Jaded: A Collection of Thoughts, Comments, and Forum Posts from My Week

I can't explain how I feel right now really, so I compiled some stuff I posted on various boards and blogs and things I said in IM conversations this week to try and articulate what I feel.

I have to give a presentation in a couple weeks about the Philly trip, and Kurt told me I need to bring a photo slide to share.  

Instantly I thought of I posted a picture on Facebook from a missions trip to Philly I took 
this summer. My friend Cyd left a comment saying, "Can you spot the 
missionary?" Which is hysterical, cos I'm the only white girl in the photo 
(nothing new for me, though). But it got me to thinking... 

The world should be able to play "Let's spot the Christians," just because 
of our compassion. But I look at the suburban American church and I 
don't see the welcoming, supportive, merciful, proactive community that 
it should be. I feel like she's missing her Jesus in a lot of areas. I know 
that Jesus came for the broken and the lost and the poor and the 
troubled. I know that it's not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. 
And I know that blessed are the lowest of the low and the broken and 
those who mourn and the meek and those who are persecuted. And I see 
what Christ did in living with them and being like them, and I don't see 
that played out in the church. And it frustrates me to no end. Because 
Jesus was homeless. And he lived his life amongst the hopeless. And he 
gave up his life for wretched sinners like me. And we're called to follow 
him and be like him. But we're not. We're too content to stay in our little 
shells of suburban comfort and offer hollow words of cliched comfort to 
those who are suffering. 

And all this has made me awfully jaded. Because I know that blessed are 
the merciful, for they will receive mercy. And I know that whatever we do 
for the lowest of the low, we do for Jesus. But I don't see this happening. All I see is hollow and meaningless and ridiculously commercialized. 

That said, I'm sick of the cliche answers I've gotten to these thoughts of mine. I'm sick of all the answers I've been given by Christians, actually. Lately I've just been so torn up and jaded. It feels like someone has stuck a hot iron into my soul and it twisting it around. I am broken; I am bitter. I can't write. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can only think. And thinking causes my soul to twist in a slow, tortured agony. And this is where I gather first-hand experience with the hollowness of the church. No one can commiserate with me or truly encourage or comfort me. They can only be fake and hollow and cliched.

And yes, I'm going to get up in church in two weeks and give this post as my presentation.