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.

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

The Voice

“I want to go home,” the voice echoed. Jimmy’d heard it too many times before. It appeared in the dark, like mermaids near dangerous shoals, like bats in caves—it came and whispered. Sometimes it screamed, but the whispers were worse.
“We ARE going home,” Jimmy tried to pacify the voice, but the voice was not impressed. It shook its head and hissed, low, cold, warning Jimmy not to speak such foolish words again.
“Home… hooooome…!” it called.
“Elaborate, please,” Jimmy begged, asking, grasping for anything that would quiet the voice. “A fire place? Loved ones? A dog? Does it have to do with a certain place?”
“No…….. hisssssssssssssss…” the haunting came. “You know better.”
“I’m trying. I’m TRYING!”
“Not hard ENOUGH!” the voice grabbed Jimmy by the collar and slammed his occipital lobe against the wall. Jimmy’s cranium waggled back and forth like a bobble head on the dashboard of a car off-roading. His neck was so much rubber—used to the point that it no longer regained its original shape after being stretched.
“If it’s not a place, then it has to do with people,” Jimmy reasoned, trying to work his right hand around the voice’s wrist. The voiced gripped more tightly.
“HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS….”
Jimmy tried to laugh. Laughing in the face of danger. It worked in the movies. Right? It confused and disoriented your enemy. A few raspy, wheezing coughs came out as he felt his trachea collapsing. The voice saw what Jimmy was trying to do and responded with a real laugh, dark, deep and full. Jimmy’s ears compressed and popped as the voice rocked the air with genuine amusement. He was a dead man; the voice was winning.
“Take. Us. HOME!” the voice maintained a forced smile until the last word, which is spat out in a roar. Jimmy started to cry as it bit into his forehead. Blood, he could taste it, feel it trickling down his jaw bone as the life-giving fluid seeped out of his eardrums and from the crown of his head. Calling for help would bring down men with suits and eventually a padded room that smelled like vomit. Jimmy could see no one’s face but the voice’s, but he knew they were there, watching, wondering, waiting for him to lose it completely. Not that it really mattered anymore. The voice, the voice, the voice…
“HOME!!!!” the scream came, then the repeated whisper: “home, home, home, home…” He could feel his spine crumpling, snapping. There was nothing left. Responses were now completely useless. Blood, pain—nothing. Goodbye.
But wait.



Wait.



WAIT!

Light… soft and warm, growing to burning, pressed up against his ear. It burned, searing, sharp and alive. Suddenly, he could see again. The bleeding had stopped as well. The light stared at him, licking like fire. Consuming and giving at the same time. And Jimmy could see. He could taste the sweetness of roses and lilies. He could feel her touch, distant though it was, it felt as fresh as if it was yesterday. He could see the dog running around the back yard, eating cicadas; he could hear the crush and taste the sharp barbs on his tongue. He could he hear the cicada’s brothers in the tree above him, sounding their battle cry against he dog on the ground and the blue jays in the tree. He could see them ready their lances and charge.
The green of fields in Carolina, the white blankets of snow in Idaho, the violent blue of the seas in Florida, the purple of a coat hung in the hallway with care, a red candle burning in the center of a dim room, warming someone’s pale hands. The brown of a tree, planted on a hill in a desert in the midst of an ancient city, a man hanging in it, blood and pain painted on his face—blood and pain Jimmy knew. They were his own… but yet not. The light told the story. It reminded him. It filled him, and Jimmy remembered the answer to the voice’s question at last.
“CHRIST!” he screamed. The voice didn’t look nearly as large as it had a few moments ago. The strength in Jimmy’s words frightened himself almost more than it did the voice.
“Christ is home, you damned spawn of hell! Get back and know what home is!” the voice let go and stumbled back in utter shock. The light grinned, grinned like a father who has just watched his son ride a bicycle with no training wheels for the first time.
“No matter where I am, no matter who I’m with, Christ is home. Always has been, always will be. Argue that, refute THAT if you will!”
“No…. NOOOO!!!” the voice shrieked. “You’re listening to the light! Stop, STOP!!”
“Why? Why should I?”
“Can’t…. fight… it… GrrrrrrraaaAAAAA!!!!” The voice flew up against the wall and shattered, broken glass everywhere. Falling, crashing.
The light smiled and held Jimmy as he gasped for breath.
“Well done, my good and faithful servant.”