New Life for a Frozen Brain

Grace to you, dear ones ~

I have spent much of the last couple of years adjusting to a new life here in Portland, Oregon.  Although it was my childhood town, I had been away for over seven years pursuing the last part of my BA and then my MA at seminary in Seattle.  The majority of my time back home was devoted to caring for my dear father as he prepared to pass from life to Life.  That transition happened this summer, the day before my birthday.  We have just passed three months since he died.

In the time since his passing, I often felt much like the walking dead.  No purpose.  No dream.  No hope for the future.  All was simply numb.  These effects of shock - which is our normal human response to the trauma of death - has only in recent weeks begun to dissipate.  My brain and emotions, it seemed, were in a cryogenic state - frozen in time at my Daddy's death bed.  Both have begun to thaw.  The time of healing has now begun.

For those of you who may be experiencing the loss of a loved one, or the deep shadows of grief as you care for an ailing parent or sibling, I write to offer you companionship.  New life, I am convinced, can be found when we tend one another's hearts.  I am here to walk beside you, accepting you with your permafrost brain, erratic emotional swings and physical aches that are a manifestation of your grief.  We will get through this together.  We will learn to live again.

"I have come that you might have life and have it to the fullest measure." -- Jesus says.

We have a promise from the Living Christ that new life is coming.  I am convinced that this is a deep, cosmological truth.  All life, from the smallest fruit fly to the greatest mammoth and basilosaurus, and everything in between, will all find newness and resurrection in the time to come.  For now, I am thankful to be receiving a small preview of this new life with the slow, gentle resurrection in my frozen grief brain.

I will do my best to write here once a week, both to walk with you and to record my own journey of resurrection.

Photo by Trista Wynne - Zombie 5K -- Dayton, OR -- October 2013 

My Brain's a Bit Occupied

Grace and peace to you, dear ones!

You've come here looking for brains! You're a perfect addition to this theological zombie blog!  Just as in Jesus' arms, all are welcome here!

Just so you are aware, my brain is on hiatus at the moment.  Or rather, it is otherwise occupied with wrapping up my summer internship and last online class while preparing (along with my husband and two kitties) to move from the Seattle area to Portland.  All of this transition is coming to pass within two weeks, so please check back for new posts sometime in September.

For now, I invite you to enjoy the pictures we captured at the Red, White & Dead Zombie Walk in Seattle this summer.  And please do peruse the older posts (here's one from July which I neglected to share on Twitter) and photos as well.  Looking forward to re-engaging your brains in a few weeks!

Reaching for Freedom

Watching the sun settling on the horizon this evening, gathered with friends, family, neighbors and community members, we give thanks for the tremendous freedoms we have in this country.  What are you thankful for today?  I'm several days into a thirty-day celebration of praise and thanksgiving, using Twitter to offer prayers and observations of joy in honor of my thirtieth birthday which just past last Saturday.  I invite you to join me, and to offer your own #30DaysofPraise during the month of July.

"Reaching for Freedom"
Red, White & Dead
Zombie Walk, Seattle, 2011
Photo by Trista Wynne

Often around Thanksgiving, and sometimes around Christmas, we pause to take stock of what we have and to offer thanks to our Creator.  But for the rest of the year we seem to take our friends, families, food, clothing, freedom and even our very bodies for granted.  Dear ones, our founding fathers and mothers who fought and strove and prayed and sacrificed so that we might be free from tyrannical government, slave-labor and oppressive taxes did not give of themselves just so that we could be comfortable. 

We as a nation, and each of us as individuals, are called to reach and to work for the freedom, justice, equality and fair treatment of all people everywhere.  And we still have much work to do on our own soil, in our own homes, in our own churches and in our own workplaces.  We cannot simply say that inequalities, injustice, oppression, slavery, abuse and neglect only happen in other places.

The zombie virus is alive and spreading, dear ones.  Everything that our founding mothers and fathers worked so hard to obliterate has seeped into our very bones.  We still fight against it every day, even in our own bodies, minds and spirits.

