WHY: Summer Days

Last week was the end of school. I wrote about 120 pages. Essentially,  I wrote a thesis. Or I wrote as much material as a thesis would be, but on more topics. Still, can we marvel over that number? I don’t mean it in a pretentious way. I mean it in a oh-my-word-how-could-anyone-write-that-much-and-still-be-sane kind of way. Maybe I’ve lost my sanity without even realizing it….

I’m very glad that I’m done. I don’t love change, I don’t love things ending (like classes, semesters and assignments) but I’m quite glad that the semester and her massive amount of writing is all done. I’m also glad to be done for the year because it means something more than just the end of assignments and schoolwork.

It means that summer has begun.

I love the summertime. It means, later nights with brilliant, burning sunsets. Bike rides become leisurely without looming assignments that snag the wheels and threaten your perseverance up that hill of wasting time (which should, obviously, be spent on said looming assignments). It also means that the mountains will have shed their thick white blankets and dried out in the afternoons of late spring. And that means two very glorious and spiritual things can happen:

hiking.

camping.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I love summer time in Colorado. I love hiking. I love camping. I’m a journey hiker (which will be a later post) and I’m both a backpacking and car camper. Just give me those Rocky Mountains and I’m happy as a clam in the deep blue. Except there’s not much blue here. It’s more brown with runs of green and forests that look black as smoky ebony when the setting sun hits just right. There are great things to learn of God that come through intellectual discussion in classroom settings. But most of those great experiences with God recorded in the Bible take place outside. If you come to Colorado, you will discover why he speaks in the wilderness–or perhaps, he always speaks, but you will discover why we hear in the wilderness. There is a majesty there, a magnitude that cannot be described or uttered, it can only be seen and experienced and it leads to worship in a way that nothing else can. I can’t put the picture into words. So here are the reasons I love Colorado summers told by photos, here is a sample of the beauty in which God has manifested himself to me in the wilderness that I am privileged to call home:

(Mountains, with snow, in August; Hiking trail; Under the waterfall at Hanging Lake; Standing above Hanging Lake; Looking down onto Hanging Lake; Dusky sunset at a park overlooking the foothills; Before a concert at Red Rocks; Backpacking up to Mt Evans; Giants must live here–Narnia!; Backpacking with a friend from college; Feeling small amidst the Rockies; Clouds on one of my favourite trails; A recent sunset caught in my side view mirror by my cellphone camera)

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WHY: Social Media

I used to manage social media for people. A friend and I started up a company that worked with authors, businesses, and musicians to manage their social media and marketing via networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It was a fun summer spent outside on the back patio at the home of a friend who was remodeling while being on tour with his band. But school started and I needed more income more quickly, so my part in the journey of entrepreneurship ended. My friend still plugs away at that company, building it slowly, arduously, from the ground up.

Because of that short term position, I understand the power of social media, for good and for bad. I spend too much time on Facebook, to be honest, it sometimes destroys my contentment. Twitter wastes much of my time as I invariably click away at posts by favourite authors and networks like the Resurgence and Desiring God. I’ve thus far refused to join Pintrest but I watch girls in class who are always adding to their boards and I know that would ruin my time management and contentment as much as the first two.

But these networks aren’t all bad. I have not quite released my grip on Facebook because it is useful in a number of ways. I am also decently committed to my Twitter account as it allows me access to articles and stories that are encouraging and convicting.

Stories like this one about Ian and Larissa. They were married even after Ian had a brain injury in 2006 and lost a number of physical and mental capabilities. I almost cried while watching it in the student center and I don’t think that’s simply stress from the end of the school year. I was struck by the beauty of their relationship and love–their commitment to each other and to God. In so many ways I look at their situation and it makes me almost envious to know that kind of love and devotion. Not envious because I want to experience that (though I do) but because I want to be like that.

Suffering is painful, no one desires it for a reason. In the west, especially in white suburban America, we have a pretty weak view of suffering. We don’t understand it, we avoid it, we ignore it. But in the midst of suffering there is such growth and beauty. I see it in the story of Larissa and Ian, I see it in my friends at school and church who are struggling through a variety of things. In all these different situations, my friends are becoming new people, greater and stronger in the faith–even when that means admitting their weaknesses. Even when life seems to come apart, God is always reconstructing it and making all things new. He suffered as one of us and he knows our pain. Not only does he know it, but he is always working in it to make something good come of it, for our sanctification and for his glory.

