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THE DIGNITY OF DESPAIR

2012-02-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

"We all have a lover's quarrel with the world. We can't obey the advice of pop psychologists to accept ourselves as we are and to accept the world as it is. We just can't do it, if we're human. Animals can. There is a perfect ecological equivalent between the animals' instinctive desires and their environment. What they want they can get, but there is one thing we want that no one in the world has ever gotten: complete happiness. It's our glory that we can rise to the dignity of despair."

- Peter Kreeft, in Socrates in the City

A QUIVER IN YOUR VOICE

2012-02-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

"We live in a world that is remarkably fruitful and beautiful, remarkably chilling and frightening and destructive. It is a very ambiguous sort of picture, and somehow or other, the bad things are the necessary cost of the good things. That is not an argument you can utter without a quiver in your voice. The world is too complex and strange for that.... A Christian understanding of suffering is not that God is simply a compassionate spectator looking down on the strange and bitter world that God holds in being. As a Christian, I believe that God is participating in the suffering of the world, that God is truly a fellow sufferer. The Christian God is the crucified God. That is a very deep and mysterious, though, I believe, true, insight. That is the deepest level at which the problem of suffering has to be met..."

- Sir John Polinghorne, in Socrates in the City

If My Father Had Been Here

2012-02-18T18:54:00.000-08:00

At a wintery party tonight, I saw my father.

I was sitting at a dining room table, recovering from ice fishing and snowmobiling. He was sitting on a sofa in the adjacent living room, silhouetted by the crackling fire in the stone fireplace.

   It was not my father, of course. My father is dead. But I suddenly realized I had been staring for about 5 seconds at the profile of a man who, sitting at just that angle, in just that light, took me back 10 years, before life's final winter took my father.

   I looked away, but my eyes kept drifting back. That initial moment brought out a child in me, a boy who would have gone and sat down on the empty sofa seat reserved for me. I knew that in five minutes the moment would pass, so I lingered, creating and absorbing a moment beautifully false and achingly close.

   If that man had been my father, I would have got up from the table at that moment and sat next to him. I would have winced as he told corny jokes, listened as he maneuvered through conversations of any topic, spoke boldly when he asked my opinion, watched the background basketball game with him, refilled his coffee when I got more for myself, teased him about not trying the polar bear plunge, and just been really proud of his presence among my friends.

That's what I would have done if my father had been there.

Five minutes later, the moment had passed, dissolved into the dwindling stream of sweet memories.

Thirty minutes later, I was home, winter party and wintery memories left snugly next to the embers in a friend's hearth. I carried sleeping Vincent into the house, read the prologue to a story Braden had written, and sat down with AJ to watch Ohio State and Michigan play some hoops.

That is what my father would have done, if he had been here.

A Healthy Sense of Doom

2012-02-16T17:52:00.000-08:00

There is a great scene in The Fellowship of the Ring where Pippin knocks some old armor into a deep well while in the Mines of Moria ("Fool of a Took!"). While they all wait in breathless suspense, a drum booms. Then another. Then another. The sounds marks impending doom for all of them. Goblins, orcs, and things much fouler and deeper are coming.

First they barricade themselves, then they fight, then they flee towards freedom. They cannot make it on their own, of course, but Gandalf is in the midst of them, ready to give his life to save those running from the darkness.

We live in a culture that loves happy, shiny, feel-good moments. Sure, we love the swine flu and 2012 doomsday scenarios, but only because they are deliciously false. Any real sense of doom is quickly numbed by a myriad of distractions. Unfortunately, the church has bought into this mindset.

Paul said about the church in Thessalonica: "They marvel at how expectantly you wait for the arrival of God's Son, whom He raised from the dead - Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom."

Those most aware of certain doom are most inclined to long for the freedom Christ brings. Those who know they are dead most appreciate the one who can give them life.

When's the last time we heard the drums that pound out a message of doom into the background noise of our own lives? We're pretty good at drowning them out with music, movies, video games, texting, drugs, porn, work, play - anything, really. The goblins and orcs that we have summoned are drawing closer and we have no idea. We throw our lives casually down the wells of sin and indulgence, but are never sobered and quiet enough to listen to what the consequences will be.

I see so many Christians who live without a healthy sense of doom. How do I know? Because if they knew what awaited them, they would barricade themselves, fight, flee, and pray that God delivers them as they sprint toward the light.

Instead, they slouch deeper into the mines of greed, jealousy, pettiness, gossip, pornography, judgement, anger, pride and self-pity. The spiritual and relational armor they toss casually down the well of compromise makes a massive amount of noise which everyone around them hears with great clarity, but to which they are oblivious. They have no idea that doom approaches.

So marriages collapse, businesses fail, friends leave, influence and authority wanes, effective ministry dies, and they have no idea why. They are deaf to the drumbeats God has graciously provided as a wake-up call. When the fellowship leaves, heading towards the light, they stay behind.

I wish I were exempt from this, but I'm not. I can point to too many times in my life where I deliberately smothered the very warning that would have pointed me toward the light of Christ.

Here's what I have learned: If we want to be effective witnesses for Christ, we must regain a healthy sense of doom. Our sins will kill us; have we forgotten? We must hear the drums. We, of all people, ought to appreciate the punishment from which we have been saved. If we don't how can we winsomely and articulately share "the hope that lies within us"? If the things from which we have been saved intrigue us, will the hope of salvation really be that big of a deal?

We all want to to draw others to Christ. While we study so that we can know what to say and how to say it, perhaps we should listen for the drums. I suppose Aragorn could have stayed in the mines, but then that's the end of the story. Those of us who love the light must hate the dark, and be honest enough to confront it in our own lives. God will give us warning - He made the drums after all - and He can transform the fear of doom into the hope of salvation.

THE LINING IS SILVER

2012-02-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

The book of James challenges us to rejoice when we become rich – and when we become poor. Either way, we have an opportunity to appreciate either God’s blessing through resources or God’s provision in spite of circumstances.

I cannot escape the relevance to all of life. I become so quickly distracted by the difficulty of challenging situations that I forget God is gracious enough to embed a blessing, even if it is hard to find. There are clouds, yes. But the silver lining reminds us there is a sun waiting to break through.

Here is Andree Seu, on how even the worst circumstance offer a reason to rejoice:

“I know a missionary in South Sudan. Larissa lives in the home of a Moru woman named Mama Viviana, whose town of Kotobi was bombed from the air and machine gunned for a straight half hour in 2002. Every hut was burned to the ground, and the grain store with a year’s worth of food was obliterated; even the knives melted. Miraculously, not a person was killed or even injured. Every September Mama Vivina hosts a memorial prayer service to remember God’s kindness. Larissa wrote, ‘ I have much to learn from her…In the West I think our conception of God’s love is so much tied to circumstance – when we think He is answering prayer, or things are going as we think they should. But I am challenged to conceive of a love that is deeper than anything, which is not in any way tied to circumstance.”

CROOKED BEAUTY

2012-02-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

This dog is making me rethink beauty.

When I first looked at him I tilted my head a bit, thinking he was tilting his head too. He wasn’t. His face is crooked. You would think this should count against him, but it doesn’t. He’s not perfect, but somehow that actually adds to my opinion of him. (How many of you thought, “Ahhhhh!”)

I am wondering why imperfections sometimes make things more beautiful.

This seems wrong somehow. Beauty is perfection, right? Don’t studies show that the more a person's is symmetrical, the more we consider him or her beautiful? If we are so drawn to perfection, it would seem to follow that the more physically perfect something is, the more beautiful it is.

However, as Christians, we embrace a tension about this. We talk about the perfection and beauty of Christ, and yet the Bible says of Jesus, “There is no beauty we would desire of Him” (Isaiah 53:2).

I believe we confuse “beautiful” and “aesthetically pleasing.” While beauty and aesthetic appeal are not at odds with each other by any means, they are far from synonymous. There are many things some consider beautiful (such as the glorious scarlet and grey of the Buckeyes) that others (namely, everyone else in the state of Michigan) do not. This is actually not a clash over beauty; it is a clash over aesthetic appeal.

Many have tried to define beauty. Plato said beauty was ultimately an ideal form that manifested in things we see as beautiful; Aristotle didn't like Plato's ideal state that much, so he offered an oddly circular explanation that beauty exists in beautiful things. I don't find this helpful. To say beautiful things are beautiful because they participate in beauty stops somewhere short of profound.
In the interest of continuing the traditional search to describe beauty, I propose this definition: Beauty is “the state in which a person, object or idea most fully fulfills its nature and purpose.” This is not the same as saying, "I like it a lot!" This definition says there is an objective standard with which to judge the truly beautiful things in the world, a standard that is independent of perspective. True lovers of beauty are those who seek to recognize, appreciate, and fulfill the nature and purpose in everything, including themselves.
As Christians, we look to the Bible to understand both these things. The more the world aligns with the intent of God's creation, the more the world fills us with awe at its magnificence. The more sin distorts the nature and purpose of the world, the more we grieve the loss of true beauty.

If I am correct, this explains why worldviews without God have such a hard time defining beauty. Yes, symmetry, precision, and gut level responses are really cool, but they are hardly foundational. Many explanations affirm Aristotle - beauty is clearly present in beautiful things - but what have we learned? Without God, both the nature and the purpose of everything is uncertain, so the identification of beauty remains uncertain. Even if one decides on the “nature’ of something, it is a result of time and chance and could change; furthermore, it’s hard to extrapolate purpose from a purposeless universe.

But if my definition is correct, that’s also why imperfect dogs can still be beautiful. They are by nature dogs – “a domesticated carnivore belonging to the same family as the wolf.” The shape of their noses or their ability to jump through tires are irrelevant. Their aesthetic appeal is distinct from their beauty. As to their purpose (to use the vernacular) they are man’s best friend; they are a combination of playmate, watchdog, and companion. Mission accomplished.

I am grateful the Designer of the universe has given all things both a nature and purpose, filling our lives with so much beauty. We currently experience everything in a fallen state, but we are drawn to the beauty that remains. One day, everything will be as God intended in the Land of the Beautiful.
Meanwhile, we love a truly beautiful Christ who loved us in spite of the damage that sin has done to our nature and purpose. If we could all be so generous in our love of the people and things around us that are crooked but nonetheless retain glimpse of a beauty that will one day be complete.

Derelicts and Banquets

2012-02-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

From Heather King, at Dappled Things:

"'The operation of the church is entirely set up for the sinner,' wrote Flannery O’Connor, 'which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.' The Church is set up for sinners, and the parable of the Prodigal Son, to me, is the central emblem of the way in which we are loved. We are loved in our dereliction and degradation; we are forgiven almost before we’ve asked for it; the place at the banquet table is laid and has been laid all along."

Bring it home, best band ever: ""If you're lost and lonely, you're broken down, bring all of your troubles & come lay 'em down."

Explaining Beauty Away

2012-02-03T19:14:00.000-08:00

I have spent a lot of time in the past 10 years writing about the hardships in life. My scars are hardly unique, but I have sought to embrace the experiences and the implications of life’s broken beauty with as much honesty as I can muster.

But there is more to “broken beauty” than the broken. There is also beauty.

As C.S Lewis pointed out, one cannot understand crooked without understanding straight. In the same way, one cannot think with clarity about the ugliness of life without an understanding of its beauty.

In the presence of sometimes staggering pain and ugliness, one must either explain it or explain it away. Worldviews have dismissed it as illusory (some Eastern religions), refused to even define it (Atheism), or sought to understand the reason and the solution (Christianity).
The presence of grandeur and goodness provides no less of a challenge. One must either explain things like beauty, awe and wonder, or explain them away.

The New Atheist movement believes that Christianity fails in its attempt to explain our existence: “Something of the wonder of this world is lost when we explain away phenomena with supernatural, untestable, unfalsifiable, conjecture.”

The Christian theologian wonders, in turn, how atheists find wonder or appreciate beauty in a world without God - a world that atheists believe is without meaning, purpose, or design.

A good worldview needs to explain the world, not explain the world away.

If a picture is truly worth a thousand words, I will let the following pictures and quotes make the bulk of my argument - Christianity explains beauty; atheism explains it away.

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“Peacocks are carrying around this beautiful…useless [tail][ but they are still strong enough for really important stuff…evolution is just producing these weird things… have to admit that important parts of life are not efficient or engineered to work out. If you wound back evolution, you wouldn’t end up with the same things we have now. This isn’t the world we had to get—it is just some weird possibilities that happened to catch on.” – David Rothenberg

“I am deeply impressed the the existence of value in the world....our physical world is shot through with value, with beauty...the wonderful order of the world and the
fruitfulness of cosmic history are reflections of the mind and purpose of the Creator." John Polkinghorne

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I believe the book of nature .. suggests a God of purpose and a God of design. And I think my belief makes me no less a scientist.” Owen Gingerich

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“Wilson suggested that natural selection might have instilled in us a “biophilia,” or reverence for nature, that benefits both us and those creatures with which we enjoy mutually beneficial relationships. But why do we respond to so many things—butterflies, starfish, rainbows, sunsets—from which we extract no tangible, utilitarian benefit?” - John Horgan

"[A]n acquaintance with natural laws means no less than an acquaintance with the mind of God therein expressed." Physicist James P. Joule

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“It was when I was happiest that I longed most. The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing to find the place where all the beauty came from.” C.S. Lewis

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Joseph Conrad, on life: ”…that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose.”

"Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one..." Cosmologist Edward R. Harrison

"Part of the joy of beauty is the realization that it is part of a larger whole, most of which appears to be just out of sight. We are drawn forward toward something...and left waiting, wondering." N.T. Wright
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“Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.” Blaise Pascal

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Clarence Darrow: life is like a ship “tossed by every wave and by every wind; a ship headed to no port and no harbor, with no rudder, no compass, no pilot, simply floating for a time, then lost in the waves.”

"I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance." Mathemetician Roger Penrose.
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"The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator."

Louis Pasteur, the "father" of the science of microbiology

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“Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.“ Albert Camus

"The only objection to Natural Religion is that somehow it always becomes unnatural. A man loves Nature in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall, if he is loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty." - G.K. Chesterton

“Two things fill my mind with .. ever new & increasing wonder & awe... the starry heaven above me and moral law within me.” Immanuel Kant

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“The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins

"Order is manifestly maintained in the universe, governed by the sovereign will of God." James P. Joule

”Whether atheist or theist, a thoughtful person can only stand in awe of the way the universe seems designed as a home for humankind.” Owen Gingerich

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"At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise... that denseness and that strangeness of the world is absurd." -Albert Camus

"Scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money." Robert Jastrow

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“That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes, and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms... Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitations henceforth be safely built.” - Bertrand Russell

"Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us."

Lord Kelvin [William Thomson], physicist.

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"And beauty is a form of genius -- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it." - Oscar Wilde

"It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness." -Vita Sackville-West

"I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new!" -Saint Augustine
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"There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles... but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief --a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you." -George Eliot

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"Beauty puts a face on God. When we gaze at nature, at a loved one, at a work of art, our soul immediately recognizes and is drawn to the face of God." -Margaret Brownley

"Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven." - Sir John Lubbock

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"For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible..." Colossians 1:16

Small, Inglorious Things

2012-02-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

Christians often think, "It is wonderful to be a Christian, but I am such a small person, so limited in talents-or energy or psychological strength or knowledge-that what I do is not really important." The Bible, however, has quite a different emphasis: With God there are no little people… and there are no little places….

Nowhere more than in America are Christians caught in the twentieth-century syndrome of size. Size will show success. If I am consecrated, there will necessarily be large quantities of people, dollars, etc. This is not so. Not only does God not say that size and spiritual power go together, but he even reverses this (especially in the teaching of Jesus). We all tend to emphasize big works and big places, but to think in such terms is simply to hearken back to the old, unconverted, egoist, self-centered Me.

When we’re asked to do a thing, especially in the Lord’s work, it really doesn’t matter whether the thing is “important” or not. Our real attitude toward service is probably not measured by our performance in the big, glorious situations but rather by our steadfastness in the small, inglorious ones. So Paul said, “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Only one thing is important: to be consecrated persons in God's place for us, at each moment. Those who think of themselves as little people in little places, if committed to Christ and living under his Lordship in the whole of life, may, by God's grace, change the flow of our generation.

- Francis Schaeffer

Grief and the Art of Motorcycle Racing

2012-01-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

Bikers know what it means to “lean in” to the bends in the road. If they want to turn right at a curve, they lean right. At the same time, they countersteer by actually pushing the handlebars the opposite direction. Lean right, but turn left.

I have been known to do the opposite on both counts. I intuitively tend to lean away from the curve (why would I want to be that close to the ground?), and I steer into the curve. I even did this once with a friend’s three-wheeler. It ended badly, but I’m happy to report the tree was fine.

Those who learn how to “lean in” ride safely through the curves and continue on, the bike’s dirty side down and shiny side up. Too often riders lay it down, much to the delight of thousands of people looking for entertainment on “Ridiculousness,” and much to the chagrin of the one who walks away with scars.

I have noticed there a many things in life in which the counterintuitive choice is the right one. I intuitively want to lash out when I’m angry; kick the cat when it wakes me up at 2:00 in the morning last Monday; buy shiny things with credit cards; and eat whatever I want (hello, BWW!). After all, it feels natural. But when I do, I soon find I can’t handle the curves of life. The shiny side of my relationships, finances, and health go down in a hurry as I slide into the ditch, battered and scraped and in need of help.

When I make the correct choice that goes against my initial response, I survive the curves. I don’t hurt people when I’m angry; I don’t have to apologize to my wife about the whole cat incident; my credit stays good; my weight remains in the same area code.

That’s a much better journey. But in spite of all the positive results, counterintuitive is still hard. It’s good, but it’s hard.

Recently I was talking with some friends about grief. One was grieving the death of a career and a dream: the other the death of a marriage. They approached me because they knew my father had died, and that I too was no stranger to grief.

In the aftermath of loss, our initial, intuitive response is to lean away from the pain. Even worse, we simultaneously steer our lives the wrong way and miss the curves. This does not end well, as the curves in the road to grief recovery are not curves you want to miss. The ditches are deep, and very dark.

But that’s what happens when we avoid leaning in and steering well. In more practical terms, this involves leaning in to the depths of ourselves by thinking, talking and writing about deep emotions and poignant memories, and steering toward instead of away from God and others,

The night may be dark, the road full of potholes, the driving conditions poor, and the turns hairpin.

Lean in anyway.

Somewhere down the road, grieving souls are lying in a ditch, waiting for someone who can nurse them back to health, set them back on the road of life, and teach them how to ride.

Every Song is a Sermon

2012-01-23T17:59:00.000-08:00

"A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." - Proverbs 25:11

Communication is powerful. The Bible warns about the power of our speech, suggesting we have the power to give and take away life with our words (Proverbs 18:21). If you have ever received an insult or a poorly timed thoughtless comment, or been brought from the depths of despair by a generous word, you know what this verse means. What we say matters, even in the things we think are just mindless amusements.

We can't escape the fact that worldviews are embedded in the arts and entertainment around us. When the message is true and good, we walk away better people. When the message is false and distorted, we walk away a little more broken than before whether we feel it or not.

Every song is a sermon. Every movie is a message. Every book has a mission.

From a longer post at tcapologetics.org:

The church historically has worked itself into quite a few knots over what to do with culture. There’s Jerusalem, and there’s Athens: should they intersect or not? To update Tertullian, what does Hogwarts have to do with Narnia, or LMFAO with Third Day?

The Apostle Paul’s dove right in to Greek and Roman culture, plundering the works of their own mid-level philosophers and using them to represent truth about the Kingdom of God. While at the Acropolis (Acts 17), Paul quotes from a Hymn to Zeus written by the Hellenist poet Aratus (“For we are indeed His offspring”); he also references Epimenides (“In him we live, and move, and have our being”), who is credited with building the altar to the unknown God.

Cultural may be fallen, but cultural expressions of belief and faith can be redeemed. We need the wisdom to “understand the times, and know what to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). Acts 17 also shows that while cultural apologetics will not take away the offense of the cross for everybody, it can clear roadblocks on the way there for some.

We, the people of the Word, must be mindful of what we say, but we must also be alert to the messages we absorb. There is power there. We are being changed daily in one way or another. We cannot go through life mindlessly absorbing and regurgitating the messages around us. The solution is not to withdraw into frightened Christian cliques. We need to engage the messages and the messengers; discern what God would have us do and say as we bring redemption to a broken world; and take truth to a culture that so desperately needs to hear Christ's message of hope.

Deep Calls Unto Deep

2012-01-20T09:20:00.000-08:00

Be prepared for the thing that crippled you to be the thing that brings the greatest glory to God.

Ever notice how God is not content to heal people and let it go at that? The lame man in Acts 3 did not just walk and leap after he was healed. He praised God for his healing, and as a result everyone around him was astonished. Private experience became public ministry. Though the Bible does not record what he did later, I suspect he told his crippled friends what happened. They too needed hope.

God knows the best help for the crippled comes from those who have experienced what others are going through. We have a Savior who has experienced our lives, who can identify with our struggles and pains. He has called us to mirror Him to others. He has healed us for the glory of His Kingdom, not just for our personal health. We, too, must be prepared for God to use us to “save” those with whom we can identify. We see this principle around us all the time.

Recovery groups are headed up by people who have recovered.

Divorce Care class is often headed by people who have experienced the pain of broken families.

The best budgeting advice I’ve gotten is from people who had Ramen Noodles and water the whole way through college.

The best marriage advice comes from people whose marriage has been through the fire.

In the aftermath of my father’s death, I received the most comfort from others who were equally fatherless.

“Deep calls unto deep,” said the writer of Psalm 42 as he was begging God to help him out of his despair. The word means literally “abyss”: the things deepest in me call to the things deepest in you. One translation reads, “hollow howlings hang in the air.” The deepest things in us call out for the depths of God. Sometimes He answers by connecting the hollow “deep” within us directly to Himself; sometimes he connects us to a “deep” within others that was once hollow as well, but has been filled by God.

Sheila and I had a rough start to our marriage. We didn’t know each other; we didn’t know how to communicate; we were both selfish and immature. But God was patient and faithful, and here we are 20 years later, by the grace of God. When we counsel couples planning to get married, we tell them about everything we did wrong, because the things that crippled us may cripple others, and we want to do some preventative medicine by letting them hear a story of healing. In fact, we can usually find fresh examples, and we have to tell them. God has mended our brokenness; we must tell others that God will do that for them too.

Recently, I walked into a room where a friend was talking to her husband on the phone. When she hung up, she said, ”Sometimes you just have to laugh.” I asked why, and she said, “Because otherwise you have to cry.” Then she added without my asking, “Marriage is hard.” And so we talked. Deep calls unto deep.

My father’s death felt crippling to my emotions, to my prayer life, to my perspective on the sovereignty of God. You know what I can do now that I couldn’t before? I can empathize with people. I never talked with people before who had lost a loved one; I didn’t know what to do or say. But since then I have been in situations where people have seemed to gravitate to me to discuss death. At first I was confused: “Do I have a sign over me – ‘Talk about death with Anthony’?” No, God was sending them my way.

Last fall, in the food court at a mall in Grand Rapids, I met an ex-student I hadn’t seen in a while, and she mentioned that her grandfather had died. I told her about my dad, and she asked me very tentatively, “Did you have dreams after he died?” Did I have dreams? Absolutely. She was the first person I had talked to who also had dreams.

And for about 10 minutes in the food court at a mall, deep called unto deep, and the healing crippled walked together for a time, grateful for a God who knows how to heal.

With a Quiver in our Voices

2012-01-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

From John Polkinghorne, in Socrates in the City:

"We live in a world that is remarkably fruitful and beautiful, remarkably chilling and frightening and destructive. It is a very ambiguous sort of picture, and somehow or other, the bad things are the cost of the good things. That is not an argument you can utter without a quiver in your voice. The world is too complex and strange for that.
A Christian understanding of God's relationship to suffering is not that God is simply a compassionate spectator looking down on the strange and bitter world that God holds in being. As a Christian, I believe that God is participating in the suffering of the world, that God is truly a fellow sufferer. The Christian God is the crucified God. That is a very deep and mysterious, though, I believe, true insight."

I was in Columbus, Ohio once when a massive ice storm rolled through. The next morning, the world appeared to be covered in diamonds. I loved it - until I had to drive. The following morning, after a day in which the beauty of the ice brought destruction to dozens of vehicles, the Columbus Dispatch quoted one resident who said something along the lines of, "The world is so beautiful but so full of pain."
All of creation groans, as if it remembers what it once was and once again will be. As we wait for the day when all will be well, we embrace the moments of glory that give us such lovely glimpses of heaven in the midst of a broken world.

Hiking the Transcendent Trail

2012-01-15T17:58:00.000-08:00

While hiking after a northern Michigan snowstorm, I was reminded why Christian theologians (as well as philosophers such as Plato) have developed an argument for the existence of God that builds from the presence of beauty in the world. The formal argument reads something like this:

"There are compelling reasons for considering beauty to exist in a way that transcends its material manifestations. According to materialism, nothing exists in a way that transcends its material manifestations. Although one can make plausible evolutionary explanations for finding beauty in potential sexual partners and in healthy animals that might be food or predators, the experience of beauty is much wider than these categories and includes visions of things for which there can be no direct evolutionary advantage (like clouds seen from aeroplanes, or images from telescopes). According to classical theism, beauty is a quality of God and therefore exists in a way that transcends its material manifestations. Therefore, to the extent that premise (1) is accepted, theism is more plausible than materialism."

Saturday, I found the visuals to go with this argument while hiking with my boys along the Boardman River in Traverse City, MI. For a couple hours, I was immersed in the stunningly unnecessary beauty of creation. The idea that all of reality can be reduced to nothing but atoms in motion may pass some kind of muster in a philosophy classroom, but not in midst of the raw beauty of nature. Yes, there is ugliness too. I get that. In fact, in a materialist universe of blind forces and chance, I understand gratuitous evil and decay. But what do we do with gratuitous beauty? What do we do when sticks, frozen water, dead chlorophyll sacks, dirt and a distant star take our breath away? We enjoy it, and remember that our existence is greater than the sum of the details. Thank God.

