Rebound

It’s a new year. 2014. Doubt any of you are surprised. That’s as pessimistic as I’ll get, though, which I know is odd. But last year was so bad, 2014 is a welcome breath of fresh air in comparison.

I know, I know. I’m starting to sound like all the other writers, waxing poetic about how a New Year actually means something new. Changing trends, changing habits, changing people… To hear everyone talk you’d think a “New Year” is an event verging on cataclysmic which brings about miraculous change in people’s lives. Sorry to rain on all y’all’s resolutions, but the New Year doesn’t mean a darn thing.

Know how I know? Because my change started a week and a half prior to the proper New Year. Yes, if change is supposed to come with a “New Year” then my 2014 has been ten days longer than all of yours. It was Christmas Eve for those of you who have started counting backwards.

You see, on that day I was reminded of a solid truth, a truth so powerful that it singlehandedly wiped away all the pain and frustrations of 2013. The truth is that Jesus has always been here.

The context line that led up to this truth was the question, “What has never changed about our candlelight Church service?” You might say, “Sure, that’s obvious,” but that would be avoiding the truth.

I can’t help but imagining a rope, tied up to the dock and stretching off into the darkness. It’s like I forgot what that rope led to, and that on Christmas Eve someone grabbed that rope and pulled. Suddenly the point of a humongous vessel appears out of the dark, drifting your way, and you realize that this truth is far, far too large to be ignored.

That’s where I was at Christmas Eve. Jesus has always been here! This truth doesn’t just apply to that service, or the day following. IT IS EVERY DAY! HE IS EVERYWHERE! Jesus has always been HERE.

He is the reason for our being beings! He is the one who gave us years to begin with! Through Him were all things made! Without Him there is no New Year, nor any day to celebrate it! Most importantly of all, Jesus Christ is the only one who effects true change.

Sure, we could argue that point. Some might say they’ve overcome vices through their own willpower, taking up better habits. My short answer to that is that vices are idols and exchanging idols for idols that you or the world have labeled “better habits,” doesn’t qualify as real change. It might benefit society better if you’re doing yoga instead of drinking and driving, but worshiping a workout session instead of a bottle isn’t any better for your soul.

If you think that truth hurts like a ton of bricks, just imagine that titanic of a truth again, tearing out of the darkness, hitting home and rending in two. That’s how I felt on the 24^th of December.

Oddly, it was a kinda good feeling. Knowing Jesus was with me every day of 2013 made me feel great. It also made me feel pretty stupid for not really realizing it until nine days shy of the end of the year.

In a flash I knew I had been thoroughly selfish throughout 2013. The more joyous realization, though, was of how to change for this year. Yes, 2014 will be different. Not because it’s a New Year or because we all try harder, or something like that. 2014 will be different because every day Jesus is here, whether we remember it or not.

I’m pretty sure I’ll remember it this time, though.

Reminisce, Worship, and Hope

I think if one were to step into my brain right now they would be violently ripped away into a swirling vortex of gale-force thoughts. Tomorrow is my anniversary, my first anniversary. It will have been one year to the day since I married the most wonderful woman that I know. It has been a doozy of a year.

Would it do to list the things that made it so? To name a few: miscarriages, the cruel loss of a job, the deaths of friends and several acquaintances… Putting them on paper somehow sterilizes them. It gives them a cold, distant quality.

There is nothing I regret. But if any one of the terrible things that have happened could have been averted I would have leapt at the chance. Sadly, I was not afforded those opportunities. So, it is a time of reminiscence.

I keep having this aching feeling that I should be learning something but for the first time in my life nothing comes to mind. No snappy Sunday-School lesson is fitting. No five minute sermon to put all the pieces together and soothe my soul.

Is it possible to paint a picture of how I feel? Like I’ve been stretched beyond bearing and beaten down to the dust. Like someone has placed a searing hot coal inside my chest and rubbed it up against my heart.

On this eve of my anniversary, though, I was finally given time to sit down, to be alone with God and think. Most importantly, to listen. As ice and snow accumulated outside He gave me a reminder. It was as if He was putting the pieces together Himself. He reawakened a spark of my joy and let me smile again.

I don’t know how to say it, other than the way it was given to me. First, then, this poem that God shared with me.

The Calvinist - John Piper

It reminded me of life and why I’m living it. That God and I made a deal, that I would give Him my life if He would take it from me and use it; that the only thing worth living for is God my Savior, living worship for Him.

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.” – 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

Something else that He brought to mind was a passage my brother shared at Thanksgiving dinner. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in Him.’