I’m on social media sites and I read blogs because they remind me, even in the midst of finals week in grad school and great exhaustion both mentally, physically and emotionally that God is here, in all things, and he is working.

soli Deo gloria.

WHY: The Marriage Metaphor

I enjoy a slightly hipster-esque–Indie–Folksy–Blue Grass band by the name of The Civil Wars. One of the first songs I fell in love with is called Poison and Wine. I love the words, I love the timbre of their voices, I love the way they haunt and redeem my heart with every chord.

Last week was a bit of a rough one emotionally. Not only for me, but also for others that I know and love. Sometimes, there is this illusion that seminary students, counseling students, future pastors and teachers have their “stuff” figured out. But the truth is, we’re actually very messy people.

A few brief examples:

My friend who is “engaged” but is on break.
One that I look up to who is struggling with depression.
There’s another who is struggling with burn out from ministry (already!) and depression.
A new friend who is coming out of depression but has mixed direction on life.
Another who is dealing with childhood abuse.
Everyone who can’t afford their lives.
The one who is so desperate for love they keep going back to the same broken relationship.
My friend who longs to know that God does love him.
The one, surrounded by friends, who still feels alone.

These are the people I do life with, each and every day. It’s exhausting, it’s beautiful, it’s truth. Over the weekend I went out with a couple friends after one of them had moved into a new apartment. I had heard some basic things about his off kilter relationship, but that night I asked a few more questions. I wanted to get to know this man better, and as a friend, part of that required knowing his story, his relationships, his hopes, the things his world revolves around. The story given was not long but it was full of sorrow amidst lingering hopes. When we returned to their house from the restaurant, I stood outside with the roommate I am very close to suddenly found myself overwhelmed by sadness. I burst into tears. My friend wrapped his arms around me while I cried and repeatedly mumbled the same questions.

Why does He let this go on?
When is He coming back?
When will He put things to rights? Bind up our sores, heal our broken bones?

My friend, of course, couldn’t say. These are questions that have plagued human history and Christianity is no exception. The failure of God to come when we expect has always been a mystery in human suffering.

I managed to pull myself together enough to get in my car and make it onto the highway. I pulled the pieces together and placed trembling hands on the steering wheel as I guided the little sedan through late night traffic and construction. It didn’t take long, however, before my lack of control resurfaced. Two exits after my entrance to the highway the same sadness overwhelmed me. I cried the entire way home, a twenty minute drive of blurred lights and stifled sobs.

In the midst of this, as I pounded my steering wheel and demanded to know when He will return, the sounds of The Civil Wars whispered through my stereo. Poison and Wine seems, at first listening, to be a song of dried up hopes and long forgotten love. It is a relationship kept alive only by the power of will, by sheer stubbornness. Or so it seems.

There is a part in the song that suddenly hit home that night on the highway. The music crescendoes and the man sings in a terrifyingly raw tone, “I don’t have a choice, but I still choose you.” They surge into the chorus where their voices mingle together, singing desperately, “Oh, I don’t love you, but I always will!”

It seems so open, so broken, so lost and hopeless.

But I suddenly understood why the Prophets, Israel, the New Testament writers–why even Jesus himself–calls us His wife. The Scriptures have long said we are the promiscuous wife who runs to others, who forgets her first love, who stands on the street corners outside a house of sexual indecency, who lies and scorns the things of her husband. We have always gone running to other things, and God has always stood waiting.

That is only one side of it though.

It’s true, I’m a child of indecency, and I often go after things that lead only to my destruction. It’s true that I pursue other lovers, that I forget the One who redeemed me, who cleaned me, gave me new clothes and took me into his home with nothing to offer him.

But there is another side, the one we face day in and day out. It is the side of sinful reality. The world is broken. Jesus hasn’t yet come back. We speak of progress and the improvement of man, but we have only improved ways of killing each other, ways of keeping the poor underfoot. I railed at God in my car on Sunday night, beating the steering wheel with a tightly closed fist. It isn’t the first time my car or my body has been abused for the frustration of His postponed return. Sunday night won’t be the last time I get angry and tell God He’s wrong for waiting, it won’t be the last time I ask Him to come back right now and save us from all this mess.

But, I realized the marriage metaphor is not only about a wife who has abandoned her master.

It’s about a wife who waits patiently for her husband, trusting that he’ll be true to his word as he always has been.

