TAUG WORK WORK
& &
REST REST
Volume 12 | Issue 2 | Fall 2019
To An Unknown God is a student-run journal at UC
Berkeley that endeavors to stimulate dialogue with the campus community through writing and artwork produced by Cal students. These semesterly publications engage with various topics through a Christian lens.
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LETTER FROM THE
EDITOR Dear reader, If you crush an unpeeled clove of garlic under the blade of a knife after slicing off the root end, then you can lift the stem end between your fingers, and the garlic clove will slip right out. It’s surprisingly satisfying to circumvent an otherwise arduous process of breaking the peel with your fingers and then tearing it off in frustratingly small fragments. Even rituals as small these efficiently peeling garlic as full of meaning because they enable us to do more with our hands, and to enjoy our work, and afterwards to enjoy the product of our work—and it was good—in imitation of our heavenly creator. If only things were so simple. For some reason, work isn’t all as meaningful as it could be—it’s hard, unrewarding, thankless, temporary. Even rest is hard to grasp at—we feel bored, or lazy, or useless. Yet Christianity teaches that work and rest are integral to being human. This semester, TAUG and its friends have collected photography, essays, and music not only recalling the lost paradise of work and rest that we humans collectively turned away from, but also proving that work and rest are hopeful things as we view them through the lens of the cross. In Paradise Lost, Michael the Archangel urges the first humans not to be dismayed, for far surpassing the paradise of Eden, to know God by faith is “a paradise within thee, better farr.” By contemplating work and rest in the light of God’s history, we claim a promise for the future and a strong hope for now. Unknowingly,
Simon Kuang
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“Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you.” —Acts 17:23 Editor-in-Chief Simon Kuang Executive Editor Emily Kinnaman Executive Designers Harmonie Lau Stephany Su Business Manager Daniel Park
Associate Editors Benjamin Chow Cameron Opartkiettikul Cynthia Hsu David Chen Joseph Rodriguez Kara Anderson Kristen Yee Social Media Jane Le Huynh Sydney Chang
Associate Designers Crystal Chang David Chen Jane Le Huynh Lily Li Michelle Chan Business Joseph Rodriguez Photographer Justin Fung
Social Media Chair Michelle Chan
To An Unknown God is not affiliated with any church or any religious group. Opinions expressed in articles do not necessarily represent those of the editors. We are completely student-run and funded partly by the student body as an ASUC-sponsered student publication. Funding is also provided through individual donations. Distribution is free while supplies last. To contact us, please email us at taug@berkeley.edu. Visit us at unknowngodjournal.com.
*Not photographed: Crystal Chang, David Chen, Jane Le Huynh, Kara Anderson, Lily Lee, and Sydney Chang
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WORDS JOSEPH RODRIGUEZ
SAV E D F O R GOOD WORKS E
ver since The Fall, man labors in pain and difficulty—a life of toil and an endless cycle. We humans experience gross alienation with ourselves, with others, and with God. Man finds himself in deep misery, partly because his identity is formed, shaped, and discovered through work. Properly understood, work does alienate us. Surprisingly, the old adage attributed to Marx is right, because Marx understood what Solomon captured in Ecclesiastes 2:17–18, 22–33: So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil, in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me… What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. For what it’s worth, the Bible seems to capture a view of work that is seemingly paradoxical. Our senses affirm that work is cursed, but our God tells us that it is good. How do these two truths fit together? The biblical story of work tells us to think of it as “co-creation.” For when God made man in his image, he partnered with him, in effect saying “This is my world. Steward it
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for your good and for my glory.” Thus in the act of creation God appointed what can be called a “second-self,” an image of the divine—an image of himself—to co-rule and manage the world. It was precisely mankind’s telos to embody the divine image, and to reflect God’s purposes and presence in the world. Unfortunately, the story took a tragic turn, because the first humans didn’t want to just co-rule with the creator, they wanted to rule it for themselves. Sound familiar? This story points to us. We, like the first two created in the Garden, are humans who don’t simply want to be images of God. We want to be gods ourselves. Just like the first two, we don’t want to just steward and manage God’s good world; we want to run it and rule it on our own. The consequences of this rebellion? Death, both of which are manifested spiritually and physically. By turning away from the Author of Life, we have chosen death for ourselves. What a foolish trade! It is this rebellion—the biblical term for sin—that has produced the life of toil we find ourselves in: Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.1 1 Genesis 3:17–19 ESV
This glorious story is called the gospel, and it is the upsidedown reality that changes everything.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that this same God came to restore the fallen creation; he came to redefine our view of work; and he came to save us, to rescue us, and to make us alive. This glorious story is called the gospel, and it is the upside-down reality that changes everything. The way of reading this biblical narrative has had a powerful appeal in the modern period, from both secular and religious thinkers alike. The most influential social critic of the 19th century was arguably Karl Marx. Mainly known for his criticism of capitalism, Marx was a careful reader of the Old Testament and an astute student of political and economic theory. In his Grundrisse, Marx writes ‘Thou shalt labour by the sweat of thy brow!’ was Jehovah’s curse that he bestowed upon Adam … labour has always seemed to be repulsive, and forced upon the worker outside, in its historical forms of slave-labour, bond-labour, and wage-labour, and that in this sense non-labour could be opposed to it as ‘liberty and happiness.’ Marx uses the Old Testament to explain why work is so painful. To be sure, the 21st century is filled with workers who, put bluntly, hate their work. According to a 2017 Gallup study on the American workplace, twothirds of Americans are disengaged at work, feeling no meaningful connection to their jobs.2 This statistic agrees with Marx’s analysis, but might be too narrow of a claim, for it seems to fail to capture the other component of work: that it is good. Undergirding the biblical idea that work is co-creation, the concept of vocation imputes a religious aura to the world of work—reinforcing and perhaps in part giving rise to the modern idea that work is integral to human identity and fulfilment. Indeed, as Christians wrestle around clarifying a theology of work, the idea of vocation has often lost much of its original accent and has been transmuted into an emphasis upon work as the sphere in which one fulfills oneself. But the facts attest otherwise. No matter how alienating work may be, it is still a calling God has given us as part of our image-bearing nature. Ephesians 2:10 reminds us of the connection between the Workman and his workmanship: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them.” Though Christians may feel dismayed, perhaps at times experience deep consternation by trying to think about how we honor God in our work, work needs to contribute to the flourishing of the created order for it to be good. God has entrusted us with minds that can think through erecting colossal cities, enacting legislative laws, and creating tremendous technology. We need to think through the various creational structures we actualize in our work and the ways in which we contribute and help others around us flourish. But what does it mean for one to flourish? The term flourish finds its etymological roots in the Greek εὐδαιμονία, a term used by Aristotle to describe happiness. For Aristotle, happiness isn’t just an emotional state, nor is it some passion that is incited by a state of affairs. Happiness is the highest human good. Early Christians understood the truth that Aristotle was seeking to capture. Consider that in his Confessions, Augustine beautifully remarks: How, then, do I seek thee, O Lord? For when I seek thee, my God, I seek a happy life. I will seek thee that my soul may live. For my body lives by my soul, and my soul lives by thee. How, then, do I seek a happy life, since happiness is not mine till I can rightly say: “It is enough. This is it.” How do I seek it? Is it by remembering, as though I had forgotten it and still knew that I had forgotten it? Do I seek it in longing to learn of it as though it
Indeed, as Christians wrestle around clarifying a theology of work, the idea of vocation has often lost much of its original accent and has been transmuted into an emphasis upon work as the sphere in which one fulfills oneself. were something unknown, which either I had never known or had so completely forgotten as not even to remember that I had forgotten it? Is not the happy life the thing that all desire, and is there anyone who does not desire it at all? But where would they have gotten the knowledge of it, that they should so desire it? Where have they seen it that they should so love it? It is somehow true that we have it, but how I do not know.3 3 Augustine, Confessions 10.XX
2 https://news.gallup.com/reports/199961/7.aspx
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What Augustine suggests above is the truth about life—namely, that a human can only flourish when he is happy in God, for this is the reason why we exist; in the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, it is man’s chief end. The gospel is where we find true, eternal, and everlasting happiness, transforming the way we think about work and its relation to the world. It is in light of the gospel that Christians should work hard—for the sake of the kingdom and for the glory of God. Thus, the gospel fundamentally transforms the way we think about work. We need not fall into Marx’s trap thinking that all work is alienating. In Christ, our alienation becomes unification with God; class struggle transforms into harmony with the created order. As Paul reminds us in his opening exposition of the gospel in Ephesians: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.4 Here, the gospel fixes our minds onto something else. The Christian works, and he works hard, because he knows that he has been saved for good works. Paul elucidates this sentiment in his letter to Titus: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.5 As sinners who have been saved by the grace of God, we recognize that our good works are not meritorious; our salvation is not a result of our work. Similarly, even the faith through which we receive salvation is 4 Ephesians 1:7–10 ESV 5 Titus 2:11–14 ESV
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itself a gift. Paul’s reasoning here is simple: the Christian, saved by no works of his own, will produce good works. We are not saved by good works but we are saved for good works. Such good works overflow from us being new creations, testifying to the world that we have been redeemed by the Redeemer. It is here, then, that the Christian understanding of work becomes clear. For work to be good, it must be pleasing and honoring and glorifying to God. What constitutes good works is acting in conformity with God’s will, which is found when we read and study the Scriptures. From page one to the end, these Scriptures tell us something about the world, who we are, and the Great Mind behind it all. The gospel is the lens by which we understand all reality; it guides us in seeing our part of performing good works in God’s
grand plan of redemption. Our good works put the gospel on display for all to see. They begin in the heart, as we think about how to reflect Christ’s love for the world. Good works involve not only caring for the homeless, but honoring our employers in the workplace. Good works involve not only serving the church, but truly loving all our brothers and sisters in Christ. Good works involve not only going to an overseas mission trip, but seeking to understand and love the nonbelievers God has surrounded us with daily. The conduct of the Christian should confuse the world, as we learn that good works are part of God’s eternal plan to bring himself glory.
Joseph is a third-year political science and philosophy major who enjoys studying systematic theology.
WORDS EMILY KINNAMAN
A Self-Care Age
S
elf-care” has sunk deeply in the popular consciousness in the last few years. Self-care is a term that can be applied to activities ranging from a scented bubble bath to chatting with friends to maintaining a regular sleep schedule—in short, self-care covers nearly any activity that increases an individual’s sense of well-being and happiness, and thus is also highly subjective based on what the individual feels most refreshed by. The rationales for self-care vary, but in general selfcare seems to address a deep and common feeling: the desire, indeed the need, to take a break amidst a world that demands non-stop work and endless achievement. Self-care has surged in correlation with major events in the world.1 It’s interesting, and even paradoxical, that though there have also been community responses to these global events, a major response to such situations has been to withdraw inward, to focus on the individual. Considering the gravity of these events, self-care hardly seems an adequate solution to systemic and worldwide issues. So then why the movement toward self-care? Possibly no one can answer this question.
