Anti-Relativity

2011-01-21T10:30:00.002-05:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

2010-04-09T09:36:00.000-04:00

Often when our lives are in the dumps our relationship with God is better (and our blogging is too) but when things are going good our relationship with God sucks.

I need to grow a heart of thankfulness which calls out to God even when things are going my way.

yesterday or tomorrow?

2010-03-12T15:53:00.001-05:00

I can’t seem to keep my mind on the task at hand. I’m reliving yesterday, last weekend, and every day before that. I’m also wondering what tomorrow may bring—is Saturday going to be awesome? I’m everywhere except today.

Today is just not as exciting as I thought yesterday was or tomorrow might be. But it’s far more real, devastatingly more important, and disappointingly fleeting.

So here’s to today, cheers.

To pill or not to pill, that is the question

2010-03-06T12:52:00.006-05:00

By pill I'm talking about oral contraceptive pills.

I actually don't have to decide if I'm going to be on the pill or not, but many women do. Being a man, I've decided to tell women how to think. (that's a joke, calm down)

But really, I was reading this blog post by Jon Acuff and in it he talks about pastors who encourage people to go out and be fruitful and multiply. Well, the Catholic Church says you can't use condoms. I can't honestly see their issue with condoms, by that logic we shouldn't also wear seatbelts because that prevents God from taking our lives in a car crash if he wants to.

I have, though, always wondered about the pill. From the little I understood (and still understand) about how the pill works, it sounds like it doesn't prevent pregnancy but rather that it aborts pregnancy.

I found this very interesting article online. I don't know if everything it says is 100% true, if it's biased on it's view of the research, or anything but it seems relatively fair handed. Read it for yourself and decide (if a medical professional wants to weigh in, please do) But, from what I understand the article concludes that there are occurrences when the pill causes abortions occasionally because it still can allow occasional ovulation and conception but prevents implantation. The article seems to be more concerned with how often this happens than that it happens at all.

But based on this, and further research, I am against the use of the pill as the sole method of contraception. It seems to me that any chance (3% to 7%) of aborting a life is too much of a chance.

If you really gotta do the dirty deed, use a condom it's the sexy equivalent of a seatbelt.

Secular Humanism

2010-02-23T12:53:00.003-05:00

I've never been the type of student to argue with professors, I usually just take their word on the subject and leave it as that. Even if I disagree with them I would never consider making a fuss about it. The only argument I've gotten into with a professor was with my Social Theory professor who is a self-proclaimed Secular Humanist.

Secular Humanism is the belief that there is no inherent moral or ethical code with which humanity has been imbued, but that by our reasoning and rationale we are compelled to moral action for the benefit of our lives.

Honestly, this is in my opinion the biggest philosophical turd that has ever been laid (at least since relativism...my blog could also be called anti-secular-humanism...but that wouldn't be as catchy). Nevermind the teleological considerations of a belief which is grounded upon the belief that there are no grounds for belief. It's just impractical.

People, as nice as they look on Amnesty International commercials, are a bunch of ruthless, debase scoundrels who will do whatever is within their power to pull themselves up at the cost of those around them. We ourselves are so clearly incapable of love, even hurting those closest to us. By what means do we expect to love the world? By our own efforts?

Bull shit.

"the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Matthew 20:28

It is only by His example, His power, His redemption that we are able to love the world. "[the world] could never have treated him with the same degree of spite and hatred with which he had treated Jesus Christ. Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake." - Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest (February 23, 2010)

Secular Humanism (n.) - Giant philosophical turd.

Why do we pray?

2010-02-23T06:23:00.004-05:00

I often pray for wisdom and understanding but for my own end, so that I may have clarity and direction for my own edification. I forget that prayer is not to draw God closer to me but me closer to God.

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." -Colossians 1:9-14

Shut up

2010-02-17T11:52:00.002-05:00

It's easy for me to remember the God of Elijah who brought down fire from the heavens but it's so easy for me to forget the God who, only verses later, appears to Elijah not in the wind, earthquake, or fire but in a gentle whisper.

So often I am searching for the God of the fire when God is present in my life as a whisper. I need only to quiet myself and realize that God is not distant but near.

Grace again

2010-02-13T20:38:00.002-05:00

There's just over 3 hours left in my fast.

If I've learned anything from my fast it's that I depend on myself and myself alone. I move through it under my own power and my own effort, yet it is not suffice to push me through. There is something that I am missing from the equation.

I've stumbled and failed more times than I can count but God's grace extends to me and allows me to begin again. 3 hours left and I'm sure I'll fail again. 3 hours left and I'm sure I'll find his grace again.

Seedless fruit

2010-02-04T16:13:00.006-05:00

What is it to be a fruit?
Strictly speaking, it’s the part of the plant which carries the seed of the plant.

When was the last time you had a seeded watermelon, grape, lemon, banana, tomato, orange?

Oh what modern irony, that in this heartless generation we should also produce fruit which bear no seed. Objects which have lost their very purpose.

We act as though gods, creating the world in our own image.

In my head

2010-02-03T12:20:00.005-05:00

For the last several months I've truly felt nearer to God than I have in a long time. Not to say that I am somehow holier, wiser, or less likely to make stupid mistakes. But simply that his love and his presence has been undeniable for me.

Out of his love he's burdened me a great deal. I do not fully understand the root or purpose of this burden but I know it is the seed of something great. I feel as an acorn might feel (if it had feelings). As it begins to sprout, losing daily its acorn-ness and yet having the vague sensation that it may be on the cusp of something far greater.

Several verses/stories have been on my heart for some time now. I've referenced them in other posts but I thought I would share them.

Genesis 22 - The Offering of Isaac
"Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."

Galatians 1:15-17
"But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus."

Isaiah 6:8
"Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "'ere am I. Send me!'"