“I don’t have a choice, but I still choose you,” they sang as I raced down the highway through a construction zone where even the cops themselves drive over the limit. I stood in the city, burning its way to the ground in selfish debt and hopeless sin. I drove on the edge of town to a place where the sin and violence are the stories in the lives of my neighbours.

And I thought, I’ve tried to run from the faith so many times, Abba, but you always hold on to me. I don’t have a choice. I don’t have a way of getting out of what I know to be true. I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.

But I don’t want to leave.

I don’t have “freedom” to leave. But even if I did, I wouldn’t want to. Even when I don’t love God, I always will. I will always choose Him, even when I think He is dawdling in His return. It’s like a marriage. A covenant. I agreed to stay, and so I will. Just as He has waited and stayed for me, so I will wait on Him.

Poe: our favourite morbid American poet and a doctrinal summaries paper

”The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” [E. A. Poe]

It’s a bit morbid, granted, but I’ve been thinking about this statement a good deal over the week. I have an app on my macbook that gives me quotes from Edgar Allen Poe every time I scroll over the particular desktop where it is located. Some are more amusing than the one above. For instance, I just glanced back and read this one: ”If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.” It is so true! Annoyingly true!

But as I said, I’d been thinking about the death of a beautiful woman, and considering why that would be a rather poetic thing to consider. Let’s be honest, Poe was a bizarre individual. He wrote beautiful, imaginative poetry and narratives. Some of them are haunting simply because they are so well described and the reader can easily envision the words he tells. I remember having nightmares in high school about The House of Usher. (There is a reason I don’t watch horror movies.)

But there is more to the quote than Poe’s obsession with analyzing, describing and memorializing death. Think of the classics we read in high school: The Killer Angels, Anthem, Animal Farm, Asher Lev, etc. Granted, not all of those listed have death at the focal point, but there is a sense of darkness in all of them, something that pervades the stories and something that we desperately read over and over and over.

I just finished a paper from my Doctrine I class. It’s a doctrinal summaries paper. [Thrilling title, I know.] In essence, I had to choose six doctrines and give three different perspectives on each. If you know me at all, the three theologians won’t be difficult to guess: Wayne Grudem, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Integrative. I wrote on the Trinity, immanence vs transcendence, general revelation, scriptural authority, the imago dei and the transmission of the sin nature. If you don’t know what all those are, or you simply don’t care, bear with me. I won’t give you the 22 pages I’m handing in on Monday. Promise.

The imago dei (image of God) and the transmission of the sin nature were the two most difficult doctrines for me to work with.  I think it’s because the compassion in me wants to hope for the best, to pray we aren’t as warped and distorted by sin as Paul claims. But I’m a fairly strict Calvinist most days and last night I whispered to my new nephew that he was beautiful, handsome and perfect–except for being totally depraved. He giggled as I nuzzled his cheek and clucked my tongue and my father roared in laughter. Some of us, I muttered, are obsessed with being theologically correct, even with a nephew who can’t hold his head up.

But it’s true, you know. Did you see that man run the red light on your way home from work last night? Did you hear about the dictator killing his own people? They are broken, ruined by the fall. Yet, there isn’t only that. Did you hear about the people who ave money to Blood Water to build wells for people they’ll never even meet? Did you see the way that teenager held the door open for you as you walked out the door with too many things in your hands?

There is this awkward tension between the goodness of humanity, the reasoning, the grace, the mental abilities, the beauty we can create, the impulse to create and hope and dream–coupled with the tendency to fight, to destroy and use our abilities for creating new, more efficient ways of killing each other, for gaining power and ruining the earth. It is not as though every human being is as bad as they possibly could be. Total depravity simply says every aspect of human nature has been compromised.

Coming back to Poe, we must remember that there is, despite the complications, still beauty in the world. Today the earth is bright and flushed with colours because of the thunderstorm last night. The girls I nanny giggled today, making faces, playing peekaboo and when one cried the other hugged her and found a toy to comfort her. “You’re okay, Lil’” she said, “mommy will be home soon. Don’t cry.” There is tenderness among humans that can not be explained except for our high position, bearing the image of an intrinsically good and relational God.

Poe says the death of a beautiful woman is poetic.

I think he could have said the death of anyone with beauty is poetic. There’s something in human nature that recognizes the problem of death. We see that this is not how things were meant to be and it is most clearly reflected by the death of beauty. In a strange way, we see our depravity, our hopeless state when darkness swallows up fleeting glory and beauty. This isn’t how it was meant to be, our soul whispers, and then we put words around the phenomenon to try and understand it.