In Memory Of My Father

2012-01-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

My Dad died 9 years ago today. He sickened in the fall and died in the winter, as if nature itself understood. Not long after he died, and with those images in my head, I looked out a window in Traverse City one October and penned the following:

Fall

Yellow leaves fall hesitantly,

smothering the once vibrant grass

as the black squirrels gossip their way from

cooling earth to darkening sky.

They grow cold together.

And as the leaves fall to their death

the squirrels fall asleep,

not knowing that others have fallen,

and that I'm not feeling the best myself.

I am much improved since those dark days. His death was a storm, and his ghost has cast a long shadow, but the sunlight breaks through. Since his death I have written to him, knowing that he can’t read it but taking comfort in an imaginary world where I am Odd Thomas and he is looking over my shoulder as I type.

Here is my letter today:

Dear Dad,

You knew who I was, so you will understand why this story is important now.

In high school I lived for basketball. It was my identity. Each day's quality depended on how pick-up basketball went at lunch, and whether the girl I liked at that moment noticed the poetry-in-motion that was my game. I probably liked basketball a little too much, and myself too little.

I still remember when you sat me down and said you would not be attending many of my games my senior year. You wanted me to know that you loved me because I was me, not because I could put a round ball through round metal opening.

We would sit by the wood stove in the winter, playing Stratego and Risk, but never basketball. Never the idol.

Thank you.

I wish you were here today to tell me you loved me, not because I have “accomplished “ something, and not because I’m perfect, and not because of the fleeting self-esteem builders I do, but because of who I am.

I am a son whose father loved him.

I will always miss you, and never forget you.

And God said:
“Go down, Death, go down, go down to Columbus, Ohio, down in Broad Street, and find Brother Leon. He's borne the burden and heat of the day, he's labored long in my vineyard, And he's tired-- he's weary-- Go down, Death, and bring him to me….” And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away his tears, and he filled the gauntness in his face, and the angels sang a little song, and Jesus rocked him in his arms, and kept a-saying: “Take your rest; take your rest....”

My personal touch added to “Go Down, Death,” by James Weldon Johnson

The Joy of Trouble

2012-01-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

The book of James was written about 15-20 years after Jesus’ death. As the first letter to circulate among the early followers of Christ, it was addressed to a large group scattered all over the world, not just those living in a specific locale (i.e., Corinth).
Two key cultural events that had a “scattering” effect: Persecutions had begun around AD 45, and a major famine had hit a large portion of the world. The persecution had scattered the Jewish Christians, and the famine had hit what has recently been referred to as the “99%” pretty hard.
In this context, James writes the following (this is my paraphrase from multiple translations and commentaries):

From James 1 and James 5

In spite of what you might think, there is joy in facing the tests, trials, and dangerous temptations of life. When your faith is tested, your endurance has the opportunity to grow. Endure so that you can experience the full effect of these experiences; you will become mature and complete, not lacking anything. When tempted to sin, you have to stop saying, “God is tempting me.” God cannot be tempted by evil, and he doesn’t tempt anyone to do evil. People are tempted when they are lured and then carried away by their own desires and lusts. If they nourish the lust conceived in them, they will eventually give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, will bring death to them. Blessed is the one who patiently endures both temptations to sin and trials of hardship because, having passed the tests, that person will receive the victor’s crown of life that the Lord has promised in this life and in the life to come to those who keep on loving him. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. As an example of patience in the face of suffering, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Or think of Job’s perseverance, and what the Lord finally brought about for him. There are people teaching you falsely about the character of God as it relates to trials, temptations, and suffering. Don’t be misled and deceived. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights who shines His light on you. He does not change like shifting shadows. God gave us life through His word of truth, that we might be the beginning of a new kind of creature – his most important and prized possessions. Be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains? You too should be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return, when you will finally be delivered from all of these hardships. Stand firm, and don’t give up hope; His coming – and your deliverance and reward - is near.

How the West was Broke

2012-01-03T14:17:00.000-08:00

I have posted before about the societal implications of couples willingly choosing not to have children. A lot of the feedback I received can be summarized succinctly: "You're an idiot." That may well be true, but it won't be because I am wrong about this issue. Pointing out the the cultural erosion that happens when one generation does not create another generation is not a matter of opinion. It's just a fact of life.
I understand that couples can have legitimate reasons for not having kids, sometimes through choice and sometimes because biology has not been favorable. I have friends who desperately want to have children but can't, and others who have foregone parenthood not because they don't want to be parents, but because they believe they have a higher calling on their life that precludes them from having children. You are not the subject of this post.
I am posting about this because, if statistics are correct, more and more people have decided that they want the pleasure and privileges of sex (and ideally marriage) without the responsibility that naturally follows. It makes sense, really. Western culture increasingly presents freedom and choice as the Holy Grail of life, and what could possible keep us from these two demanding masters more than children? (Or so the thinking goes).
Unfortunately, this unfettered self-interest is not without consequence. From Mark Steyn, in National Review Online:

"The developed world... is barren. Collectively barren, I hasten to add. Individually, it’s made up of millions of fertile women, who voluntarily opt for no children at all or one designer kid at 39. In Italy, the home of the Church, the birthrate’s somewhere around 1.2, 1.3 children per couple — or about half “replacement rate.” Japan, Germany, and Russia are already in net population decline. Fifty percent of Japanese women born in the Seventies are childless. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of Spanish women childless at the age of 30 almost doubled, from just over 30 percent to just shy of 60 percent. In Sweden, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, 20 percent of 40-year-old women are childless. In a recent poll, invited to state the “ideal” number of children, 16.6 percent of Germans answered “None.” The notion of life as a self-growth experience is more radical than it sounds. For most of human history, functioning societies have honored the long run: It’s why millions of people have children, build houses, plant trees, start businesses, make wills, put up beautiful churches in ordinary villages, fight and if necessary die for your country . . . A nation, a society, a community is a compact between past, present, and future, in which the citizens, in Tom Wolfe’s words at the dawn of the “Me Decade,” “conceive of themselves, however unconsciously, as part of a great biological stream.” Much of the developed world climbed out of the stream. You don’t need to make material sacrifices: The state takes care of all that. You don’t need to have children. And you certainly don’t need to die for king and country. But a society that has nothing to die for has nothing to live for: It’s no longer a stream, but a stagnant pool."

Politicians talk a lot about all the sacrifices we have to make for "the future generations of our children." That's if we have them, I suppose. One way to avoid living a life that considers the long term is to simply not contribute to the long term. If nothing will matter then, I suppose nothing matters too much now.
This is street-level nihilism. Neitzsche thought we were killing God; he did not realize we were dying too.

Always Go To The Funeral

2011-12-30T11:28:00.000-08:00

I have been reminded recently that the most meaningful moments in life are found far more often in the walks through the dark valleys, not the meadows ( I place a lot of the blame at the feet of Odd Thomas). The lifeless stones and hard despair of the valleys - sickness, death, poverty, loneliness - are meant to make us all look up to the source of light and life; meadows are so flooded with both that we eventually begin to notice the flowers more than the sun.
That's not the flower's fault, or course, or the meadow's. Beauty and peace are two of God's best gifts to the world. The importance of the tangible blessings of friends, family, health, comfort, and love cannot be overstated. We minimize the importance of these "glimpses of heaven" at our peril.
But there is a part of human nature that cannot stay in the meadows for too long, or we forget to look up. Even worse, we begin to resent those who need us to follow them into the valleys and walk with them out of the darkness.
From the December 2011 issue of First Things:

"You can't come in without going out, kids. Always go to the funeral." So Deirdre Sullivan's father taught her.... Going to funerals was partly a duty and partly a matter of learning to do things for others when doing them wasn't convenient, like going to 'the painfully under- attended birthday party' and visiting someone in the hospital during happy hour.
It bears fruit, this discipline. When she was sixteen, she went to the funeral home by herself, unwillingly, for her fifth-grade math teacher. 'It was worse than I thought it would be; I was the only kid there. When the condolence line deposited me in front of Miss Emerson's shell-shocked parents, I stammered out, "Sorry about all this," and walked away. But, for the deeply weird expression of sympathy delivered twenty years ago, Miss Emerson's mother still remembers my name and always says hello with tearing eyes."

If, by God's grace, I can lay claim to similar legacy - that people say hello with tearing eyes because I was willing to enter the valleys of their lives and walk with them - I will consider my life to have been lived well.

Christ and Christmas

2011-12-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

When Christianity first started, the followers of Jesus lived in a world full of people in situations that were really at odds with Christ and his teaching. What were they to do now that they were spiritually Christian, but almost everybody around them was a culturally very Roman?

The early followers of Christ often took an approach to spreading the Good News of the gospel that was not only counter-cultural to the Roman and Greek way of life, but was countercultural to how the church today often handles the uneasy tension between the church and society.

The early church wanted to reach their cities – they cared about them. But they lived in cities where they were surrounded by a lot of really bad stuff. For example, the holiday that we now know as Christmas was a week of serious indulgence and license in Roman society; Easter was originally a fertility celebration... the list goes on.

So, the early followers of Christ decided that the best way to communicate the Gospel was to enter the current cultural stream and divert it to Christ’s ends. They didn’t move out of the neighborhood; they moved even more deeply into the neighborhood.

As a result we see some interesting intersections of church and culture:

The kriophoros, or lamb bearer (for Christians, The Good Shepherd) was a popular icon of a shepherd that early Christians used to symbolize the passages in Scripture that referred to Christ as a shepherd.
The orant, a praying figure that symbolized piety, was used to symbolize the praying saint.
Endymion, a young man who fell in love with a goddess, was often depicted sleeping in a cave, which is where his lover arrived to visit him. This image became the early church’s motif for Jonah under the withered vine.
Though not nearly as common as the Good Shepherd motif, Christ also appears in early Christian art in the form of the Greek god Orpheus. There is a fresco of Christ as Orpheus in the Catacombs of Peter and Marcellus in Rome, which dates from the 4th century. Another example of Christ as Orpheus is in the Catacomb of Domitilla. Clement of Alexandria wrote: “Orpheus pacified wild beasts by the power of his song…Jesus’ new song tames “the most intractable of all animals – man.”
We find all these images on the walls of the catacombs, where the early Christians hid from persecution from the very people whose culture they were subverting for the cause of Christ.

My point? When Jesus came to earth he loved, he moved into the neighborhood; he blended in with normal cultural expressions (which is very different from blending in with cultural norms/worldviews).

The early church did this too – “As the Father has sent me, so have I sent you.” Jesus didn’t avoid cultures; he entered into the stream of history and made himself known; the early church realized they were called to do the same.

This brings me to Christmas (and Easter, and Halloween…) An article at CRI asked the question, “Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?” The article noted:

“But what of the fact that December 25 was the date of a pagan festival? Does this not prove that Christmas is pagan? No, it does not. Instead, it proves that Christmas was established as a rival celebration to the pagan festival. That is, what Christians did was to say, "Rather than celebrate in immorality the birth of Mithra, a false god who was never really born and who cannot save you, let us celebrate in joyful righteousness the birth of Jesus, the true God incarnate who is the Savior of the world."

Sometimes it is urged that to take a pagan festival and try to "Christianize" it is folly. However, God Himself did exactly that in the Old Testament. Historical evidence shows conclusively that some of the feasts given to Israel by God through Moses were originally pagan agricultural festivals, which were filled with idolatrous imagery and practices. What God did, in effect, was to establish feasts which would replace the pagan festivals without adopting any of the idolatry or immorality associated with them.”

I would add that the suzerain covenant treaty, during which an animal was slaughtered so that the covenanting parties were clear about the penalty for breaking the covenant, was a widely used custom that was adopted by God for use when He covenanted with Abraham.

That, I think, is what we mean when we talk about “being in the world but not of it.” We are people with a dual citizenship, and our goal is not to alienate our fellow citizens of earth. Our goal is enter the stream of history and find a way to channel the life and the energy that is there to the glory of God.

I believe Christians should be entering into cultural holidays, no matter what their origin or current expression, and redeeming them. I get that many have pagan origins. I just don’t care. I am far more interested in what Christians are doing today to remind people of Christ’s birth at Christmas, Christ’s death and resurrection at Easter, and Christ’s ultimate authority over death, hell, and the grave at Halloween. For that matter, it wouldn’t hurt to use the 4^th of July to talk about the freedom Christ brings; Memorial Day to commemorate those who have died for the cause of Christ; Labor Day to remind ourselves that our workplace is a mission field; New Years Day to talk about the new beginning that Christ offers in our lives…

I wonder how creative we can be with the Super Bowl?

A Love With Sinew And Bone

2011-12-22T17:04:00.000-08:00

From "The Way of Enchantment", by R.R. Reno, in the January 2012 issue of First Things:

"Love and her enchantments can be dangerous. Our gods may be idols, our patriotism misguided, and our ardent convictions false. The twentieth century tells a sad tale of the brutality of ideologies passionately believed. For this reason, love is never self-authenticating. It must be purified: sometimes by reason, sometimes by conscience, sometimes by authority.
But this purification does not alter the fact that love does not take us to ta high citadel. Quite the opposite, in fact. A wedding feast celebrates the destruction of a the fortifying walls that insulate one person from another, and the covenant of marriage creates a very different kind of citadel, one in rather than above the world. My wife, my children, my friends, my community, my nation - I cannot gaze down from above on those whom I love. Love draws us down into what, viewed objectively, is a reckless intimacy: for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. The same holds for a supernatural love of God. St. Augustine did not stand aloof, , nor did St. Francis, nor St. Ignatius... In their steadfast and immovable love of Christ they served the world rather than observing it from above...