1 Samuel 3 - The Calling of Samuel
"The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, 'Samuel! Samuel!' Then Samuel said, 'Speak, for your servant is listening.'"

"Every seed dies before it grows"

It is well

2010-01-29T18:27:00.004-05:00

On the cover of my journal is the lyrics for the hymn It is well with my soul.

I wrote that at a time when I was struggling to remember what matters most. I wrote it so that anytime I went to write in my journal (usually times of hardship) I would remember what matters most. I'm nearing the final pages of that journal, physically, and it's poignant that this song should enter my life again.

Even at times when life isn't quite what we wanted it to be, it is well.

Bonus: Audio Adrenaline and Jennifer Knapp, still the best version of the hymn to date:

Obedience

2010-01-09T11:24:00.002-05:00

The wonder and horror of being Christians is the numerous paradoxes you must accept. That it is not by reason that we are Christians but through lived experience. Only through living do we find that, some how, we have freely chosen Him and He has ultimately chosen us.

I'm finding that obedience must be like that. That somehow when I completely sacrifice my will to the will of the Lord I shall find that I am far more free than I was when I followed my own choices. That somehow, in Him I am far more me than I ever was by myself.

I think it's time I stop fooling around and lose myself in me and find myself in Him.

I have been crucified with Christ and no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The Real

2009-12-22T13:52:00.002-05:00

My experience is not what makes redemption real— redemption is reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Only to the Reality which produces the experiences. My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth— Jesus Christ. –My Utmost For His Highest - Dec. 21, 2009

In C.S. Lewis’ novel, The Great Divorce visitors from hell visit Heaven and find that it is too real for them. The grass of the heavenly plains pierce their feet and the light of the heavenly sun tears at them. It is not that they have somehow become less real, that they are now ghost. But rather, it is that heaven (the presence of God) is far more real than anything we know.

I often feel that God isn’t real enough in my life. I cry out to God to be more real in my life. What I seem to forget is that God is already real, without me asking He is already more real than anything in my life. Yet, on a daily basis I choose to ignore the reality and focus on the temporal. I weigh myself down with relative illusions when real freedom is offered to me.

It’s the child who, whilst playing in the mud, finds that his mud pies have been destroyed. Ignoring the knowledge that he has real food waiting for him at home. Or a more modern analogy, the child who is sad that his game character has lost the battle when he has his own true life yet to live. All this a hundred fold of course.

To know what is real, that is the source of true freedom.

Back from the grave...

2009-12-02T22:41:00.002-05:00

It's been a while... 159 days to be exact.

No I did not count it, this is 2009. There are websites for these things.

I feel that this post was appropriate enough for my return because, frankly, it's been fairly life changing (at least it feels that way right now...ask me in 159 days if I still feel the same way).

Recently I've been struggling a lot with hope. Hope is a wonderful thing, it gives us the encouragement to carry on through any number of trials and tribulations, it gives us inspiration and imagination, it's a fairly kick-ass thing. Oddly enough, my struggle was not from a lack of hope but an excess of hope.

Now I'm not speaking of hope in the 1 Corinthians 13:13 sense. Hope there is the hope in God, what we'll call Godly Hope. But what most of us have is Worldly Hope. This Worldly Hope consists of hope in our own ability, hope in some unfounded sense of "luck" or "fortune", hope in anything but God.

It's so easy to blur or ignore this distinction. It's so easy to justify any sense of hope by saying, well since God is in control... but the reality is that hope for everything is not the same as Godly Hope.

I've been reading (though the word "reading" hardly describes the slowness at which I've been reading this book) The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He says, "only those who believe can obey; and, only those who obey can believe" He is not contradicting himself here, well he is, but with intention. It's that age-old question of nature/nurture, fate/choice, predestination/freewill, platonism/existentialism...yea I had to throw that in there

But it's both, it has to be. I can't and won't try to explain it, other than to say I believe it. To those who say "only those who believe can obey," those who believe that they are free to disobey till God give them the unimaginable conviction to do otherwise - we must reply "only those who obey can believe." To those who says "only those who obey can believe," those who believe they must earn their salvation - we must reply "only those who believe can obey."

I've been both... As recently as last spring when I was leading the ONELove missions team for Cornerstone Church, I was the latter. Since then I've probably been more the former. Bonhoeffer talks about the importance of creating room for faith to be possible. To me, challenging me to take that existential leap of faith. That step where I trust God and his plan, despite what I may feel is best, despite what the circumstances look like, despite everything.

For the first time, Mark 9:24 made sense. "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!" Again, an contradiction in intention. The father of the boy in his belief comes face to face with the reality that is overcome with unbelief. Simultaneously, it is his obedience and God's grace.

Since I came to this revelation on Sunday, I've been struggling again. I made the first step, and that was challenging. But there was a second, third, fourth step. It was a daily struggle to give up my hopes to the hopes of God. To say not my will, but your will be done.

Today I was walking and the story of Abraham and Isaac came to my mind. God called Abraham to sacrifice his son, to obey despite what it all seemed like. I mean, imagine this! I've never had a struggle like this, and it's not any different because it's in the Bible. This is the stuff of academy award winning plots! Abraham is faced with the decision to obey God or sacrifice his beloved son! Yet somehow, despite what appears to be a impossible situation, both circumstances are satisfied! God is satisfied and Abraham truly receives his Son.

But that's all well and good but how often we forget everything between there. What makes this such a saga is not the beginning and the end, but all of the middle. Where would Lord of the Rings be if not for 900 pages in the middle, Star Wars if not for The Empire Strikes Back?

It begins with "Early the next morning Abraham got up." That would be enough for me, that first step must have been tremendously difficult. How do you get up the next morning after something like that? I'd stay in bed! If I were Abraham I would have said "God, I got up... I've proved I'm faithful -- now make it all go away" But no, after that he saddle a donkey, gathered his servants, cut some wood, walked three days...