In the end, Christians have a sense of hope. We look forward to a time when the image will no longer be distorted and we will not give birth to another crooked generation. Instead, the imago dei and humanity will be renewed at the end of days to our former glory. At that point, in our ontological reformation, we will only produce that which is good, holy and pure as we were originally intended to do.

In that day, we will not need death to remind us that something is missing. Because in that day, it will be missing no longer.

Good Friday

I would love to post something brilliant, deep and full of wisdom for the somber day that we woke to.

Unfortunately, there are no brilliant words of wisdom that come to mind….

The wind howled last night, during my OT Prophets class and she pushed my little Hyundai to and fro on the highway as I made my way across town. It was a long day, an exhausting day. I returned home to children in my apartment learning the story of God who died 2000 years ago. I snuggled under a blanket next to one of them on the couch and stared blankly ahead at the walls of our hallway. I finally made my way to bed, with flannel sheets to keep out the draft of my window beyond which the skies still blew in stormy rage.

It’s like the world knows. Like creation knows. She’s groaning. Waiting, hoping.

And I, with a hot electric pad clutched to my abdomen, I fell asleep to the sound of the wind beating against our home of brick and mortar, the sound of the earth screaming against the injustice of it all.

Today, the wind still blows, warm and dry. What was it like, to stand in the courtyard and listen to the trial? What was it like to watch the procession, the bloodied path to the city’s outskirts where the scapegoat had always been sent to die, bearing the burden of the people’s sins as he wandered into the desert beyond the camp. What was it like?

Tonight, we go to service, and we’ll remember the day that Jesus died. It’s black and dark and somber.

It is, in many ways, the darkest and most beautiful time of the year.

O sacred Head, no wounded
with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, Thine only crown
How pale thou art with anguish,
with sore abuse and scorn!
How doth Thy visage languish
which once was bright as morn!

What Thou, my Lord, has suffered,
T’was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Saviour!
‘Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor,
Vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

What language shall I borrow
To thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever,
And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
Outlive my love for Thee. 

Palm Sunday

It’s Holy Week.

Doesn’t look like it in Colorado. After hot days all weekend long and an obscenely dry March, today is cloudy and the grey. The mountains looked like ghosts when I arrived in Littleton, they are barley visible, even from this distance. In Aurora, when I entered the highway rush hour, you couldn’t see the mountains at all. It’s dark and windy, the chill is back and my there is a weight in the air that you can feel, even within the confines of the library that shouldn’t be using electric lights so late in the morning.

Yesterday was brilliant, hot with blazing life across the front range. I wore shorts yesterday, shaved my legs and pulled on a pink tshirt that once belonged to my parents’ ill-wed neighbour. It was warm enough to take children outside to play in the waning light at the evening sunday school I run. We laughed and screamed on slides and monkey bars with toddlers still learning to speak.

Yesterday fell like a proper Palm Sunday though I did not attend a church service.

It was warm and the sun was throwing life towards the earth with careless joy. Trees have started to glow with buds of every colour and the grass has turned green almost overnight. It’s springtime. In Israel, in ancient Palestine, this is the time for lambs, for calves and new life all around. It’s the time when shepherds keep watch over their flocks at night and once heard angels sing of a king born in stubby little Bethlehem.

But we didn’t celebrate Bethlehem yesterday.

Yesterday, my Saviour rode triumphant into the glorious city that had once been Israel’s jewel. Yesterday, the crowds clapped and sang for him, they threw down cloaks and palm branches because a horse bearing such majesty ought to walk on cleaner ground than dusty old Jerusalem’s stones. They whooped and hollered, beads of sweat on wearied faces that yesterday held only smiles as they forgot, momentarily, the travails of life under Roman occupation. And he came in, on that donkey, and the disciples walked alongside him…were they proud to be at his side? Did they think fame and glory would soon follow such an entrance to the city where David and Solomon once ruled?

I’ve been thinking about what it was like, that day in Palestine. What were the Romans thinking? Another grungy zealot, leading people to their deaths in hopeless rebellion against the greatest empire the world had yet seen. Did they think him a madman and laugh? Perhaps, but it was a laughter tinged with anxiety: what might this madmen do? The Zealots were always attacking, ever since Judas Maccabeaus, attacking like ghosts, then melting into the countryside without a trace until the next assault. Would the troublesome Jews rebel? The country was full of madmen, claiming only one God and refusing to light incense of Caesar. Lunatics.