Re-telling the Wheat & Weeds Suburban Zombie Style

Photo by Trista Wynne

On Sunday we looked at the overarching theme of good and evil in a variety of terms.  In the zombie world, we decided that life and death (or more specifically, living-dead) are the terms we're most likely to use.  Speaking of the living-dead is a poignant way of looking at our in-between (and neither) existence. 

In Jesus' day, agricultural existence, and therefore, language, was the norm.  Sunday's gospel lesson came from Matthew 13 where Jesus tells a parable about the Kingdom of God using imagery of wheat and weeds.   I suspect that if He was speaking for today's suburban areas, He might have told a parable based in science or art.  Today, I'd like to relay the parable of the wheat and the weeds in suburban-zombie-friendly language.  Since Jesus was fairly flexible in telling Kingdom parables with either male or female characters (see the parable of the lost coin and that of the lost son in Luke 15, for examples) I'll have a female character represent God here.

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What Am I? -- Wheat & Weeds Zombie Style

"Jell-o Brains"
Photo by Trista Wynne

It's a question that every zombie asks themselves as they become self-aware.  What am I?  Am I living or am I dead?  The answer is neither and both.  It's a strange identity to have, that of living-dead.

This, however, is exactly what Martin Luther means when he says we are both saint and sinner.  Long before him, the apostle Paul talked about the two parts of himself that battle one another.  Flesh and spirit are the terms Paul used.

No matter whether we use terms of flesh and spirit, saint and sinner, wheat and weeds, or living and dead, we are all referring to the same phenomenon.  At the church we attended this morning, we looked at the parable of the wheat and the weeds.  In this parable, Jesus talks about the harvest fruit growing up right alongside of the weeds in His garden.  The wheat was sown by the Lord and the weeds were sown by the adversary, and both are growing together until the day of the Great Harvest.

If we think that we are only wheat, we're likely reading the parable wrongly.  If we think we are only a weed, the same is also true.  At the present time, we are both, and we are neither, just like a zombie.  The day will come when all of the parts of us that resemble weeds will be blown away like chaff in the wind.  All that remains will shine like the sun and we will be a glorious sight for our Lord and God.

We look forward to that day because we know that all things will be made new and there will be no more suffering, death, tears or war.  We will not have the desires to trample or maul one another in order to reach the top of the mountain.  We won't bite and claw one another to feed an insatiable appetite.  Peace, justice and mercy will abound.  Until that day comes, dear ones, we simply wrestle with the fact that both life and death abide within us.  We do not wrestle alone.  Our Lord is working with us, and those who have fought this fight before us are encouraging us along the way.

Be strong, dear ones, and know that the Spirit is breathing new life into you even as you read this.  The day of the Lord will be very good, and that day is coming quickly.  May God bless you and hold us all close as do what we can to become signs of life in a living-dead world.

Amen.

Wide-Eyed Wonder -- A Child's Playtime Teaches the Church

"Wide-Eyed Wonder"
My cat watches as I open
a birthday gift.
Photo by Matt Wynne

In the world of a child's playtime, there is no end to the joyful mysteries one can find inside an ordinary box, whether real or imagined.  The preschooler that I nanny often "picks" pretend flowers for me to smell and gives me plenty of imaginary tea and cookies every day.  This child loves to hold ordinary objects as an adult might do with a dazzling jewel or a precious piece of art.  Today a tiny beanbag was delicately handled with wide-eyed wonder.

"Look, Nanny," the child whispered with excited intensity, "it's a special present for you! Guess what's inside!" 

I held out my hands for the child to place the beanbag in, and immediately I was caught up in the fascinating imaginary play.  What could be inside, I wondered.  The package was so small and plain looking.  What could the child be imagining it was?

Under Construction

Matt & I at the Summer '09
Zombie Walk in Seattle
Photo by http://nightzero.com/

This site is under construction.  I've been experimenting with a new look for this blog.  It has taken a while to re-adjust the content and gadgets so it all flows together nicely.  I may still be working out some kinks for a bit, so please be patient.Navigating a construction zone can be incredibly frustrating.  Working on the construction can be just as difficult.

