Lust for Life

It’s funny how as the pace of life speeds up, we as humans slow down to compensate. I’m not sure if this is a good thing, or if it simply complicates the process; but as so many haggard old men and jaded adults tell me: “It is what it is.”

Moving so slowly myself, it’s near impossible for me not to notice this cycle of cause and effect. Over the past two weeks or so everything has become a whirlwind of activity and pine and turkey and driving and Santas. After spending nearly a week straight in my van touring Virginia, haggard seems like a very good word.

Of course we move slower; when faced with a whirlpool or cliff face, you tend to cling onto whatever piece of stable ground is in sight. You don’t want to fall, you don’t want to die. Even humans who have nothing to live for tend to actively avoid situations where their sanity and wellbeing will be tested. We like safe, we like known... even if we don’t know why.

Amid all this transitioning and insanity, around the time when Thanksgiving was transitioning into Advent, Quentin Tarantino began to come up a lot. I really have no idea why. Perhaps it was the release of his 20th anniversary box set containing all his films, or maybe he was just coming up in conversation more naturally... but I suddenly found myself holding conversations about him with my girlfriend, Leslie, and my old film buddy from college, Jeremy.

With Leslie, I expounded on Tarantino’s unique flavor of dialog and tone, and how similar it is in many respects to Flannery O’Connor (which Leslie had just been sharing with me). They both have a very strong ear for conversation and ethnic colloquialisms, and both add sudden spurts of violence to their stories to punctuate themes and ideas.

With Jeremy, I reminisced about the time we had gone to see Tarantino’s WWII epic, Inglourious Basterds in theaters together, not realizing that we were witnessing film history. The movie singlehandedly launched Austrian actor Christoph Waltz’s career, and once again threw Tarantino’s hat in the ring with such filmmakers as James Cameron, the Coen brothers, Peter Jackson and Pete Doctor. Of course, neither of us could ever forget that opening scene.

It was a given that since he came up more in conversation, the films I began to watch in my free time (which I tend to have to much of as of late) we mostly his. I began with Death Proof, then worked my way through Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs, leading up to his masterpieces: the afore mentioned Inglourious Basterds and, of course, Pulp Fiction.

At this point, I realize that a lot of you are wondering where I am going with this, and perhaps even a few are offended by my love for such a “twisted” man as Tarantino. Allow me to explain: As I began to rewatch his films, I also started looking up interviews on Youtube and watching mini-documentaries where he talked about his work. The wild look in his eye might disturb some even more than the gratuitous violence of his films; it suggests that he is either constantly huffing cocaine, or that he had a serious case of untreated ADHD. Whatever the case may be, the wild look in his eye and gregarious gesticulation of his hands always punctuate whatever he says. The man is larger than life, but more than that.... he LOVES life.

And then it hit me, say whatever you want about his films, I want to be more like pointy jawed, foulmouthed, interrupting crazy man. Why, you ask? Because I would bet good money that there is not a day of the year where he wakes up disappointed or clinging to that last bit of solidity the day before. I would bet that each morning when he walks up, he says something to the effect of:

“Hot DAMN it feels good to be alive! Booyah! I get to make movies and hang out with awesome people and it’s totally ******* awesome! You know? I think I’m going to get myself a tasty beverage to wake up!”

His enthusiasm is infectious, and despite the fact that he may be a sub-par filmmaker, I firmly believe that it is his boundless enthusiasm which inspires those that surround him to do their best.

It reminds me of my history and math professors in college. They might not have been the best in the world, and I was most definitely not the best student, but the energy that they exuded in class infected my being. I excelled in those classes, not because the professor cracked a whip over my back, but because he loved what he did.

Anyone can be “good” at what they do, not everyone can LOVE what they do. Take for example the Apostle Peter. Poor Peter was pretty much just bad at life, he backstabbed his friends, he sliced off people’s ears and just made a general fool of himself... but there was something in him that Jesus saw that many others probably did not have: the Love. After Christ’s death and resurrection, Peter became the most vocal and prolific of all the Apostles (save for Paul, who came later). He offended, healed, preached, and probably drank and sang his way through life, never abating from the cause of Christ. Even his final request to be crucified upside down was for the Love. He loved Yahweh, and it showed.

How many of us live mediocre lives of mediocre excitement? Far too many, I would hazard a guess. The trite, cliched piece of inspiration might come in the form of: “Be the best you you can be.” But that is truly a chiasm from hell.

Instead, do it for the Love. It will make you jump out of bed, plaster a smile on your big dumb face, and cause everyone you meet to wonder what the hell has gotten into you. And you can tell them firmly that it is not hell, it is the Love. You did it for the Love.

Lost and Found

I think there is something rather off about our expectations of heaven. One of the things that I often fall into the trap of thinking (along with many other people), is that desperate notion of trying to make heaven more like what we already have here on screwed up earth. E.g. “Oh... I hope there will be fried chicken in heaven, I’m not sure that I could live without fried chicken. What about this book that I love? Sure, it has fornication and murder in it... but it’s SUPER awesome. It’ll be waiting there for me, right?”