Abraham was as human as you and I, each step on that journey must have been laborious. I'm sure Abraham was constantly hope for a way out of it, constantly looking around for a sign, desperately hoping that this wasn't it, but despite this he kept on stepping, kept on walking, creating that room for faith.

And where am I? I'm probably barely out of bed at this point and I'm kicking and screaming. But hopefully, as I keep stepping God will keep supporting my legs, and one day, maybe, I'll finally arrive.

shameless philosophy plug: ironically, Fear and Trembling has become surprisingly clear through this situation...

This is for You

2009-06-27T16:04:00.002-04:00

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Today and everyday forward is for you. I offer up my entire life to you: my relationships, resources, goals, everything. Everything I receive is a undeserved gift, everything I give is from You.

This life is for You.

Dogs, all of us are dogs

2009-06-23T16:14:00.000-04:00

C.S. Lewis said that Pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf world.

I must be beyond deaf then. Not to say I’m in some great deal of pain right now – at least not in an atypical way. All our lives are riddled with pain throughout, but we convince ourselves of the normalcy of this. We’ve actually brought ourselves to a point where we tell ourselves that this pain is natural, that it’s a “part of life”, we even glorify those who can ignore it and mock those who are “too” aware of it. In the end, there is no denying it – not that our society does. All our stories, songs, values are related to this pain that we feel.

We sell hundreds of millions of self-help books each year, helping our modern society cope with this pain. Feeling worthless? Buy a book on how to make more money so you can have more worth. Feeling lonely? Buy a book on dating and learn to mask the longing for relationship with sexual passion. Feeling down? Buy a book on finding happiness through cooking, working, sex, etc.

But why? The pain of the human experience is as old as time; but why, oh why, hasn’t anyone figured it out?

There certainly have been some noble attempts. Nietzsche saw the pain of human existence but, after some careful thinking, wrote it off as the weakness of our lesser selves. That it is a result of our submission to chains of our creation—human ethics and values. The answer is to rise above these things, to become a being who is self defined and self reliant: the ubermenche – the overman, superman. Sartre saw all pain as a result of the subjugation of the being into object. That all human interaction is the hostile interaction of subjects who try to objectify each other. I want to make you an object in my world, rather than a person for person’s sake, and our interactions are the reasons why we have pain. Famously, Sartre for writing in his autobiography, “I'm not so sure I didn't seek out women's company in order to get rid of the burden of my ugliness” But really, what are these philosophies now?

Really, is there nothing that can save us? Solomon gave himself everything and found it all meaningless.

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
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.
Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Do you know what the difference between a dog and a human is? When you point to something, a dog will stare at your finger and a human will look to where the finger is pointing. We are dogs, all of us. We are so caught up in this pain of ours, we focus on it so dearly! We forget that this pain is merely a sign pointing the way! We are asked to look along our pain rather than at our pain!

People ask, if God is good why does he inflict pain on good people? The question is missing the point. If we are good people, why can’t we see God in the pain? God is calling out to us, asking for us to look at Him but everyday we focus on the finger, not seeing it for what it is. If we could only look along it, we would find that the pain is no pain at all but merely a sign to something far more substantial.

WWJD?

2009-06-22T12:40:00.003-04:00

Remember those WWJD Bracelets? I used to have a dark green one with white lettering, I wore it proudly -- probably more for social significance than spiritual guidance though.

As well intentioned as those bracelets may have been they are about as useful as a flat tire, on a rainy day, in the middle of nowhere. This is a somewhat recent realization of mine as I struggled through some decisions in my life. Troubled with my typical lack of decisiveness, I tried to turn to this pop-spiritual guidance and found it lacking. The reality was, "I have no damn clue what Jesus would do here because He wouldn't be in this situation in the first place!"

So what then? I suppose that's the value of meditation and prayer, of hearing God's spirit ourselves rather than from a bracelet.

Though, if i could get my hands on a dark green WWJD bracelet I would so rock it...

A love song for a savior

2009-06-15T10:42:00.002-04:00

In open fields of wild flowers,
she breathes the air and flies away
She thanks her Jesus for the daises and the roses
in no simple language
Someday she'll understand the meaning of it all
He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she'll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call her and she will come running
and fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and she'll pray,

"I want to fall in love with You"

Sitting silent wearing Sunday best
The sermon echoes through the walls
A great salvation through it calls to the people
who stare into nowhere, and can't feel the chains on their souls

He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on our lips
Someday we'll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call us and we will come running
and fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and we'll pray,

"I want to fall in love with You"

It seems too easy to call you "Savior",
Not close enough to call you "God"
So as I sit and think of words I can mention
to show my devotion

"I want to fall in love with You"

"my heart beats for You"

This has always been my favorite song, But I don’t think I even fully understand the song.

The bridge especially eluded me, “it seems to easy to call you ‘Savior’, not close enough to call you ‘God’.”

In my mind it always seemed to be reversed, it’s so easy to call you God but to call Him “Savior” is so hard. For so much of my life I struggled with this, though I didn’t fully realize this. I thought that finding “God” was simple. I thought, ‘look around you!’ Even in my darkest moments I couldn’t deny that there was a God out there, someone sustaining all being into existence. I struggled with the loving God, with Jesus and the message of salvation and freedom. Not to say I’ve somehow come to complete understanding of this, but in the past year or so I’ve come to see this loving God in such a real manner. God has been showing me what it means to have a savior. The freedom of His love.

Though, very recently I feel like God has begun to reveal to me the ‘next’ step in our relationship, which brings us back to our song. I feel like He is asking me to let him be Lord over my life. For the first time ever, that bridge has real meaning for me. I feel like God is asking me to let go of all the hope that I have placed in this world. He is asking me to let go of any expectations, loves, and plans I may have and to just surrender all to Him. To say, “God, this is for you.” The beautiful part of it is that I know it’s not because we are essentially slaves to Him, but because we are made for Him! To let Him fulfill me, to bring me joy through His will for my life.

