lukesoliver.com

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything of substance on here and as it turns out, this is not going to be the time to break the silence (I mean, honestly, does anybody really want to hear my rants and raves?).  But I thought I’d post a little update for all of you who were curious/skeptical of my continued existence…

I’m back in Alaska!  I made it…actually I made it a week and a half ago.  I made the drive north again and this time I was alone.  Very alone.  Alone for FORTY-FIVE HOURS OF DRIVE TIME…THREE WHOLE DAYS!!!!  I was having some good conversations with myself by the end.  I also ran into (not literally) a herd of buffalo and several reindeer…so check ‘em off the Alaska Wildlife Checklist!

But I made it…only to find that the housing that I thought I was moving into is not going to work out, i.e. the cabin currently consists of only exterior walls with little hope of being finished before winter.  So, I’ve been looking around for others options and I think that I’ve found a nice, cozy little cabin just a mile away from the school.  Should be just enough space for me…a loft to sleep in, a little kitchen/living room downstairs complete with a gas fireplace.  I’ll be moving in later this week.

I ran a race on Saturday: the Lost Lake Run.  It was a nice mountain, trail run…about sixteen miles, nine up and seven down.  Next up, Kenai River Marathon on September 26.

I’m currently spending my time trying to prepare courses, working on the spiritual life component of the year, and generally getting settled and revved up for when students show up in a week and a half…woah.

Anyway, that’s all the news for the moment.  I’ll be in touch again before too long…but now I need to get to work.

For those of you who may have somehow slipped through the cracks of my email and facebook lists, I thought I’d post this little letter up here as well.  This is my humble plea that some of you might be willing to get on board with me this year and help me out in whatever way you are able.  I’d be honored if you’d give it a read-through.  Thanks!

Dear friends,

Well, the summer is certainly flying by.  Here we are, approaching mid-July and I am already confronted with my imminent return to Alaska in just a few weeks.  During this summer break, I have had the opportunity to do some traveling to California and Minnesota to see friends and family, to do some backpacking in the mountains, to linger over long morning cups-o-coffee and books, and to do some much-needed refreshing and preparation for the coming school year at Alaska Christian College.

As many of you know either from my emails or from personal conversations, at the end of this last year in Alaska, I came to the conclusion that my time in Alaska was simply incomplete, that God was not finished with me in this place.  And so, I decided to return to this ministry for a second year, taking on the role of interim Campus Pastor in addition to my teaching.  This is a position that will certainly challenge and stretch me as I seek to help guide and lead the students and the rest of the staff in worship and spiritual life.

The challenges of ministry at ACC are quite significant.  As many of you may be aware from previous emails, the Alaska Native community which composes the bulk of our student body has some deep-seeded issues.  I do not believe that I am at all exaggerating when I say that probably 75% of our students have experienced physical or sexual abuse in the past; that 75% of our students have dealt with alcoholism, either in their parents or in themselves; that probably every single one of our students has had a close friend or family member commit suicide.

As campus pastor, it is my responsibility to choose a “theme” for the year and the theme that I am leaning towards is the idea of transformation. Because it is only through the fundamentally transformational power of Jesus Christ that I believe these problems can be addressed; it is only as we allow Christ to metamorphose (yeah, I looked it up…that’s the correct form of that word…) our lives that we can address our deepest hurts and find a more abundant life.  This is what I desire my students to see this year: that Jesus Christ changes, transforms everything…here and now, not just in the future.

Many of you helped to support me during this last year, through your prayers, your encouragement, and your money.  I am truly grateful to all of you and I could not have served during this past year without you.  But I am writing to request, once again, that you would consider partnering with me; I am asking that you would, once again, send me to serve God and God’s Kingdom. I have spent a good deal of my summer speaking with churches and individuals about helping me out and that has led to some good success.  Approximately 65% of my financial need has already been committed with some more perhaps on the way.  But now, I am coming to you to ask if you might help me to fill in the gap. As I’ve said before, our friendship is in no way contingent on whether you are able to offer me financial support, but if God has blessed you with the ability, I would ask you to consider giving out of your abundance to help me serve at ACC.
Additionally, this year promises to be very busy and very full.  In addition to teaching two and a half classes in the Fall, two to three classes in the spring, and serving as Campus Pastor, I have plans to be applying to doctoral programs (which also means I have to start learning German!), serving at The River Covenant Church, and helping to coach a masters cross-country ski program.  I could sure use your prayers as I try to juggle this all and for wisdom and discernment as I go through the process of seeking out further education and opportunities to serve the Kingdom of God.