Today I'm thinking about the 520 bridge connecting Bellevue to Seattle over Lake Washington.  The bridge, and a large section of road on either side of it, is closed this weekend.  Long lines of traffic are backed up crossing the I-90 bridge and the sun is beating down on all of the cars.  Despite the electronic signs indicating for weeks that construction was imminent, drivers still get upset while they're waiting for the renewed roadway to open up.

What's in the Mirror?

ZomBcon Prep - Oct 2010

Looking at myself in the mirror before a recent zombie walk in Seattle, I laid the foundation for the bloodied zombie that was later reflected therein.  Sometimes I wonder what we as a church might see if we looked together in a mirror.  I wonder if we really know how we are perceived.

What might we see if we did some self-reflection?  Would we like what we see?  Do we want others to see us this way?  Do we have bloodstains and sunken eye sockets or are we full of life and vitality?What would we change if we could? 

A Simple Zombie Credo

The following was just posted in response to a comment on ZombieTheology.  I invite you to read the post here, and then to continue reading this one.

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Dear Sonny ~

You said,

“Zombie Theology isn’t about finding cool walking dead references in the Scriptures (we’ll have fun with some of that, who can resist?), it’s about the disease. How it’s contracted,how it’s spread from host to host. How they can be stopped (got to shoot them in the Soul, their head) and the most important question of all, how do we cure ourselves once we are bitten by the overwhelming Zombie Army?”

Here, dear one, is the gospel: we don’t have the cure. God does. The cure came in the form of Jesus Christ and is being distributed by the Holy Spirit breathed into the world as Jesus breathed His last. Jesus came to resurrect our imaginations, to give our brain-dead appetites something other than each other to gnaw on. One day, all of creation and all of humanity will remember the goodness and freedom it was crafted with. We look forward to that day.

You are right when you say that many Christians are acting in ways that resemble zombies. We are part of a world that is infected with the virus, (or the toxin, or the radiation, whatever imagery we find in zombie literature can be applied). We’re born into it, we’re raised by infected beings, and we’re exposed to it every day. The zombie infection is everywhere. It’s what gives all humans (and other animals, for that matter) a tendency towards violence, self-preservation, destruction of others and other behaviors that are not conducive to societal uplifting.

Touch a New Perspective

I love music!  I have since I was a little girl.  Singing along to my parent's LPs of the Beach Boys or Peter, Paul & Mary, my ears and vocal chords have been trained to pick out harmonies, to match cadence and to blend well with others from a very young age. 

Since I have graduated from college, I have added a few instruments to my musical endeavors.  You may have seen the photo of my hand drumming in an earlier post, or a photo of my sweet twelve-string which I have used to lead worship for two and a half years.  Despite my love for music, walking in to an instrument store used to depress me.

Oh I loved the instruments and the shine and the sounds, but I was always held back by something.  I couldn't see myself playing these great works of craftsmanship.  As far as I was concerned, the precious instruments were always  meant for somebody else, someone who had more time, more talent, more money to spend.  I would never even look at the instruments that were at eye level, only those close to the floor or on the clearance rack.  That's what I allowed myself to touch.

A New Way of Life

There is a difference between simple survival and transitioning into a new way of life.  One of the sad features of most zombie films is that the characters are often so focused on survival of the current time that they neglect to prepare for the future.  In The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, Max Brooks reminds us to prepare not only for the immediate needs during the initial outbreak, but also the sanity and hope infusion that is necessary for health in the long haul.  Remember books, games photographs, instruments and crafts, he says, for many a survivor has gone mad and lost hope from listening to the incessant moaning of the undead.

Hearts & Brains (Faith & Reason)

In an excerpt entitled Physician, Heal Thyself from an upcoming book, Dan Allen (zombietheology.com) shows the dangers that come from the faith healing sect of Christ-followers. I am torn as to how I respond to this. On the one hand, he's absolutely right. Many of our brothers and sisters have left the Church or faith altogether on account of the branches of our brethren who rely solely on heart/faith. On the other hand, I, like our brothers and sisters who are drawn to such teachings, wish that it was that easy.