True, I did take a very snide and sardonic tone there, but the point remains. Of course, only focusing on apophatic knowledge (that is, knowing what we don’t know) does no one any good. If you tell the kid “don’t eat the cookies!!!” and then don’t give him anything constructive to do instead of munching on empty calories... the inevitable will surely take place. You know what that means, right? Yup! Time for a story that will initially seem completely irrelevant and tangential.

My first memories of life are a collection of bizarre and silent moments; like random clips from the beginning of a horror movie, where you are too petrified to scream. My first first memory is of a puffin, or rather a poster of a puffin, which was placed directly across from my crib in my bedroom. Apparently, every time I woke up, the very sight of the thing would send me into fits of silent terror. Being only two, it was difficult for me to describe to my mother exactly what was so frightening... but eventually she got the idea and took it down. She has repeatedly apologized to me for the incident as an adult, which has always made me smile inside, since I don’t really remember why the poster was so terrifying. But while I have largely gotten over my fears of people in hoods, darkness and germs... I still twitch a little every time I see a puffin. 

One of my other first memories took place a few years later, when I was about four or so. Easter has always been a huge deal in my family; second only to Christmas. It has always seemed fitting to me, giving the two most important holidays surrounding Christ’s redemptive plan for the world the same amount of importance. Anyway, one of the my families best kept Easter traditions is the search for the Easter baskets. The methods my sisters and I had to employ in order to find them varied from year to year, but find them we always did. Usually there would be a movie or CD or something similar, along with gobs of candy. I’m 23, and to my knowledge that has not and will not change.

So for my fourth Easter, the noteworthy hunk of candy was a chocolate cross. Not a crucifix, but an empty cross. It was beautiful. It was one of those marvelously crafted pieces of candy that, had it been made out of wood, could have been prominently and proudly displayed on a mantlepiece for years. The carving of the cross had been very carefully managed, and the base, a chuck of dark chocolate representing Golgotha, was detailed with tufts of grass and butterflies. Now that I think back on it, not only was it a beautiful piece of chocolate, but I cannot for the life of me think of a candy bar that made such a bold theological statement. 

As I am want to do, I was eating my least favorite part first, the top of the cross, and saving what seemed to be the most beautiful part for last, the grassy knoll with the butterflies. (I still do this often with steak and mashed potatoes, especially if the potatoes are laden with garlic and cheese.) My mom, seeing the deliciousness that was my chocolate cross, asked if she could try some. What human in their right mind wouldn’t? I was happy to oblige, and my chocolate covered self handed it to her. What my four year old self failed to mention, however, was my rapidly developing desire to save the best things for last. And my mom, thinking that I was of course nomming on the cross first because that was my favorite part, decided that she would do the considerate thing and take a bit out of the base instead. Chocolate butterflies and grass knoll go.... bye bye.

Once the chocolate cross had been returned to my grubby little hands, I stared in shock. I could not believe what had happened. The beautiful little redeemed Golgotha had been desecrated, and it was at that point that I could no longer be consoled. Only Christ had suffered more than I, and I made that fact abundantly clear all the way to church that morning.

I have completely forgiven my mother since then. And she has more than made up for the misunderstanding... even going the extra mile the following Easter and special ordering three chocolate butterflies the size of my head.  I know that if and when she reads this she will go and scribe another long apology to me, but let me state firmly here that that is not the point of my telling this story.

Over the course of 23 years, I have lost many, many things. And I am sure, before my time here is done, I will lose many, many more. I have lost things under couches, at parties, in stories, around friends’ houses. I am still looking for the black hoodie from my favorite metal band with a brown knight in armor on the front. I already miss that little stuffed rabbit that I returned to Barnes and Noble because I realized the money I spent on it would be better used on gas money and saving for my future life with Leslie. I’ve lost things that I can’t get back, like the naivety to believe that adults didn’t really have that many worries; or the ability to ignore that providing for one’s own self, let alone others, could be so nerve wracking; that innocence I so desperately wish I still had... that optimism to get out of bed in the morning to face a new day full of possibilities.

...... and yes, even that eager excitement to check the mail, because you never know what sort of treasure might be inside.

I’ve written a 50 page paper on heaven, and still all I really know about the place is that it will contain far much more than we could ever imagine. But in the end, one more thing I know is that it will not contain those things that we so desperately cling to here. Those idols will be stripped from us. The sex that we think will fulfill us, the money that we think will provide for us, the temporal joys that we think will satisfy us... they must be killed, they must be put on the alter... and we will wave goodbye as we sail away to another shore...

...but on that shore we will find... those things we never thought we’d see again. That friend who slit their wrists, those beloved CDs you never got back from your old roommate, that teddy bear that got burned up in the house fire, the grandmother who left that gapping hole when she passed, that joy you never fully had, that Lord you never fully understood, that life that you thought had slipped away.... and yes............ maybe even a few chocolate butterflies, dancing around the foot of a cross.

The cross that brought you back to that world of lost things... that turned out to never be lost at all.