It’s too easy to just call Him “Savior”, but He’s drawing me closer so I can begin to really call him “God”.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

2009-06-10T10:56:00.001-04:00

Come near to God and he will come near to you. James 4:8

Recently I’ve been going through an amazing book called A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. It's essentially a grand sweeping overview of the history of science (therefore implying that sciences is everything--wrong, but besides the point). The author is a somewhat staunch atheistic evolutionsist and yet I cannot help but feel wholy connected to God as I read this book. All of the facts and proofs of evolution, the miniscule chances of probability that lead to our existence, and structures of the world only do more to edify my amazement that there is a God that does so much for us. To think he created this perfect universe, with everything working perfectly, just so that we could Love him and find ourselves in him.

At this point in the discussion I usually launch into my usual apologetical tyrade on the proofs of God's existence and how it relates to science -- or actually, doesn't relate to science. But I will spare the readers; for the moment at least.

I say all this because it amazes me that God has done so much for us in creating this perfect universe which at every level of examination cries out to us and yet we still abandoned him. That he went further to reach out to us through His son and yet we still rejected him. And despite all of this, He continues, in our lives, to reach out to us! That in the infiniteness of the expanse between us and Him, that all we must do is take the first step to be near to Him and He shall come running to we prodigal children with open arms.

It's so easy to get caught up in the vastness of the difference and forget who it is calling us. We focus so much on the human distances between us and forget that God can call us to him at any moment -- we call it death. That it is not so much about us arriving at Him, but reaching out to Him.

God created the universe in all it's splendor, gave His son to die on the cross, and His spirit, so that we could take the first step toward Him.

the will

2009-06-09T17:03:00.000-04:00

My blogging seems to increase and decrease exponentially. This is my second entry today, tomorrow may be 4. Conversely, one day I may just stop posting for very long periods of time. By what desire am I drawn to or away from blogging?

I can explain and understand, at least on paper, how the interaction of my will and God’s will should be. I understand that finding the ultimate will of God is finding my own deepest, truest desires—and vice versa. I understand that there is within us a deep desire to be a part of something greater, and there is in God’s will a call for us to return to something greater. I understand all of this very well in my head, but can find no notion of this in my heart.

These deepest, truest desires are no where to be found in my will. At many times I seem to be pursuing this which, as far as anyone can tell, may be contrary to the will of God. Then again, they may not be? Who is to truly say?

Do we assume that we aren’t, as we are completely depraved? Do we assume that something in side of us will shine through? These are fairly deep, serious, and heady theological questions. But, if we really consider them, our actions must be determined by them in some nature if we are to say we are truly seeking the will of God – or even our own selfish will.

In the end, what will are we really guided by?

Cannot not love

2009-06-09T07:35:00.000-04:00

We're often reminded that to seek God's wisdom, one of the silliest ways is to do so is the ole 'open the bible up and see what book and chapter you end up at.' Similarly, a daily devotional could offer the same randomness. Yet, to my surprise, when I read today's My Utmost For His Highest (http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/06/09/devotion.aspx) I was totally shocked to find that it was exactly what I needed to hear. It was almost, word-for-word, my prayer from last night.

I've come to a place of desperation, I realize that I am so spiritually poor right now. I need God to be more real in my life. Everything around us is so fleeting, and yet I am more than willing to invest so much time into these things. Yet, for the one thing I know to be true and forever, I find that I can only squeeze in a few minutes here and there--if at all.

I always tell people the story from the Brother's Karamazov where a woman comes to Fr. Zossima and tells him that she has lost her faith and fears that she cannot live anymore. Fr. Zossima tells her to live everyday like she believes, to love those around her, and she shall find that she cannot not believe. I think that I, in this same way, have forgotten what it is to love God. To love him wholy above all else.

New Plan: Love till I find that I cannot not love.

Surprised by Joy...

2009-06-01T22:02:00.000-04:00

The darkest periods of our spiritual lives are surprisingly mundane. I don't think I ever felt distant from God during the high points or low points of my life, but in the everyday droll I find myself completely alone.

Since coming back from ONELove I've felt very far from God. Maybe it took this long, over 2 months, to finally come to Him. My life is not at all what I would like it to be, I can imagine something a lot better; but, the this imagined life, should it become real, would be no less empty than this one.

Sometimes the best advice we can receive is the one we already know but have somehow ignored, the plank in our eye. A friend reminded me today that my confidence must be found in my position with God. Additionally, this past Sunday's sermon at Cornerstone reflected this. My joy cannot come to fruition by its own right, but only through its incorporation into God’s will.

This reminded me of Surprised by Joy, a book by my man C.S. Lewis. It’s technically his autobiography, though a pretty bad one by that standard. What it is really is a lesson on ultimate joy. At some point, maybe many points, in our lives we all experience a taste of joy. We do not immediately understand what we have experienced but we pursue it incessantly. We relate it to happiness and pursue the things that seem to make us happy. C.S. Lewis did the same and yet, like us, he found himself empty and longing. What he found was that he could never find that joy, but in surrendering his self into the will of God he found it. But, in finding it he no longer cared for joy for he found something much greater. Joy is the byproduct of our selves losing ourselves in God.

Throughout these past months I’ve sought out my self and I’ve found myself in want. Today, again, I try to lose my self.

Devotional

2009-03-04T10:54:00.000-05:00

This is adapted from a lecture given as a part of the “Last Lecture” series at Boston College, this talk was given by Fr. Michael Himes, S.J. on November 18, 2008. The premise of the lecture is basically: what would you say if this was the last lecture you could ever give. Fr. Himes is a professor of Theology at Boston College and one of my own favorite professors. This lecture was attended by over a thousand students, speaking to the great wisdom of this amazing man.

