Fall Issue 11
How Does Regent Die
By Jonathan Lipps
Everyone dies eventually. As Christians, we don’t believe death is the end, but it is a door we all pass through. How will I die? It’s not a question I like to think about. I pretend that I will keep on going in my current mode of physical and mental well-being forever, but this is an illusion. I don’t like to think about it, and I certainly don’t like to prepare for it, but I know that I should. Memento mori, and all that. So, how will I die? It’s impossible to know, of course. Maybe I will perish in a tragic and violent accident, God ripping me from this world because it’s my time, or simply because of someone else’s fateful actions that God inscrutably chooses not to prevent. Maybe I will drift off into the next life as I go to sleep as an old man. Maybe I will develop cancer, my body eventually succumbing to the wave of genetic mutation. Or maybe I will experience an unforeseen heart attack as a result of a genetic predisposition I don’t know I have. (Even to write so directly about these possibilities feels insensitive to those of you who might be experiencing loss yourselves at the present time, or confronting your own morality in a non-theoretical way—something I don’t wish to trivialize or compare with this thought experiment).
It’s impossible to know how I will die, and it’s perhaps a sign of unhealthy morbidity to dwell on it. On the other hand, it’s equally unhealthy to stick my head in the sand and deny that my current choices have at least an oblique impact on my eventual demise. It’s equally unhealthy to pretend, just because my actions don’t cause immediate and obvious damage, that they are not, in the limit, causae mortium. The spectrum bounded by anxious control and lackadaisical denial is wide! God gives, and God takes away. But may I not take away prematurely, by action or inaction, what God has given and wants to continue! An occasional glass of whiskey won’t kill me, but orienting my life around the consumption of alcohol will—and it is worse than the burying of a talent to reply, fatalistically, “well, everybody dies eventually.” To live is Christ and to die is gain—unless of course my death comes from a premature decline due to my own laziness. I hope I don’t gradually fall into this pagan blasphemy, attributing to fate what I have (however unintentionally) wrought upon myself. Indulging an alcoholic habit is an obvious example; the most dangerous examples are the ones we regard as benign, like eating cheap, chemically infused fast food day in and day out without regard for the ultimate personal and environmental consequences. (Here I have to acknowledge my own hypocrisy; I’m sure I persist in dozens of habits that allow for the degradation of the temple of my body and mind. It’s part of my spiritual act of worship to realize them and lay down whatever aspect of my earthly identity may be propped up by their indulgence.)
I’ve been reflecting on how all of this is equally, if less visibly, true for institutions. How do institutions die? Surely death is a part of the plan for every institution (excepting the invisible Church as Christ’s eternal Body). We often remark on the institutional “sin” of holding onto life past its time, when for example corporations assume the form of a growing and consuming cancer, rather than allowing that the world might be better served by their fading away. But what about the parallel to my personal reflections above? What about all the little and unexamined ways that lead to the premature death of institutions, even if an eventual autopsy were to label the cause as something as vague and ambiguous and untraceable as “cancer”?
How does Regent die? It’s an awkward question, and one nearly as uncomfortable for me to ask as the question of my own death. Regent has always been a bright spot in my life, and I’m inclined to regard it in my mind as a static and immortal perpetuation of health and goodness. This is, sadly (and almost tautologically), an illusion. I want to encourage us, as students, staff, faculty, directors, and friends of the College, to therefore ask the question: how will Regent die? Will an earthquake (the Big One) knock all of UBC into the Pacific? Will purely external forces (the rampaging hordes of secularism, maybe, or total economic collapse) trigger the involuntary shuttering of our doors? These are the kinds of eventualities we can’t do much about, and so to worry about them would be a morbid anxiety opposed to faith. But God has given to each of us (in varying measures according to our roles and positions) a part to play in the present and future life of Regent, and so it is our responsibility (in those same proportions) to adopt a posture of clear-eyed acknowledgement of the possibility that some of our current habits might be, in the limit, carcinogenic. What are those small and unnoticed patterns, those subtle changes in “values” or “culture” or “relevance", which signal Regent’s demise as a place where its members “are able to discern their work in the world as God’s work and to grasp how their Christian faith calls them to live creatively, thoughtfully and redemptively”—not today, of course, but in 10, 20, or 50 years? The time to consider such questions is not when they naturally occur, because at that point it is too late. If I can paraphrase former professor Charles Ringma: When an organization feels that things are going well, that is usually exactly when things are beginning to decline.
This essay is not a way to vent a veiled disgruntlement (a “subtweet”, as the kids these days would call it), or a conservative plea for Regent to always feel the same as it felt in some imaginary “good old days." I’m not grinding any axe; I’m merely a Regent boyfriend-turned-spouse-turned-student (one who, at his current rate of taking classes which don’t count towards his degree, will be a student for a very long time yet). The important thing is that I love Regent, its vision, and its story so far. I want that story to continue, at least insofar as it is up to us and in line with God’s hopes, and I know from the experience of denial in my own life how easy it is to become the proverbial frog in the pot of slowly boiling water. So: how can we as a community develop the art of having conversations, spanning all the distinctions of role, that simply ask (to begin with), “What’s the temperature?"