“
1 Jordan Kisner, “The Politics of Conspicuous Displays of Self Care”, The New Yorker, March 14, 2017.
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But I propose that at least part of the explanation for this trend lies in the increased feeling of powerlessness: that we are at the mercy of the world, helpless against the forceful winds of society’s expectations and pressures and global events. And if we have given up on having hope for the world, the best we can do is to look inward and tend to our individual wellbeing. If we have given up on the idea that societal expectations to constantly work to get ahead can be challenged, then self-care seems to be a way to at least mitigate some of the effects of such a high-stress lifestyle. In this sense, self-care is almost a justification that functions to give people permission to rest (in the very broad sense of the word) from work and the demands of life. But we
can’t call it rest, because the idea of rest has been tainted by cultural judgments of laziness. That is, we are presented with a (false) dichotomy between laziness and hard work, and inevitably rest falls under the laziness category because it does not take “work” to rest. The distinctions between these categories are quite simple; they boil down to whether the activity in question is productive—in the sense of actually moving toward the production of something relatively tangible that is valued within our society, whether money or a grade or something else—or unproductive. In this sense, rest is unproductive because you are actively not producing something. Standard definitions of self-care also include activities that feel unproductive because of their
If we have given up on the idea that societal expectations to constantly work to get ahead can be challenged, then self-care seems to be a way to at least mitigate some of the effects of such a high-stress lifestyle. 10 TAUG
Sisyphean nature, but that are more or less essential to basic human functioning. You take a shower only to get dirty again; you eat only to feel hungry a few hours later. And yet, we basically have to do these things. We cannot exceed our biological limits and be working at every moment. This is what self-care gets right: it acknowledges that as humans, we have limits on how much we are able to handle physically, mentally, and emotionally, and that we are better off when we stop at those limits. However, the way in which self-care advocates for the benefits of rest inextricably links—indeed, subjugates—rest to work. Personal health, well-being, and happiness are cited as positive outcomes of regular self-care. But those things are more or less side notes to the primary selling point of self-care, which is that it will improve one’s performance in work and further enhance productivity, creativity, etc. That’s how self-care is allowed to exist, and is even encouraged, while the concept of rest is out of style: self-care is only valuable insofar as it helps one to perform better in other dimensions of life. The activity one does for self-care is completely subjective, and in fact irrelevant, so long as it prepares you to return to work. To a Christian, rest is not a means to an end; it is an end itself. God, though unlimit-
ed by any biological constraints, rested after Creation without necessarily needing to. He gave special blessing to that period of rest: “So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”2 Rest may truly lead to greater well-being and even increase productivity and creativity. However those benefits are byproducts, testifying to the fact that rest is inherently good, but they are not the primary reason to rest. We rest because as creatures made in the image of God, we reflect God in the things that we do. And so we also rest by sleeping and also by doing things that are different than work. It is in these routines, these moments of mundane human activities, that we experience the good creation that God has given us, and that creation includes the wonder of our own bodies. For example, when we sleep each night, we restore our bodies and brains—but we also participate in a phenomenon that is perfectly coordinated to our biological needs, though we can barely explain the mechanisms. When we sleep or go through other daily routines, we embrace our human limits, recognizing that we cannot do everything nor control every factor and outcome. In facing our powerlessness, we recognize things whose power exceeds our own. As part of that, we recognize that these extrinsic factors are not personal and do not necessarily keep our best interests in mind. So from a self-care perspective, drawing lines at the boundaries of our own limits is scary, because 2 Genesis 2:3 NRSV.
in doing so, we surrender all the power to forces that do not necessarily care about us. For a Christian, though surrendering control is still hard to do, it’s not nearly as terrifying because we trust that a good and infinitely loving God meets us at our limits, as the apostle Paul knew: “But [the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”3 God also meets us through his son, who came to earth in a real, physical body. Though there is often a lot of focus placed on the extraordinary things Jesus did and said, there is also something extraordinary about the fact that he also participated in the most ordinary of activities. Jesus ate, walked, even wept. And in this way, God showed just how much he values the bodily human experience: so much that he was willing to take it on himself, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”4 The story is incomplete without the reason that God chose to send his son to earth: to redeem humanity from the brokenness that has plagued it since the Fall. God chose to begin this restoration in a human body, with Jesus’ death on the cross, and the restoration work is ongoing. But despite the fact that restoration is promised, the world is still a mess, and even the ways that we rest and care for ourselves are imperfect. Our attempts at rest, via self-care or any other means, do not ever fully restore us. We get hurt and exhausted beyond a point that can be fully repaired. The concept of rest itself has been corrupted from its outward focus on communion with God and others and has instead become oriented inward, toward the individual. So what do we do; how do we rest? We will never be able to fully care for ourselves on an individual level; self-care’s individualism sells us short on that point. We are designed for relationships with God and with others, and rest is one of the vehicles through which we experience these relationships. Rest should reset our focus, not for all we
We are designed for relationships with God and with others, and rest is one of the vehicles through which we experience these relationships. have to do and accomplish, but toward our deepest calling, which is to love and serve God and others. When we rest and recognize our limits, our own self interests are put into perspective, and our focus is reoriented to see our role within God’s long-term restoration plan for the world. This restoration that began with the life and death of Christ continues through us, even in our small acts of resting well. Emily is a third-year Molecular and Cell Biology major. When not in a lab or classroom, she enjoys hiking and running, cooking, and all things related to history.