But even lunatics are dangerous.

Did the disciples yet understand what awaited them at the Passover feast? Or did they think like the Romans that this could end with war? I don’t think they expected him to die. He was Messiah, after all! Anointed one! Didn’t the Prophets of old anoint the ones who led them in to battle agains their enemies? What of Saul! Or David! David, of course, to whom God gave peace on all sides. And what of them, the twelve? They would be given places of honour when government was wrenched away from the puppet kings who were not born of the Davidic line. As they walked at the side of the donkey, how odd, a donkey! Not a triumphal creature, but lowly and foolish. As they walked beside the beast that carried their teacher, their master, did they expect a more triumphal entry than this one today? With the palm branches and the cloaks flung down for them to walk on; could there be greater things coming next?

But glory is not always what we expect.

But what, I wonder, did the common folk think? Here was a man front he outlying prospects of Nazareth, a Jew who lived in Gentile Galilee. A carpenter turned Rabbi. His face wasn’t handsome but the hands that held the reigns were strong and firm. His gaze looked sorrowful, despite the fervor around him and the cheering onslaught of the crowd come out to greet him. Do you think they wondered why? To look at the soldiers in their burnished armor, swords at their sides in easy reach, with helmets reflecting the bright springtime sun, to see those marks of domination, oppression and suffering and despite their fear, to cheer boldly for the man on his donkey. This morning, this afternoon, this was a day to mark down in history they must have thought. This was the rescue, so long awaited. See the gates opening to him, see the crowds press in with anxious hope. Feel the temperatures soar with the heat of bodies crushing against each other, hoping for a glance, just one, to see the Messiah who would break all fear and renew all hopes. Look at him! They cried to each other. This ride into Jerusalem it is the marked entrance of a king! This is the way they rode in when they conquered us! The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Seleucids, the Greeks, the Romans! But now comes one of our own, and he will call them to account as Moses did in Egypt. He will establish peace and justice as David did, as Solomon kept. But he will do it better than even they! We will have food to way and clothes to wear. We will have dreams to hope for and no longer regret the world into which we bear our children. This man is hope, this man is justice, he will establish Torah and we will live under the Shadow of Glory as when we made the covenant at Sinai. We are being rescued, they thought, they hoped. And so they shouted, hosanna because no other words could describe the burning in their hearts.

But rescue comes in many ways.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. Bright and warm, with hope for springtime and new beginnings.

Today is grey and cold.

When did the hope die? When did the people run in fear? When did they turn and betray him? How could their hearts so quickly falter? How could they have stopped believing so soon, so easily? Today, with hidden mountains, I can feel the anxiety, and the weighty sorrow of ended dreams. Lent is coming to an end, I thought of this today when I longed so desperately for a warm soy chai after a morning of traffic and errands before work, before school. Last week was Spring Break and for a few fleeting days I felt free, excited for summer, energized and thrilled by creation, beauty and all that is life. But then today came, and the triumph is gone.

Jesus has entered Jerusalem. Passover comes now.

With unsteady hands and tensed shoulders, with furrowed brows and wearied feet, we wait. Will it be the Passover of Moses in a new place, freeing from new oppression? Or will this be another failed Messiah, another judgement against us, another refusal to rescue as we’ve long been waiting for?

Yesterday was triumph.
Today is suspense.

musings on coloradan beauty

this was written over the period of several classes so…hopefully it’s coherent. On Monday I went for a brief hike to have some alone time and to just be outside as I’ve been cooped up with far too much schoolwork lately. I have recently been struck by the beauty of the place where I live and attempted to put words to that. This is what came out in Doctrine 1 and NewTestament 503…

I went hiking today. I went alone. I wanted the silence, though I did not know it at the time. There is a part of me that is called to the wild places of Colorado, the sweep heights so shorn by bitter winds and summer sun. I love the lands I’ve been to, I still long for the places where I’ve lived in past years. But deep in my soul is a piece that longs for the majesty of those mountain faces, and the brilliancy of snowy hillsides dotted with scraggly pines scattered amid stones and deep red earth.

The snow had been stripped down on the rocks, blown across by daily wind till it was carved to fine edges and smooth glittering surfaces. The snow looked like worn sandstone whose years are beyond measure, cut away in curves on the edges of the ridge like smoothed shale that sparkled like diamonds in the ever present sunlight. The ice crunching beneath my feet, broken by the borrowed boots was the only sound heard above the howling wind.

