, and countless others -- who would be willing to scale it as often as they needed to. This is the essence of friendship and grace and encouragement, and it is these things that revive my spirit every week, and make my sleepy Thursdays so worthwhile.

It has taken almost a year of Wednesdays to realize this lesson that God has been knocking at the door of my thick brain and hardened heart to teach me: we are not insignificant in each other's lives. It is not trite or cliche to say that God uses people powerfully. After all, barring Him just appearing on earth and enacting His will here and there, what are we left with? Each other. A year of Wednesdays to remind me that I must be vigilant about my behavior, my speech, my actions, my heart, even my facial expressions, so that I would never discourage another, and instead give encouragement to the same degree that I seek it for myself....

***

DESIRE VS. DUTY . . .

In today's New York Times, there is an article about Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who in a speech last week, "explored the gap that sometimes lies between a judge's desire and duty." Justice Stevens referred in particular to two recent High Court decisions: one about eminent domain and another about California's medical marijuana initiative. In both, Justice Stevens claimed he was torn between what he personally opined, and what the existing federal law and statutes required him to do.

Is this not the ever-present dilemma of a public servant? Will this not be my ever-present dilemma, as a Christian lawyer who also happens to be a woman and a member of a minority group in this country? Did I not take an oath to uphold the United States Constitution ... and do I not also claim allegiance to a God who ascribes to no government? Don't I have responsibilities to my female conscience, and also to the familial and cultural legacies handed down to me through the generations of my family?

Last night, we discussed this at care group: what role do, must, should, could the Christian church play in politics and government? I volunteered that it's not an issue of the church being involved; people don't like "the church" for whatever reason they have conjured up in their own imaginations (and thanks, Pat Robertson, you've done a great job of representing evangelical Christians, you rat). In my humble opinion, it's the individual believer who must do his or her part to be active in politics and government, and Christian belief and political/governmental activism are not mutually exclusive. Desire can translate into duty, and both can prevail, and we are not to sit idly by.

This it not because America must be turned into a Christian nation. No way! Sure, it would be great if all Americans knew Jesus and all that He was, is and will be. But it is because for me, there is no greater standard or arbiter of justice than Jesus. He was the first and greatest social activist; everyone who came after him -- Mother Teresa, Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- they were all lesser copycats. Jesus stood, unequivocally, for the underdog. Those who were cast out by society. Those who were unable to care for themselves. Those who were consistently undervalued, dismissed, discarded, discriminated against, shunned, unfairly punished, criminalized. Those were the people that Jesus touched, laid hands on, cared for, fed, clothed, healed, forgave, freed. If believers stepped into positions of earthly "power" and channeled half the unceasing grace and mercy we receive from our God to do half the things Jesus did to enact justice on earth and in society, the nation, the world would be a wholly different place.

It is not about issues or pushing broad, aimless agendas. I could talk myself in circles debating with myself, much less with others, about gay marriage, immigration laws, foreign policy, foreign oil, the Iraqi war, abortion, the death penalty, welfare. My brain reels to just think about these issues. But Jesus wasn't about issues and agendas either; He was just about loving people into justice. I think He could care less about whether or not this country has a "Christian" president, or outlaws abortion or gay marriage, or promotes "family values" in schools and on television. I think, rather, that His heart breaks most that we are so incapable of loving one another, and so unwilling to love the poor, the sick, the homeless, the hungry, the abused, the punished, the shunned, the weird, the socially unacceptable.

I understand Justice Stevens's dilemma, I really do. But he draws a line between his desire and his duty that I think may not have to demarcated. If we who profess ourselves as Christians desire to serve the public, desire to love others and meet their needs, desire to bring wholeness to those who are incomplete, desire to love and show mercy and right wrongs ... then our duty is fulfilled.