3 2 Corinthians 12:9–10 NRSV 4 John 1:15 NRSV
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WORDS BENJAMIN CHOW
A RESTLESS
CULTURE A s humans, we strive for some sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in our lives. It is an innate craving; one could argue it defines us as humans. It is a restlessness which steers our choices and thereby lives. Augustine of Hippo, an early Christian theologian and philosopher, addressed this common sentiment in the opening lines of his work, Confessions. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”1 A world that does not believe in the God Augustine writes of points us towards a plethora of other possible solutions; routes, which, when followed, promise us fulfillment to our troubled hearts. As Americans, we are promised the American dream. We’re told to reach up as high as we can to grab the future we want and deserve, and, in many ways, there is a profound beauty in this sentiment. Regardless of our backgrounds, our right to a chance at a future is fought for. At its core the American dream assigns some inherent value to individuals. “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”2 1 Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 2 Walt Disney
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Through the American dream, however, not only is the appeal of wealth and fame fabulously emphasized, but along with it the idea of work as a means to an end of being content as well. In our minds we idolize those who have “made it”. We aspire to be like them. In reality, our aspirations can never be fully satisfied. This is where the American dream falls short. While both our culture and Christianity hold that human beings have inherent value, only one of these can actualize the promise of contentment. As Christians, we acknowledge a creator. From this we acknowledge our finite lives, and we acknowledge that our creator has made us with a purpose. Yes, we were created to enjoy all of the good in this world, but none of the good in this world was intended to fill the void in our hearts. That seemingly inexplicable void in our hearts, the innate craving we have, was created by God to be filled by God. We are promised ultimate joy and satisfaction from the One who created all good things in the first place. As Christians, being content comes through completely counter-cultural means. Contrary to other positions, the ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment we can obtain comes freely, entirely outside of our own achievements. Our reliance is directed outward, to our perfect God, rather than inward, upon our imperfect selves. Where the American Dream promises rewards to those who can work hard enough to achieve them, Christians are told to rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Halfway through his life, Paul the Apostle, a famed Jewish religious leader, converted to Christianity. Paul was acknowledged as one who had worked hard enough to reach the pinnacle of society and was admired by many. After Paul’s conversion, however, he said this about his life: “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”3 3 Phillipians 3:7–8a ESV
Benjamin is a first year who enjoys music, theology, and poetry. Ben also has a dog named Winston.
WORDS DAVID CHEN
THE BEAUTY IN
HIATUS
T
he life of a student, especially in American society, is driven by the feeling that one’s actions in youth are responsible for paving the way for the rest of their future. Especially in such an academically rigorous environment as Berkeley, one may often feel the need to maximize productive work time for fear of falling behind the hordes of students surrounding them. For a student motivated by competition and the constant necessity to stand out in their respective field, it is remarkably easy to become lost in the unceasing cycle of academia and forget what it means to have true, intentional rest. From the student perspective, this word “rest” seems to have been redefined, perhaps mistakenly, to “hiatus from the responsibilities of life.” Personally, I will often use rest as justification for why I’ve stopped working, or merely as a synonym for sleeping. But though I use them in this way, I don’t believe the actions of taking a break or even getting a good night’s sleep are capable of offering full insight into what the word actually means.
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A few months ago, as I was settling into my courses and establishing a rhythm for the coming semester, I learned that a long-term fever I had been running was actually a symptom of a rare heart condition called infective endocarditis. The confusion that overtook me as I heard this only compounded in the immediate weeks to follow. I was hospitalized under septic shock, flushed with antibiotics, and discharged five days later with an intensive treatment plan. At that time, there were no guarantees of my survival, and my risks of stroke for the following two weeks were unsettlingly high. I eventually had to be readmitted to the hospital for unexpected complications relating to the condition, and told that I would be undergoing open heart surgery in two days. In such a helpless condition, my only refuge came from an unwavering trust in God. It was relatively easy to put my complete trust in a God who knew and had planned my fate, as the alternative was constant anxiety fueled by uncertainty of the future. Immediately after waking up from the surgery, I was overwhelmed with gratitude
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for my life being saved. But when the realities of the aftermath began to settle in, it was nearly impossible to remain grateful. I was to withdraw from the semester, return home for an indefinite amount of time, and give up certain academic pursuits I had set for myself when I first entered college. The physical resting period I had to endure was suffocating, and only stripped me of a future that I had so delicately planned for myself. How could a God who cared for me possibly allow this to happen? I witnessed my peers going on with their ordinary lives while experiencing a trivial amount of interruptions, and could not find the justice in my situation. In a very technical sense, I was resting. My mental state, however, was in every way contradictory to the word’s deeper meaning. If this negative mindset acts as an example of the incorrect way to rest, it should prove beneficial to explore the intended way that humans were created to rest. As examined from a Biblical standpoint, the creation of man is inextricably connected to the concept of the Sabbath, or the Hebrew day of rest. According to the creation account, man was cre-
ated on the sixth day, and on the seventh day, God rested, and sanctified the day to mark the finished work of His creation. Regardless of one’s interpretation of the timeframe of creation, this can only mean that immediately after the period of man’s creation, he was made to honor a time of rest. This brings up
To truly experience God’s rest is to understand that, so long as you are willing to relinquish control to Him, God’s authority is more than sufficient to carry out His intended plan and purpose for your life.
