Already but not yet

I feel a bit of a ramble coming on but I'll try to tie together the "journey" of my mind at present. 

I am preparing for teaching on Friday, and teaching Henri Nouwen no less, and so my thoughts are definitely a bit more in the abstract and more serious claims of a Christian life.  

I was reading my friend's blog (our new neighbor who I share the school commute with has begun her work as a medical doctor at an AIDs clinic).  She has just begun work and was sharing about the intensity/tension of having so much and of helping those who have so little, many of whom are literally dying.  And then I got online today and saw the art article I had written for a local online art journal (startjournal.org--Vision for Africa article).   And part of me knows that as Christians we are all called to live out this embodied humanity of our gifts, our strengths, our loves, our personalities and our limitations.  But part of me doesn't trust that at the end of the day, I am not ultimately creating a life about my own self-preservation, fulfillment, "carving out for myself niches in life where I can maintain a safe distance from others"(Nouwen).  

I'm teaching our students about Henri Nouwen's book Compassion in which he claims that as humans (even most Christians), we're wired for competition and defining ourselves by our distinctions and self-preservation.  He quotes Senator Hubert Humphrey who said, "Gentlemen, look at this pencil.  Just as the eraser is only a very small part of this pencil and is used only when you make a mistake, so compassion is only called upon when things get out of hand.  The main part of life is competition: only the eraser is compassion.  It is sad to say, gentlemen, but in politics compassion is just part of the competition."  

As I'm teaching the students, and telling them that if they just do this more radical life of compassion and discipleship together with other Christians they'll be fine; I'm thinking "I'm with other Christians trying to figure out my compassionate life and I don't know that I'm hitting the mark." In thinking about all this on a more personal level, I found this picture of Rembrandt's which is comforting--- here's Mary, carrying the saviour of the world, letting it "be done unto me according to thy will", and still looking a bit bewildered and lost and tired and alone.   I think there is some theological word for "already but not yet" and in my preparations for teaching I'm feeling that this is part of where I am--- an advent acceptance of life, that we are preparing, that Christ has come but we're also waiting for his coming, that we are called to be "interruptions" (Katongle, Mirror to the Church) or "displaced people" (Nouwen-- "We do not got after crosses, but we have to take up the crosses that have been ours all along.  To follow Jesus, therefore means first and foremost to discover in our daily live's God's unique vocation for us).  

And I think these calls are best done in a community of fellow "interrrupters", fellow displaced people, fellow symbols of God's presence/solidarity with suffering and our fallen state.   And I can always pray more, seek more, ask others to pray, watch and learn from others (in person, in books, in community, in prayer).  And I may be a little tired, lost, unsure, heading down a dusty path hoping that I am being obedient, hoping that God's miracle is casting light in the midst of the darkness.