Thanks to all of you for your time and for doing me the honor of reading through this.  Again, I would truly appreciate whatever support you might be able to offer.

Grace and peace,

Luke

If you are able to donate to support my ministry, please send a check to Community Covenant Church (with my name in the memo line) at P.O. Box 919, Twisp, WA  98856.  Thanks again.

Dear Loyal Readers,

I apologize for forgetting about this blog for far too long.  But never fear, I am back with a short update.

Last time I posted, I was gasping toward the finish of my first year at ACC.  Well, I made it.  And as we went through graduation weekend, reflecting back upon the school year, I made the decision to return to ACC for another year.  After months of deliberation and looking for other jobs, I finally decided that I simply didn’t feel that my time at ACC was complete.  And so I will be returning to Soldotna in August to teach Ethics (again), Biblical Interpretation, and College Survival, and also to take on the role of Campus Pastor at ACC.  This basically means that I am somewhat in charge of spiritual life on campus.  It will most definitely be a challenge and push me in some significant ways, but I am looking forward to the opportunity to continue helping to shape and mold the lives of our students.

Until August, I am down “south.”  I will be mostly in Portland for the summer, trying to raise support, doing some backpacking, seeing friends and family, and other exciting things like that.

Well, that pretty much sums up where life has been and is going for the next few months.  I will now make a promise which probably won’t be fulfilled about how I am going to be better about leaving updates and posts on this blog.  Let’s just face it…I’m a mediocre communicator.  Until next time…

Luke

Yes, as we have just rolled over not one but two numbers on the calendar, I thought maybe we should take a look back at the past ten years to see where we’ve gone.  I mean, a lot has happened.  Ten years ago at midnight, I was standing on the hill above Twisp waiting for the lights to go out…oh, Y2K, you really threw us for a loop.

So here’s a list of the top ten best things (or at least interesting things) that happened in the past decade:

10.  I graduated from high school!  And college!  And grad school!

9.  Ran the London Marathon and broke the 2:40 barrier (also ran three other marathons this decade…shooting for ten in the next decade!)

8.  Played with a crazy monkey while living in Ecuador for a year, working at Covenant Bible College.  Also went spelunking with a one-legged man.  Also climbed a 19k+ ft mountain: Cotopaxi.

7.  Travelled all around Europe…from Norway to Greece and everywhere in between!

6.  More and more running…running in high school, running in college, running aftercollege…lots of good times, good races, good people…in the Mountains in Winthrop, on the beach in Santa Barbara, on Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, through the streets of London, through the hills of Thailand, getting chased by dogs in Ecuador, getting stress fractures in the summers…is it sad that I spend so much time at this activity?  I don’t think so.  It’s provided some pretty incredible moments.

5.  Went to Thailand for a four months and loved it…lived in a tribal village, ate great food, had crazy adventures.

4.  Spent a year in Scotland doing my masters degree.  Hung out with some great folks, explored higher theology, got started in professional coffee making.

3.  Worked on a llama ranch in Colorado for the summer after college.  Also fought forest fires for a couple of summers…hence my alter ego: Fuego.

2.  Spent a year with the Canby Community learning to live well.

1.  Learned a lot about life, about God, about people, about myself.

Goals for the next decade: 1.  Get a Ph.D., 2.  Run sub-2:30 in a marathon, 3. Spend another year living overseas, 4. Live well.