a rather intriguing question: what was man resting from? If we are to believe that rest is simply a gap between intervals of work, clearly the Biblical interpretation suggests something fundamentally different. Rather than a hiatus, then, this seems to be a period of time where man is (as God is) accepting the perfection of creation and electing to consider the work that God has done as completely sovereign. Considering that man was created without sin, it is fair to assume that he was completely in God’s plan for his future, without anxiety or concern for the things outside of his control. Throughout the Old Testament (and continuing into the Jewish tradition), the concept of rest was not optional or voluntary but imperative. As one of the Ten Commandments, keeping the Sabbath day holy was of utmost importance to the Israelites. In addition to a day of rest in the week, the Sabbath year (occurring once every seven years) was a year in which the Israelites were to allow the land to rest, meaning that they were not to plant any new crops during this period of time. This virtue was so critical that in the days of Jeremiah, because the Israelites did not observe the Sabbath year for over 400 years, God sent His people into exile for 70 years in the foreign land of Babylon.1 Following this particular commandment required a particular amount of transcendent faith—a complete trust that God would provide the appropriate nourishment for the year. When
the Israelites disregarded this commandment for centuries, the wrath of God was just in carrying out the appropriate punishment. The basic consideration that resting is an essential command from God should cause an individual to seriously and deliberately approach the subject. Man was created with the clear intention of needing rest, and God is a God who loves and cares for His creation. To truly experience God’s rest is to understand that, so long as you are willing to relinquish control to Him, God’s authority is more than sufficient to carry out His intended plan and purpose for your life. To ignore the necessity of rest is to actively go against the way in which mankind was designed. Especially for an individual entrenched in student life and the continuous, never-ending pursuit of competence, God’s rest is paramount to any aspect of the Christian experience. God understands that the anxieties and burdens that often feel crushing are inhibiting to a person’s capacity to rest. As mentioned in Matthew, Jesus offers himself as relief from the fatigue of this world: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”2 In all of my reflection, I asked myself if I had ever experienced this level of rest. The only time I could think of when I truly felt
1 Jeremiah 25:8–12 ESV
2 Matthew 11:28–30 ESV
at rest in the intensely challenging period of time during and after the diagnosis of my heart condition was when I was on the operating table, immediately before anesthesia. Though on the surface, it seems an odd time to be at rest, I fully understand why I experienced it as such. When I consider myself to be in control, I often fret and mindlessly worry about the future and the consequences of my actions. Minutes before this high-risk surgery, however, I had to realize that my life was fully in God’s hands. Even if it was His plan to take me to be with Him, I had no choice but to understand that His ways are beyond my own comprehension, and in that realization, fully lend my life and my future over to the almighty God. Thus, I rested in His assurance. Yet I realize that I do not need to be minutes from uncertainty of survival in order to experience this rest. To separate myself from the negative forces of the world, whether it be uncertainty, anxiety, or lack of confidence, I must remember that the God of creation has commanded me that I come to Him to cast those burdens aside and rest.
David is a second-year Data Science Major. His interests include painting, swimming, and spending time outdoors in his native San Diego.
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PHOTO STEPHANY SU
Serene
SERENE The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:1–4
Stephany is a second year studying Political Economy with a minor in Chinese. She enjoys playing badminton and eating avocado toast.
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WORDS KARA ANDERSON
The Balancing B
alance: is there any more commonly taught doctrine? In physics, significant scholarship is driven by Newton’s Third Law, a law of equilibrium. In mainstream politics, extremes are traditionally relegated to the fringes in favor of centrist compromise. Chinese philosophy offers the idea of yin and yang. When dieting, people always seem to agree, “everything in moderation.” And even Dr. Seuss wrote, “Life’s a great balancing act.” Universal concepts like balance can easily lose their value, however, when generalized across any and all spectra. In Christian tradition, one of the most significant conceptualizations of balance is between work and rest. This approach to balance, instead, posits the divine order of work and rest, intrinsic to humankind even since creation itself and exhibited in concepts such as planting before harvest, keeping the Sabbath, and embracing the idea that “to everything there is a season.”1 Given Christianity’s inclination toward balance as a fundamental facet of nature, it can also be considered in relation to human social behavior at large, and thus reveal a design as ancient as the Bible yet applicable to contemporary societies. A cornerstone of this theological design is the biblical recognition of the value and necessity of work. The original creation account documents God’s work in designing and forming the universe in the beginning (a formidable task indeed). It also highlights the physical work required of the first man, Adam, to maintain God’s creation. But, in less tangible terms, the Bible repeatedly refers to the effort required in living an earthly spiritual life and ultimately striving toward eternal spiritual life with Christ. In the New Testament, Paul wrote, “... But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”2 The terminology in this passage is significant; it links labor-related wording such as ‘straining’ and ‘press on’ to depict the effort expended in living a dedicated Christian life. This effort is not merely physical, but spiritual, emotional, and social. Later, James penned a biblical passage that would appear nearly contradictory with Christian principles on the surface. He wrote, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead… You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”3 Compared to popular Christian discourse, the final sentence in James’ writing is startling. Instead of instructing the church to rely completely on faith and trust in a higher power, surrendering entirely to the elusive idea sometimes referred to as God’s will, James emphasizes the importance of balancing faith with literal work. Thus, in distinguishing faith from work, James appears to equate faith to rest. In the pursuit of faith, James argues, one must be willing to invest the effort of establishing a foundation from which that faith can be built. This truth informs the Christian that rest is cyclical: it can function as a byproduct or even a prerequisite for work. Ultimately, faith or spiritual rest—the ability to surrender worry, fear, or inadequacy to the only omnipotent, omniscient power—operates symbiotically and interdependently with tangible work. Balance mediates between the value of both, and the existence of one validates the existence of the other. Of course, in the true spirit of balance, the Christian idea of work and rest is not limited to 1 Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV 2 Philippians 3:13–14 ESV 3 James 2:14–17, 24 ESV
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James’ writings. Just as plainly as James urged the church to execute works along with their faith did Isaiah also offer timeless comfort by describing the endless strength of the Lord. Isaiah wrote, “... they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”4 Clearly, the language used in this passage is more symbolic than the example provided by James. Isaiah writes about a grand, all-powerful God who assumes the burdens and weariness of His creation. Note, however, the description toward the end of the passage: ‘run and not be weary’ and ‘walk and not faint.’ The Bible does not promise a Christian that they will never need to run or walk—or otherwise work—throughout their lives on earth. Rather, God’s word assures believers that where there is work, there is also a rest.5 Similarly, the writer of Hebrews also addressed the value of faith, or spiritual rest, on its own merits: “For without faith it is impossible to please him [God]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”6 Again, faith is a key component of fulfilling biblical teachings. However, the latter half of this scripture furthers the narrative as it re4 Isaiah 40:31 ESV 5 Hebrews 4:9 ESV 6 Hebrews 11:6 ESV
Act
rious concept of God’s will. Ultimately, the Bible teaches Christians that the relationship between spiritual work and spiritual rest is a process, a balancing act, even an exchange, as interdependent as physical rest and physical work are. For an unbeliever, attempting to balance the richness and merits of both work and rest on the shifting sands of social trends or expectations, without having an intentional purpose behind the duality, is an often exhausting and even meaningless exercise. Yet for the believer, in the complexities of spiritual and physical life, and despite the challenge to consciously balance work and rest, God’s word provides a remarkable promise: “Come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”7 Kara is a fourth-year sociology major fascinated by the intersection of faith and logic. She enjoys reading, writing, music, politics, and ever-exminds the reader of reward for diligent work. Admittedly, “diligently seeking him” is not a tangible, quantifiable example of physical labor, but it is a constant effort to be made by followers of Christ. As faith is manifested as spiritual rest, work may also be manifested as spiritual exercise. Similarly, spiritual exercise can be manifested in various forms but with the constant coexistence of spiritual rest: a duality of faith and work. As Paul elaborates in I Corinthians 10:13, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” When viewed spiritually rather than physically, the relationship between work and rest in the Christian life demands legitimate balance and intention. Rest is not disorganized; it is not simply laziness or a lack of motivation. Rest is purposeful renewal which comes after purposeful work. For a Christian, rest largely amounts to faith, for the harvest of one’s work may not be yet fully apparent when a season of rest begins. Thus, the Christian is challenged to rest not only following work accomplished, but also in the in-between—trusting in that same myste-
7 Matthew 11:28 ESV
panding her C.S. Lewis library.