To look down on life from above: It may free us from the pains of desire, but it's a dry, cold, loveless enterprise, one that, if followed to its end, leaves the world as it is. Christianity's...vision for enduring happiness is more humane, allowing us to hope that the sinews of life - our very bones - can be penetrated by an enduring, unconquerable, eternalizing love."

That, I believe, is the hope and the beauty of the Christmas message. God is not a cold, loveless God content to leave the world as it is. He took upon himself the very sinews of life so that only the world but our should can experience His enduring, unconquerable, eternalizing love.

Odd Thomas

2011-12-18T13:47:00.000-08:00

I am re-reading Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas series. I had forgotten how talented Koontz is at addressing momentous topics with creativity and seriousness (read Out of the Corner of His Eye for confirmation). Close to the end of Odd Hours, Koontz gives the following monologue to Odd:

"Grief can destroy you - or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it hand to end in death, and you alone. Or you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to you knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life."

ORDINARY MOMENTS

2011-12-15T13:15:00.000-08:00

I realized recently that in all the thinking and writing I have done since the death of my dad and Grandpa, none of my memories have revolved around big events. I did not write that we went to Disneyland, or that Mom and Dad spent a month in Kenya where Dad taught at a Bible college, or that my Grandpa was on "Good Morning America" one time (even though they all happened). Those are not the events of which my most precious memories are made. I have much stronger and better memories of very ordinary things.

With Dad, I remember:

helping him put down linoleum flooring in Alabama;

listening to him play piano;

going out for pizza with him on my 8^th birthday in Oregon;

driving to Mt. Hood to go tubing;

sitting by a wood stove playing Stratego;

picking raspberries;

building our house;

entertaining international students in our home.

With Grandpa, I remember:

sitting in his living room in Alabama and just talking with him;

golfing on the day before my wedding;

meeting him and Grandma in Midland for supper a year before he died;

driving his RV on the way back from a reunion.;

shucking corn with all my cousins at his house on “corn shuckin’” day…

All these little things pile up. And all of these things played a vital role in my formation as a Christian, not just as a person. Dad and Grandpa were followers of Christ; I was absorbing something about what that meant as I interacted with them in even the most seemingly insignificant of things.

It was like that with my mom, my principal, my coach, my friends, my wife…. They have all molded me in all the moments of life…every word spoken…every kindness shown…

There are no little people in little places doing little things in the Kingdom of God. There are only image bearers of God doing things that ripple through eternity.

Lower Case and Upper Case Saviors

2011-12-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

At a conference several weeks ago, Robert Kellerman noted: “Despair drives us to what we really hope in.” Good times and pleasure and success can allow us the freedom to pursue what we like – but hard times, pain, and failure drive us to things in which we place our hope.

It is an inescapable part of human nature: we constantly need and seek saviors.

Doctors save us from sickness.
Money saves us from poverty.
Sex saves us from loneliness.
Exercise and diet saves us from disease.
Education saves us from ignorance.
Government saves us from chaos.
Friends and family save us from isolation.
Entertainment saves us from boredom.

Each of those can offer a form of salvation in the moment in a particular, limited, fleeting way. Money can save you from poverty. Education can save you from ignorance. Doctors can save you from disease. When they do they are meant to point us toward the one who ultimately saves and restores us. They are all what I call “lower case saviors,” and it makes sense that we turn to them to solve lower case dilemmas.

We get tripped up when we make the lower case “s” an upper case “S.” Little temporary saviors can only save us in little temporary ways. We want them to solve our ultimate, deepest problems, but they simply cannot save us in that way.

It’s the Titanic perspective. Rose says: “But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me…in every way that a person can be saved.” No, he didn’t. He couldn’t even say himself.

At best, lower case saviors can save you in one very specific way – say, money from poverty. But it’s salvation is limited. It cannot bear the weight of your life. Neither can money…a spouse… friends…. a job… money….education…health…sex…doctors… They cannot save you. They were never meant to. We may want to believe these will save us, but what we want to be true is sometimes very different from what is true.

At Christmas, we are reminded why the entrance of Christ into the world gives us what we both want and need if we are to be truly saved:

” But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2)

There is only one Savior from whom we find true wisdom and knowledge; who provides true wealth that will not fade; who provides true love and relationship; who makes us healthy in ways that won’t vary depending on our prescription or exercise plan; who provides true forgiveness of sin; true hope; true joy.

Childlike Wonder

2011-12-06T19:18:00.000-08:00

I am in increasingly aware of the tension of the world in which we live. Beauty and pain live in such close proximity, and it's sometimes tough to have the right perspective.

Dawn Eden, who wrote the fantastic Thrill of the Chaste, is no stranger to this tension. In the midst of living out the beauty of the transformation God brought in her, she walked through the valley of the shadow of thyroid cancer. She has now written a book on overcoming sexual abuse.

She blogs and writes very honestly about this tension in life - this existence between the "now" and the "not yet." She recently posted these thoughts on her blog:

" St. Josephine Bakhita as a young child was kidnapped, enslaved, and beaten. Yet, even after being so traumatized that she forgot her own name, she retained the memory of the awe she experienced before her world was turned upside down: "Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, I said to myself: Who could be the Master of these beautiful things? And I felt a great desire to see him, to know Him and to pay Him homage..."   

  By holding onto her childlike sense of wonder, Bakhita was ultimately able to see that even her most painful memories fell within the scope of God's loving providence, which permits evil only to bring forth a greater good."

I have had some tough times, but not that tough. And I lost my childlike wonder a long time ago. I wonder sometimes if God gave my boys to my wife and I to remind us what it is like to see the world through eyes widened by wonder and adventure, not deadened by trouble and pain.

I remember AJ asking for a pet monkey, and when told that wasn't possible, asking for an eagle. Braden writes stories that I suspect M.C. Escher inspired. Vincent just "betacks" the world in general with gusto and creativity.

Christmas commemorates a time when the beauty of heaven entered the ashes of the world, raising from it a Savior who changed everything. I forget how awesome that truly is. May this Christmas be one in which I become like a child, and I "desire to see him, to know Him, and to pay Him homage."

The Shameless Self-Promotion Tour 2011

2011-12-03T16:14:00.000-08:00

I have discovered that writing a book is a lot more fun than promoting said book. My Shameless Self-Promotion Tour continued with vigor this week, and it is culminating in this post :)
On Tuesday, I had the privilege of being interviewed for the Writer's Minute hosted by TV 7&4 here in Traverse City. On Friday, Scott Smith and Nathan Gilmore (thanks, Nathan, for driving!) kept me company as I went to an interview with Bob Dutko, whose nationally syndicated show broadcasts from WMUZ out of Detroit. Today, Horizon Books here in Traverse City hosted a book signing as well.

For better or worse, here is the video of the Writer's Minute:

Wow. My shirt makes me dizzy when the camera zooms in. Here is a portion of the Bob Dutko Show (it's a video with just audio). Thanks, Sonya, for recording this.

I appreciate everyone who is helping me get the word out. I hope and pray that a ministry of hope and healing comes out of all this business. In the meantime, if you have any good connections.... :)

The Aroma of The New

2011-11-29T20:24:00.002-08:00

Makoto Fujimura again, in “The Aroma of the New,” in Books and Culture magazine:

My wife and I recently went to see a production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York City….One scene in particular stood out to me. Young Emily… is given the opportunity to move back in time to her 12th birthday.

At this point, the stark colors of the small stage begin to change. And faintly, we in the audience begin to detect an aroma. At first, we think that it is a nearby restaurant cooking their dinner for customers. But the aroma of bacon and eggs continues to fill the theater…The entire back stage opens up to reveal yet another stage, filled with color and light. Real bacon and real eggs are being cooked by Emily's mother… Emily…is given, perhaps for the first time, a full experience of Reality…

What if there is a Reality behind the reality we know What if there is a Stage behind the stage of our life? What if our "memory and desire" point to a greater Reality…?

We must insist on reminding people that there is a Stage behind the stage, a Reality behind the reality… There is a banquet waiting for us beyond the veil… Our task is to touch the fragile earth with the promise of heaven, creating the "still point of the turning world" in the eye of the storm of life. The gospel of Jesus makes this possible...

In The Weight of Glory, Lewis writes that art and music "are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not yet visited…"

Tolkien knew of such a world: "The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater," says Haldir of Lothlorien.

The World That Ought to Be is that which is already imbedded in our senses….The gospel is an aroma, the aroma of the New. And the aroma will reach us, even in the darkest despair.

The Aroma of The New

2011-11-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

Makoto Fujimura again, in “The Aroma of the New,” in Books and Culture magazine:

What if there is a Reality behind the reality we know What if there is a Stage behind the stage of our life? What if our "memory and desire" point to a greater Reality…?

The World That Ought to Be is that which is already imbedded in our senses….The gospel is an aroma, the aroma of the New. And the aroma will reach us, even in the darkest despair.

Incalculable Prayers

2011-11-27T13:35:00.000-08:00

I always appreciate when people take the dilemmas in life by the horns and wrestle with them, especially when the opponent is the most daunting of all: God (think of Jacob literally and Job spiritually in the Old Testament). That's a hard wrestling match, but an important one.

In the Presence of Mine Enemies is a book about the kidnapping of Martin and Gracia Burnham. The Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist group connected with Bin Laden, kept them in a Philippine jungle for about a year. Martin did not make it through the ordeal. Here is an excerpt about prayer from Gracia's memoir:

"Six or so men praying six morning a week for fifty-three weeks - that's more than nineteen hundred prayers. Add to that the intercessions of all the Burnham and Jones family members, our supporting churches across ten states, the entire New Tribes family of some 3.100 missionaries in the twenty-five nations. all those who logged in to the website... Martin's and my pleadings with God day and night. The total is incalculable.
I don't doubt the truth of 'Ye have not because ye ask not' (James 4:2). But it sure doesn't seem to apply in this case; we all asked God over and over and over for protection and see release. No one can say that our petition was inadequately brought before the Lord...
Obviously, the answer lies not in the number of prayers or the particular wording used in those prayers. There has to be another factor in the mix. So what is it?
Perhaps it's useful to notice that while the verse in James says fervent prayer 'availeth much,' (5:16) it does not say it 'availeth everything.' Why?
Because the Abu Sayyaf - and all of us - still retain the power of personal choice, the option of standing stubbornly against the will of God. And that obstinate stance is, apparently, something an almighty God is not willing to bulldoze. Of course, he could have fired heavenly lasers into [their] brains...But that would have made them puppets instead of independent human beings with free will of their own, for which they will be eternally responsible....
Apparently, God runs into this impasse time after time. Having granted the human race a measure of self-determination, he would be hard-pressed to steamroller it when people misuse it."

Craving The Desert

2011-11-23T18:50:00.000-08:00

Bruce Feiler, who is neither Christian nor a practicing Jew, decided to read the first five books of the Old Testament as he traveled to the stories' historical locations in the Middle East. Among other things, he kept revisiting the impact of the geography in his understanding of events in the Bible. His perspective on the desert is worth noting:

"The first lesson of the desert: By feeling uneasy and unsure, by fearing that you're out of your depth and therefore might falter, by feeling small, and alone, you begin - slowly, reluctantly, maybe even for the first time in your life - to consider turning somewhere else. At first that somewhere else is someone else: Moses, Aaron... You eventually grow wary of the flat and easy, the commonplace and self-reliant. You begin to crave the depth, the height, the extremes. You begin to crave the fear."

   This makes sense to me. I view the Old Testament as a record of physical pictures (or foreshadowing) of what we now experience as spiritual realities. I have experienced the "deserts" of my life - hard times in marriage, fears that came with Vincent's diagnoses, my father's death - exactly how Mr. Feiler describes his experience of the desert. Those are the places where I was small, alone and experiencing God more clearly than ever before.
   I even understand what he says about fear. You crave it not because you like fear, but because it means you are grappling with an situation in which the stakes are high. I don't fear falling off my couch, but I do fear falling when I am fixing my roof. The fear is not the point; it is merely a gauge for the weightiness of the situation.
   Perhaps the modern horror trend is simply a distortion of the craving for fear. In a world that often seems "flat and easy," people crave the extremes. Here's the difference between simple horror and real fear: A healthy fear reminds us of our need for a savior, while an unhealthy fear robs us of any hope of being saved.
   The desert is not meant to rob us of hope, but to remind us that the greatest answer for our lives is not found in ourselves.

Vincent's Slow Miracle

2011-11-20T19:33:00.001-08:00

On Saturday, Sheila brought six-year-old Vincent home from a party and said to me, "Do you realize it was just a year ago we weren't sure this would ever happen?" I had forgotten; she was right.

From as far back as I can remember, Vince always struggled with any kind of boundary. When he was one and two years old, he could not sit in his car seat for more than 10 minutes without screaming. Trips to Meijers were too long for all of us. We seldom traveled.