Thinking of this as the last time I have to speak on what matters most has wonderfully concentrated my mind. I’ve thought long and hard about it, particularly in relation to a statement from Soren Kierkegaard, the great 19^th century Danish philosopher of religion. Kierkegaard in his journals writes this; he did not ever think of this being read by anyone else, it was in his personal journals published long after his death; “there is something quite definite I have to say, and I have it so much upon my conscience that as I feel that I dare not die without having said it, for the moment I die and leave this world as I understand it… at frightful speed the question will be put to me ‘have you uttered the definite message quite definitely?’” Well of course that’s a good question as I come to think about a last lecture, have I uttered the ‘definite message quite definitely’.

What is the definite message that has to be said? Well, I think it’s this; it’s a statement I’ve spoken about many times, preached about many times, prayed about many more times than that, a statement that appears repeatedly in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; it’s the statement of Jesus that if you hold on to you life you lose it, but if you give your life away it becomes everlasting.

For a very long time, I think I misunderstood that statement, because for a very long time when I spoke about it, when I prayed about it, when I preached about it I thought of it as a commandment. As if Jesus is saying, now that’s what you ought to do, that’s how you ought to live. Only after a long time did it occur to me that it’s not a commandment at all, it’s a description. That Jesus is not saying that’s how you ought to live, he’s saying that’s how things are. You want to know what existence is like? It’s like this: if you hold on to it, you won’t have it; but if you give it away, you can’t run out of it—you will see it become everlasting. Being and giving away one’s self turn out to be exactly the same thing.

There’s a way this is said very famously, very powerfully in the first letter of John. The author of the first letter to John’s way of saying it is “God is love.” My way of saying it, at least for this evening, is that the foundation of existence; the reason that there’s something rather than nothing, the reason anything exists at all; is self gift—is love, the gift of the self to another. That’s really an extraordinary claim.

I think, as I look back on my own life, my experience is that it is precisely correct. It is the central thing that needs to be said. That if we’re going to exist, we need to give ourselves away

A favorite poet of mine, W.H. Auden, wrote that “the first criterion of success in any human activity, the necessary preliminary, whether to scientific discovery or artistic vision, is intensity of attention, or, less pompously, love.” In other words, the necessary first step to understanding anything, knowing anyone or anything, is to love that person or thing. I don’t mean that you must have warm emotions or deep sentimental affection. I am referring to an activity. In order to really know anything, you have to give it your time and your energy. And what do you do when you begin to see a glimpse of the truth? The only thing you can do with it is to give it away.

Short Message Service

2009-02-24T09:51:00.000-05:00

My mother recently learned to text and she’s been sending a whole gamut of texts to my brothers and myself. Since getting her new phone which has a full keyboard, she’s been texting us almost everyday with little reminders and words of encouragement. This for me seems to be the fulfillment of a wish I’ve had for her. I used to get annoyed when she called me during the day to tell me one or two little things, to ask me a very simple question or give me a short reminder. Now that she’s learned to text all of that has been put into short sentences which can be received and read at my convenience.

Last night I had something short to tell my mother and instead of texting her I decided to call her. At the risk of sounding like a momma’s boy, I felt a bit disconnected from her, not having received a call recently. I told her what I needed to tell her and ended the conversation, nothing special and yet I felt a bit satisfied afterwards.

Texting or Short Message Service was created to send short (under 160 characters including spaces) message from mobile to mobile and we’ve somehow turned it into a massive medium for communication – using it to relay everything from meeting locations, birthday wishes, and even our love. At one point in human history (prior to 1844) a person actually had to write a physical letter, find a courier to physically deliver it and hope it wasn’t misplaced along the way. Since then, with the invention of each new medium of communication the speed, accuracy, and amount of our communications had increased.

I think that if we brought Mr. Alexander Bell back from the past and showed him how much we had done in increasing the complexity and depth of our interconnectivity he would be certainly impressed, but what he would be shocked about would be the degree to which we are somehow disconnected! The invention of the telephone gave us the potential to be connected with a person in distant locations, to be able to actually hear the tone of their voice rather than simply see the words in their letter. The internet gave us the ability to reach out to millions of people instantly. Text messaging gave us the ability to send short messages (and increasingly longer messages) instantly while simultaneously sitting in a meeting, dinner, movie, car (dangerously). And yet these mediums have not acted as connectors but as filters -- one more barrier for us to hide behind.

How many of us are guilty of having a conversation by text message which could have been clearer, quicker, and more productive if we had actually called the person. How many of us are guilty of asking important questions or important responses by text. The very fact that articles are published, en masse, that are teaching people things like “Any breakup initiated by any text is classless. No e-mail, Facebook message or Twitter reply can adequately end ties with any woman under any circumstances. Text messages fall under the same category” (http://www.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_250/261b_relationship-rules-text-messaging.html) shows us that there is a serious problem here. We do not use mediums of communication to build relationships but rather to segregate relationships: we screen our calls, we ignore texts, and we block emails. .

It’s sad, but if we are a people meant to be in community, we are dying by our own devices – literally.

alone

2009-02-23T13:13:00.000-05:00

When I have large, obvious struggles I easily find myself on my knees before God; and yet when it comes to the general malaise of life, of struggles that have gone on so long that I scarcely recognize them as being unnatural any longer, I constantly appeal to my own strengths and my own efforts. I make God into a pinch hitter, I refuse to start him but call on him when I think I need something extra.

I’ve recently come to realize the loneliness that I struggle with. C.S. Lewis describes a fictional hell in his book The Great Divorce. Hell is not a place of fire and brimstone, for him it is place where everyone is truly alone— man was not made to be alone. Though I would hardly describe Boston as being hell (its certainly too cold for that), I do feel at times that I am disturbingly alone amidst all the events, activities, and opportunities.