A Little Essay on God's Sense of Humor

One of those things that we are always told as Christians is “don’t pray for patience... you might just get it.” A prime example of this was during one summer when my friend Adam prayed for patience is general, and that was the week that we got a kid with asbergers in the kitchen who immediately leeched himself Adam. It’s at moments like that we look up at the heavens and yell: “God, I didn’t mean for you to take that so literally!”

Another thing that we are often told is that we ought not tell God that we will never do things, as that is the very thing He will inevitably end up making us do. Over the course of 23 years I have discovered this to be undeniably true... but I think that it should be clarified with a few caveats. 

While I have been placed in many situations that were challenging and difficult to deal with, I can honestly not ever remember a time where I was put in a position where I looked up at the heavens and screamed: “GOD! WHY???? I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T WANT TO DO THIS!!! WHY DIDN’T YOU LISTEN?!?!?!?”

Of course, even if that HAD happened to me, or it has happened to you, keep in mind that He IS listening, you just probably didn’t get the response you were looking for. That is not the thrust of my point here, however. My point here is very simple:

Perspective.

Perspective is huge, and over one little decade, your perspective can change in a huge way. I’ll start out with some obvious ones: at 10, kissing is still gross, by 20 sex sounds like the best thing on the planet; at 10 working is the lamest thing ever, at 20 you are grateful to even have a job; at 10 getting mail is the best thing ever, at 20 bills have soured you to the concept of mailmen. It’s really a very simple concept, while I don’t believe is macroevolution, the evolution of simple human growth is evident and irrefutable. So why shouldn’t this apply to how we view God and what He asks of us?

Take for example of aversion to working in any sort of fast food place back in high school: back then, yes, I hated the very notion of working in a greasy den of pimples and incompetency. I swore to God on many an occasion that I would never work in one. Where am I now? Fresh out of college and in desperate need of cash to pay bills and save up for things like a new car, an apartment and my future in general. Suddenly minimum wage at a fast food restaurant didn’t look quite so bad. Of course God didn’t give me a steaming pile of crap either, He gave me a job at Chick-fil-a, where at least three of my coworkers are Christians, and one of, if not THE, best reviewed fast food chains on the continent.

This simple idea of change and reformation has always been there, but we so often don’t think about it. Far too often when we tell God “I’ll NEVER do that!” we are suddenly struck with fear, awaiting that Zeus like bolt of judgement forcing us to do exactly what we hate the most. What we miss is that we are moldable, and that our God is a loving God. When we tell God: “I HATE THIS!” He doesn’t plot a way to make you as miserable as possible, rather, he looks at you, grins and says: “Challenge accepted!”

How to Eat Humble Pie (Becoming an Adventurer Part II)

Gaining a taste for adventure, the real kind that actually kind of hurts, did not actually come about simply through me walking into a video store one day. Although that might make for a great joke (A guy walks into a video store…), now if only I could come up with a punch line. My desire for change that led me to view a video store with discomfort and frustration began about two weeks before that. It began surprisingly enough through my own parents.

Coming back from your worst semester of college ever is sort of like coming to anchor after months in hurricane-torn, shark-infested waters. And like a sailor who has spent too much time at sea in a boat, I had to regain some perspective and get my landlegs back. I had to chop off the wiry mane of hair, clean up the language that is more acceptable around rough and ready deck hands, and learn how to act like a civilized humanbeing again.

Suddenly this has become much less metaphorical.

Anyway, I had fallen so far off the map that even though I made an effort to crack open a Bible everyday, I was just flipping pages and gleaning nothing. I had all but forgotten how to study my own Bible. In my self-absorbed stupor I had been programmed to look at anything and everything as a tool that might be able to pull me out of the hole I had dug. It didn’t matter if it was a DVD, a friend or Scripture… things were only of use to me if they were able to make me feel better NOW.

Silly me, I had forgotten that Scripture doesn’t work like that.

Upon returning home for Christmas, it became immediately clear to my parents how far gone I had become and started to take measures of intervention. The first week I was back my dad sat me down for a much-needed verbal thrashing. My mom, however, always the yin to his yang, bought me an 8 week Bible study, so that I would regulate my study time and perhaps regain an understanding of how to study Scripture.

One of the first verses that I stumbled upon in the study was Matthew 6:33, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” And suddenly it dawned on me that I was going about the whole operation backwards. I had spent all my time seeking MY kingdom and MY righteousness and hoping that all the “God things” would be added unto me later without all that nasty business of actually pursuing God.

Well that methodology had been working out GREAT for me so far. And by great I mean that it had driven me into one of the deepest depressions that I have ever known.

Aristotle was right, we are all looking for happiness, and the first 9 books of his Ethics are correct in deriving that happiness from relationships. But then Aristotle contradicts himself in book 10 where he all but denies the previous 9 books and says that man derives true and lasting happiness from sitting and being a thinking being like “god.”

This makes sense in a Greek mindset, because there is a disconnect in Greek philosophy. The world that they see around them is relational, but the god that they worship is a thinking god, not a relational one… so there is that tension woven into their very worldview.

But my worldview is NOT that way. I should know better. God has from the beginning of time been a relational God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He knows what true joy really is. And here I was denying that He could REALLY know what true joy was. Because I wasn’t happy, I thought that He must not have known what He was doing.

