What does it mean to behold a forbidden courtesy
For someone whose most heart-breaking pain is
A broken relationship?
What can I do to see you feel better?
Guide me, what can I do to take the blues I caused …away?
I want to see your flamboyant levitating hair wiping my feral arrogance.
I want to saturate my eyes with your presence.
I want you to teach me how to listen.
I want my "I want" not to be mine any more
For I do not want to say “I” any more for indeed
It is humanity’s culminating sin.
You are wished for to be present.
You are wished for to choke someone’s breath.
You are wished for to tear someone’s business.
Have you ever thought that there is an “Anon”,
Who longs to abandon his fruitful time,
And be distracted by a force of nature
By a walking girl who calls to all except to him,
Whose calling does not get responded but by:
“Yes Please.”
Anon
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
My Good-Bye Chapel at N.E.S.T, June3, 2009
Like all students who studied at NEST, it is now my time too to pack my stuff and go forth to ministry. It was three and a half years ago when I arrived here to NEST as a student but more accurately, it was three years ago when I became aware of this tradition; the goodbye chapel. And ever since then I have been thinking: what would my last words in chapel be? What should I be speaking in my good-bye chapel?
I used to be inspired from my learning every now and then and think …maybe I will be speaking about growth in faith, maybe about community, maybe about Christian maturity through experience … as you know, people leave unlike the way they arrive … we absolutely grow … maybe I will be talking about this experience of being here…the experience that others teach us and as we also teach others, an experience that we can never lay a hand on or feel but at NEST, …or maybe about my story at NEST…I am perfectly aware that every graduate spoke at least a few words about their story at NEST, so why should not I too?
I remember last year in a general assembly for the students that Dr. Mary carried for us an impression of someone who visited NEST…the one who comes to NEST realizes that there is a great similarity between this community and the early church that we read about in the NT. …Isn’t that true?
We live together, we pray together, we study together, we argue and dispute together, we eat together, and we sleep together… (in separate rooms though). And in more or less this is what we read about the early church.
In most of the times I see this impression rather true. Like the early church, NEST happens…it happens because God created it, and it is molded in the image of Christ…and this is what I am quite certain about.
My youngest sister is thinking quite seriously to come in order to study here after she finishes her studies at the Faculty of Arts, Aleppo University. And once I was sitting with her and with a couple of friends. One of them asked me about what NEST is like. And I this is what I said. NEST happens and it is molded after the Christ Event. This terminology was rather a bit new to them and so my sister said: elaborate. Thus I replied:
The community of NEST causes growth, it loves, it cares, it shows grace, in the classes you sit and listen, and learn…you learn salvific truths, you learn about God whom we experience, experience his righteousness and faithfulness from generation to generation in such a way that you can never imagine or even grasp outside of NEST.
In the chapel you listen to God and you pray and sing, you listen to the Word of God and indeed you pray that you may dwell in the house of the Lord forever because it is the most sacred place where you experience God taking you in his arms.
In the library you sit and read and get the feeling that the whole world is present for an instant that you desire it to last forever, you go upstairs and they feed you, and after lunch you are together with the community, you socialize, sometimes it brings you joy, other times healing, other times challenges and rebukes. In the evening you study, and you have fun, you see people who sacrifice for your sake, and you see people fighting with you and with another too.
NEST is molded after the Christ Event because very closely, this is what the Gospel tells us about him. Isn’t it? He lead to growth, he loved, he cared. He taught, he rebuked, he prayed and he fed … he revealed saving truths, he sacrificed. He brought healing and showed grace, and I believe this is what people need…healing and grace. Jesus Christ socialized and brought joy as we experience the forgiveness of our sins. He challenged us and shook our entire being about what does that love of God mean and what does the love of neighbor mean. And God’s self revelation in Christ caused problems for certain people, challenges and bitter disputes.
He challenged us with the cost, the Cross carrying which inside NEST was often acrimonious and unbearable for me, a thing that used to make my spirit fade and pucker. But over all he challenged us with his resurrection in which we saw God’s sheer answer of assurance in which we live, move, and have our being, and he promised us one thing that is never forgotten, that never fades; Hope. He caressed our cheeks and held us in his heart.
Therefore, being at NEST with such a diverse community is experiencing the flooding flamboyant presence of Christ which no one can turn it into a thing that is ephemeral. We are in Christ and indeed Christ is in us. So as I am leaving, I thank you ALL and by all means I am grateful to you and I will remember this and I believe that people like us who pray for God’s empowerment for ministry are called to be molded after the Christ-Event, people like you in whom I came to believe that God’s righteousness dispenses to us gifts and not wages.