Since I came to Boston in the fall of 2004 I’ve never felt remotely satisfied with my community. I never felt a real connection with anyone, feeling always an outsider, a temporary visitor in any social situation. This often surprises people because in many social situations I’m often the guy standing on the stage crying out for attention – crying out “wolf”. There is a void in my calling out for real community, real fellowship. I try to feed this hunger through the pursuit of women, the drive to be the center of attention, the tiring attempt to be “involved”.

Today, I feel completely wasted by all of my efforts. I know that the only fulfiller is the Lord and the only satisfaction I may see on Earth, should I ever see any at all, can come from Him.

I always joke that I am desperate for community. My hope is that the truth of this desperation can draw me closer to God rather than to the things of this world.

My Bucket List

2009-01-21T10:10:00.000-05:00

So it's been a while eh... months. But I'm back!

I thought I'd start off with something more light, not the usual philosophical BS...

A list of goals I've set for myself, things I would like to do before I turn 30 (and kick the youth-bucket) -- haha sorry for those of you who may be over 30.

From easiest to hardest:

1. Attend and graduate from Business School (applying in the spring!)
2. Start and maintain a non-profit organization (started...sorta)
-Looking for partners, officers, and board members....
3. Thru-Hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, 2,175 miles (not even close...)
4. Swim, Bike, Run the Ironman Triathalon (even further away...)
5. Climb Mt. Everest (yea...)

and somewhere in there I'd like to have a family and all that other junk...

So what's your job description?

2008-10-27T23:19:00.000-04:00

I originally posted a shorter version of this as a response to my friend's blog.

I think what I’ve come to understand about our place in God’s plan is that we must be fervent in our present plans but not treat them as sacred, being unafraid to abandon them the moment God calls us elsewhere. Not that we should see our present places as a waiting room for something greater, but that we should see the entirety of our life, in all its convolution, as being a full realization of the glory of God in our lives.

My feeling is this: I don’t think Peter, John, and James were in the wrong vocation as fishermen. I'm sure that if any of us were sent back in time and met Peter, John and James in the days leading up to their momentous first encounter with Jesus we would all be shocked and appalled at their seeming lack of preperation for the role that we know they are going to undertake. We might even wonder if their lives as fishermen are a mistake of some sort, shouldn't they have been going to temple and studying the word this whole time? Shouldn't they be experts in the law?

But we forget that God, in his full knowledge and power, chose three uneducated, unprepared fishermen from Galilee to be the first called to be his disciples. We have to believe that those were the best possible men (excuse my gender biased word) for the job! Who are we to question God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" (Rom 9:20).

I originally wrote that "I'm sure God wanted them to be the best possible fishermen" but I don't quite agree with that. Maybe, he wanted them to be bad fishermen so that he could call them, knowing their spirits might be too weak otherwise (I don't think God puts us in impossible situations for us). But I do believe that he did call them to be a perfect Peter, John, and James respectively. What I mean by that is that God calls each of us to extremely unique lives, to classify them into simple vocational terms "teacher", "doctor", "missionary", etc is to limit God! Our callings are unique enough that each one deserves it's own name, its own person, and its own place in God's plan.

I think what hinders us most is that we attach titles and job descriptions to ourselves and think that these have to some how fit into God's plan! I'm sure that there are some people that God calls to very traditional career paths, with logical advancement, and steady growth. Not all of us though! By locking ourselves into high school -> college -> grad school -> career stage 1 -> career stage 2, etc, etc, etc we are placing limits our our ability to see God's calling!

I do believe that up until that point God did want them to be fishermen doing their thing but, had they not dropped their nets and followed Jesus after he called them they would have been in the wrong place doing the wrong thing. And who knows what connection their lives as fishermen had to their lives as disciples (other than giving Jesus the opportunity to say his awesome line, ‘from now on you will catch men’), there could have been no connection beyond that! But if that was it, it

A bigger man...

2008-10-20T16:14:00.000-04:00

For me, the best explanation of why a God had to become man and die for our sins... It takes a bigger man than me.

Tell me yourself, I challenge you—answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.”

“No, I wouldn’t consent,” said Alyosha softly.

“And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?”

“No, I can’t admit it. Brother,” said Alyosha suddenly, with flashing eyes, “you said just now, is there a being in the whole world who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? But there is a Being and He can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave His innocent blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and on Him is built the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud, ‘Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed!’ ”

-Excerpt from "Rebellion", Book V, Chapter 4 of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

2008-10-13T23:08:00.000-04:00

My mom mailed me a short note, it only said "To: Ben, From: Mom 'Trust in the Lord with your heart and learn not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.' - Proferbs 3:5-6, Amen."

Tomorrow is my first day, tomorrow I enter the work force. I don't know what to expect, I could be a success or I could fail. My life, like everyday, is at a fork that can go a million different ways; but I know that if I trust in Him, He will guide me. It just hope I can take that first step forward without having to know where this path will take me, not caring where this path takes me as long as it's where he wants to me to go.

Still here

2008-08-06T12:39:00.000-04:00

I hit a low a few days ago and almost gave up my efforts to try and stay in Boston. I hit such a low that I was prepared to, in the middle of the night, leave for home and not return. In that hour, God called me to go walk with Him and pray to Him. During that walk God spoke to me through Mark Schultz's song "He Will Carry Me" (Lyrics in the last post). I knew that God was calling me to endure the storm because it would be by His strength, His promise that I would come through it.

I know that I'm still within that storm. Its not like miraculously my life has gotten easier. It has a little, God has blessed me with a temporary position which will at least help put some change in my pocket. But I'm still unsure of where next month (and this month's) rent will come from. I'm unsure of how I'll survive. Last night I almost fell back into my pattern of sinful worry and I realized that I had just received reassurance and I was about to fall again.