We took the chance when he was almost two, and we flew South for Christmas to see family. He screamed there and back. I was physically ill for a week after our "vacation." That summer, he began to run onto the road outside our house and stand on it, I guess just waiting for cars. We fenced in the rest of the backyard and locked the doors of the house, but he still snuck out. A policeman brought him to our door once; we had no idea he was gone. How many times over the years did I say to people, "My goal is to get him through this next year alive"? I wasn't joking.

He wouldn't go outside during the winter until he was five, because hats and gloves were too restrictive (he still sheds his socks and shoes at a moment's notice). He refused to color inside lines (not a joke).

He had no concept of why boundaries existed.

He had no idea that they were meant to protect him.

Two years ago, we had Vincent tested for autism. At the time, both his teacher and I saw enough symptoms that we decided a test was in order (he was watching trains for hours; standing in a corner and flapping his hands when upset, etc). The initial test suggested he had Fragile X Syndrome. I should have known better than to look that up online. It was not a diagnosis full of hope.

The second test showed he was not on the autism spectrum, but was instead "developmentally delayed." I could have told them that. (My favorite moment in this whole process was reading how Vincent got tired of all the tests and crawled under the table, so two adults went under the table with him to finish the test).

This diagnosis was actually good news. One well meaning person said she was "praying against the spirit of diagnosis." I had not been aware there was one, and I appreciated her concern, but the reality was that I was relieved. Sheila and I knew something was wrong; we just didn't know what. Now we did. With the right diagnosis comes the proper cure.

A year ago, Vincent was splitting time at two schools because he was "Developmentally Delayed." In the mornings, he went to class with about 20 other kids with a similar diagnosis. When he would go to the Christian school where I teach in the afternoons... it didn't go as well. About the time he completed the DD class and was declared "normal," we had to pull him out of school all together and put him into daycare.

How quickly I have forgotten how sobered we were.

Just 5 months ago, at a crowded museum in Gatlinburg, I dedicated my entire museum-going experience to watching him. I lost him three times. The third time I utterly, completely lost track of him, and in a panic started looking in the closest room. He was sitting there watching TV, with no idea how disastrous the results could have been.

This "unboundaried" existence has not always translated into "plays well with others." He could not comprehend social boundaries any better than physical ones. He would just take stuff from kids, and sometimes hit them, and didn't seem to really care what they thought of him.
On the other hand, he was amazingly energetic and outgoing, constantly laughing and talking. Most adults who experienced him in small doses thought he was a hoot, but his peers, his parents, his brothers, and his teacher got both barrels.

This has not been a life without joy. Vincent is hilarious on his good days, and he loves people and activity. I have a collection of things he has said that crack me up no matter how many times I read it.

This year, he started real school. We spent the first couple weeks on pins and needles, but nothing major blew up. Then, he won an award for something in chapel - I don't remember what, but frankly, it doesn't matter.

HE WON AN AWARD.

Then, he started talking about his friends - they were peers, and they liked him. One classmate told his mom, "Vincent drives me crazy. But he's my best friend."
Vince started actually doing homework without having a meltdown.
He tried some foods he never tried before.
He told real jokes.
He played Monopoly and did not make up his own rules.
He fished our goldfish out of the pond (wait..that's a different list...)
He sat through a whole movie at the theater, unlike the time I literally chased him around the perimeter of the State Theater in Traverse City one unforgettable Saturday morning while Braden calmly watched "The Secret of Nimh."
He colors recognizable pictures.
He gets invited to parties by genuine friends.
He goes; he does not try to open the birthday kid's present.
He does not get into a fight or disappear into the backyard.
He keeps his fingers out of the cake until the appropriate time.

I know a lot of people face tremendous challenges with their kids that make our experience pale in comparison. My point is only to note something that may be common to all of us: after so many years of praying for a change, how easy it is to overlook the slow miracles that God provides.

Grief's Untold Stories

2011-11-19T13:47:00.000-08:00

I just read an interesting book called Grief's Untold Stories, by D.L. Starkey. I have written on my personal journey of grief after the death of my father, but I have not tried to tackle the stories of others. Starkey does just that. He is a hospice chaplain (among many other things), and his book recounts nine particular deaths that occurred in the course of his ministry.
Lest this sound depressing, it's not. Each story was unique in the way in which the silver lining of hope finds a way through the cloud of grief.
- A chess playing cancer patient whose terminal illness was "the best thing that ever happened to me."
- An eight-year-old leukemia patient who was so looking forward to heaven that her last words were, "I can't wait!"
- Tex, who died on the operating table, but lived to say, "I''ll never be afraid to die again."
- Jennifer, whose mother was comforted after her death when she found a school assignment in which Jennifer had drawn Heaven in response to the prompt, "Where do you want to live when you grow up?"
- Gus, who at age ninety-two asked God to take him home, and whose request was dramatically granted.
In some ways, it was hard to read. The book does not minimize the impact of death. On the other hand, when I was finished, I felt oddly at peace. It was a great reminder that if I allow the stories of others to fill in the gaps in my experience, I can learn more about the ways in which the God I serve reveals Himself to the world.

April is the Cruelest Month

2011-11-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

After visiting an area of Japan that was devastated by the March 2011 earthquake, Makoto Fujimura had this to say to Belhaven University students:

"As I was driven back to Tokyo… the Zao mountain range appeared beyond the clouds, with cherry blossoms in full bloom, enchanting the villages tucked away in the crevices between the mountains. It was hard to see scenes of such beauty—the trunks of the trees, with their wet-darkened bark—when the disaster was freshly etched in my mind. Thousands were still unaccounted for. My heart felt numb, and the beauty I saw seemed cruel.

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

So begins T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, published in 1922. April is indeed cruel with the lilacs or the cherry blossoms at the peak of their beauty, invading the "memory and desire" of our ravaged hearts. We are awakened to horrors and terrors, but nature does not wait until we stop grieving. It moves on, as does the world, without empathy or knowledge of what really happened. My visit to Japan echoed Eliot's lament: beauty and trauma are forced to dwell together.

Today, you begin a new journey, and for you it is a bright April, full of hope. But we must also remember that for many April has been the "cruelest month." We must learn… to engage our creativity within the harsh confines of our broken world and the wide spaces of creating the 'World That Ought to Be.'"

No Journey At All

2011-11-13T16:33:00.000-08:00

I watched Father of Invention with my wife this past weekend. Kevin Spacy plays a businessman/inventor who spends more time with his career than his family, and ultimately loses them both when one of his criminally negligent “fabrications” results in a 10 year jail sentence. When he gets out of jail, he moves in with his daughter as he tries to get his life back together.

Other than the fact that a lot of the characters and situation were both shallow and false, one issue that bothered me was the constant advice to his daughter to forgive him. This doesn’t sound bad on the surface, but the movie presented it as, “You need to get over all the years and years of neglect and emotional abuse and just move on now as if nothing happened.” When his daughter’s roommate needed some advice when she find out her parent’s are divorcing, Spacey’s character told her basically to get over it immediately.

I think that’s bad advice. That’s not forgiveness; that’s denial. Denial about what happened, about what she (and Spacey's daughter) felt, about what the ripple effect had been and would be in life.

A life in which we are not supposed to fully embrace the entirety of our experiences in not a good life. Ultimately, the goal IS to move beyond anger, despair, grief and resentment, but a quick journey is often not a journey at all.

Waiting for Daylight

2011-11-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

Three definitions of worship from Robert Kellerman:

Worship is wanting God more than we want relief.

Worship is finding God even when you don't find answers.

Worship is walking with God in the dark and finding him to be the light of our souls.

I’ll be honest: most of the time I go to God because I want relief, not because I want God no matter whether or not I am delivered from my temporary dilemmas.

Most of the time I don’t feel like I’ve found God unless I've found answers, even though the book of Job reminds me that God can be thunderously near while remaining inexplicable and mysterious.

Most of the time, when walking in the dark, I expect God to bring daylight to the world around me rather than illumination within me.

Here's today's prayer: "God, when you bring relief, provide satisfying answers, and brighten the world, remind me to praise you as my only true Deliverer. But when you allow my distress for a season, don’t answer my questions, and don’t immediately push back the shadows, remind me to embrace you as my only true Hope."

(Take it away, Switchfoot!)

The Blessing of Dissatisfaction

2011-11-09T08:17:00.000-08:00

From a recent article by S.M. Hutchens in Touchstone Magazine entitled "Mother Teresa's Light":

Mother Teresa was, as far as I believe anyone can judge, a Christian of the very highest order... a person in whom the desire for the person and life of God was maintained through a life of the most intense and single-minded devotion - yet she was never granted in this life what she sought. She sought Jesus, and he never came to her as she desired, but was present principally in his absence.... and yet she remained (and this is the greatest of all her glories) faithful to her calling to the end.

The profound importance of this witness needs continual emphasis among Christians whose measure of the reality and quality of spiritual experience is essentially of how satisfying it is to them, how good it makes them feel, how much they are delivered from their various distresses by what they take to be the grace and power of God. It is not that this grace and power are not present to satisfy the desires of the spirit and the appetites of the body - they are, to be sure. But one crosses the threshold of error when these graces become invariably regarded as signs or measure of happiness...

In each of his temptations, the Son of Man was offered gratification, in this life, of the deepest desires of body and spirit, and yet he refused them, insisting that they come to him only in the Father's time and terms....trading something like present happiness for "the joy set before him, enduring...the cross."

This will be a good life, but it will be a life based on faith and hope.

This means we shall not live it, or leave it, satisfied.

A faith that is never tested is not faith at all, no more than patience can be patience if there is never any need to wait. A life that is never at some point hopeless is a life in which hope can never be fully appreciated. There is a reason faith and hope need to "abide" (1 Corinthians 13:13): we will need them until the day we die, so that we can navigate a world that is often full of doubt and despair.

And it will still be a good life, because faith and hope will be my companions, and they will remind me that one day I will be home, and all will be well.

God's Healing for Life's Losses

2011-11-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some notes from a seminar at New Hope church, taught by Dr. Bob Kellemen, author of “God’s Healing For Life’s Losses.”

In suffering, God is not getting back at you. He is getting you back to himself.

We need to climb in the casket with other people who are hurting.

Candor is courageous truth-telling about life to myself in which I come face-to-face with
the reality of external and internal suffering.”

We can be disappointed with God, or without God.

To diminish suffering is to refuse to need God.

Suffering is God’s primary way of uprooting our self-reliance.

If God allowed bargaining/work to work to get us out of grief, no one would ever surrender to God. He thwarts our attempts to manipulate him. Even as we cry out, we have to ask ourselves if we have a pure heart: “What is our motivation?”

Our prayer is often for God to change our circumstances or feelings. Instead, we should cry out for strength to serve and glorify Him in the presence of suffering.

Comfort of God in the presence of suffering: a presence that empowers me to survive scars and plant the seeds of hope that I may yet thrive.

There is a difference between surviving and thriving. Sometimes, it’s okay to just survive as part of the process of moving forward.

Faith does not demand the removal of suffering; faith desires endurance in the suffering.

Gorillas and Zombies: What does it mean to be human?

2011-11-03T19:43:00.001-07:00

I watched a movie and a TV show this past week that were loaded with worldview messages. Both had a serious statement to say about what it means to be human, but ended up in remarkably different places.

The movie was a lighthearted family comedy, Zookeeper. It was basically an apologetic for the idea that animals are not only sentient, but emotional and intelligent. As the animals teach him how to be an alpha male, Kevin James, the bumbling zookeeper, becomes a better man and a fine catch for all the ladies who are mysteriously attracted to him. I kept expecting Christopher Hitchens to walk into the zoo and say, as he says at the beginning of his debates, “My fellow primates…”
This anthropomorphism is not new. After the movie “Babe”, the pork industry took a hit. Seriously. Entertainment has the power to change how people view the world, and that cute little pig put the idea in a lot of young minds that pigs are very much like us. Cute movie; wrong message.
No wonder so many nations are passing laws that increasingly give animals the same rights as humans. ABC News has noted, “some legal reformers would like to see the legal definition of "persons" expanded to include chimpanzees…” Recently, Spain gave 'human rights' to apes, joining Switzerland, Germany and other EU nations in the race to broaden the definition of personhood.

Here’s the problem: When we treat things that are not human as if they are human, we become very confused about what it means to be human. And when we become confused about our own nature, we are in trouble.

On the other hand, there is the AMC drama The Walking Dead. I don't like the comics, but the show addresses some pretty deep philosophical issues, not the least of which is the question of (once again) what it means to be human.
One of the key tensions in the show revolves around the fact that the Walking Dead are former friends, relatives and neighbors of the living. They sure look a lot like they did before, and have at least some sentience, awareness, and consciousness. So….how do you treat someone who sure looks human, but might not be anymore…or might be… (The end of season one suggested at least a minimum of brain function).
Because the stakes are so high, the Living at times have to kill the (un)Dead to protect themselves. It’s interesting, though: the more callous the characters become toward the Walking Dead, the more hardened they become toward the living. It’s as if committing violence against even a shadow of humanity kills a person’s soul bit by bit.

By showing this dilemma, the show makes an important point: When we treat things that are human as if they are not human, we become very confused about how we ought to treat other humans. And when we become confused about how we ought to treat others, we are also in trouble.