I was talking to a friend here at the Canby House (I’m still in Portland for my Christmas Break) the other day and he was commenting on how 2009 was an eventful year.  I proceeded to think to myself, “Wow.  2009 was a pretty boring year for me!”  I mean, it’s not that nothing happened, but it really was kind of just a normal year (whereas the last several have been quite eventful).  Moving to Alaska was kind of the only big momentous thing.  So here’s a list of the top ten small but meaningful things that happened to me this year.

10.  The Canby House community garden project was a success!  Though I wasn’t there to reap many of the fruits of my labor, it was a great experiment that taught me a lot and allowed for

some great time and conversations with great people and plus it felt good just to spend a lot of time outside and getting dirty.

9.  Spent a day with Cousin Shannon hiking around Multnomah Falls and having lunch at McMenamins Edgefield.

8.  I spent a lot of good time with Cousin Jesse and Now-Cousin-In-Law Jen…two people who are great and who I hadn’t seen a lot within the past decade/hadn’t really gotten to know well at all.

7.  I won a marathon.  Granted there were only about 25 people in the race.  Granted my time was twenty-seven minutes slower (that’s one minute per mile) than my previous slowest time…but I WON!

6.  I traveled into the Alaskan Bush to the village of Shaktoolik…a very eye opening experience.

5.  I took on a job that I actually enjoy!  Let’s hear it for jobs with intellectual stimulation!

4.  I got to spend several days with my whole family in the Methow back in April.  I hadn’t seen my brother Ben’s family in almost two years and it had been three years since we had all been together.

3.  East of Eden entered my list of the best books ever written.

2.  When I was driving up to Alaska with my cousin Jesse, somewhere near the Alaska/Canada border at about 3am, we pulled over to the side of the road to look at the northern lights.  It was pretty cool.  But then it got even better when meteors were shooting across them.  Spectacular.

1.  Lots of good time spent with great people doing nothing particularly special but just enjoying wonderful fellowship.  Thanks everybody!

1. Sunrise was at 10am this morning.  Certainly, dawn arrived much earlier, but I still tend to get this feeling that I’m in some sort of ethereal time-warp.
2. Yesterday was the winter’s first ski.  It felt good.  I’m about to head out for the winter’s second ski.
3. Healing takes time.  One of the advantages of being up here at ACC is that I get to take advantage of professional counseling from the counseling center.  So I’ve been going.  And I’ve been realizing that some scars still run pretty deep.  But I’m also starting to see that maybe the point isn’t to get rid of them but to be shaped by them.  After I got a stress fracture in college from overtraining, I had to learn how to run again, how to train again…I couldn’t go about things in the same way and expect to not get hurt again…and even now, when I start training hard, that same spot, the left tibia, sometimes acts up and I have to be careful.  Maybe emotional injuries work the same way.  Be careful, learn from it, be shaped by it, but never forget it, never act as though it isn’t still a deep part of me.
4. My application to Duke’s Ph.D. program is all submitted.  Now I get to wait around for a couple of months to see if I’m even in the running.
5. N.T. Wright is a phenomenal thinker.  I’m getting close to finishing Justification and though it’s a pretty heady book, I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to believe that maybe the message of Jesus is better than even we imagined.  I never used to like Paul much…but Wright is convincing me that I need to give him a new, better, more informed reading.
6. Somehow I’ve found myself “in charge” of organizing worship at the new The River Covenant Church plant here in Soldotna.  Challenging.
7. The semester is coming to an end.  Ethics was discussing food last week.  I ended on this topic because it ties together a lot of the other issues and shows how they are connected.  We are going to watch a documentary tomorrow, Food, Inc. I recommend that you all see it.  It will change the way that you think about what you eat and it demonstrates those connections to many other ethical issues.  Final exams next week.
8. I’m headed home in less than two weeks.  And by home I mean Portland and then Winthrop for a little while and then back to Portland to fly back here to Alaska.  Hope to see many of you then.

Well folks.  It all begins in two days…Monday at 8:45am.  I’ve spent most of the past couple of weeks sitting in my office (That’s right.  I have an office.  I’m official.) reading books about ethics and trying to figure out how to teach such a subject.  But I think I’ve got it.  In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be pretty easy given my foolproof, step-by-step method:

1. Tell the students that they have to give “presentations” on ethical issues.  This basically makes them do all the work of preparing for the class.