It should have been a bit obvious what the problem was. I was not living as a relational being in a relational world, of COURSE I wasn’t happy. On top of this I was choosing my own will over the will of the ultimate relational being. Talk about dumb, huh?

It’s a bit humbling realizing that you’ve become the villain; that you’ve become one of those Pharisees who knows the Scriptures inside and out and yet derives absolutely no joy or truth from them, but only seeks to twist them to your own ends.

Plato’s analogy of the cave is very apt. After spending so much time in the dark of one’s self, coming out into the light of fellowship with God and other people really is like stepping out into the bright noonday sun after years in a cave.

And what you see in the sunlight, that is perhaps the most surprising thing of all.

FEED ME! (Becoming an Adventurer Part I)

I spend a lot of time in video stores. I have probably spent hours upon hours in them; perhaps even as much time as a stay at home parent might spend at their local grocery store. This never struck me as abnormal until a day ago.

After 3 fun filled weeks with family and friends, the last week of my winter break was upon me and my family had all but returned to their everyday routine. Dad was back at work, the girls were headed out of town and my mom and her own dad were headed on a short holiday to DC. For the first time in 3 whole weeks I was going to be on my own again. Naturally I didn’t want to spend the majority of the next 48 hours alone in a big empty house, so I hit the town.

In between lunch and heading to a movie theater, I stopped in an FYE (For Your Entertainment). It is one of the largest I have ever been in, and I used to frequent it when I was a permanent fixture of the Hampton Roads area. Upon walking in I stopped and felt suddenly overwhelmed. It might have been that I was tired, or maybe I have just been hypersensitive about entertainment lately; but for whatever reason, when I walked in the door, I lost all desire to look for individual items, whether they were movies, music or video games. I was suddenly looking at the store as a whole, and all I could say was:

“Why?”

Why do we need stores that have as large a variety of movies as we do of food? In fact, there was probably a larger variety of sitcoms on DVD in that store than there are kinds of produce at the Farm Fresh around the corner.

Dizziness overwhelmed me as I realized that I had been part of this. I suck in movies often without thinking. Sure, I keep up a veneer of holiness to hide how much I am consuming, but that is something akin to a man who is 200 pounds overweight telling you that he only eats so much because he wants to tell you what kinds of food are good. He is not a cook, he is not demonstrating that he has actually learned anything about good food or how to make it… only that he enjoys eating and he does it with disregard to how it is effecting him.

The scary thing is that in America the way food and movies are sold and consumed is not so different anymore. A shiny, glossy cover can make a tidy little profit whether it’s carrots or Caddyshack. People buy Ho Hos and porn for the same reason… they taste good, even if they both make you feel like you want to vomit an hour after consumption. What is scarier is that an HBO show can now become “critically acclaimed” simply by containing gratuitous amounts of violence and sex, causing it be suddenly be “edgy” and/or “gritty,” even though underneath all that it is just another soap opera. This has already begun to bleed over into the world of food, with foods that are absolutely crap for you to eat getting actual stickers that proclaim that they have received awards like “BEST TASTING” or “CHIEFS’ CHOICE AWARD.” Yes… things are getting that ridiculous.

Just today I was returning some things to a Best Buy around the corner from me and got suckered into that very “ooh! Shiny!” syndrome that we all fall into so easily in the internet age. Do I not know that Satan is the Prince of Light? Do I not know that covers deceive? “That sin looks so hot!” one might say. And Mark Driscoll might retort: “Yeah… but so is hell.”

Anyway, I had all this money from the returns, so my consumeristic self decided that I show blow the money immediately. On what? Is always the next question. Well, it was new release Tuesday. (Yes, I am so consumed with my need for new stuff that I know that in the USA new movies, music and books are always released on Tuesdays.) The new HBO show Boardwalk Empire had just been released on DVD and a free preview of the show Game of Thrones came with it for a limited time. The covers looked pretty, Steve Buscemi was in it, it had won 8 Emmys. It must be good… right? RIGHT?

Well, I bought it and took it home, only to look up the content rating in IMDB. The show was filled with foul language… more than most R rated movies contain, full frontal nudity (male and female), and buckets of blood and brain bashing. On an HBO show? No way? You’ve gotta be joking! (/sarcasm)

I promptly went back and returned the DVD set and got the movie Moon instead, which I had actually been looking for for months and which was nowhere near an impulse buy. It still might have been better had I simply returned Boardwalk Empire and walked right out of the store, but there you have it.

And now I’m sitting here still thinking, “Why? Why has this been so important to me? How on earth did I let my standards drop so much? I almost exposed myself to… ick.”

And then I think a little bit more and I realize that I have been living vicariously through storytellers… like many of my peers have. We are too afraid to have our own adventures, so we watch other peoples’. And suddenly I come to a simple and yet monumental conclusion: it is time for me to have my own adventure.

New Year(s)

2012, the year I graduate, the year the world ends, the year that many people will die and many more will be born. A year that I have been looking forward to for a rather long time.