Although I don't know how, I know he will carry me.

My song, my answer

2008-08-02T23:47:00.000-04:00

I call, You hear me
I’ve lost it all
And it’s more than I can bear
I feel so empty

You’re strong
I’m weary
I’m holdin’ on
But I feel like givin’ in
But still You’re with me

And even though I’m walkin’ through
The valley of the shadow
I will hold tight to the hand of Him
Whose love will comfort me
And when all hope is gone
And I’ve been wounded in the battle
He is all the strength that I will
Ever need
And He will carry me

I know I’m broken
But You alone
Can mend this heart of mine
You’re always with me

And even though I’m walkin’ through
The valley of the shadow
I will hold tight to the hand of Him
Whose love will comfort me
And when all hope is gone
And I’ve been wounded in the battle
He is all the strength that I will
Ever need
And He will carry me

And even though I feel so lonely
Like I’ve never been before
You never said it would be easy
But You said you’d see me through
The storm

One Week

2008-08-02T01:52:00.000-04:00

Can you believe it's August already? I can't.

Where did the summer go? This summer was supposed to be a defining moment in my adult life. The beginning of a whole new chapter. Looking back on the summer I'm not quite so sure I've begun a new chapter so much as dragged on the last one.

I stayed in Boston in the hopes that I would figure some stuff out, get a job, get going. In reality I ended up not being very productive, not really getting any leads, and running into a number of financially difficult situations. Unemployment sucks.

I told myself, I told God (a bad place to start as it is) that if He wanted me to stay in Boston He would give me a job by the end of summer. The end of summer is here and He hasn't produced. But who am I to put a deadline, a method to God? Then again, what if this is his way of telling me this is not the place for me.

I thought, at least, I knew what I wanted to do. Non-Profit/Institutional Development. Fund raising and gathering support for organizations. But now I'm not quite so sure. At this point I'm tempted to settle, just take any job that pays decently so I can feel productive, feel like I'm not a complete waste of life.

Am I just being idealistic? I want to be realistic but I don't want to compromise too deeply. I have too much pride, selfish-pride, to let myself compromise completely. But who said that this is the way that I would get to where God wants me to be? Who chose this path? I did, I think.

I remain thoroughly confused at this very moment. I don't know where I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to be doing, and for who. I don't even know if I'm supposed to know, now or ever. I don't know if God just wants me to decide or listen for his voice.

I know I should trust him, but what is trust? What do you do when you don't know where to place your trust? I'll walk anywhere but where do I put the first step?

But God is still good. He's provided for me in so many ways while I've been here. Regardless of how bad things are they could be infinitely worse. Plus, as far as I know, in his plan this is exactly what I need to get to where I want to be. Who am I to question the will of God?

He loves me. He will care for me. Why the heck can't I get this into my head?

Injustice

2008-07-25T15:10:00.000-04:00

Justice is a the word of the times. It defines the good from the bad, the valuable from the invaluable, and the rich from the poor. Everyone loves to talk about justice, everyone wants to believe in it. Superhero movies are really popular these days, partially because Hollywood has run out of all fresh ideas, but also because it appeals to people's need for justice in the world.

Injustice is a pretty horrible feeling. Injustice is a cousin of loniliness, the essential human antithesis. Lonliness is the worst feeling anyone can have. Beyond physical pain, beyond total anger, beyond grief is lonliness. As humans we are made for relationship with other humans, that is our essential defining characteristic. Introvert or extrovert, we need relationship. No human is fully human alone.

Why is it when people are gathered in great numbers that they can accomplish amazing feats together? Because nothing seems insurmountable when we are in relationship (or given the illusion of relationship - ie. out of control mobs).

This is why injustice is so horrible, it makes us feel alone and lonely. It makes our problems seem insurmountable. It pits the individual against the evils of the world and asks him to survive. If a man were put on an empty planet and told to survive completely alone he probably wouldn't-at least not psychologically. A feeling of injustice would be one of many problems plaguing his person. Give him a companion and things are much better. Give him children, other people, and soon things will be great. Given enough time he'll probably establish a thriving society, conquer nature, and be pretty well off. Good job Adam.

Our existence is riddled with problems. It's just that most of the time we don't seem them as problems because we work daily, as a people, to tackle them. None of us really worry too much about crashing into someone on the road because part of our society has dedicated itself to solving that problem with street lights and traffic control. We don't worry about how to raise domesticated livestock because another part of our society takes care of that. We worry about the things we are told are our "individual concerns", like income and personal health. Yes, these are individual concerns but are they inherently so? No, in many traditional societys there were no individual concerns. They had problems but I'm sure none of them thought of suicide over it.

Our problem is not injustice. It is this idea that certain things are our individual concern. Our society loves to glorify the individual. Which is fine at times, we can't ignore that. But we also forget that we are so fragile and weak as individuals. It is the false idolization of the idividual self which lead to our downfall and also, ironically, to our greatest problem since then. You would think we would have learned our lesson, but we didn't. We still try to do things on our own.

As a people we need to get our heads out of the sand and wake up. We need to realize that we have been lied to. We are not capable, we are not strong, we are not great. Has anyone else read God is NOT Great by Christopher Hitchens? (Well don't. If you want a real atheist go tackle Nitzsche, Sartre, or even Bertrand Russell-they're the real ones) But what Christopher Hitchens doesn't realize is that God is great and he is not. Moron.

Injustice has been on my mind because I feel like injustice is being done to me. Not in the epic sense but in the mundane everyday sense. It started with a budget driven decision to live in a place which is probably hazardous to my health (definitely to my psyche), then an unexpected tooth ache which lead to a $1500 bill, then my phone dying, and then a gust of wind which blew my door into another car and is now costing me another $600 in repairs (for the other car!). Oh yea, and I can't seem to find a job.