As a not-yet pastor, I am called to be molded in the image of Christ, and therefore…empirically, I am called to be Yacoub who has been at NEST and about to graduate from NEST. I will go forth and should help people grow mature, I will teach, I should care, I have to love show grace, I must pray for healing and forgiveness of sins, pray for hope, …simply point to Christ whom I experienced and saw here. And thus I will be faithful to God’s deposit of faith that I saw in you when you see me carry what you entrusted me and continue the ministry you started to have with me.
I used to be inspired from my learning every now and then and think …maybe I will be speaking about growth in faith, maybe about community, maybe about Christian maturity through experience … as you know, people leave unlike the way they arrive … we absolutely grow … maybe I will be talking about this experience of being here…the experience that others teach us and as we also teach others, an experience that we can never lay a hand on or feel but at NEST, …or maybe about my story at NEST…I am perfectly aware that every graduate spoke at least a few words about their story at NEST, so why should not I too?
I remember last year in a general assembly for the students that Dr. Mary carried for us an impression of someone who visited NEST…the one who comes to NEST realizes that there is a great similarity between this community and the early church that we read about in the NT. …Isn’t that true?
We live together, we pray together, we study together, we argue and dispute together, we eat together, and we sleep together… (in separate rooms though). And in more or less this is what we read about the early church.
In most of the times I see this impression rather true. Like the early church, NEST happens…it happens because God created it, and it is molded in the image of Christ…and this is what I am quite certain about.
My youngest sister is thinking quite seriously to come in order to study here after she finishes her studies at the Faculty of Arts, Aleppo University. And once I was sitting with her and with a couple of friends. One of them asked me about what NEST is like. And I this is what I said. NEST happens and it is molded after the Christ Event. This terminology was rather a bit new to them and so my sister said: elaborate. Thus I replied:
The community of NEST causes growth, it loves, it cares, it shows grace, in the classes you sit and listen, and learn…you learn salvific truths, you learn about God whom we experience, experience his righteousness and faithfulness from generation to generation in such a way that you can never imagine or even grasp outside of NEST.
In the chapel you listen to God and you pray and sing, you listen to the Word of God and indeed you pray that you may dwell in the house of the Lord forever because it is the most sacred place where you experience God taking you in his arms.
In the library you sit and read and get the feeling that the whole world is present for an instant that you desire it to last forever, you go upstairs and they feed you, and after lunch you are together with the community, you socialize, sometimes it brings you joy, other times healing, other times challenges and rebukes. In the evening you study, and you have fun, you see people who sacrifice for your sake, and you see people fighting with you and with another too.
NEST is molded after the Christ Event because very closely, this is what the Gospel tells us about him. Isn’t it? He lead to growth, he loved, he cared. He taught, he rebuked, he prayed and he fed … he revealed saving truths, he sacrificed. He brought healing and showed grace, and I believe this is what people need…healing and grace. Jesus Christ socialized and brought joy as we experience the forgiveness of our sins. He challenged us and shook our entire being about what does that love of God mean and what does the love of neighbor mean. And God’s self revelation in Christ caused problems for certain people, challenges and bitter disputes.
He challenged us with the cost, the Cross carrying which inside NEST was often acrimonious and unbearable for me, a thing that used to make my spirit fade and pucker. But over all he challenged us with his resurrection in which we saw God’s sheer answer of assurance in which we live, move, and have our being, and he promised us one thing that is never forgotten, that never fades; Hope. He caressed our cheeks and held us in his heart.
Therefore, being at NEST with such a diverse community is experiencing the flooding flamboyant presence of Christ which no one can turn it into a thing that is ephemeral. We are in Christ and indeed Christ is in us. So as I am leaving, I thank you ALL and by all means I am grateful to you and I will remember this and I believe that people like us who pray for God’s empowerment for ministry are called to be molded after the Christ-Event, people like you in whom I came to believe that God’s righteousness dispenses to us gifts and not wages.
As a not-yet pastor, I am called to be molded in the image of Christ, and therefore…empirically, I am called to be Yacoub who has been at NEST and about to graduate from NEST. I will go forth and should help people grow mature, I will teach, I should care, I have to love show grace, I must pray for healing and forgiveness of sins, pray for hope, …simply point to Christ whom I experienced and saw here. And thus I will be faithful to God’s deposit of faith that I saw in you when you see me carry what you entrusted me and continue the ministry you started to have with me.
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