New Year's, a holiday, which like snow and rain and other such cleansing precipitation reminds me and many others of fresh starts. Where we reevaluate our lives and the direction that we have been going in and try to make drastic changes overnight in hopes that this time it will FINALLY be different and we will FINALLY have the fortitude to keep the promises we've made to ourselves. Deep down we know that this will not be the case, but humans are a forever optimistic bunch and love to fool themselves.

To be honest, New Year's has always felt like a very hollow holiday to me. Sometimes I am convinced that the only real reason that Americans keep it around is so that they can justify saying "Happy Holidays" around this particular portion of the winter. If New Years were suddenly to stop existing, they might be forced to start saying "Merry Christmas" again. The horror!

I suppose that if New Year's went away we would simply make a holiday revolving around football. My dad cheers on the Browns from his iPad as they go against the Steelers. 5 seconds left for a touchdown and they win. Will they? WILL THEY?! Oop, nope. All done, Steelers have bragging rights for another year.

Joking aside, why do Americans get so excited about New Year's? It feels so artificial, so fake, and yet we relish the idea of new starts so much that we cling to this odd holiday like a scared baby baboon to his mother. We are such an apologetic culture, we feel guilty for everything that goes wrong in the world. Some of the most prolific and effective advertisements in the USA are the ones that prey upon our innate guilt. "Don't you DARE hurt mother earth!" "You have so much, this poor kid has nothing. You aren't giving to him? You suck!!" It's condescending and base, and yet we gobble it up like Thanksgiving stuffing.

We want to feel clean and whole and new so badly. We want redemption, and we are looking for it in all the wrong places. There is nothing significant about a new calendar year that will miraculously cause you to be a better person. You are no better at cooking on the 1st of January than you were on the 31st of December. The passing of 24 hours does not make it easier for you to put down that cigarette.

So what gives us this fresh start, this new beginning that we all so desperately desire? Well... think back a week, exactly 7 days. What was seven days ago? Christmas. Christmas is the real new start. Christmas is the day that we commemorate which changed everything. It changed the shape of human history and is the root of new beginnings. Of course this new beginning was in the making since the beginning of time. But for those of us confined by timey-whimey stuff, December 25, AD 4ish marked the true beginning, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. (I'm going off of the documentary The Star of Bethlehem for the validity of the the 25th as the actual date of Christ's birth.)

In the 33 years of his life, the Godhead used Christ's ministry and walk to alter the course of history. "Time can be rewritten." (And yes, I am going to continue to randomly insert Doctor Who references.) God used this to "Subdue the nations" and "use them as a footstool." Christ's birth cannot but be viewed in conjunction with His death, the are the beginning and the end of the same story. Anyone familiar with Old Yeller cannot think about the story without the context of how she began as a loyal family dog and ended as a rabid animal that needed to be put down. Simply saying "Old Yeller" often brings all that to mind.

Similarly, when someone mentions "Christmas" we ought to not only think of Christ's nativity, but also His death and how we would redeem all the world. Images of subjecting demons and healing the sick and the blind ought to leap to mind at the thought of Christmas. It is one story. It is one narrative.

Not only must we keep the grand narrative in mind, but we must also realize that Christmas, NOT the hollow celebration of New Year's, is the true new beginning. The Almighty Creator of the universe sent a part of Himself to come and not only change the Russian novel that is life, but through this act, He granted His own creations the ability to change themselves. Not only this, God helps us STAY changed, and that is what we so desperately look for in New Year's resolutions. But we cannot, and will never be able to muster the ability to stay changed ourselves. It must come externally. It must come from Christmas.

Christmas is the start of the new year... and is in fact the start of ALL the new years to follow. Christmas is my new beginning.

Cheers,
JSTT

Things Lost, Things Regained

I'm sort of at a loss tonight. Good loss, not bad loss. One of those "at a loss" moments where you literally fall to your knees and praise God... because there is simply nothing else to do. School and entertainment and pain and drama and stupidity are lost to the overwhelming tide of grace. There are no words... yet I must speak.

"God did his part, and I did mine," said the theologian.

"Your part? But I thought we couldn't add anything to our salvation?" said the confused congregant.

"Indeed," said the theologian. "God saved me... and I did my best to get in the way."

And despite our feeble efforts to thwart God, He prevails. This is unmistakable... unstoppable... improbable. Yet true. Two years at sea, only to end in a ship wreck. That is the last time that a sailor ever expects to see the light house. The sailor never assumes at that point that he has actually wrecked upon the shore of his hometown. What are the odds? What are the chances?

Slim... and he knows it.

Grace in the unexpected.

And since when IS grace expected? All too often in America, I suppose. The land of hand outs. The land of spoiled bellies and rotting teeth. So grace sneaks in the back door when all our privileges and entitlements have been striped from us. Grace comes like a thief in the night. Death is defeated... someone must sneak in his place.

All you've lost. Your provisions. Your crew. Your ship. Your honor. They mean nothing when you land upon the shore. It matters little that you crashed upon it instead of stepping gently off the dock. You are home. Nothing else matters.