The dead phone and the $600 repair bill both happened today. Needless to say this topic was rattling around in my head and in my conversations. But I have to ask myself, why do we concern ourselves with individual concerns when God has already offered to take them up. We are stupid people who ignore our greatest ally. If I truly believe that God is watching out for me and that this path that I walk has been laid down by Him. That this path He guides me on will pass through the green pastures and the valleys of the shadow of death. I may not always have my friends, family, all of society to relieve me of my problems but I have the ultimate companion.

When God is with you, what injustice do you have to fear?

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Imagination

2008-07-23T13:52:00.000-04:00

Yesterday at our community group our devotional was on the imagination. Imagionation is one of the greatest gifts from God. It gives us the ability to concieve of what might possibly be, of the goodness that my lay ahead, of so much of what we cannot normally concieve.

Without our imagination the sun would merely be a large mass of hydrogen being converted into heavy metals while emitting light in various wavelengths. The stars would be other large masses of hydrogen which are just farther away. Our whole lives would be simply biological processes which do certain necessary activities on a moment by moment basis. Our imagination is what brings us life, beauty, and most importantly of all, purpose to these things.

Yes, God gives these things but without his gift of imagination we cannot glimpse it. God never says why he made the sun, but by our immagionation we imagine that it was to give us warmth, light, and to be a symbol for him to use... a sign pointing towards Him.

C.S. Lewis has a quote that says that when we point at something a Dog looks at the finger that points but humans see the finger and see it as a sign pointing to something else. Imagination is what allows us to see this world as a finger pointing towards God.

Lions, Tigers, and Women-Oh my!

2008-07-21T13:53:00.000-04:00

I have to believe that if God didn't make me to desire women there would be no reason for me, or any man, to want them. Not to say that the persuit of a girlfriend is holy and blessed in his eyes, though that argument could be made (though I won't try). Seriously though, for what other reason could any man want female companionship.

The evolutionists would argue that we seek it for the sake of promoting our species. But even then why not make a species where theres a 12 to 1, girl to guy ratio? Or a species where you don't have to spend weeks and months courting a girl, asking her out, getting rejected, asking her out again, getting rejected again, tricking her into a date, etc, etc, etc...

The point of all this is that I just need to stop thinking about girls. I mean really, they're just girls... right? I wish I could devote myself to God-just as easy it is to say I wish it, I don't.

I'm just saying... girls are crazy.

"Miracles" from God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis

2008-07-17T17:26:00.000-04:00

Just a sample from my daily dose of Truth from my man, Clive Staple Lewis. He writes about the nature of miracles here. For those of you who are too lazy to read this excerpt from an excerpt, just read the parts in in red.

Lewis struck me as the most throughly converted man I ever met. Christianity was never for him a seperate department of life...His whole vision of life was such that the natural ant the supernatural seemed inseparably combined. -Walter Hooper

"...We must not say 'They believed in miracles because they did not know the Laws of Nature.' This is non-sense. When St. Joseph discovered that his bride was pregnant, he was 'minded to put her away.' [Matthew 1:19] He knew enough biology for that. Otherwise, of course he would have not regarded pregnancy as proof of infidelity. When he accepted the Christian explanation, he regarded it as a miracles precisely because he knew enough of the Laws of Nature to know that this was a suspension of them. When the disciples saw Christ walking on the water they were frightened [Matthew 14:26, Mark 5:49, John 6:19]: they would not have been frightened unless they had known the Laws of Nature and known that this was an exception. If a man had no conception of a regular order in Nature, then of course he could not notice departures from that order: just as a dunce who does not understand the normal meter of a poem is also unconscious of the poet's variations from it. Nothing is wonderful except the abnormal and nothing is abnormal until we have grasped the norm. Complete ignorance of the Laws of Nature would preclude the perception of the miraculous just as rigidly as complete disbelief in the supernatural precludes it, perhaps even more so. For while the materialist would have at least to explain miracles away, the man wholly ignorant of Nature would simply not notice them.
The experience of a miracle in fact requires two conditions. First we must believe in a normal stability of Nature, which means we must recognize that the data offered by our senses recur in regular patterns. Secondly, we must believe in some reality beyond nature. When both beliefs are held, and not till then, we can approach with an open mind the various reports which claim that this super- or extra-natural reality has some times invaded and disturbed the sensuous context of space and time which makes our "natural" world. The belief in such a supernatural reality itself can neither be proved nor disproved by experience. The arguments for its existence are metaphysical, and to me conclusive. They turn on the fact that even to think and act in the natural world we have to assume something. In order to think we mus claim for our own reasoning a validity which is not credible if our own thought is merely a function of our brain, and our brains a by-product of irrational physical processes. In order to act, above the level of mere impulse, we must claim a similar validity for our judgments of good and evil. In both cases we get the same disquieting result. The concept of Nature itself is one we have reached only tacitly by claiming a sort of super-natural status for ourselves."

"In the second place, many people confuse the Laws of Nature with the laws of thought and imagine that their reversal or suspension would be contradicting in terms-as if the resurrection of the dead were the same sort of thing as two and two making five...The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in large letters too large for some of us to see. Of that larger script part is already visible, part is still unsolved. In other words, some of the miracles do locally what God has already done universally: other do locally what He has not yet done, but will do. In that sense, and from our human point of view, some are reminders and other prophecies.
God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water b its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn taht wter into juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus ever year, from Noah's time till ours, God turns water into wine. That, men fail to see. Either like the Pagans they refer the process to some finite spirit, Bacchus or Dionysus: or else, like the moderns, they attribute real and ultimate causality to the chemical and other material phenomena which are all that our senses can discover in it. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off. [John 2:1-11] The miracles has only half its effect if it only convinces us taht Chris is God: it will have its full effect whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine we remember that here works He who sat at the wedding party in Cana."