I sat on a ledge, over looking the narrow valley before the hogback, watching the sun rise over a city that never truly sleeps. The red boulder beneath me was scattered seeds of the pine tree at my back, shaking in the wind that tumbled over the mountains. THe seed will never take root. The pine will still shake off its bounty though it will come to naught. The wind plummeted o’er the heights and pushed forward a storm that would not take root until Thursday. But the wind knew the coming blessing and hurried on her way out to the Eastern plains.

I  watched the earth sit solidly amid the chaos that raged beneath the heavens, and for a long while I just rested amidst it all. It was  loud but it was silent, for I was deaf to all beyond me, to all the bustle of the thing we mistakenly call life.

The majesty overwhelmed me. The idea that a hand had carved the great monoliths and paint thee hillsides that dwarfed my insignificant sent. Who am I that you should take note of me? I can hardly climb to these great places, and he could have but breathed and it would come to be. And there I sat, small against the world. School work far from mind, bills and rent seemed to not exist and I could think of nothing but the beauty of the wild places and the glorious One who made it all.

timing and lyrics

I’ve been trying to stay away from updating on my personal life in the way that I used to. I don’t need this blog to be a foray into my personal world. I don’t mind writing about school, or about God and what I’m learning. But I don’t care to update the internet on my relational status, my hurt and woes, my personal triumphs as I stumble through life.

But today, I thought this was worth sharing. You see, God has confused me lately, he gives things briefly, takes them away, asks for more patience, gives greater gifts than the first. I’m learning he’s not only the God of my personal life but of my church, my nation, my world. It’s taken a great deal of pressure off of my shoulders and it has also made me immensely grateful for the little moments when God seems to clearly sweep into my world.

He did that last weekend. My roommate had gone to a concert given by JJ Heller and her husband. I would have gone if I hadn’t had class, and if I’d wanted to splurge a bit on my social budget. But I went to school and I saved my money. Saturday morning, however, my roommate and I ate breakfast together and she put on some of JJ’s music that she’d bought the day before.

I was facing the task of calling the half bearded kid. I had to know what was going on. Two dates, family hang out time and then a sudden plummet of activity. It’s a daunting moment, to finally call someone and ask them what the heck they’re doing to your heart when you haven’t even given it to them. In the midst of knowing that would be an awful conversation that would either end well (and embarrassing) or would end with disappointment; my roommate’s playlist moved to my favorite JJ Heller song. Molly, of course, had no idea. But I think that’s sometimes how God works.

I needed to hear it. And without knowing it, my roommate gave me a great gift that pulled me quite a ways through my afternoon when the phone call ended in incredible disappointment. So here are the lyrics to said song.

He cries in the corner where nobody sees
He’s the kid with the story no one would believe
He prays every night, “Dear God won’t you please
Could you send someone here who will love me?”

Who will love me for me
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me
‘Cause nobody has shown me what love
What love really means

Her office is shrinking a little each day
She’s the woman whose husband has run away
She’ll go to the gym after working today
Maybe if she was thinner
Then he would’ve stayed
And she says…

Who will love me for me?
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me?
‘Cause nobody has shown me what love, what love really means

He’s waiting to die as he sits all alone
He’s a man in a cell who regrets what he’s done
He utters a cry from the depths of his soul
“Oh Lord, forgive me, I want to go home”

Then he heard a voice somewhere deep inside
And it said
“I know you’ve murdered and I know you’ve lied
I have watched you suffer all of your life
And now that you’ll listen, I’ll tell you that I…”

I will love you for you
Not for what you have done or what you will become
I will love you for you
I will give you the love
The love that you never knew.

{JJ Heller, Love Me}

There are times when you can’t even pretend.
It’s like laying in the snow and saying it’s not cold.

{Stacey}

Via Negativa

I wrote a paper recently for my four day excursion into Eastern Orthodoxy.

It was a rather academic experience, this paper.

The last paper I wrote on Orthodoxy was more like art. I spoke of the scent in the room, the spice of incense and the watering of my eyes in the smoke as the Father blessed the image of God in all the parishioners. I wrote of the chanting, the calls back and forth and the sweet sound of confessions being whispered nearby. I spun stories of the children that kissed icons as they mimicked venerable grandparents, the toddler who had her hand kissed by a grandmother and pressed against the face of a saint that wavered in flickering candlelight. I sang praises for the liturgy, the long hours that we stood, the moments that flew past while we thought we stood in company with all the saints who have gone before. It was ancient to stand in that church. It was holy.