Beings Who Love

Love… love is the glue that holds the fabric of the universe together. It’s not like it’s a new concept. Even the evolutionists believe it… they can’t even create a world where love is not at its center; and every time they do they turn into psychopathic, mass-murdering lunatics.

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Doctor Who. Super nerdy, I know, but my love of the show goes much deeper than its time traveling, sci-fi exterior. My love for the show stems from the warm beating hearts at its center; the fact that it is ultimately love, and love only that can conquer all the evils of the universe. The two most recent seasons, under the deft hand of Steven Moffat, demonstrate this perfectly.

From the way he writes the show, and from the things he simply presumes that the audience will take for granted, it is fairly easy to surmise that Moffat is an atheist. However, grace is common, even if belief in God is not, and Moffat cannot seem to help writing brilliant stories about fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and romantic couples and lovers who would sacrifice the entire universe for each other. Moffat seems to be a scientific wizard who is not only an atheist but a hopeless romantic.

I have often been criticized for the fact that I too am a hopeless romantic. It’s not logical, it’s not reasonable… but when I am loving someone or something other than myself… something outside of myself: that is when I am at my happiest. That is when I am most fulfilled. Even the atheists know this, and they cannot help but show it. Silly atheists.

On the flipside, there have been not times I have been lower than when I am filled with hate and rage. Those times when I suddenly think that I am the most important thing in the universe and that everyone should bow to my wishes and my wishes alone… that is when I feel most truly alone. That is when I am left with nothing but myself, and I realize that that is the very last person in the world I would want to be left alone with.

Alone, selfish and consumed with greed, humans destroy each other. War comes not from man being a true island, but from his myopic desire for what he thinks will make him happy at the expense of all others. Pain and suffering come from man THINKING that he is alone in the universe and that he is… God.

“God is not watching… for I am god.” The most dangerous thing in the universe that can be uttered… and yet we say it every day.

Question: Is God reasonable and logical and normal?

Answer: No… He decided to create an entire reality just to please Himself because he wanted more things to interact with. He was the very first being to ever think to Himself: “you know what we need? A really epic story.” And then he told one.

Question: Is God an island?

Answer: No. From the beginning of time and space… since BEFORE the dawn of time and space, He has been always and forever interacting with Himself. For He is three. And He is one. He is triune. And yes, that is mad. Completely daft and mad and insane. And that mad, daft, insane, loving, passionate, incredible being decided to tell a story with us in it. Not only that… but He decided to make us like Him.

Beings who love.

Before the Crown

Dear Lord, my bones are weak
My stomach’s filled with stones
I’ve been told you love the meek
But dear God, I’m so alone

Dear Son, I know your pain
I’ve borne the same disgrace
Be careful not to place the blame
Outside its proper place

Dear Lord, I know I oughtn’t
Point fingers and deride
But is this anguish all my fault?
Can I still in You confide?

Dear Son, you know me faithful
I always have been true
But you must be grateful
E’en when paths aren’t clear to you

Dear Lord, I’m losing strength
The world says that You’re wrong
It ridicules You at length
And I begin to feel I don’t belong

Dear Son, I love you everyday
I’ve held you close always
And this is where I mean to stay
Until one day I raise

Up above this broken shell
And ring in new life with golden bell
The stories shattered, this I know
But death will be dealt a final blow

I’m fighting still, though king I be
Stand by my side and slay with me
My enemies are not all gone
Death and hell still sing their song
Of hate and pain and lust and pride
Of all the souls to whom they lied
They make my demands seem hard and cruel
But this is their dance, their fiendish duel

You’ve turned and fled, hiding in the earth
Now the devil laughs his charmless mirth
Will you let him have the final joke?
Or will you let Me crush his throat?

I’ve had to pry open your hand
And take when you don’t understand
For how can I place in your palm,
A gift, a present or a psalm,
When you hold tight and won’t let go
And let me love on you bestow?

Dear Lord, I beg You to forgive me please
I was too willing my own pride to seize
I pray You now let me fall asleep
Let me breathe and dream and silence keep

Let me find peace in a life
That is not so filled with self and strife
Let me worship and bow down
Let me kneel before the crown

Heart of Snow

Fingers cold
It's not snowing
Feeling old
But it's not snowing
Weak and weary
High of 70
Dark and dreary
Time to get out the paddles
Time to jumpstart the machine

The snow is somewhere else
But the drifts are piling up against my soul
The snow is miles away
But the sludge is plugging the holes
Time to melt it all
Turn the heaters on
God melt this heart of snow

I'd like to think I'm superman
That I'm the hero
That I'm the savior
But I'm nothing of the sort
Everyone builds themselves up so tall
So strong, so mighty
But they're nothing of the sort
They're nothing of the sort

Look inside, they feel it too
We all face our demons
We're all craven cowards
When the chips are down we all show our stripes
Kill your demons, burn your idols
Watch the future flower
Give up the power
The power you think you have

We're all chasing something
We're all chasing someone
We fight and fight and usually we fall
Because we bet it all
Without stopping to ask questions
Without leaning
Leaning
Leaning
Leaning
Leaning on the only One who matters
God the Savior
Lord the Maker

Go ahead, rail against my logic
Tell me I'm lost
Tell me I'm forgotten
I know it's a lie
And you know you lie too
Stop trying to stand up so tall
You just set yourself up to fall
Give up that heart of snow
And lean

A Beginning, Middle and End

Lately I've been reminiscing, looking back on the many, many adventures that I have had over the course of the past 21 1/2 years of my life. Thanks to a few good friends and relatives, this has been made rather easy. Five places immediately spring to mind:

-Burlington, VT... the place I was born, where my parents met, and where I built and played with many snowmen.