If Zookeeper is correct, the definition of "human" apparently ought to be blurred; if The Walking Dead is correct, that line should never lose its clarity.

Pixar's Preachers: Worldview in the Movies

2011-11-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

A couple friends and I have been discussing the impact media has on our view of reality. It had been a while since I had read up on the idea of the medium being the message, or the view that all entertainment contains messages both overt and covert, and the belief that the most impactful messages are the ones the story assumes about the world. Even shows about nothing are about something.
In the course of catching up on my entertainment philosophy, I ran across this interesting article called "The Hidden Message in Pixars' Films" over at Discover Magazine:

Popular culture is often dismissed as empty “popcorn” fare. Animated films find themselves doubly-dismissed as “for the kids” and therefore nothing to take too seriously. Pixar has shattered those expectations by producing commercially successful cinematic art about the fishes in our fish tanks and the bugs in our backyards. Pixar films contain a complex, nuanced, philosophical and political essence that, when viewed across the company’s complete corpus, begins to emerge with some clarity.

Buried within that constant and complex goodness is a hidden message...

What if I told you they were preparing us for the future? What if I told you Pixar’s films will affect how we define the rights of millions, perhaps billions, in the coming century? Only by analyzing the collection as a whole can we see the subliminal concept being drilled into our collective mind...

An entire generation has been reared with the subconscious seeds of these ideas planted down deep. As history moves forward and technology with it, these issues will no longer be the imaginings of films and fiction, but of politics and policy. But Pixar has settled the personhood debate before it arrives. By watching our favorite films, we have been taught that being human is not the same as being a person. We have been shown that new persons and forms of personhood can come from anywhere....

A generation raised with "subconscious seeds of these ideas planted down deep." I couldn't agree more. This article may or may not be correct about Pixar, but I think the assumptions about media and entertainment are true.

Every song is a sermon.
Every movie is a message.

Though He Slay Me

2011-10-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Andree Seu, whose writing I have enjoyed for years, has another stellar article in the October 22 issue of World magazine. Here are some exerpts from “Not Turning Back.”

“Scott and Janet Willis lost six children in a single day when a piece of metal fell off a truck and punctured the gas tank of their minivan…

By the ball of fire that consumed their minivan on Interstate 94, Scott…said to his wife…the best words he could have said: ‘It was very quick. And they’re with the Lord now…’

Surrounded by emergency responders, Janet kept praying out, ‘I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth,;’ with the accent on ‘will.’ I believe it is the same way Jesus must have cried to His Father, ‘I will put my trust in Him’ (Hebrews 2:13), not from a lotus position, but in torment…”

I was talking with a friend recently who asked: “If I pray and ask God to help, but I don’t really have confidence that He will, is it still faith?” My response: “The fact that you asked God to intervene in a situation that you acknowledged was beyond your control is an act of faith. When the Roman centurion said ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief,’ Jesus did not berate him. Jesus blessed him."
I wonder if prayers offered during stormy days of doubt don’t honor God more than prayers tossed lightly toward heaven during sunny days of ease.
Back to the article…

“Gone is my ability ever to say that the Lord does not expect us to praise Him at all times….Banished are my quid pro quos, the restrictions I put on God’s discipline unawares; the time limits I set Him for pulling rescue out of affliction; the lines I would not let Him cross; the right I reserved to judge His justice.. The Willises have placed their stake here: ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him’ (Job 13:15).

‘Sing, O barren one, who did not bear’ (Isaiah 54:1). A command to sing at such a time would be cruel counsel if it were not true that in worship we find deliverance… Praise in the face of devastation releases blessings obtainable in no other way…

What a privilege to meet someone [the Willises] to whom the Lord has entrusted so much suffering.”

And if that’s not a life-changing way to view trials, I don’t know what is.

Slouching Towards Halloween

2011-10-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

I need to give some background before I weigh in on Halloween. Context matters.

As a child, I was raised in a Christian community that did not observe Halloween at all. We might have given something to oddly arrayed children on our doorstep, but we never dressed up, never went out, and tried to do our best not to support the holiday. I didn't really care; my mom didn't give us kids candy anyway.

As a young adult, I learned a lot about the holiday from people who had done more than dabble in the occult. Whatever you might think of the legitimacy of their attempts to connect with the dark side, they were pretty serious about what they hoped to accomplish, and Halloween was their Christmas and Easter rolled into one. They told very dark stories about what happened during this holiday, the kind that keep you up at night.

As an older adult, I have moved out of that community and come in contact with a lot of other sincere Christians who view Halloween as just another holiday. I have revisited my long held opinions over the years, and while I have not changed much in my opinions, I have realized there are at least two ways Christians view Halloween that are strikingly different, but solidly supportable.

1) The Bible says that, because of Christ, death and the grave have lost their sting. Any victory they have over people is temporary and hollow. The Bible also says that while Satan is like a devouring lion, he is nothing in the face of the power of God. To some Christians, Halloween is a time to mock the hollow power of the grave, to laugh in the face of death. Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal; why can't modern day prophets mock the false idols and gods of our culture too? The only thing the Bible tells us to fear is God, and if we can't laugh in the face of death and the grave, then we don't understand the power of God. Sure, people dress up in the costumes of the denizens of evil...so why not dress up like Cinderella and trivialize the impact of the dark? Evil's power is felt most strongly when it control us; why not take the one holiday that celebrates evil and make fun of its attempt to be so macho and scary? We are the people of light; we ain't afraid of no ghosts!

2) The supernatural world is very real, and the the realm of darkness is dangerous and destructive. God is a God of creation, order, goodness, life and light; evil promotes chaos, destruction, death and darkness. Halloween trivializes the seriousness of the stakes. It's one think to mock evil's false pretense; it's quite another to join the celebrations in which we scare ourselves and mimic the things that we know to be wrong with the world. We get upset when the the Easter Bunny and marshmallow peeps distract people at Easter, because there is a real message that goes with Easter, an underlying truth of eternal significance. We get upset at the commercialization of Christmas, because it distorts or obscures a message the needs to be heard. And yet at Halloween, we contribute to the trivialization of a reality that ought not be made silly - and certainly not celebrated.

There are middle ground positions, but I think that captures the poles. I have friends who defend both sides with equal vigor and capability. My point is not to tell you which one is the right one (though I suspect you know where I stand). If you observe Halloween differently than I do, more power to ya'. Just don't gloss over the fact that our decision ought to be well informed and purposeful.

As a postscript, here's my short list of reality checks:

1) If you believe in the supernatural world, you cannot just say, "Oh, it's only fun and games and dress up. Lighten up." You have to grapple with the fact that it is the one holiday that highlights the entropy and chaos in the world. You may end up legitimately choosing either of the above approaches, but you can't do it lightly.

2) It is the holiday that gets the most overtly destructive responses from people (see here, and here, here, here, and here). When killing cats, committing arson, and just in general making law enforcement buckle up are things that logically follow from the holiday, something is not all right. Here's what you get in Canada:

56% — The proportion of all criminal incidents reported during Hallowe'en 2006 that were violations against property.

18% — The proportion of all criminal incidents reported during Hallowe'en 2006 that were violations against the person.

11% — The percentage increase in Other Criminal Code violations such as weapons-related offences, public morals and disturbing the peace reported during Hallowe'en 2006 compared to a week earlier (i.e. October 24, 2006).

38% — The percentage increase in violent offences such as robbery, aggravated assault, assaults causing bodily harm and assaults against police officers reported during Hallowe'en 2006 compared to a week earlier (i.e. October 24, 2006).

22% — The percentage increase in property violations, including general mischief and arson reported to police during Hallowe'en 2006 compared to a week earlier (i.e. October 24, 2006).

Feeling Like A Train Wreck

2011-10-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

Great article from Boundless.org on issue of grief and loss:

Like anyone grieving a loss, I felt like a train wreck at times. Why hadn't we gotten our miracle? Everyone kept saying we would. What went wrong? I needed my mom. Didn't God understand that?

I've learned that grieving does not have a time frame; it's more of a day-by-day process and can be done as long as needed.

Someone told me not to grieve – "She's in heaven; you should rejoice." But a deep connection had been severed. I couldn't help but cry. Some days I couldn't stop crying. Sometimes when I would try to confide in others about how I was feeling, they would change the subject, almost as if they were afraid of the subject of grief or didn't want to bring me any more pain. I felt alone at times.

But again God never left my side.

Photoshopping My Life

2011-10-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

I went hiking on the Boardman River Saturday evening with my mom and two of my boys. Since the peak of the color tour passed about two weeks ago, I wasn't really expecting much from Mother Nature, so I was pleasantly surprised when the autumn colors sprang out from unexpected places. SmartPhone in hand, I hiked and took pictures with the second app I have figured out (Angry Birds was the first one).

When we got home, I uploaded them to iphoto and let Mac do its magic. My mom murmured kind words about my pictures, then said with a hint of sadness, "That's even nicer than it was."

Any you know what? She was right. The pictures make our hike look a lot cooler than it was. I clicked buttons and slid bars until I made a picture that, to a large degree, was not true. The only picture that accurately captured the event was one where Vincent did NOT want his picture taken. When you see his face - that's how it was.

I was on a mission trip once in which a father and daughter were among the group. When I saw photos after the trip, the smiling, affectionate freeze frame put the lie to a trip that was full of tension, avoidance, and drama. I remember thinking, "Hey, at least they have their pictures. I hope it makes up for the trip."

As a Christian, I give allegiance to a worldview that grounds itself in words more than images. "In the beginning was the Word..." Jews eventually became know as People of the Book, and Christianity arose from the soil of language as expression, not image. In fact, the 10 Commandments make clear that God was not interested in His people trying to capture His reality or nature through images. Could it be that God was protecting us from our ability to distort and manipulate reality through the use of images?

The Bible contains lots of beautiful poetic imagery and word pictures to describe God, but that's not the same thing as the actual image. When Jesus incarnated as the express image of God, even that was temporary, not permanent.

That command about images always seemed odd to me, but I'm starting to feel differently. Is it possible that the Bible (and by extension, God) stresses the importance of words to capture history and history's God because both the power and the frailty of images are greater than that of words? Sure, images move us - one of them is worth 1,000 words, I suppose - but that great blessing can also be a great curse.

For the record, I love the fact that my hike with mom is recorded in pictures. If nothing else, the pictures will keep her life close to me even though the moment is passed.

But I will also remember, whenever I see the pictures, that the day was not quite that sunny, and the colors not quite that bright, and the lake not quite so blue.... and wonder what else about my life I have not remembered truthfully, and why real life is so bland to me that I must photoshop it to treasure it.

Roller Coaster Rides and Horror Shows

2011-10-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

   Because of the book publication, I've been asked several times recently what I think about how we handle death. I have responded that we need to be more bold looking at it. We need to not shy away from death, not try to get the viewing and the funeral over as quickly as we can. So many other cultures (throughout history and now) have stopped the course of life when someone died. People didn't just go back to work Monday. People didn't just reenter the flow of life as if nothing but a blip had occurred.
   People mourned in a way that disrupted their life. Something had changed; it could not be minimized or ignored. Someone who mattered could not longer be spoken to, and hugged, and experienced. Life stopped for a bit; history slowed down; the universe felt the loss of even one person.
   Perhaps it is a reflection of a society where human life has been trivialized and economized and naturalized that we barely have time to stop for death, an event that simply doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things. We are all atoms in motion, chemicals in a bag, in a universe of blind, pitiless indifference.
   So I was heartened to read this in a recent article at First Things:

Death in times past was not necessarily less tragic to those who lost loved ones, but death was more prevalent, more public, more visible, and more a natural part of life than it is today. Our society is truly death-denying. Fitness centers, alternative medicines, an endless supply of diets are the order of the day. Consumers want the fountain of youth. You may object, of course, that death is all around us. The news and the movies are filled with death. But I suggest that this phenomenon itself is a further sign of a death-denying society. Death has become so commonplace as to be unreal. We can ignore death because it happens to others and not to us, or it is simply pretend. We can gloss over real fear with pretend fear. This is why people ride roller-coasters and go to horror shows.

Preach it. The life of pretend is for children, or for Peter Pan, but not for men and women who have grown up and seen the world for what it is.

No Alabi

2011-10-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

   I was reminded this week of how important it is to remember that I am a sinner saved by the grace of God.
   I have to start with a correct diagnosis: I would have done what Adam did; I contribute to the problem of the world; the sickness is myself.
   It is only then I can move on to the beauty of grace. A cure can only be truly appreciated when the diagnosis is clear. The diabetic who does not know he is diabetic neither searches for nor appreciates insulin. The diabetic who knows how dire is health is desires it, and embraces it. Insulin gives him life.
   I don't want to be the kind of guy who does not know that I am sick, because I want to be the kind of man who desired and embraces the cure.
   Here's they lyrics to go with the classic from Rez Band (in the video at the top of the post).