The paper this time, was not so beautiful.

But in its own way it was beautiful. I wrote about theology and I wrote what could  be one of my best academic papers thus far. For the Orthodox, there is a huge emphasis on the diversity within God. While most Protestants and Catholics focus on the unity, the single-ness of the Godhead, the Orthodox take a different approach as they find incredibly deep meaning in the community of the Trinity.

To me, this is beautiful. The idea of God as the pure essence of community is a great invitation to be joined to that community. The mystics were drawn to this. Their lives were caught up in the pursuit of being one with this God who is Love and Truth and Beauty. Protestants always say that as we grow to know more about God, we realize how much we don’t know about God. It’s true. But the mystics had a different way of explaining this.

Most begin believing that we can know of God through everything. All the world speaks of God’s glory, his majesty, his love, his creativity, his entire being is expressed in the world around us. The mystics knew God in this way. Everything spoke to them and revealed God to them.

Yet, as they progressed in their visions, their experiences, their dark nights within the depths of their souls and the brilliant glory of illumination, as they moved through the spiral of mysticism towards greater experiences with God, almost every single mystic would end with the belief that nothing could speak to them of God. He was too great, too immense to be known and described by such a thing as the finite created world which will soon be passing away. So they came to what we call apophatic knowledge or the via negativa. God could only be known by what he was not. He is only infinite because he is not finite. He is just because he cannot be unjust, etc.

This intrigues me, this idea that we can know and experience God primarily by knowing what he isn’t. How does that play into the concept that we can experience the divine nature and participate in the divine community? How can you participate and know something or someone that you can’t really know?

The mystery of the Eastern Orthodox confuses me but it enthralls me. I love the way the church so earnestly desires to be one with God, to know him and participate in the divine nature. Everything speaks to us of God, even the architecture in the church is designed to point us heavenward to contemplation of the divine. And yet, the Orthodox give God space to be infinite, transcendent and beyond our total comprehension. This is what I wrote of in the 12 and 1/2 pages that came together slowly but surely last week. The chance to know God as an immanent lover, while keeping him respectfully at arms length to enjoy his otherness. The scent of the incense, the encircling of the Triadic community, the sound of the chants, they were all there; simply buried deep in lines full of multisyllabic words and a cumbersome thesis. It was beautiful, even if the words themselves did not evoke the image of the liturgy but rather described the beautiful thoughts behind it.

somedays, I think I was born for Academia.

WHY: I love and hate coffee shops

Today I went to a coffee shop to do homework, check my email, be warm, etc. It’s snowing outside. Apparently, it has been snowing since last night. I woke up to a frosty blanket all over the parking lot and a creeping fog on the windows spotted with crisp frost.

First I went to see Molls at work. She’s fabulous. I’ll talk about her some other day.

Then I ended up at a coffee shop. I sat down beside a friend from school who had just finished his shift. We started talking about classes. I announced that i was reading for homework–even though my JTerm class doesn’t begin until next week, and the regular semester doesn’t begin until the week after that. Someone looked over to us, asked where we went to school and I knew from the look in his eye that we weren’t likely to have a quick conversation with this man. He wore his wedding ring on the wrong hand, his glasses were from two decades ago in style and shape. His face bristled with the scraggly growth of three days and no shave. He asked, did we know the Master’s name?

My first thoughts went like this:

What? Master? As in the Grand Master from the Templars?

The Templars ended in the Middle Ages, thanks to a weakened pope and a heavily indebted Philip the… seventh? In France. Good lord I’m a nerd for knowing that.

But seriously. Are we talking about the Templars?

Does he mean Lord? Does he mean God?

Master? Who just asks that across a coffee shop full of people? Who just says that: “Do you know the Master’s name?” What do I look like? Someone who’s going to be comfortable with such a question?

Is he crazy? Is this a trick question?

I picked the wrong day to come to a coffee shop.

Curse the way Rusty’s voice carries. We could have avoided this question if you didn’t talk about Seminary so loudly.

My friend, Rusty, had no idea how to answer. And in the interest of not having a staring contest added to our already uncomfortable situation I asked if the man meant Jesus. Turns out Jesus was the wrong answer. Because what he really wanted me to say was YHWH or Yeshua. Oh. My bad. I didn’t know you spoke Hebrew and wanted the original of Jesus’ name. I thought translations were ok. Especially since we’re in America. Speaking in English. But sure. Hebrew’s great too. I like dead or revived languages as much as the next person.