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WORDS BEREKET GETACHEW
WORK HARD P L A Y HARD
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t one point in our lives or another, we have all heard the phrase “work lhard, play hard”—either from our friends and family or from popular culture. At first glance, its meaning is so apparent that it needs no explanation. But upon closer examination, the phrase is actually quite complicated; this very phrase encapsulates what is wrong with our society’s relationship to work and rest (or as the phrase puts it, “play”). Work has become a religion, a belief system organized around something which transcends the physical realm, and rest has become an escape from reality—the reality of work, that is. Breaking free from the idea of work or rest as our primary source of meaning requires serious consideration of what we want from our lives; for the Christian, this would entail living out what God has planned for them. Although work has long been an important value for Americans of all ages, the rise of work as a kind of religion is a relatively recent phenomenon. Surveys such as one recently conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal have found work to be the paramount value for young people, even as mainstays such as patriotism, faith, and having a family hold lower importance for them.1 Faith and having a family are often the cornerstones of life—what has replaced them? Nearly every1 Rebecca Klar, “Poll: Patriotism, religion, kids, lower priorities for younger Americans,” The Hill, August 25, 2019.
one has heard the following, in one form or another: our careers will allow us to join with like-minded people in order to make a difference in the world. The underlying message is a seductive one: if we can just find the right job, we will have a purpose for our lives. Our generation is seeking out things from work that earlier generations would have found in faith and family. Although there will always be different viewpoints on the relative importance of faith and family, it should be clear that, from the mainly economic considerations of a value-neutral perspective, work was never designed to be more than a way for employees to make ends meet and employers to turn a profit. Since all jobs have periods of downtime, an absence of work would lead to an absence of meaning. Many jobs provide little more than a nominal sense of personal fulfillment in spite of the toll they can take on physical and emotional health.2 To “work hard” for more than its own sake is futile because to find most or all meaning 2 Derek Thompson, “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable,” The Atlantic, February 24, 2019.
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through work is, on some level, to tie our lives to the fate and needs of a faceless organization—and there is a trade-off between career advancement and other aspects of life. Instead of work being the be-all and end-all for finding meaning, work should complement other aspects of life in light of said meaning. If work has become what one could call a false religion, what about rest? The Atlantic features an article with the most definitive overview of the idea of work as a religion, and its author suggests that the antidote lies in who and what we focus on outside the workplace.3 But even this prescription rings somewhat hollow; for many, being off the clock means being entranced by something else: screens, substances, sex, etc. Just as the importance of work as increased over generations, so too has rest.4 There is only so much that one can experience after hours or during weekends and holidays, and what happens after we have had our fill of leisure? We return 3 Thompson, “Workism”. 4 Erich J. Prince, “Leisure: When It Becomes an Unexpected Curse,” MerionWest, May 17, 2018.
to work—we return to a dreary reality. To “play hard” for more than its own sake is to seek a temporary distraction from the permanent problem of purpose. The Judeo-Christian tradition offers a profound assessment of work and rest that offers guidance to anyone considering what brings meaning to their life. In the book of Ecclesiastes, which is believed to have been written by King Solomon, a “Teacher” reflects upon all that can be done in a lifetime and finds that there is nothing that is truly lasting. He reflects: I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.5 Ecclesiastes is an honest reminder that one cannot derive meaning from work and rest in and of themselves. Nothing we can do, in and of ourselves, can be guaranteed to succeed during our lifetimes, let alone beyond our lifetimes. This uncertainty is at the heart of society’s dysfunctional relationship with work and rest. We think that a job will provide us with a reason to get up in the morning beyond immediate necessity; if we can somehow produce something tangible in the workday or workweek we will prove to ourselves and others that this reason is the right reason. We think that leisure will provide an escape from what we know to be true: we cannot create meaning for our own lives, on our own, even through our work. The book of Psalms contains a concise statement of the Biblical perspective of how to work well and rest well. “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”6 In other words, meaning does not come through our own efforts. Work and rest are ultimately for the glory of God, who in turn sustains His people. God is understood to provide meaning to every aspect of his people’s lives and be with them even if every earthly thing they considered purposeful is no longer there. “Work hard, play hard” need not be the mantra of our generation. Rather than chasing after the meaning of our lives through work and rest, we simply need to live out our identity as children of God. True work and rest are grounded in trust in God, which allows freedom from thinking we must give our own lives meaning. Then we can work hard and rest well, recognizing that even when those activities feel futile and dull, we have a source of meaning that does not depend on the meaningfulness of our daily work and rest. 5 Eccles. 2:10–11 NIV 6 Psalm 127:2 ESV
Rather than seeking meaning through work and rest, we should work and rest in light of what we consider meaningful.