How Do I Know God’s Calling For My Life?
By Carmen Chan
Have you been seeking God and hoping to gain greater clarity of His calling for your life? Or wondering about what He calls you to do after Regent? If your answer is yes, it tells me something about you—that you are committed to God, serious about your faith and wanting to be faithful. That is probably why you ended up at Regent. I just want to let you know that God is delighted with your desire and that you are not alone! Being part of Regent for almost five years, I have had countless conversations with many people I encountered, who have been seeking and waiting for God’s answer to their quest for calling and purpose, or simply about what they will be doing next. This quest is dear to me and my husband. Our journey of serious seeking began a decade ago. By His grace, God has been leading us, growing us in this area, and gave us clarity over time. Knowing and walking in our calling made us come alive! With what we discovered and tasted, we became really passionate about empowering and journeying with people to discover, navigate and fulfill God’s calling in their lives. That has also been my focus of study at Regent and I hope to share some of the things I learned with you.
So, what is vocation or calling anyway? The Latin roots of the word ‘vocation’, vocatio and voco, mean to be called; which invites the question—Who called? Os Guinness, in his book The Call defines calling to be “the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service.” Calling is multifaceted. We all have a primary and secondary call; a general call that applies to all Christians and a particular call that is unique to us. We are first and foremost called to belong to God and to follow Christ; it is a call to be in a covenantal relationship of love. Out of that flows our response to God in the way we live, in all aspects of our life (Eph. 4:1). As Steve Garber tirelessly declares, vocation is integral to the missio dei, not incidental to it. One of the deepest theological roots of Protestant vocation is the comprehensive nature of God’s mission in this world. God calls us to worship Him and to participate in His creative and redemptive purposes for the world. We do know about that, more or less; but why some of us still feel unsettled...as if something is missing?
The calling we seek to know is our ‘particular call’, which is how we fulfill God’s call in our unique expressions. As Gordon Smith puts it, “Yes I am called to love God and neighbor, but how will this be expressed in my life? How am I specifically and uniquely being called to fulfill what it means to be Christian in this world?” This sense of calling has to do with faithfully stewarding our gifts—all of who we are—to glorify God and to serve the common good. Work or career is one of the most prominent ways to do that. As work or career is a major part of our lives, it matters to us and worth the time to discern it wisely. Therefore, the guiding question for career choice is ‘With all that I am—my story, gifts and abilities, personality, passion, experiences...how can I be of greatest service to other people, as I follow God’s leading and learn about the world (human)’s need? Vocation is rooted in our fundamental identity; it expresses who we are. So instead of the world’s norm of developing a vocational identity (we are what we do), we Christians seek and grow into an identity-formed vocation. Vocation is meant to flow out of our essential identity in Christ and how He has created us uniquely. Though God is the caller, the role of self must not be discounted in seeking to discern our vocation. Knowing oneself prepares the ground to make discernment possible.
As you can see, to faithfully discern our calling and vocation through every season of our lives, it is a rather dynamic exercise that requires deep self knowledge, listening to and following the leading of God, and understanding the world's needs that draw us. And this feat could not be accomplished by oneself alone but only in community. We can only know ourselves more fully and truly, through the lens of God and others.
If you are on this quest and this article sparks your interest, I would like to invite you to join our vocational discernment workshop towards the end of term and retreat in Jan 8-10. For more details and sign up, visit www.northstarcalling.org/program. Let’s journey together! Shall we?
Running with the Demon
By Patrick Doerksen
i.
At Prospect Park in mid-November,
five Gold Rush apples in my bag,
I remember a summer years ago
in the Trossachs, where I sat on a bank
with bluebells in the clear light, remembering
another summer yet, in Saskatchewan,
and a book called Running with the Demon,
about a girl who sees what no one else sees
and evil on the increase, and how
to read it as a boy was so like the ache
of recalling it now, with the bluebells all around,
that it seems all feeling must be nourished
by the sense of once being more purely felt,
the past shining with pasts deeper in,
for what thing ever ended in itself?
And then I look up and it is Brooklyn.
ii.
Longing is our desire to posses
not just what we had but the circumstance
in which we had it, Spinoza writes,
and might have added—as if we ever
had it. New York’s sun is Scotland’s, and in
Scotland a prairie sun burns through,
and all my melancholy is only
futile wanting’s bruise. Give me back
my own sadness, the demon at the edge
of town, and let me keep everything that is
happening now. Let me bring these apples
into old age, carry them past death
and eat them in heaven. Let me pull
from my bag this being here, feeling
what’s been felt for a thousand years
and never gotten to the bottom of.
Wave
By Sinil Yeom
Wind is my friend,
Touching gently my head,
Brushing, ever so slightly.
Water forms me inside out,
Sometimes cold, sometimes warm,
But always moving, washing, living.
I peck away at rocks on shore,
Like woodpecker on sycamore,
My body wraps around them all,
Hovering, covering, loving.
Boundaries mean little,
Yellow tapes are but fickle,
I am where I choose to be,
Sometimes here, sometimes there.
Time is my lover,
Patience my keeper,
Heed my words,
And rocks will be no more.
On sand I draw a line,
Life and death on shoreline, I am Wave—
I am Wisdom.