I was wrong from the start

Selfishness stubborn pride

Caught in sin's reckless ways

Self-deceived, cold inside

Sending messages of need

But I couldn't seem to leave

Silent stories wrapped in me

Oh I needed to be free

No excuse, no reply

No defence, ne reasons why

No alibi

How I needed Your gace

How I needed Your forgiveness

What I'd done I could not erase

How I needed Your deliverance

I could not return to You

Not until I faced the truth

To be honest, to be real

To give up this heart of steel

Why Behavior Matters

2011-10-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

In the ongoing interest of looking at life honesty, it is worth noting the current debate over how to best treat the AIDS epidemic around the world. From The Greening of AIDS Prevention:

" If our aim is to reduce HIV infection rates (and that’s a big “if”), then why are we so reluctant to talk about partners’ being faithful to one another, or to mention the dreaded A-word, abstinence (which was known in Uganda as “delaying sexual debut”)? Why do we restrict ourselves to drugs and devices (such as condoms)...

HIV rates are declining in most of the world, except for our country and our friends in the U.K. and also in other European and Western countries, including, I think, Canada and Australia. Therefore we must be doing something wrong in AIDS prevention both here and in the U.K. (and elsewhere). In both countries, MSM (men who have sex with men) comprise the sub-population with the highest HIV-infection rates. Our prevention strategy is to make gay men knowledgeable about AIDS risks and prevention, and for prevention to be based on condoms and drugs. There is little or no attention given to influencing behavior in the direction of greater caution."

I'm posting this not because I want to harp on sex, but because I get frustrated that honest discussion about issues such as AIDS gets ignored when it infringes on our lives. If it's true, it matters, no matter what the topic.

2011-10-12T14:11:00.000-07:00

WTCM AM 580 was kind enough to do an interview with me about the book. Thanks, Norm Jones and WTCM, for the opportunity! And if you live close to Traverse City, you are welcome to come to the Good Work Collective on Union Street on Monday, October 17, from 6:00 to about 7:30 pm. I have asked a number or area organizations that offer helpful services to those in grief to help sponsor a book release event. As I believe grief recovery is best done holistically, I have invited organizations that can help people spiritually (Church of the Living God, Traverse City Christian School), mentally and emotionally (Forest Lakes Counseling, Pine Rest, Michael's Place, and Peace Ranch), and physically (Aurora Physical Therapy, Great Lakes Clinical Massage, and TC Total Crossfit). Throughout the evening you will be able to get to know the organization and the representatives, as well as learn a little more about the book.
Grief is universal; everybody grieves. This evening will look at that grief honestly, then point the way toward the hope that we all can find.

When Jesus Smells Like Freshly Baked Bread

2011-10-11T14:05:00.000-07:00

From a great interview with N.D. Wilson at Kingdom People:

"Imagine being taken over to some family’s home and being told in advance that this family had really tapped into a deeper and truer and more beautiful way of relating to each other. But then, when the front door opens, all you smell are stale socks and a little pyramid of cat poo that’s lurking in the corner. The smell itself is already an argument against everything you’ve been told about these people, and anything they might have to say to you. But imagine if that door opens and you get hit with the smell of baking bread–you are now prepared to react differently. This is not to say that the wonderful smell establishes truth all on its own, but it is a testifying witness.

And this issue goes a lot further than mere pragmatic examples of efficacy in persuasion. If we Christians have the truth, and that truth is beautiful – more beautiful than any other message or religion out there – and then we present it in stammering, clumsy, irreverent, or ugly ways, well, we’re hypocrites. We’re living unfaithfully to the Truth. But if we live in a state of celebration and joy and gratitude, and if our words and our art and our presentations of that truth hit people like the smell of baking bread, then we’re getting somewhere."

Too many times I have heard the phrase: "I just have to speak the truth about Jesus. If it's offensive, that's not my fault." Sometimes that's true: the message of the Cross can be a hurdle all on its own. But what if it is your fault? What if the Truth is obscured by the ugliness of your presentation, or maybe just the dullness, or just the lack of a concerted effort to know what you believe and why?

Claiming the right to be offensive can be an excuse to avoid the hard work of self-examination. It's a way to dodge the possibility that the messenger might sometimes obscure or distort the message. Nobody wants to think they have boarded up or dirtied the window through which people would see Christ. Nobody wants to think the hurdles on the road to the cross were placed there by them.

It's hard to see yourself accurately, but the Kingdom of God is not for the timid. You have to be strong to see yourself for who you are at, and you have to be ready to do the hard work of becoming something new.

On the other hand.... If you have ever met someone who knows how to blend the Truth of Christ with the beauty of their life, you know you have been in the presence of a true disciple.

Article in the Record-Eagle

2011-10-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Traverse City Record-Eagle, for doing a story on my book. I had a great conversation with Marta (the staff writer) last Wednesday at Good Harbor, and she did a nice job encapsulating an hour and fifteen minute conversation into the article.

Holy Instability

2011-10-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

First, a quote from this article in Christianity Today:

We can stop pretending God is nice, as if it's his job to make our lives well-adjusted or religious or even spiritual. Jesus did not say he came to give us happiness, only blessedness. He did not promise an easy life, only an abundant one. He doesn't call us to be religious or spiritual, but to love God and love others. We can save ourselves a lot of grief if we recognize that up front.

This means at least two things: (1) He's not going to spare us from heartache, suffering, and chaos. (2) He's actually going to bring heartache, suffering, and chaos into our lives sometimes.

We hear about the first often, and we've been rightly told that when evil embeds itself in our lives through death or disease or destruction that the truths of the gospel remain: God is still Emmanuel, with us. He is, even in the worst circumstances, taking that worst thing, like he took the death of his Son, and turning it into something redemptive. It's only a matter of time.

But the biblical picture shows us that sometimes God doesn't merely react to the evil chaos in our lives, he sometimes creates what might be called holy chaos. Like he did to the Pharisees. And to Peter. And to Paul. And to the disciples at Pentecost. He does things in our lives that leave us confused and bewildered for a time.

In this, too, we are wise to remember that God is still Emmanuel, with us. In this case, he's not merely using chaos, he is instilling a holy chaos into our lives."

I'm still wrapping my mind around a God who not only allows, but sometimes brings holy disruption. It's...unsettling...but would I really want it any other way? "Jesus: The God Who Coddles" is hardly a tagline that promotes allegiance.

Here's an analogy. I go to a gym that uses instability as a training tool. They don't use machines at all; in fact, they try to destabalize as many moves as is safely possible so as to engage as many muscles as possible. If you're going to work out, why not do it right? It works; the results for their clients are impressive. It's not a gym that coddles, but it's a gym that makes athletic men and women out of boys and girls.

I want a God who destabalizes as many moves in my life as is safely possible. If I'm going to ask Him to make me strong, why not do it right? And when, in the end, when we see how Jesus made spiritual men and women out of boys and girls, we will give Him the praise He deserves.

How Could I Not Have Remembered?

2011-10-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

From a recent, unpublished journal entry:

The family reunion in June 2011 presented an event both anticipated and dreaded: the first Weber reunion service for dad, grandpa, and my cousin’s child who had died shortly after birth several months before.

When we gathered Saturday night, it was the first time at a family reunion that I remember people openly crying. Aunts and uncles shared poignant stories about dad’s final months. We revisited fond memories of Grandpa, and talked about the memories we wish we could have made with my cousin’s child.

I felt sad, but solid. Hurting, but healthy. After so many years, I seemed to have found my long sought peace.

Until I saw the pictures.

My mom had assembled a photo album spanning dad’s life, including the final months. My uncle Calvin handed it to me and said, very quietly and carefully, “Have you seen these?” I hadn’t – or at least I didn’t remember seeing them before.

A ghost stared back at me from those pages; dad had been a wraith at the end of his life, a scarecrow covered with cancer-strained skin. This could not have been my dad. This was not how I remembered him.

The whole world seemed to shift. The moment was surreal, and even as I write about it I can’t fully explain what I mean. I thought briefly that I was hallucinating. I blinked, looked away, looked back, but the pictures had not changed. My dad had been one of the walking dead.

How could I not have remembered?

I picked up the album and walked out of the room. I found an empty stairwell, sat down, and sobbed and stared for a long time. This time, I looked at all those final pictures carefully. I had dodged them once – no worse, I’m pretty sure I had seen them and blocked them from my memory. After all my complaining about how other people buried the memory of my dad, I had done the same thing.

I wouldn’t do it again. I wanted to see them honestly this time. I soaked them in through my tears, absorbing them as best I could.

When I was done, I stopped Vincent from bouncing off a wall and said, “Let’s go for a walk, bud.” I missed my Dad more than I had in years; I needed to spend time with my son. I needed to build a memory of a strong, healthy dad for my impressionable youngest boy. Vincent laughed, and talked, and eventually made me carry him as we walked through the shuttered, late night downtown of Berea, Kentucky for an hour and a half. I needed the darkness. I’d had enough light for one day.

But when I returned to the light streaming from the windows of our reunion site, Vincent riding my shoulders triumphantly, I walked through the door to find a game of Scrabble, and deliciously fattening late night snacks, and a fantastic family, and the soft laughter and gentle smiles of those who have learned that the good moments in life are meant for enjoyment, and the bad moments in life will one day pass, and that while we may all seek the darkness at times to cover our frailty and hide out tears, the light will always beckon us back to life.

No, I'm not alright

2011-10-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

   I just bought Switchfoot's new CD, and I suspect there will be more than one post that results from this.
   Whether it was purposeful or not, the CD follows a story arc. The first song is the anthem of hope ("I still believe we can live forever..."), and the last song is a rallying cry for everyone who wants more from this life ("I've tasted fire - I'm ready to come alive.") In between are 10 songs about the challenges and struggles of ordinary life.
   "Thrive" caught my attention this week. I have found that I am at my worst when I think I'm okay, but I'm at my best when I know I'm not. There's plenty of analogies. Sports players who think they have arrived are a nightmare to coach; husbands who think their wives have no idea the quality man they have are the biggest jerks; the friend who thinks they know everything about a topic are the most obnoxious to talk to.
   The best kid to coach is the one who thinks has nothing to offer, but wants to make a difference. The best husband is the one who knows that the love his wife has to offer is necessarily full of grace and forgiveness; the best friend is the one who's humility permeates his approach to life.
   Here's the chorus of "Thrive":

No I'm not alright

I know that I'm not right

A steering wheel don't mean you can drive

A warm body don't mean I'm alive

No I'm not alright...

We live in a culture that fills us with the message of self-esteem. I'm not convinced that is the answer to the problems that plague us. There is something freeing about being able to say, "You know what? I'm not okay. I'm flawed, I'm tired. I'm not good enough." This seems counterintuitive, but how can we find the cure for what ails us if we don't recognize the problem? We tend to look all around us for the cause of our loneliness, our unhappiness, our depression, then assume the cure needs to be offered to others.

But of course, if we are the problem - if "the sickness is myself" - well, that's an entirely different person who needs a cure.

"Thrive" ends on a different note:

I get so down but I won't give up,
I get slowed down but I won't give up...

I want to thrive, not just survive.

To thrive - to really be healthy - we must be honest enough to look at ourselves and understand our need for a cure - and a Savior. Only then do we thrive. Only then do we become truly alive.

A Love That Lets You Die

2011-09-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

Thank, Greg Koukl, for blogging about this. I'm not a lock-step follower of John Piper, but his perspective on pain and suffering is not only solid, it's thoroughly biblical. In a recent sermon, he noted this:

"“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Therefore [because of this love], when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” He did not hurry to his side.... How is that love? John has gone out of his way to set this up. Jesus loves them... Therefore, he does not heal him but lets him die. Why is this love?

Jesus... said in verse 4: “This illness does not lead to death [in other words, the point is not death]. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” This illness will turn out for the glory of God, and the glory of the Son of God. This illness will put the glory of God on display. It will make Jesus look amazing.

Therefore (verse 6) love lets him die. Love lets him die because his death will help them see, in more ways than they know, the glory of God.

So what is love? What does it mean to be loved by Jesus? Love means giving us what we need most. And what we need most is not healing, but a full and endless experience of the glory of God. Love means giving us what will bring us the fullest and longest joy. And what is that? What will give you full and eternal joy? The answer of this text is clear: a revelation to your soul of the glory of God—seeing and admiring and marveling at and savoring the glory [of] God in Jesus Christ. When someone is willing to die—or let your brother die—to give you (and your brother) that, he loves you."

Here is the potential soundtrack for this sermon from Jon Foreman:

A Countercultural View of Marriage

2011-09-27T18:57:00.000-07:00

In a blog committed to honesty about life, this needs to be said: We should be encouraging Christian young people to get married sooner rather than later.

   There is a fascinating and depressing article out that you can read here on that very issue. Since you can read it there, I'm not going to repeat it. Instead, I offer the following to go with the article.

1) For most of human history, people got married young. Sometimes it was out of economic necessity, or it was an arranged marriage or the brokering of a treaty. I'm not saying it was always ideal. I'm just saying that was the reality. In the past 100 years alone, the average age of marriage in men has risen two years for men and 4 years for women.

2) The age of puberty is much younger now than it used to be. In other words, children through most of human history were entering into sexual curiosity and maturity at a later date - sometimes much later. There is a lot of speculation as to why girls in particular are entering puberty at increasingly young ages, (the average age is 9.7 years now) but nobody disagrees with the fact that they are.