Bereket is a fourth-year Legal Studies major who enjoys history and soccer.
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WORDS HANNAH LEE
I FINDING R E S T IN THE GOSPEL 22 TAUG
t’s no secret that our generation idolizes work. There are an endless number of books and videos on productivity, finding the right career, habit-building, success. These things aren’t bad, but they mold our minds to be so consumed with work, marketing that work is the central goal and purpose of our lives. Older generations worked to put dinner on the table for the family, but work now is about one’s self, living luxuriously, and climbing to the top. Work can be so all-consuming that people now have anxieties over not feeling productive enough or they put everything on hold to ace the interview at Apple. These people are seemingly doing everything and therefore, perfect in our lives and idolized in society; when more often than not, the reality is that those people are probably losing sleep and health, alone and without communities, and crippled in insecurity and fear.
We live in a society that tells us to take control over our lives and that our own efforts will take us higher, but God releases us from that grip and sets us in freedom by telling us, “Do not worry, for I am in control.” During my sophomore year of college, I piled a lot onto my plate. I was in six classes, worked part time, started serving at my church, and joined two clubs. Additionally, I was meeting up with people daily, trying to invest into new relationships and old ones, especially with graduating seniors. By the end of the semester, I felt burned out and as soon as second semester started, a wave of depression drowned me. I was told to rest, take it easy, but none of that made sense to me. There’s always something to do, someone to reach out to, things to get ahead in, so why should we rest? I would hate sleeping (and therefore ran many days on less than three hours of sleep) because I thought it was unproductive. At the end of second semester, I realized I could not keep going on my own. Through the busy schedules and constant grind, I found myself physically weak, mentally unwell, unable to reach out for help, and anxious about my image and how I was living my life. I realized I needed to rest to reset these aspects of my life and to rediscover a firm truth to hold onto. I needed rest. The question was, how? I have been on a journey of finding rest and trying to grasp the importance of it, and here’s what I’ve learned so far. Many of my friends have expressed a buzzing anxiety when they are not “working.” I feel the same, especially when I see blocks of white space on my Google calendar. A part of me thrives in the busy lifestyle, but at the root of it, I mostly keep myself busy because I believe I am not good enough. I am not a good enough
student, friend, daughter, employee, member; so therefore, I must try harder. I must be missing something or not doing enough. I correlate my worth and value on what and how much I am doing. As a Christian, that means I am forgetting my identity in Christ–that I am His beloved daughter, that He doesn’t judge me based on these things, or love me less if I mess up or don’t do enough; He loves me because He is my Creator and Father. In order to balance these parts of our lives, we must understand and be rooted in our identity as children of God. Our identity grows as we understand more of who God is and at some point, we understand more and more that we must depend on God. When we try to depend on our own human strength and knowledge, we run empty and dry because we’re human; we’re limited and fickle. We run on worries and fears, which leads to overwhelming stress. When we accept Christ into our lives, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who live[s] in me”.1 It is less of us working, but Holy Spirit enters our hearts and leads us. We live in a society that tells us to take control over our lives and that our own efforts will take us higher, but God releases us from that grip and sets us in freedom by telling us, “Do not worry, for I am in control.” Our focus stops becoming about climbing the economic or social ladder, but becoming closer to God. So, how do we face a society that defines us based on our productivity and shoves work in our faces? Remember who God is and His call-
ing for your life. Whether it be in the work field, family, missions, we are all called to one thing: to make disciples. In Matthew 28:19–20, God says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age”. In His command, He doesn’t leave us alone to the hands of the enemy. He says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” We should take heart in this message as it reminds us that He does not value us differently based on our work productivity or leave us to walk alone. He guides us every step of the way. When we remember these things, we are able to fully lay down our insecurities, desires, and worries about the work in our lives and rest in Him, knowing He is our safe place. This is the beautiful surrender of the Gospel. Wherever His presence is, He will give us rest; it is a promise.2 But so often, we run without God and try to do everything on our own. The Gospel teaches us that we need saving from our sins and God sacrificed His son, Jesus Christ, so that we would be saved. Without Him, we are doomed to suffering in Hell. As Christians, our daily living should reflect the Gospel message and how we need Him in all aspects of our lives because without Him, we are inevitably set to fail. Without God, we are missing something in our lives and Him alone will fill that void. Entering my senior year, I’m fighting these lies that tell me my worth is in work or career, and trying to remember that my worth is in Christ and He is enough for me. “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Exodus 33:14 ESV 3 2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV
1 Galatians 2:20 ESV
Hannah is a fourth-year English major who loves dogs and hanging out with friends (sometimes dogs more).