2. Sit in the back with a notepad and occasionally jot something down (doesn’t actually have to mean anything because you never allow the student to see what it says…could just say “I’m bored.  Bored, bored, bored.”).

3. Scowl a lot as they are speaking.

4. Come up with one or two questions per person that are solely for the purpose of establishing my intellectual superiority over the students.  Good questions cite a supreme court case, refer to obscure historical events on specific dates, or talk about a country that may or may not actually exist.

5. Ta-da!  Sit back and enjoy yourself all semester long.

But seriously though, I’m pretty excited.  It took me a while, as I was starting from scratch, but I think that I’ve finally got a plan for the class that will hopefully work pretty well.  I’ve been able to construct it so that at the beginning we will be looking at what the Bible has to say about ethics, trying to get a broad theological perspective, and then using that as a basis for thinking about some ethical issues, including some that are of particular relevance today (i.e. health care, war, food, immigration, etc.).  And yes, I actually am having them doing presentations…but I’ll try not to use that as an excuse to slack off.

I know that there are some who disagree with me on this, but in the debate between free will and determinism, I lie very far on the free will side.  I think that God sets choices before us.   I think that we have the freedom to do as we will, to shape our world as we desire it to be.  I think that there are bad choices, good choices, and better choices, but that they are ultimately ours to make.  I believe that God is more concerned with the sum of my decisions as they indicate who I am than he is with the individual choices themselves.

The reason all this has been going around my head is that I’m still in the job hunt.  I moved to Portland six months ago with the idea that I could work a menial job and be alright with it for a time, that I needed a period of time to sit back and breathe and try to gather some perspective on life.  But given my goal-oriented, define-myself-by-what-I-do nature, this has been tough.  And so while I’ve come to the point of saying I’m ok with working at Starbucks right now, I’ve kept coming back to the job hunt, looking for other opportunities.  Now I’ve got an application in that would sadly cause me to leave Portland for a time, I’ve got a couple of jobs to apply for that might keep me in Portland, and I’ve got Starbucks Coffee which would definitely keep me right where I am, a good option in that I can continue to focus on building community and finding ways to serve God in the mundane but bad in that I struggle with making this my identity and with holding a job simply to earn money.  Granted, option B would be ideal, having a job that I can feel good about that keeps me in Portland, but what if that doesn’t work out and I have to choose between options A and C?  Does God have a “will,” a single “call”?

This came to something of a head a few weeks ago when I had a couple of conversations that got me thinking about how I’m working to develop myself and whether I even know what I want out of life anymore.  I’ve been sitting in this stage of ambiguity, waiting for God to “open a door,” and yet what it really comes down to is laziness and insecurity because I don’t really believe that God works like this.  I don’t believe that God allows us to just sit around and wait for him.  I believe that he put the decision on us, that he says to us, ”I’ve shown you what is good.  All I require of you is that you live rightly, be loving, and walk with me.”  The rest is up to me.

I find that my tendency is to revert to this “open/closed door” mentality.  And it’s worked before.  When I was deciding on a college, there seemed to be a clear “open door.”  But that’s about the only time.  Every other major decision I’ve had, it seems that there was more than one option and that God would have been present in and worked through either one.  And even with the decision to go to Westmont, when that door appeared to open, I stopped pursuing the other options because it was easier when there was only one option that seemed clear.  And Westmont was good.  But maybe something else could have been good, too.

So I guess what I’m getting at in my long-winded manner is this: I want excuses for my decisions and so I often play the “God’s will” card.  As much as I/we say that I/we want freedom, I/we would really prefer that God would make the hard decisions for me/us, when really he is allowing me/us to choose who I/we want to be, allowing growth to come through the decision process.

Maybe job option B will work out for me.  Maybe not.  But if not, then I think it’s up to me to figure out where to go from there.  Either way, God will use me.  But it’s my choice as to whether I see his work in and through me no matter what I’m doing.