So for an hour…I don’t even know what we talked about. We sort of argued. Rusty was a bit heated at times. I wanted to reach out and touch his knee, whisper “shhhhh. He’s crazy. Just let it go.” But the man was also saying things that were somewhat heretical. So, in a sense, he had to be challenged. Rusty is good at trying to listen to people and he really tried to hear what the man was saying before responding. But we went on so many tangents…by the end of the conversation, when our new friend left, I turned to my fellow seminarian and was like “what did we just talk about?” We covered, in an hour, everything from the Nicene Council(s) to the Vulgate to Warlockery (which, if you’re wondering, is not a word) to the “spirit of death” hanging over today’s churches. And that’s all I can give you. Because I was still reeling from that conversation when a second individual sat down in our little corner of the coffee shop.

He heard us processing, heard something that sounded “Jesus-y” or “church-y” and sat down. He quoted John 1 and said we were brothers in Christ. Interestingly, he said sons of God, not sons and daughters. Just sons. No political correctness here. Good thing I’m only flirting with the line of Egalitarianism.* Then he began to say that Scripture was true. He called it the Dynamic Word. He talked about the KJV and how it was close then. But it’s even closer today with the NIV or the NASB. That was kind of awesome because the first guy had been pretty strongly against scripture. He kept talking about re-instituting the use of the Hebrew name for God…Except…we don’t really know how the tetragramaton is actually pronounced because the Jews stopped saying it and they didn’t write with vowels. He was so sure that Scripture has been corrupted. The second man was like a breath of fresh air with his certainty on scripture.

But we didn’t just talk about Scripture. In about 30 minutes, that man crammed in more information than I’ve heard crammed into a three hour class. I shouldn’t even say we talked. My friend compared it to drinking from a fire hose. And we couldn’t back away. The fireman had us held in place, while another forced that thing into my mouth and a third turned it on full force. I once prayed and asked God for a prophecy. I had a friend who had prophecy spoken over him and I thought it would be a good experience.

It’s actually incredibly overwhelming. I was uncomfortable. I wanted to stand and leave. But I couldn’t. I could hardly move, I was so riveted by even the stare that this man had as he leaned forward, gesturing fervently with his hands as he made his points. There were things to be sifted through, to be sure. The verse that kept coming to mind was to test the spirits, test the spirits. So I know that perhaps he wasn’t entirely right on absolutely everything.

But he said good, true things. Some things that I needed to hear. And things that my friend needed to hear. Things like…

We don’t control our thought lives. We could, if we submitted. If we obeyed and we allowed God to do it for us. But you don’t hear sermons preached on taking every thought captive. But we are what our thoughts are, and we are our thoughts before the throne of God. Yikes. Seriously. Yikes.

We need to submit. We need to obey.

He’s coming. I don’t know what he meant by that, but the man said several times–He’s coming. Like a thief in the night. What does that mean? About how I’m living? About how I’m not living?

We aren’t condemned. There is no condemnation.

We might fail and do things of the flesh, true enough. But it’s what we’re after. It’s what we are going for. So we aren’t condemned, because though we may fall, God knows we aren’t after the things of the flesh, ultimately.

He said some far out stuff about the Holy Spirit too. Something about the indwelling of the Spirit changing the molecular structure of humans so that they in turn change things around them (with out even meaning too). Like the Apostle’s shadows healing people. Like knowing that the person you’re sitting next to is a fellow Christian without even speaking to them. Far out, man.

I think there was more. I’m still sort of reeling.

I love coffee shops. I love watching people. I like getting to know regulars. I enjoy the quiet ambience, the chance for mild distraction while I read thick philosophical books. But that, that was a little much. I’m a bit overwhelmed. I keep glancing at my text book on the Seven Ecumenical Councils. I kept trying to make myself read it. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m still processing. I’m almost numb after everything the just happened. Warlockery? It’s not a word. Condemnation? The flesh? I needed to be reminded of unconditional love. That he chose to die. Yet, all of that, in barely two hours, when I was hoping to enjoy my last lazy day of break? I love coffee shops. After all, this couldn’t have happened anywhere else.

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Maybe once every three hundred sixty five days,
God will do that, have two random prophets speak to us.
{Rusty}

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Egalitarianism: I’m cautiously flirting with the idea. Don’t worry too much.