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MUSIC SIMON KUANG
ADAM, WHERE ARE YOU
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Deep Calls to Deep 28 TAUG
WORDS SIMON KUANG
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ven as someone who has never come close to drowning, I am harrowed by the remotest possibility. It is nature’s highest embodiment of loneliness, helplessness, and the dizzying gaze into life’s close. In this attitude I am not alone. “A mighty sea of misery is your lot,” chants the Chorus to a mourning Antigone at the end of Oedipus at Colonus. “Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me,” cries the psalmist in the 42nd Psalm. Why? In the Christian account of creation, all things were made by God, and prior to God’s first creative act there was nothing at all. No canvas, no blank slate—nothing. But “nothing” is a very difficult category of stuff to describe and visualize; to be precise, it is not stuff at all. In the creation account of Genesis, the figurative stuff of uncreation is dark, formless water: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Yet it is God’s nature to create, and God’s creativity bursts into the scene, penetrating darkness by light, raising land from water, and ruling against primordial formlessness with complex life of all forms and sizes. God called the creation good. All that God creates is good, and the world as we experience it isn’t substantially different from what he created in the beginning. But things are bad. Humans are severed from the perfect, pure happiness that is God himself, as well as the bodily wholeness by which we enjoyed God when creation began. Likewise nature is plagued by countless dysfunctions—natural disasters, mosquitos, and cilantro, to name just a few. What happened? And how did it happen? The answer to the latter is the Fall: for some reason, we chose to turn ourselves away from God, and away from God we turned creation as well. The answer to the former—what exactly happened?—is more subtle. Evil cannot exist per se; rather evil is recognized the privation of good. If God’s creative decree is the standard of good from which creation has fallen, then the fall itself is opposed to God’s act of creation. That is, sin is not a corruption of a God-created good; neither is it a creation anew of evil. It is a reversion from creation to uncreation, from light to dark,
from form to formless, from being to nothing. In German Protestant theologian Eberhardt Jüngel’s book Justification: the Heart of the Christian Faith, this death-as-uncreation concept is defended first in reference to Cain, the first sinner after the Fall: “In Cain’s eyes the world has now really become nothing but death and darkness: ‘Today … I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me’ (Gen 4:14, ESV)”—in Cain we greet the “darkness that covered the earth at the beginning of creation.” Though Jüngel takes the next 264 pages (out of 277 total) to explain how this sets up a distinctively Protestant view on the purpose of Jesus Christ’s life, I find that in addition, it sets up how God uses water to tell the full story of creation. The 88th Psalm is the prayer of a distressed poet who feels abandoned by God and his friends. To a god he struggles to believe he says “You overwhelm me with all your waves,” and again, “your dreadful assaults […] surround me like a flood all day long”—all these he finds “in the regions dark and deep.” Drowning in dark water, he cannot see the light with which God marked day from night in the creation myth. He cannot stand on the ground that God raised from water—the ground from which his father Adam was formed. The doom that he pleads against is articulated in Ezekiel 26 as the judgement against the city of Tyre: “when I bring up the deep over you, and the great waters cover you, then I will make you go down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of old, and I will make you to dwell
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RECREATION in the world below, among ruins from of old.” For to love sin is to love death, renouncing God’s creative decree and preferring uncreation instead. God creates after himself, and deals satisfaction to those who would rather be confused, darkened, and drowned. Against this the psalmist, weighed down by sin, vigorously pleads existence. But the scene changes. Whereas an early vision confirms the psalmist’s fear; Ezekiel’s last vision—of a distant future—warrants hope. He sees from God’s dwelling place a mighty river flowing out the east, and spreading in all directions, teeming with plant and animal life. The night of uncreation is past and rejected, for we are now facing east: a new day. The terror of drowning in encircling waters is banished, for water flows no longer inward but outward. This water is not the dead water covering an empty planet; it is a spring of life generated by the Creator himself. Neither is this water formless. As once God raised land from water, he here defines in the banks of the river the boundaries of a new nation. As once he formed man from dust, he claims the citizens of this nation as his very own. From Genesis to Ezekiel we have recapitulated history: water represents dark uncreation at first, and at the end it represents re-creation. In order to bridge the gap we turn to the New Testament. Heretofore water still symbolizes emptiness and wrong. This sense is intensified when at the start of the New Testament, John, a kind of traveling preacher, goes from town to town warning people about their sins. He reinforces his message by submerging people briefly under the Jordan River. Turn from your sins, the Gestalt of his preaching goes, or this. Mysteriously, John grants the same ritual to Jesus Christ, who is incapable of sinning. A short while later, an early scene of Jesus’s recorded life depicts him at a wedding party in crisis. The party is just getting started, but the wine is running out! Jesus saves the day by ordering large jars to be filled with water and then miraculously turning the jars’ contents from water into wine. The party goes on as planned, and the curtain closes. This marks one occasion on which Jesus turned the water of trouble into the wine of celebration. At his last supper with his disciples, he maintains this goal: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Given in the form of wine, flowing from Jesus Christ blood does not speak of violence, or pain, or death. It renews God’s liquid promise to Ezekiel that one day darkness and death shall be erased, and the pure creation of God will flourish once and for all. Jesus made such claims because he faced death himself. Though sinless, he allowed himself to be baptized by John as a sinner, and later he refers to his forthcoming crucifixion as a baptism. While Jesus hung on Mount Calvary to fill the promised cup, the New Testament records that darkness covered the entire land for three hours. The primordial darkness that pierced Cain has invaded. But in reality it is under threat. Jesus confronts in harrowing immediate what the drowning poet of Psalm 88 felt from afar. From his cross Jesus looked down and saw a dark earth, formless and void. He died after those three hours. The sky was bright again. A Roman soldier pierced his side, and blood and water flowed out—Ezekiel’s late river, beginning as a trickle to the east, and growing to a mighty river over all the earth.
UNCREATION
Simon is a fourth-year EECS major who enjoys music, chess, and philosophy.
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Art Credit COVER
Harmonie Lau
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Harmonie Lau
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Stephany Su
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Justin Fung
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Ernest Porzi
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Harmonie Lau
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Erol Ahmed
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Matthew Henry, Arthur Lambillotte, Youssef Naddam Ryoji Iwata Marcel Strauss, Travis Essinger, Annie Spratt. Marcelo Leal
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Caesar Aldhela, Clem Onojeghuo
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Robert Bye
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Kai Pilger
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Becca Tapert
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Stephany Su
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Jane Le Huynh
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Stephany Su Harmonie Lau
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I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil–this is God’s gift to man. Ecclesiastes 2:12-13
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