3) Historically, the struggle for Christians who wanted to have sex but had no biblically appropriate way to express this urge was usually short-lived. In Bible times, women were entering puberty at 13-14 and boys at 14-15, and getting married usually before they were 20. True love did not have to wait long.
   In other words, there was a moral sexual outlet available for most people not long after the onset of sexual desire; the issue was not on whether or not to have sex, but to stay focused on the "wife of your youth" as Proverbs puts it for the men, with the corresponding "husband of your youth" for the women.

   So fast forward to the 21st century, where the average age of puberty has now dropped to around 8 for girls, and pornography is available 24/7, and every song on the radio seems to celebrate the "booty call," and our idols live a life on Jersey Shore that celebrates a mind-boggling amount of promiscuity, and the overall cultural message of "choice" permeates EVERYTHING, to the point that a postmodern generation has a very, very difficult time committing to anything, while at the same time being told they should experience everything...

   And we, the church, say.... "Wait as long as you want to get married! Start a career. Follow your heart. Be sure you are financially ready. Date for years and years if you need to. Oh, and don't have sex or even mess around or watch anything with skin showing."

   I have been saying this for years: that's a terribly, terribly contradictory message. We have bought into the culture of choice, then wonder why our youth choose badly; we believe that self-determination and personal ambition is more important that commitment and self-sacrificial community, then wonder why people are so selfish; we have bought into the cultural lie that marriage stifles freedom and creativity, then wonder why no one wants to get married anymore; we have absorbed the mindset that the financial, physical and emotional drain of children can't possibly be a satisfactory replacement for the privilege of being adult adolescents, then wonder why our kids won't give us grandkids. We are so afraid that our children will marry badly that we encourage a life trajectory that ends just as badly more often than not.

   My wife married me when she was 18. I was 21. I wasn't out of college; we were broke and naive about a lot of things. But my parent's said, "If you're going to get married, get married." Good call.

The Stars Are Holding You Tonight

2011-09-25T12:54:00.000-07:00

“I remember the time you told me about when you were eight

And all those things you said that night that just couldn't wait

I remember the car you were last seen in, and the games we would play

All the times we spilled our coffees and stayed out way too late

I remember the time you sat and told me about your Jesus

And how not to look back even if no one believes us

When it hurt so bad sometimes not having you here, I sing…

Tonight I’ve fallen and I can't get up…”

The lead singer of FM Static, Trevor McNevan (who is also with TFK), wrote this in memory of his brother, who died young. I love how the chorus simultaneously captures the crushing weight of grief and loss ("I've fallen and I can't get up") as well as the hope that gets us through ("the stars are holding you").

It reminds me of another song about stars from Switchfoot that highlights a much broader human condition, and hints at a much deeper solution.

“Stars looking at a planet, watching entropy and pain

And maybe start to wonder how the chaos in our lives could pass as sane

I've been thinking about the meaning of resistance, of a hope beyond my own

And suddenly the infinite and penitent begin to look like home

I've been thinking about everyone - everyone, you look so empty…

But when I look at the stars…I see someone else”

"It's Probably Something You Did"

2011-09-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

"One of my favorite things to tell a child is if it’s raining that God is crying. And if they ask why I tell them it’s probably something you did. " ~ Deep Thoughts with Jack Handy.

Statements based on misconceptions about God can be amusing, especially on Saturday Night Live. But when adults hold the same distorted views, there can be trouble.

It's very disheartening to know that whenever a major "act of God" happens, an adult follower of Christ will show up on some news show and say the equivalent of what Jack Handy said. But it's not funny anymore, because the speakers are not cute kids or comedy sketch professionals. They are people who see natural disasters and genuinely think the best thing to say to the victims is, “It’s probably something you did.”

What we think about God has in impact on what we think about the world. If our view of God is flawed, our understanding of the world will be flawed.

Baylor University did an extensive study on the connection between a person’s view of God and how they live their life. The conclusion: "You learn more about people's moral and political behavior if you know their image of God than almost any other measure. It turns out to be more powerful a predictor of social and political views than the usual markers of church attendance or belief in the Bible." The primary reason for a person’s position on "hot button" issues was not socio-economic status, or level of education or church attendance of belief in the Bible. It was a person’s view of God.

We spend a LOT of time lobbying, and writing letters, and facebooking, and emailing, and calling, and spending money to influence how people think about cultural issues. If Baylor's study is correct, we are completely missing the point.

If we, the people of God, could understand and represent God accurately, perhaps all these other issues would fall into place.

WLJN interview, 9/21/11

2011-09-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

After 42 years of NOT being on the radio, I had two book interviews in 3 days. Thanks, WTCM FM and WLJN. Here is a video of the interview with WLJN today (really, it's just the audio with some pics in the background so it doesn't get too boring. But it might get boring anyway...)

Fear

2011-09-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

I have a lot more yet to understand about the importance of fearing God, but right now I’m here: All of us will fear something – it’s part of our human nature on this side of heaven.

I have a friend who fears unhappiness, and he cannot find peace until he feels happy. So when he is not careful, he reveres or worships happiness, and he tries to keep the Commandments of the Happy: Thou shalt never be bored; thou shalt never never do stuff you don’t want to. And when he feels unhappy, he fears unhappiness even more, and tries to hold to these false commandments even harder. Happiness is hard taskmaster.

I have a friend who fears being defined by others, so she reveres or worships self-definition (authenticity) and keeps the Commandments of the Self-Defined: Thou shalt do what you want. Thou shalt not care what others think you should do. Thou shalt self-express and discover yourself no matter what the cost. And when she feels defined or trapped by others, she fears even more, and tries even harder to keep the Commandments of the Self-defined.

What do you most long for – what do you revere and worship - and what are the commandments you keep?

Do you fear poverty? The commandments of the rich control you. In Wall Street we trust, and we panic when we lose a AAA rating, as if that rating will make our lives good.

Do you fear loneliness? The commandments of the Noticed control you. Reality TV is easy to make fun of, but a lot of people who don’t get on TV will do anything to be seen.

Do you fear sickness? The commandments of health gurus control you. I am astonished at how we follow fad after fad for one less wrinkle and an extra year of life.

If you fear these things, you will obey the commands of the moneymakers, the attention-grabbers, the health gurus, and they will fail you.

There is only one thing we can fear that can also save us, and that’s God. The very things that can scare us – His power, His holiness, His purity, His Presence- are the only things that can give us ultimate hope.

Ancient advice still rings true: “What does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Dueteronomy 10:12)

The Childlike Hunger of Grief

2011-09-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

I attended the National Writer's Series at the Opera House in Traverse City tonight and met Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers (among many other books). The book is a certainly a dig at the Left Behind crowd (the leftovers are people who remain after a Rapture-like event), but that's just the backdrop for a story about grief.
   As the evening progressed, two main thoughts struck me.
   One, Mr. Perrotta and I are very different when it comes to our view of God, faith, religion, and social issues, though he was very tactful when talking about people and beliefs with whom he disagrees.
   Second, grief unites us in spite of our differences, and (I suspect) with more meaningful bonds than happiness.  Let me explain.
   He writes the following about a daughter whose mother disappeared:

"For a long time after she left, Jill found herself overwhelmed by a childlike hunger for her mother's presence. She missed everything about the woman, even the things that used to drive her crazy - her off key singing, her insistence that whole-wheat pasta tasted just as good as the regular kind, her inability to follow the story line of even the simplest TV show. ..Spasms of wild longing would strike out of nowhere...leaving her dazed and weepy...She eventually stopped crying herself to sleep, stopped writing long, desperate letters asking her mother to please come home..."

On the next page:

"These days, the only time Jill consistently missed her mother was first thing in the morning, when she was still half-asleep, unreconciled to the new day. It just didn't feel right, coming down for breakfast and not finding her at the table in her fuzzy gray robe, no one to hug her and whisper 'Hey, sleepyhead...'"

A father whose son disappeared notes an unusual event:

"One night, my son came to me in a dream. You know how sometimes you see people in dreams, and it's not really them, but somehow it is them? Well, this wasn't like that. This was my son, clear as day..."

   I get all three of those examples. They resonate with me. The "childlike hunger" for my dad's presence after he died, wanting to hug him like Vincent hugs me now; the empty loneliness in the ordinary moments of life; the dreams that are real. I've been there.

   If Tom had written a clever story about laughter while rafting down a river, I would have felt connected with him to some degree, but not like I did. Good times are good - thus the label - but hard times are cohesive in ways good times aren't. When I talked with him in the book signing line, I discovered we both have lost fathers. Ahh, that explains it. In spite of very different lives, we have shared the "childlike hunger" and the ordinary moments of loss, and the dreams.

   I was thinking on the drive home that my best friendships have been forged through the furnace of grief and hardship. The friends who never seem far away are the ones whose lives intertwined with mine when the going was tough. Tim, who cried with me (and I with him) when our lives hit some rough spots; Clint, who gave a lot of money, time and friendship when my Dad died; Don, who lost a brother to cancer and allowed me into his spiritual journey in the aftermath; Ben, who helped me through a breakdown before I walked with him through his tumor.... the list goes on.

   I wonder if that's why Jesus was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3). If we are looking for a God with whom to identify in the midst of life's struggles, we don't need a laughing Savior. We are not looking for the assurance that God understands our lives when we are at a party, or enjoying a sunrise, or enjoying a solid meal with friends. A Jesus who was a "man of laughter, acquainted with happiness" would be good - and he certainly laughed and was happy - but if that was our primary memory of his life here, would we really turn to him when the bottom drops out?

   When we "bear each others burdens" (Galatians 6:2) - when we weep with those who weep - we fulfill the law of Christ, which means we love God and others (Matthew 22:37). And that's a good thing.

Job and Suffering

2011-09-14T03:52:00.000-07:00

   I've always been under the impression that Job's friends were idiots. I have usually skimmed their speeches because Job said they were wrong, and because God rebukes them in the end. So I was surprised yesterday when I was reading the first speech to Job and thinking, "This sounds pretty good, actually." I felt a little...unsettled. Job's response didn't help. Job didn't say "You speak falsely." Job's response is basically, "This does not apply to me."
   "Right message, wrong crowd" is very different from, "False message in any crowd." I've finished the first round of speeches, and so far I'm observing that Job's friends are correct in what they actually say in a broad, general sense (as in, they are speaking true proverbs and maxims about God and life that usually apply) but the distortions creeps in in what they don't say. They have seen God, but not clearly. They understand part of God, which is very different from understanding all of God.

   From a Christianity Today article on Job and his friends:

Where then did Job's three friends go wrong? They reduced all evil to "retributive suffering," which is caused by sin and disobedience to God. But there are seven other types of suffering mentioned in the Bible: educational or disciplinary suffering as in Proverbs 3:11 or Hebrews 12:5-6; vicarious suffering, as in the case of our Lord's death on the cross; empathetic suffering, where one person's grief affects many others, as Isaiah 63:9 illustrates; evidential or testimonial suffering, as in the first two chapters of Job; doxological suffering for the glory of God, as in the man born blind in John 9; revelational suffering, as in the case of the prophet Hosea's wife abandoning him; and apocalyptic or eschatological suffering that will come at the end of this age.

While we cannot deny that the issue of suffering in the lives of God's people, such as Job, still contains a good deal of mystery, it is just as much a horrible misconception to declare that suffering is God's normal route for every believer as it is to declare that God's goodness means life will always result in prosperity and riches for those who serve the Lord.

America's Idol; China's Revival

2011-09-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

The BBC has noted an interesting development in China. The rise of capitalism is driving Chinese young people away from not only Marxism, but also away from community and family. The Chinese societal structure is rocking, and oddly enough, Christianity is the beneficiary:

For the young, in the stampede to get rich, trust in institutions, between individuals, between the generations, is breaking down. As one of China's most eminent philosophers of religion - Professor He Guanghu, at Renmin University in Beijing put it to me: "The worship of Mammon… has become many people's life purpose. I think it is very natural that many other people will not be satisfied... will seek some meaning for their lives so that when Christianity falls into their lives, they will seize it very tightly."

I have written before about the dangers of capitalism's siren call. Odysseus lashed himself to the mast so he wouldn't give in to the song of deception; we download it in our ipods and use it as a soundtrack for our lives. I love the free market system, don't get me wrong, but as an economic system it has it flaws. Capitalism does not equal godliness, as we so often conclude. What lesson should we Western Christians take away from what is happening in China? We embrace capitalism as the proper economic way for Christians to express themselves and use their money; in China, that very same economic principle is driving people to Christ because they are empty and disconnected.

Hmmmmm. Either the Chinese Christians or the American Christians don't understand the spiritual implications of capitalism. I'm going with us.

Agony and Joy

2011-09-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

   I grow weary of trite answers to the problems and challenges of life. Everyone experiences pain; is it so hard to acknowledge that is just part of the reality of life on this side of heaven? So much time and energy is spent trying to dodge the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," when maybe all we need to do is focus on the one who with us through those valleys and shadows.
   A quote from a great post from Holly Ordway:

   "What a scandal it is, that the God of the Universe would condescend to be born in human flesh and suffer in body, mind and spirit – to experience our joys and our pains, and to die like us! Who would ever have thought that this would be how God would resolve our problem of suffering – not from outside, but by entering into it?

This is not a neat, tidy philosophical answer that ties up all the loose ends. This is a messy answer. And it is the only answer that holds up to the weight of our pain when we are crushed and broken; it is the only answer that rings true when it is tested in both agony and joy."