-Chagrin Falls, OH... a sleepy little town on the outskirts of Cleveland (which was once the steel capital of the United States) it is now firmly located in what is often called the "rust belt." The owner of the local hardware store knows my father and grandfather by sight. The ducks in the river probably know me just about as well.

-Lima, Peru... smack-dab in the middle of the driest desert in the world, one day of real rain causes mass landslides and countless deaths. The people are actually rather amicable though... except when they are behind the wheel of a car.

-Virginia Beach, VA... the first real big city that I lived in. This place galvanized me as a Christian and gave me someone the best friends that I have ever had.

-Jacksonville, NC... a military town nestled away in the outer banks of the Carolinas... I have lived there a grand total of four times, each time very different than the last. I have run all over the Marine Corps base there, and contracted many fire ant bites in the process. It's a swamp with bears and bobcats and the occasional gator.

I hope you will see as much of the world as I have one day. The adventures and places and people scream out, glorifying God even if they don't mean to. Because they make up the epic tale that is Creation.

The story continues...

In All Things...

...praise God.

Praise God when you laugh.
Praise God when you cry.
Praise God when you sleep.
Praise God when you wake.
Praise God when you bleed.
Praise God when you heal again.
Praise God as the roller coaster drops you from the heights.
Praise God when the car rolls safely back into the station.
Praise God when things are spinning out of control.
Praise God when you shows you the underlying order of life once again.
Praise God when you cannot see the path in front of you.
Praise God when the lights come back on.
Praise God.
Praise God.
Praise God.

(500) Days of Pure Evil

OK, this one has been a long time coming, so I figured I would take a break from playing Plant vs. Zombies, studying Greek and checking email in order to bring you this well thought out and coherent (ahem) essay explaining why 500 Days of Summer is a horrible, awful, no good, very bad movie. You all had better appreciate it! (insert sarcastic wink here)

Now, as a second preface, I must say that I had been looking forward to this movie for a long, long time. I think it might have even been one of those films that got me stuck in the paper mill of advertising, and I was near salivating to see it. (Wow, that's kind of a disgusting metaphor.) On top of that I am an enormous Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan, Brick and Inception being in my top 15 favorite films. So by the time it came to our little second run theater here in Moscow late summer '09, there was pretty much no way anyone was going to stop me from going.

I went alone... which in retrospect was probably for the best. I'm not sure I would be comfortable watching that movie with anyone at this point in my life. I would either be embarrassed, break down crying, try to kill everyone in the room, shield my friends' eyes, or perhaps attempt to do all four simultaneously. I am not to be held accountable for anything I do to you while watching this movie.

Now that I'm done ranting (no I'm not), I'll beginning with my logical explanation:

The movie starts with not the opening credits, but a dedication of sorts... kind of like at the beginning of a book. "For my dog Frank, who was always there for me," or "To my Dad, for keeping me honest," or something of that sort. The opening dedication for 500 Days of Summer goes a little something like this:

"Author's Note: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Especially you Jenny Beckman... Bitch."

Hmmm... bitter much?

While watching it for the first time (to this date the only time I have been able to watch the film in its entirety. I tried again a few months later, but was unable to get further than the 30 minute mark), I promptly forgot this first warning sign and watched on... very sure that this film was describing my heart-broken life in all its bitter detail.

The film begins with the classic boy meets girl. Tom works as a greeting card writer in a fashionable part of L.A. Summer begins working there as a secretary. Tom and Summer are very different. "How?" you ask? Well, let me put this as bluntly as possible: Tom's a girl, and Summer's a dude. Yes, it's weird; no, it's not what you think. Let me explain:

Tom is a sensitive guy. Not only is he sensitive, but he's whiny, needy, "in touch" with his emotions, and is kind of pathetic. He's clingy, and obnoxious, and all the things that guys really find gross and unattractive in women. Tom is a guy technically, but he represents all the bad stereotypes of women.

Summer is a head-strong girl. Not only is she head-strong, but she's immature, cavalier, sexually obsessed, and doesn't really see the point of committing to a relationship when you could just "have fun." Summer is a girl technically, but she represents all the bad stereotypes of guys that women hate.

The movie would be bad enough if it was Tom being the sex-obsessed guy, and Summer being the whiny girl. In fact, I am pretty sure that if that movie were ever pitched to any forward thinking Hollywood production company they would reject it outright, their brains bleeding after they hemorrhaged at hearing such a horrible and stupid idea. So why, when the gender roles are reversed, is it suddenly acceptable, and not only acceptable but cool and a movie worthy of putting on film critics' "Best Movies of the Year" lists?