“The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid upon him; let him put his mouth in the dust – there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.

“For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love; for He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of man.” – Lamantations 3: 21-33

Finally, a verse He has brought to mind time and again, which never ceases to restore my hope. “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” – 1 John 4:4

Those are my thoughts this anniversary eve. That is my mind as it comes to rest. Life was never promised to be easy. But grounded on the foundation of Jesus, my hope will never die.

Eternal Shore

Is it easy being the only one?

And doing what you could?

Is it knowing that when life is done,

You did what you should.

And when the Hand of Fate comes down,

And life comes apart like glass.

Will the Rock get your renown?

Or will your shadow pass?

Is it easier to venture impossible,

When you believe the Light at the end?

It is easier to free the implausible,

When you know that you shall win.

And then when all fades,

And you see the crystal sea.

When you look into the eyes of Grace,

A reflection you will no longer be.

That instant will find you done

And ease will matter no more.

So take the gifted strength to run

And find that eternal shore.

Three Kinds

Those who dance to The Tune

As the living dead,

Will eat from the spoon

Of any talking head.

And the one who isolates himself

Seeks his own desire.

And he will rue the day

His works are eaten by fire.

But he who knows the Truth

The Truth has set free.

They know Love like no other

And they live purposefully.

Same Old Change

If Hell hath no fury

And humankind forever stand,

If young men weren't invincible

And old men stopped lending a hand.

If women stopped giving children,

And the moon just drifted away.

Would history be repeating?

Or never be the same?

If water took us once

Then fire's turn will come.

And the seam of a theme is given

As we dance to the same old drum.

Whispers of the Human Mind

…If we end up being pessimistic we will become cynical, which is one step away from paralysis.

Black, craggy stone curled upward on either side. There was a sheen to it and the crags were all razor sharp; like the scales of some dreadful, long-dead beast that might have breathed fire or eaten people whole.
The round opening, that the walls curved up around, looked out on miles and miles of faded green and yellow marsh. Thick, gray spirals of smoke drifted listlessly skyward. The stagnant pools far below were black as pitch, filled with the decaying remnants leaves.

Could you stand a look in the mirror?
Would you see what I see from the look back?
How utter joy is in your smile.
But the center of your eye is empty black.

A young man stood before the window. His poise was rigid, his eyes drank in the scene with cold detachment. He wore black. The wind was toying with his hair.
"Hello there!" came a voice behind him. "Enjoying the view?"
"A number of cliched replies come to mind…"
"Try one. See if it gets us anywhere."
"Hmph. What are you doing here, John?"
The other young man leaned against the frame of the opening, careful not to cut himself on the crags. He wore a vest that glittered with golden highlights. "That could work, but my name's not John."
The other sighed and looked at him. "You're the one that started this charade."
"I was expecting you to say something more along the lines of, 'Maybe, but not with you interrupting.'"
"That would have been openly nasty."
"Yes, and openly nasty you cannot be."
This brought a cold smile to the other's lips. "'By the pricking of my thumb, something ironic this ways comes.' Why do you have an umbrella?"
"Just in case. And I know someone once said, 'never trust a man with an umbrella,' but I say, 'fiddle-sticks.'"
"Someone else once said, 'Poets have been strangely silent on the subject of cheese,' but the quote is no more revealing than it is true."
"…You're muddying the waters."
"That's what I'm studying; trying to write a scene."
The boy in gold touched his nose with the tip of his umbrella. "You missed your chance to say something witty about mud, water, rain, and my umbrella."
"Look, I didn't ask you to bother me, okay?"
"So, you're asking me to leave?"
The man in black rubbed his temple. "State the implied and the unrealistic, why don't you?"
"All I'm trying to do is draw you out. Or is that impossible without an 'I-told-you-so,' moment?"
"If I hold forth on something will you leave me be?"
"Do, and we'll see! Respectively, of course."
"Alright. If one finds oneself studying Emerson, they will inevitably end up with either sore eyes or a sore brain. It depends on whether they're studying the individual or his work."
"How disparing and sweeping. What if someone likes Emerson?"
"And some people like taking drugs to make their world more colorful."
"Then what you're attacking is the quality of his work?"
"His drivel you mean. And you asked for it."
"I did, but you didn't deliver. You're quip is too general to attack and too vague to be of any use. It's feel-good, cynical gibberish. It's cute."
"Won't you walk a little faster,
Said Yeats to a gnome.
There's a mathematician close behind us,
And I think he's running home."
The boy in gold popped his umbrella open just in time for a stream of muddy water to come pouring down on it. "And some people called me sheltered. …Stating the obvious and realistic."
The other didn't reply. He was back to gazing out the window. Shaking out his umbrella the boy started away. "Thanks, you've proven my point."
The man in black looked around at him. "At the risk of being called mad? You're bold, fool!"
"No, I'm alive."
And with that, he waltzed off, in a direction the empty, black pupils of the other couldn't fathom.