In the end the relationship explodes (duh) after a conversation where Summer compares them both to Sid and Nancy (if you don't know who Sid and Nancy are, click here, then come back and read the rest of my rant/essay/reviewishthingy). Tom is offended by such a comparison and retorts: "But Sid stabbed Nancy with a knife! I hardly think I'm Sid Vicious!"

"Noooooo...." Summer replies. "I'M Sid."

"Oh... so I'm Nancy," Tom says, a little dazed.

The gender flipping is explicitly referenced here. How could it be missed? Soon after, Summer tells Tom that the relationships should probably end. The sex has been good, but Summer still doesn't believe in "love." What a mature, upstanding woman.

For the last half-an-hour or so of the film, Tom follows Summer around like a pitiful puppy dog, until he at last learns that she's gotten engaged. Tom (with good reason) is incredulous. Summer talks him down though, reassuring him that he taught her what love really was... he just wasn't the right guy for her. They share a tender moment where Summer encourages Tom to pursue his dream of becoming an architect instead of a greeting card writer, and then she leaves.

The final scene is Tom waiting for an interview at an architecture firm. While waiting he meets one of the other applicants, a girl... they agree to meet for coffee. And with the final credits fast approaching, Tom calls out as she's walking away:

"What's you name?"

"Autumn!" she calls back.

To quote a friend of mine: Really? REALLY??? How am I supposed to believe, or have any kind of faith that either of them really learned anything at all? How do you know that Tom will grow a skin and not get his heart torn out by Autumn too? The name kind of implies that the cycle is just continuing. What about Summer? When the sex isn't good anymore, won't she just dump her shiny new play thing and move on to whatever is the newer, shinier thing? The sequel would probably begin with them just as broken and hallow and empty as they were when they first broke up.

The film is not about real life.... well it is, but not the right kind. It really does represent where our wonderful world is headed: Men chickening out, and women taking the lead... or becoming really screwed up versions of men as the case may be. But that is not the way that God created the world. The version of the world that 500 Days of Summer portrays is badly broken, and not something we should emulate. Not only that, but it is not something we should enjoy watching either. The first time I watched it, it simply induced a pity party of supernova proportions. Living in the suckiness of the past is a lame way to live your life, however accurately or inaccurately the film might portray past events of your life. Get out of yourself. No... life is not all about you. There is more to this life than sex and getting instant gratification, or simply getting, getting, getting from a relationship. Where's the give? Where is the givING for that matter?

I have fallen into the self-pity trap more times than I can count. There is no getting around that. But instead of that hurting my ethos, I hope strengthens my exhortation to the small number of readers that I have: I've been there. I've done that. Don't fall into the horrible, horrible stereotypes of this film. Read your Bible... there are some pretty good stereotypes to live up to in there.

All that said... I may still go to work for a greeting card company someday.

God the girlfriend

“You’re my escape/ From this messed up place/ Cuz you let me forget/ you numb my pain/ How can I tell you just all that you are/ What you do to me/ You’re better than drugs/ Addicted for life/ Feel you coming on so fast/ Feel you coming on to get me high”

Sounds like a perverted cross between Song of Solomon and a heroin dream, right? No…they’re the lyrics to a song by on of the largest “Christian rock” bands out there: Skillet. The song, for all the average kid in the average youth group can figure, is about how much the singer needs God… or a girl, or his next drug fix.

The problem is not simply in the music that we listen to, however, but it is now in the way we think. Recently, a friend of mine posted something about having a new girlfriend on Facebook. The comment was rather ambiguous, something to the effect of: “Whatshisface has a special someone now!” That by itself would not have bothered me at all, but it was one of the comments that followed the original post that worried me. A mutual friend of me and this guy (we’ll call him Bob) posts a reply saying: “OMG! Like… it’s Jesus isn’t it?”

Too often since the advent of Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) nominal Christians everywhere have started referring to God in the shallow and demeaning terms of drugs, ambiguous girlfriends and feel good kicks. Not very edifying terms to use when referring to the Almighty Creator of the universe. And now, even stronger Christians, secure in their faith and walk, are falling into this trap. We must stop.

If anything, the way we address the relationship we have with Jesus Christ should be the other way around. The Church is the bride of Christ; Christ is not the girlfriend of the individual Christian. He is not there to make you “feel good” and take away all your problems. This is by and large one of the huge and dangerous symptoms of charismatic theology: theology based on feelings. Feel good, you’re doing pretty well spiritually. Feel bad? Well, then you probably screwed up somewhere.

At the beginning of John 9, Jesus and His disciples come across a blind man who has been blind from birth. The Disciples immediate question is: “Who, sinned Lord, this man or his parents?” “Neither,” Jesus replies. "But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

Hard times are used for God’s glory, not always because we did something wrong. We are married to Christ, He is not here to make us feel good, or give us a pick me up or a temporary solution to temporary pain. He is here to provide salvation. He is here to save us. The end of the world is a wedding, and Christ is the one putting the ring on our figure. It’s not the other way around.