Passing Messages Through a Glass

In my spare time I envision long tubes of hollow glass hallways, spider-webbing their way along underneath the whispering waves of the ocean. It's a quiet, secret place, full of only the half-remembered echoes of the sounds of the surface. But spare time is as fleeting as spare rooms with wardrobes, or the thoughts of the intensely overactive, multi-tasking, male collegiate population who drink far to much coffee in the morning and sleep far too few hours at night.

I wasn't planning this blog entry, but if I was (say, a week ago) my subject matter would be completely different. Simply put, I would be rejoicing in upcoming new life instead of contemplating its heaviness. But I and my wife have been given heaviness, and I only thank my Lord Jesus that He makes me strong enough to endure. God is good, the only good, and God is wonderful, most likely the only one who is that too, and in Him I rest and weep out the troubles of my soul.

I say that to say we're okay. Don't worry about us. Pray for us, yes! That is dearly appreciated. But don't worry. God has us in His hands.

With that said, it is an interesting mental exercise (at very least) to attempt to identify the specific messages to the soul that are shot in there through your life experiences, your interpersonal interactions, and the strengthening and weakening of your various relationships. What do you really hear when someone critiques you? What is the first reason that pops into your head for any given life experience? Or are you one of those people (I can't even fathom this, really) that believes that there are no whys; that there are just occurrences that either provide advantage or disadvantage? If you are, bless you. Here's a mixed quote for you from two very godless men: "If life is a stage, and we performers, and everything is by choice, nothing by chance…" then each of us have a very specific role to play in the greater scheme of things, and Heaven help the man that doesn't recognize this and pursue finding out what his role is!

Back to those spider-webbing, glass tube hallways. If I'm being honest, the imagery came from an old, awesome game by the name of Riven. I can know this because I've spent a lot of time being way too introspective, wandering around the wardrobe filled spare rooms of my mind if you will. Lots of people wouldn't be able to tell you this connection between inspiration and creative vision, though. Lots of people don't care to know the seeds that have been planted in their own minds or the messages whispered there again and again in one form or another. Lots of people don't want to know because to know would be too painful to bear.

Admitting there is a problem is 90% of the work of solving it.

For me, it's more than a mental exercise. It can be life or death if I let that message land. If I let that idea score home and pierce me through… "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;" - Ephesians 6:16

It is sudden… As I walk the passage of deep blue shadows and only flickering light from my lamp the being is there. It is as black as the rocks that lay outside beneath us, at the very bottom of the ocean. The eyes are hollow, colorless and dead. It pulls back the bow and looses an arrow.
There is only a second. But somehow, I watch for an eternity as the ghastly reflections of the flames off the dart twitch and spit along the rounded glass walls. There is immense relief knowing the missile will never reach me, and intense fear, wondering if it ever will.
The second has passed. I close my eyes and breathe. I feel the impact. It doesn't make it through. The shield is almost bristling, in my inexperienced assessment, but it still held firm. "Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world."
The beast staggers against the wall of the hallway. Black fumes are coming off its left shoulder. I know I got him. "Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world." It is convulsing against the glass. The hissing, horrible whispers fill the hallway. The fumes are putrid, staining the curved ceiling.
"And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you." It dies. There is nothing left except a long, black smear and a foul odor. I move on, breathing deeply once I get past it. Past it. Past…

"Life is made up of passings," is the simple message I hear at the end of this glass hallway. "Do not waste that time that is given with each and every person."

But then the glass shattered. The walls and ceiling and floor, all erupting in and outward in my minds eye. The ocean roared gleefully in, cheerfully washing up and washing away. The sounds of the surface broke through, the gulls were calling over the shore…

Can it ever be adequately described? Waking on the sands, with only half remembered shards of the dream lying around me. The sunlight was in my eyes, a new dawn coming up over that fabulous blue and white ocean spray. The message was still with me, but it was as if the vision had never been. It was only a faded feeling that was going fast; going with the last shades of night.

Will Heaven be that way? I believe so… All of life's sorrows will fade as quickly, and we'll be left basking in the light of the Son.